I’m back home again after almost 2 weeks of continuous travel in planes, boats, buses, trains, and a van.

The remaining two shows after my last post here were a lot of fun and were very well received… a great way to end the trip!

I had been to the venue we played in Germany before, and the crowd’s enthusiasm didn’t dissipate from our last visit there over 2 years ago. We were practically sold out of band CD’s after the show, and some of the band’s friends from around the area treated us to some awesome food and hospitality afterwards. Thank you!

The Czech Republic was a new place for me. It’s a beautiful country, with really nice and hospitable people. A few minutes after we crossed the border, a country music station came through on the radio. After 11 days of hearing nothing but American, British, and German pop on almost every radio station, it was pretty strange to hear Johnny Cash covers in Czech mixed with original country classics in English! Even though the English language was spoken far less there than most of the other places we went, you can sense an appreciation for traditional and acoustic music in the people there… and what an awesome bluegrass community of pickers and singers!

Sometimes I feel a good bit ignorant and lost when I travel to a new place, and they can speak a little bit of English and I can’t speak any word of the local language. It’s hard not to feel pretty stupid when you go in a store and start pointing at things and counting change very slowly! Every time I’ve been in that circumstance, the locals have been so nice and helpful. So I take that as a lesson… be nice and give directions to people that aren’t familiar with their surroundings when you can! You never know when you’ll wind up in the same boat(or train, bus, van, or plane)!

We had a little bit of delay in getting back, and I’m still lagged quite a bit from the 20 hours or so of airports and layovers yesterday so I’ll have to keep this story short and sweet.

Thanks to all of the bluegrass music fans in Europe for making this tour possible! Hope to see you again soon.

Next week it’s Mashville Brigade at the Station Inn on Tuesday, and then Special C’s off to Waldo, Florida!

After our train ride to Copenhagen we rode the long road to the Netherlands, had two shows there and had a good time. Even though we were pretty tired from all the riding and moving around to get there, it was a really nice place to visit. Nice hospitable folks there… but beware! Our hosts introduced us to these waffle and caramel cookies called Stroopwafles, and now we’re all addicted to them! I’m going to have to go on a serious diet when I get home.

Anyway, we made the long van ride from Holland here to Switzerland yesterday and got here just in time to eat dinner and play a little show in Lausen (right outside of Basil) and then we got a good night’s sleep. In attendance at our gig last night was a professional classical guitarist that grew up just about 15 or 20 miles away from where I grew up in North Carolina, and has lived in Europe for 40 years since he graduated from the School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. I guess there’s Tarheels everywhere! Small world!

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but for this trip we’re in a decent sized van that’s a little larger than the ones we have rented on previous trips. Still it’s pretty cramped for all of these 5-8 hour trips. Vehicles are much smaller on average here in Europe, so I guess we’re lucky that we’re in something that we can all fit in.

At least we’re not in this…

Now we’re spending the afternoon before our show at a friend of the band’s house. This is the first time we’ve had Wifi in a few days, so we’ve turned her dining room into a computer lab.

After our show in Feuerthalen, Switzerland tonight, we’ll be back in Germany for a show in Bochum, then our last show will be in the Czech Republic. Never been there before, so I’m looking forward to it!

I’m having a great time here, but after 8 days I’m starting to look forward to going home and being in my own bed, not having to travel hours and hours every other day, and not trying to figure out what kind of money I’ve got and how much I’m spending! We’ve been on four currencies so far, and one more to go!

Regardless, it’s nice to be here reporting to you from Switzerland! Maybe I’ll get one more update in before I go home.

Today is day 6 of the trip, and I’m writing this on a train from Stockholm to Goteburg, Sweden.

After our two dates in Denmark, we left early Saturday morning on another extended hour excursion from Copenhagen to Stockholm for our first show here in Sweden last night. Due to construction on the train tracks in Copenhagen, our first train was delayed forcing us to miss our connection that was supposed to get us into Stockholm early enough to settle into our room and do a sound check. After talking to quite a few people at the ticket counters that said there’s no way we could make the show (PANIC!), Greg found a supervisor that got us on another train that took us out of our way a little bit, adding a couple of hours to the already 6 hour train ride… but it got us to the show!

Taking the train is pretty nice here. There’s room to move around, a “bistro” car that has snack food for purchase, there’s nice scenery with the Swedish countryside just outside the window. It’s nice to be able to spread out here using my PC listening to my Ipod without being scrunched up in a rental van. I was so inspired that I just wrote a new bluegrass train song!

