Originally recorded on July 11, 2008, Live in Lexington, Under the Copper Beech, was officially released on August 30, 2011. This is the band’s second live disc and gives a big nod to the fact that first and foremost, the myriad awards we have won for our studio recordings not withstanding, we truly consider ourselves a live band.

Live music, over time, tends to have an ebb and flow quality to it. Some days are just killer live shows, other days, while good, might not be great. As a concert attendee myself, the hope is always that the show at hand is going to be special. As a musician, it feels like we go for it every time, and some days just have more going for them. July 11, 2008 had quite a bit going for it:

• Lexington. We started playing Friday night shows in Lexington back in 2001. The first show featured John Zevos on mandolin, Arnie Ashford on bass and myself and our artist Bob von Elgg on acoustic guitars. 2008 marked the eighth Friday night show in Lexington. The familiarity between audience and band was pretty high by then.
  
  
  Set up at 1875 Mass Ave., Lexington, MA. L to R: Ben Rudnick, E. Rudnick, G. Hakim and K. Gronlund singing Cowgirl Song.

•  2000 people – Our first show had quite a good crowd featuring all ages. Young, old, walking, crawling - an eye-opening generational cross section. We realized this was the audience for us. By 2008 our shows had become an event. Given good weather, we’re pretty much guaranteed a crowd on a Friday night in Lexington. In 2008 the estimate was 2000 people on the town green, site of the start of the Revolutionary War. That’s a lot of people who are familiar with us. That many people could make any band feel like the Rolling Stones for an evening.
  
  
  The scene on July 11, 2008 at the Town Green in Lexington, MA
  
  
• Deep Into Summer – Since 2002, the band has been playing around 30+ shows every summer. What this means to us is that the summer brings out the best of BR&F. Playing music independently or as a band, is like anything else, if you do it regularly you get better.

•  Mark Yacovone Farewell – Mark and I had played in a previous band together called The Eds. One of the highlights of The Eds was that we almost got to play with President Clinton on Martha’s Vinyard back in the 90’s. When BR&F needed keyboards for the Fun & Games disc circa 2002, Mark was first call and he never left, until July 12, 2008. The day after Live in Lexington was recorded Mark moved to Mississippi. With Mark leaving we knew we had one more show to enjoy together and we were all intent on making it good.
  
  
  From left to right, Rob Lee, Mark Yacovone, John Zevos and Arnie Ashford
  
  
• Robert M. Lee – Augmenting the BR&F quintet was our good friend Rob Lee on saxophones. Rob had been playing with us off and on at big shows and was well versed in the music and how we go about making it, i.e. no set lists, get your two cents in where you can and, above all, pay attention!
  
  
• Multi-tracked Show – There’s always a bit of a charge knowing that you’re trying to get a good recording. We set up to multi-track the show which means that each instrument and voice ends up on its own recorded track. Later, when you go to put it all together, each track can be adjusted for optimal sound quality afterward.
  
  
  Multi-tracking means a lot of wires.

With all those points going for it, the recording worked out! We’re pretty tough critics and we feel that Live in Lexington is an excellent snapshot of the band at that time. A lasting aural memory of a night the band and audience were all flying high!

Recording Notes and Track List

As mentioned, the Live at Lexington disc was taken from a single show on July 11, 2008. We played two 55-minute sets for a 110-minute performance. The disc is 78:02. Seventy-eight minutes and two seconds is the maximum amount of time you can put on a single CD. 78:03 and you have a problem.

The engine: Jared Steer on drums and percussion.

A word about the songs… One of the things we do in BR&F from our very first show to the one we played the other day, is to pepper our sets with songs which might not commonly be considered “kids music.” Truth be told, we don’t consider any of this to be “kid’s music.” We look at it all as people music. We love the original songs. We love the traditional songs and the cover songs too. It’s all one long song after awhile with variations. We’ve had too much experience with young and old, black, white, open, closed and everything in between to target a minority of the population. It’s “all good” as they say.

Some notable highlights… the Sally Salamander>Juicy Black Fly sequence is how the songs were intended to be played; once Juicy Black Fly (JBF) was written in response to Sally Salamander. If you go to the Blast Off (2004) disc and listen to the beginning of JBF you’ll hear that it begins where Sally Salamander ends on Fun and Games (2002.) This is a real fun sequence to play and I almost got all the words just exactly perfect.

The Mama Don’t ‘Low>Big River sequence was actually Mama Don’t ‘Low>M.T.A. That is more of what we usually do but having recorded M.T.A. on our Blast Off disc and our Live at the Playground disc, and having limited minutes for the CD, Big River (right key, right tempo) fit in really well so we just glued it together in the studio. None of the performance was altered, just where it came in the sequence.

