Bluegrass & Americana Pickin' Parties/Jams/Musical Get-Togethers: Northampton, MA region

Bluegrass & Americana Pickin' Parties/Jams/Musical Get-Togethers: Northampton, MA region
Hello Everyone! Welcome to the Bluegrass-Americana-find-a-pickin' party/jam/musical get-together blog. As stated in the title area, we started this blog as a way for pickers to have a central place where they can communicate, with the goal of finding people to play with. My wife, Tara, plays mandolin (a Kentucky) and I play guitar (Martin DH28). We love to pick and get together with our musician friends and play. We like to play a range of music, primarily, but definitely not limited to, the bluegrass vien. I love the classics as well as Old and in the Way, John Hartford (a la Steam Powered Aereoplane), the Band, etc... I mean, I love a lot of music and I love to play it all (put it this way: I get a thrill from Bill Monroe's music and I get a thrill from hearing Acoustic Syndicate play their version of the Who's "Baba O'Reily" - incidently, I also write and play originals and love to hear other original music). So, anyway... Tara and I have sat around on more than one occassion, feeling like we wanted to get out of the house and pick with some other musicians, but have not always been able to find folks. We have friends we play with, but sometimes we feel like pickin' in between the regularly scheduled jams we have with them. And with schedules and busy lives being what they are, sometimes you just find yourself with a night free when your friends aren't, which brings us to this blog.

We hope that as more pickers in the Northampton/Amherst and, yes, Chesterfield (where we are) area learn about this blog, the more they will log on, talk about their musical interests and express a desire to get together. Hopefully enough people will log on regularly so that on any given night, you'll be able to find some like minded musicians who feel like getting together to pick. Ideally (again, with enough people logging on), you could find pickin'/playing opportunities any night you wanted. And that's the point of this blog.

So, I'm going to start to spread the word about it. And hopefully, before too long, it will be a means of creating more and more musical opportunities for the musicians in this area. Please let your pickin' pals know about http://bluegrassamericana.blogspot.com/

Thanks! Looking forward to the music!

Joe A.
Chesterfield, MA

Joe A. in Chesterfield, MA