Starting this evening at 5:00 p.m., and running through the end of the game on Sunday night, Sirius Bluegrass will celebrate Super Bowl weekend with a bluegrass Pick Off.

On-air hosts Chris Jones, Ned Luberecki and Joey Black have compiled the best bluegrass instrumental music from their massive collection to feature all weekend - the perfect background for your pregame get-togethers?

Or as Ned might put it… listen to the Pick Off while awaiting the kick off.

Sirius Bluegrass can be found on Channel 65 on your Sirius Satellite receiver, or subscribers can listen online. They have a free, 3 day trial for their internet radio service should you want to get a taste of the Sirius experience.

Here’s a late Christmas present from Sirius Bluegrass…

Later this morning, they will present a live, in-studio performance of the music from Tony Trischka’s award-winning recording, Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular. The CD features Tony in duet with some of the most prominent pickers ever to set three picks to five strings: Earl Scruggs, Béla Fleck, Bill Emerson, Alison Brown and several others.

Tony has called on a number of fine banjoists to accompany him for touring in support of the CD, including Sirius Bluegrass co-host Ned Luberecki, and it is Nedski himself who plays second banjo with Trischka for this program.

The show will air at 11:00 a.m. (EST) on Sirius Bluegrass (Channel 65), rebroadcast on 12/28 at 5:00 p.m., 12/29 at 8:00 p.m. and on 12/30 at 4:00 p.m.

Count Down Yonder is the name of the newest show to debut on Sirius Bluegrass, channel 65 on the Sirius Satellite Radio network.

Each Friday at 3:00 p.m. they will announce and spin the top 17 songs as determined by listener requests. Host Chris Jones tells us that there isn’t any special significance to the number 17 - it just worked out well to fit that many songs into a one hour program.

The #1 song from last week - the first week of the countdown - was Alison’s Band by The Charlie Sizemore Band. You can add your own requests by calling the Sirius Request Line (877-33-SIRIUS), or by email.

Count Down Yonder is rebroadcast on Saturdays at 9:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. (all times EST).

We got a note this morning from Ned Luberecki, banjo player extraordinaire, and one of the hosts of the Sirius Satellite Radio Bluegrass channel.

Ned had been out with Tony Trischka this past week, supplying the second banjo for a string of dates in support of Tony’s Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular CD, and told us that they had a surprise guest for Thursday’s show at The Cutting Room in New York City, in the person of Steve Martin.

“Tony told me earlier in the day that he had emailed Steve about the gig, not even knowing if Steve was in New York. We didn’t actually know that he was going to be there until just before show time. We had just a few minutes to rehearse before they opened the doors to the club, so we went over the triple banjo version of ‘The Crow’ with Steve playing the melody, Tony on the second and me on the third part. Then Tony asked if Steve would like to play anything else on the show.

Steve started playing a tune and asked if we wanted to figure it out. The song was ‘Pitkin County Turnaround’ which Steve had recorded on his ‘Steve Martin Brothers’ album. After Steve played through it once, I took a solo. Steve seemed surprised that I knew it. Afterward he asked me how I learned it so fast. I told him that I learned it from his record… 25 or 30 years ago!

For the record, I got my first banjo, and two Steve Martin records for Christmas the same year. If you were to look at those albums, you’d probably see the grooves worn clean on the parts where he played the banjo.

All joking aside, Steve was my original inspiration for starting to play the banjo. The first song I learned from a record (without tab) was his version of ‘8 More Miles To Louisville’ (which was part of his ‘You can’t play a sad song on the banjo’ bit). And believe it or not, I learned ‘Sally Goodin’ from the flip side of the 45 of ‘King Tut’ even before learning it from the Earl Scruggs book.”

Take that all you people who insist that Steve Martin had no impact as a banjo player!

Ned also passed along this photo from a show he did with Tony back in October where they were joined by Bela Fleck for another Triple Banjo Bluegrass Extravaganza.

He also mentioned that there are a number of video clips from the recent Trischka dates up on YouTube.

What better way for a bluegrass fan to celebrate Father’s Day than with the music of the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe?

That’s exactly what the folks at Sirius Satellite radio’s bluegrass channel (65) think. They will feature wall-to-wall Monroe music from Saturday (6/16) at 9:00 a.m. until Sunday (6/17) at 9:00 p.m. Both his own recordings, and other artists’ interpretations of the music of Bill Monroe will be included, along with background and commentary from the channels hosts, Chris Jones and Ned Luberecki.

As they say on their site:

No Bill, No Bluegrass. Know Bill, Know Bluegrass!

St. Louis Flatpick is scheduled to run March 10-12, offering midwest guitar pickers - and now banjo players as well - a chance to study with some well known and highly qualified instructors. In addition to guitar instructors Tim May and Brad Davis, and banjo instructor Ned Luberecki, our own John Lawless will be on the faculty teaching banjo classes.

The event is hosted by Bull and Tammy Harman, who are excited to repeat the event again this year, and for the chance to expand into banjo as well as guitar. Bull tells us that the banjo class is a bit smaller than the guitar, as one might expect for the first year, so banjo students can expect a great deal of personal attention from the instructors.

Find more details on the St. Louis Flatpick web site.