Ashby Frank
Mandolinist, Singer, Songwriter

To commemorate the release of the single “Take This Hammer” to Bluegrass radio, and the release of the “Smash Hits of Bluegrass” album by the Mashville Brigade, Rural Rhythm Records, The Mashville Brigade, and the Bluegrass Blog have decided to give away 10 copies of “Bluegrass Smash Hits”, and a grand prize of a hammer autographed by the Mashville Brigade!

To enter, simply register with the Bluegrass Blog and enter your email and name. Soon you’ll be mashing and hammering and all that jazz. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO!

Here I am, killing some time at a hotel in Wichita, Kansas before our sets this afternoon at the Park City Bluegrass Festival.

For some reason it feels like this weekend has been a longer one than it actually has been. I guess it’s just the schedule. Wednesday we drove from Nashville to Texarkana, Texas, then on to Hurst, TX for a concert on Thursday. Yesterday we left Hurst (Dallas area) at 6:30 AM and drove 6 hours up here for our sets at the festival. At least I’ve gotten to rest today without having to get up and ride again.
I’ll be heading home tomorrow, via Tulsa where we drop Greg off at the airport.

Mashville on Tuesday will be the regular band, with Darrell, Aaron, Randy, Jim and myself. Things could always change though.
Anyway, hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Kinda wish I was at MerleFest, but it’s all good. Maybe next year. I’ve had this song in my head since I got here… enjoy.

Thanks to everyone who came to our show last night! We welcomed our new baby (the new CD) into the world with a good night of music. I had a great time and it was really good to see some of our good friends that we haven’t seen in a while. We had a couple of special guests as well. Country singer Terri Clark and Somtimes-Masher Jenne Keener performed a couple of songs with us, and Steve Earle was spotted in the crowd. Very cool.

Ok, well it’s on to Hurst, Texas and Park City, Kansas for the weekend

Speaking of babies… does anyone else think this is kinda strange?

As some of you may already know, I’m a sometimes insomniac. Sometimes I have trouble going to sleep with no reason, sometimes I don’t. I think it has less to do with sleeping as it does procrastination. I like the night, and I always stayed up as late as I could for some reason. I don’t know what appeals to me about being up and around when everyone else is sleeping, but I’ve always liked it.

So I stayed up too late and waited to pack until the last minute for our trip this past weekend, I got to sleep around 2 AM on Thursday night knowing I had to be up at 6:30 to leave. Most of the time I stay up late like that before I know I have to get up because I get nervous that I’m going to oversleep, so I lay there and worry about that and any other things I can conjure up to worry about without taking action, until I go to sleep. But it takes a while.

This night was a little different, because I woke up early. 4:30ish actually. I heard a strange noise that resembled the noise that a tornado or bow echo wind makes when it’s close that I’m familiar with that was loud enough to wake me up and rattle the windows, so as I woke up I immediately turned on the TV to see if I should go crawl into my bathtub to take cover. The first thing they said was “clear skies today as we look out over Downtown Nashville”, so I turned it off and walked over to my window and didn’t see any wind or rain. I dismissed it as a low flying plane or loud train somewhere near here, and went back to sleep.

I woke up at 6:30 as planned to the sounds of the House Foundation Morning Show talking about the 5.4 magnitude earthquake centered near Evansville, Indiana that shook Nashville. What the? Earthquake? Hmm. Of course it had to be the day before my birthday. Crazy and bad stuff always happens on or near my birthday. Columbine School Shooting, Waco Dividian Raid, Oklahoma City Bombing, Virginia Tech School Shooting, ect. Now an earthquake! haha. It was pretty freaky. Nothing dangerous really, I don’t mind strange things like that marking the anniversary of my birth as long as it doesn’t kill anyone.

So I fight the traffic, and make it to meet the band for the drive to Goshen, Indiana. I got some sleep while we’re rolling, woke up a few hours later to us pulling into some Taco Bell to eat, then we made our way to the show. The venue was the “Old Bag Factory” which is an old Trolly Car Station and Factory that has been converted into some very nice small shop and cafe space with a good sized performance hall on the third floor.
Pretty fun show, and very nice folks (thanks for the Bar-B-Q’ed Salmon…good stuff!). The bad part of the day was still coming, as we had to drive overnight to make it to the next show in Carlisle, PA which was an Earth Day Festival at Dickinson College.

