We haven’t posted anything here for many moons, though we continue playing regularly, mostly at retirement homes and private parties these days.

We’ll be at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market tomorrow Feb 11th, from 9am to 1pm. Finally a beautiful sunny day after so much rain and wind!
Hope to see your smiling faces there!
In harmony,
Lindalou and Michael

Summer is quickly turning to Fall and every now and then we get another call. Calls for playing private parties, farmers markets and retirement homes. Good reasons to learn more old and new songs every few days.

We played 4 hours at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market yesterday. The weather was perfect there in the shade of the redwood trees. We saw a few old friends and many smiles.

On Thursday September 29th we’ll have the honor of providing the sound system and playing a few songs to open a house concert for Dry Branch Fire Squad! They’ll be playing again this year all three days at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park Sept. 30th, Oct 1st and 2nd. Their Thursday house concert will be at our friend Amy’s house in Petaluma. Potluck at 5pm and we’ll play a few songs at 6pm and the band starts at 6:30pm. Tickets $20 in advance and $25 at the door; for information contact: amy@sharesonomacounty.org

We’re excited to open for this great bluegrass band and hope to see some of our pals there!

On Saturday night we’ll be opening for Karl Kummerle and Karla Mi Lugo at another house concert at Mamalanda! Then on Sunday we’ll be opening for them again at a house concert at Melissa’s house in Sebastopol! If you want information about these shows please let us know and we’ll send it.

We continue playing mostly at retirement homes these days. This is not only so rewarding to see these very elderly folks light up with big smiles and singing along, it’s also helping to pay our bills! After years of volunteering to play we are now getting calls and hired to do this mostly on weekends but lately even on an occasional weekday!

Our next Calistoga Farmer’s Market is Halloween weekend on Saturday October 29th.

Hope to see you at the house concerts this week and at the farmer’s market next month!

In harmony,
Lindalou and Michael

We were just invited to open again tonight for Karl Kummerle and Martin Masakowski!
They put on an incredible show on Friday night at Mamalanda and we were honored to be able to open the show for these virtuoso musicians, who joined us on our last song. We had a sweet jam after the show with the two of them as well as our dear friends Ted Dutcher and Clay Wary, and also Karl’s good friend Tim Sawyer of the band “Free Peoples” who Karl toured with a couple years ago. What a joy to play with all these guys! Thank you to our dear friends Constance and Barton for hosting the concert and providing such a sweet place for Karl and Martin to play and stay over on the first night of their tour.

A friend of theirs, Melissa, who was at the concert on Friday offered to host this last minute house concert at Monnet’s tonight. Here’s the info that was just sent out to folks by Melissa:

Karl Kummerle and Martin Masakowski’s Cosmic string duo comes to Northern CA!

House Concert at Monnet’s house.
7415 Hayden Ave, Sebastopol, CA
Mon eve, August 29th, 7-9+ PM.
Suggested donation: $15-25

OK, once in a rare while musical genius strolls through our special little oasis of a town. I promise you if you want to be transported in and around our beautiful cosmos and back again you MUST arrange to hear these 2 musical prodigies play tomorrow (Mon) night at Monnet’s.

Constance and Barton hosted a house concert for Karl and Martin Friday night – we were all spellbound and grinning the entire night! Karl and Martin play their instruments in ways I’ve never witnessed before. They play every genre imaginable and definitely know how to create sounds and music from another sphere (hence the Cosmic Strings).

The duo has some other gigs coming up as well (in Mendocino County)

Thursday Sept 1st:
‘215 Main’ wine bar, Point Arena, 8:00

Friday Sept 2cd:
‘215 Main’ wine bar, Art Opening, Point Arena, 6:00

Saturday sept 3rd:
Willits Center For the Arts! with other local bands! All acoustic concert! 7:30

Here’s a note from Karl:

Hi Friends,

Karl here,

I’m just back from Europe to Northern California and I wanted to share an invitation to some shows as well as send my greetings to everyone whose company I miss.I’ve been playing music with friends in France, Belgium, UK, Nederlands, and Germany. I rode my bike around from town to town for a month and had a wonderful time learning new music and making new friends!

