Heads Up

Hi All,

We're a little swamped at the moment, between going to festivals, editing pics and keeping the whole rest of it balanced, I'm not doing a very good job of keeping this updated.

We're ALSO working on developing a REAL site for The Festival Project.

In the meantime, we're keeping our Facebook page "The Festival Project" super up to date, so please come see us there!

Greetings from FloydFest

Hi All!

Greetings from the thick of FloydFest. The venue is thick with friends, DUST, and incredible musicians.

We'll post some pics and a breakdown of the festivities when we return and are able to type from something other than a camp chair!

D

Floyd Fest

Hi All,

I just noticed two things about FloydFest:

1. Yonder Mountain String Band was just added to the lineup

and

2. The schedules are posted! (And I'm going to need to clone myself in order to get to everything I need to see...ruh roh!)

Details here:

http://www.floydfest.com/

Also, they're streaming music from all of this year's attendees on their site, which is FAN FRICKING TASTIC....so you can just open it up, keep it open, and rock out at your desk all day long. (For those of you chained to desks like moi!)

Getting pretty excited about this one!

DelFest Update

Hi All,

What an amazing time we had a DelFest!! It's going to take a while to roll through pics and get those posted, but for those who missed the excitement, see our coverage here at the Bluegrass Blog!

www.thebluegrassblog.com

More soon!

D

woooohoooo!!

Lawrence Olds

Hi all,

Our friends, the Lawrence Olds Quartet, are coming back to Cville this Friday night, May 20th, and will be playing at Cville Coffee again!

C'mon out and enjoy!

Calling All Fans of the Arts

Hi All,

When we are not busy chasing musicians around, we are busy chasing our teenagers around, and, the effort du jour for us is PHANTOM OF THE OPERA at Albemarle High School!

The production runs Thursday - Sunday of next week, tickets can be purchased on-line and details can be found here:

http://ahsplayers.com

The production features top notch vocals and a live orchestra.

Your support of local theatre and musical is appreciated!

Festival Planning

Howdy Folks!

Never mind the fact that our daffodils were rudely covered with snow this weekend, it IS spring, and therefore time to turn our attention to the dizzying array of festival possibilities.

We are in the throes of mapping out a schedule to include both some of our favorites as well as some new stops.

Here's the way it looks thus far:

DelFest
May 26-29
http://www.delfest.com/

SmileFest
June 3-5
http://www.smilefest.com/

DMB Caravan
June 24-26
http://www.dmbcaravan.com/

All Good Festival
July 14-17
http://www.allgoodfestival.com/

FloydFest
July 28-31
http://www.floydfest.com/

Elysian Fields
August 5-7
http://www.elysianfieldsmusic.com/

Music on the Mountaintop
August 26-27
http://www.musiconthemountaintop.com/

Pickin in the Panhandle
Sept 9-11
http://www.panhandlepickin.com/

Watermelon Park
Sept 22-25
http://www.watermelonpark.com/

The Festy
October 7-9
http://www.thefesty.com/

Crozet Music
October TBA
http://www.crozetmusicfestival.com/

WHEW!

That's a whole lot of rolling, camping, shooting and writing, but it looks like a great line up and we can't wait! There are a few obvious omissions....and while we can't make them all, we're certainly open to suggestions. Anyone?

The Lawrence Olds Quartet

Between the Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Sometimes Favorites, and Galactic just to name a few that popped out at me from the packed music schedule, it was, as usual, a busy weekend in Charlottesville.

Buried on that list was a band you’ve probably yet to hear about, The Lawrence Olds Quartet, hailing from RVA.

Likely, you've not heard of them for a variety of legitimate reasons. First, despite the straight shot on Route 64, Richmond, musically, is another planet. Second, they’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, and they’re just, literally, getting back behind the wheel with a new release called “A Second Chance.”

If you read their blog, (http://www.lawrenceolds.com/), or the liner notes on A Second Chance, you can piece together the story behind the release’s title. You see, Lawrence, a former JMU footballer, is as big and strong as they come. You wouldn’t expect a guy like that to succumb to a rogue infection, lose part of his lung and almost die. But that’s where he found himself last year. Lying in the ICU, he announced to everyone in the room that not only was he going to get better, but he also was going to release a CD to celebrate his second chance.

True to his word, Lawrence has gone and done just that, and playing to an intimate and appreciative crowd at Cville Coffee this Saturday, the Lawrence Olds Quartet kicked off what I’m sure will be an increasing presence here.

Beyond the standards, I’ll admit that I don’t know a whole lot about jazz, but I do know that this quartet has a special combination of skilled musicianship, velvety vocals and, well, darn it, just plain LOVE about what they are doing and why. They’ve taken songs that I knew, and many that I didn’t added their own arrangement and polish and they’ve hit the road with them, driving hard from jazz to blues and back.

I took my kid to this show, and Lawrence says he loves nothing better than to see younger fans in the audience. “I love that kind of vibe, where kids can really get turned on by the stand up bass or the guitar riffs.” I wasn’t surprised to find my son at the end of the show up front and center with guitarist Chris Whiteman, asking questions and telling him all about the lessons he has started taking.

I want these guys to play at my house. Or maybe at your house, and you could invite me. But, barring that, I want them to make a return trip to Charlottesville as soon as possible and I want you to be there when they do!

The Lawrence Olds quartet is Lawrence Olds, Chris Whiteman, Charlie Kilpatrick and Mike Hawkins.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops add it up for us!

We had the distinct honor and privilege to not only attend but also to interview and photograph the newly Grammy Award anointed Carolina Chocolate Drops this weekend when they played to a foot stomping, lyric hollering, hand clapping sold out crowd at the Jefferson Theatre.

The results of our encounter are posted at The Bluegrass Blog:

http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/carolina-chocolate-drops-2/

More photos can be seen at:

http://www.blogger.com/www.photosbymilo.com


At the risk of doing the math for you.....

If you've seen them then you already know.

If you haven't, you need to!

Here comes the sun.....

Slowly but surely, the Festival Project is beginning to thaw out and reemerge into the beautiful spring sunshine. On a day like today, when it is 70+ degrees here, all I can think about is WHEN IS THE NEXT FESTIVAL? BRING IT ON!!!

Of course, when I imply that "we" are thawing out, I actually mean me, and not Milo. Milo has been hard at work taking fabulous pics, and supporting local music here all winter, while I've been hibernating. If you haven't been keeping track, catch up with him here:

www.photosbymilo.com

Good stuff, including some Yonder Mountain from their show this week!

In the meantime, takea minute if you can and show a little love to a brand new blogger friend of ours here: www. odetorockandroll.blogspot.com

Sharing the love, until next time!