I was just thinking that it was kinda funny that the only other times that I’ve been on a train outside of Europe was once or twice to get downtown Chicago, as a shuttle between airport terminals, and when I was a cap gun shooting kid in a cowboy hat at Tweetsy Railroad in Boone, NC. It’s way more common for people to travel from place to place by train here, and it’s nice… except when they’re late.

The places and people have been great so far. With the little bit of free time that we had in Denmark, a few of us went downtown Copenhagen late Friday night after our show and it was awesome! Despite it being the coldest October they’ve had in recent history and some rain, it was great to see the city lit up with people biking and walking around. I want to come back, but maybe when the dollar’s stronger! Eating and getting around here in Europe is very expensive for this North Carolina boy. Still an awesome experience… Copenhagen was great.

We saw less of Stockholm just because we barely had time to get there, play the show, and go to bed so we could get up early for our train today, but it’s a beautiful old city. The city is build around a lot of different islands and little ancient streets. I will for sure spend some time looking around there one day. We drove by the palace this morning and I really wanted to go in and say hey to the King, but we didn’t have time. Everyone was so friendly there in Stockholm, and I’m sure he is too.

Some of our friends from the Swedish bluegrass band G2 came by last night, and we got to pick a few tunes after the show. They’ll be touring the US again next year, so check them out if they’re ever in your area!

Tomorrow it’s another early morning and another train, and then we drive to Holland. These days of 8-10 hours of moving, lots of coffee and tea, and two hours of picking surprisingly haven’t worn me or my voice out yet so I’m keeping my fingers crossed! 3 shows down, 7 to go! Signing off from Vagn (Wagon) 13 of the Stockholm Center City to Goteborg City Center Bluegrass Express!

Tuesday night was another blast at Mashville, even though I’m still fighting off the remnants of the IBMA bug. The lineup was Josh Williams, Jenee Fleenor, Randy Barnes, Thomas Wywrot and myself. We went a little bit late with the show because our resident “country star” and good friend Dierks Bentley made an appearance and brought a crew from CBS Sunday Morning with him to film his activities for the night. They set up all kinds of lights and did some interviewing, so our break was a little longer than normal, but it didn’t really bother anybody. I’m not sure when it will air, but look for Dierks Bentley with the Mashville Brigade on CBS Sunday Morning some time in the near future! hehe

Got home around 1:30, and Wednesday I slept until 9:30 or 10 and got up to finish packing then it was off the the airport. Our flight to Chicago left around 4pm CST and landed safely an hour and a half later, and then we had a little layover at O’Hare before the 8 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany. I tried to get a little sleep towards the end of the flight, but woke up around 2AM my time, or 9AM Frankfurt time for the breakfast that the crew was serving. We landed around 11AM Frankfurt time, and then our fearless leader Greg gathered the rental van, and we were off to Denmark!

None of us had much sleep, but we had a 9 hour drive ahead of us. We went from Frankfurt through Hannover, then had a quick schnitzel at some road side place, and then it was on to the ferry station towards Denmark.

By the time we got on the ferry we had all been up and traveling for well over 24 hours, minus a few uncomfortable naps here and there. We still had a few hours to go before we arrived here, outside of Copenhagen. There was a little bluegrass welcome committee to greet us, and give us the keys to this hostel-like place where we’re staying.

This is my first time in Denmark, and just like most everywhere I’ve been over here in Europe they speak enough English to help me get around and everyone is very helpful. Had a great breakfast already today, and now it’s time for a little rest before the show tonight.

Battery’s about to die, and I’m power adapter-less at the moment, so that’s all for now.

Hopefully I can update again soon! Goodbye from Denmark!

For Monday’s “Teaching Bluegrass: An Alternative Revenue Stream” moderators Ned Luberecki and Megan Lynch were joined by panelists Terry Baucom, Stephen Mougin, and myself. Many players rely on teaching to get them through the slim winter months when the gigs are few and far between. We covered many different avenues of instruction including private lessons, group lessons, workshops, camps, DVDs and books, and internet lessons. The last is a recent development and not many people are offering this option yet. Strangely (to us anyway) Mike Compton has been on the leading edge of this technology and has been doing internet lessons for quite a while. Anyone interested in pursuing that avenue, either as a teacher or as a student, should consult his FAQ page.

