Pickin’ Nits and Grinnin’

The awesome Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Just wrapped up here in the SF Bay Area. In most cases, “awesome” is an overused or misused modifier (“That’s an awesome smoothie, man!”), but it fits in this case. Hundreds of thousands pack into Golden Gate Park to see 50+ acts...

Pickin’ on the Parkway

Matt Coleman sent me an email saying he needed a guitar player for a fundraiser for the American River parks, and it sounded like fun so I said yes and I put it on the calendar and then I looked at it a little closer, and it turns out we were playing at the crossroads...

Pickin’ Weather

Lately, the topic of conversation always seems to turn to the weather. In California, it’s the drought, in the Midwest it’s the record cold, in the East it’s the snow and ice storms. Our Swampgrass friend, Larry Gillis posted a video on Facebook showing how they keep...

Picking and singing

Some time back I signed up to receive a daily email digest from Quora. This is a website which hosts discussions on every subject imaginable, and you choose the topic areas you are interested in. Like most web users I’ve learned to be very selective...

Picking and Singing

An enduring memory from my early schooldays is of the music teacher who said, “Do you know that we each have a musical instrument of our own?” At the time I found this puzzling. Musical instruments, particularly the piano, were expensive and you had to “have lessons”...

Picks

If you want to be a picker you gotta have a pick. Well at least for the most part. I’m just like the rest of you, I love to pick with fiddlers, who use that crazy thing called a bow. And I appreciate the bass players who make all that foundation sound with their...