The Mashville Brigade is the guest on this week’s edition of Studio Special on XM Satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction.

The show has the band in the studio performing the songs from their Rural Rhythm debut CD, Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1, and talking with show host Kyle Cantrell about the band and their new release.

Mashville Brigade is made up of six Nashville-based musicians, each of whom performs primarily as a member of another band - Jim Van Cleve on fiddle (Mountain Heart), Ashby Frank on mandolin (Special Consensus), Darrell Webb on guitar (Rhonda Vincent), Aaron McDaris on banjo (Grascals) and Randy Barnes on bass (NewFound Road).

The Mashville edition of Studio Special actually debuted earlier today (6/20), but it can be heard several more times over the next week (all times EDT).

• Saturday (6/21) - 11:00 a.m.
• Sunday (6/22) - 6:00 p.m.
• Monday (6/23) - 8:00 p.m.
• Tuesday (6/24) - Midnight (technically Wednesday morning)
• Thursday (6/26) - 3:00 p.m.

Bluegrass Junction can be found on XM 14 where they play bluegrass 24/7. If you don’t have XM, but would like to listen to the show, XM offers a free three day pass that allows you full online access to all the stations they offer.

Speaking of contests…

Here are the lucky winners in our recent The Mashville Brigade Take This Hammer promotion. Each will receive an autographed copy of the band’s debut release Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1, courtesy of Rural Rhythm Records.

• Margaret Benson - Caspar, WY
• Brent Dingus - Lebanon, VA
• Steve Firth - Boone, NC
• Cody Frost - Bernice, OK
• Michael Keith - Key West, FL
• Dirk Lovelace - Spartanburg, SC
• Mark Roberts - Bedford, TX
• Gary Wilson - Kernersville, NC

And our grand prize winner, Ronnie Moretz of Boone, NC, receives an autographed CD, and his very own fully-functional clawhammer, personally autographed by the band.

Congratulations all, and thanks to everyone who entered!

Later today, we’ll be selecting the winners in our Take This Hammer, Mashville Brigade promotion here on The Bluegrass Blog.

There’s still a little time left, so be sure to enter to win autographed copies of their new CD, Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1 by mid-afternoon. The grand prize winner will also receive an autographed hammer, signed by the guys.

How can you resist?

The Take This Hammer contest is open to all registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and registration is quick, easy and free.

Enter now and win!

UPDATE 5/2: This contest is now closed - winners to be announced shortly.

Don’t forget to sign up to win in our Mashville Brigade Take This Hammer contest. Ten winners will receive an autographed copy of the band’s debut CD, Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1, and one extra-luck grand prize winner will also receive a fully-functional clawhammer, signed by the members of the band at last Tuesday’s CD release party in Nashville.

Mashville is a side project featuring a number of young Nashville pickers who make their career performing with top touring bluegrass acts. They get together to perform each week at The Station Inn, where their CD was recorded. Members include Jim Van Cleve on fiddle (Mountain Heart), Ashby Frank on mandolin (Special Consensus), Aaron McDaris on banjo (Grascals), Randy Barnes on bass (NewFound Road) and Darrell Webb on guitar (Rhonda Vincent).

The Take This Hammer contest is open to all registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and registration is quick, easy and free. It runs through the end of this week, with winners selected at random, announced on Friday (5/2).

Enter now and win!

UPDATE 5/2: This contest is now closed - winners to be announced shortly.

Yesterday (3/22) saw the release of Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1 from The Mashville Brigade.

Most every Tuesday evening the guys perform at the Station Inn there in Nashville, TN. Last night was no different, except that the usual performance doubled as a CD release party.

The first single release from the CD is their remake of the Flatt & Scruggs classic, Take This Hammer. In coordination with this release we’re hosting a fun promotion here on The Bluegrass Blog. For the next ten days, all registered readers will be able to enter our Take This Hammer promotional drawing. One lucky reader will win an autographed copy of the new CD, plus their very own personally signed claw hammer! (see photo) Nine other winners will also get a signed CD.

