#john cragie

[krispyweiss]

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Day No. 1, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Sept. 29, 2023

- Rickie Lee Jones, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, John Cragie, Peter Rowan and others highlight first day

Rickie Lee Jones opened the 2023 edition of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass - and christened the festival’s new, Horseshoe Hill stage - by reading from her 2021 memoir.

And Peter Rowan played country - not bluegrass - music during his late-afternoon set on the Banjo stage.

These were just two highlights from Day One at the long-running festival, which also included Christone “Kingfish” Ingram redefining the blues and John Craigie finding his quirky spot alongside Todd Snider in folk-Americana.

Seated on the small stage set up to resemble a living room and flanked with clothes drying on the line, an animated Jones embellished her reading from “Last Chance Texaco” with playful asides and wise cracks. She talked about how Laura Nyro made her feel connected and how Neil Young made her realize odd voices can be successful voices.

“I like it up here,” Jones said of being on stage. “I think artists sometime mistake the excitement for fear.”

Jones read about hitchhiking through California as a 14-year-old in 1969 as a foggy drizzle enveloped Golden Gate Park. She had soundchecked with a snippet of “The Horses,” but ended her well-received spoken-word gig by playing her father’s composition “The Moon is Made of Gold” solo and acoustic and earning a standing ovation from the small crowd seated in grass surrounded by tall trees.

Afterward, Mr. and Mrs. Sound Bites took in a couple of numbers from Vetiver - think the Byrds with a slide guitarist - on the Swan stage as the blog couple headed for Ingram, who played before an audience of thousands on the Towers of Gold stage.

Borrowing Stevie Ray Vaughan’s tone and adding equal measures of funk and R&B, Ingram and his band were super-charged during 50 minutes of electrifying blues as they continually tore the music down before building it right back up. The guitarist sang of lost love on “Fresh Out;” walked off stage, but kept playing out of sight, to showcase his band on “Not Gonna Lie;” and engaged powerful call-and-response with his keyboardist during the set, which ended as Craigie took to the adjacent Swan stage.

Backed by electric bass and guitar and playing acoustic axe and harmonica, Craigie mixed humorous stage banter with tunes both playful (“I Wrote Mr. Tambourine Man”) and serious (“I am California”). Stage presence and song craft made fans of the Sound Biteses, who got their second dose of Craigie in as many days following the previous evening’s benefit for Camp Winnarainbow.

Bluegrass legend Rowan was the biggest surprise of the day, turning in a country and blues set that found him alternating between electric guitar and mandolin, supported by guitar, bass, drums and fiddle. This was exhilarating, though low volume at the Banjo stage lessened the impact of the instrumental guitar duel of “T Bone Shuffle” and made “Panama Red” -> “Freight Train” -> “Panama Red” sound like they were coming in on the winds from Ocean Beach.

Small price to pay for the opportunity to hear Rowan perform such warhorses as “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy,” “Land of the Najavo” and “Midnight Moonlight” in novel musical settings in the bucolic landscape of Golden Gate Park.

9/30/23

[readablenoise]

Just 'Round The Corner: Bi-Weekly Music Highlights for March 9th-March 22nd

The Equinox is approaching, and so too is prime concert season.

Florida- This feeling has been missed. Concert flyers on power posts, social media event listings, and the hearsay in friendly conversation of "Hey, did you hear (insert band here) is playing next week?"

It truly is the little things, and this surely, is one of them.

As this generation continues to experience the unprecendented process of packing three centuries worth of events into just the last three revolutions around the sun, the one constant is the human ability to create, and process these feelings through losing oneself in music.

So we though it prudent to bring a bi-weekly concert round up for Florida, and inspire you to enjoy the freedoms of live music we have the opportunity to see, and bond through.

March 11th

Death of a Deity at Propaganda Lake Worth

The West Palm Beach based metal act is not only climbing the ladder, they’re remaking it as they go along. Death of a Deity are currently working on their upcoming album, and have been previewing songs from the record live with new vocalist, Steven Divine.

We can attest personally that not only are these songs floor shakers, but they pave a new road in the many branches of the genre; propelled by passion and fuelled by the energy around them (which, is also beautifully wild).

The bill is a also veritable Headbanger’s Ball, also bringing local favorites, Tooth and up and comers Tactosa from Tampa.

Come spend your Friday in the best way; getting those concert sneakers fresh with some new concert moshing…

Doors open at 8pm; Admission will be $10 the night of, with the line-up as follows:

9:00p Rize 9:50p Body Blow 10:40p Tooth 11:30p Tactosa (Tampa) 12:20a Death of a Deity

https://www.facebook.com/events/5018365458228375

March 15th

Baroness at Will’s Pub

Intimate shows are the special treasures; the occasions allow the band to reach back to roots and most importantly, allow a rich sound such a Baroness’ to be heard at it’s most raw.

