Thursday, August 23, 2007

A last, sweet hurrah

While we were doing a sound check for our last performance in Laiyang , I noticed this little girl staring at the band. She had walked into an area in front of the stage that had been roped off to keep the audience at a distance from the stage but somehow managed to elude her parents and the stage directors.

Unnoticed for a few minutes in this forbidden area, she stood motionless, oblivious to all of her surroundings except the band. One can only imagine what was going through her mind when she saw us foreigners trying out our microphones.

Somehow this little girl struck my heartstrings and became the symbol of why we came to China. To me she represented the roots of the Chinese people, the common people, the same people that made Bluegrass music popular in the United States.

After those few minutes of staring, the girl was moved out of that area by one of the stage directors. She then stood in the front of the crowd watching the performance with many other children and their parents who were equally perplexed by what they saw. During the first half of our performance the audience remained somewhat quiet, but by the time we finished the show everyone had fallen in love with the music.

We have been so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to come here and share this music.

Dierik Leonhard

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

A sweet goodbye to China

Tuesday:
We are now in flight somewhere over the Pacific ocean headed home to Columbia. I will recall the last two days in Laiyang.

We spent Sunday having lunch and dinner with the Directors and waiting to be called to our sound check. While waiting, we ventured onto the streets with the usual stares and waves from the curious folks. We left Linda behind, napping. With a bit of prideful, ignorant confidence, we wandered without her. We stumbled upon some line dancers dancing to pop music in a parking lot. We were quickly escorted into a small tent and told to sit down as they began showing us photo albums of beautiful brides. We then realized it was all a promotion for a wedding photography company. We politely declined and continued our walk.

We happened upon a small music store owned by a local young musician. We were looking for Epiphone guitars since Gibson now has a factory in Shandong Province and were curious about the prices. I had hoped to buy one for my son Anthony and for Jonas, my guitar student, but the store didn’t carry them. I couldn’t find them anywhere in our travels. I suspect the company is just building them and shipping directly to the U.S.

We had a great visit with the music store folks. We gave them our business card written in Chinese so they could see we were a band. I then ask to see his computer and pulled up our website. They were really excited. The owner couldn’t speak English but he had one of his young students with him and he knew enough phrases to get us through a decent conversation. We asked the store owner to play us some music. He sang a pop song he had written and then gave us one of his demo CD’s. We told them we had a concert that night and we would call him back with the details when we returned to our translator. The owner and his student said they would be there for sure. We took some photos and returned to our hotel just in time for sound check.

The concert was to be held in a parking lot in the downtown district on a large stage they had erected for us. There were already lots of folks gathering at the sound check.

The concert was awesome. The parking lot was packed. The sound and stage techs worked really hard to place every mike exactly the way we wanted them and the lights were angled with perfection. I have been really impressed with the efforts of our techs on this trip. They know little about our instruments but are eager to learn and work very hard with the little knowledge they have about us.

When we kicked off Foggy Mountain breakdown, we encountered the same looks of confusion, delight and desire to respond in some sort of way. They just have trouble sorting through their emotions as they experience personal, unrecognizable responses to a new music. As in our other performances, they quickly figure out that this is a music to move to, to clap to and to smile at. They are unsure if they should just want to listen to the music or stare at the four strange aliens on the stage. They figure they will just do both.

The children love the music, they immediately started dancing just like in Columbia but the directors quickly moved them back into the audience area. We were really disappointed but didn’t want to question their routine and start a Chinese kid riot.

This particular night, we had an opera star from Beijing on the concert bill with us and performed during our break. I think this has been of our most entertaining aspects of the trip, watching to see who will be on the bill with us. Remember, so far, we have had a post-punk band, karaoke pop-stars, break dancers and a pop-rock band … why not an opera star?

The evening finished with amazing applause, lots of photos and autographs. The television station televised the whole gig and will send a copy to us.

We spent our last day in this beautiful country on a tour planned by the Tourism Director. The band, Linda, one of the Directors and his son, and our lovely tour guide took off for a destination that should have been only one hour away. To put it gently, our driver was quite a colorful character and we ended up taking a four hour route that wasn’t exactly planned and finally arrived after driving down a bumpy, dirt, goat path with lots of horn honking. More on this later.

