play catch-up

I'm going to just put our history in a nutshell, because people ask all the time, and because I need to test out this new blog thing.

Six Flags New England 2000 - I had a summer job playing banjo in the roaming dixie band. Never played jazz or banjo before that. Fell in love with the style and imagined what it would be like to play it in the context of my scene (jam bands/folk). Went away to college, forgot all about it.

Arizona 2005 - Found myself with a dayjob. Oops. Went down to ASU to scout out musicians and started a Dixie band. We were pretty traditional at first, playing mostly old standards and always on the street. Eventually, we started crashing open mics and getting a gig here and there. We had no drummer yet. Just Tuba, Banjo, Clarinet, Trumpet. Eventually, our tuba player left us for a really hot band camp job and we moved (the remaining members) to Northampton where I snagged my original Six Flags Tuba player and we had a complete band again.

Back to MA - We spent the first summer playing Six Flags and getting pooped on by preteen coolies and oblivious adults. But it was paid practice. And when we started learning how to actually form a crowd and entertain it, I knew we had grown as a band. In the fall, we picked up Chris as a drummer. I knew him before I moved to AZ. He fit right in.

From the sidewalk up 2007 - after Six Flags was finally over, we started playing on the sidewalk of Northampton. This turned into some small club gigs. At first, we opened for The Amity Front at Bishops Lounge. It was my birthday and our first gig on the East coast. That turned into larger and larger venues. By February, we had sold out the Iron Horse Music Hall, which was a surprising turnout for a brand new band. We played our first original that night. Since then, we've played The Calvin, Pines Theater, Headlined at Pearl St, Academy of Music, and stretched out to Boston, VT, NY, CT, NH, RI and counting. We played the main stage of Green River Festival (about 10,000 people), Falcon Ridge Folk Fest, Headlined the Taste of Amherst, Etravaganja, and packed the Iron Horse twice since. 

We've shared the stage or the studio with The Neilds, Erin McKeown, The Dirty Dozen, and there are a few on deck. The local Radio, Venues, orgs, and businesses have been on our side since the beginning. Arizona and Six flags feel like a faded bad dream at this point.

Summer of 2008 - Im writing this on April 25th 2008, the day before we enter the studio for our first album. We have a bunch of Festivals lined up for the summer. We have a slightly different line-up in the band and we've never sounded better. I can't wait for this album. I'm ready to take this to the next level.