Thrown Under the Love Bus

Our weekend at the Clear Mtn View Music Festival. Tin Foil Hats and all!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 19:03:00 +0000

Howdy All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios,

We're just coming off a full weekend at the Clear Mountain View Music Festival, where we jammed with some of our very best friends all weekend long.

This festival wasn't a big festival, maybe 500 or 600 people there, but it is proof that you really do have more fun at smaller festivals. It is like having a huge private party where your friends can bring their friends and their friends can bring friends-- just like in college, but the cops don't show up at 3am telling everyone to leave.

On Friday we were over at Scott and Karen's house, and the girls (I think Beth was the instigator) decided we all needed tin-foil hats so the NSA, aliens, and Facebook couldn't read our minds. So they made hats for about 2 hours before we headed off to the festival.

So about 3 songs into our set we look out and see heads turning silver...

The great thing about live music is being able to interact with the audience. Sometimes, when things are going really great, the band follows the audience's example.

If there was ever a festival with our very best friends, this was it.

Alex from L Shape Lot

Our good friend Roger Padgett

Ross Bogan who we first met with Mama's Love and now plays with Sol Driven Train

Mark Schimick and Josh Daniel from their aptly named Josh Daniel and Mark Schimick Project.

James Bernabe. He is making some of the best mandolins around these days.

Joey, Isaac Corbitt and the L Shape Lot boys. Eric is such a nice guy.

Isaac Corbitt from The Corbitt Brothers Band.

Scott....just crushin' it.

And the friends and family....

Thanks for supporting us, everyone! See you soon!

--Big Daddy Love

BDL, Yarn, and The Willow Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 16:31:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

Last Saturday we got to be a part of the Grand Opening night of the Willow Tree Coffee House and Music Room in Johnson City, TN. Most of you will know that this new venue has been opened by our good friend Teri Dosher, along with her daughter Zoe (we blogged about it at the end of this post), and it is a big step toward fulfilling their dream of operating a top-notch music venue. Operating a venue is one of the toughest challenges in the music biz, but I have never seen a place get off to a better start than the Willow Tree.

Many months ago, when Teri was trying to put this night together, she told me that she wanted us and Yarn to play and that she was going to get "300 people to come!" I said, "No way, we can't get that many people to come out in Johnson City!" But, being the ever-optimist, she said she was going to do it. So as we were playing Saturday night to about 400 people, both old friends and new, in this beautiful room, I just had to smile at her and say, "You did it."

This shot shows about 1/3 of the huge crowd that came out.

Here is a link to the show recording, courtesy of Jeff Prater.

We decided to go warrior style with some face paint.

Yarn just killed it. They really are one of the best bands playing today. If you get the chance to see them, do it! Here is a link to their set (thanks Jeff Prater!).

Here's a great video of us playing the classic song "Sugaree" with Andrew from Yarn getting up with us and just laying it down!

Big Daddy Love with Yarn - Sugaree [Grateful Dead] from Mike Nichols on Vimeo.

The highlight of the night was the BDL/Yarn collaboration set. We just got onstage and went for it. We didn't really know what songs we were going to play, but in the moment we came up with "I Know You Rider," "Can't Find My Way Home," the great Neil Young tune "Helpless," and lastly "Turn on Your Lovelight"

When you hang out with Yarn, the party doesn't stop, so after most of the crowd had left Blake fired up a great acoustic jam in the back kitchen.

Queens of Trouble - Beth Recchio and Karen Moss

See more photos by Jenny Viars from this amazing night here.

Behind the scenes of BDL there is a constant symbiotic force that both has our backs and is also along for the fun ride. In fact, sometimes I'm not sure who is having more fun here: us or Scott's dad and his "posse." The things they do for us range from cooking great dinners at festivals to filming and producing the entire "Live At Ziggy's" DVD. But they are not afraid to hop on a plane, along with the "Queens of Trouble" Karen Moss and Beth Recchio, and come down to the Florida Keys and hang out with us a few days.

Driving from Marathon Key to Key West, with "The Posse"

Here's a video of Gary's Gang, as they romp around the state having more fun than anyone I know.

Thanks for the support, everyone! We are headed up to Woodstock, NY to record our next album at the great Applehead Studios. We'll be posting updates as we go, and keep a lookout for our Kickstarter program to help fund this project.

See y'all soon!
Brian and BDL

Looking back at 2013, what a great year.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:22:00 +0000

Howdy everyone!

The idea of writing a year-end review of 2013 is a little daunting but also quite worthy, as we’ve had one helluva year. I asked the ever-helpful Jenny Viars to give me a quick review sheet to work with, and as I was reading through it, I started thinking, “I can’t believe all this happened to us in one year." We released a live album, made several trips out west, played "Shakedown Street" with Keller Williams--twice, opened for Lukas Nelson, opened for Bob Seger in front of 10,000 people, played a ton of festivals, and made a whole lot of new friends and family along the way.

Playing to a sold-out crowd at PNC Arena in Raleigh in our opening set for Bob Seger

Instead of trying to recap everything that has happened in our incredible year, I wanted to share a few memorable stories that we haven't really had the chance to tell.

We also have a little something special here. This video is from our viewpoint on New Year's Eve with a GoPro camera. So if you've ever wondered what a BDL show looks like from our point of view, here you go!

I listed some of the obvious highlights above, but there are also the not-so-obvious highlights like getting towed off the top of a mountain in Colorado in the middle of the night at zero degrees. I don't think we've told this story yet, so here goes. It is kind of long, but it is the craziest experience we've ever been through, so hopefully it'll be worth it.

Our trip to Colorado this past February caught us in no less than three big-ass snowstorms. Most bands would never be that lucky, but obviously we're special. We had to drive from Breckenridge to Durango--a trip that should take 6 hours, not 30. It started snowing on us in the early afternoon, so to be safe we decided we would try out our handy-dandy snow chains on the van. We have a big heavy van towing a big heavy trailer, and at the time we were on some pretty worn out, bald tires. We knew we had to make it over two different mountain passes to get there; as the roads started to get white, we decided to go ahead and "chain-up" while it was still light out. We got the chains on and got back onto the road; after about 45 seconds of being beat to death by the chains on the pavement, we decided to take them back off and just go for the first pass. As we got higher, the roads got whiter, and the sunset was beautiful. It's an odd feeling watching a beautiful sunset over majestic mountains and at the same time not knowing if you are going to make it around the next curve or not.

The first pass wasn't too bad. We drove slow, and my love of stunt driving in the snow as a teenager in Sparta helped a little. (We would actually go out driving in snowstorms and try to get the cops to turn around and come after us, just to see if we could get away. That was back when they still drove the Crown Vics, not the trucks they have today. See kids, the stupid things you do when you're young DO pay off!)

We came down into the valley below the famed Telluride and started up the next pass. It was very dark by this point and these roads were steep and sinuous. Somehow we actually made it to the top of this pass. At the peak we stopped again to put the chains back on. We were about 10K feet up on icy, snowy roads and knew going down was going to be rough. NC has this wonderful invention called "guard rails" that they place around bad curves to keep you from falling off a mountain. Colorado has yet to find this advanced technology and prefers to deal with the problem with a technique called "high-angle rescue" with their firefighters. We did not want to experience this high-angle rescue--or 500-foot-bottom-of-ravine rescue either, for that matter.

We didn't make it very far before the van lost traction and started sliding. I had two options for the slide -- go left into the ditch, or right off the cliff. After some pondering I decided left would do just fine. We got stopped and sat there for a few minutes, allowing the full "WTF just happened" feeling to wrap itself around us. Heavy van, heavy trailer, and icy roads with a cliff to one side....crap. We called our friends in Durango and asked what we should do, and they laughed at us and wished us good luck.

This is where things got interesting. We called two towing services and they don’t answer. Joey got an answer on the third try and patiently explained the situation. The guy says he'll come get us and take us to the hotel in Telluride. Joey tells him we are a traveling band and that we can either pay for a towing bill or a hotel, but not both.

Towing service owner: "Oh, I see...well, is everyone cool?"

Joey: "Umm...yeah, we're cool."

Owner: "I mean, is. everyone. cool?!"

Joey: "Yes! Everyone. Is. Cool!"

Owner: "Okay then, you can stay with me."

Two hours later two trucks pulled up. One was driven by a good-ole Colorado country boy, and he called his truck "Bull Dog." The roll-back truck was driven by someone who had very little experience. After much yelling and cussing from the Bull Dog driver to the rookie we finally got the van onto the roll-back and the trailer attached to the Bull Dog. The next problem was where to put the five of us. There wasn't enough room in the tow trucks and putting us back into the van on top of the roll-back would be the dumbest and most dangerous, not to mention illegal, option. So obviously, that's what we decided to do. Keep in mind it is literally zero degrees and windy on top of this mountain pass through this whole process.

Remember the scene in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf is leading the fellowship over the Caradhras mountain pass? That's what it felt like for a few moments.

As we climbed up the roll-back and got into the van, the first thing we notice is how incredibly high we are off the ground. Imagine being in a very tall truck that is stacked onto another very high truck and then riding around icy roads with 500 foot cliffs to one side, because that’s exactly what was happening. And just to make the entire experience more surreal, the yellow flashing lights on top of the truck were exactly eye level to us and made the inside of the van feel like a disco-rave party.

We wound our way back down the mountain--and keep in mind the rookie is driving us, not the veteran with Bull Dog. He was driving fast, too. Everyone one of us imagined the physics laws that would apply to a van on top of a roll-back flipping off a mountain. The part of me that loves thrills had to enjoy this, by the very nature of thrill-seeking. The part of me that wanted to continue living wasn’t so sure.

We got to the owner's house, a modest mountain cabin up a one-lane gravel road, and they pull the trucks in and both drivers just walk inside and tell us to wait out here. After everything we’d been through at this point you would think we’d just be relieved, but standing outside this house in the middle of nowhere, knowing that we were at the mercy of these crazy mountain dudes, was not a secure feeling. It felt like they were in there forever. Enough time for them to decide how to kill us, bury the bodies, and sell everything they had just scored. We are not paranoid people, mind you, but dammit, we’ve seen these movies before! We know how this goes down!

It was probably 15 minutes until they came out. It felt like an hour. But they came out and invited us inside where we met the owner, an older guy who had obviously lived in these mountains for a very long time. He was a nice laid-back guy, with a well-earned lifetime stoner vibe, and for the first time in about 8 hours we were able to sit down and relax as he and Wookie discussed the finer points of the decriminalization process.

I slept better that night than I did the entire trip. We woke up to a snowy wonderland of mountains, tall pines, and deep blue skies. We got the van hooked back up to the trailer, said our “thank you for saving our asses” goodbyes and slowly went down the one-lane road to the pavement. Oh the sweet, sweet pavement. We headed west, out of the mountains, and took the long way to Durango. 30 hours into our 6 hour trip we pulled into our friend’s house and cracked the first of many well-deserved beers.

When you start your year out like that, everything else seems pretty easy.

Last week a group of us had a rare Saturday night off, so we headed up to Johnson City to celebrate the opening of a music venue/coffee shop called The Willow Tree. This place is a dream realized, and we’ve been lucky enough to experience the entire process. We read about people who just give it all up and follow their heart, but rarely do we see it with our own eyes. One of the great things about what we do is getting to meet a lot of amazing people: as we play a part in their lives with our music, they become part of our lives as well.

The chain of events that led to us being there started several years ago when we noticed a lady named Teri Dosher and her daughter Zoe showing up at our gigs in different parts of NC. They were both very sweet and genuine and just lived for live music. Through the years we’ve all become great friends, so when Teri decided she was going to follow her heart and open a music venue, we were some of the first people to know and have helped as much as we can through the process.

As we were standing there on Saturday night watching our friends The Red Dirt Revelators play, I just thought to myself how lucky we are to meet people like this and to be there to witness such big moments in their lives. There is the business side of what we do, but there’s this whole other side that can’t be put into an accounting book. Those are the days that keep us moving forward.

We're also really excited to play The Willow Tree grand opening party on February 8, along with our friends Yarn.

If you've made it this far then you're either quite a fan or just bored. Either way, I thank you. We are sitting in Florida right now and will be heading down to the Keys here in a few. I know, I know, tough life right? It almost makes up for being stranded in the middle of the night on a 10,000 foot mountain top.

Thanks for sticking with us through it all, and hopefully we'll be seeing you soon.

BDL

Our Summer Tour Out West

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 20:11:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

As we got back from the longest tour we've ever attempted, everyone asked the exact same question: "So, how was it?," which is a much harder question to answer honestly than you'd think. A band the size of ours lives on the extreme ends of the spectrum. If we told you all the hard parts you'd say, "Well that sounds terrible. I'd never want to do that." But if we told you all the good parts you'd say, "That sounds like the best American road trip ever!" The answer lies in the middle, but I think we'd all easily agree that the trip was really great. We got to have the quintessential American road trip experiences; walking along the waterfront of Chicago in the summer, seeing The Badlands, going to Mt. Rushmore, driving through the beautiful state of Montana, walking around the mythical Sturgis SD, and going up in the Gateway Arch in St Louis.

We played 21 gigs in 25 days. Some of them were unexpectedly awesome, and some of them were pretty rough. But we expected as much on that front. It is always nice to find little pockets of coolness, like Lander, WY, which reminded me a lot of Santa Fe as it was a melting pot of extremely different people who share a passion for live music. Or the amount of people that came up to us saying they were from somewhere in the South and that our music reminded them of "home." We heard that a lot and loved it.