Tuesday’s “Writing for the Internet: Blogging and Building an Audience” was hosted by our own John Lawless. Panelists included Ashby Frank, sometime contributor to this publication who blogs on his own website; Ted Lehmann of Ted Lehmann’s Bluegrass, Books and Brainstorms blog, and Craig Shelburne who contributes to and edits the blog over at CMT.com. Despite what it looks like in the picture, the discussion was lively and extended. The crux of the discussion was that blogging should be entertaining to the audience, who you hope will come back to your site on a regular basis. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites are good tools to use to drive people to your site where, hopefully, they’ll buy your CD, or look at your schedule and come out to a show. It’s all about staying connected to people and letting them get to know you through your writing.

They talked a little bit about the technical side of blogging—using programs  such as WordPress, or Blogger—but mostly about the power of changing content to get people to visit your site every day or every week. The Bluegrass Blog is the best at this. I don’t know about you but even when I’m not writing for the Blog I read it every day and it is my main source of bluegrass news.

When we left off, Special C was broken down on the side of the road in Kansas, with barely enough time to make it to their next show in Wyoming.

Ashby picks up from there…

“After Justin and I spent a night surfing the net and waiting on the phone for rental car and flight rates, Justin finally devised on a plan to get us out of WaKeeney.

We had to rent a one way vehicle from Hays (30 miles away) in the morning, drive to Denver, rent another van (because there were no vans or one-way rentals available in Hays), then try to make it to Buffalo (7 hours away) by our new 8 o’clock set time. I had no idea that one way car rentals were so expensive!

The repair shop owner in WaKeeney happened to know a guy that would be driving to Hays early in the morning, and could drop Justin off at Hertz. What a nice town!

So it is all planned. But wait‚Ķ Once Justin got to the rental place, he was told that they were out of cars for the day even though we had a reservation.”

Sounds like a Seinfeld episode. Read the conclusion of the story at ashbyfrank.com.

But Special Consensus wasn’t the only bluegrass band suffering a major breakdown over the weekend. NewFound Road’s trusty ride went down Saturday on the way home from the Raccoon Creek Bluegrass Festival in Dallas, GA.

It had taken them from Knoxville to Dallas just fine on Saturday morning, but left them high and dry just a few miles up the road in Cartersville. The rest of the band made it to nearby Atlanta and home from there, but Tim Shelton is stuck in Georgia waiting for a tow this morning.

To make his weekend complete, he is also enjoying the fact that his cell phone has gone missing.

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Make sure to give Tim a big hug next time you see him.

It tells of how the first leg of a midwestern tour with Special Consensus turned into a roadside disaster yesterday (7/9). Their trusty vehicle let them down, and left them stranded far from where they needed to be.

Well this is the beginning  (Day 2) of one of the famous, long, multi-state Special C tours and it’s gotten off to an interesting start. This one’s 17 days with stops in Buffalo and Casper, WY, Windsor, CO, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.

We  left Nashville kinda late. I drove to Paducah, Justin drove a good ways through Illinois, and then I took back the wheel a few hours later. A short time after I started driving, I noticed Justin was messing around in the back and didn’t think much of it until I realized that for the first time ever, I could see head lights in the rear view mirror. UH HO! The back door had come open and Justin was standing back there trying to rescue my suitcase from falling out into Saint Louis traffic while screaming for me to stop. It’s soooo loud in the SpecialCmobile that I hadn’t heard his first scream. I didn’t freak out, realizing that if I hit the brakes all of our stuff and Justin would go flying out the back door onto I-70. We got pulled over, locked the door, and and made it to Columbia, MO at 1 AM. I saved Justin’s life, and he saved my suitcase and probably my mandolin and computer bag‚Ķ so he saved mine too.

After tons of talking and Google-ing we finally found a place to stay. This morning we got up and hit the breakfast buffet at the Comfort Inn (where the main course was “pancake wraps”, AKA Corn Dogs), then headed out through Kansas City and on through Kansas‚Ķ or at least a part of the way. I stopped my shift in a town called WaKeeney. There was a Sinclair station and we were running low on Diesel and not within 30 miles of another town, so that made sense to me.

David started his first shift of driving for the trip after we fueled up, and he made it three miles. THREE MILES. Then squeek, bang, bang, smoke! We stopped right there on I-70, and called AAA. The “Turtle Top” made a horrible noise when we shifted it into park, and then we waited for an hour and a half or so in the 100 degree heat. A VERY friendly and helpful Kansas State Trooper came and parked by us and got us in contact with a heavy duty tow truck driver that happened to have a shop right there (here) in WaKeeney (Pop. 1924).