2008 was the first summer that we played Walk of Life by Dire Straits. It’s just a great tune that I started working on, managed to get it down and showed the guys the chords before a show. No, not this show! Mark picked up the organ licks on the accordion and we’ve been playing it ever since.

At the point this was recorded we had already started recording the A Frog Named Sam disc but it was still eight months away from completion. Sam seems significant enough for things to be Before Sam or After Sam. For me, it’s really fun to hear some of the original songs from the first four studio discs embellished with that jolt of live, in the moment energy.

Young fan with guitar.

Lastly… I know I had a few songs I wanted to play on July 11, 2008, to try and get a good version for the recording, I imagine John did too,  but generally speaking, we had no set list.

Ben Rudnick and Friends Website Store - Free shipping!

ITUNES

CDBABY

AMAZON

1. I Like Silver, I Like Gold
2. Skip to My Lou
3. Twisting Low
4. Hava Nagila
5. My Name is Burt
6. Sally Salamander>
7.  Juicy Black Fly
8. Mama Don’t ‘Low>
9. Big River
10. Rainy Day
11. Cowgirl Song
12. Jambalaya>
13. Hey Good Lookin’
14. Walk of Life
15. Monkey and the Engineer
16. Countdown>
17. Rocket Ship Man>
18. I Got A New Friend
19. Spin
20. Band Introductions
21. Macaroni & Cheese
22. Oh Boy!
23. I Need A Hand
24. Thanks!
25. When the Saints Go Marching In

A Few Reviews

These are some mega-musically-talented dudes, and their style is really their own. It’s a fabulous addition to your kiddie music collection for sure.
~ theopinionatedparent.com  

This live performance album made us feel like we were actually at the concert while eating our dinner in our own backyard!  It made me sway my hips and tap my toes while singing along to the familiar cover songs.  The original songs are sure to become family favorites as well.  Ben & Friends have a very unique and versatile sound covering many genres of music, which is a perfect way to expose children to various styles of music.  This is a very awesome and fun album!
~ Simple-MomReviews.com

Songs from their first six recordings, popular favorite cover tunes, and an amazing undercurrent of energy and vigor, Live in Lexington is a guitar-and-vocals performance to remember, further enhanced with additional instruments ranging from the mandolin and drums to the accordion and even the saxophone. An enthusiastic and energetic performance, especially recommended for playing during long family car trips or children’s parties.
~ Midwest Book Review  

I often get asked how the band started or more specifically, “how’d you guys meet.” Well….. (cue dreamy time sequence. Imagine me wearing cloths very similar to the cloths I wear now though I’m probably not wearing a tie-dye.)

Before graduating college, circa 1984, I was offered a job by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Nashua, NH. I was definitely in the wave of computer science majors of that time, although getting a job in 1984 wasn’t quite the slam-dunk it had been just the year before.

Once I settled into the work thing (okay – I never really settled into the office thing) I started looking around for music stores. The one I landed in was Belisle Music in Manchester, NH. I asked if they gave guitar lessons and promptly had a lesson scheduled with “John.” The lesson came and I showed up at a small room in the basement of the store. On the wall was an odd, reverse image poster of Jerry Garcia. I had the same poster on my college dorm wall. I said I was looking for John. John said “I’m John.”

You might be able to fill in the blanks from there. The quick of it is we hit it off, figured out that we both attended Potsdam College in Potsdam, NY (read… ridiculously out of the way place) and both had an affinity for the same kind of music. The lessons progressed, a friendship ensued and at some point I asked if he and his rock band, Lichen, would record some songs with me, as my Band, that I had written. John agreed wholeheartedly and at some point we piled into my VW GTI Rabbit (R*E*D – hello troopers… another post) and looked around for a recording studio to record in. After visiting several studios, one of which featured the recording machine Michael Jackson used on Thriller, we decided to go with Soundlab in Milford, NH, one of whose engineers was, now BR&F bassist, Arnie Ashford. The studio was in an old barn and had a nice warm feel to it.

Not MY GTI but that’s what it looked like!

I practiced two songs with John and Lichen. John said “just play like you normally would” and they would work off of that.

I always thought these recordings came out great. Unfortunately with the master tapes gone, the analog cassette to digital is all that remains. I still think it sounds pretty darn good!

An artifact.

I’ll post both songs though I figure posting one at a time is probably a good idea. The first song is called Smiling Moon. I wrote it probably around 1982 while working for IBM as a college co-op in Kingston, NY. I lived on an old pig-farm. The pigs were gone but there were quite a few rabbits hopping around. I’d take walks on the windy road leaving from the end of the driveway. The highlight of the walk was to be very, very quiet near a certain bend where a very loud and unstable German Shepard lived. The other highlight was a great view of the moon at certain times of the month. Smiling Moon is a time capsule of how I was feeling at that time and of the great work John and Lichen did with the song. John just shreds the solo on a borrowed Strat.

