A couple of Christmas tunes for you.

So it's a rainy miserable day here in Chattanooga. The cold weather, and a couple of stray dogs in the neighborhood have curtailed Ellie's desire to run outside and try to kill stuff. She will stare out the window, occasionally glancing at me as if to say "fix this, will ya?" When the urge to kill gets overwhelming she'll chase bits of things across the apartment, there's a piece of felt and a busted rubber band that she seems to hold a grudge against and will throw all around confines of this tiny apartment. This place is just the right size for me, but it's way too small for her.

I've been working on some Christmas tunes, I wanted to do three new ones (why three, I don't know) and have them done by December 5th, but life has a way of making it's own plans. Anyway, How about two songs on the 18th instead?

Here's the first one.

Good King Wencelas

The year of the loop pedal started on Dec 28th of last year, I was playing Rock City as part of their Enchanted Garden of Lights and seeing as my housemate/bandmate had just had a meltdown, found myself faced with being interesting for four hour alone on a mountain dulcimer. So, taking inspiration from Mike Clemmer's version of the same tune (which I had seen him play at Unicoi earlier) I worked up a version using a loop pedal a guitar and some other stuff. I didn't know it then but it was the beginning of finding my true voice. All the tracks (except "bass" and "drums" were made with my Bill Rich hourglass/

Download the track here (right click and choose "save link as")

Christmastime is Here

I've said that "Linus and Lucy" is my favorite Christmas song from my Favorite Christmas TV Show, but the truth is I love the whole of the soundtrack to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special O Tannenbaum, Skating and this tune ranks as some of my all time favorite compositions period. At the Christmas show this year, I played this with Steve Brehm, who handled it with his typical aplomb. This recording is culled from our one rehearsal.

Download the track here (right click and choose "save link as")

I plan to get off my butt and blog more, that's my new year's resolution...early. First up, I'll recap this year's England tour.

HEY OHIO! I'm coming to yr neck of the woods.

Nov 6, 2009 - Columbus, OH
The Guitar House Workshop
7pm - $5.00

Nov 7, 2009 - Stewart, OH
The Federal Valley Resource Center - South East Ohio Dulcimer Festival
Various, depending on workshops and the concert.

Nov 8, 2009 - Stewart, OH
Federal Valley Resource Center - South East Ohio Dulcimer Festival (Master Classes)
"Box Technique" Master Class $35.

Just a quick note to everybody to let you know that I'll be returning to Jerry's wonderful Southern Ohio Dulcimer Festival this weekend. In addition, I'll be playing an intimate show Friday, at a new music store just west of the city.

The Guitar House Workshop is a new store opened by a luthier, in addition to selling new and used guitars he's into opening his place for intimate concerts not unlike McCabe's guitar store in California. Space is limited to get there early. the shop is at 1423 Chambers Road, Columbus, Ohio 43212 The show is at 7pm ($5 suggested donation).

Saturday and Sunday finds me back in Stewart Ohio (near Athens) for the Southeastern Ohio Folk Festival, I've told you this before, but Jerry gave me my first break at his festival and that was the springboard to everything else. It's a small, intimate festival but great fun. the prices and details (including the other folks who are gonna be there) are all available at Jerry's site jcrmusic.com Hope you can make it.

Ona personal note, big thanks to all of you who followed the UK tour on Twitter or Facebook it was an interesting experiment keeping the updates under 140 characters (and still telling you what was going on) and it was great to get your comments and feedback. If you missed it, you can get teh play by play by scrolling down my twitter page. twitter.com/butchross In fact, if you haven't I'd really like to hear if reading it out of context makes any sense to you.

Okay that's all for now. Hope you can make it out to one of these shows. I'm in Atlanta next week, more on that later.

C-ya out there.

--Br
www.butchross.com

"Now I know what a dulcimer is supposed to sound like" —Jake Shimabukuro

CD Release Party and New CD info.

CD release Party
Market Street Tavern
850 Market Street
Chattanooga, TN 37402
(423) 634-0260

Well, it's finally here. This Saturday at the Market Street Tavern I will be celebrating the release of my new CD, "A Long Way From Shady Grove." The CD was recorded by me mostly at home, and mixed at Dan Landrum’s Maple Ridge Studios on Signal Mountain.

I play most of the instruments myself, (though my good friends Steve Brehm, Ben Scoggins, Emily Wade and Mike McDade made contributions) and features guest performances from Quintin Stephens, Gary Gallier, Robert Force and Steve Seifert.

A lot of you have bought pre-sale copies of the record. For that I say thank you! The CDs (or the book and CD set) will be in the mail early next week. For those of you who bought pre-sell copies you should have received an email about this earlier this week,. IF YOU DID NOT please write me (butch@butchross.com) cause it means there’s a problem with the email address (and perhaps the snail mail address) I have on file.