Once the truck got here to pull us away, they figured out that we have broken bearings and a broken rear axle. So we got pulled back to WaKeeney, said goodbye to the friendly Trooper, and hello to Steve the super friendly Repair Shop Owner. He tells us that it’ll be a week, maybe two, two get all this stuff fixed‚Ķ oh and by the way‚Ķ. we’re supposed to be in Buffalo, Wyoming, (11 hours from here) for a 2PM set tomorrow.

Will Special C make it to their show on time? Will they be able to find transportation out of WaKeeney?

Follow Ashby’s blog for all the news.

After 23 days, 21 shows, and hours and hours in mini-vans, city buses, ferries, and planes, I’m back home! We had a great time with everyone over in Ireland, Scotland, and England, but it’s nice to be back. I must admit it felt strange to be on the RIGHT side of the road again.

Our last few gigs went very well, mostly sold out, but we did get blasted by one of the largest snow storms to hit Ireland and Britain in the last 20 years. It didn’t keep many people away, though.

The last two nights we spent in the town of Kilworth, which is in County Cork in the far South of the Republic of Ireland. I guess it’s a good indicator for us that we were sold out of the new CD Signs long before we made it down to Kilworth,  and on the last night we sold completely out of everything the band brought. I guess some people, and we all know who you are, just can’t enough Bluegrass.

Yesterday was kind of crazy because we had to get up at 4:45 AM (10:45 PM Nashville Time) to drive back to Dublin to catch our flight. Talk about a long day! It was nice to get back to Nashville before too late. By the end of the trip we had been in transit for something like 16 hours. That’s a long day.

Now that I’m home, I have a chance to wind down a little and catch up on shredding the considerable pile of junk mail that had accumulated. It’s ridiculous!

I must say that I’m overwhelmed by the response and interest that everyone has shown in this series of posts! Special thanks to the TheBluegrassBlog.com for setting all of this up! If for some strange reason you’re interested in reading more about me or my travels, even after all of this you’ve already read, come on back to AshbyFrank.com and see what I’m up to!

Well here I am at a Bed and Breakfast in Ireland at 2:30 AM watching the Super Bowl.

I tried to look on Google maps to show you exactly where I am in Ireland, but when I typed in Carrig on Bannow, Ireland, it gave me the address for the First United Methodist Church in Winchester, Kentucky. Strange. Even stranger that I’ve spent some time in Winchester, and I bet I know people that have attended that Church. I know that Winchester is the last place to get fast food  before you head east towards Morehead and Ashland. I think there’s a Fazoli’s there that Alecia used to make us stop at. I wonder if my friend  Billie Renee goes there?

Anyway, we had another packed house at a pub show tonight, but it was more like a festival. There were Irish bands, as well as some US originated folks with some Old Time and Bluegrass.

After the show, I noticed that the Super Bowl was on. Now, I’m not a huge NFL fan, I like NCAA Football much better. I must say though, I haven’t missed many Super Bowls whether I’ve been on the road or not. I can remember another Super Bowl featuring the Steelers when I was on the road with Marty Raybon and Full Circle. We were in Bakersfield, CA  and Doyle and Quicksilver were there. We spent the evening between rooms talking and socializing around the game. That’s what it’s all about, right?

Well here it’s not that big of a deal, and it is 2:30 something in the morning.

Here’s a picture of the scene after the show was over and everyone’s gathered in the pub jamming.

Oh, and there’s a big SAFETY for Arizona.

It’s strange how such normal things back home  feels so far away and distant after 3 weeks. I actually just Skyped Jim Van Cleve (note: TOUCHDOWN ARIZONA now, they have the lead) because I know he’s having a gathering at his place and I wanted to say "hey" to everybody, and it turns out, I’m seeing all of this before they are.

It is odd to hear all of this with a mix of British and American announcers…. and NO COMMERCIALS! Why would anyone want to watch the Super Bowl with no commercials?

Oh, and one more thing. Guess what sign was up behind the bar here in a small town in Ireland?

Well, only two shows left. They’re way down near Cork which is in the far South, then I’m making my way back home.

Looks like the Steelers are going to win now! Hope everyone’s enjoyed the game.

I’ve been home for 1 day out of the last 21 days, and performed on 18 of those days‚Ķ sometimes twice. Wow. This is the longest string of gigs that I"ve ever had, and I wouldn’t be very truthful if I didn’t say that I’m very ready to be home and sleep in my own bed, work out a little, then maybe watch a movie, and not have to search for wifi everywhere!

Right now I’m in a very friendly Stir Fry Restaurant in the University District of Belfast, buying wi-fi from a British Telecom Hotspot that’s somewhere around here. It’s very interesting‚Ķ the bigger the town, the harder it is to find free wi-fi.

