News on Amy Speace, Ben Sollee and The Clumsy Lovers from my inbox over the last couple weeks:
If you like guitars formerly owned and operated by the moderately famous, Amy Speace has a guitar for sale:
FOR SALE: Very very gently (like as in barely touched) used 2006 Taylor GS Western Red Cedar/Indian Rosewood with Taylor’s wonderful Expression II pickup system installed. Original hardshell (brown faux alligatorish leather) case and original paperwork included. I love this guitar and bought it just as the GS (Grand Symphony) model was debuted. Its a bigger body than a dreadnought, small waist, gorgeous sounding guitar for you fingerpickers out there. The only markings on the guitar itself are a few small pick scratches underneath the strings. The guitar didn’t come with a pickguard as I didn’t want one to mess up the beauty of the cedar top. I used this guitar on a few songs from “Killer In Me” and I’m selling it because I am just downsizing my collection and this is one guitar I just don’t play as much as my others. I’d love her to go into the hands of someone who will play her more than currently am.
If interested, email me at amy@amyspeace.com and I’ll let you know about the price and can forward you photos. The guitar sells new for about $2400.
Cellist and singer/songwriter Ben Sollee is going personal internal-combustion vehicle-free on his latest tour. Check him out if he visits your neighborhood, because not is this a great concept, he’s a very impressive musician in his own right:
Ben Sollee’s Ditch The Van Tour
Presented By Kentucky Coffeetree CafeIn 2009, Ben Sollee made headlines after looking at his trusted two-wheeler and sparking an idea. With some help from Oxfam America, Ben Sollee strapped his cello to the back of a bicycle and rode from his home in Lexington, Ky. to Bonnaroo, playing less familiar small towns along the way. He knew he was onto something, taking the idea one step further and exploring 500 miles of theEast Coast Greenway touring between Wilmington, NC and Jacksonville, Fla. a few months later for his winter tour.
This year, Sollee takes on his largest challenge yet – the Ditch the Van Tour 2010, presented by Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe -a transcontinental endeavor not reliant on the traditional modes of touring. Four regional tours, in which all touring members ride without the use of support vehicles, are linked together from San Diego on August 18th and ending in the capital of his beloved Commonwealth October 8th.
The Ditch the Van Tour is about much more than going car-free though. Sure, it’s a reaction to the massive carbon footprint that many tours leave behind (particularly the fleet of 53′ trucks required to haul an elaborate U2 stage) and an awareness-raising project for the nation’s elaborate series of Adventure Cycling-advocated bike highways and communities where bike infrastructure is lacking. However, Ben also sees the bike tour as an opportunity to acquaint himself with a myriad of towns and communities across our nation – a “beautiful limitation” he calls it – that can only present itself when you slow down the pace of life by traveling by bike rather than bus or plane, as Ben tells National Geographic in a recent interview:
“It’s not about trying to be ‘green’ – whatever that means these days – and saving the environment. It’s about pace of life and re-localizing. I’ve spent nearly ten years on the road now and the expectations of the industry are enormous. When you get a call the night before to play late-night TV the next day on the other side of the country you do it. If there’s a good money gig but it’s 300 miles the other way, you do it. But not if you’re on a bicycle. It’s a beautiful limitation, because all the reasons you once thought of to avoid these small towns go out the window and the communities become really valuable to us.”
To further his cause, Ben invites local art and music organizations, as well as bicycle communities, to get involved with every show he plays. It is this reason that his home state’s Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe got involved. Located in the quaint and picturesque capital of Frankfort, Kentucky Coffeetree is the type of art and community-conscious, worldly aware business that shares Sollee’s vision. They, along with Adventure Cycling and the League of American Bicyclists, are proud sponsors in this innovative nationwide tour.
Aug 20 – Long Beach, CA – {Open} ,- that’s the name of the space, not “open date”
Aug 21 - Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theater
Aug 22 - Santa Monica, CA - Santa Monica Museum of Art
Aug 24 - Santa Barbara, CA - SoHo
Aug 25 - Salinas, CA - The Steinbeck Center
Aug 26 - Santa Cruz, CA - The Crepe Place
Aug 28 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Warehouse
Sept 04 - Ft. Collins, CO – Tour De Fat
Sept 05 - Denver CO – The Oriental
Sept 08 - Baltimore MD – 2640
Sept 09 - Havre De Grace MD – Biller’s Bikes
Sept 10 - Havre De Grace MD – Biller’s Bikes
Sept 12 - Philadelphia, PA - Bike Philly
Sept 12 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
Sept 15 - Doylestown, PA - Puck Live
Sept 16 - Bethlehem, PA - Wild Flower Cafe
Sept 18 - Kempton, PA - Renewable Energy & Sustainable Living Fest
Sept 20 - Lancaster PA – Fair Trade Cafe @ FMU
Sept 21 - York, PA - The Depot
Sept 23 - Frederick, MD - Cafe Nola
Sept 24 - Bethesda, MD - Mansion at Strathmore
Sept 25 - Washington, DC - Edmund Burke School
Oct 07 - Richmond, KY - Eastern Kentucky University
Oct 08 - Frankfort KY – The Grand Theatre
After their fall tour, one of my favorite bands, Vancouver’s The Clumsy Lovers, is taking a hiatus, for all the right reasons. Here’s their explanation from their newsletter:
Now, as for that break. As many of you know, Trevor and Chris both
became Dad’s for the first time last year. The excitement doesn’t stop
there, as Trevor will see the arrival of Son #2 this fall. We’ve tried
our darnedest to slow the touring schedule down a bit, and I guess we
succeeded some, but we’re just not good at saying ‘no’ to gigs. So to
get in some extended home time, we’ve decided to actually break from
touring. The band has been going for over 15 years, and we’ve never
done this before. So you could say it’s kinda overdue. We just love
the touring and the rock and roll, so it’s real hard to stop.As for how long the break will be, hard to say. We don’t think it
will be too long before we start jonesing pretty bad for a Saturday
night in a sweaty bar (or a Saturday evening at the Gallivan Center,
whatever the case may be). But no predictions, we’ll just see what
happens. I’ll say somewhere between a month and two years. How’s that?We will still play occasional gigs, we’ll be available for events or
private shows and the like. We’re just not gonna do the regular
touring circuit for a little while.We’ll definitely keep you up to date on the plans, and give more
details here as the hiatus approaches. We really hope to see you on
the fall tour (and this weekend), cause after that it might be a
spell…
