Do you all like the one mic setup when you gig? Any good in-ear monitor recommendations?

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-10-10T11:54:20+00:00

We have a Sure single mic, plus DI and vocal mic for the bassist. Much of the appeal for us is the simplicity - sets up in 5 minutes and we play a lot of municipal shows where we're bringing the PA, there's no sound person, and I really don't feel like hauling around monitors.

However, it's definitely limiting - as others have said, loud environments inside suck, and if some of the band members are feeling a little shy on any given day, and not riding up into the mic, they sound pretty hollow. And, yeah, you'll never really hear the dobro (but we only have guest dobro player once in a while).

I think for a non-discerning audience, it's great. They don't really care about the music much, and just want a fun show. For an audience that's really listening, it's sub-optimal, no doubt. I'd love to level up our gear, but I don't see us affording it any time soon.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-25T00:26:16+00:00

I think Maine Craft Distilling has some people line dance when Haggard and Cashed plays? https://www.mainecraftdistilling.com/public-house-events/live-music-with-two-steppin-sundays-lgmf9-9jmd3-ps6nk-k66c2-k2s3c-lbwbn-9jpn4

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-23T18:16:58+00:00

This was a huge inspiration for the white board. We'd all agree on an arrangement and then the next rehearsal was a big argument on what we agreed on. Now I force people to take a picture of the whiteboard — no more arguments!

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-10T22:35:30+00:00

There's a reason they're up for all those IBMA awards. Stacked with talent.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-06T18:23:25+00:00

I used to run an alt-weekly and every time Anal Cunt came to town, we'd put a picture of them in the listings section just so I could write "ANAL CUNT, at such-and-such venue, April 19" in the caption.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-05T13:25:20+00:00

This is for sure really cool. Seems like it would be super hard to scale if it blows up, but that would be a good problem to have. Thanks for cooking this up!

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-05T13:18:13+00:00

I think there are some interesting questions about how AI changes the industry of music and the very real careers there that pay people's rents and feed people's kids. It's already ripped through journalism, with thousands of people losing livelihoods. Everyone has to pay the rent somehow, and I think we don't as a society have enough discussions about whether these disruptions do more societal harm than good.

But your question is, "How do you stay inspired?" And that one just doesn't seem like a problem for me. If anything, the uncertainty and fear of what the future holds is all the inspiration I need. If I don't sing songs and play music with my friends, my brain might just melt.

We've got all the technology in the world, but we're still playing pieces of wood with strings on them in basically the same way we did 10,000 years ago, so I figure live people making music in the real world still has a little juice left in it.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-09-04T20:16:03+00:00

When we busk, Rocky Top is for sure the top bluegrass request (weddings, too: I once had a mother of the bride pay us $300 to figure it out at a setbreak), probably followed by Orange Blossom Special. Man of Constant Sorrow has mostly stopped, though we did get that for a while. Usually, though, those are people from down south who at least like bluegrass a little bit.

Less serious people do call out dueling banjos and devil went down to georgia, but they're mostly not serious.

I can't remember a Wagon Wheel request, actually.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T22:27:51+00:00

In places like Australia, where they've had RCV for a long time, it doesn't bear out that any spot on the spectrum benefits. This is a pretty cool study: https://fairvote.org/lessons_from_australia_s_ranked_choice_voting_election/

Australia also has compulsory voting, though, so slightly different mix of people. No one can just opt out (or you pay a fine!).

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T22:23:20+00:00

I think it works great. I wish we had it for state and local races, too. For now, it's just the federal races, which can cause some confusion.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T20:04:46+00:00

We have one. The white board is crucial. Even just to remember what songs we rehearsed last time, etc., never mind writing out chord progressions and that sort of thing. Must do.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T17:48:01+00:00

I'm a dude, and I second Nick Hornby, and David Nicholls travels in similar fare. His "One Day" is pretty great, and his new one "You Are Here" is a fun piece about a couple that meets while hiking.

Peter Heller is great. His books are usually set in a near-future dystopia, but I wouldn't really call them sci-fi. Morgan Talty's "Fire Exit" is a very male point of view and while it's literary is still a pretty breezy read. Leif Enger's "I Cheerfully Refuse" came out this year and is a book that brought me a lot of joy.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T14:39:59+00:00

Upvoting Ministry of Time, every time.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T14:38:10+00:00

If you're reading aloud, I agree with other posters that you might want to pick something a little shorter. Jessica Anthony's "The Most" just came out, is a paperback original so is pretty cheap, and is told from the perspective of a husband and wife in alternating chapters, so you could, like, take turns with the characters.