We visited temples at the coastal city of Penglai. We were once again delighted to be seeing so much of this great Province. The sea was a setting for the legend of eight friends that had become so intoxicated they decided to go out to sea and when they returned they were immortal.

We then traveled to Qixia. It is now apple harvest time throughout the countryside making it quite the festive route. We passed through farmlands and small towns bustling with markets and miles of baskets and boxes anticipating the harvest of the day. This backwoods route turned out to be one our favorite excursions. Watching the people work amidst the livestock and the endless rows of fruit trees, gardens and vineyards gave us a rich piece of Chinese life we had hoped to taste. This country is a photographer’s heaven.

We ended our tour by visiting an ancient manor belonging to the family of Mou. After reading The Good Earth, all of the pieces of this great novel came alive. The manor was a small, self-contained village with various living quarters for the rich land owner, his many concubines and workers. It was complete with gardens and courtyards, a mill, a winemaking room, a root cellar, a medical pharmacy, a carved wooden performance stage and an office for the accountants.

We returned in time to take a quick shower, eat and head to the stage for our last night and last performance in China.

Many of the same people returned from the previous night. Rows of children were with their parents. The Directors had to rope off the first several feet to keep the stage area clear.

Our last concert was a warm reminder of why the Columbia Friends of China had sent us on this mission. We taught a culture about a music they had never heard before. We taught a culture about this great roots Bluegrass music of Midwestern America. We made many friends. We pleased Directors. We extended ourselves to China in hopes of exchanging many cultural ideas in the days to come. We ourselves, have been richly blessed.

I awakened this morning to find a note on my computer that simply said, “Mommy, come home”. I knew it was time to come home…

Sunday, August 19, 2007

A little help from our friend . . .

Hi, everyone out there!
When I was informed that I've got a chance to be the partner of Ironweed, I was very excited but nervous at the same time. How would they be like?

Actually I was not worried any more after several hours we met. They are friendly,easy-going and patient. I have learned a lot from them during the whole trip, and I began to realise how important it is to know the English names of all kinds of vegetables.

I hope that I can do a better job next time they come to China.

XuXiaotian

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Gambei from Alan

Gambei, my Columbia friends! Here is a look at what it is like to be treated like a star in China. Go to our photo gallery for even more pictures.

Our hosts treated us to a typical "rock star" dinner gathering with the endless table of food – which of course included "gambei," which is a "bottom's up toast." You can see more photos of the festivities at our photo gallery.

The Chinese believe that food and drink bind friendships together, and so they do. It's not uncommon for there to be 10-20 toasts at dinner; these folks can out drink Dierik the German!

Our TV show was amazing. The people are this excited to see us everywhere we go, really, it's amazing.

The sound tech for our performance at the Tsingdao ceremonies runs the biggest nightclub in Jinan, "Cinderella." It's huge and broken into theme rooms: karaoke, band stage, a disco, a "girls dancing stage" picture girls in go go boots dancing to 60's music...a "boy and girl meet room" that is a big oval table where single guys are outside, girls are on the inside...the Chinese version of "speed dating. The "house band" was a great group from Beijing doing a three-month stint of 7 nights a week there.

Clubs stay open till at least 4 am. These guys had a great repertoire of modern Chinese rock, some of their own arrangements of traditional Chinese poetic lyrics mixed into their own music, and even traditional Chinese Beijing Opera libretto over their own modern rock compositions.

Outside, I love watching the Trike Trucks. They s are typical heavy load transportation here; motorcycle front ends with one-ton axles and cary loads certainly bigger than that. The 1500cc single cylinder engines sound like a 1930's John Deere tractor with a 600 rpm redline..."pop-pop-pop," very slow.

I took a photo of Linda-Xu Hsaio Tien -- our translator – on a stone tiger at a National Park near Langgu. The park is to commemorate a hero from 600 years ago who killed a tiger that had been killing villagers there for some time. He came to town, drank 18 bowls of "wine," went to sleep on a big flat rock ... the tiger woke him, and he hit it with his walking stick, then killed it by hand. We got to try the "wine," which was made from local corn, certainly 100 proof or better -- think Moonshine, not wine as we know it.