My good friend Martin Masakowski is coming out from New Orleans to join me on this little tour. Martin is my musical soul partner and the sound we create together is extremely special. We both draw a lot of influence from our travels in Eastern Europe as well as gigging with jazz bands in New Orleans.

The improvisatory language we share is so fluid and natural that, to me, it feels like a once in a lifetime kind of musical connection.
So if you or friends are around the North Bay, come hang out with us.

http://karlkummerle.com/
http://karlkummerle.bandcamp.com/

We hope to see some familiar smiling faces there tonight!

Hard to believe it’s mid August already! We’ve been playing mostly at care facilities on a regular basis this year, several times a month. Still haven’t quit our day jobs but these rewarding side jobs really help.

This coming weekend, Saturday August 20th, we’ll be playing the Calistoga Farmer’s Market again from 9am to 1pm. and then playing an open house at the Cedars Care Home in Calistoga from 3pm to 6pm.

Next Friday night, August 26th, we’re looking forward to opening a house concert for our friend Karl Kummerle who has been traveling the world playing music and is coming back to Sonoma County next week. Our friends Constance and Barton have offered to host the concert at their beautiful home, Mamalanda. I am posting the blurb we received from Constance below:

**Come join Karl Kummerle and Martin Masakowski at Mamalanda on August 26th, for a magical evening of musical interplay and improvisation!

Karl returns to the Northbay fresh from a musical/bicycling adventure in Europe this summer. He is a violinist based in New Orleans. On the bass, musical accomplice Martin Masakowski, one of New Orleans’s most in demand bass improvisers. The two will perform original compositions as well as selections learned via world travels! Karl would like to say,

“Martin is my musical soul partner and the sound we create together is extremely special. We both draw a lot of influence from our travels in Eastern Europe as well as gigging with jazz bands in New Orleans. The improvisatory language we share is so fluid and natural that, to me, it feels like a once in a lifetime kind of musical connection. See you there!”.

Lindalou and Michael will open the evening with their beautiful duets.

Potluck at 6pm and show starts at 7:30.

We suggest a generous donation of $15-20 for the travelling performers.**

This should be a fun evening and we hope you can make it!

Please RSVP to: kummerle.karl@gmail.com

Dear friends,
When so many of you so generously donated to help us buy a new guitar after we were mugged last November, we promised that we’d put on a concert and jam to express our abundant gratitude. We thought we’d have found time to do that in the Spring… but Spring has sprung and is quickly turning to summer.

So, we’ve set a date to do it; July 2nd, in the back yard of the Chroma Gallery, where Robin and Simmon are also having an exhibit called “The Art of Music.”

We’ve written a half dozen or so new songs since that crazy event in November and our concert will be mostly our original music, taking place just around the corner from the scene of the crime! We’ll be recording the concert with hopes of finally making our 2nd CD as a live recording to share with y’all later.

We hope you can join us on the 2nd from 4:00 to 6pm. We’ll gather and mingle first, followed by our “concert” around 4:30 and then we’ll unplug and have a jam. Bring your instruments and or voices if you’d like to join the jam!

We’ll be providing a few drinks and snacks but have no idea how many folks will show up, so please feel free to bring snacks (finger food) and drinks to share if you’d like.

We really look forward to seeing and jamming with many of you at the Kate Wolf Fest before then. We’d also love to see you all the following weekend at Chroma Gallery, 312 South A Street, Santa Rosa.

In harmony,
Lindalou and Michael

Spring greetings friends,
It’s snowing here on the mountain!

Not really… no snow at all here this year, but we finally got some rain! March somehow got away from us already. It’s beautiful here today and our Wisteria, Irises, Lilacs and Apple tree are all in full bloom.

We’ve been playing music but not keeping our website updated very well or sending out music news by email much anymore. We’re still mostly playing farmer’s markets and retirement homes, parties and the occasional winery event.

Our benefit concert back in February was a huge success. Thank you so much to all who came and supported DCWC and helped us celebrate what would have been our Dad’s 91st birthday. Also another big thank you to those who couldn’t come but still sent donations to support the hospital in Nepal.

We’re playing music at a couple of places this month where we’d love to see some familiar faces!