Since I wrote last, we’ve been over a good bit of England, drove back to Scotland, took another ferry back to Belfast, and played a show here in town last night.

Even though I really didn’t get to see the sights at all, England was nice. We stayed in one small town, and then had two nights in the larger cities of Nottingham and Bristol. Everything is so compact (including the streets) and to me it feels like everyone lives on top of each other. We’ve driven through or gotten lost in some of the larger towns here, like Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, Nottingham, and Liverpool, and despite their age they all have very well kept up and thriving downtown areas or “city centres,” and there are so many things, new and old, that look and sound so interesting to me, we just don’t have the time!

Oh and as a side note, we found Greg’s long lost twin in England…

As we travel from place to place, back and forth across the sea and across ancient borders and boundaries, playing in everything from small pubs and hotel ball rooms to larger festivals, I do notice a huge difference in accents and certain customs, and things do look a bit different from place to place. The one thing I can’t stress enough is how friendly most everyone is, no matter where we’ve been. I sure am glad we haven’t been somewhere for this long where they don’t speak English! I’ve experienced that a few times before and it makes getting around pretty hard.

Last night’s show was really the first one where we didn’t have a good crowd. We had a radio interview scheduled to promote the show yesterday, but the economic news here isn’t very good and it’s dominating the headlines and stole our spot away. Oh well! Good music cures the blues, don’t they know that?

We did get to share the stage with our good friends the Tennessee Hennessy’s. Check them out if you’re ever around Belfast!

OK… well BritTel time is about to run out, and I have to go get ready for the next show. Only 6 more to go!

Well, many miles and hours down the road here I am in England!

After our show in the south of Ireland, we made that long drive to the Belfast area and played another small concert before catching a ferry the next day over to Scotland.

We immediately drove from the coast to Glasgow to play at the huge Celtic Connections festival.

The drive was beautiful and even in the cold of the season there’s green grass everywhere. Everything was great and we were on time getting there‚Ķuntil we arrived in Glasgow. The street layout there is, well, not what we’re used to and we didn’t make it to the place where we were supposed to be picked up until right at the time of sound check. Instead of being able to check in, change clothes, and rest for a minute, we had to change clothes in the parking garage and carry all of our stuff a few blocks down the street to the shuttle that was waiting. People looked at us like they’d never seen a Bluegrass band running through the streets of Downtown Glasgow before. Odd.

That all being said, once we got there the festival was great. We were the first to play, and then Leon Hunt, followed by Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet. I have some video footage that I might be able to get uploaded at a later date.

After our set, we were walking over to the record table and Greg was flagged down by B?©la Fleck to chat. I sure am glad I didn’t know he was out in the crowd while we were playing. He’s a super nice guy, but that would have been nerve-wracking!

It’s great to see that people of many ages, so far away from where I’m from, could enjoy the music that we were playing. I can’t sufficiently tell you how nice everyone is over here, and it really helps fight off the homesickness when everyone tries to make you feel at home.

Anyway, we played another fun show in Scotland last night with the Scottish band Goldrush and then today it was another long drive, this time into England.

We had a packed house tonight here in Kenilworth, and hopefully made some new friends.

It’s getting late now, so I guess I’ll stop typing! We’ll be in England for the next few days and I’ll try to report more ASAP.

Two more pub shows in the books, and quite a few more to go.

Everything’s still going well, and we’ve been lucky enough to stay in quite a few nice places. That can get kind of tricky over here sometimes, so I’m happy about that. We’ll see how that goes for the next two weeks.

The day after our show in Sixmilebridge, there was a horrible windstorm with gusts up over 75mph. Not fun travel weather. Luckily we haven’t had far to drive to each show.

In Galway we performed upstairs in a pub where they had a jam session going on downstairs, which was pretty cool. It’s odd for us to see all age groups in one place enjoying the same music, but both young and old seem to enjoy the traditional tunes here.

On to Limerick where we again performed in the upstairs performance room of a traditional pub.  We enjoyed a good meal (They love curry over here for some reason, and I do too) and then picked our little hearts out. The place we stayed in had internet, but it was roughly $13 for about 5 hours worth and we didn’t have a lot of time in the room so I didn’t go for that. Expenses from food, to gas, and internet are so high over here. Hard to get used to.

I got a good bit of sleep (I still can’t get over this sinus congestion) and woke up in time to pack half way before the fire alarm went off. I hobbled down the stairs with my 54 pound bag, my mando case, and computer bag, and got to the lobby just as they turned the siren off. Fun.