Here are a few pics of our trip!

This is the stage we played on in Chicago. This was a really cool place, right on the waterfront.

Our first night in Montana we camped at a small little campground off the highway. Joey and Wook got in some "Hippie Olympics" before we left.

Part of our trip followed the legendary Lewis and Clark trail. Pompey's Pillar was a natural landmark that became famous in westward expansion. Clark carved his name into the rock here.

We had time to take a great hike up to a swimming hole called "The Devil's Bathtub" in Spearfish SD.

In Creede, CO we camped right beside a beautiful stream. As you can see, we are hammock camping converts. Sleeping in a hammock is 1000 times more comfy than sleeping on the ground!

A quick stop at Mt Rushmore.

Some of the beautiful scenery we drove through.

One of my favorite things we did was go up into the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. We've driven by it many times, and it is always impressive to see from the highway. But you don't realize how unbelievable this thing is until you stand under it and then go to the top. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Karen Moss and Beth Recchio had joined us by this part, and those two immediately double our party factor.

Riding up in the tiny little "pod."

This is looking straight down. Those tiny things are CARS down there!!

Looking straight up.

Before you go...

Thanks for keeping up with us, and please check out our schedule as we'll be playing a lot of southeastern shows in the next couple of months.

See ya there,
Brian and BDL

Upcoming Shows
8/15 Davidson, NC Carrburritos
8/16 High Point, NC Blue Bourbon Jack's
8/17 Private Event
8/22-
8/24 Lawndale, NC Clear Mountain View Music Festival
8/29 Washington, DC Hill Country Backyard BBQ
8/30 Terra Alta, WV Two Rivers Music and Arts Festival
8/31 Stuart, VA Front Porch Festival
9/1 Kill Devil Hills, NC Outer Banks Brewing Station
9/2 Beaufort, NC Backstreet Pub

BDL in early summer '13 - From Mountain Tops to Islands, BIG Festivals and Keller Williams

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:50:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Love Bussin' Daddios!

We just kicked off our big summer tour yesterday. I know I'm more excited about seeing MT, WY, and SD than anywhere we've been so far. We'll be posting pics, and I will do my best to get a travel blog posted on one of our days off.

If you have any friends in these places, please let them know we're on our way!
And don't forget our new album is now available on iTunes!

I wanted to give a recap of our summer so far, before we really get into the Western tour. The highlight of early June was playing in Johnson City at the Blue Plum Festival with Keller Williams sitting in on the groovy disco Grateful Dead tune "Shakedown Street." But for me, the behind-the-scenes story of how we got to that point is just as cool, and it is the perfect example of how one person can make such a big difference to a band like us. I'm not sure where Teri Dosher saw us first, but several years ago we realized we had a new "super-fan," as we like to call them. She would drive several hours with her daughter Zoe and come see us play, buy albums and t-shirts, and be generally very supportive, positive, laid-back and happy to be in the moment. Teri started lobbying the owner of a great venue in Johnson City called "The Down Home" to get us a gig there. It took a little while, but the owner, Ed Snodderly, finally got a date settled, and we came to play our first gig for him. We had a small crowd that night, mostly all Teri's friends, but Ed just loved us. Our manager, Tom, always reminds us that sometimes when we go to brand new places we're basically there to play for the owner. Because when an owner of a venue gets behind you then it becomes much easier to build a crowd in the market. That night Ed Snodderly became a new fan and then gave us a prime slot at the Blue Plum Festival, right before Keller and the Traveling McCoury's. So as we're standing onstage with an American Jam Scene legend playing "Shakedown Street," in the back of my mind I'm thinking about how we got to this point, and how everything we do is an accumulation of everyone around us. Never underestimate the passion of a single fan.

In the middle of the month we headed to Goat Island off the coast of SC and played a party/celebration-of-life for a friend of ours who passed away earlier this year in a scuba accident. It was a really beautiful day in every single way. We've talked about Keith several times, and Joey wrote a really great fan of the week post about Keith.
**[If you're interested, I actually wrote a more detailed post about the experience over on Lonesome Banjo Chronicles.]

The Blue Ridge BBQ and Music Festival in Tryon, NC is another example of how much it helps to have festival and venue owners and promoters behind you. Benton Wharton (think of all the huge shows at Pisgah Brewing near Asheville) has been a BDL fan from the very beginning. This festival usually has very established and national names as headliners, like Donna the Buffalo and Acoustic Syndicate. So to be able to jump up to that level in just a few years is really cool for us!

We also just had our first Ocracoke Island experience. This place is just magical, especially when you have great venue owners like Red and Ashley of Gaffer's. Could this be a possible NYE destination for the Love Bus?? Hmmmm.....we'll see!

All of this leads us to this past weekend, which I think might have been one of the most fun weekends in BDL history. It's rare that we get to spend a full weekend traveling with friends and family, but everything worked out for this trip. Scott and Joey's wives, Karen and Beth, were able to travel the whole weekend with us, along with our good friends Cassie Gold, and Travis and Jenny Viars.

We started at the Whitewater Center near Charlotte, NC. This has turned into one of the coolest places in the entire state. They've built a new festival-style stage on the "island" and are now hosting regional and national names in music on a continuous basis. Once again we got to jam with Keller Williams.

As we escaped one of the two epic bursts of thunderstorm that day, we had one of the best backstage moments ever, as the girls decided to perform for us.

BDL friends and Family

In some ways it was a "Spinal Tap" weekend. We went from playing for almost 8,000 people at the Whitewater Center near Charlotte, to driving high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwestern VA to a tiny little mountain lodge and resort (some of the scenes from Dirty Dancing were filmed there) to play for about 40 people. But sometimes the most random nights turn out the best, and we finished early and were able to just enjoy being together on top of a mountain for a full night of nonsensical ninja shenanigans. Just one of those perfect nights with good friends.

Then there's The Big What.....

I don't know what to say about this festival. There are some experiences that are almost beyond words and this is one of them. Our brothers from the band Big Something, along with Jeremy Bell and the Possum Holler crew, have worked their butts off to make this one great experience. I don't know of any other festival that has tapped into the burgeoning NC music scene on such a deep level.

We wanted a BIG surprise for the festival, and we realized that covering a Big Something song in front of Big Something at their very own festival would be perfect. So we learned one of their most popular songs, "Amanda Lynn," and the looks on their faces when we played it was priceless. One of them came up to me afterward and said, "moments like that are why we put on this festival!"

Casey Cranford jamming with us

Our good friend Ross from the band Mama's Love played part of the set with us on keys.

Wild Wooly What in the Woods! (Kevin James photographer)

We ended the weekend playing for our good friend Brad Edwards. Brad was one of the first to sign up for our Sunday Afternoon parties that helped with our "Live At Ziggy's" project. Of course, being the awesome guy that Brad is, he used the party to raise money for the Alleghany County 4-H. If there was ever a couple that embody everything amazing about Sparta, NC, it is Brad and Susan Edwards (below). They put community and family before themselves, and it is because of people like this that Joey and I will always consider Sparta "home," no matter where we go.

Brad and Susan Edwards

Thanks to everyone for jumping onto this crazy adventure with us!

Brian and BDL

Our night opening for Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:29:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

This is the story of when we opened for Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band in Raleigh, NC. At the end some of our closest friends have written about their experience of this night. Enjoy...

Saturday morning, a week before the show, we were waking up at Scott and Karen's house and Scott got a call from his friend David White, the venue owner at Brackett Cedar Park where we were scheduled to play the following weekend. David told Scott that he got a call from our agent about the possibility of us having to postpone our show for a chance to open for Bob Seger in Raleigh. Our booking agent, Chris, has a ton of experience and doesn't throw out rumors like that unless there's some solid meat behind it, so we at least knew there was a good chance that this was real. But even then, until something has a contract behind it things can change in a heartbeat, so you learn to not get too excited. At the same time, wow, a full arena show! A chance to experience the "Big Time" for just a few brief moments. These are the moments that we spend years working up to. Of course there were the obligatory high-brow grumblings of how commercial Seger is. Musicians never miss an easy opportunity to establish their place on the high and mighty, yet illogical, real music vs commercial music spectrum. It's a nearly automatic reflex conditioned by decades in the non-commercial world of folky Americana. All that aside, a chance to play for 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 people? Oh yeah! (Little did we know the arena would be full when we started with upwards of 10,000 people!)

As Monday morning rolled around we got the word that the opportunity was there. Seger management heard us and really liked our sound and wanted to confirm it fast. Our manager, Tom, called me and started out with, "We have a big decision to make." He knew the Brackett Ceder Park gig was a hometown gig for Scott and people had been making plans to camp, so he was approaching it with utmost diplomacy. I just started laughing and said, "There's no decision here, of course we'll do it!" These are the opportunities that we've worked so hard for in the last few years, and they come few and far between, so you jump when they appear.

The week leading up to the show we were all asked the same question a hundred times, "Are you excited?" I started thinking about this, and I realized it is both a yes and no answer. Of course we're excited: this is huge! But at the same time, all of us have played music for so long now that we've really learned to take things day by day, and we were concentrating much more on the Thursday show at the Berkeley Cafe in Raleigh, and the Friday show at High Rock Outfitters in Lexington. Both venues are home-away-from-home places for us. I'm sure we spent much less mental energy on the Seger show than anyone would believe. Big shows like this can remain just an idea in the distant future until you're about to walk onstage in front of all those people, and then everything just hits you at once. The beauty of this experienced mindset paid off as we played two of the best shows of our career both at the Berkeley and at High Rock that weekend. You've heard of sports teams losing an easy game because they're "looking ahead to the next week." Well, we've found a group that plays their hearts out whether it's 100 people or 10,000 people.

They asked us to get to the arena at 3:00 pm on Saturday, so we could play the age-old game of "hurry up and wait." As we were driving in, someone commented how different it is to be able to find the venue by just following the signs for it off the interstate -- sometimes it's the little things. A road crew of about 10 people walked out to help us carry all our gear into the cavernous opening at the back of the arena - always an odd feeling when we're so used to carrying everything ourselves. When they walked out and asked if they could help, we almost found ourselves giving the perfunctory "Naw, we got it." But then we realized it's their job, and they're really good at it.

We waited for a few hours and got the word that we can set ourselves up and sound check. It is always such a pleasure working with sound crews of this caliber, people who know what they're doing and take pride in doing their job perfectly.

There is such a combination of emotions running through you as you walk onto a stage in front of a crowd of that size. Nervousness is obviously one of the strongest, which is just plain human nature. Excitement is there too. You think about everything you've done to get to this point, like all those Monday nights we played at J Butler's in Clemmons, NC, packed into a tiny corner and having to share space with guys addicted to the digital slot machine. You think about the future and wonder if this experience will happen again, or maybe with a little luck and hard work if this could be a normal thing. The songs you've played 1000 times seem almost new to you -- as they should. You look out into the 15 rows of people that you can see, noticing all the brand new faces, and wonder what they are thinking. But mostly you just enjoy the music, because at the end of the day that's the one thing that drives us, to play music that we really love....and maybe, just maybe, make a good living doing it.

Cass Copsey killin' it on trumpet!

Our direct emotional support team -- Beth, Christy, Karen, Megan

This really happened.

A couple of us did not expect them to turn off the house lights for our set. A lot of times they will save that dramatic entrance effect for the headliner, but what do you know, they cut the lights and the stage was the only thing lit up. As the crowd let out a louder cheer than we deserved I thought to myself, "Oh my God, they think we're Seger! I hope they don't boo us when they realize we aren't!" I hustled up to Scott and told him, "They think we're Seger. You should probably tell them we aren't." Try and head off those boos before they happened. Scott nailed it with his engaging, upbeat stage presence that crowds just love.

I think that we were all feeling pretty good about our set, fluctuating between "I think they like us" to "At least they're not booing." At the end of Sweet Child when the crowd jumped to their feet and gave a huge arena style ROAR, we took a big collective breath of air and knew that we were doing pretty good. We launched right into Sweet Water with our friend and old sound engineer, Cass Copsey, blowing the hell out of a trumpet, and again, another standing ovation as we walked off-stage. It felt good, really good. All the practice, all the shows where nobody shows up, all the rough days traveling, all of that got us here, and it felt great.

I want to say one last thing before I let some of our closest friends and family describe their experience on this night -- Seger was really amazing. He's in his upper 60's and his voice is as strong as ever. All of the glowing reviews of his shows this year are well deserved. Even his song, "Turn The Page," -- the song that's been overplayed on classic rock stations to the point of exhaustion -- sounded fresh, and I found myself caught up with it. Any performer that can play songs that are decades old and give them a fresh new life, as if they were just written, is someone that deserves much artistic respect. I expected to enjoy his show, but I had no idea just how much I would. Seger sets the bar for an amazing career, and I'm glad he's still going strong.

We were lucky to have some of our closest friends and family join us here. A few of them have sent me paragraphs describing their experience. You have to remember, the 5 of us have been at every BDL show together for the last year, but we've never seen a BDL show. We have no idea what it is like from the audience standpoint. So here's some audience perspective from people who've seen us every step of the way.