The Savannah, GA act will be playing the infamous Will’s Pub in Orlando next week, and we strongly recommend taking the chance to tick two items off your list; an epic intimate show, and the ability to see this truly powerful band live.

Doors open at 7pm, tickets are $60 and can be found below, along with further information

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/baroness-at-wills-pub-tickets-211854782357

March 16th

Of Montreal + Palomino Blond + Locate, L1 at Respectable Street

Have you ever wanted to live in a daydream? Soft neon colors against your skin, as synthesizers and haunting vocals play in the background? Perhaps you want some good old fashioned guitars and your ears enjoying the sounds? Respectable Street can help assist, as they host a bill to remember in the form of Of Montreal, Palomino Blond and Locate, L1.

Aptly one of the most diverse and smooth bills, Palomino Blond has remained on our Must Watch list, as the young act continue to dazzle with their raw energy that is as infectious as it is a treat to see.

Doors open at 7pm, with the show starting at 7:30pm.

Tickets and further information are avaiable at the link below

https://www.facebook.com/events/183755890478824

Greensky Bluegrass at Revolution FTL

There are few sounds as comforting as bluegrass. Call us old, but sitting out on the porch with a cup of coffee and listening to some beautifully constructed strings is absolutely blissful.

And while Greensky Bluegrass builds upon this comfort, they do not sit within its confines, but rather, blow it wide open.

The Michigan based act bring an electricity that is absolutely breathtaking, both on record and through live performances, through their own originals as well as our personal favorite, an unrivaled cover of Pink Floyd’s “Time/Breathe (Reprise)”.

We recommend the trip down for this one, your eyes and ears will Thank You.

Doors open at 7pm, with John Cragie as the opening act.

Tickets can be found below

https://www.facebook.com/events/425834695606625

Get out there and enjoy the daylight, moonbeams, and the returning sound of sweet, sweet music bouncing off the alley walls...

-Jenelle DeGuzman

[awhg]

John Cragie - Capricorn in Retrograde... Just KIdding... Live in Portland(2016)

そのライブ盤。楽しそう。

[krispyweiss]

Toward the FUN(ds): A Concert Benefitting Camp Winnarainbow at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, Sept. 28, 2023

- Steve Earle, Rickie Lee Jones, Peter Rowan, John Craigie and John Popper perform pre-Hardly Strictly Bluegrass benefit with Wavy Gravy in attendance

Seeing how they all were in town for separate appearances at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Steve Earle, Rickie Lee Jones, Peter Rowan and John Craigie got together and donated some time to a guitar (and mandolin) pull to benefit Wavy Gravy’s Camp Winnarainbow.

The round-robin performance is “an efficient way for a concert to raise funds … you get a lot of us for your buck,” host Earle told the crowd - which included Gravy, 87 and wearing his trademark clown nose, in the front row - assembled Sept. 28 for Toward the FUN(ds) at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre.

This informal setting was an opportunity to hear Jones fumble through an untitled work-in-progress - “it’s like a lesson - a bad one,” she deadpanned mid-song - while earning the loudest applause of the evening for “Weasel and the White Boys Cool.”

“That usually happens to me when I host these things,” Earle said.

Jones would later wow the crowd by turning a false start of “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow” into a singalong “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane.”

For his part, the host dedicated “Jerusalem” to Gravy, played mandolin on “Copperhead Road” and duetted with Rowan on “Train a Comin’.”

The incongruous grouping also found the 43-year-old California native Craigie - who was hysterical when talking about needing, and eventually quitting, oxygen when playing gigs at altitude - swapping licks with the 81-year-old Rowan, who played mandolin and guitar, sang high notes like a man half his age and slipped Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train” inside his own “Panama Red.”

“Now my roots are really showing,” Rowan said upon playing the first notes of “Freight Train.”

Cragie’s songs, like his banter, can also be funny (as on “I Wrote Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Laurie Rolled Me a J”) before he slips into wistful homesickness on “I am California.” He punctuates both sides of his songwriting with mournful bleats on harmonica.

Unannounced guest John Popper, whose daughter attends the camp, appeared to perform a take of John Lennon’s “Imagine” with Craigie on guitar and participate in the all-hands-on-deck closer “Rivers of Babylon.” The Sour Widows Duo played an opening two-song set. But it was the four-way pull that pulled the crowd in and delivered huge payoffs during their 90-minutes on stage.

Grade card: Toward The FUN(ds): A Concert Benefitting Camp Winnarainbow at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco - 9/28/23 - A-

9/29/23

[krispyweiss]

Sound Images: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Day No. 1, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Sept. 29, 2023

The 2023 edition of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass got off to a fine start Sept. 29 with sets by Rickie Lee Jones, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, John Cragie, Peter Rowan and others in the glorious surroundings of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Sound Bites wrote about it here and offers several thousand more words in the form of the images above and on the blog’s Facebook page.

10/4/23