Awwwwwww.....

Shucks! Bad news, fiddle lovers. Our new fiddle player is now our former fiddle player. John is starting a masters program and the new, Fall semester has kicked into gear and something had to give and it wasn't going to be doing the coursework. Too bad; he is really good and a very nice guy. Seems we weren't quite the style of band he was looking for, either, which probably made the band-versus-Masters-degree thing WAY easier to figure out. Our best wishes, hopes and inspiration to John, may you come back and play with us from time to time.

Gigs Coming Up

Late Summer and early Fall are getting to be our busy times of year and we have lots coming up. Let me just put them out as a calendar, starting with THIS SATURDAY
8/21 4-8 pm Unitarian Universalist Church Bluegrass Festival 1911 Cliff Valley Way Northeast Atlanta, GA 30329
8/29 Old Tucker Fountain 5pm 2329 Main Street Tucker Ga (A former soda fountain, now a wonderful barbecue restaurant, so eat, drink, listen to Hicks, then join in some jamming)
10/2 Emory Presbyterian Bluegrass Festival
10/3 Oakland Cemetery Festival
10/10 Decatur Presbyterian
10/17 Bluegrass Sunday service Rock Spring Presbyterian Church 11:00 a.m. All the music for the regular Sunday worship service is done in bluegrass. Sing along.
10/30 Bluegrass Festival at Rock Spring Presbyterian Church. First-ever, so too soon to call "annual." Free admission, will sell food.

A Bluegrass Festival

Huge news, bluegrass fans; We are going to have a bluegrass festival at Rock Spring Presbyterian Church. It's scheduled for October 30th. Since we are hosting it, I'd say there's a darned good chance Hicks With Picks will get to play in it. After that, we are starting to look for other bluegrass bands. The requirements are: good bands that will play for free. Actually, "free" may be a little harsh. We'll provide dinner and beverages (we're breaking out the grill for this event!). None of us at RSPC has ever put on a music festival before, but Beth-the-bass-player has been instrumental in staging one, and we already have a sound system, so how much more could there be to it?! Right; we'll get working.
Before then, we will be playing in the music festival at Beth's Universalist Unitarian church on August 21; at the Emory Presbyterian Church bluegrass festival October 2nd, and at a neighborhood function August 3rd. What fun!
Y'all come out now, hear?

...And Not Just ANY Fiddler!

We have a fiddle player, and not just ANY fiddle player, but a really GOOD fiddle player. John Hunsinger joined us Wednesday night for band practice and just blew us away with his ability to jump in on songs and improvise accompaniments and leads. He even took leads on songs we KNOW he'd never heard before because they were songs I wrote so NO ONE has heard them...except the elite few who have bought the CD. He plays with an authentic bluegrass style and ear.
For a bluegrass band, having a fiddler is like a barbecue rib joint having beer; you can have one without it, but it sure is better with. After playing music for an hour and a half, we all enthusiastically said he passed the audition (tried to say it in a Beatles accent; failed) and then waited expectantly to hear whether we had passed his. He said yes. We gave him one of our CDs. And you know we don't hand those babies out to just ANYONE!
Welcome John!

Big News

We may get a fiddle player! Actually, we may get ANOTHER fiddle player. Mike Nugent has been expanding his talents from mastering the mandolin to fiddling with the fiddle and played it in church on Bluegrass Sunday. He's doing great! But it turns out a long-accomplished fiddle player from Beth's previous band is looking to get back into some regular music-making since their band broke up. When we have rehearsal this week he is going to joint us and we're all going to play songs and see if we are a good match. Beth has wonderful things to say about him personally and about his music-making and Mike talked with him on the phone and they hit it off. So we'll see. We did this with Beth and are thrilled with the way it worked out and so have high hopes for John, too.
How do you make a bluegrass fiddle player fiddle slower? Put sheet music in front of him. How do you make him play WAY slower? Put notes on it.

Big Mistake

I had a little while to kill before band practice last week and stopped to buy new banjo strings at Guitar Center, then went into the acoustic instruments room to play with guitars. I was looking at moderately priced guitars and then the sales guy said "try this. It's the standard for bluegrass." It was a Martin D-28. The sound was so huge, so ringing, so loud, with such enormous bass, clear mid-range and balanced highs, all I could do was hand it back to him and say "thanks for ruining me for anything I could afford!" It really was a wonderful guitar. Their price was high; but then Guitar Center is open to bargaining. Even with bargaining, though, this one would be a stretch. Ah, well, when the book sells a million copies and Nashville gets in a bidding war for my songs, maybe then.