Jennifer Swenk:
I was excited all week about BDL playing at PNC arena. As the days and hours clicked by my excitement (and anxiety) grew. I felt so nervous for them, getting on stage and playing in front of 10,000 people! Not worried that it wouldn't go good, because I knew they would bring it, but just that nervous anxious feeling you get when something big is about to happen. Sitting with my friends we were all a flutter, talking to each other, making BDL connections around us, and waiting, waiting for the clock to finally strike 8. When the lights went down and they took the stage it was surreal. Watching our boys walk around the bend and climb the stairs was magical. The next 35 minutes went by in a blur. I kept looking at the crowd and watching more and more heads bop up and down and knees dancing in the seats. I watched as our boys played their hearts out, they left nothing on the table, they were all in. The energy emitting from the stage didn't take long to ignite the crowd; and by the time Sweet Child of Mine rolled around, the crowd was hooked! We were all teared up and filled with immense pride watching it unfold. It was amazing, one of the most special things I've experienced in my life and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

Jeremy Bell:
I was fortunate enough to join BDL last Saturday as part of the crew, so I had all access to the entire arena from 3pm until after midnight. I started my day helping the guys unload the van, which didn't take very long because the arena had plenty of staff to make this happen with ease. After that I went into their dressing room where it was a typical green room scene, snacks on the table, Swenk picking the banjo, Ashley smiling and talking to whoever came through the door, Scott Moss being his normal cheerful self, Joey with his clever one liners, taking it all in without even a hit of nervousness, and Scotty Lewis keeping it all together and keeping the vibe in the room nice and calm. I was probably the most nervous of everybody in there, and all I had to do was listen to the music that was getting ready to happen.

At 7:55 I was standing on the side of the stage with all 5 of them, I could sense a little nervousness, a little anxiety, and a ton of excitement. At 7:59 iPhone time, the lights in the arena went down and the crowd erupted with applause, I'm sure thinking "Bob Seger is coming on early!" The five guys I had been hanging out with all day walked up on that stage like they owned it and took their respective positions like they've done hundreds of times before. The crowd was still cheering when Scott Moss said "We're Big Daddy Love from Winston Salem North Carolina and all I can say is wooooooooooow!" From that point on the 19,731 [editor's note: closer to 10,000] people in there were hooked. They opened with Family and the crowd was still very much into them, then Swenk started playing... the place went nuts again when he started playing that banjo, and they all knew they were in for a treat.

I walked from the side of the stage, through the metal barricade and into the floor seating area to go find a seat, instead I found a beer vendor. I got in the very short line behind 3 women, all dancing like they knew this song. Less than a minute later, and $8 poorer I was on my way again. I decided early in the day that I was going to watch the BDL set from a seat as far away from the stage as I could get because I never get to experience them like that. I found a seat in the very last row straight in front of the stage just below the luxury boxes. From Scotty's kick drum shaking my shirt to Joey's smoking guitar, this was by far the best seat in the house!

I sat there in awe and truly couldn't believe what I was seeing how comfortable they all looked, I could see them very well on the 2 jumbo screens on each side of the stage. From song to song, all 5 of them owned that crowd and it was very obvious that they were doing what they were born to do. After every song the crowd cheered like they were seeing the band they had waited all day to see all day, and wanted more.

Scott Moss, Brian Swenk, Joey Reccio, Ashley Sutton, and Scotty Lewis are by far some of the best people I have met in this crazy North Carolina music scene and they deserve the chance to play in front a crowd that size. I hope that this opens up many doors for them. They certainly deserve it.

Teri Dosher:
While sitting at the PNC Arena Saturday night, waiting for BIG DADDY LOVE to take the stage, I thought back to December 2009. We had made a road trip to Winston Salem to see Yarn play at the Garage, after the show I met Ashley Sutton and he said I should check out his new band BIG DADDY LOVE. Rhythm and Roots in Bristol the next September was my first chance, I was sucked in right away, not just because the music was great, but you could tell they loved what they did, and they loved the people who loved them, they had what I call really good karma. I was hooked, I’ve traveled many miles, and visited many venues to see them play live, sang their praises far and wide, and I have made so many wonderful friends along the way. The guys in BIG DADDY LOVE are some of the nicest people you will ever meet and their fans are as well. I knew one day, if the world was right, they would get the attention they deserve. So Saturday night, when they took the stage in front of all of those people, I could feel magic was about to happen, and when they wrapped up “Sweet Child of Mine” (which also happened to be the song that let me know “everything was gonna be alright” the first time I heard Scott Moss take the lead) and 10,000 stood up and cheered, it brought tears to my eyes. It was a beautiful night for all of those who have loved BIG DADDY LOVE from the very beginning and for all of those who got a chance to finally hear them for the first time.

Kelly Farmer:
As our group walked down to our seats, it was exciting to see that most of the arena had already been filled with fans. They were going to be glad they got there early. Any similarities to other opening bands stopped when Joey hit the slide for the first time. I laughed out loud as I watched people snap to attention. The BDL “hook” had been set. Conversations were stopped. As BDL rolled through the set list, phones came out, people started getting on their feet, and the dancing began. After a 35 minute set and two standing ovations, the new fans were high-fiving, fist-bumping, and smiling that "BDL" smile. Even though they came for Seger, I knew the Love Bus was going to be a lot more crowded on the way home.

Camille Hall:
Words cannot begin to describe the emotions I felt as BDL walked onto the stage Saturday night in Raleigh. It was if I was walking onto the stage with them. My heart was racing, my hands were sweating, my knees were shaking and tears were falling from my eyes. I have believed in the talent found in this band for four years so it was like I was living a dream also. They did an incredible job. Hearing them with that size and quality of sound equipment was like hearing them for the first time. Their performance was so spot on that an audience of thousands who had never heard them play before came to their feet. I didn't get much sleep Saturday night and my over three hour drive home Sunday was through a down pour. I walked into work Monday morning with swollen red eyes and "dead" on my feet. When my co-workers asked me if it was worth it my only response to them could be a very enthusiastic, "HELL YEAH it was worth it!"

Jenny Viars (or Dancing Lemur):
When I found out this opening slot for Seger was happening, my second question to Brian was "And do I get to go and shoot??" (right after "ARE YOU MAKING THAT UP??"). They were nice enough to try to get me a press pass for Seger's set too, but I wasn't even vaguely disappointed when the answer was no. I wasn't going to see Seger; I was going to see BDL hit that big stage. I spent the whole week leading up to it bursting with pride and excitement; I could not shut up about it to anyone who would listen. Once we got there Saturday afternoon, I found out that I'd be able to shoot on stage as long as the band was cool with it (hint: THEY WERE) and that unlike the press photographers, I'd have the run of the arena during BDL's set. I started out on stage left side at the start of the set; I started grinning as soon as they hit the first note and the crowd gave the kind of roar you can only hear in an arena. I made my way around the back of crowd, stopping here and there to shoot. I danced in the aisles and sang along, and I kept on smiling at the people who looked at me oddly from their seats. I wiped tears away, too. I finally made it onto the back of the stage and climbed all the way up onto a top tier drum riser, which gave me (in my opinion) the best view in the whole place: the band, the lights, and the HUGE crowd. These guys work SO HARD, and it was more than right to see them tearing it up for a whole crowd of brand new appreciative fans. The second best part of the night happened while Seger played, and we all went up to the first level balcony and met up with several BDL fans. We hugged, celebrated, listened to a music icon, and basked in pride and happiness for this band and the family we've all formed. I kept noticing strangers approach BDL members and compliment them on their set. Get used to it, guys...this will be the norm soon enough!

Thanks everyone for sticking with us through this crazy journey! See ya soon!

Brian and BDL

BDL Winter Tour, Mid-West and Rockies!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

We are a little over halfway through our winter tour through the Midwest and Rocky Mountains. We've driven through 2 blizzards and made some really great friends along the way. Here's a little glimpse.

We started off by hitting some of our new favorite places in Ohio: Dayton and Columbus. We've started seeing some familiar faces at these shows and they are bringing friends.

Our first show in Chicago was great as well, as we had some family from Possum Holler show up! Todd Pettit and Lynn Bryan were in Chi-town visiting friends so they brought a big group to our show.

Possum Holler Rules!!

One of our favorite places to play is in Evansville, Indiana, and it is the perfect example of a passionate venue owner who is able to create a music scene from scratch. Amy Rivers-Word has done such a great job in building a venue that bands just love to play!

Any venue that has a skeleton riding a deer head with bras hanging from its knees is going to be awesome!

Lamasco Bar and Grill

As we were heading out west a car pulls up to us at 70mph on the highway and a guy just hands a Grateful Dead CD out the window to Ashley! We have no idea why this happened! But in a strange occurrence of synchronicity this album was recorded in 1970 on the exact day as he handed it to us! Did he know this? We'll never know.

Scott gets some great shots from the van

We miss our doggies and families when we travel, so we find some foster doggies to give some lovin' to.

We had a special guest for part of the trip, the famous Mrs. Karen Moss! She's super badass and works security for us when we need. She'll straight knock a sucka out!

A van full of MOSS!

As we were leaving Wichita KS we experienced our first blizzard, as we basically tried to drive out of it all day. I heard Wichita got as much as 2 feet of snow. We made it to Aurora CO before we just had to pull over and get a hotel room.

The next morning the roads were clear and we drove to Nederland CO. Most people know this cool little mountain town as an early home base for the great jamgrass band Leftover Salmon.

We love to find local coffee shops to hang out in, and this one was one of the best. It was 3 caboose cars all connected.

Nederland, CO

We had a really great show at the Pioneer Inn (the locals refer to it as the "P.I.") We've always had a feeling that CO people would dig the BDL sound, and we were right. The crowd was amazing and boogied their tushes off, and a super nice couple invited us back to their house for the evening, which was really great since hotels there were very expensive.

Here's a shot of new BDL family, The Colorado Chapter.

Nederland has a famous "Carousel of Happiness" run by a guy named "Bigfoot." Wook had to try it out. We think it works.

Happy Wook!

So let me set this scene up for you. We met some great people, but one of the funniest was a guy named Bud. He found this kids toy that borders on hilarious and freaky. Here it is:

So Bud decided that he would take this toy and wear it around his neck to the Further Concert (surviving members of the Grateful Dead) that night in Denver, and only communicate to people with his new toy. Nederland people rock!

We headed to Keystone and played at a famous venue called The Goat. Every now and then we get put up in super nice places and this was one of those times! Here's a view from our hotel.

We left Keystone for our 7 hour drive to Santa Fe NM. This has to be one of the most amazing drives we've ever had in the 3.5 years of the band, for the sheer drastic change of the scenery. We went from snow covered peaks to prairies to desert. It was unbelievable. Here's a few shots.

As most of you probably read on our FB post, our Santa Fe show was really amazing. A friend described Santa Fe as "A little pocket of coolness, much like Austin, Boone,and Asheville." We totally agree. We also got a taste of the power of radio, as people knew who we were already.

We left Santa Fe yesterday and drove straight into a blizzard. I guess you might call us lucky, but Chicago experienced its coldest temps of the year when we were there, and Denver just got its biggest snowfall! It's how we roll.

After we got the van into a hotel parking lot--barely--we walked about half a mile in the blizzard to a Chili's that was still open and found out they had a two-for-one beer special. Small consolation prize for a rough day.

Thanks for hanging with us. To all our friends, old and new, we hope to see ya soon!

Brian and BDL.

Upcoming shows (visit our Facebook events page for show details):

2/28 Durango, CO The Summit
3/1 Manitou Springs, CO Ancient Mariner
3/2 Denver, CO Quixote's True Blue
3/8 Wilmington, NC The Whiskey
3/9 Beaufort, NC The Backstreet Pub
3/14 Raleigh, NC Berkeley Cafe
3/15 High Point, NC Blue Bourbon Jack's
3/16 Dobson, NC The Coffee Bean
3/17 Boone, NC Murphy's

2012 - Year in Review for BDL

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:32:00 +0000

Right before our main stage set at Floyd Fest.

Hello all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

What a year huh?!

Our transition of gaining Scott Moss and Scotty Lewis is definitely the biggest story for us, and what a ride it has been. I can't tell you how many conversations we've all had with long time fans who told us they were at first "skeptical," but after hearing the new line-up were amazingly surprised at how good the music sounds, and, of course, that is what drives us the most. So to everyone that came up and told us this, we want to give a huge "Thank You!"

Here's the initial announcement that introduced everyone to Scott Moss.

A month later we were joined by the dreadlocked powerhouse of a drummer, Mr. Scotty Lewis, from Richmond, VA, and we immediately took off to Colorado for an amazing tour. I had to write about one of the nights deep in the mountains of CO, and looking back I think it was my favorite night of the whole year. We are currently making plans to go back to CO in late February and hook back up with Jack Ten High, our friends from this story.

Scotty in his "happy place"

When we returned in June, we got to open up for a true musical legend, Mr. Willie Nelson! I tried to describe the experience here.

A huge part of our summer for the last few years has been the incredible FloydFest. Unfortunately we won't be there this year (I believe we might be back in CO during that month), but we can't wait to come back. Here are some of our favorite pictures of this year. It was here we learned that L Shape Lot were truly our "brothers from other mothers." We had so much fun sharing sets and talking smack about each other from the stage.

Our view!

Our great friends L Shape Lot!

BDL at Floyd Fest with Andrew Hendryx of Yarn

A great shot by our friend Roger Gupta at the Pink Floyd Stage

Another memorable festival was The Big What? hosted by our friends Big Something and Jeremy Bell in Prospect Holler, NC. We debuted our cover of the great song "Rift" by Phish at this festival. I wrote about the process of learning such a complicated song in this travel blog post.

