Tell my mother that I made the cover…

Northwest Folklife home page, June 3, 2013
Northwest Folklife home page, June 3, 2013

Well, not the cover of the Rolling Stone, but the cover of Northwest Folklife Web site. That’s us (at least as we write this). Thank you to Folklife’s rock-star photographer Dan Thornton: It’s a fabulous portrait of our affection for each other and for our wonderful audiences–thanks so much for braving the rain last weekend and attending our show. It was one of our favorites ever!!! Oh, and if the link above doesn’t include our photo, here’s the evergreen post containing it.

On the Wires!

Setting up for the KUOW interview
Setting up for the KUOW interview

We’ve had some pretty good publicity of late, and of course we want to make sure that you can check out what you may have missed.

There was our New Day Northwest appearance on Monday May 6th, in promotion of More Music @ The Moore. Here’s a link to the video of that.

And we were excited to be interviewed in the super fancy KUOW performance studios by Marcie Sillman for the highly rated morning radio show “Weekday.” The segment was aired on May 10th, and is linked here.

Dang this is cool: More Music @ The Moore

More Music at the Moore
More Music at the Moore: May 10 at the Moore Theatre

We’re stoked, and hope you can come along for this cool ride: The Onlies have been honored to participate in More Music at the Moore, an artist development program for selected young musicians representing diverse music genres, resulting in a way-cool concert at 7:30 p.m. May 10 at the Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle. (Buy tickets here!)

The program provides young artists training and rehearsal time with professional musicians, production and promotional support, and the opportunity to perform at a professional venue, The Moore Theatre. Artists are selected through an audition process.

The event is produced by Seattle Theater Group, which has hired Meshell Ndegeocello as the Music Director of the 12th annual event. A fearsome bassist and prolific songwriter, Ndegeocello has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, released 10 studio albums, and remains one of few women who writes her own music and leads her band. Ndegeocello will join the stage for one collaborative number with the young artists.

Other participants in the show include:

We’re excited to play with the folks above, learn and play from Meshell Ndegeocello, and to do it all with you in the house!

‘Setting Out to Sea’ available now!!!

The Onlie's 'Setting Out To Sea'
‘Setting Out To Sea’

It’s official – “Setting Out to Sea” is now available online, which means people from beyond Seattle and Portland (well, anybody who didn’t make our CD-release gigs) can listen to and purchase it now. We are so dang proud of the CD, and we’ve every hope you’ll love it as much as we do.

Fiddle virtuoso and genius Darol Anger gave it a listen, and here’s what he said: “There is something really special going on in music on the West Coast. It’s a wonderful and highly evolved fiddle community of young people, growing up fast, playing some of the most beautiful rootsy acoustic music ever heard. The level of ensemble playing and the ‘family’ feeling of the players are unprecedented. From Northern California up through the Pacific Northwest, musical magic is in the air. You can hear it on this recording.” (Wow. Thank you Darol!!!)

For those of you who don’t know, it’s got 14 cuts, three of which are songs we wrote, plus a number of original fiddle tunes, too. True to our diverse styles, the CD crosses genres: Scottish, Irish, American old-time, French Canadian, Cape Breton, and a few that are harder to classify. A cut by Liz Carroll makes an appearance, as does “I’m Not Fed Up With The Pacific Ocean” by Ola Backstrom. Our buddy and frequent co-collaborator RuthMabel Boytz sits in on bass on several tracks, and we were lucky enough to land some beautiful cello support from Mila Phelps-Friedl.

The album is a very DIY effort. We recorded it in Riley’s living room, with the help of Riley’s dad Johnny. Also, with the help our friend Tom Collicott, we created the CD art. Here’s where to get it:

We really hope you enjoy the album. If the urge grabs you, buy copies for friends (we plow all proceeds into fiddle camps), and tell everyone you know, and write your own review on your blog or any of the sites above. And let us know what you think! Thanks for listening!

Extras, btw:

Have Fun at Seattle’s Moisture Festival!

A water droplet precariously balanced on a young fern
Photo by David J Laporte (CC BY 2.0)

We’re excited and honored to be playing short sets at two Moisture Festival shows over the next few weeks. As most Seattleites know, the Festival is a monthlong series of comic, musical, vaudevillian, aerialist, thow-that-fun-thing-in-too performances. It bills itself as “is the world’s largest Comedy/Varietè festival,” and we don’t hear anybody arguing with that claim.

We’ll be playing twice, both times during family-friendly events: 3 p.m. Sunday, March 31 at the Broadway Performance Hall on Capitol Hill, and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 7 at Hale’s Palladium in Ballard. Check out the rest of the artists who will be in the show! Tickets are $10-$20.