Bluegrass for Beginners

While every other blogger is busy posting the new Girls track (which is awesome even though I'm not a huge fan their last album) or the M83 song (less than awesome), and whatever else is generating a buzz, all I can think about and listen to at the moment are bluegrass tunes. If Bluegrass was a season, it'd be summer. It is best enjoyed outside, preferably near a river and a campfire. Recently, I've been voluntarily taking heavy aural doses of mandolin and banjo. I had a hard time resisting doing a jig while waiting for a train when my favorite Trampled by Turtles song came up on shuffle. What I'm poorly trying to say is that this weather/music combo is perfection. Not to mention the summer always brings multitudes of cheap (as in free) and enjoyable folk/bluegrass festivals. I happen to have fond memories from childhood of my mom dragging my sister and I to some local festivals. Sure, it was the first time I saw women with armpit hair, but it was a healthy dose of something new and different and some of the first live music I ever saw which might explain my obsession with the combination of fiddle, mandolin, and banjo.

Big Snow Big Thaw - Damn Allegheny

Here's a song you can't listen to just once. It is magnetic in its ability to pull you in to the heart of the song where you'll inexplicably find yourself stomping or clapping along with a vigor and zeal you probably didn't know you had. Frankly, I've listened to this song so many times I've lost my ability to articulate my thoughts, all I'm really dying to say is that I love this song.

Big Snow Big Thaw - Damn Allegheny

Big Snow Big Thaw is a two person band out of Pittsburgh and they just released their first EP titled Winter. You can grab it at Bandcamp for free. You can also watch their live radio studio performance of "Brackish Water" here. Jim Sabol, the banjo player and Big Snow half of the band just so happens to be a music blogger himself. Fancy that.