We were invited to play at this year’s Berkeley Old Time Music Convention and decided to take the opportunity to add some more dates to our time on the West Coast: Corn Potato, Awaaaay!

9/16 Weaverville, CA – Trinity Alps Performing Arts Center

9/21-25 Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, where we are playing a square dance and a concert, teaching workshops, and taking in the wonderful contributions of the other great performers there.

Please see my website calendar for tickets and more info.

10/11 Union, MO – East Central College

10/14-15 Mountain View, AR – Ozark Folk Center State Park

10/22 – Brooklyn Folk Festival

Again, tickets and more info at my website calendar

Major progress: The string quartet recording session was completed with great success a couple weeks ago and most of the editing work is now finished.

The board of the Detroit Theater Organ Society granted me permission to record with the unique and historic organ at the Senate Theater next month (the largest pipe organ in Michigan and the fourth largest Wurlitzer ever built) AND agreed to assist me in my fundraising mission as fiscal sponsor (this doesn’t mean they’re giving me any money, it means they are enabling me to use their nonprofit status to accept tax-deductible donations), two very important steps in the process.

So by the middle of next month the entire recording phase of this project will be complete (for now…!) and I’ll really turn my attention towards fundraising and crafting strategies for releasing and promoting the project. I’ve already received interest from some very interesting connections but it’s too soon to say more here. Stay tuned!

When you become a supporter at Patreon you enable me to continue bringing important yet forgotten old music to life, and to keep sharing that music and those stories with audiences all over the world. Additionally, you’ll get access to exclusive content and access. And you can’t beat that warm feeling that comes from knowing you’re helping to create great work that brings people together with each other and with our shared histories.

So, what’s stopping you? Sign up now for as little as $3 a month. Last time I bought a small hot coffee at a Dunkin it was $4.89!

I’m currently reading four different books but I’m only going to write about the ones I’ve completed:

Palestine, by Joe Sacco, is a documentary (nonfiction) graphic novel about the people of modern-day Palestine and the author’s first-hand experiences visiting and interviewing in the mid-1990’s. I bought a copy to give to my niece for her bat mitzvah.

I figured it’s almost certain that someone will give her a copy of Maus, by Art Spiegelman, an excellent graphic novel I would also recommend which tells the story of the Holocaust from a Jewish survivor’s direct experience. I thought she could also appreciate what the state of Israel is doing from Palestinian peoples’ perspectives.

It’s not super current but everything in that book is relevant and engaging. It’s not a fun happy book either but it’s well made, and I would recommend it.

Mutant Message Down Under, by Marlo Morgan, is an almost unbelievable account of a white American woman’s journey through the Australian outback with a tribe of indigenous Aboriginal people. Apparently it is presented as “fiction” only to keep people from accusing her of lying were she to have called it nonfiction.

Ever since I was a youngster and my dad gave me a copy of The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin, I’ve felt a fascination and an affinity with the Aborigines. I’ve never understood this or pursued it, and I forgot about it until I picked up Sand Talk, by Tyson Yunkaporta, a couple of years ago, and couldn’t put it down.

This book feeds directly into that feeling for me. It’s so powerful, full of great wisdom and beauty. I would recommend this book to anyone, but you’ll really get a lot out of it if you’re open and ready to believe an incredible-sounding story. It’s very directly and clearly written, as it is simply the author’s telling of her experience.

I feel so grateful for your support, for reading these newsletters. I tend to go through a lot of hills and valleys, feast and famine, in other words, busy times that are very fulfilling and sometimes exhausting, and times with very little work when I wonder what the heck am I doing here. Keeping in touch like this is a constant that helps me stay stable and motivated. So, thank you!

Love and Banjos Forever,

Aaron