The Growling Old Men’s latest and greatest. We recoded this during two different weekend sessions in the winter of 2012-13 at the venerable Henhouse studio. A mixture of new, old and obscure material; including two each from Lowell and Winship’s  respective songbooks, one lively instrumental and a handful of songs that we’ve been performing over the past few years but hadn’t recorded.

Our good friend and fishing buddy, David Thompson, also played bass on most of the tracks and added a bit of harmony. (Plus he orhestrated the CD design). We are really excited about this one.

January 29 at Grand Targhee

This winter has been off & on, but its had a few moments!
Plus lots of good music played, recorded and listened to when the powder’s been lacking…

Somehow this detour sign leads to a dead end….
And it happens to be the street I live on.
What does this say about my life and career?

Sometimes having a light gig schedule can be a good thing…

We are proud to announce the publication of our new book, The American Mandolin Method, Vol 1. This is an elementary instruction book - written with my pal, fiddler Brian Wicklund - designed for beginning mandolin players. The book is akin to Brian’s ultra-successful American Fiddle series, published by MelBay. It’s available here now! And look for Volume 2 in a few months.

Its been a charged summer so far. Highlights were this show in South Dakota back in June with Kanes River. Had a great/hot tour of MT, ID, NV and UT with John Lowell and Leon Hunt. Then a blast playing at the Red Ants Pants fest last wknd. Gearing up for Grand Targhee Music Camp this week, followed by a Music on Main performance with Reeltime Blizard on thurs, then two sets at the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Fest on Sat with Kanes River and Reeltime Blizard. We will then go jump in a lake in Vermont for 10 days.

It snowed 4 feet in the Tetons over the past 5 days. I watched it fall out my studio window, while hunched in front of my computer, with occasional interruptions via text from my son and other friends reporting on the waist deep conditions. Not complaining though as I’ve been up to my ears in music. Just finished a fun week of recording with Jackson Hole’s One Ton Pig (with guest appearances by Matt Flinner and Ross Martin), which fell on the heels of a new CD by Michael Batdorf, which fell on the heels of something else I cant remember right now – memory loss being partly due to a string of dixieland gigs with the Jackson 6, culminating in Fat Tuesday.

Am also in the final stages of proofing a mando instruction book which I’ve been writing with Brian Wicklund - The American Mandolin Method; Volume 1. It is the first in a series – this one for beginners – and will  be published by MelBay later this spring. More to come!

We’ll be fine - so says the Hag.
-10º F in Victor this morning.
The skiing has been marginal, been mostly polishing up projects in the studio. Mixing projects for bands from MN (the BarleyJacks) and UT (Buying Time), John Cooke (seen last Sunday in the NYT playing w/ Joan Baez & Joni Mitchell), the King Street Ramblers, Allison Altherr from Canada, the Lowes from Sheridan, John Sidle, Heather Bristow from the UK, The Stagecoach Band and some other stuff I’m not remembering. Even worked on some Hip Hop this week. I’ve also been working on the final stages of a mandolin instruction book w/ Brian Wicklund for Mel Bay (more soon on that!). Butchered an elk in there recently as well —  but I figured not everyone would want to see those pictures.
Hope you all have a merry one!

Be of Cheer

ben