Courtesy of Rural Rhythm Records, everyone who enters the contest will also be able to download a free, MP3 copy of Take This Hammer from the new CD.

There is no cost to enter and the contest is be open to all registered users on The Bluegrass Blog. The guys do ask that the winner use the hammer responsibly!

UPDATE 5/2: This contest is now closed - winners to be announced shortly.

We have a fun promotion that will start later this week in conjunction with tomorrow’s (3/22) release of Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1 from The Mashville Brigade. This is the side-gig featuring five of Nashville’s top pickers who get together on Tuesday nights to perform bluegrass favorites at The Station Inn.

Members include Jim Van Cleve on fiddle (Mountain Heart), Ashby Frank on mandolin (Special Consensus), Aaron McDaris on banjo (Grascals), Randy Barnes on bass (NewFound Road) and Darrell Webb on guitar (Rhonda Vincent).

The first single release from the CD is their remake of the Flatt & Scruggs classic, Take This Hammer, and we will be offering one lucky reader of The Bluegrass Blog the chance to win an autographed copy of the new CD, plus their very own personally signed claw hammer! Nine other winners will also get a signed CD.

Anyone who enters the contest will also be able to download a free, MP3 copy of Take This Hammer from the new CD.

Entries will begin on Wednesday and the winners will be notified next week. Their will be no cost to enter and the contest will be open to all registered users on The Bluegrass Blog.

The Mashville Brigade may not be that familiar a name to most festival going bluegrass fans, but the individual members of the band should be. The Brigade is comprised of: Aaron McDaris (The Grascals) on banjo and harmony vocals; Darrell Webb (Rhonda Vincent & The Rage) on guitar and lead vocals; Ashby Frank (Special Consensus) lead vocals and mandolin; Jim VanCleve (Mountain Heart) on fiddle; and Randy Barnes (NewFound Road) on bass.

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. (more…)

Ashby Frank is a talented musician who, despite his youth, has already been a part of several notable ensembles. At 24 years old, Ashby - who is the current mandolinist with Special Consensus - has toured with Marty Raybon, Alecia Nugent and Ronnie Bowman.

He lives in Nashville, which necessitates a lot of travel since Special C is based in Chicago, but Ashby feels that Music City offers him a great many opportunities for session work and musical interaction that he can’t find elsewhere.

One of those offshoots is Mashville Brigade, a loose-knit group of sidemen who get together on Tuesday nights at Nashville’s fabled Station Inn. Members include Frank on mandolin, Darrel Webb on guitar, Jim Van Cleve on fiddle, Greg Martin on bass and Aaron McDarris on banjo. They typically perform bluegrass classics, but have developed a strong following based as much on their quirky, irreverent sense of humor as for their prodigious musical abilities.

One of those special talents is vocal impressions, and a recent YouTube video demonstrates that Ashby and Darrell have the goods to give such stalwarts of the genre as Tim Stafford and Steve Gulley a run for their money. The video is a bit shaky but the audio is fine, and their take on John Conlee and Willie Nelson is hilarious.

Ashby tells us that this side project has been a blast for all concerned, allowing the members to have some fun outside of their primary gigs. Webb now tours with Rhonda Vincent, Van Cleve is a part of Mountain Heart and McDarris plays with The Grascals, so a Tuesday night playing bluegrass favorites is a welcome weekly diversion.

We’ve been doing the Mashville Brigade thing for over a year, and we’re all really happy that it’s turned into one of the biggest nights of the week at the Station Inn. Every Tuesday is kind of like a party/family reunion.

So many people have requested some kind of recorded music from us, and fortunately the great folks over at Rural Rhythm found a way for us to do that. (more…)

Brance posted on Tuesday about the special Station Inn performance this week by Mashville Brigade and friends.

The band was initially formed late in ‘06 by Ashby Frank and a number of other hot young pickers when Frank was living in Nashville and working with Alecia Nugent’s band. It included Jim Van Cleve on fiddle, Darrel Webb on guitar, Greg Martin on bass, Aaron McDaris on banjo and Frank on mandolin. Their plan was to play at Nashville’s Station Inn on occasional Tuesday evenings, much as a group know as The Sidemen had done a few years ago, assembled from members of other Nashville-based bluegrass bands.