We also had dinner the Cultural and Tourism Board Bureau heads from Langgu, and some heads of the hotel staff, who cooperatively arranged a big show for us that night. This is typical of how we're treated here...huge dinners with important people, many courses of great food typical of each area we've visited. The shot of me and the National Park Director toasted is "gambei."

The Chinese that food and drink bind a friendship forever, and it's typical to have 10-20 gambei toasts at a meal... In our gallery, you can see photos of us on stage with the life size photos from the hotel show that night You can see the effort they went to to make the shot look and sound great. They had those same photos running on big screen TV's in the hotel lobby advertising the show, all week. Amazing.

This is all typical of the kindness, friendliness, and lengths that folks here have gone to to treat us so very well during our whole stay here. Columbia will have to work very hard to reach the high bar set by our hosts here when it's our turn to host the return end of this cultural exchange.

I'm very grateful to have the chhnce to represent Columbia and America; this is a great opporutnity for us to help open doors between our two countries, and I think all four of us are taking this responsibility very seriously.

On a "what a small world note," Jake and I were in the hotel bar here relaxing a bit last night, and started up conversation with the great pianist playing there...it turns out her uncle moved to our very own Columbia, Missouri, 10 years ago. I'm sure our friends of China group must know him. This is not the first time we've met someone on this trip who had ties to our hometown, or knew someone who lived there, had studied there, or planned to.

How cool is that?

alan

Friday, August 17, 2007

Jake Clayton is digging it

Hey All Ya Ironweed Fans --

Sorry I haven't blogged yet, but we all have been so busy and in culture shock.

We are all havin’ such a good time on the other side of the globe, and we’re missin’ that big heat wave y'all havin’ back there in The States (darn the luck!)

We have done more than I ever imagined here in China (Playin’ with the Taoist monks!!!!!! WOOOOHHHHOOOO!!!!!!!!!) The food has been absolutely
amazin’, and so have the people.(They seem to be shocked that we are as polite as we Are…….) We are like a bunch of rock stars over here, everybody wants there picture taken with us and they all want autographs. (They tell me my hand writing is amazing! (MOM -- I told you I had good penmanship!) The culture is really big into drinkin’, you got to tell them you don’t drink because if you have one you darn well bet they’ll make you drink 12!

In the hotel we are staying in the only music they are playin’ is Ann Murray and Ernest Tubb………….IN CHINA!!!!!!!!!!! Country Music is verrry big over here.

All I can say is 2 weeks is not enough time to spend in China but they are trying to get us to see as much as we can in the little bit of time we have here.
Bein’ over here has brought new inspiration oo our music (We have never sounded better!!!!)

Hope everthing is going well tghere in the States. See y’all soon.

From the other side of the globe,

J.C.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

A trip to Jinan

Monday:
Today we traveled to Jinan, We will remain in the Shandang Province throughout our stay. It will take about 4-5 hours to get to Jinan by car. We will be traveling in a van with our translator and our driver that has been with us since the airport arrival. His name is translated as “car” so Linda enjoyed telling us we can just call him Mr. Car.

The trip was a good way to see the countryside and get a feel for the layout of the land. Shandong Province is the breadbasket of China located on the Yellow River, the second largest river in China. Everywhere we looked there were rows of corn, hanging squash and row after row of cottonwood and weeping willows lining the highways. There was no spot untouched by human hand.

Highway travel was a bit more peaceful than city travel. I guess I haven’t said anything about the driving yet. Well, if you can imagine every driver in downtown New York City playing “chicken”, that is a very mild description. It is amazing that there are hardly ever any wrecks, no one on a bicycle is killed or pedestrians aren’t‚t run down. I guess the best way to say it is everyone has the right of way and no one has the right of way but somehow, it all works with relatively little crankiness and absolute no road rage. It is very common in the midst of what we think is chaos and danger, to see mothers and fathers with very small children pedaling along as if they are riding down the Katy trail.