If you haven’t bought the record yet, or you just can’t wait to get it. You can listen to the whole thing online. By going to butchross.com it’s right there on the front page.

In the meantime if you area within striking distance of Chattanooga, come to the CD release party! It’s gonna be great. I’ll have a band for some stuff, being doing loop-based stuff and of course just good old-fashioned solo dulcimer rock-n-roll.

Can’t make it to Chattanooga? Well, I’ll be promoting my butt off this week. Today @ 12:30 I’ll be on “this and that with Don Welch” (sorry no web clips of this one) Tomorrow on WGOW radio 102.5FM (you can listen live) http://www.wgow.com/home.asp and Friday, around 6:30 AM(!!!) on WDEF News 12

Finally, although the CD release party is the big story here. I got some other cool shows coming up this weekend as well. Chattanooga Market is on Sunday at 12:30 and next week. I’ll be on the waterfront for the kick-off of Riverfront Nights. I’ll be opening for bluesman Scott Holt.

--Br
www.butchross.com

"Now I know what a dulcimer is supposed to sound like" —Jake Shimabukuro

Central Ohio Folk Fest AND the Leo Coffeehouse this weekend.

Fri-Sun, May 1-3
Central Ohio Folk Festival
Batelle-Darby Park
Columbus, Ohio
$10 to $30 depending

Sunday, May 3rd
Leo Coffeehouse
Cincinnati, Ohio
$3

Spring has sprung and the festival season has begun. I'm on my way
back to one of the first places to embrace my dulcimer self: The
Central Ohio Folk Festival in Columbus, Ohio. I'll be teaching
workshops all day and for the first time ever, I'll be a part of the
evening concert. Along with Matt Watroba, Kitty Donohoe and --as
always-- Mustard's Retreat. Depending on how much of this you want to
take in tickets are between $10 and $30. More info can be found here:
http://www.cfms-inc.org/central_ohio_folk_festival.htm

Then on Sunday I beat it down to Cincinnati to play another favorite
club. The Leo Coffeehouse. With any luck, this time the weather will
be with us.

At all these shows I'll be pre-selling the CD as well as my new tab
book "12 great tunes that (almost) nobody plays."

I was on Steve Seifert's podcast last night. If you didn't catch it,
you can hear it archived at http://stephenseifert.com/podcast.html
Also, I've uploaded 9 tracks from the CD at my myspace page (who knew
myspace was still around!)

Give 'em a listen and tell me what you think!

That's the news for now. Hope to see you this weekend.

c-ya out there.

-Br

Those Shows again.

Fri-Sun, May 1-3
Central Ohio Folk Festival
Batelle-Darby Park
Columbus, Ohio
$10 to $30 depending

Sunday, May 3rd
Leo Coffeehouse
Cincinnati, Ohio
$3

Great Show and New Album Info

Thursday, March 12th - 9pm

Local Strings
Featuring Dan Landrum, Casey Phillips, and Steve Brehm
Market Street Tavern
850 Market Street
Chattanooga, TN 37402
(423) 634-0260

$5.00
This is a non-smoking venue

Hey Y'all (yeah, I say y'all now... but nobody's fooled)

So my friend Jen has been putting on these "Local Strings" shows for about a
year now. They're like these songwriters-in-the-round type shows except that
they're encouraged the participants to collaborate on each other's stuff. In
that regard the show have been wildly successful. It's gone a long way to
fostering a sense of community and collaboration among musicians in
Chattanooga. Now Local Strings will be presenting it's first
all-instrumental evening, featuring Dan Landrum on Hammered Dulcimer, Steve
Brehm on acoustic finger style guitar and Casey Phillips on Irish Tenor
banjo. I've performed with all of these people so you can expect me to be
working HARD all night long. $5.00 Non-smoking and great locally food. This
one is a no-brainer.

I had HOPED to have a new CD recorded by March 1st. That I am only a month
behind is actually means that I am way ahead of my typical schedule. The
recording process has been kind of organic with things turning out
completely unlike I expected. I gotta say I'm super happy with the results
so far. Gary Gallier has contributed a baritone track to Sandy River Belle,
which will be featured in the new issue of DPN. It'll have some other
surprises on it too., NOT your typical dulcimer album (well, maybe if you're
Dan Landrum). I hope to feature some of that at the Ohio Valley Gathering.

Finally, keep an eye this list for some special deals available ONLY to you.

Those shows again…

Thursday, March 12th - 9pm

Local Strings
Featuring Dan Landrum, Casey Phillips, and Steve Brehm
Market Street Tavern
850 Market Street
Chattanooga, TN 37402
(423) 634-0260

$5.00
This is a non-smoking venue

C-ya out there,

--Br