D-Squared

It’s time to sing in the change of season … or change the season by singing. We cordially invite you to join D-Squared at our annual Winter’s Eve Concert – an evening of music and fun at the Big Bug Station in downtown Mayer at 7 PM on Saturday, December 5th.

Once again Mike Connors and his family are graciously opening our favorite venue for all to enjoy. We have some exciting new songs to share as well as some old favorites to snuggle up with for winter.

Back by popular demand this year is the Christmas Cookie Contest. So dig out your grandma’s favorite cookie recipe and bring a plate to share with everyone. There will be tasting and voting and some liquid refreshment to wash down those delicious cookies.

In light of the current economic situation, we are only asking a $10 donation per person. Time to hunker down with your friends and neighbors and be thankful for the true joy of the season – the chance to share good feelings with good folks in a good space.

Big Bug Station is located in historic downtown Mayer, Arizona at the corner of Central and Main, catty-corner from the post office (at the only stop sign on Central). Call 928.925.5172 for further information.

For those of you coming from out of town or wanting to extend your stay in the “Comfort Corridor”, we have two commercial lodging options nearby. The Creekside Preserve Lodge, one mile east of Mayer on Highway 69, offers individual cabins with hot tubs along Big Bug Creek in the $100 range (928.632.0777). The Charcoal Pit Motel right in town is a refurbished motor hotel in the $40 range (928.632.9696). Both are dog-friendly.

We hope you can find time in your busy holiday schedule to join us

OK, it’s officially summer and time to head for the mountains. If you find yourself in the Flagstaff area this weekend, check out the Flagstaff Folk Festival on Saturday and Sunday, June 27 & 28, 10 AM to 6 PM at the Coconino Center for the Arts, 2300 North Fort Valley Road in Flagstaff, Arizona.

One hundred folk acts on four stages in two days, workshops on all manner of folky things and lots of friends to hook up and play music with. There is also a contradance on Saturday night at the Sechrist school right next to the festival grounds.

D-Squared plays a 40-minute set at the Amphitheater stage at 4:50 PM on Sunday. We thought we’d start out on accordion (just warnin’ ya). Come watch it rain in the mountains, the amphitheater is indoors. Admission for the festival is $3/person & $9/family per day and parking is free. You can check out the full schedule and get further details at www.flagfolkfest.org.

For several years we’ve been hearing good things about the Granite Creek Vineyard and Winery in Chino Valley. They have included us in their summer concert series this Saturday, May 23 from 1 to 5 PM. This is sort of a casual sit around outside in a beautiful place – (Read on …)

One of the benefits of my part-time job is that I get to listen to Bob Edwards (of NPR fame) on Sirius XM Radio. The other day I heard his interview of Bela Fleck, the banjo player who burst on the scene with Newgrass Revival years ago and has been re-writing the banjo rulebook ever since.

The interview had less to do with Bela’s ability to play jazz, Bach, and previously unimagined improvisations on an instrument usually associated with people who are missing teeth than it did with the origin of the banjo itself. Having spent several years touring and playing to hundreds of thousands of school kids where we inquired at every show whether anyone could identify what continent the banjo originated on and never received the correct answer – I’ll grant that I have more than a layman’s interest.

The banjo comes from Africa, at least the precursors to it’s current form did and it came across the Atlantic with folks who were brought to this country as slaves. So Bela decided to go to Mali, Uganda, Tanzania and The Gambia to explore the origins of his chosen instrument and in the process he discovered a plethora of banjo-like instruments and some astonishing musicians and music.

He has documented his musical journey in a film, Throw Down Your Heart, and the soundtrack CD includes some astonishingly beautiful indigenous music recorded in the field with 21st century sound equipment. Bela accompanies many of these pieces and the result is not unlike Paul Simon’s Graceland, David Byrne’s Rei Momo, or Ry Cooder’s Buena Vista Social Club although the results seem even more organic.

The CD is currently available and the film is being screened around the country. He is also organizing a US tour for some of these amazing musicians. If you are a banjo fan, I don’t see how you can live without this record. If you are a world music fan, a folk music fan, if your musical taste extends beyond the pap of American Idol, it is you will love this music. It is haunting and rhythmic and rooted to the earth.

Check it out at www.throwdownyourheart.com and discover a world smaller and even more vibrant than you imagined.