We stopped at a Chinese truck stop. I don’t know what was more entertaining, the fact that we were at one --or the bathrooms. More on that later.

The trip was a good down time for the band to rest, plan, reflect and again just process our thoughts.

The hotel in Qingdao is owned by the Chinese Navy and was until we came to town was only utilized by Navy officers and their families. It was modest. In Jinan, the hotel was quite extravagant. Everyone had lavish rooms a large king-size bed, an “office” and living room with a television -- except for me, I had two televisions. Alan called me the Queen Bean.

We stayed downtown which made it interesting and culturally tangible. It was really hard for me to look through my linen curtains at the people on the streets. There are such extreme lifestyles of comfort and poverty.

The food in Qingdao was great but we were ready for a change from the extreme abundance of seafood. Everything was very spicy or very bland. The food in Jinan was a daily endless buffet representing Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Western food. All of us were ready for a taste of the West. I had my photograph taken with the chef for my son, Matthia, and all of the other chefs at the Alumni Center. The chef could speak a little English and was interested in my son also being a chef. He treated me special after he found this out and would bring large platters of fruit to my table and follow me throughout the buffet giving me a “tour” of the cuisine.

After our trip to Jinan and dinner, Jake, Dierik and I slipped out to walk the streets of the square around the hotel. It was about 10:00 at night, but vendors were up and down the sidewalks in endless rows. We found the park across the street and were thrilled to have some green space in the midst of a very busy city. There were portrait artists in the park painting under lampposts. The biggest thrill was stumbling onto a group of traditional musicians and opera singers. They had a large gathering but we weaseled our way into the front and started taking pictures.

The singing was fascinating with sounds coming from the human face that challenged my vocal study. The singing is all done in the upper frontal cavity of the face almost above the nose line. No chest or lower voice is used. It wasn’t done with what I would describe as nasal application but higher in the facial structure. Their voices were a colorful blend of beauty, humor and rich culture.

Tuesday:
Our schedule for today is two warm-ups and technical checks for Qilu Television. It was really great having Al with his expertise in television. KOMU sent some t-shirts, hats, etc. which they loved. Once again, the banjo and Dierik were the center of attention. We took the mandolin in with us and taught one of the crew guys, Bile Them Cabbage Down. Dierik played guitar with him and I sang it. We then got out our photos of Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. Great lesson time.

In the evening we performed on a teen pop music show.if you can only imagine. It was amusing and fun amidst the pop singers. They still think we are some kind of rock stars. It will be interesting to find out if the banjo will find it‚s way into Chinese pop music.
When we ripped into Foggy Mountain Breakdown for the opening of the show, we were deafened by the screaming and cheering of our young pop audience to the point where we could hardly hear ourselves play. The station has promised to send us a DVD so hopefully we will be able to share our pop stardom with all of you. The show was broadcast all over Shandong Province.

We had met a manager of the biggest nightclub in Jinan when we were back at the beer festival. She said she would try to set up a stage spot for us so after the television show we went to the club to perform.
It had three parts to it, a disco room, a room with dancers and then a room for bands. There was a great band from Beijing -- a pop-rock band that fuses traditional Chinese opera into their songs. They were a really tight, fun band and very gracious to give us their middle set. So, here we are in a club in China sharing the stage with a pop band and playing bluegrass music. We had a really good response, confused but entertained looks came at us. The band and the manager were especially fascinated. The manager said “your music is very good and has really impressed me.” These may seem like simple words but they are weighty words coming from someone in her position.

Wednesday:
We are off to a city by the name of Liaocheng located one hour west of Jinan. The city is one of my favorites so far. It is sprawling with beautiful gardens and a canal running through the city. After we checked into our hotel and had lunch with the Director of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, with media folks in tow, we were sent with a great troupe of folks to tour the city.

They took us to a watchtower that was over 600 years old in the center part of the town surrounded by a lake. The wood carvings and architecture was indescribable. My moment of breathlessness came when I was peering up through the ancient carvings and through the spaces, I saw colorful kites soaring above.