Calistoga Farmer’s Market
tomorrow, April 2nd, 9am to 1pm
We’ll be playing in the shade under the redwood trees again, accompanied by our friend Dan Brunetti.
We’ve been asked to play the Calistoga Farmer’s market next weekend as well!
Saturday April 9th, 9am to 1pm

That same day, in the early evening, we look forward to playing the annual Hike and Hoot, a fun annual event put on by Friends of Mark West Watershed.

On April 23rd we’ll be playing again for the annual Róse Release party at Elizabeth Spencer Winery in Rutherford.
This is the 6th year they’ve invited us to play and they always ask us to bring our favorite fiddler friend Terry Ann Gillette!

The next day we’ll be playing in Napa for the elderly folks at the Meadows of Napa Valley where we’ve become regulars a couple times a month this year.

We’ll be at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market again on May 7th and then on June 11th and once a month through October.

We’re looking forward to the Kate Wolf Memorial Music festival in June and our favorite new festival The Redwood Ramble in July. We’re on crews for both festivals so we get in early and leave late and besides hearing incredible music from many stages we get to jam with amazing musicians around the campsites for days!

I’ll try to keep our website updated a little more often if we have public gigs coming up, just in case anyone is checking! If you do read this, we’d love to hear from you and hope to see you soon.

Please keep us in mind if you might like our music for an event.
Thank you!

Be well,
Lindalou and Michael

Dear friends and music lovers,
It’s been a long time again since we’ve posted anything here or updated our website, but we have been playing quite a bit, mostly for folks in elder care homes, farmer’s markets and private parties. We’ve also been writing new songs together mostly inspired by events in our lives. It’s such a joy when even the difficult times inspire songs! That being said, we’ve all had our ups and downs but things are mostly going well for us and we’re grateful for that every day!

We’re getting ready to play our annual DCWC benefit concert in memory of my Dad, Ken Harris. My brother in law Steve Gross met and befriended a man named Akka Llama while trekking in Nepal a few years ago. Akka had started DCWC to help poor women and children in rural villages in Nepal. He was building schools in these remote villages and then built a small hospital in the Rajbash, Kavre District. My sister Jeanette went with Steve the next time he went to Nepal and they offered to help DCWC raise money for the hospital. We offered to do a house concert to help out and decided to schedule it around our Dad’s birthday and make it an annual event.

This past February we had to postpone the concert due to Jeanette dealing with breast cancer. Thankfully she made it through that ordeal and we’re very happy to say she is doing well now!

After the big earthquake in Nepal last year we did a special concert in October to help DCWC raise funds to build temporary shelters for countless people who had lost their homes. This concert was a huge success and we want to thank those of you who have come to our concerts or made donations over the past four years. Jeanette tells us that our concerts have been their biggest fundraisers for DCWC and the humanitarian work they continue to do. It feels great to know we can help so many people by playing music. It would make our Dad really happy too!

We hope all of you who read this are well and we hope to see you at Jeanette and Steve’s house on February 27th. The details are in the flyer below, and you can contact us for more information.

In harmony,
Lindalou and Michael

Here is the flyer that Jeanette made:HouseConcertFlyer2016

We haven’t updated our website in many moons, but we have been playing a bit and we’ve also been writing some new songs!

We’ve got a couple of things coming up very soon. We’re excited to have been asked to open for Karl Kummerle and his friend Karla Mi Lugo at the Arlene Francis Center.
The show is this coming Thursday night, Oct 15th from 7:30 to 10pm.

Karla Mi Lugo is an eccentric traveling performance artist who specializes in accordion improvisation, vibrato laden whistling, and Billy Holiday impersonation. She also runs the Faith Faucet Talent Agency, an organization that empowers artists and talented individuals to constructively cultivate art for positive social change. Come see her one of a kind homemade instrument; the Whisolin!

Karl Kummerle is a songwriting violinist and pianist. His goal to spread the joy of song and music everywhere has taken him to 17 countries, most recently China and Vietnam. Each new travel adds to the collection of folk music styles that Karl employs in his music.

Together Karl and Karla will present melodies, storytelling, comedy, original songs and fiddle/whisolin duets!

We will open for Karl and Karla and might also be accompanied by them!