I’m thinking we did this around 1987/1988 but I could be off by a few years.

Note: John and Lichen are still playing regularly and sounding better than ever. Check them out!

Playing on the tune:

Bill McLaughlin - drums
Charlie Windhausen - bass guitar
Ben Rudnick - acoustic guitar, vocal
Diane Zevos - keyboard
John Zevos - electric guitar, backup vocal

Recording and mastering was done by Arnie Ashford.

Smiling Moon by Ben Rudnick and Friends

Download Smiling Moon

Why’d It Take So Long To Write This?

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The Ben Rudnick and Friends’ Tenth Anniversary Show is long over you say? Umm… yea, I know. Why am I writing about it now you ask? What took you so long you say? Well…

I know it’s been over four months since we played the show. There are a lot of reasons why this has taken so long. The main reason being, it was a big effort event. Once it was over, it just took awhile to process the ten year line we had drawn, the show itself and what, if anything it meant, beyond the “how cool and what a great time we had” aspect. Also, immediately after the show, there were more major shows and activities demanding my time. It was easy to let it slip.

So why mention it now? Well… the processing has been processed. Photos have been edited. Some recordings have been mixed and it’s just plain been nagging at me. I need to look back and then move on. One Dylan quote, for good or ill, underlies a lot of what I think about: “He who’s not busy being born is busy dying.” I like being born. But, there is also this great Dylan quote: “Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.” So - here I am. I’m taking care of my memories before starting in earnest on some really cool new stuff.

The Players!

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The show was just a hoot. In hindsight, the best thing to come out of it, as it usually is in these situations, is the people you run with. It’s hard to say enough about the BR&F core of John Zevos, Arnie Ashford and Jared Steer. All have a passion for music and all of them have a lot of things they need to do and can choose to do. It’s just a tremendous compliment to me that they choose to put their effort into BR&F. Real effort. With the amount of shows we play it would be easy to fall into a rut but we all take pains to cheerfully not let that happen.

Ben, John, Arnie and Jared

And then we added some amazing players.

First to sign on was Mark Yacovone. Mark spent years with the band playing the piano-to-go (accordion). Story time… We were on a trip back from New York after playing shows at the Long Island Children’s Museum. It was our first real band trip. In the van, in January 2003 and it was snowing. We were generally happy but tired. Ready to be home. Mark starts mimicking Ozzy Osborne. Dead on. “SHAAAAARRRRROOOOONNNNN.” We were in tears laughing so hard. So besides being a great player who’s turned into a phenomenal player, Mark is just a great guy to have around.

Mark Yacovone @ WERS 88.9 FM Studios

Some years back, talking 1987 back, traipsing through Europe I met Sue Smith. Sue was traveling with her mom and somehow I made her (very unhappy at the moment) mom laugh. Sue and I have been great friends ever since. Sue is a renowned singer and writer who is creative is so many ways. Sue also prodded me to go meet her boyfriend, Jeff Bird, who came to Boston with the Cowboy Junkies. The Junkies were on their first US tour behind their Trinity Sessions album. At some point they asked me “How long does it take to get to New York City?” These fine people have been around the world more times than I could ever imagine but at that point they didn’t know how long it took to get to NYC!

Sue Smith

Anyway… Jeff is just a great friend who has kindly been on every BR&F studio recording and agreed to come play the show. The surprise was that Sue wanted to come too. This is family coming to a big event. This was great!

Jeff Bird

One of the first asked, but last to sign on was pedal steel guitar player, Buddy Cage. I’ve mentioned Buddy in various emails and posts. Buddy took Jerry Garcia’s seat in the New Riders of the Purple Sage back in late 1971. When we were recording our Grace’s Bell album, a couple of songs just screamed PEDAL STEEL so naturally we sought out our favorite pedal steel player. Buddy Cage! When the Tenth Anniversary show was thought up it seemed only natural to try and get Buddy to come. So we asked! Buddy said he’d try. With about three weeks to go he realized he could make it. It was great, great, great to have Buddy around. Even though he recorded on our disc and I spoke to him on the phone, it really isn’t the same as meeting someone and spending time with them. Buddy fit right in with all the good friends around me. A sweeter guy we couldn’t have met.

