This is the fifth 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 Jens Koch and Cia Cherryholmes.

A video overview of Gold Heart’s recent tour to the UK is now available online. It was created by Gold Heart along with Jens Koch, who played banjo with the band while they were gone across the sea. The video mixes audio from the current CD with photos and live video from their ten day visit to Scotland and England in late April.

Gold Heart, a primarily family venture, is recently signed to Rural Rhythm Records. At the heart of the group are three singing sisters, Analise (mandolin), Jocelyn (guitar) and Shelby Gold (fiddle), with dad Trent on bass.

The girls sent along this report with the video…

We have returned home from our tour of the UNITED KINGDOM! What a lovely and beautiful part of God’s wonderful creation! We’re happy to report that we had an awesome tour. It was a true learning experience for all of us! The band definitely had a good two-week workout while on this trip. Sorry, about not being able to keep our UK tour blog up and running. Telephone & internet services were extremely limited and we didn’t have a moment to spare anyway.

We managed to squeeze in quick visits to the Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Mile, Mary Queen of Scots Palace, Stonehenge, Sherwood Forrest, the Scottish Highlands & others. We saw thousands of miles worth of heavenly countryside. We ate Scottish Haggis and English Pasties. Delicious! We stayed extremely busy and didn’t waste a second. Our shows all went exceptionally well and attendance was very high. (more…)

Swedish bluegrass heartthrobs, G2, are making plans to spend substantial parts of the next few years touring in the US.

In 2009, they will be here July through September performing at festivals and music events, based near Nashville. They want to take advantage of the momentum built from a shorter US tour this year, and the buzz they created at IBMA in October. They were featured at multiple late night IBMA showcases, presented at the awards show, and played a set at Fan Fest.

G2 hopes to make a permanent move to this country sometime in 2010.

Banjo player Jens Koch shared a few words about G2’s plans for the future.

“When we came to Nashville for IBMA this year, we all pictured ourselves living in the US next year…and it felt good. Since being there a few times with G2, we feel urged to do it. We need to move to the US to get to do what we all love to do, so we’ll start with a few months next year and see how it works out.

Working with Jim Roe of Roe Entertainment also feels like a good thing and we’re hoping for lots of work in the US the forthcoming year. In the same time as looking for places to live (maybe in the Nashville area) we are in the beginning of recording our second album, which will be released next year.

Right now we’re discussing details with a producer who we might work with. 2009 is going to be an interesting year for us – a step which for us is huge, leaving our home country. Lucky us – we have found such good friends over in the US!”

Find out more about G2 on their web site, or at Roe Entertainment.

Here’s a cautionary tale for bluegrass musicians who also like to try their hand at risky extreme sports. It comes from Jens Koch, the superb young banjo player with Swedish bluegrass group, G2.

Three years ago – before G2 caught the ears of fans and critics alike at EBMA and IBMA – he broke his left wrist horribly in a snowboarding accident. Two bones snapped, and though the bones were set, they didn’t heal properly, requiring that they be re-broken and rebuilt.

“They transplanted some bone from my hip to my wrist so that the radius bone would be long enough, and have the right angle.

Then they used some metal screws and plates (pre-war, of course…I’ve been told it was titanium from Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory in the 30s) to fasten it all together.”

He was unable to play at all for six weeks after the accident, and tells us that after the hardware was installed, played in pain for the next two years.

“The tendons in my wrist and forearm had constantly been grinding on those screws and the plate, causing pain and inflammation. But finally, after a long wait, I got them taken out.

What a relief!! I felt a difference right away because my fingers run a little smoother.”

Though winter sports are a big thing in Sweden, Jens says that he now considers himself a former snowboarder, and agrees that bluegrass music and extreme sports aren’t a good mix.

“Maybe we should all stick to golf or…building snowmen.”

G2, along with the newly restored Koch wrist, will be an invited showcase act at the 2008 IBMA World Of Bluegrass convention in Nashville this fall. Audio samples from their debut release, Where The Tall Grass Grows, can be found on the band’s web site.