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Sept. 2018: REDS Band

May I have your attention, please!

Hello Friends - We are ready for the delicious debut disc of REDS band. Who dat you asks??

Well, it's like this. REDS Band is a talented and energetic teen folk quartet from right here in Olympia, Washington. On their excellent debut, produced by fiddle virtuoso Lisa Ornstein, they play fiddle music of Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Scandinavia, and America. They play with verve and conviction; sometimes they jump in the air with the exuberance of porpoises dancing on waves.

The band members, bothers Dante and Eros Faulk plus brothers River and Sage Scheuerell, have been chums since they were little. They started out playing contemporary and classical music but have come to love and share trad music in its many varieties and styles. The lads play traditional tunes, original compositions and develop all their own intricate arrangements for their take on traditional classics. Their norm is two fiddles, guitar and cello, but on their debut album, they also play bodhran (Irish drum), mandolin, bouzouki, shruti box. And foot.

REDS Band gigs regularly around the Pacific Northwest, having appeared at the NW Folklife Festival, Wintergrass, Bellingham Folk Festival, Olympia Old Time Festival, Olympia Fall Arts Walk, Washington Center for the Performing Arts Young Ambassadors Showcase, and opened for the world-renowned fiddle/cello duo, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, Newgrass master Darol Anger and Cello Goblin, Rushad Eggleston, as well as Irish Celtgrass originators, We Banjo 3. That's pretty cool.

They take their music seriously, and have studied with a who’s who of international masters of traditional music including the famous people in the last paragraph, Bruce Molsky,  Mark O’Connor, Pascal Gemme, Jeremy Kittel, Mike Block, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, André Brunet, Evan Price, Paul Mehling, Randal Bays, Anders Hall, Adam Johansson, Yann Falquet, Renata Bratt, Foghorn String Band, and more.

If that isn't enough, a 45-minute performance documentary by Olympia filmmaker Bill Lange is scheduled for fall release. As in any minute it will be out.

This is the second GMR release for Dante and Eros – last year’s duo album Beirt got some sweet press. A much younger River released a solo CD in 2014, River’s Edge.

I don't see any gigs scheduled on their Facebook page, but keep an eye on it - they play out pretty often.

In other news, yes Virginia, there will be a GMR Xmas album again this year. I put out the word to folks about a week ago and it looks like there will be plenty of participants. The True Olympians will be recording "Christmas Train" and "Lonely Little Christmas Tree" this Wednesday. If you or someone you know has a holiday-ish number aching to break out of their heart, just drop me a line and let me know.

I mentioned last month that there is a 2-disc vinyl release of The Green Pajamas - Strung Behind the Sun  by our English friends at Sugarbush Records and we should have copies for sale at GMR pretty soon.  If you want it on the original out-of-print CD you can get that from us right now or you can get the download from Jeff at the Green Pajama's Secret Day site.

I have one more bit of pure insaneness.  We will be releasing the debut of WENIS - The Donut House:  Seattle 1980. possibly as early as October. For those of you going wot????, Wenis was Al Bloch's band following The Cheaters and before The Deans, The Al Bloch - My Favorite MartianBombardiers, Concrete Blonde, Wool and My Favorite Martian. We featured the latter as AotM way back in 2010. As with My Favorite Martian, Al was the STAR in Wenis - he sang all the songs. And you know at GMR we are fans of Mr. Bloch. In addition to Wenis, we are going to make My Favorite Martian available to the public via the GMR site. Very exciting indeed. I convinced Al to do this by telling him I would get him on Spotify which pays nothing. Who could resist a sales pitch like that! For those of you who need some Wenis now, you may enjoy this Wenis video posted by Rupert Pumpkin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4RM7fYcAfM

As nearly as I can tell nobody has any shows coming up.

That is all there is for now. Carry on.

td
September 2018

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