One Down, One To Go

We played in the installation ceremony for Karen and it seemed like a success on several fronts; first, we played in the same service with the choir and the organ and piano (but not at the same time) for the first time and the combination didn't seem to make anyone's head spin and erupt pea soup. Second, we thought we did pretty well, and at the end when the new pastor and the visiting preacher were walking down the aisle to exit we rocked out with "Easter Song" and the visiting preacher danced all the way out of the church.
Also, we came up with a new and much better way to do our sound system. We had been setting up our whole set of gig gear with a huge amp, giant speakers, six or more mikes and tons of cables. That involves taking out some of the walls in the choir area, which is a real pain. But this time, with the choir using their area, we just put two condenser mikes--a high one for voices and a low one for instruments-- on one stand and ran cables into the house audio system and all formed a circle around those two mikes...and it worked great! Not only was it less work for us to set up, people said it was the best and clearest audio we've ever done. We did also set up a separate amp for the bass, though. So we have retired the gig setup from Bluegrass Sundays!
Speaking of which, the next one is this coming Sunday, June 6. Beth can't attend--out of town commitment--and Haddon says he is officially and irrevocably retired. Mike has lined up a really good bass player, though, who has been a master at playing standup bass in country bands for a long time, so we feel lucky to have him pitch in, and also feel lucky we'll have Beth back for the long run.
Allison sent an email to band members suggesting they check out the blog, so I figured I ought to write something. So there! Thanks, Allison.

First Blog In A Long Time

Here it is the end of April and it's been FOREVER since I wrote the last blog. Problem is, it didn't seem like anyone read the thing so it seemed like a waste of time to write it. On the other hand, I have a little time to waste.
We have had some fun gigs; we played at the Old Tucker Fountain, which used to be a soda fountain a million years ago and is now a barbecue restaurant. We must have done okay...or maybe it was that we were free...and have been invited back. The have a pretty regular rotation of bluegrass bands that play Sunday nights, then everyone jams for about an hour, then another band plays.
I got to be a judge of a bluegrass competition at Stone Mountain Village, Georgia, the town's first music festival. I met one of the other judges, Marc Miller, who has a bluegrass radio show in town and invited us to do a live thing on his show, so that's coming up pretty soon. And Hicks With Picks played at the festival that station, WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) put on. As we were wrapping it up, the director asked if we could keep playing because there was a little scheduling mixup. We were glad to and did another half hour we hadn't planned on.
Hicks is the house band at Rock Spring Presbyterian. After a two-year search, we finally have hired a new minister and she started last week. Great sermon, and seems like a real winner! We will play at her installation ceremony, along with the choir, and boy is she in for a surprise when she see her first Bluegrass Sunday when we do all the music for the whole service. We're excited.
I've saved up enough money to buy a new guitar. I don't need one and have more pressing things to spend it on, but I didn't save the money for those other things and they'll have to get paid for some other way. I have heard the Eastman guitar and it seems like a great sound and great value for the money. Anyone have any other suggestions I should check out?
Jeff

Is Anyone Out There?

I don't know if anyone is reading these, but what the hell.
Beth the bass player has mended well enough that she can't justify narcotics with that lame leg excuse anymore. Last Sunday Hicks played in church with the church choir and choirmaster on piano, doing an "I'll Fly Away Medley." The choirmaster asked if we would do it, telling us it was in G. Great; we know the song, we do it in G, we're good to go! But when we got the music 2 weeks before the Big Event, we found out half way through it switched to E Flat, a key that isn't even from Earth, and then awhile later switches again, time time to A Flat, a key not used since the Sumerians ruled the known world. AND it changed tempos part way through. Mike downloaded a recording of it, though, and we practiced with that cd about 30 times until we got it right, and it was a big hit in church. Isn't it great to take on a big challenge that stretches your abilities, makes you learn something new and dificult, and then PULL IT OFF!?
Our next gig is also at church, the next Bluegrass Sunday on February 21st. Tonight is our first practice, at which we really ought to figure out which songs we're going to do, since the service is just 18 days away. We got word that some people at church realized this was the first Sunday in Lent and thought having bluegrass would be inappropriate. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we are not going to perform "Spank My Monkey." There is a hymn in our actual hymnal under the actual Lent section that Elvis did a great, upbeat version of, so I think we could be liturgically appropriate and have fun, too! Fun worship; that's us.

The Bass Player Takes A Break

Generally taking a break means playing the lead instrumental part. In Beth's case, it means breaking her leg. Actually, she's the second woman in Hicks to break her leg; Allison did it a few years ago.
Beth described it as "a spectacular fall" down the stairs at home, ending with her leg broken four inches above her ankle. As soon as I heard, I sent condolences to her husband John who not only won't have her to wait on him hand and foot as usual, but will have to do that for her now. The good news is she got good pain meds. The bad news is that while she takes them she can't tell a G string from a Chik-Fil-A cow. Loopy!
Actually, I called her and she sounded in great spirits, so to speak. She has downgraded to less serious meds, people are responding with appropriate sympathy, John seems to be blending manhood with sainthood well enough, and they outfitted her with a "walking cast." This means the doctor can walk. Definitely not Beth.
Meanwhile, Hicks will attempt to play in a special performance at Rock Spring Presbyterian Church in two weeks, with the choir, which we've been wanting to do for a lonnnngggg time. Haddon says he'll come out of bass retirement to fill in for Beth, but not out o retirement enough to go back to banking or miss any golf time.