Buddy Cage

We also had four horn players who couldn’t have been better sports about augmenting what we do. John wrote up the horn charts, oversaw the rehearsals and made the whole Tuba Tune Horn section happen. Kudos to them all. The horn players included Rob Lee on saxophone. Rob plays with BR&F semi-irregularly and is all over our “It’s Santa Claus” and “A Frog Named Sam” discs. On tuba was our good friend Joe Wright. Trombone was Michael Woodworth and Jenn Allen on trumpet.

Joe Wright, Jenn Allen, Michael Woodworth and Rob Lee

The last musician to mention but one of the first people to help me on my way into the music world is Diane Zevos. Diane and John and their band Lichen were kind enough to record some early songs with me around the 1989 time frame. Diane put up with my early guitar ramblings with good cheer, was on the early BR&F albums and we play together to this day.

John and Diane Zevos

Lastly, some friends came from fairly far and wide to share the day with us. Jim Packard, impresario from the Long Island Children’s Museum, made the trip and we even got him to introduce us. Old friends from grade school through college also showed up to help make this a really unforgettable day.

So How’d It All Go?

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Well it went great! The band locked in fast, which is really no surprise. We’re talking decades of some big time live musical experience here. It was just plain fun. At some point we could sense that the collective was really something special and unique. From the live on the WERS radio warm-up on Saturday afternoon through the show on Sunday, this was exciting and I find group connections such as these really don’t happen once you get a little older. The opportunities just don’t exist as often. Afterward it was also a touch sad. This was a wonderful collection of people and getting them all together was not easy. It really is hard to say if it will ever happen again.

Ben Rudnick and Friends: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Honestly, the highlight was just getting to present songs near and dear to my heart with this set of people. It’s pretty simple.

So, Did It Mean Anything?

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Well… four months gone and it’s really come to mean that I have some really fine people in my world. Besides the folks mentioned above, there is my family, Diane and Emily, who just couldn’t be more supportive. Big-time supportive. Also people you don’t see such as Andy Pinkham at Mortal Music, Bob von Elgg at BigFish SmallPond Design and publicists Beth Blenz-Clucas and Elizabeth Waldman. I’m glad to have these people in my life and I’m glad they share their energy with me.

It also means that a lot of effort has been put into making music and recordings over the last ten years. When we released Emily Songs around November of 2000, the term Kindie Music didn’t even exist. Now making music for kids and families is a fairly competitive business. A lot of people take it incredibly seriously. It is, without a doubt a business. What I’ve learned since the show and during the BR&F hiatus in January/February of this year is that I’m glad I make this music. I really like playing music with my friends. I’m really excited to start recording the new songs sitting on my desk. I’m looking forward to playing the really cool shows we have lined up. The business can be a drag but the music, the people I play it with and all the wonderful fans that continually come to hear us play and get as excited as I do, have made me a lucky guy.

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*************************************************************************************

Title track from It’s Santa Claus! - Ben Rudnick and Friends new holiday disc.

Greetings Earthlings!

It’s been awhile since I wrote an entry. There has been so much going on in the BR&F world that I just couldn’t quite get to this blog. I’m back for the moment.

I’ll get straight to the heart of the matter, or the blog entry. We’ve got a new disc. It’s a Christmas/Holiday disc called It’s Santa Claus and it came out great. We put a lot more effort into making the disc than I expected we would though I guess there is no surprise there. We have a history of effort! If you like anything BR&F has ever done and you are open to the idea of Christmas/Holiday music, it’s really safe to say you will love this CD.

The reviews for It’s Santa Claus have all been wonderful. There is also a short, short window to really get a hold of one of the discs and enjoy it during the season so I hope you make the effort. It’s available from the usual locations, Amazon.com, cdBaby.com and iTunes as well as some stores in the Boston area I’ll list below. The best place to purchase the disc however, is right on our website. It’s the cheapest place to get the discs and if you purchase more than one, (3 or 10 specifically) we’ll give you a discount. We always pick up the shipping on purchases made on our website, so you save some money there too. We want you to have this CD!

Reviews
There have been quite a few very positive reviews for It’s Santa Claus. Some of my favorite are:

“The original song, “It’s Santa Claus” is in a class with Christmas favorites like “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Frosty the Snowman.” ~ Bob Etier, Technorati.com

“It is very hard NOT to sing along with this album and I found that it could easily provoke the holiday mood. “~ Take It From Me

“Love it! Love it! Love it! The end.” ~ MommyPerks.com

“While never sacrificing intelligence for the sake of entertainment, singer-guitarist Ben Rudnick and his friends live up to their “fun for all” promise for It’s Santa Claus. The New Englanders demonstrate how “Jingle Bell,” “Let It Snow” and six others take on freshness when treated with touches of jazz, rock, rockabilly, folk, Western swing, Tex-Mex and r&b.” ~ Downbeat Magazine

A Little Back Story

The disc is new but BR&F have been playing Christmas music for years. This coming December 11^th, we’ll be playing our Ninth Annual Holiday Extravaganza at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, MA. Ninth! Back before the first Extravaganza, the Regent Theatre folks were just getting their Family Fun series going and may have asked about a holiday show. Or we might of come up with a date for a December show and I may have thought holiday music would be appropriate. Either way, I’m sure there was a phone call to “and Friend” John Zevos that went something like this…

Ben: “Hey John, do we do holiday music?”