The vehicle that we ride around in is kinda like a bus or a motor home, and kind of like an airport shuttle. It has bunks and a lounge and space, but on a van like chassis. It’s a good embetween option between van and bus (I’ve had a few years of both of those forms of transportation and they both have drawbacks.) The one we’re in now was purchased new by Special C when I wasn’t in the band, and it now has over 300,000 miles on it, so some things are starting to go wrong. For instance, the paint is cracking on the side view mirrors. Greg likes for this thing to look good and well kept, so he took it to a certain Ford Dealer here in Nashville while we were in Canada last week to get them repainted.

So, Justin had the first shift and I was riding shotgun, and right after we crossed the Indiana/Ohio line on I-80, Justin started laughing almost hysterically for no apparent reason. It took a minute, but he finally was able to speak enough to tell me to look at the mirror. Well, I tried… but it was gone.

No drivers side side view mirror, and hours to go on our drive. After we both quit laughing pretty hard, because we thought it was strange for Greg to make such a big deal out of getting the mirrors painted and now one of them simply fell off, we stopped to see that the mirror’s last action before shattering on the road was to put a little gash on the side of the bus. Great!

Now it was my turn to drive! I drove from near midnight til almost 4, and managed to navigate my way through the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas with no mirror. I did hang in the left lane a good bit though. haha.

The next day (my birthday) was pretty long, but good. We got to our rooms with enough time to take a shower and leave for the show which was on the beautiful campus of Dickinson College. We got dropped off after the show at the guest house where we were staying, and Greg and David took the bus to some guy that one of our friends knew of that happened to have an extra mirror that would fit, even though it was really small. At least we had one!

So we had another show, which was kind of a blur because I was pretty sleepy and worn out, but I know it went OK and they had some great food there for us! Carlisle is a really nice little college town and I’d like to go back some time when I have time to look around.

The drive back was just as long, but less frantic. We got stuck in a really bad traffic jam in Bowling Green, KY (I think there was a wreck) which added a good bit of time to our trip, but I made it home safely at 11PM last night.

Shew! Well, I hope this weekend’s trip to Park City, Kansas and Dallas, Texas won’t be nearly as hard.

Everyone remember that this Tuesday is the CD Release Show and Party for the Mashville Brigade Smash Hits of Bluegrass CD at the Station Inn! Come on out and join Darrell, Aaron, Jim, Randy and myself if you can!

I love to eat, and I love traveling to new places to eat new things.

First of all let me say that there is no better food prepared anywhere than in my mama’s kitchen. She can cook anything, but when it comes to baking she’s top notch. Quite a few Bluegrass pickers know this first hand because she’s likely to bring food with her to anywhere I’m playing within a 500 mile radius of home. I remember her driving up to either Boone, NC or Syria, VA a few years back with a whole van load of chicken and dumplins, beans, and biscuits. By the time I got back on the bus after the set, JD Crowe was there finishing off what was left. Just last week in Nova Scotia, Canada someone came up to me and reminded me of when they came to my CD release room at IBMA a number of years back and left with some of my mom’s cheese danish. So she’s world famous, and very hard to top.

But to go along with the travel theme that my blog seems to have developed here, I wanted to give a short list of my favorite places to eat so that you guys can check them out if you ever get a chance.
(more…)

Home again…

Left Nova Scotia in a little bit of snow, had a long travel day.
Now I return to Nashville and something’s a bit off.
Hannah Montana and Snoop Dog have taken over my TV and the CMT awards, and it’s in the low 30′s here. Did I come back to an alternate universe or something? Oh well.

I can’t say enough about how nice everyone up in Nova Scotia was. We had some very gracious hosts that are very hard workers when it comes to promoting Bluegrass up there. You guys would be so surprised at the number of fans Bluegrass and Country music has in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and on Prince Edward Island. It’s great to go up there… such a rich cultural history and sense of community. Makes me want to learn to speak French so that I can understand the other half of the conversations.