On the way here we hit some snow and bad roads…

Tomorrow is a really long drive (maybe 7 hours) back to Northern Ireland which normally wouldn’t be that long for us, but packed in a van like we are every 1 hour feels like 3.

I’m sure we’ll make it though. Hopefully I’ll be able to check in again soon.

Last night we performed at the Winter Festival in a town called Sixmilebridge in County Clare here in Southwest Ireland. We’re in the Shannon Region near Limerick (which is a decent sized town).

Here’s a map if you care to see!

The hotel we’re staying at happens to be right next to the Bunratty Castle. The Castle was built in 1425 and now serves as a Folk Park and Banquet Hall.

The concert last night was at a very small old Courthouse in the middle of Sixmilebridge, and there are other performances going on there through the weekend. I don’t particularly enjoy playing on a one or two mic setup, but the stage was so small that it was all they could come up with. Fun times though, and met even more nice folks and even ran into some bluegrass fans from Florida that are on a vacation and somehow found out about the festival while they were over here. Small world!

Today we make a short drive to Galway for a show at the Crane Bar. Hopefully I’ll have WiFi as regularly as I have so far so I can keep posting.

Cheers!

Our first two shows came off without any breakdowns or hitches. Right now we’re resting at a Bed and Breakfast in County Dublin after a show in Naul, Ireland earlier this evening. Great packed house, and quite a few familiar faces from our tour over here this past summer.

Earlier today we played on the Mooney show on RTE Radio 1. RTE is the national broadcaster here in Ireland and has a large following, so we’re hoping we got some new folks to come to our shows on this tour!

Even though Ireland is such a famous and well known place, you don’t realize until you get over here how small it really is. The population of the Republic is something around 4 million, or about the same as South Carolina, and it doesn’t take all that long to drive around the whole Country. For a small nation, this place is so rich in culture, music, and history. It’s an amazing place to be, and the hospitality here gives Smalltown, USA a run for its money. Below are some pictures our first night’s pub show, and the travel back to Dublin and RTE today.

Oh and by the way, hope everyone’s staying warm in Nashville! Google says it’s only going to be 2 degrees there. Ouch.

            

Hello from 6 hours ahead!

In a period of 48 hours, we’ve been in 5 airports (Bismarck, Minneapolis, Nashville, Nashville again, Chicago, and Dublin), riden a bus to Belfast, and then been shuttled to where we’re staying not far out of Belfast, Northern Ireland. You should see how we packed 5 suitcases, 4 instrument cases, a bass, and all four of us in a Honda minivan. Very entertaining for everyone at the bus terminal in Belfast I’m sure.

I didn’t sleep on the plane, but it was a nice flight, Aer Lingus is awesome! Tons of movies and decent airplane food. Still, even though it was comfortable I didn’t find any sleep for something like 25 hours so I’m kind of turned around.

If I were home right now, I’d be getting ready to go down to the Station Inn for Mashville. It’s 6:36PM Tuesday there, and it’s 12:35AM on Wednesday here. I got a long nap once I got here and now I’m all messed up and lagged. I’m sure it won’t take long to recover.

In the next room, Greg and some of our friends here are jamming on some Irish tunes, David’s in bed and Justin is trying to make his Skype work. Ah the joys of world travel!

Tomorrow we play in a pub in the South (The Republic of Ireland) in a town called Grange that’s only 3 hours from here so we’ll all be rested. The only problem is, that show starts a string of 21 straight nights of gigs. Wow. Most I’ve ever done for sure. Guess there’s worse ways to get your musical chops up!

So tell all of your friends in Grange, Ireland to come see us tomorrow night and hopefully I’ll blog at yall later!

Special C mandolinist Ashby Frank has agreed to send us updates and photos from the tour as best he can, and we’ll post them here as we get them. Ashby is unsure how much web access he will have during the tour, but promises to send his musings whenever he has the chance.

Here’s the first installment…

(Sunday, January 11)  The Special C world tour is now in full swing for the month‚Ķ

This morning we flew back from this…  better known as Bismarck, North Dakota in January. Don’t let the white out fool you, they still know how to have fun in North Dakota in the dead of winter. We played a two night show with The College of Bluegrass Band and Cottonwood in the Auditorium at Bismarck State College. We had a blast with all of our friends up there, and hopefully we can come back real soon!