This video starts at the last part of "Let it Grow" continues through "20 Acre Farm," and "Rebecca" -->"Up To You," and finally ends about halfway through "Circle Around the Sun."

We also had a blast at our Alice in Wonderland themed charity show at High Rock Outfitters in Lexington NC. In case you're wondering, Scott decided to be "Alice COOPER in Wonderland!" Pretty good twist on things.

Love Bus in Wonderland

And then we get to our November Ziggy's show! This was probably our favorite show of the year, along with the Willie show, of course. The Heritage and Big Something absolutely killed it during their sets, and we ended up getting some fantastic video and audio recordings that we are working to release this spring as a DVD. The video will feature some neat footage caught by a Go-Pro Camera that was attached to the headstock of the banjo and electric guitar for some up-close shots of furiously fast flying fingers. We can't wait to get this live album/DVD out.

With our friends from Big Something and The Heritage.

The saturation of music festivals through the summer months only means one thing...we need some killer wintertime festivals to look forward to. Our favorite venue owners, Chris Phelps and Brittany Wilson, have stepped up and started the NC Music and Arts Festival in a beautiful downtown theater in Lexington, NC. We had so much fun here.

NC Music and Arts Fest

We'd like to take a second and list our favorite albums of the year. We've been talking about doing this for some time now since we hear a lot of new music in our travels and some of it just really blows us away. Two bands that aren't listed but have to be mentioned are Possum Jenkins and Folk Soul Revival. We listen to their albums a lot while we are traveling.

Scott Moss - Shovels and Rope "O, Be Joyful"

Ashley Sutton - Lucas Nelson and Promise of the Real "Wasted"

Brian Swenk - Aaron Burdett "Breathing Underwater"

Joey Recchio - The Kevin Maines Band "American Hustle"

Scotty Lewis - Taylor Swift "Red"

In 2012 we started venturing up north, to places we've never been before such as Chicago, Burlington, VT, Massachusetts, New York, and surprisingly one of our favorite new states is Pennsylvania! Our manager, Tom Baggott, had been telling us that the hills and mountains of PA are very similar to where we were raised and the people there will really connect with our "Appalachian Rock." He was absolutely right. We also met another band that we were able to connect with, Miz. A great group of guys.

Through all the big festivals and shows we've experienced this year and were lucky enough to have documented by great photographers like Jenny Viars, Roger Gupta, and Milo Farineau, there were so many smaller shows that were just as much fun because the people there had amazing energy and loved the music. One in particular that will always stand out to us was playing the staff after-party in a large covered gazebo for the Camp Barefoot Music Festival. Everyone was exhausted and had just worked their butts off, but it was just one of those nights where the music got going and everyone caught a second wind and started boogying down. We had so much fun at that party, which shows that the big stages and lights and sound systems are nice, but what really matters is just playing music for people who love it.

So like I said before, "What a year, huh?" So much change along with so many amazing experiences that we never imagined would be possible. We'll be slam packed this coming year, going out west and up north more than ever before. So we hope to see you soon, and thanks for everything you've done for us. We couldn't do any of this without y'all!

Brian, Scott, Joey, Scotty, and Ashley

Holiday shows and a NYE weekend festival in NC!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:25:00 +0000

Howdy all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios,

Upcoming shows this weekend;
Thursday: Newport News VA, Hoss's Deli
Friday: Baltimore MD, 8x10 Club
Saturday: Williamsport PA, Bullfrog Brewery.

We've been really busy the last few weeks, with shows all over NC, SC, and Virginia, in addition to a run to OH and IN! That's too much to try to cover here, so instead we'll talk a little bit about our first Love Bus Costume Ball that we held on October 13. Love Bus in Wonderland was (obviously) Alice in Wonderland themed. It was also a book drive and fundraiser for the children and youth library at Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind. We had a great time dressing up and seeing all of the creative costumes you all came up with!

BDL in their Wonderland costumes

We want to take some time and let everyone know about our holiday plans this year. Unfortunately (beyond our control) we are unable to play our annual Thanksgiving show in Sparta, NC, but it is OK because we want everyone to come to our Ziggy's show the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday, November 21st). We will be recording and filming the show for a live album, and we want all our friends to be a part of it! The one thing that we consistently hear the most is "We want an album with Scott singing!" So we've decided that this is the perfect opportunity to make that happen. There are a few other big reasons why this show will be amazing: BIG SOMETHING and Winston-Salem favorite THE HERITAGE, featuring our very own Mr. Cass Copsey. AND the Ziggy's show will be a Love Bus event: a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank. Bring canned food, soups, peanut butter or even toiletry items (such as shampoo or toothpaste). Help us fight hunger in Winston-Salem, especially in these colder months and the holidays. Here are details for the Ziggy's show on November 21st.

We LOVE playing Ziggy's!

A pic from our CD release party with Jim Lauderdale.

We also have some great events coming up for the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. We start off by playing at two of our "home-away-from-home" markets: Raleigh on Thursday, December 27th, and Rutherfordton on Friday, December 28th. Finally, we are hosting our very own New Year's Eve party at the Ten O One Club in Winston with our friends The Deluge!

On Saturday, December 29th, we are part of The NC Music and Arts Festival, which our favorite venue owners, Chris Phelps and Brittany Wilson, are putting on in Lexington, NC. Check out this lineup, all for $30: Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Big Something, New Familiars, BDL, and Barefoot Manner, and The Broadcast. This mini-festival runs two nights, and you can get details and buy tickets here. Come celebrate local NC musicians in the beautiful Edward C. Smith Auditorium.

Here's some video from one of our shows at High Rock in Lexington NC

Would you like to be a part of our "street team" and help us put up flyers in your market for free tickets to shows? Email us at bigdaddystreetteam@gmail.com.

We hope everyone is having a great week, and we hope to see you soon.

Thanks so much,
BDL

New BDL Merchandise!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:27:00 +0000

We are really excited about our new t-shirts, which we just got last week! Here's a sneak peek, but be sure to come check out all the new merch at any upcoming show. NC folks, you'll have TWO chances to grab one (or all!) of these tomorrow, as we play the Dixie Classic Fair at 7:30 on the Clock Tower Stage, followed by a late show at Ten O One with our good friends the Wyndy Trail Travelers.

First, we have two t-shirt options with the new BDL logo! We're really thrilled by how these turned out. We also have the design on a black tee. These are all $15 each.

Next is another design from the logo contest that we really loved, and it looks awesome on a tee. It's also $15.

Finally, by popular demand, a long-sleeve shirt! The moose design looks great on this one, too; it's $20.

Before I sign off, here's a video of the Wyndy Trail Travelers. If you've never seen them, you're in for a treat tomorrow night! See you down the road!

Brian and Big Daddy Love

9/12 - 9/18 Our trip to NY, PA, MA, and beautiful VT so far!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Howdy all you Big Love Bussin' Daddios!

Upcoming Shows:
9/19 Harrisonburg, PA, Appalachian Brewery
9/20 Washington, DC, South on South Capital show
920 Washington, DC, Bayou on the Pen
9/21 Richmond, VA, The Camel
9/22 Hot Springs, NC, French Broad Fall Festival

We are sitting in Williamsport, PA. If you're a baseball fan and that rings a bell, it is because this is the home of the Little League World Series, along with the Little League World Series Hall of fame (of course!). It also has some really great hiking trails close by, we hear; we don't know for sure since yesterday was our day off and it rained almost 3 inches. I hear that NC had a lot of rain as well.

The trip has been good so far. It's always fun to see people experience New York City for the first time, and this trip was Scott's.

We met up with Big Something to play Sullivan Hall, which is known as one of the best small venues in the whole city. We had a whole slew of NC boys in NYC that night.

Outside Sullivan Hall in NY.

After the show, we found out that we were on the same block as the place we visited last time we were in the city, a place called The Red Lion. On that trip, the house band let BDL (sans banjo) get up and play a few songs. We had a blast that night and couldn't believe we were so close to it again.

I can tell you that I absolutely loved this band. They are called Days of Wild - be sure to check them out. The guys from Big Something met us there and we watched one of the most amazing shows we had seen in a while, and this is why I love NYC so much. To survive in the city -where tiny one room apts are $2500/month- you have to be really good at something. Here we have this house band that plays a couple of times a week and charges no cover, and they are better than almost any other band we see on the road. And this goes for most of the people you'll meet in the city. They are both very smart, and very good at what they do, which is the combination of things that make people extremely interesting. I've loved everyone I've met in the city because of this, and I think it is why there is a palpable electric charge in the air that everyone notices when visiting.

We see a lot of music on the road: some of it is pretty good, and some of it is just ok. On this night we saw a band made up of people from all over the world (Japan, Britain, Brazil, and France were all represented here), and they absolutely rocked it. We were blessed with the presence of the biggest BDL fan in CA that night, as Jenny De Guzman flew to NY with her friend Dennis, to hang out with us, and I remember standing beside her saying, "You know, this reminds me why I play music." It doesn't matter what job you have, it can become mundane sometimes with the ins and outs of the daily grind, and this does happen to all of us, but I remember standing there feeling like I was falling in love with music all over again. These musicians understood their craft on a very deep level, a place where the groove is a living and breathing entity that everyone plays a small role in, and no one controls. We all agreed the trumpet player (not in this pic) was probably the best player we've ever seen, and he was there with his girlfriend who had a small board set up and literally took tap-dance solos with a super funky beat behind it. It sounds weird, but it worked. You can see the drummer in this picture, his name is Papa Guyo, and he was a character. Full head of white hair and white beard, but he lived and breathed a funky groove, or a straight Latin-flavored beat, whatever they decided to play. His drum kit consisted of a bass drum, snare, hi-hat, one cymbal, and a cow-bell (oh yeah!) and he played more on that minimalist kit than you'll see drummers play on a set of 15 drums.

The next time you're in the city, find The Red Lion.

Our next stop took us to Wilkes-Barre, PA, to play a cool venue called the River Street Jazz Cafe with our new and fast friends, MiZ. They first opened for us in Boone, NC, and now we get to open for them in their hometown. We really like these guys a lot. They are all super-nice and all great musicians, and we're proud to be sharing another show with them on October 20th at the Berkeley Cafe in Raleigh, NC.

You can listen to our set at the River St Jazz Cafe.

Me sitting in with Miz. Mike Mizwinski and Justin Mazer L-R

Our "anchor" for this trip, as we call it, was the Wormtown Music Festival in Massachusetts. Here are a few pics from the festival.

You don't see this very much! Tie-dyes beside a 19th century graveyard!

One of the stages at Wormtown

Here is the guitar player of a Grateful Dead cover band. Yes, really!

Sometimes sleeping arrangements aren't what you would call "optimal" and we have to do the best we can. The reason we call the van "the bus" is because it doubles as sleeping space as well.

Scott and Scotty showing how to properly sleep in the bus.

The next day we headed to the very scenic Burlington, VT, where our manager Tom Baggott lives. He's worked with bands such as Phish and Railroad Earth when they were our size, and he seems to see the same potential in us, which is the type of person we want on our team! He was able to get us into the legendary venue of Nectar's that is known as being Phish's home base as they were starting out. And no, we didn't play "Rift." We talked about it and debated it but decided not to.

Tom has always told us the VT mountains will remind us of home and they really do. I can see why people love this place so much, as it is one of the most beautiful places we've ever been. This was definitely the farthest north I've ever been in my life.

The next day we had a very long 9.5 hour drive to get back to PA and play in Williamsport, at a great place called the Bull Frog Brewery. We found out after our first set that quite a few people had driven over from Wilkes-Barre who had seen us 2 nights before for their first time. We just thought that was awesome. This was probably the best reception we've had so far, as everyone at the show really got it. They were engaged with every song we played, and we could feel the energy and had a blast. The owner of this brewery actually gave us the 2nd floor of his building, which is an empty banquet room, to stay in for free for the last two nights.

Our accommodations for 2 days! They trusted us with a stocked bar!

That's about it for now. Thanks for keeping up with us, and feel free to share this blog on all the inter-web tubes so we can get the word out! We'll be back home in NC soon.

Oh, and we've picked up some brand new shirts that we are very proud of. Probably our favorite shirts so far. So be on the lookout for them at our merch table. We'll get some good pics of them to post soon.

We'd love some street team help as well. If you're interested please send info to: bigdaddystreetteam@gmail.com.

Thanks so much and see ya down the road!

--Brian and BDL

The Evolution of a Song...

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:30:00 +0000

A good friend of ours and one of the drivers of our charity team "The Love Bus," Stacy Jones, mentioned to me that she liked the "behind the scenes conversation" of what songs we were going to play with L Shaped Lot at Floyd Fest. That gave me the idea of writing about how we came about playing the great Phish song "Rift."

First of all, Phish is one of those bands that live music fans typically either really love or really hate. Musicians can approach it a little differently because the music those four guys make is on such a higher plane compared to what's out there these days. The pure compositions can make even be-bop jazz, which is also a complicated style of music, seem simple. One has to look to the likes of Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, and the composers of orchestral music to find compositions of similar complexity. And even then you still are hard pressed to find anyone who flows deftly between genres of music while maintaining such a high level of creative output. It is from these aspects of their music that BDL draws a lot of inspiration. Joey has never even seen a live Phish show but has dug into Trey Anastasio's playing on a deep level. On the other hand both Scotty and I have seen a lot of shows.