John: “Yes.”

The fact of the matter is the answer is always yes. John and I play in an Irish Music band, Celtic Knot. Most of the gigs of course revolve around St. Patrick’s Day but there have been shows at other times of the year. One summer we loaded Celtic Knot onto a boat steaming around Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. It was a beautiful afternoon, we played maybe two really long sets of music and our legs hurt for days form balancing ourselves while the boat rocked back and forth. It was a memorable and sparkling afternoon.

Whether it’s rock, bluegrass, Irish music, Chanukah music, Christmas music or a bit of everything the answer is YES. After eight years of people asking if we had a Christmas CD, the answer is now YES. Not only YES but YES and it’s GREAT.

Making It’s Santa Claus
We had just come back from the great BR&F Colorado excursion, played an absolutely memorable show in Medford on July 8^th and then loaded into our studio of choice, Mortal Music in Charlestown, MA on the hot morning of Saturday morning July 10^th. The idea was to record the basic tracks for six tunes and then do the vocals and any overdubs. We burned through the six tunes and even had time for one more tune. John did his vocals on the spot.

Over the next six weeks I added my vocals and instrumental overdubs were also added. I added LOTS of guitars. We had Rob Lee do LOTS of saxophones and newest “and Friend” Phil Aiken played some killer organ. We got vintage “and Friend” Jeff Bird (Cowboy Junkies) to drop a harmonica track on Auld Lang Syne. Arnie also came in and did his usual menagerie of vocal harmonies. In the album notes I always make a point of calling out Arnie vocal harmony efforts but you have to understand what a talent he has for this. Using the main vocal as a starting point, Arnie, often with Andy Pinkham’s (BR&F disc co-producer) input, will weave harmonies above, below and around making a lush addition to the song. Back on Grace’s Bell, the title track has three vocal tracks from me and seventeen (or nineteen – I’m sure Arnie remembers) from Arnie. It’s very impressive. Arnie felt that “Let It Snow” on this new disc was his best effort. Maybe!? I’m partial to Grace’s Bell but it’s a good argument to have.

BR&F artist extraordinaire, Bob von Elgg, pitched in some very appropriate artwork.

The Title Track
I wrote the title track, It’s Santa Claus!, earlier in the year. I got inspired from the whole “Who Dat?” thing that came out of the New Orleans Saints being in the Super Bowl. I extended that to be:

“Who’s that flying way up in the sky
He’s wearing red, that’s no regular guy
He’s flying all night and he never gets tired
He’s waiting all year for just this night

He’s got a sled full of toys
For all the little girls and boys”

And it went on from there. The track sounds instantly new and classic at the same time. I can’t tell you what a rush it is to think of something like that and then have it come to fruition. It’s a musical vision that takes the effort of many people to come to be. I appreciate every note.

Samples of the tracks on the disc can be heard on our website. The title track can be heard in full here.

Tracks on the disc are:

It’s Santa Claus! - 2:16 - play the song
(Ben Rudnick - Bartlett Ave. Publishing)

Jingle Bells - 3:16
(James Pierpont - Traditional)

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree - 2:47
(J. Marks - St.Nicholas Music Inc.)

Let It Snow - 2:01
(Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn - WB Music Corp,
Chappell & Co.)

Frosty The Snowman - 2:54
(S. Nelson, J. Rollins - Chappell & Co.)

Here Comes Santa Claus - 1:58
(Gene Autry, Oakley Haldeman - Gene Autry’s Western Swing Music Publishing Company)

Auld Lang Syne - 2:46
(Traditional)

Greensleeves - 3:40
(Traditional)

End Stuff

So there you go – the It’s Santa Claus story and a commercial all rolled into one. If you know us at all, you know we’re something of a soft sell. If you want our music we think that’s great. If you don’t want it right now, we hope you’ll want it in the future. With It’s Santa Claus!, we hope you want it right now! Tis the season.

Get It’s Santa Claus Online

• BenRudnick.com
• Amazon.com
• cdBaby.com
• iTunes

Get physical copies in the Boston area:

• Art Beat, Arlington, MA
• Henry Bear’s Park Toy Stores
• Wild Child, Arlington, MA

Mostly, we wish you a wonderful holiday season.