At one point, when we were going into the watchtower, Dierik had been across the street getting some photo shots and to catch up with us he came running up the sidewalk with his hair flying wildly. The walls of the sidewalk were lined with older Chinese men who proceeded to fall into hysterical laughter, pointing at Dierik and repeatedly say something in their native tongue. Linda, our interpreter said they were calling him Einstein.

We were scheduled at another hotel for an invitation only performance. We were invited to dine with the owner of the hotel, his staff and the Director of Cultural affairs. It was our favorite Chinese meal so far. Lots of fruits and vegetables.

They had done an elaborate job of preparing and decorating the stage for us. You could see that this was a well-planned event. I finished dinner, threw on some stage clothes and joined the boys on stage.

Linda had translated the names/meanings of our songs to the stage host. I had great fun explaining the deep, profound meanings of the songs as I meandered through Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Rollin‚ In My Sweet Baby‚s arms, Bile them Cabbage Down and Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down.

The performance was awesome, I taught them how to yell yeee-ha (with a little Chinese accent thrown in) as they clapped and stomped with the music. We told them they sounded like our audiences at home, which made us, feel very welcomed. We had the director‚s son play the washboard with us.

Thursday:
Our day was planned for touring. We traveled to Yanggu, a smaller, agricultural city located on the far western side of Shandong Province. The heart of this 800-year-old ancient city was wonderfully restored and quite picturesque. It was filled with temples and teahouses with stories of romance, arranged marriages and lost love. Across the street, Dierik discovered a German church built in 1924. The streets beyond the church were storybook Chinese. What a wonderful city.

We also visited a place of reverence for the local hero, Wu Song. We were the first Westerners to ever see this great shrine. The legend is, Wu Song and many others had tried to kill a very vicious, fierce tiger without any success. Many had been killed and wounded in the process. One night Wu Song drank eighteen bowls of rice wine. Normally it takes only three bowls to get a Chinese man quite drunk (we tasted this same type of wine while at the shrine and it tastes exactly like moonshine or „white lightening.". One small cup went straight to Alan‚s head so we knew it had some punch to it.) After Alan, no I mean Wu Song, drank this enormous amount of alcohol, he walked up the hill and fell asleep on a large slab of rock. A harsh wind blew and awoke him just as the tiger was approaching. He was filled with great power and courage from the alcohol and stabbed the tiger with a spear that broke so he finished killing him with his bare hands.

We are now back in Jinan -- more tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ironweed's "base hit" in China

Howdy y'all,

Man, this has been the coolest trip ever. We just got back from rehearsal for the CCTV show we're playing on tonight. I'm sorry I don't have an English name for the show for you, but it's a music show with two hosts; one male and one female. There's a big Korean singer on the show tonight, along with a former CCTV sportscaster...but Ironweed is headlining the show. We've got two songs and an interview segment. Then, we're off to maybe play at the biggest nightclub here in Jinan. We got the hookup on that from the nice lady who was our stage manager at the Tsingdao Beer Festival opening ceremonies.

The Chinese people are friendly beyond measure -- and very excited about and receptive to bluegrass. They treat us like mega-rock-stars -- it's amazing...it took 15 minutes to leave the venue at the beer festival for all the times we were asked to stop and pose for pictures with the people there at the venue. They all want us to pose making peace signs with them!

It's really neat to have the opportunity to be the ambassadors to bring it to China, and I think we're doing a fine job of representing both Columbia and the U.S. for you guys and gals back home.

Alan Loshbaugh

Pickin' and meditating with Dierik

The music of the monks was very soothing, relaxing, and had a very airy ambiance to it. The sheet music from which they played was 2000+ years old and this is how it was passed down from generation to generation and was written using a number system.

I still can't believe that I taught a taoist monk how to play the banjo. How's that for spreading bluegrass music to a group of people that rarely ever leave the monastery and have never played anything except their traditional music. The monks had seen the other instruments but never a banjo. It really blew my mind -- a once in a lifetime experience that will happen for a one in billions of people. How fortunate we are.