Anyway, I’m going to record some vocals on the new Special C record tomorrow, so wish me luck! I’m pretty fried from the travel this weekend. We’ll see how it goes…

Made it! What a long day of flying. I really hate that… plus my fancy movie and TV screen on AirCanada didn’t work then it was a 3 1/2 hour van ride after the day of flying. Shew.
I’m not complaining though, really. I really enjoy being up here and seeing this part of the continent.
Click here to see where I am on a Google map

Anyway, I’m a long way from home now and I can see the ocean from where I type this. Sure are some nice folks up here, and I’m looking forward to the shows.

Oh, and by the way… I think the Mashville Brigade show on Tuesday will consist of Brandon Rickman, Jim, Aaron, Randy, and myself, but I could be wrong (again), eh?

I just packed for the weekend, and I threw in a sweater.

While the frost and rain this weekend threatens to ruin some of the work I’ve done in my yard here in Davidson County, Tennessee (Thank you Zyrtec), I’ll be in Nova Scotia, Canada for a couple of shows.
I’ve been up there a couple of times before, and I love Atlantic Canada or the Maritimes or whatever you call that region. Some of the little villages and towns up there are like stepping back in time, only with a Tim Horton’s nearby and spotty WiFi.

It’s a real nice place to visit, and I’m excited to see some of my friends that I made while touring up there with Alecia Nugent and Jeanette Williams.
Nova Scotia is part of what used to be called Acadia, which means they’re related to the folks that eventually settled Louisiana, and just like the Loosianans, they know how to cook and they love good music. Although I don’t think I’ve ever seen a drive through Daiquiri Hut or Video Poker Casino up there. They must have learned how to do that stuff once they went through Tunica.
If any of you folks have too much gas money laying around, I would suggest taking a trip up into Maine and cross the border into New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The people are so nice, and there’s a lot of places to stop and eat and look around along the way. Man, I love lobster.
Annnnnd if you’re in the area (which according to my reports, I’ve had around 50 unique visitors from the area since I started this site), come on out and see us! Check out SpecialC.com for info about venue and show times.

Ok, I get to fly out on glorious AirCanada (which has changed our schedule numerous times, sometimes without notifying us) from BNA in the morning, with a 4 hour layover and customs fiasco scheduled for mid-day in Toronto, so I better get some sleep.

Talk to yall later, eh?

I can’t tell you guys how happy I am with the way this CD turned out! If you like traditional Bluegrass Music with a little bit of a contemporary edge, I think you’ll be very pleased with it as well!
Click here for a review from the Bluegrass Blog.

The good news for today is that the AshbyFrank.com store is now taking orders for the new project! Click the “Buy Now” button below to make sure you’re one of the first to own the brand new Mashville Brigade CD!

Well, the gig in Houston with Rhonda’s band was a lot of fun, but it made for a long day.

After the Mashville show, I got to bed about 1:30, got up Wednesday around 6, went to the airport with Darrell and Hunter and caught a Southwest flight to Houston. Ate a quick lunch, played a showcase for Martha White at a big convention center, then went back to the airport and waited for a couple hours for the flight home.

So I made it back home around 10, and got up the next day, packed and did some work in the yard, then it was off to Chicago.

Friday was a fun day/night, with a good Special C show at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, IL (Right outside of Chicago) with the legendary multi-genre instrumentalist Howard Levy. Sometime’s it’s really challenging  to perform with people from different genres, but it’s a rewarding process and usually turns out well. It opens my ears up to influences I may not have heard before, and that’s a good thing for sure.
It’s also pretty cool to put Bluegrass in front of people that may not be all that familiar with it, so it was a good night.

Saturday it was off to the Saint Louis area where we had a really nice dinner with some of our friends that were nice enough to let us in their house and cook for us while we tried our luck at Guitar Hero on the Nintendo Wii. Greg’s technique was rather impressive, I must say. That evening we performed at Harmon’s Auction Barn to a pretty good sized crowd (supposedly their largest of the year).
I drove most of the night at made it to Paducah, where we rested for a while before making back to Nashville this morning.

Needless to say, I’m a little worn out… but it’s all good. I love doing what I do. Mashville on Tuesday will be Darrell, Aaron, Randy, Jim and myself. We’re doing some promotional work for the new CD during the day, so we should all be raring to pick by 9(ish).

So anyway, I’m going to veg out and maybe go to the gym this evening and recharge a little bit.

I’m looking forward to going to Canada this weekend… hopefully I’ll get to see some of my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. See yall there, eh?