Sincerely,

Ben and the friends.

As I say so often “the beat goes on.” August is winding down, the summer has shown its hand and reluctantly thoughts now bend toward September and what is coming in the near future.  Here’s a brief look at the summer from the BR&F point of view.  I’ll write about the exciting things coming up in the next blog.

Great Weather, Great Shows

            We had great weather! We had great shows! Okay, for a while it felt like a reality show entitled BR&F vs. The Weather.  The “outside temp” on my car seemed absolutely fixed on 91°. The sun was always out, we were always in it and it was HOT. Truth be told, when the band was playing, the heat nor the sun bothered me at all. Not one bit. I still find that amazing.

A couple of shows just stood out as highlights. If you were there, thank you for your good energy directed at us. We may be the engine, but you, dear audience, are certainly what fuels us. The highlight shows for me were:

•  Winchester, MA – Fire Station - Friday, June 4^th – We showed up for a Friday evening show and set up in front of the main fire station in town to celebrate Winchester’s Town Day. What we got was a large, energetic audience literally dancing in the street. The audience seemed to get more out of us, we got more out of them and we kept on going together. Great fun!

•  Medford, MA – City Hall – Thursday, July 8^th – Just back from Colorado, we got to play in front of the grand City Hall in Medford. We’d been scheduled to play this spot for the two years previous and were convincingly rained out both times. With the sun arching down off to our left, the stately building embracing us, and the flag, high on its pole gently waving, we were ensconced in a beautiful spot in a vintage Massachusetts town. The promoter requested “America The Beautiful” as the last song so the kids could parade waving their flags. Instead John sang “This Land is Your Land” and it was perfect!
  
  
  Medford, MA

• Lexington, MA – Visitor’s Center – Friday, July 16^th – Probably the first summer show we ever played, back in 2001, was the Friday night summer series in Lexington. We had an impressive crowd that first night and it’s only gotten bigger. The good energy generated by all the people filling the green is just unbelievable. We always feel loved there and are more than happy to give it back in music. With the addition of Rob Lee on saxophones and wayward BR&F accordion player Mark Yacovone on accordion, this was a rollicking evening of music despite the second set shortened by a storm.
  
  
  Lexington, MA

• Portsmouth, NH – Prescott Park – Saturday, July 17^th – Prescott Park is another beautiful location we get to play at regularly. This year was extra sweet as Mark Yacovone was visiting the area and was there to play accordion with us. Here is a FLIP video Mark took of the band playing the old Dire Straits song “Walk of Life” from the Portsmouth show.
  
  

• Lowell, MA – Boarding House Park – Wednesday, August 4^th – It’s a pleasure to play Boarding House Park. The surrounding mills and metal work of the stage are something to see. The audience seemed to be bursting with excitement. This was the first, and to date, only show we’ve ever opened with our song “A Frog Named Sam.” Usually we get to it later in the set, but we’d been playing so much at this stretch of summer we were still warmed up from the night before. And once you start with SAM, taking the energy higher is the only option!

• Natick, MA – Town Common – Wednesday, August 11^th – This is another “rained-out-for years” show. Really… something like four years we’ve been trying to play on the Natick Town Common. We’ve always had the wonderful fall back of playing at TCAN down the street but finally this year we set up on a beautiful evening, outside in front of the gazebo. We think of Natick as our metro-west home and this was only reinforced by the warm reception we received.

• Arlington, MA – Robbins Library – Thursday, August 12^th – The hometown summer show. It could be this was the quintessential show of the year. The surrounding buildings and trees give the feeling of being in a private garden. We’ve played this lovely spot many times now and the familiarity of Arlington, the old friends who have supported us for awhile and the new friends who bring their excitement just make this a fabulous experience.
  
  
  Arlington, MA

Under the Radar Highlight Show

            So we pull into Camp Miracles and Magic with no real clue as to what we’re getting ourselves into. It turns out “Eliot” of Jordan’s Furniture fame, and his family, have run this camp for the past fourteen years. The campers are children 8-13 years of age who are born with HIV. For one week these kids are bombarded with the coolest activities you can imagine. Trapeze instruction, dance crews, Frisbee demonstrations, concerts, movie making – I can’t even list them convincingly. We were hired to entertain the kids while the ice cream truck dispensed free ice cream to everyone.