Dierick

See more photos in our Flickr gallery.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Bluegrass, monks and the banjo man

We were scheduled to have the day off Sunday until an evening performance. The plan was to go up Mt. Laoshan and visit with a group of Taoist monk musicians and play music. The rains had closed the mountain road. With great disappointment, we spent the morning hours shopping in the markets. Our lovely translator “Linda” and Julie and Rory helped us with our bargaining and we made some good purchases.

We received news around noon that the mountain road had been opened and so we quickly ate lunch and headed towards the mountain along the coastal road. The drive was not long and the scenery was mystifying.

The Director of the Cultural Bureau had set up the very unique gathering between us and the monks and we will be forever grateful to him and his staff for giving us this amazing, historical moment of cultural music exchange. It is extremely rare to have this kind of contact and interaction with the monks.

Driving into the monastery, we were met by several guards. We had a Cultural Bureau staff person with us, she said something quickly and assertively in Chinese and then the gates opened. There was a second set of guards and then there we were, parked in the middle of the monastery gardens with monks walking towards us.

The first monk was introduced to us as the “leader” of the monk musicians. We were then led into a room with traditional architecture and told to sit and wait. Slowly, monks carrying strange musical instruments started slowly appearing until all five members of their group was sitting across the table from us. The stares of curiosity were equal and respectful.

Introductions were made through “Linda”. They requested that we play first. Later on the road home, we laughed at their typical musician response “let’s see your licks first”.

We played two songs, and you could see the amazement and delight in their stares. We then explained our instruments and told them the history of bluegrass music and a short bit about the first generation bluegrass musicians, Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. Quickly, Dierik and his banjo became the stars of the moment.

They then played us two of their songs. The sounds were mystical mixed with part pentatonic and whole tone scales. The ancient songs we were hearing were 2,500 years old. They then showed us a book with collected notes and words written down through time and passed through many generations.

We had an exchange of questions about each other’s music. Their intrigue was with the banjo and Dierik. They told us they rarely leave the monastery and we were very unique visitors to them stating to us they had never seen a musical instrument like this. Dierik proceeded to ask if he could come over to the other side of the table and show them how to play it. One monk was brave enough to try. We have some amazing photos of Dierik teaching a young monk how to play the banjo. We hope to send these to Earl Scruggs. It was an emotional moment for me.

After our incredible session, the leader took us on a personal tour of the gardens and temples.

Our minds and emotions are still processing our magical, mystical vist to Mt. Laoshan.

Jane

Saturday: Cheers in Beer City

Today was unbelievable...we had to be at the Opening Ceremony at 7:45 a.m. because the Queen of the Tsingdao Beer Festival was scheduled to open the gates to Beer City at 9;00 a.m. Now, it seemed a little strange to me that anyone would be starting a major drinking fest at 9:00 in the morning but hey, what the heck, “we’re not in Kansas anymore”…let the wild rumpus begin.

We ended up making more of an “appearance” at the opening stage instead of a performance of any length…battling the rain, we did a quick warm-up and when we looked up, several male Chinese faces were intently staring at us and within minutes, there were almost a thousand. Eventually we saw a few female faces and young people scattered in the crowd.

Cameras were everywhere, especially when the young people appeared, they were holding phones up clicking photos as fast as possible. They were fascinated and many finally got the courage to approach the stage and ask for a photograph with us or they would just stand in front of us and pretend they were “with the band” as friends photographed them.

Part of our own personal entertainment, besides the fascinating, confused crowd, was the Post Punk band from Beijing that was scheduled to play right before us.

It ended up, they wanted the bands (there were 3 of us by now, also a young rock band from Qingdao) to just run out on the open parade field and dance wildly to Chinese pop music. The rain caused the staff to run out of time so none of the bands played during this part of the event but were received with great enthusiasm by the crowds. The television cameras were all over us and we ended up in many Chinese newspapers and on Chinese national television. Needless to say, we, the only Americans and rather strange ones at that, were the center of attention.

We met up with our dear friends from Columbia, Julie and Rory in the afternoon. They are currently living a couple of hours away teaching English in Weihai. They are great fun and very helpful. Julie is our beautiful tattooed rock girl and Rory is our beautiful tattooed rock boy that China is equally fascinated with and adoring of for many reasons but especially for teaching English to their Chinese children.