I can remember the genesis of the idea pretty clearly. Joey was learning a couple different Trey solos, and one of them was "Rift." I got my banjo and said, "You know, the intro and the piano solo of that song are perfect for the banjo." I started playing it, and we laughed about how cool it would be to learn the whole song and perform it. At that point it was nothing more than one of those, "Wouldn't it be cool if...." ideas. (We have a lot of those.) Throughout the weeks he kept learning more and more of the guitar solo (it's a very long guitar solo), and we figured out what chords were being played underneath; the two of us would play a little bit of it during soundcheck through the late spring and early summer months.

Around the middle of the summer, Ashley came up to us and said, "We should really figure out something special to play at the Big What Festival in late August." As a lot of you know, this is a very small festival compared to the likes of Floyd Fest and some others that we play through the year. But the difference is this festival is hosted and attended by all the people that we consider family. Big Something was the host band, and we've developed a very deep friendship with these guys. The land owner, Jeremy Bell, is one of our favorite people in the whole world. And it's held at a place called Possum Holler! It's the perfect storm of awesomeness. And Wook was right, we needed something special.

So a few weeks before the festival, we met at our super secret Shelby shed space and started working on the song. First of all, it's just a hard song to play. One of the driving forces behind us learning it is knowing that if we could pull this off, it would blow some peoples minds. There are very few bands that would even attempt it, much less be successful, and we loved this challenge.

Let me give you an idea of what this song consists of. If you play every note from one "C" to the next octave "C" you'll play 12 tones in all. A majority of the songs we're exposed to will have chords based off only 3 of those tones, such as a typical blues song. Most pop songs you hear will have up to 5 chords from the 12 tones. But not this song: oh no, Rift has a chord based on every single tone, 12 different chords in all types of different combinations, which is almost unheard of.

We discovered that Scotty can actually sing the second part while playing this incredibly hard poly-rhythm drum part. It blew our minds, really. We spent a few days working on the song, and started wishing each other "good luck" each time we started playing it (a habit that we're still in, actually). It started coming together and we realized that we might actually pull this off. After a little break, we met for one last rehearsal before going to the festival. We knew we had it at that point. As we were packing up from that last rehearsal, I can remember a moment when Joey was walking around in a dazed fashion looking at the ground and talking to himself, saying "I can't believe it...I can't believe it." I asked if he was ok, and he just looked at me an said, "I can't believe I'm in a band that can play Rift." I knew exactly what he meant!

So there we are, at the Big What Festival and we finally get to the point that we've been looking forward to for quite a while. We get Jeremy Bell onstage to recognize him for all the work he's put into the fest and say, "This song is for you." (He's a huge Phish-head too.) And we played it...all of it. I think we were just as surprised in the moment that we were doing it as the audience who had no idea. It was quite an experience.

You can listen to the whole show here.

We also just played the Camp Barefoot Festival near Bartow, WV and saw the most amazing light show that we've ever witnessed. The festival actually had to get permission from the FAA (yes, that FAA) before they could allow it. The light show basically consisted of the strongest lasers that we've ever seen. I'll add some pix from our good friend Andy Cox. You should "like" his page and you'll see amazing photos from the best festivals in the Southeast. He's also the photographer that got the picture of us at Floyd Fest by the big "LOVE" sign that you see in our last album.

The owner of this festival, Scott McClain, is a huge BDL supporter and is one of those people that got behind us early, inviting us to his festival twice, hired us to play his sister's wedding, and most recently invited us to stay Sunday night and play the staff after-party. Our festival sets were fun, but there's nothing like playing a party for a big group of people who just worked their butts off putting on a festival of this size. They were so appreciative, and we were happy to do it.

And so here are some pictures of lasers so strong that they are regulated by the FAA.

Before I sign off, I do want to say congratulations to Joey, who got married in Costa Rica just a few weeks ago. Congrats, Beth and Joey!! We love you guys.

--Brian (with lots of help from Jenny Viars) and BDL

If you'd like to help us out with street team email us at bigdaddystreetteam@gmail.com

See ya down the road.

Fun, Family, and Friends at the Fantastic Floyd Fest

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:12:00 +0000

Mainstage of Floyd Fest

(I will probably add more pictures and videos, as well as a link to the recordings to our sets when they come in)
Here is a link to our 4th set of the festival at the Pink Floyd Stage. This one has Andrew Hendryx from Yarn sitting in with us and ripping the electric mandolin.

And here is the link to our first set of the festival. It was the VIP party on Wed night and we debuted 3 new songs that we're proud of. And we have Alex from L Shape Lot playing "Circle" with us. Check it out!

We were really looking forward to this FloydFest. They graciously gave us four killer sets, the most we've ever had there, and we had just finished "wood-shedding" in Shelby for several days, working on new songs to debut at the festival. Other than that we didn't know what to expect. Every festival is different and going in with a "plan" is useless because the in-the-moment spontaneity is always better than any plan you can come up with. We would never have guessed that we would come into the festival knowing the guys from L Shape Lot as acquaintances and leave knowing them as brothers....but that's exactly what happened, and it shaped our entire festival experience.

Eric Miller, the lead singer, sent me a text the week before asking me if I would sit in with them on Wednesday night. Their set was right after ours for the VIP pre-party, and it would be easy to jam a little. I said "sure," and we exchanged a few ideas about songs and tempos and various music nerd concepts. Joey had also talked to their guitar player Alex Lanier about sitting in with us. Joey told me he should play "Circle Around the Sun" with us and join in on the trading-licks part. Joey added, "Don't worry, this guy rips it." Joey doesn't lie about things like that, so I knew he'd be fine.

We got going on the Pink Floyd Garden Stage and had one of the best crowds we've ever seen there. This is the stage that propelled us to win their "Under the Radar" contest two years before. (L Shape Lot won it last year.)

Playing the Pink Floyd Garden Stage this year.

Before I continue, allow me to do a little backtracking. Two years ago we were invited to come up and compete in this contest that consists of about 20-30 unsigned bands. Our best time slot was at this stage on Saturday night around 10pm, but an hour before that the power shut down completely, causing the entire operation to come to a screeching halt. We thought this was a terrible thing at first, since we might miss out on our set. But what happened instead was our set was pushed back to exactly the time that Railroad Earth was finished on the main stage, and this area, the beer garden, filled up with several thousand people; and we played one of the best shows we had ever played at that point. A month later, we found out that the fans voted us as the best band in the "UTR" series. We had people come up to us for a full year and say that hearing us play Pink Floyd's "The Wall" on that stage was a highlight for them.

So here we are, playing the same stage to a great crowd again. Alex came up on "Circle" and just crushed it. He's going to kill me for saying this but...we've all imagined what it would be like if Tony Rice had decided to play electric guitar instead of acoustic, and watching Alex play you get a little glimpse of that. Bluegrass guitar picking is one of the most disciplined routes of music you can take. Alex has that discipline and technique and he just burns up and down that telecaster neck with it. It's really amazing to both hear and watch. So there we are with Alex and Joey just going at it, and I'm thinking about how grateful I am to be using 3 picks and not just one.

Alex playing "Circle Around the Sun"

Joey and I got up and played several songs with them including "Freeborn Man," Walls of Time," and a punk tune that I'd never heard before called, "Take the Skinheads Bowling." It was more fun than anyone expected; we now had new musical brethren, and we were determined to jam as much as possible together.

Here's a video that our friend Scott took. Unfortunately we can't get the audio and video to sync up. But it shows how much fun we had together. This is during their main stage slot on Friday.

L Shape will also be playing at the Garage in Winston Salem this Friday night! Details here.

This picture is after our last set together at the VIP Stage. Friends for life.

Overall the fest was great, and everyone absolutely loved the "new guys" in the band. We made a lot of new friends and talked to a lot of old friends.

Right before our main stage set

One thing that I always notice is that the lower and mid-level bands can actually put on a much better show than the big-time headliners that everyone comes to see. I personally thought that our friends Yarn played a much more engaging and rocking set on the main stage than several of the famous headliners. And I think most of us would say the same about Galactic's set on the Hill Holler Stage on Thur night as well. Obviously this is all subjective, but I recommend to not get too caught up in only seeing the famous people and give some new bands a chance. You'll probably be blown away more than you think. The headliner that I enjoyed the most was Bruce Hornsby. He surrounds himself by such amazing musicians that his show is just amazing to watch.

What a great pic by our good friend Milo Farineau!

Here are some pictures from the Festival:

Main Stage!

The thing we heard the most through the festival is "Wow, the new guys rock!"

Scotty doing his thing, and looking fantastic.

Roger Gupta got this shot right before our first set on Wednesday

Ashley and I have been listening to Leftover Salmon for a long time, and we agreed that this was the best they've sounded in years. Their banjo picker, Andy Thorn, is an old friend of mine from Boone NC. He's an amazing musician and a perfect fit for them. He has spent time playing in the NC band Big Fat Gap (I love that name) as well as a couple of years with our good friends Larry Keel and Natural Bridge.

We want to thank everyone that came to all our sets and talked us up at the festival. We'll be playing near your hometown soon, so keep a lookout for us. Thanks!

Oh, and don't miss L Shape Lot at the Garage in Winston this friday night!

Brian and BDL

Actually this isn't from the festival. I just liked it.

That one time, when we opened for Willie Nelson!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:33:00 +0000

Howdy all you big love bussin' daddios!

Upcoming shows this week. Click here for details.
07.03.12 - Fun Fourth Festival (Greensboro NC)
07.04.12 - Palm Room (Wrightsville Beach, NC)
07.05.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
07.06.12 - Outer Banks Brewing Station (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
07.07.12 - Ted Constant Convocation Center (Norfolk, VA)
07.08.12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)

We've been asked one question over and over: "Did you get to hang with Willie?" I will go ahead and answer that one now: no, we didn't. (Well, one of us did, but more on that in a moment.) Willie's bus pulled right up to the steps of the stage, he walked up the steps, played his show, and then went right back to his bus. When you are a living legend you can do what what you want.

Overall it was the best experience we've ever had; other than not hanging with Willie, it was the perfect day. Opening bands usually hope to play for about 30-40% of the crowd, but Willie fans are prompt and I think we played for around 90% of the people that came out, around 3000 people. We were supposed to play for 60 minutes, but after our soundcheck the production manager came and asked us if we wanted to play for 75 minutes. Of course we said "YES!" By halfway through our set, we looked out and saw a lot of their crowd on their feet dancing, which was an amazing experience. We were told that Willie's staff really liked us a lot.

Right after we got offstage we walked into the movie star Owen Wilson, who has been a friend of Willie's since they made a movie together a while back.

We've already had people start coming to shows and telling us that they saw us here and are now huge fans.

Here is a link where you can download or stream our set for free, compliments of Travis Viars.

Is this really happening?

I decided that I should wear my "fancy hat"

Check out the crowd in Joey's glasses.

We don't know why he breaks so many bass strings!

During soundcheck I told Scott to look down at what he's standing on. That's Willie's rug!

Yeah, this is fun.

The biggest crowd we've ever played for!

As I said earlier, one of us got to meet Willie. Jenny was in the right place at the right time and was able to go onto his bus and take pictures of the land owners and was able to get them to take a picture of her. As much as Jenny does for us we wouldn't have chosen anyone else to actually make it onto the bus. This was perfect. From Jenny: I would have rather dragged all of you with me! It just happened so fast, I went with it. I accomplished my main goal right before this photo: I put a copy of Let It Grow into Willie's hands. Who knows, he could be riding down the road listening to BDL right now!

Having fun backstage

Possibly the most famous guitar ever. A Martin N-20 named "Trigger"

It's amazing how strong his voice still is.

It was just an incredible night for us all. We want to thank everyone who has helped us get to this point. We couldn't have done it without y'all.

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

Upcoming shows. Click here for Details.
07.04.12 - Palm Room (Wrightsville Beach, NC)
07.05.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
07.06.12 - Outer Banks Brewing Station (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
07.07.12 - Ted Constant Convocation Center (Norfolk, VA)
07.08.12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)
07.12.12 - Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill (Roanoke, VA)
07.13.12 - Altamont Theatre (Asheville, NC)
07.14.12 - The Loft @ Benchwarmers (Salisbury, NC)
07.18.12 - Rapture (Charlottesville, VA)

BDL trip to CO and a night we'll never forget.

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:53:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
06.21.12 - Local 506 (Chapel Hill, NC)
06.22.12 - Blue Bourbon Jacks (High Point, NC)
06.23.12 - Alexander County Summer Stomp (Taylorsville, NC)
06.26.12 - The Pour House (Charleston, SC)
06.27.12 - Goombay's Grill and Raw Bar (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
06.28.12 - Hoss's Deli (Newport News, VA)

Howdy all you Big Love Bussin' Daddios!

I actually wrote this last week, before the Willie Nelson show, but things got hectic and it never got published. So, here is some major catch-up work. We have some local NC shows this weekend so we hope to see a lot of y'all.

We're a little behind on our travel blog because, well, we've been traveling...go figure. Things have been going really great lately. We found out that we're opening for Willie Nelson, which is kind of a big deal; and this past Saturday in West Virginia I got to stand onstage and play with Larry Keel and Keller Williams at the late night all-star jam, which was a huge honor.