The camp takes place at the Ron Burton Training Village whose facilities resemble classic Greek structures. We played on the Parthenon! Retired New England Patriot, Ron Burton, Sr., is an interesting story in his own right. The coolest thing though, for me, is that Eliot, his wife June and their family literally run the camp with volunteers. Let’s face it, Eliot could write a check and have the whole thing be a great tax write-off. Not the case at all. Eliot is in residence, running the show and has been doing this among other philanthropic work. I’ll tell you – Eliot is an inspiration to me. I’m proud to be a part of the same species.

Colorado Redux

            I wrote all about this in a previous blog. Now a solid 6-7 weeks since we’ve been back the trip sort of has a dream like quality to it. We did go and it was amazing! It’s hard to fathom that this summer we’ve played all the local New England shows, have recorded a holiday CD and went to Colorado. We’re definitely the hardest working band on my street although Mike Duke might argue that point.

Wrap It Up

            That’s the summer to date. I’ll write more about the holiday CD we’ve been working on in an upcoming blog. I’ll also let you know about the excitement building for the Tenth Anniversary Show at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, MA on October 24^th. Good stuff ahead!

            Lastly, a disclaimer… the shows I listed up above are really just some of the highlights. Other shows stand out for various reasons like the Holliston, MA show, finally getting to play in Burlington, MA and all the great people we met there and the Plymouth, NH show. Hot tunes on a hot night in NH and a very kind state trooper who let me “just get home.”

New Ben Rudnick & Friends Video for “Santa Fe” from A Frog Named Sam

So I get an email from Nicole, someone I’ve never met who lives in Crested Butte, Colorado. The email said, “Come play here.” Nicole had seen our video for “A Frog Named Sam,” checked out our website and thought her fellow Coloradans would love us. I thought, “Okay, I’ll bite.” After a couple of back and forth emails, weeks of phone calls, another round of phone calls and basically what just has to be considered fortuitous luck, I put together a day of shows for the band in the towns of Loveland and Breckenridge, CO. About six weeks before we were to leave, a couple of shows came in for John and I to play as a duo in Colorado Springs. Now we had an actual Colorado tour!

Ben Rudnick and Friends at The Riverwalk in Breckendridge, CO

I know it was a real tour because I had to book airline reservations, rebook airline reservations with the added shows, choose a rental car that would fit our gear and not cost a fortune, get confirmation numbers for hotel rooms across the state, ship CDs and T-shirts and generally make sure everything was just exactly perfect. I think Dr. McCoy would say, “I’m a musician not a travel agent!” A strong case could be made that the good Doctor would have been wrong in this instance. With the thick itinerary in hand, I surely felt like a travel agent.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

So how’d it go you ask? I’m pleased as punch to say the biggest problem we had was a bit of traffic for the New Hampshire “and Friends” getting to Boston’s Logan Airport on Monday morning. Everything else went as smooth as silk. Not a wrinkle. Logistical highlights included:

• Getting the whole band to the airport on time – always a bonus!
• Finding our instruments in Colorado and having them be in one piece – also a bonus!
• Finishing the show in Loveland, CO at 1:45pm and getting to Breckenridge for our 6:30pm start – surely a concern.

With those three small points taken care of everything else was gravy.

Everything Else
This really might be all you want to hear, the logistics just seem so much a part of the effort that it’s hard not to mention it. Maybe this section might be considered the good stuff.

We had a blast! What we found was that the audiences in Colorado were very receptive to our style of music. One of the things we couldn’t help but notice was that they were locked into what we were doing. Solos and musical details were applauded.  There was clapping along galore. With the excitement of playing in Colorado, the audience reaction, beautiful theaters, great sound men and general good cheer all around, the shows really couldn’t have gone any better. We were in band-in-a-new-place heaven.

Rocky Mountain National Park and our trusty Chevy Tahoe

Which leads me to the beauty of Colorado. We do have mountains of note here in the Northeast. After years hiking on the Long Trail, I consider Vermont to be my favorite state.  Colorado though is a different thing altogether. I’m not saying I’m bailing on Vermont, but the whole Rocky Mountain way thing is worth the trip.  The scale is tremendous. The state is like an amusement park for the visual senses. With a couple of days off between shows, John and I had the chance to go through the Rocky Mountain National Park twice. Crossing the boundary into the park I immediately had the impression of a sense of calm. The park felt like a peaceful sanctuary. Beauty unfolded as we wandered through. Another turn, another vista. Names like “The Never Summer Mountains” evoked a chill and sparked the imagination. Huge elk with racks sat by the side of the road. We saw an antelope. We took our time! For two guys who seem to have an endless amount of projects and things to do, we couldn’t have been more slowed down. The park had us and we really couldn’t have been happier about it.