We were scheduled to play on the main stage Saturday evening…it was a huge professional stage but uncovered and the rains came again. They moved us inside the big arena filled will pop singers, dancers and wild, drunk (but very nice) Chinese people.

Finally on stage, they worked us into a slot for two songs. Short, but a moment in history we will never forget. Dierik has been the “rock star” of our trip with his banjo. When he walked out, the crowd went nuts. After our first song, the applause started slow and then into a big roar. We finished with Orange Blossom Special and Jake playing the fiddle behind his back…another huge roar of applause and then the stage managers walked out with huge mugs of Tsingdao beer and demanded that we chug it in front of the crowd before we leave the stage ………………… many photos and new friends later…we headed back to the hotel with Julie and Rory in tow. It was great comfort to have “homefolks” with us.

The band has been very compatable in regards to adventurous taste in what is set before us. The food is amazing and abundant but today, I found myself searching frantically for a familiar taste.

All for now, what a day…..

Jane
(Photo by Xu Xiaotian)

Sunday, August 12, 2007

A Collection of Photos


I'm Xu Xiaotian from Qingdao, China. I'm the interpreter of Ironweed bluegrass band during their trip in China.

Jane and Dierik asked me to share with you some of the pictures they've taken in China.

Click here to view all of the new photos.

Wow We Jamed With Some Taoist Monks!


Wow, you won't believe what happened today. We had our first day off and were able to do some sightseeing. There are so many people here touring from other parts of china, it's a wall of people going to the same places we saw. We have to go now to eat, but the best thing that happened was that we play music with some taoist monks, I got to show them the banjo and they were blown away by the banjo since they seldom leave the monastery and have never seen such an instrument before...What a once in a lifetime experience.

- Dierik

(Image courtesy of beifan.com.)

Friday, August 10, 2007

Hillbillies Invade China!

We finally fell into our beds around 9:00 p.m. last night. We were all exhausted as we said good night to each other but proud we had survived our first day in China. In spite of physical exhaustion from the many time zone changes and stretch of emotions our brains were trying hard to grasp..we had an amazing first day.

We met with the director of the beer festival in the afternoon. It was a bit chaotic as we expected. We worked on our schedule layout and spoke with the sound technicians. There were some lively Chinese word exchanges between the director and the technicians as she proceeded to explain what these strange people/musicians needed in the way of sound support. We will have a rehearsal on the 11th and hopefully they will be able to figure us out.

Last night we dined with the Director of the District Cultural Bureau and what a feast! We exchanged gifts, words of appreciation for each other’s countries and ideas of cultural exchanges between our sister cities. Probably the biggest thrill was when he said he would like to arrange a jam session with us and some Taoist musicians. Wheww! What a musical fusion! We hope to record it.

All for now..


- Jane

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Hey there...

My head is achin'.. I don't know if I am sleepy or wide awake. I feel like I have been playing endless nights in the Winfield festival campgrounds until dawn...however, here I sit in a Korean airport at 8:00 in the morning, their time, Thursday, August 9th. We are waiting for our final flight to take off at 10:40 to Qingdao.

The long flight wasn't as bad as I thought since it was an overnight flight, whatever that means in clock terms. We awoke at 2:00 a.m., LA time, surrounded by beautiful Korean stewardesses dressed in lovely garments with bright red aprons adorned with embroidered flowers. They served us what they called a "heavy snack" or what we would call a full course meal...a strange moment but it only added to the many mysteries of our journey. The Korean women's dark almond eyes, flawless skin and hair pulled formally into a chignon (sp?) at the nap of their necks made me feel I was looking into a surreal watercolor painting ..and did I mention their tiny little hats perched to one side of their heads?

We arrived at the Korean airport at 5:00 in the morning...took a long walk, had coffee and a quick jam session..our fingers have been aching for our instruments.
This afternoon, after we arrive in Qingdao, we will have a time to meet with the tech people.
Dierik, I and Alan, (he's pretending he's sleeping but don't believe him) have to finish watching a Korean soap opera on the airport television..Jake is checking out one root of ginsing for $75..don't worry Mom and Pop Clayton...we're keeping an eye on him....more later.

