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February 2002
It's been long coming but it's finally here, the first edition
of the Ryegrass email newsletter! The band has been busy since our
last gig at Pumps & Grinds in Duvall on 12/15.
In the Studio
We recently spent a day in the studio at John Burke's house putting
together some recordings for a demo. We came away with some great
material and we'll be sending out demos to line up gigs for the
Spring and Summer soon. Hopefully some of it will also shortly find
it's way to our Web site in the form of mp3s. For now, check out
this mp3 of Man of Constant Sorrow recorded live in December at
Pumps and Grinds:
New Material
The band is also hard at work on a bunch of new songs for our shows.
As usual, it's a mix of traditional bluegrass and fiddle tunes and
more modern fare; men moanin' about their women, women moanin' about
their men, spending your last dime, drinkin', sinin', lyin', and
cheatin'. And yet we manage to sing it in an uplifting manner that'll
have your feet tapping and a smile on your face. Imagine that!
Band Member Spotlight
This month's band member spotlight is me, Andrew Gianni. I tried
to get the other band members to work with me on this but to no
avail, so let's see if I can get some momentum going here :) My
main duties in the band are (in no particular order) playing mandolin,
singing tenor harmonies and the occasional lead vocal, asking if
we can change the key we play songs in and arriving about five minutes
late for practice. I've been playing with Ryegrass for nearly a
year now and the experience of being in the band has been incredible.
I've been playing mandolin for about four years, but the amount
I've learned since I started with Ryegrass has been immense.
So why mandolin? Because someone gave me a junky one to play with
four years ago and it seemed like a good idea. It was so bad that
I could hardly play past the fifth fret because the neck was separating
from the body. Within a few months it got so bad that it was unplayable,
but I was already hooked. Currently I play an '85 Flatiron F5, signed
by Steve Carlson.
Why bluegrass? It's funny, if I'd asked myself 6 years ago what
kind of music I'd be playing now, bluegrass would probably be the
last thing I'd suggest. In fact my reaction to the "what kind
of music do you like?" question was usually "anything
but country". I used to play around with a friend of mine when
I was in college writing techno and other computer based music and
that was probably at the core of my musical tastes at the time.
Everything changed for me when I spent three months during my Senior
year in college working for the Forest Service outside of Marion,
Virginia. (That makes sense right? I took my second-last semester
off from my Computer Science degree to be a forest ranger.) I used
to sit in my backcountry cabin and listen to the radio and there
was plenty of bluegrass to be had. I spent an evening in August
at the Galax Old Fiddler's Convention and I was officially hooked.
Now look at me! I'm a mando pickin', foot stompin', "yee haw"
shoutin' bluegrass freak! Let this be a warning to you.
Tell your Friends
Our fans are our best promoters, so if you've got friends that like
bluegrass or that you think should ;) tell them to subscribe to
our email newsletter. They can sign up by sending email to Ryegrass-L-request@ancienttones.com
with the word subscribe in the subject line.
Coming Soon
We should have some announcements coming soon, including the announcement
of a gig in late February, or early March and the launch of our
redesigned web site. We'll send you more information when we've
got it! For now, though, hold tight and we'll have more for you
soon.
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