I’m just glad that we’re not going to be up there this Wednesday because it’s supposed to get down to -26. I could say "brrrrr" but that would be an understatement. As much as I like cold weather sometimes, there would be no "brrrrr" from Ashby in -26, probably just a grunt followed by a slow parade with the lights on.

That being said, the reaction to the new songs from the Signs album was anything but cold, and it was very awesome to see people enjoying it after all the effort we put into it. We finally have them to sell on the road, and will be taking them with us wherever we go from now on. So beware!

Now I’m back in Nashville packing and getting somewhat together before our long trip to Ireland, Scotland, and England. It’s pretty hard to pack in one suitcase (less than 60 lbs) enough stuff for a 24-or-so day trip. Lets see, I have the camera charging, my passport, clean underwear and socks, the PSP, my Ipod, a bunch of GHS I270 Mando Strings, my Mando, my pills for my lingering sinus problems, my Smartphone with Skype on it, and one pair of boots. I think I’m ready if I can find a place for my shirts, jeans, and Wake Forest hoodie (How bout them Deacs?‚Ķ sorry friends and family Carolina fans, they just didn’t have it tonight).

I’m going to be taking some pictures and blogging over there as much as I can. We play something like 21 shows in 23 days, so I don’t know when I’ll find the time‚Ķbut I’ll try! So wish me luck in my journey across the creek and check back here and see what I find.

He says that they have only recently finished recording (at Brent Truitt’s studio in Nashville) with guest appearances by Tim Crouch on fiddle, Randy Kohrs on resophonic guitar and Sonya Isaacs on harmony vocals.

Special Consensus is made up of founding member Greg Cahill on banjo, Justin Carbone on guitar, David Thomas on bass and Frank on mandolin.

Much of the material comes from within the band. Justin co-wrote three songs, and Ashby two. There is also a new instrumental co-authored by Frank and Cahill. Other featured writers include Ronnie Bowman, Don Cook, Curly Putman, Adam and Shannon Wright, Ron Spears, Don Reid, Troy Engle, Becky Buller and Jake Landers.

The title of the new CD will be Signs, and an early ‘09 release is expected on Pinecastle.

Special Consensus mandolinist Ashby Frank is profiled in his hometown paper, The Lexington Dispatch, in Davidson County, NC. Ashby was raised in nearby Tyro, and is given the hero’s welcome in the this lengthy piece to mark his return to the Doyle Lawson festival in Denton next weekend.

Anyone who saw Ashby Frank’s first public performance about 12 years ago as part of the Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver’s Bluegrass Music Festival in Denton would remember him as an awesome up-and-coming young mandolin picker who had a bad case of shyness.

On that stage tucked between towering oak and maple trees, he performed with a band he threw together to be a Thursday night opening act for the weekend-long festival. The band featured his older sister, Jeannie Frank, on vocals. Then, she was known as the singer in the family and he the musician.

But when the 25-year-old Frank comes home next weekend to perform in the same bluegrass festival on the same stage, he won’t be that quiet young man standing on the side of the stage tearing up the mandolin. He’ll also be the new lead singer for the legendary bluegrass band Special Consensus.

You can read the full article by Jill Doss-Raines, which includes an interview with Ashby, on The Dispatch web site.

He had just gotten a call from Rhonda Vincent asking if he might be able to fill her spot on stage this week, as she is at home recuperating from a bout with bronchitis that forced her to cancel shows over the weekend.

The deal is, Rhonda’s been under the weather this week, so she asked me to fill in with her band the Rage at a private event for Martha White in Houston on Wednesday. Rhonda and her husband Herb insisted that I have to wear one of her outfits, unless I can learn all of the words to her songs by Wednesday.

I think I can pull it off… How do I look?

APRIL FOOLS!

In all seriousness, I’m honored to be filling in for a day with Rhonda’s great band (in my own clothes), and I’m looking forward to it!

From Houston, I’ll be heading for Chicago for a "special" Special C show at Fitzgerald’s Night Club with the legendary Howard Levy (bluegrass folks may know him for his harmonica and sax work with Bela Fleck) and that’s no joke!

The Brigade is today’s modern version of the Sidemen. Started a year or so ago as a fun midweek gig at The Station Inn in Nashville, The Mashville Brigade releases it’s first CD on April 22, 2008. The CD is produced by the band’s own Jim VanCleve, and contains 16 tracks, all of them standard bluegrass hits. Bearing the title Bluegrass Smash Hits, Volume 1, this disc is the first in a new series of releases planned by Rural Rhythm Records.

Ashby Frank commented on the genesis of the group.