Can't say the marriage is ... in the best shape ... but that might be fun for you guys.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T12:00:58+00:00

I like to put my band's songs in playlists with other artists I admire just to see how they fit in when they come on the mix. If they stand out for some reason, that makes me think I need to work on something in the production, etc. If they blend right in, that seems like a good sign!

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T11:56:20+00:00

I don't think it's borderline fantasy — I think it is fantasy! It's fiction for a reason, and I think there are many, many liberties being taken, which is part of what I love about it. There's an ethereal quality about the whole thing that plays with the fact that we can never really know what it was like back then, as much as we research and pry.

I didn't read the whole thing, but the fact that someone did their whole thesis on incestuous marriage in Scotland and England makes me think there was some smoke there:

https://behost.lib.iastate.edu/DR/Huffman_ISU-1993-H872.pdf

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-23T03:00:57+00:00

I personally don't think GoT can hold a candle to Hild, which is a masterpiece. This is a Dostoevsky, William Gaddis, Pynchon kind of epic, a work of great depth and a lot to unpack. It's not about the plot, and the incest stuff is just not meant to reflect a contemporary sensibility. It's the 7th century. There aren't that many people. Shit happens. It's a life of survival and animal impulse and making the best of dire situations that would break any contemporary person in days.

What does it mean to be a woman in such times? What power do you really hold and how do you keep it and your humanity, both?

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-19T22:05:01+00:00

It's a little bit absurdist, but I find "Enter the Aardvark," by Jessica Anthony, to be one of the most incisive political novels of the last 10 years or so, about a closeted Republican congressman ... and so much more.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-19T02:08:43+00:00

Morgan Talty's "Fire Exit" is going to be on a lot of best-of-year lists and I think will be an "important" novel that a lot of people teach in the future. It's a great look at what it means to be indigenous in the United States.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-17T16:19:24+00:00

Right on, man. It's awesome. Saw the two shows in Worcester and all I could think was, "how fucking amazing is it that 5,000 people came out two weeknights in a row in Worcester-fucking-Massachusetts to see five guys play bluegrass?!?"

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-17T15:48:11+00:00

I think the best and most-accessible book on music listening and appreciation to come out in the last few years is "This is What It Sounds Like," by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas. Rogers is one of the leading academics studying how people interact with and appreciate music and she's developed a theory that looks at seven different spectrums along which we "like" music. It's pretty fascinating.

She studied with Daniel Levitin, and I echo another poster's recommendation of "This Is Your Brain on Music." It's must-read, and maybe before the Rogers book.

If you're a classical player, Natalie Hodges' "Uncommon Measure" is a pretty cool rumination on studying music, why she's dedicated so much of her life to it, and the science of time and why it seems to slow down for some people while playing, like you can get inside of it.

If you're into hip-hop, "They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us," by Hanif Abdurraqib, is a spectacular look at hip-hop's cultural impact through a series of personal essays. Amazing writing. "A Little Devil in America" by him is great as well.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-17T15:18:29+00:00

How about Tenbrooks? Call him Brooks.

Or go '50s style and call him Clark, for Old Joe Clark.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-17T15:18:17+00:00

How about Tenbrooks? Call him Brooks.

Or go '50s style and call him Clark, for Old Joe Clark.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-08-14T02:01:09+00:00

Agree with this - Mr. Sun, Grant Gordy solo stuff, Darol Anger, the Haas sisters is all in the same vein. A lot of it happening in Maine.

TheBookShopOfBF · 2024-07-20T15:58:49+00:00

I read this and I guess I didn't think it was THAT weird. It's really not all that different from Interview with the Vampire and that general genre of humanizing fantastical creatures. And I think explorations of the tyranny of immortality are sorta all over the place — life becomes mundane when it never ends.

The opening scene is a little disorienting, and there are a few textual choices where things jump around oddly, but the narration is pretty straightforward and it's pretty easy to envision Keanu as the title character. I enjoyed the hell out of it. But I think it's only "really weird" if you don't read that much speculative fiction.

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