- Jane

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Greetings from LAX


The trip has been amazing (so far). It didn't really seem real till we walked into the Asiana Air Facilit. L.A.X. is as far as we can go on this continent. Now we are getting on a (HUGE) airliner, you should've seen Jane's face when she saw how big our airliner was. I wish I had a photo of her expression. Well, I'm getting ready to board the plane, will write back later.
- Jane

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Chopsticks?

…Whoaaa!….my stomach is jumping around like hoe-cakes in a fryin’ pan ... fear, excitement, sad, happy, totally perplexed

We leave for the airport in just a couple of hours ... I don’t even know how to use chopsticks!
Jane

Sunday, August 5, 2007

China bound!

Howdy there folks,

WOW! Ironweed Bluegrass Band is goin’ to China! I feel like the four of us have drunk way too much moonshine and somehow dreamed this whole thing up….but no, it’s true. We have our visas/passports and are packin’ our gunny sacks with great gusto.

To catch everyone up, if you haven’t heard our good news…back in March, the Columbia Friends of China invited all local bands to fill out an application for review by their committee. Their plan was to send a band to represent the city of Columbia and Mid-Missouri to our sister city in Laoshan, China. Laoshan is in the district of Qingdao in the Shandong Province. Well, we were honored by their choosin’ and we will be playing at the opening ceremony of the Qingdao Beer Festival on August 11th .

We are on the “Chinese Dumplin’ Sponsorship”. This fine not-for-profit group hosted a Chinese Dumpling Festival last fall and raised enough money to send a band as part of a cultural exchange program.

We will leave Columbia this Tuesday, August 7th. A translator will meet us at the airport and we will be hosted by the Laoshan District Cultural Bureau, Director Wang Bao Sheng and Qingdao Municipal Beer Festival Vice Director, Wen Yuan Sheng.. After five days at the Qingdao Festival, we will travel to Jinan, the capitol of the Shandong Province. In Jinan, we will be hosted by Liu, Jie, Deputy Director of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Foreign Experts where we will have television gigs, etc.:

Aug 9-12 Qingdao
Aug 14-17 Jinan, Shandong TV station
Aug. 15-16 Lalchen performance
Aug 18-20 Yanta performance

We are unsure what this fine country of folks are going to think of the likes of us. We don’t know if they will be more frightened and /or confused at the sight of giant hillbillies, my photo album of not one but five youngin’s, or the banjo..which has been known to frighten and concern many countries, cultures and heck, even our own families here at home.

Well, I could go on and on and I will in the days and hours to come but I want to close my first blog with many, many warm thanks to many, many fine people.

Thank-you!! To:

The Columbia Friends of China- Hsiao-Mei and Ray Wiedmeyer, Mary Jo Herde, Hung Chiao, and all of your great folks in your organization

Caty Smith-an awesome photo journalism student that has patiently followed us around the past couple of weeks and taken amazing photographs. www.catysmith.com

Clyde Bentley-an associate professor of journalism, UMC, for setting up our blog, coaching us through everything and telling us wonderful tales of his own China travels. www.missouri.edu/bentleycl www.mymissourian.com

Justin Glow-my sweetheart nephew, our Ironweed webmaster, founder of Como Music www.comomusic.com, and online travel blogger. www.gadling.com/bloggers/justin-glow


Mansion Studio-thank-you Bruce, Adam and Wes for your wonderful expedited service of our CD duplications and clever, creative designs. www.mansionstudio.com

Steve Jacobs-my radio partner, dear friend and peace activist that will host the whole show while I am roamin’ about…. www.kopn.org

To our many friends and businesses that have donated beautiful gifts to our new friends in China.

And of course, my sweet family, thank-you for not tossin’ me into the creek and just being done with me..

All for now, we will all try to stay in touch and give you a good ol’ taste of China…
The hillbilly mama… www.ironweedbluegrassband.com

Jane Accurso
Photo by Caty Smith

Friday, August 3, 2007

Howdy, bluegrass fans

This is the blog for the Ironweed Bluegrass Band from Columbia, MO.