I do want to relay a compliment that we received earlier that day. We were part of a 3-day festival in Morgantown, WV at a beautiful amphitheater right on the river. After our 2:30pm slot, the festival promoter came over to us and said he had something to tell us. He said that his sound engineers never compliment anybody....ever. But they called him to the stage and told him that BDL was the best and tightest band on the entire festival roster, period. That really makes me proud of all the hard work we've put in, especially with all the change we've had lately.

Ok, a little catch up time.

On May 1st, our great friend Scotty Lewis, formerly of the band Jackass Flats, drove from Richmond to Winston-Salem with his drums and a bag of clothes and hopped in the van with us to head out to Colorado. (The first thing Scott Moss said was, "Sweet! I'm not the new guy anymore!") We had a fantastic trip out there and back and Scott put together a montage of photos with music behind them. I will say that we were welcomed with open arms out there. The festival promoter told us he predicted that we would sell more cd's than any other band....and we did. It was a great first trip out west.

There's one particular evening that I would like to try and describe here, since we're all friends. Every now and then you'll experience a night where you just run into the most amazing people, all of whom seem to be vibrating on a higher level than your average person, and the hours just fly by like minutes.

We were all hanging out at our cabin after the music finished up on the main stage and talking about how beautiful that part of the state is and how much we enjoyed being here. After a while Ashley, my friend from college Eric Dahlgren, and I decided to walk down to the late night bonfire stage where a Durango, CO band called Jack Ten High was playing.   The stage was down a hill at a small amphitheater with a large fire pit in the center, since these grounds mostly serve as a youth summer camp (hence the cabins). As we walked through the woods we noticed that there was no fire like there had been the night before; instead at the top of the amphitheater there were large lights, like the ones that might be used for nighttime road construction. We had heard earlier that there was a fire ban because of high winds.

As we walked up we immediately noticed that this band was top-notch. All seasoned musicians who know how to rock and groove with each other, and they were similar to us as they easily combined both rock and bluegrass styles, and they featured an electric banjo and dobro as well. In fact one of the most amazing moments of the entire night was listening to them take Dylan's "Senor tells of Yankee Power" and seamlessly morph it into Pink Floyd's "Breath." At that moment, both Ashley and I knew that these guys were kindred spirits.   The three of us found a spot to the left of the stage and just soaked in every note down to the bone. These guys were amazing! The lead singer, Russ Crossland, was very tall and skinny with hair bursting out of his hat and shooting down his chest like fast moving whitewater. His hat was completely pulled down to the bridge of his nose as if it was a sign that he was inside the cosmic world of perfect musical vibrations and had no desire to acknowledge anything else in front of him. To me he looked like he was from another world entirely. I leaned over to Eric and said, "I'm pretty sure that guy is an alien."

The music had us completely transfixed and we started to notice that the single pine tree beside the stage was lit up by the big flood lights up the hill. This magnificent tree stood well over 80 feet tall and seemed to be dancing with the music that was floating up into its branches. The wind was giving it a consistent motion that reminded me of those tall dancing figures that you see at car dealerships, but instead of moving randomly the tree had a found a laid-back groove that had a deep appreciation for vibrations that were being sent up through the trunk and branches.

As we started to assimilate into the scene around us (we're musicians, the notes come first) we saw that the large fire pit at the base of the amphitheater had a single white glow-stick that was sticking straight up from the center of the pit.   We also noticed a silver fire extinguisher that was laid by the chopped wood about 20 yards away.   Ashley looked at me and we both knew what had to happen. He walked over and picked up this fire extinguisher and carried it back to the fire pit. He looked up at all the people sitting on the benches with definitive look of "Trust me. I know what I'm doing and I will save you all."   He opened up that fire extinguisher on that lonesome glow-stick creating a huge cloud of whiteness. The hiss of the extinguisher finally stopped and he walks out of the white cloud with the fire extinguisher over his head and throws it down and reaches his arms to the sky and says "You're welcome!" and charges triumphantly into the woods.   This is the greatest story that didn't actually happen. We played every detail of this story out in our minds until we were falling over laughing so hard about it.

As the band finished their set and started packing up, a couple of the guys walked over and introduced themselves to us and said they had caught part of our set earlier and really loved it. One thing I've noticed over the years is that musicians are typically shy people and won't make a huge effort to get to know each other until we've heard one another play. But after bands have heard each other, and really dug each other, then the vibe is completely spun around and flipped on its head. You go from mild acknowledgement to near best friends in a matter of moments. I don't think it's a matter of sizing people up in a snobbish way; I think it's more of a letting your guard down because you've found someone that is so similar in mindset. It's a pure comfort factor; since a lot of musicians are shy with different levels of insecurities and even social awkwardness, hearing someone play the notes that you might choose allows you to put down your guard and let someone in quickly. It is a sense of sharing the same life and experiences, and we can be completely honest with one another and have no judgment whatsoever.

We quickly discovered that the members of this band all have a very deep understanding of bluegrass music and decided to start a picking circle.   In fact, the drummer, Pat Dressen, was a solid mandolin player that knew every single bluegrass song that was called out and would have made Mr. Monroe proud by "playing it right." After burning through the great Scruggs instrumental "Ground Speed," the banjo player, Hap Purcell, leans over to me and says, "You know, this is always amazing. You meet someone from across the country and you can completely connect because of Earl Scruggs." He was exactly right. How many artists have left such an amazing footprint that can bring complete strangers together to be as tight as brothers in a single evening? There aren't many, but Mr. Earl Scruggs is on that list.

One of the more interesting aspects of the night is the cops would charge down through the woods in their 4-seater golf cart, surround the picking circle for about 30 minutes, not say a word and then just disappear. This happened several times and we could never explain it. We weren't sure if they were keeping us in, or keeping something out.

We declare this picking circle SAFE!

As hours floated away and the picking wound down, we found oursleves sitting on a front bench with the bass player and moose hunter, Jimmy Largent. (seen in the picture above) Now we've met some pretty amazing people in our travels but Jimmy was pretty unique. As the conversation steered into the amazing things of this world, he, with great confidence and wisdom, explained to us that the most sacred item was the tear of a unicorn as it gave birth to a cabbage patch kid. He also told us the story of the time he met a forlorn unicorn with a flaccid horn. You see, the vast majority of these animals are very happy and live wonderful lives, but every now and then you might meet one that is down on its luck.   Jimmy told us of all the various things he tried to get the horn to rise back up, some of which can't be repeated with a straight face, but I'll just say he really tried. But in the end it was of no use. It was up to the unicorn to find its way.

We explained to Jimmy how that certain pine tree was dancing to their music earlier. Without losing a beat Jimmy bends over and slaps the ground like a silver back gorilla and gallops over to the base of this tree raising up and takes a huge whiff of the tree. After a few deep breaths he leaps up and bear hugs the huge base of this tree and tries to shimmy up to the top branches, but after only making it a few feet up he falls backwards and lands on his ass. As we are laughing at this entire spectacle I think to myself, he's never going to get up that tree. He picks himself up and starts the entire process over, and this time he just barely gets a few fingers over the bottom branch.   Now this was absolutely one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed in my entire life. Once he got into the branches he starts moving effortlessly up the tree, never stopping or hesitating on any certain branch. The only way I can describe it is if you think about the recent Spiderman movies where he climbs buildings with a fluid motion of arms and legs working together and never stopping. We would lose him every 10 feet or so when the branches got thick, and then he would appear again, moving flawlessly with no wasted motion. I'm pretty sure he climbed all 80 feet of that tree in less than a minute. We were speechless.

After he made his way down, we all agreed that that was the most perfect way to end the night and went our separate ways to get some rest.   And as I was lying there, all I could think was that I have to try and share this with everyone.   If you've made it this far then I hope you've enjoyed it. Both Ashley and I agreed it was one of the most interesting nights we've had on the road yet. We can't wait to go back and visit our CO bluegrass buddies, and If you make it out there look them up. Just tell them you know us and they will take care of you, and it won't hurt if you can burn through a tasty version of "Ground Speed." Thanks Earl!

Until next time,
Brian and BDL

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

06.21.12 - Local 506 (Chapel Hill, NC)
06.22.12 - Blue Bourbon Jacks (High Point, NC)
06.26.12 - The Pour House (Charleston, SC)
06.27.12 - Goombay's Grill and Raw Bar (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
06.28.12 - Hoss's Deli (Newport News, VA)
06.30.12 - The Otter House (Fredericksburg, VA)
07.04.12 - Palm Room (Wrightsville Beach, NC)
07.05.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
07.06.12 - Outer Banks Brewing Station (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
07.07.12 - Ted Constant Convocation Center (Norfolk, VA)
07.08.12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)
07.12.12 - Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill (Roanoke, VA)
07.13.12 - Altamont Theatre (Asheville, NC)
07.14.12 - The Loft @ Benchwarmers (Salisbury, NC)
07.18.12 - Rapture (Charlottesville, VA)

Florida Follies and looking Forward to our Future

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:24:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
05.24.12 - Prison Brews (Jefferson City, MO)
05.26.12 - Meadowgrass Music Festival (Black Forest, CO)
05.27.12 - Quixote's True Blue (Denver, CO)
05.31.12 - River Jam Concert Series (Charlotte, NC)

May 1-11: Florida and Georgia

We spent 10 days playing through Florida and Georgia at the beginning of this month. It was quite a trip, to say the least; but overshadowing the new venues and fans was the fact that it was our maiden voyage with Scott Moss, our new singer. Even though we knew that we had made a great decision, it's always nice to first see a crowd's reaction to the new lineup, and the fans didn't disappoint. Here are some highlights of the trip.

The first gig at The Beach Side Tavern (which was 3 blocks away from the beach) was a good warm-up gig for us. We were able to work through any nerves and hesitations about learning an entire show with Scott in just two practice sessions.

We also had to make a quick stop at the beach, just long enough to say "hi." Here, our resident bird expert is showing us how sanderlings interact with the water. Wook never fails to impress.

The second gig at Guanabana's was great. We pulled about 100 people up to the stage and they absolutely loved us. This is when we knew for sure that we "had it." We connected with a crowd that is not used to seeing banjos on-stage, but they were totally into the show and every song.   We knew the music was good, but it was such a relief to know that we can completely connect with a crowd and get them fired up.

The third gig was at one of the best venues we've ever been to, Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa, FL.   We played between sets of a Grateful Dead cover band who has been playing there for over 12 years, and again, the crowd loved us. The guys in Uncle John's Band told us that we had the best crowd interaction of anyone playing with them in 5 or 6 years.

I joined the band for a few songs in their second set and then was able to just sit back and enjoy hearing some of the best music ever made.


Skipper's Smokehouse in the daytime. It completely transforms at night and feels like a parking lot of a Grateful Dead show.

Sitting in with the house band, Uncle John's Band

After the show at Skippers, we were invited to go across the street to another venue where a local roots band was playing, The Apple Butter Express. They invited me to sit in with them, making this the third band I played with that night. Yes, we fell in love with Tampa. Here's a video of us playing the classic "I Know You Rider."

This is the manager of this Best Western in Bradenton FL, he took a liking to us and helped us get rooms for the rest of the trip.

Egor, the White Egret that comes and eats eggs and grits every morning in the front of the Best Western

We finally had a day off, and we just so happened to be at a beautiful beach: Fernandina Beach, FL. The following picture is a rooftop bar where we hung out, and after dark we ended up playing a couple of acoustic sets for some new friends that we made. So much for the day off!

We FINALLY have a day off at the beach.

A nice sunset at Fernandino Beach FL.

We met up with an old friend from Stuart, VA, Chris Prutting, for a place to stay in Savannah, GA. Check out his festival, The Front Porch Festival in Stuart. Our friends Big Something will be playing there this year.

I love the streets of Savannah GA.

The last pic is at the hotel after our gig. At 3:30 in the morning, we were sitting outside working on new ideas for songs. Like Bob Marley sings, "Everything's gonna be alright!"

I'd like to say one last thing before I sign off. I know that it looks like we've been through a lot of change lately, and I can understand that it could look like we've hit a rough patch; but trust me on this, things have fallen into place for us better than we could have even imagined. At this stage of our musical careers, we have made a promise to ourselves and each other that we will make decisions that will strengthen us, no matter how hard they are. We have a core group of people that are all completely dedicated to living up to this promise and our outlook for the future is as bright as it has ever been. Thank you for sticking with us though all this change. The next time you see us, just close your eyes, open your ears, and hear the music that fills the room. I think you'll be as happy as we are.

Brian and Big Daddy Love

SPREAD THE LOVE

We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

05.24.12 - Prison Brews (Jefferson City, MO)
05.27.12 - Quixote's True Blue (Denver, CO)
05.31.12 - River Jam Concert Series (Charlotte, NC)
06.01.12 - The Pour House (Raleigh, NC)
06.08.12 - Empty Glass (Charleston, WV)
06.14.12 - Galaxy Lounge (Johnson City, TN)
06.15.12 - High Rock Outfitters (Lexington, NC)
06.16.12 - Quincey's Pizza (Damascus, VA)

BDL day at the Zoo!!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
05.17.12 - The Box (Charlottesville, VA)
05.18.12 - Town Park Gazebo (Damascus, VA)
05.19.12 - Back To Your Roots Celebration (Glade Valley, NC)

Tuesday, May 15

This will be a mini-travel blog post about our day at the Columbus Ohio Zoo.

