Here’s another tidbit concerning Steve Martin.

If you’ve ever wanted to be a music video producer, now’s your chance. Steve wants a music video for his tune Wally on the Run, so he’s holding a contest. You can create your own video to his song and enter to win $1000.

Since the song was written about Steve’s dog Wally, the video must contain one, or more, dogs. You can visit the contest page at DailyMotion.com for more details, and to watch some of the current entries. You’ll also find a link there to a page on Steve’s site where the track Wally on the Run may be downloaded for free during the contest timeframe.

The contest ends December 1, 2009, when Steve will choose the winner. 1st place will receive a cash prize of $1000, and presumably some promotion as the winner. 2nd place will receive $0.99.

Below is a short video from Steve explaining the contest.

The good folks who manage Banjo.com have created a new banjo blog, for banjo players of course.

It’s called The Banjo Guru, and is a group blog written by a trio of experts: Mark Bramlett, John Drummond and Greg Earnest. Bramlett is the general manager of Banjo.com’s retail operation, Earnest is an Atlanta-based picker and banjo teacher with a knowledge of pre war banjos, and Drummond is the owner on Banjo.com, and a fine picker himself.

All three share their thoughts and experience in the banjo world with regular postings online at www.thebanjoguru.com.

The recent appearnce by The Alison Brown Quartet on Mountain Stage has just been posted on the show’s NPR web page. They perform five songs from their latest Compass Records release, The Company You Keep.

Brown has never limited herself to a single type of music. As banjo player with Alison Krauss & Union Station in the late 1980s, she showed that she had a distinctive voice on her instrument, and much of her music since has focused on melodic, jazz and jazz-inflected original compositions.

The band includes her husband Garry West on bass, John Burr on piano, and Larry Atamanuik on drums.

Their complete 27 minute set can be streamed online.

Speaking of Steve Martin (see previous post), here’s another in our series of 2009 Red Carpet videos. These were filmed immediately prior to the IBMA Award Show.

This particular video features Doug McKelway interviewing John McEueun, who was instrumental in the production of Steve Martin’s newest CD, The Crow.