Sunday, October 14, 2007

Ironweed on Youtube

p.s. Here is how you can view Ironweed on Youtube...

there is a video at the Tsingtao Beer Festival and a video of us with the Daoist monks...

Just go to http://www.youtube.com/ and in the search box type in:

ironweed at the tsingtao beer festival

.... and/or

ironweed and daoist monks

Thank-you to Rory for making this happen...

The October Ironweed Patch

Howdy there Ironweed family,

Well, October is half over and Ironweed is still trying to catch their/our breath.

This month has proved to be as extremely busy as September. We have had a bunch of great gigs and more comin' at us.

We gave a slide presentation of our trip to China at the Columbia Friends of China Dumpling Festival on Friday, October 12th. Dierik worked really hard on this project and it was overwhelming to revisit our newly loved country through the many photos and music melting in the background.

We have a few tweaks on our slide production but our plans are to make the presentation available to libraries, schools, etc. Our hope is for it to be entertaining, educational and a bit mystical with the blend of bluegrass music, the Chinese culture's first impression of this foreign sound and our visit with the Taoist monks.

We also plan on putting a great photo slideshow on discs and making them available to the public at our gigs.

And more .....what about a new Ironweed cd music release?? We quickly went to the studio to put together a recording of Dierik and I with our new Weeds before we left for China. We self-produced this and gave away around 200 copies in China. We are presently taking time to tweak some of our songs on the recording and hope to have it available to our Ironweed family before Christmas.

Comin' at us...Hsiao-Mei, the president of the Columbia Friends of China has heard back from the Directors in the Province of Shandong. They expressed a true love for Ironweed and the music we brought to their culture. They are now discussing with Hsiao-Mei the possibility of Ironweed returning to do a university tour throughout the Province since the schools were not in session while we were recently there. Ironweed is whole-heartedly hoping this will happen. We are already "homesick" to go back. Hsiao-Mei and Mary Jo Herde are presently in China discussing this as I write..yipppee!...Dierik and I personally think we need to take Professor Bentley with us on this next tour....

More comin' at us....My "other" job is Entertainment Director of the First Night Festival on New Year's Eve in downtown Columbia and the Stephens Campus..and also for...Art in the Park, the first weekend in June.

For First Night, December 31st, 2008, Hsiao-Mei and I are working closely with Director Wang in Laoshan to bring the Taoist Monk Musicians we met and played with, to perform for Columbia. Director Wang is very excited and hopes to see this cultural exchange happen. Hsiao-Mei is presently speaking with the Director while she is in China. I will keep everyone posted on this great possibility..

In the meanwhile......we love being home with family and friends..we had a great day yesterday, in spite of the rain, nested in great white tents, at the Chestnut Festival in New Franklin. It was a cozy setting smelling the incredible fragrances of roasting chestnuts, tasting the lavender honey green tea and singing our hearts out to warm-hearted friends.

Other Weeds in the patch....I will soon be posting some information on our website about the "other Weeds in our patch". You may have seen them on our Ironweed stage this month. Jake Clayton is our main fiddler and if he is called away on a contracted journey...we have some top notch instrumental musicians ready to step in...Kelly Jones and Nathan Redelfs...more on these amazing guys, later..

All for now..thank-you for letting me go on and on...and yes, it is sometimes overwhelming with our performance and personal schedules..we wouldn't have it any other way.

your Ironweeds...jane, dierik, jake, alan
www.ironweedbluegrassband.com