First of all, this is a Wookie paradise. In case you don't know, Ashley has spent a lot of time working in the scientific field, with birds particularly, and so he was very excited about this opportunity. I had to get a pic of him as we were walking in, complete with his safari hat, binoculars, and notepad to write down what birds he sees. Right after I snapped this pic I told the guys that if Ashley wasn't in the band then we probably wouldn't have a travel blog. He makes traveling more interesting to say the least.

One of the funniest things that happened was Ashley putting the binoculars to his face, finding an exotic bird with them, and in a low voice he says, "Ohh...yeeaah..." Joey almost fell down laughing. We thought it was funny that he brought the binoculars, but then every one of us started using them.

The shot of this leopard was one of the best shots all day long.

We were able to watch one of the zookeepers interact with this huge gorrilla, getting it to climb up to get food. The size of these gorillas is amazing.

One of the oddest animals we've ever seen. It's the only animal that is kin to a giraffe!

A Manatee!!

The largest bats in the world! The are called Flying Foxes.

Koala Bear

An Arctic Fox

Fish!!

One of the most amazing things we saw was this huge brown bear swimming and playing in the water only a foot away from us (behind the glass). Being this close to such a powerful animal is unlike anything we've ever experienced.

We found the rare and elusive WOOKIE in his natural habitat. I was able snap this pic.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about visiting a zoo. It has been a long time since I've been to one and have obviously developed quite the affinity for animal rights since then, but what stuck out to me was how many of these animals were either on the brink of extinction or close to it. Each exhibit showed the current populations of the animals, and it was alarming to see that we are losing so many animals at such a fast pace. Overall it was a great experience, and I thought a lot about how vital it is for all of us to be able to experience the diversity of this amazing planet at close range. Gaining a sense of the beauty and diversity of all living species will only help us foster a sense of kinship with the planet and take steps to preserve all the living things around us.

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

05.17.12 - The Box (Charlottesville, VA)
05.18.12 - Town Park Gazebo (Damascus, VA)
05.19.12 - Back To Your Roots Celebration (Glade Valley, NC)
05.24.12 - Prison Brews (Jefferson City, MO)
05.27.12 - Quixote's True Blue (Denver, CO)
05.31.12 - River Jam Concert Series (Charlotte, NC)
06.01.12 - The Pour House (Raleigh, NC)
06.08.12 - Empty Glass (Charleston, WV)
06.15.12 - High Rock Outfitters (Lexington, NC)

April 25-28: Farewell Blues - Dan's last run with us

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:39:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
05.10.12 - 40 Watt (Athens, GA)
05.11.12 - Party On The Plank (High Point, NC)
05.14.12 - Woodlands Tavern (Columbus, OH)
05.16.12 - Mad Frog (Cincinnati, OH)

Hello out there, all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!!

As I write this, we are finishing up a long run in Florida, which I'll tell you all about in next week's post. I'd like this week's post to focus on Daniel's last week or so on the road with us; we had some incredible shows and felt a tremendous outpouring of love for him and all of us as we go through this transition. So Dan, this post is for you! We love you and thank you for everything you've done.

April 25-26: Nashville and Johnson City

I've already told you all about the amazing Kickstarter party a few weeks back, which turned out to be the perfect afternoon for us and nearly 100 longtime, dedicated fans. It was a really special and emotional day for everyone. Many people there were seeing Dan with BDL for the last time, so I wanted to mention it again in this write-up.

The next early Wednesday morning found us loading up the Love Bus for the long drive to Nashville. We have been honored to make three previous appearances on the Jim Lauderdale-hosted weekly live music show, Music City Roots; this time, we were especially excited to share the stage with the legendary band Leftover Salmon. The Loveless Cafe served up their famous chicken and biscuits before the show, and there was a packed house by the time we took the stage.

MCR streams the whole show online, and you can watch the archived version right here! Make sure to check out the other great bands, and the big jam at the end.

Watch live streaming video from musiccityroots at livestream.com

The show ended early in the evening, so we had the rare chance to go to a local brewpub for an afterparty jam to hang out and relax. Joey took this photo, so I can't really explain what's going on here. We were joined by two great friends and two people who are "fan of the week" alumni, a follow Spartan Jamie Bryan, and our great friend from CA, Jenny De Guzman.

Our friends, The Volunteer String Band, were playing the after-party and got us onstage to play a few songs for the packed house.

On Thursday, we again had a fairly long drive over to Johnson City, TN. We played a new-to-us venue there, the Galaxy Lounge. There was a good crowd, and several people were in costume. The venue also had people doing face and body painting.

If there was a costume contest Gaelyn Porter would have won!

I have no words for this picture....

April 27-28: Winston-Salem and Lexington

Friday night found us back in Winston-Salem for our first ever show at Ten O One. Dan wanted it to be a big celebration, so we made it one! We had a really fun, energetic crowd, a series of special guests on stage including Bill Stevens on keys, Lauren Caudle, Jennifer Clowers, and Stacy Jones, and a few surprise cover songs (including "Sweet Child of Mine). We let Dan do a lot of talking, especially in the first set. You can listen to and/or download a great recording of the show here, thanks to our archivist, Travis Viars.

On Saturday, we started the afternoon with a set at the Lexington BBQ Cookoff. We always have a good time in Lexington at our High Rock Outfitters shows, so it was great to see a lot of familiar faces in the crowd. Dan's family came up for the show, and his sons sang on a couple of songs. Check out his boys on stage with the banner they made:

We invited all the kids in the audience to come up on stage; the only rule was that they had to dance.

No matter where we all go, this will always be family.

We had one more show that day, at a wedding in Eden, NC. We love playing private events like this; and please know that if you ever hire us to play your wedding or event, we will put our best foot forward, as evidenced in this video:

Dan, we wish you the best of luck, and much love to you. Love Bussers, the Bus rolls on, and we will see you very soon!

We are sitting here in Athens Ga, finishing up a 9 day run through Florida, and I would like to encourage all our faithful fans to come to High Point tomorrow to the Party on the Plank event. I know many of you are wondering about our next phase and this will be a great introduction. As the late great Bob Marley sang, "Everything's gonna be alright....Everything's gonna be alright..."

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

05.10.12 - 40 Watt (Athens, GA)
05.11.12 - Party On The Plank (High Point, NC)
05.14.12 - Woodlands Tavern (Columbus, OH)
05.16.12 - Mad Frog (Cincinnati, OH)
05.17.12 - The Box (Charlottesville, VA)
05.18.12 - Town Park Gazebo (Damascus, VA)
05.19.12 - Back To Your Roots Celebration (Glade Valley, NC)
05.27.12 - Quixote's True Blue (Denver, CO)
05.31.12 - River Jam Concert Series (Charlotte, NC)
06.01.12 - The Pour House (Raleigh, NC)
06.08.12 - Empty Glass (Charleston, WV)

The BDL family grows by ONE!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:16:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
04.27.12 - Ten O One (Winston-Salem, NC)
04.28.12 - BBQ Capital Cookoff (Lexington, NC) 12-2pm

Greetings, all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

April 15: Kickstarter Party

We continue to be blown away by the incredible support you all give us, and the success of our fall Kickstarter campaign for Let It Grow is certainly no exception. We were amazed when a big group of Love Bussers pooled their money to make a big donation that earned them a private party, and we spent an amazing afternoon and evening with music, friends, and love. After "regular" weekend gigs in Boone and Mooresville, it was great to be able to relax and socialize on a laid-back Sunday afternoon.

Dickie and Jenn Clowers graciously hosted us at Dickie's family farm. We played at their wedding here almost exactly a year ago!

The gorgeous location for the afternoon festivities

Acoustic set under the Home Tree

The BDL "Family"

Our favorite ghost wanted to be a part of things, too

Big thanks and big love to everyone who was there. It was a really special afternoon for us and hopefully for you!

April 20-21: Beaufort, NC and Richmond, VA

To sum up last weekend, we got to spend some time at the beach:

We'd like to thank our great friends in the Beaufort area for taking us to breakfast on the beach.
Scott, Katy, Jeb

A few hours on the beach is a luxury

...and with our friends Jackass Flats in Richmond:

Jackass Flats taking the stage at The Camel

______________________

As many of you know, Daniel has decided to stop touring with BDL; this weekend is his last on the road with us. Dan, we love you and look forward to the next chapter in your story. I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome Scott Moss as the new singer for BDL. Read the full announcement here, and see Scott in action in this video:

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

04.25.12 - Loveless Cafe (Nashville, TN)
04.26.12 - Galaxy Lounge (Johnson City, TN)
04.27.12 - Ten O One (Winston-Salem, NC)
04.28.12 - BBQ Capital Cookoff (Lexington, NC)
05.01.12 - Beachside Tavern (New Smyrna, FL)
05.02.12 - Guanabana's (Jupiter, FL)
05.03.12 - Skipper's Smokehouse (Tampa, FL)
05.04.12 - Cafe DaVinci (Deland, FL)
05.06.12 - Hurricane Bar and Lounge (Delray Beach, FL)
05.07.12 - Dog Star Tavern (Fernandina Beach, FL)
05.09.12 - Mellow Mushroom (Jacksonville, FL)
05.10.12 - 40 Watt (Athens, GA)
05.11.12 - Party On The Plank (High Point, NC)
05.17.12 - The Box (Charlottesville, VA)
05.18.12 - Town Park Gazebo (Damascus, VA)
05.19.12 - Back To Your Roots Celebration (Glade Valley, NC)

Birthdays, Darth Vader, and More Birthdays

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:55:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
04.13.12 - Murphy's Saloon (Boone, NC)
04.14.12 - Bathtub Gin (Mooresville, NC)

Greetings, all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios! We have a guest blog poster this week: Jenny Viars (or, as you may know her, Dancing Lemur)! When it comes to making sure things get done in the BDL org Jenny is probably the most important person we have. The entire operation would literally fall apart if it wasn't for her and Travis Viars. So, without further ado, here's JENNY.

Birthdays!

Hello there, everyone! We're going to skip talking about the recent shows this week and focus on what's really important: band birthdays!

Somehow it works out that almost all the members of BDL have spring birthdays, so we've had some fun weekday music-filled celebrations the last few weeks. (Chasper's birthday was all the way back in January.) First up was Joey, whose March 6 birthday coincided perfectly with a Tuesday Night Jam at High Rock Outfitters. We had lots of special guests, and an incredible guitar cake!

Ashley turned 40 last Monday (April 2). Stacy Jones planned an amazing Star Wars themed surprise party, again at the Tuesday Night Jam. She also made a tie-dye cake--perfect for Ashley!

On the left, various Star Wars posters hung up behind the food table. On the right, 3-D galaxy game.

Tie-dye cake!!

Lauren Thomas made awesome lightsabers out of pool noodles. So of course we all admired them from afar, while respecting her craftsmanship. Except these two.

"Stop it! No YOU stop it!"

We arranged for a surprise mystery guest to arrive at set break (there is video forthcoming, as well).

Any guesses on who is beneath the mask? As it turns out, Darth plays drums, too, if that provides a hint.

If you haven't figured it out yet, here's Darth (with Stacy) post-reveal:

Finally, on April 11th we celebrated the b-day of a very special person: Jim Lauderdale! Wait, no. That's just what Brian wanted me to say, because it was actually his birthday (although it really was Jim Lauderdale's birthday, too)! That's right, our favorite banjo player turned...well, we'll just say 21 again. Tori Steinberg managed to surprise the reluctant celebrator with decorations, party hats, fake mustaches, and even a cake with a photo of Jaxon on it.

Mustaches make everything fun!

Bluegrass banjo birthday boy

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate our favorite musicians' circles around the sun! Hope to see you all soon (like at one of the shows listed below)!

Dancing Lemur and Big Daddy Love

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

04.13.12 - Murphy's Saloon (Boone, NC)
04.14.12 - Bathtub Gin (Mooresville, NC)
04.20.12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)
04.21.12 - The Camel (Richmond, VA)
04.25.12 - Loveless Cafe (Nashville, TN)
04.26.12 - Galaxy Lounge (Johnson City, TN)
04.27.12 - Ten O One (Winston-Salem, NC)
05.01.12 - Beachside Tavern (New Smyrna, FL)
05.02.12 - Guanabana's (Jupiter, FL)
05.03.12 - Skipper's Smokehouse (Tampa, FL)
05.04.12 - Cafe da Vinci (Deland, FL)
05.06.12 - Hurricane Bar and Lounge (Delray Beach, FL)
05.07.12 - Dog Star Tavern (Fernandina Beach, FL)
05.08.12 - Silver Dollar Music Park (Glade Valley, NC)
05.09.12 - Mellow Mushroom (Jacksonville, FL)
05.10.12 - 40 Watt (Athens, GA)
05.11.12 - Party On The Plank (High Point, NC)
05.12.12 - The Loft @ Benchwarmers (Salisbury, NC)

March 23-24: BIG/BIG Show and The BIG River Cleanup in Asheville!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:41:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
3-29-12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
3-31-12 - T-Dawg's Backporch Hootenanny (Lafayette, GA)

Greetings, all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

Last weekend seemed shorter, with only two nights of shows, but in between we got together with some fans and did the river cleanup.

Friday, March 23: Burlington, NC. The BIG/BIG Show

We really love playing Fat Frogg in Burlington, NC, near Elon College. We knew it was spring break for the college, so we had no idea what kind of crowd to expect; but we had our biggest turnout there yet! It is the hometown of our good friends Big Something, so of course there were some cross-band jams. You can listen to the show HERE!