The following weekend we’ll be playing a benefit house concert in Oakland. This is a benefit for the earthquake victims in Nepal where my sister and brother in law, Jeanette and Steve Gross have become good friends with some local people there and are very involved with this organization who my sister made the US website for: http://www.dcwcnepal-us.org/
We’ve done a benefit house concert the past few years in February around my late Dad’s birthday and we’ve managed to help raise some extremely generous donations to help build a hospital which was finally completed but then severely damaged in the earthquake. We will do another benefit concert in February to help repair the hospital, but this upcoming concert will help to build shelters for people who have been homeless since the earthquake.

House Concert — DCWC Nepal Earthquake Relief
Sunday, October 18th from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Nanci & Tom Clifton’s House 6125 Pinewood Road, Oakland, CA

If you’re interested in coming to this house concert or making a donation please let us know or you can also RSVP to my sister Jeanette at: jeanetteg2@mac.com

Our hearts also go out to all the victim’s of the recent local fires, who lost their homes. You can still make donations to directly help the Valley fire victims through the Redwood Credit Union – Press Democrat fund.

Be well!
Lindalou and Michael

P.S. On a lighter note, we’ll also be playing the Calistoga Farmer’s market again on Halloween! Oct 31st from 9am to 1pm.

We’re playing at Elizabeth Spencer’s Rosé Release party tomorrow April 25th! This is the 5th year they’ve asked us to play this event. We’ll be accompanied by our fine fiddler friend Terry Ann Gillette again.
Sure hope it doesn’t rain! We’ll be playing in the court yard 11am to 2pm. I’d say hope to see you there but they tell us it is sold out!

You can come see us and hear us play the following weekend at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market, Saturday, May 2nd, 9am to 1pm accompanied by Dan Brunetti. Hope to see you there!

It’s been quite some time since I have updated our website or posted any news here. I’d like to be able to say we’ve been busy recording our long overdue 2nd CD but we still haven’t managed to find time or resources to get that project done…we’re both working a lot and playing music when we can. We’ve played quite a few farmer’s markets, a few care facilities and many parties since I last updated this back in November.

We’ve been dealing with a few health challenges in our family and have been a bit preoccupied, which has made our music much less of a priority than we’d like it to be! We’re just so grateful that we’re both still alive and after some time in the hospital in December Michael is doing pretty well now! Also so grateful that my sister Jeanette is going strong and almost half way through her chemo treatments.

We have some dates coming up where we’ve been asked to play, some private and some public places where we hope to see some familiar faces out enjoying our music!

On Saturday, April 11th, We’ve been asked to provide music again for the annual Hike and Hoot put on by Landpaths.
This info and photo of us below is from their latest newsletter:

Hike and Hoot Potluck
Date & Time: April 11th, 1:30pm-9:15pm
Location: Monan’s Rill
Leader: Members of Friends of Mark West Watershed Community
Registration is required for this event.
Click here for more information and to register

Please join us for the 11th annual “Hike and Hoot” at Monan’s Rill in partnership with The Friends of Mark West Watershed. Fun for the entire Family! Kid‘s Nature Walk, Plant Preserve Tour, Climate Change Talk, Pond Explorations, Live Owls! and of course… the Hooters Hike!

On Saturday, April 25th from 11am to 2pm We’ll be playing the annual Rosé Release party at Elizabeth Spencer Winery. We will be accompanied again this year by our great fiddler friend Terry Ann Gillette.

Both of these events in April require reservations so please plan ahead if you’d like to come.

We’ve been given a few dates at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market where we played last month and quite a few times since last year, but I failed to post those dates here before we played.

We’ll be there again on Saturday, May 2nd, 9am to 1pm, accompanied by our good friend Dan Brunetti.

We’ll also play there on July 25, August 29th, Sept 26th and again on Halloween. Those are the dates we’ve been given so far but we often get last minute calls to fill in when someone else cancels.

We’re looking forward to playing at the Cedars Care home in Calistoga on Easter. They had us play for Valentines and St. Patrick’s Day and will have us again for Cinco de Mayo. It’s always a joy to get the very elderly folks smiling and sometimes singing along when we play familiar songs for them!

All the best,
Lindalou and Michael