 Spring and summer are wonderful seasons for musicians with all the festivals and opportunities to play and hear music. As a musician I enjoy those opportunities to get out and play, yet as a songwriter I must sequester myself away into a song cave to scratch out that next big hit. There is something unnatural about that. However, February is one of those months where Old Man Winter isn’t quite done with us yet and staying in the cave a little longer won’t be so difficult.
Fortunately someone else has discovered the same thing and has done something about it. FAWM is an acronym for February is Album Writing Month and puts out the challenge to the songwriter in all of us. FAWM.ORG is a collaborative community where thousands
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News From Victory Music
We are pleased to announce an exciting new event. Victory Music has a new open mic in collaboration with Café Zippy and KSER Radio, both of Everett WA. Drawing from the success of shows like American Idol where performers have a chance to compete for the top spot, finalists chosen during the early performances will be selected to play live on KSER during the second set.
This should be a lot of fun, and the best part is that it’s on the last Saturday night of the month. That means that you won’t be faced with that dreaded Everett traffic jam, although you’re free to sing James Taylor's famous song on the way.
Here are details our new last Saturday Victory open mic, from our online list of
Open Mics around Puget Sound:
 Cafe Zippy
2811 Wetmore Ave.
Everett WA 98201
(425) 303-0474,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Sign-up 6:15, first set 6:45–8:45 pm.
Last Saturday of month. All originals or public domain; no covers. Three winners play second set 9-10 pm for broadcast on KSER 90.7 FM community radio.
Joe Misiuda, Victory Board Vice President |
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 Folk/World/Local
Northwest Folklife Festival: Roots and Branches 3
2011. Northwest Folklife.
www.nwfolklife.org
I can always be confident that I will love anything that the Northwest Folklife Festival puts out. You may not know that there is more to Northwest Folklife than the annual Memorial Day weekend festival in Seattle – those folks are busy all year long with concerts and workshops. Anyway, this is the third CD of its kind, taken from live recordings saved up over the past decades, and it spans the entire length of musical possibility. It's not even folk, seeing as it includes the all-out soul of Wheedle's Groove and the modern singer-songwriter neo-blues of Carl Tosten. If I had to group all of these tracks into a genre, I could assign no narrower category than "human music."
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 Singer-Songwriter/Blues/Local
The Blue Ribbon Tea Company: The Devil is Beating His Wife
2011. Cherry Street Studios.
www.brtcmusic.com
www.facebook.com/blueribbontea
www.reverbnation.com/blueribbonteacompany
www.cdbaby.com/Artist/TheBlueRibbonTeaCompany
The Blue Ribbon Tea Company consists of Bill and Kathy Kostelec. I love 'Standing in the White Angel Breadline,' for these are the common blues themes that families can relate to. Bill's vocal vibrato is somewhat unusual, in the Buffy Saint Marie style, but that vibrato adds all the more pain. 'Fire and Ice' continues the stark poetry, and this one combines the end of the world with being loveless in Spokane. The backgrounds are simple with few instruments, but enough to make the poetry stand above the fray. Besides the voices, there are subtle contributions on fiddle, harmonica, bass and various guitars.
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2012 Tumbleweed Music Festival
The theme for the 2012 song writing contest at the Tumbleweed Music Festival is "Crossroads". As more details become available, they will be posted on the Three Rivers Folk Society website.
John and Jane Titland, Song writing contest sponsors |
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 Folk/Early Music
Apollo's Fire: Come to the River
2011, Avie Records.
www.apollosfire.org
www.avie-records.com
Cleveland, Ohio is my much-maligned home town. My mother, brothers, nephews and nieces live in its eastern suburbs, and they know the Lake Erie weather and shuttered factories far better than I can remember them. I've been away for a long time, and I miss my family there. So when I discover a local Cleveland ensemble worth praising to the gray skies, I'm delighted to comply.
Apollo's Fire is a world-class Baroque Orchestra who perform on period instruments, including harpsichord, hammered dulcimer, and 19th century guitar. They've put out seventeen CDs and their Apollo's Singers have done five more. Now they've recorded a gorgeous new program of vintage folk music, presented as "An Early American Gathering" in three acts. Come to the River earned them a rave notice from the "Classical Notes" section of The New Yorker, on Nov. 7, 2011, p. 18:
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