Casey from Big Something playing Big Country with us. He killed it!

Joey on stage with Big Something.

Our intrepid photographer Jenny Viars got a great shot of the band!

Saturday, March 24: Asheville, NC

We had to head out early Saturday morning for Asheville, so we could help out with the Love Bus River Cleanup at the Swannanoa River. A couple of student groups got a head start that morning, so Eric from Asheville Greenworks led us to the section we would be working in. It was too cold to be down in the actual river, but there was plenty of work to be done on the banks and along the road. It was amazing how much trash and recyclables we picked up. All total, 49 volunteers collected 62 full bags of trash and recycling along a 4-mile stretch of the Swannanoa River. We're looking forward to making this an annual event that will grow every year! Extra special thanks to the two people who keep The Love Bus going, Jenny Viars and Stacy Jones.

Give us weapons and we will battle

River Clean Up ROCKS!!

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round

This pic shows our FANS OF THE WEEK

With organizer Eric Bradford

Joey and I found our way to an old campsite on the river bank. We managed to pull out several bags of trash and even a tent that was full of trash and was just rotting. After taking a picture of our huge trash score we realized that it was probably once the home of the ghost that has been following us lately.

Our sparta friends Beth and Marcus Edwards were kind enough to let us go to their beautiful home to shower and hang out before the gig. Thanks, Beth and Marcus! This is the gorgeous view from their back deck:

Our show at Jack of the Wood drew our best Asheville crowd yet! Someone even told me he was visiting from out of town and was told the BDL show was THE place to be that night. We always love hearing stuff like that! My friend Aaron Burdett opened up for us. I've known Aaron from our Boone days and he's one of the best songwriters around. I encourage you to keep up with him here.

Aaron Burdett

We also continued the Love Bus events and had a raffle benefiting Asheville GreenWorks, which raised about $50. Thanks, everyone!

Thanks everyone and we'll see you soon!

Brian and Big Daddy Love
Lonesome Banjo Chronicles

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

3-29-12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
4-6-12 - Jake's Bar & Grill (Columbia, SC)
4-7-12 - Bucked Up Super Saloon (Kernersville, NC)
4-13-12 - Murphy's Saloon (Boone, NC)
4-14-12 - Bathtub Gin (Mooresville, NC)
4-20-12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)
4-21-12 - The Camel (Richmond, VA)
4-25-12 - Loveless Cafe (Nashville, TN)
4-27-12 - Ten O One (Winston-Salem, NC)

March 15-17: Bountiful Basses, and St. Paddy's Day Bash

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:31:00 +0000

Hello, all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

UPCOMING SHOWS
03.23.12 - The Fat Frogg (Elon, NC)
03.24.12 - Jack of the Wood (Asheville, NC)
03.29.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)

We've found one of Wookie's long lost relatives

Last weekend's adventures led us up into Virginia, and then back down to Raleigh for a St. Patrick's Day bash.

March 15: Harrisonburg, VA

We really like playing at the Clementine Cafe. The place is full of original art and everyone in the town is super-nice. The opening band was called The Judy Chops. And Joey knew exactly where they got the name from, The West Virginia Ninja. It's one of the best youtube videos we've seen.

The Wook demands that there be fresh flowers backstage so he can get his mojo on.

On Friday, we headed to Staunton, VA to go to this great music store that we've been hearing about, Fretwell Bass. And yes, the owners name is really Jerry Fretwell. Any bass player in the southeast needs to come to this store. It really is amazing.

One happy Wook!

This is why musicians are always late.

Joey opened their guestbook and the first two names he saw were from Sparta NC.
Sparta people are everywhere.

Downtown shot of beautiful Staunton, VA.

March 16: Richmond, VA

Before the Richmond show, we stopped at one of our very favorite stores: a thrift store. It's a one stop shop for BDL, with shirts for Ashley and Joey:

and books for me.

The bad news is the ghost seems to be following us. He must be our newest fan.

March 17: Raleigh, NC
The first part of the day had us at my niece's birthday party. This has become an annual tradition for us and Joey wrote about it in our regular "fan of the week."

These are all my kids. Future banjo army.

We last played the Lincoln Theater on Halloween, so we were really excited to be back for the "Big Paddy Love Party." Our friends the Shane Pruitt Band opened things up for us - we always love to see and share the stage with them. Athens, GA-based band The Corduroy Road also played; it was our first time seeing them, and we really enjoyed their high-energy bluegrass!

It was awesome to see how many people there wore "Good Morning Sunshine" shirts for their St. Patrick's Day green. As for us...well, some of us got more into the holiday than others.

A little known superhero "The Green Wook" made a special guest appearance.
Look for more superheros at special events!

Daniel celebrated by using a green toothpick

This weekend, we are looking forward to playing at Fat Frogg in Elon with our friends Big Something, the River Cleanup on Saturday morning, and Jack of the Wood in Asheville on Saturday night (with Aaron Burdett!). Hope to see you out there at one (or more!) of those! Scroll down to see our nifty River Clean Up poster, and help us spread it around.

Brian and Big Daddy Love

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

03.23.12 - The Fat Frogg (Elon, NC)
03.24.12 - Jack of the Wood (Asheville, NC)
03.29.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
04.06.12 - Jake's Bar & Grill (Columbia, SC)
04.07.12 - Bucked Up Super Saloon (Kernersville, NC)
04.13.12 - Murphy's Saloon (Boone, NC)
04.14.12 - Bathtub Gin (Mooresville, NC)

Ghosts, Rivers, and Mr. Miyagi

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:27:00 +0000

UPCOMING SHOWS
> > 03.15.12 - Clementine Cafe (Harrisonburg, VA)
> > 03.16.12 - Cary St. Cafe (Richmond, VA)
> > 03.17.12 - Lincoln Theatre (Raleigh, NC)

Hello, all you Big Love Bussin' Daddios!

We just wanted to check in for a brief update before we hit the road this weekend. We had some much-needed time off last weekend, but the beginning of the month found us in Virginia and Maryland.

We played right below a big picture of Einstein in Wilmington; in Charlottesville we play in front of another master.

We discovered that Roanoke VA has some famous ghosts around town and one came to our show.

We've also started a new feature at shows, called The Wall. It's a chance for all of you to leave us a message, a joke, a comment...the sky's the limit! Bonus points for creativity, and we'll be looking for a "weekly winner" that entertains us the most. The weekly winner gets internet fame and the satisfaction of knowing you made us laugh. We'll be posting photos of The Wall from each show over on our Facebook page. We look forward to hearing from you! Here's the one from Roanoke:

This week's winner was "Sometimes late at night, I fill my bathtub with marinara. I get in and pretend I'm a meatball."

Don't forget: next Saturday (March 24), we have a big Love Bus event in Asheville. We'll meet that morning to clean up a section of the Swannanoa River. You can find details here. Hope to see you there AND at the show that evening! We're especially excited that Aaron Burdett will be opening for us at Jack of the Wood that night!

See you soon!
Big Daddy Love

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, emailstreetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

> > 03.15.12 - Clementine Cafe (Harrisonburg, VA)
> > 03.16.12 - Cary St. Cafe (Richmond, VA)
> > 03.17.12 - Lincoln Theatre (Raleigh, NC)
> > 03.23.12 - The Fat Frogg (Elon, NC)
> > 03.24.12 - Jack of the Wood (Asheville, NC)
> > 03.29.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
> > 04.06.12 - Jake's Bar & Grill (Columbia, SC)
> > 04.07.12 - Bucked Up Super Saloon (Kernersville, NC)

River Runs: BDL and Volunteer River Cleanup (Love Bus Event)

noreply@blogger.com (dancing_lemur) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:26:00 +0000

We're excited about our next Love Bus charity event, which is a river cleanup in Asheville, NC the morning of our March 24 show at Jack of the Wood. We also want to take a second and announce a very special guest for this show: the Aaron Burdett Band will be opening for us. Aaron is one of the best songwriters in the state and we are always proud to perform with him. I'll post a YouTube clip of one of his songs, "You Still Amaze Me," below. Please take a second to check it out and visit his page.

“River Runs: Volunteer River Cleanup” is a family-friendly river cleanup event organized by Asheville GreenWorks, a nonprofit working for a clean and green Buncombe County, and the Love Bus. Call for Volunteers: fans, friends and any community members are asked to participate with Asheville GreenWorks and members of Big Daddy Love for this event on Saturday, March 24th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m to help remove debris and litter from the Swannanoa River waterways. No registration required, just show up!

Volunteers should meet outdoors at 387 Swannanoa River Road, Asheville, NC. This is by the I-240 bridge, on Swannanoa River Road (directly across from the U-Haul Rental Dealership), on the left-hand side of the road in a gravel pull-off by the water. Park in the gravel parking area and not in the U-Haul lot. A Google map is available for the meet up location at: http://g.co/maps/74svf.

• Groups and families with children (student groups participating)

• Wear layered clothes that can get wet/dirty

• Rubber boots/galoshes recommended

• Cleanup gear, first aid equipment, and drinking water for event provided

• Photo opportunity with band members and giveaways for participants

Following the “River Runs: Volunteer River Cleanup” event, we'll be performing at Jack of the Wood (95 Patton Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801) on March 24th, 2012 starting at 9:30pm. More about Big Daddy Love and show details can be found here. Aaron Burdett will be opening.

Please help us spread the word! We look forward to seeing you out at the river!

Here is Aaron Burdett singing "You Still Amaze Me."

February 16-18: Great Georgian Galapagos Gigs

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Swenk) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Hello all you Big Love Bussin' Daddios,

UPCOMING SHOWS
02.23.12 - High Rock Outfitters (Lexington, NC)
02.24.12 - Murphy's (Boone, NC)
02.25.12 - Main Cellar City Club (Hickory, NC)

We spent last weekend in the great state of Georgia. It was great to see some familiar faces and meet lots of new ones.

We had a 7 hour drive down to Statesboro. Fortunately, technology allows us to stay connected and work on the road...even for the Wookie. This is our rolling office.

February 16: Buffalo's, Statesboro, GA

To answer the question: "No, we do not play 'Statesboro Blues' while we are in Statesboro, GA."

When you don't drink before playing you have to find other ways to pass the time.

We'd like to thank whoever changed the sign out front while we played. We saw this on the way out and had a good laugh about it. We appreciate creativity in all of its glorious forms.

February 17: Stillwater Taproom, Augusta, GA

After the gig in Statesboro, we drove to Augusta, and a very nice couple who first saw us a few months back in Columbia, SC graciously offered us their guest house for the two nights we were in the area. It was easily the nicest accommodations that we've had so far.

Nice relaxing morning

Little Cabin in the Woods.

The Wook on his way to his favorite activity; DISC GOLF! Hippie Olympics watch out!

The Stillwater Taproom is always a fun place to play, even if our playing space is a little cramped! It's the smallest stage we ever play but we love the venue and the owner so much that we keep coming back. This place has so much history to me personally, as you will see in the following photos.

You can barely see Daniel on the right; he had to stand in the floor!

The Taproom has been around for quite a while, so they have this great collection of old press photos framed and hung up everywhere, including two of my old bands and several other familiar faces! I played in both Wiseapple and Boss Hawg for almost 10 years up in Boone, NC. Both bands played the Stillwater Taproom several times. In fact, Boss Hawg was playing one night and Joey Recchio walks in out of nowhere. I hadn't seen Joey in a few years and he just showed up at our gig in Augusta GA. Blew me away.

L to R: Ben McPherron, Brian Swenk, Jon Hill, Tim Marsh

Jon Hill, Chris Lovejoy, Brian Swenk, Kim France, Jonjon Davis

Probably one of the first press pictures they ever took. And now they're at the Grammy's.

The following picture shows a "who's who" of southeast string band music. Matt, the owner of Stillwater Taproom, has gone out of his way to support great music and you can tell he has found some of the best through the years. I think I know half the bands shown here.

February 18: Little King Showcase, Atlanta, GA

Many of you may know Thomas Helland, aka "T-Dawg." He's a huge music supporter, promoter, and festival host; we'll be playing his annual Back Porch Hootenanny the end of March. This past weekend, he hosted a Little King Showcase, held in the soundstage area at Encyclomedia. We played last, after The Internationals and Evergreen, but the building had plenty of ways for us to keep busy.

In table tennis, form is important.

Ok guys, tonight's show will go something like this...

The back drop for the stage.

Overall, we had a great time down in GA. See you again soon!

Brian and Big Daddy Love
Lonesome Banjo Chronicles
_________________________________________________________________________________

And the winner of the contest is Claudia Kelly. We'll be in touch to get your prizes to you!

Here are the correct answers.

1. Yellow Galactic Seed--Ashley Sutton

2. Red Galactic Skywalker-- Brian Swenk

3. White Spectral Wizard-- Daniel Smith

4. White Crystal Wind-- Joey Recchio

5. Yellow Magnetic Star-- Chasper Horton

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

02.23.12 - High Rock Outfitters (Lexington, NC)
02.24.12 - Murphy's (Boone, NC)
02.25.12 - Main Cellar City Club (Hickory, NC)
03.02.12 - Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill (Roanoke, VA)
03.03.12 - Dante's Bar (Frostburg, MD)
03.15.12 - Clementine Cafe (Harrisonburg, VA)
03.16.12 - Cary St. Cafe (Richmond, VA)
03.17.12 - Lincoln Theatre (Raleigh, NC)