I’ve gotten to pick with these guys at various festivals and in the halls and rooms of events like IBMA, SPBMGA, and the Galax Fiddlers Convention for years. Since we both grew up in North Carolina, I’ve known Jim for the longest, actually before I even really got into Bluegrass. The first time I ever played on a Bluegrass Festival stage was with Jim in Denton, NC. I think we put together a band with my sister and opened up the festival on a Tuesday or Wednesday night.

Randy, Darrell, Jim, Aaron and myself have performed with each other as a part of quite a few different collaborations, through fill-in work or special events like the MACC Festival in Columbus, OH. Once all of us had moved to Nashville, we talked about getting something together to play around town and maybe a festival or two. It took us a few years to get together, but it’s finally worked out, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

The band started basically as a new version of the Sidemen, the infamous group that used to perform every Tuesday night at the Station Inn. The Mashville Brigade started filling that same time slot and as Jim VanCleve tells it, one thing just led to another.

The Mashville Brigade has really grown into something much larger than we ever could have anticipated from when we first began playing at the Station Inn a little over a year ago. It all basically started as an outlet for us to have some fun while playing the music we all grew up on. But since the bluegrass culture around Nashville is really a pretty tight-knit bunch of friends, we suddenly had a good sized audience each Tuesday night, full of friends and family, in a room that is known for bringing out the best in people. This comfortable atmosphere really allowed the music to grow and take on it’s own unique personality. It was really starting to blow up, and the crowds just kept getting better each week. So, after some time, we started thinking, “this band really needs to record something”! Now, after listening back to the masters of the Mashville Brigade’s first album, I can honestly say that we are all very happy with what we were able to do!

The CD was recorded in a rather unique manner for the age we live in. The guys met at the Station Inn, their primary creative outlet, during the daylight hours and tracked the entire thing in under 8 hours with no overdubs.

We recorded this album with kind of a “throw back” philosophy in mind. We set everything up on the stage of the Station Inn, gathered in circle around the microphones, and just played! So, if somebody missed something, we had to start the whole song over. Plus, we recorded the entire album in the span of about eight hours one day in January. We didn’t have a crowd in there, as we were recording during the daylight hours. But, it was really interesting to record like that. There was an added element of pressure to get it right the first time, and that was actually a lot of fun, I thought! As we were recording, you couldn’t help but think of how Lester and Earl and Bill must have felt in their classic sessions so many years ago!

Normally CDs are only recorded outside the studio if it’s to be a live performance in front of an audience, but Ashby says they chose the Station Inn for several reasons.

Like Jim said, our philosophy was really an old school mindset. We all gathered round in a circle on stage at the Inn. That place is really a second home to all of us. We’ve been playing there most Tuesday nights for a year and we wanted to record there to capture the vibe, energy, and looseness that we’re used to having at those shows.

The CD opens with My Home’s Across The Bluegrass Mountains and the hits keep coming. For fans of traditional bluegrass, this will be a must have recording. The guys do it up right. The playing is immaculate, perfectly timed, tasteful, traditional and yet innovative. These guys may be young, but it’s clear they understand what hard driving traditional bluegrass is all about. Tunes like White House Blues will make you want to play along, if you can keep up! The four instrumental tracks are some of my favorite cuts on the disc, but all the tunes are bluegrass SMASH hits performed by a group of young pickers who’ll make you feel good about the future of traditional bluegrass music.

Here’s the track listing:

• My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains
• Banks of the Ohio
• White House Blues
• John Henry (instrumental)
• Take This Hammer
• Sitting on the Top of the World
• Two Dollar Bill
• Bury Me Beneath the Willow
• Little Maggie
• Going Across the Sea (instrumental)
• I’ll Remember You Love In My Prayers
• Lonesome Road Blues
• Ain’t Nobody Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
• Salt Creek (instrumental)
• Roving Gambler
• Sally Goodin’ (instrumental)

I don’t think I could say it any better than Ashby did in his last comment to me.

This record is definitely a traditional Bluegrass record with very traditional songs, but there’s a good bit of contemporary feel that goes along with us being younger players. We always try to have as much fun as possible, and make our shows as high energy as possible. We want people to have a good time and come back and see us whenever they can. Hopefully this recording gives listeners that feeling, and lets them feel like they’re hanging out in Downtown Nashville enjoying a good night of hardcore Bluegrass.

It did for me.

If you need a fix of hardcore, traditional bluegrass music with a throbbing pulse and insistent drive, you’ll want to pick this CD up as soon as you can.

Audio clips are available on the group’s Myspace page.