The Brooklyn Folk Festival, May 18-20

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There’s a terrific music festival coming up in downtown Brooklyn this weekend, the Brooklyn Folk Festival, and I’m planning to take in some of the festivities with my wife and son. Highlights include a special observance on Friday night marking the 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie; workshops on singing, banjo and mandolin; and performances by Peter Stampfel (ex- of the Holy Modal Rounders) and the Ether Frolic Mob, and by the Wretched Refuse String Band. It takes place Friday night, and begins at noon on Saturday and Sunday, stretching late into the nights. These two videos, with performances by Jerron Paxton and Clifton Hicks are highlights from last year’s program. This is going to be the fourth rendition of the festival, and every year they’ve had stellar line-ups. This year festival director Eli Smith has arranged for more than thirty acts over the three days, plus film screenings and appearances by authors of such books as Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival. I hope to see you there.

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Results in for Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards

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I’m happy to announce that The Great Gray Bridge was in the end a finalist in Goodreads’ Independent Book Blogger Awards, in the Publishing Industry category. While this result is extremely gratifying, alas, it was not the winner. I want to thank the hundreds of readers who voted for this blog, and who helped make it a finalist, and after only six months of publication. Full results may be found here via this link on the Goodreads site, which includes the names of the winners in each of the four categories, and all fifteen finalists in each category who did not win. I’m grateful they held the contest and appreciative that I was able to enter my blog in it. I know it’s brought more readers to this site and I’m thankful for that.

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Imaginary Cities, Embarking on a US Tour

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Readers of this blog may recall how partial I am to Imaginary Cities, a great band from Winnipeg, Canada. They are a five-piece outfit with Marti Sabit providing soaring lead vocals, Rusty Matyas on tasty lead guitar and trumpet, David Landreth on a great thumping bass, Ryan Voth connecting on drums, and Alex Campbell sweetening things up on keyboard. In April I had gone to the release party for their album “Temporary Resident” and had a great talk that night with Marti and Rusty. They were back in town this week, at Mercury Lounge, and I went out to hear them. Again, they played a great show and seemed to really connect with the good-sized Tuesday night crowd. For a full review of their performance style and striving songs, you may read the post I put up after the release party, at this link. For today, here are details on their current US tour, which tonight, May 17, will have them in Washington, D.C. at a club called Black Cat, continuing to such venues as Maxwell’s in  Hoboken, near NYC on June 15, capping off at Lollapalooza in Chicago in August.  Info on the tour is at this link, and below is a chart showing the cities where they’re playing on this tour and photos from this week’s show. // click through to full post for full tour schedule and photos

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