Now that Ashby is off touring with Special Consensus, the membership at Mashville Brigade shows fluctuates wildly, and the show this past Tuesday was set to feature a number of high-profile guests, including Scott Vestal and Josh Williams.

We hear that even more unexpected special guests were on hand, and before the evening was concluded, country star Dierks Bentley joined the band for a song, as did Shawn Camp and Tina Adair. Sounds like a night of good fun and great music.

Ashby actually emailed from the Salt Lake City airport, to say that he had hated to miss that show, but had an interesting one of his own.

“Special Consensus did a show with the Idaho State Civic Symphony in Pocatello, Idaho last night in their beautiful new symphony/performing arts center. It went over amazingly well!

The crowd gave us such a warm reception, and called us out for an encore. It’s not every day that a symphony plays a full set with a Bluegrass band (we played a few new songs by ourselves, but did most of the set with the symphony), and its not every day that a bluegrass band plays in Pocatello, ID!”

For many years now the legend of the Sidemen has lived on even though the group no longer performs at Nashville’s Station Inn.

In recent months, a new group of sidemen have come together to fill the void. They call themselves the Mashville Brigade. The group performs most Tuesday nights at The Station Inn and consists of pickers who all play in different bands on the road.

The line up may not be exactly the same every night if one or more of the guys has a gig somewhere, but the group more or less consists of Aaron McDaris (banjo), Ashby Frank (mandolin), Darrel Webb (guitar), Greg Martin or Randall Barnes (bass), and Jim VanCleve (fiddle).

The group makes an effort to play a strait up hard driving bluegrass setlist each Tuesday night, entertaining the crowd of hardcore fans who turn out for the shows.

Tonight, the line up will be a little different, as the band welcomes a few friends to the stage to “Mash” one with them.

At tonight’s show, band will be:

Josh Williams - guitar and vocals (formerly of Rhonda Vincent)
Darrel Webb - Mandolin and vocals (Currently with Rhonda Vincent)
Tim Dishman - Bass (Special Consensus)
Scott Vestal - Banjo (Sam Bush Band)
Jim VanCleve - Fiddle (Mountain Heart)
Daren Shumaker - sound engineer (Ronnie Bowman & Mountain Heart)

We’re expecting a fun crowd and a lot of energy, as we just recently fronted a show for Dierks Bently (where he graciously gave the Mashville Brigade a glowing review from the stage) at a Charity event in Nashville. You just never know who’s gonna drop in and mash one or two with the band, too, so it’s usually pretty interesting!

The Station Inn has dubbed the Mashville Brigade shows as $5 Tuesdays. The cover charge, pizzas, and pitchers of beer are each $5. If you’re in town, be sure to stop by and watch the guys Mash one!

We heard last week from mandolinist Ashby Frank with word of a new “second band” featuring members of several Nashville-based bluegrass acts.

They are calling themselves Mashville Brigade, and they debuted at The Station Inn on December 5. Ashby said that they have more dates there in January, and hope to move into a semi-regular Tuesday night slot there next year.

The group consists of Frank (with Alecia Nugent’s band) on mandolin, Darrel Webb (of Wildfire) on guitar, Jim VanCleve (of Mountain Heart) on fiddle, Greg Martin on bass, and Aaron McDaris (the newest member of The Grascals) on banjo.

The new band got a nice feature in The Nashville City Paper last week, in which Ashby shared an insight into the name of the group.

“In bluegrass circles we always talk about really getting into something and mashing it,” Frank said. “We’re going to be playing bluegrass styled music, but it will be very upbeat, a party type rather than more staid or traditional material. We’re not a jam band, but we will be playing an explosive, enjoyable brand of acoustic music.”

Ashby told us that they will perform material from the various members’ solo projects, and bluegrass jam classics.