John Zevos and Ben Rudnick in Rocky Mountain National Park

Between park visits we spent one of our off nights at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. Opened in 1909 by F.O. Stanley, inventor of the Stanley Steamer motor carriage, the hotel is renowned for being about six miles from the national park and is listed as one of America’s most haunted hotels. The hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King’s novel The Shining. The movie plays 24x7 on the TV. We saw nary a ghost and I was okay not running into any of the problems Jack Nicholson had in the movie. He didn’t really handle it well and I’m sure I wouldn’t have done any better.

Rocky Mountain National Park

A sure highlight, which I suppose was the most dangerous part of the trip, was getting caught in a storm in the mountains south of Granby, CO. Approaching the mountains, we stopped for gas, merrily ate chocolate and commented on the ruthless bolts of lighting striking the mountains in front of us. “See that one!” BOOM! “Wow!” CRASH! It was all fun and games until we were in the mountains getting pounded. There was walnut sized hail, thunder, lighting and the usual general mayhem of noise that goes along with storms of biblical proportion. Check out the photo below and more on our Facebook page. The best part was the upcoming switchback turn displayed on the GPS. Once over the mountains with the storm behind us, the temperature rose again and the ice on the car from the hail lasted more than a half hour before melting.

HAIL, THUNDER, LIGHTNING and the upcoming switchback turn.

In Colorado Springs we were told to go see the Garden of the Gods, an absolutely breathtaking place. Featured are red rock formations initially (like 300 million years ago) in the earth horizontally but are now pushed-up, vertical and weathered. I won’t even ramble on about it. Check out the photos and go when you can.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

Lastly, Pike’s Peak is also not to be missed. At 14,115 feet high, with killer donuts at the top, the view was the inspiration for Katharine Lee Bates poem “America The Beautiful.” Born in Falmouth, MA, educated and teaching English Literature at Wellesley College, Katharine was spending the summer of 1893 in Colorado Springs when she took the three day round trip to and from Pike’s Peak by wagon and mule. Katharine said:

“One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pike’s Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.”

View from Pike’s Peak, CO

In Hindsight
This was a great trip! We had fun and as traveling musicians there isn’t much that can compare with having new audiences appreciate you. It strengthens the spirit and can provide endless inspiration. For myself, and I think for John too, seeing the beauty of the mountains affirmed what we already knew. We live in a beautiful country and we’re proud to be here witnessing it go by and taking our shot at providing some of the soundtrack. I’m glad we didn’t have to travel by wagon and mule.

Thanks for reading.

Ben.

PS: if you’re ever in Manitou Springs, CO, visit The Dulcimer Shop. Tell Bud Sr. we say “Hello.”

PPS: If you’re ever in Colorado Springs, CO, visit Rudy’s “Country Store” Bar-B-Q every chance you get.

The BR&F coreTet in Breckenridge, Colorado, June 2010

One of the neat things about being an artist of any kind is that work you do affects people in one way or another. Reactions can run the gamut from “love it” to “what was he thinking?”  John Lennon’s primal scream therapy on his first solo album for example. Like it? Lift the needle (remember those) and go to the next song? Start screaming along? Or how about Coltrane with his sheets of sound. Listen to his Giant Steps album today and it still initiates a reaction.

I don’t even pretend to put myself in the same category as Lennon or Coltrane. One thing I do know is that they had to make the music they were making. There was no other way for them. Coltrane meant every one of those notes. Lennon put his soul into every one of those screams. The intent is a similarity I can share with them. As we’ve made recordings over the last decade, it has turned into something that I feel like I have to do. Usually one song or another will trigger the need to take the seemingly endless steps that feed the overreaction of making a record you can be proud of. It really is like building a house with all the decisions and choices. Once it’s done, a record is thoroughly unique and people will like it or they won’t.

Which brings me to the title of this piece, I Get Stuff. I’m thrilled to see the work I do affects people so positively. We play for families! I get stuff from kids! One of the best things about kids is that they’re not going to be nice and say they like something to make you feel good. If a kid says she likes your music and sends you a picture or a note, SHE LIKES YOUR MUSIC! I have to make the music. People like the music. This is working out.

Here is some of the stuff I’ve gotten recently.

“On the title track alone, the funky vocal breakdown is worth the price of admission….” ~ Time Out New York Kids

“…very Widespread Panic-ish or like Phish! I have heard this a billion times and still like it.” ~ Daddy Brad - DaddyLab.Com

“Little Deadheads! The tracks from the Grateful Dead influenced kiddie jam band are groovy.” ~ Parenting Magazine

“If I was allowed only one CD to bring on a 3 hour road trip this would be the one.” ~ Mustapha - WHUS, Storrs, CT

For kids’ music cd

Vote for Ben Rudnick and friends CD, A Frog Named Sam!

Thanks