Dear friends,
We’re playing tomorrow morning at the Windsor Farmer’s Market from 10am to 1pm. We hope to see some familiar faces there!

Change of plans….On October 25th    2:00 to 5:00
Unfortunately our Adobe Pumpkin Farm gig in Petaluma has just been canceled. They said due to the rain they’ve been too muddy to open to the public for several days the past 2 weeks. As a result they just can’t afford to hire a band this coming weekend. They said they hope to have us back next year.

On October 31st       9:00am to noon
The last Calistoga Farmer’s Market of the year
We’re practicing up some of our scariest songs for this Halloween morning gig…

We just got back from a quick but amazing 2 week trip, mostly in Denmark, visiting family. We hadn’t seen most of them in 12 years since we were last there with our kids in 1997. Since then kids have grown up, new babies have been born and some of the older relatives have passed on. Life goes on for the rest of us though and we were happy to reconnect and meet the newer members of the Ryge family. We had a great time! We especially enjoyed playing a little music with Michael’s cousins.

We took a quick trip to Germany where we finally met our wonderful new friends Sylvia and Daniel, who we had only communicated with through email before we went to stay with them. We had discovered each other’s music on Jamendo, a great music sharing site our son Leif had encouraged us to post our music on. He said if we give our songs away we’ll eventually get gigs in far away places. Well it worked and we were invited by Sylvia and Daniel to come play in Germany and Belgium. They set up 3 concerts for us. We played in Butgenbach, Belgium on Friday October 2nd opening for Sylvia and Daniel’s great band Syl’n’Dan. Had a good turnout and a great time. We even got to play a little with their band when they called us back up for their encore.  They have a virtuoso 6 string electric bass player, Werner, and an amazing drummer, Andreas, whose talents and drum kit include tablas, congas, cajon, and bongos, as well as western trap drums.
On Saturday we played in a little town called Nideggen in Germany and had a blast. We were so surprised and delighted to meet a sweet couple, Anja and Thomas who traveled 6 hours, all the way from Berlin just to hear us play! We were amazed and honored.

On Sunday we played at a house concert near Simmerath. Again we had an enthusiastic audience and really enjoyed playing for them. We met so many nice people and they encouraged us to come back soon and play again. We’d love to! What a wonderful experience.

We hope you’re all well and enjoying life too!

Love, Lindalou and Michael

We had a wonderful time at the Strawberry Music Festival. Four days of camping with friends, sharing meals, dancing, riding bikes, and best of all jamming and singing harmonies all night with old and new friends and the most amazing musicians. We’d love to stay there at least another week or more… but we’ve got a full plate at home before we leave the country in less than 2 weeks! Here’s where we’re playing next:

Tonight, Thursday, September 10th 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Pioneer Park on Cedar Street in Calistoga
The Calistoga Chamber of Commerce has been putting on free concerts for the community every Thursday evening. They’ve asked us to play with our band. Most folks bring a picnic dinner, maybe a bottle of wine and something to sit on. There’s also barbeque, beer and wine for sale there. We’ll be playing with the 3 D’s.

Saturday, September 12th 1:30pm to 3:30pm
Calistoga’s annual Relay for Life
At the Calistoga High School track on Lake Street
With the 3 D’s.

Sunday, September 13th
A private lunch for a Soroptimist Fundraiser in Calistoga

Saturday September 19th 9:00am to noon
Calistoga Farmer’s Market on Washington Street
with the 3 D’s again.

We’ve had to cancel a couple of farmers markets due to a sudden change of plans. We’re very excited to be leaving for a quick trip to visit family in Denmark on September 21st! We’ve also been invited to play some concerts in Germany and Belgium the first weekend of October! Thanks to our sons convincing us to give our music away online… we were delighted to be asked awhile back if we could come play in Germany, where, apparently people are enjoying our CD. You can read some reviews we’ve gotten from far away places here: http://tinyurl.com/mokz6p
We’ve gotten some good laughs from some of the computer translations!

When we were invited to come play in Germany we told them we couldn’t afford to get over there this year. Out of the blue Michael’s brothers and their wives have very generously offered to treat us to a trip to Denmark! They wanted all of us to be over there together and reunite with our Danish relatives who we haven’t seen since 1997.

Since Denmark is so close to Germany, we contacted the folks who had invited us to come play there.We’ve made friends with Daniel and Sylvia on line through our shared love of music and look forward to meeting them in person soon. They are also musicians who happen to play some of the same instruments we play. Check out their beautiful music here: http://www.syl-n-dan.de/index.php?id=43

They’re in the process of arranging 2 or 3 concerts for us to play in Belgium and Germany on October  2nd,  3rd and 4th. Needless to say we’re very excited about this! So if any of you happen to be in Belgium or Germany, please let us know and we’ll send you the details… we’d love to see you there.

We hope you’re all well and having a bountiful fall~
Love,
Lindalou and Michael

Dear friends and music lovers,
August is passing quickly and we’re keeping busy.

Saturday August 29th  9:00am to noon
We’ll be playing the Calistoga Farmer’s Market
with our fabulous band, The 3 D’s, Dan Brunetti, David Chapman and Duncan Draper.

September and October bring some surprising and exciting plans.  We’ll start September off camping at the Strawberry Music Festival. This is one of our favorite places to be every Labor Day weekend (and Memorial Day too when we can do both.) That’s no surprise, but when we return we’ve got a full plate for the weeks ahead!

Hi Folks,
Thanks and welcome to all the new people who have recently signed our mailing list!
In August we’re looking forward to a few public gigs and some private events too. We’ve been playing a lot lately and really appreciate when one gig leads to another. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive of our music!
Here’s where we’ll be next:

Tonight, August 1st from 6:00 to 10:00pm
St. Helena Soroptimist Summerfest ~ An evening of Live Music, Dancing, Wine & Food under the stars!  Vineland Station Event Garden – Between Go Fish Restaurant & Tesoro Flower Shop.  Entrance to event at 633 Main Street, St. Helena, CA.
We’ll play with our band from 6pm to 8, opening for a rock band called “Four Shotz”  who will play from 8 to 10pm.
Tickets: $100.00 Benefiting St. Helena Soroptimist Local Charities for Women & Girls.  Contact: mffeet@aol.com or 707-322-8358
Bring your low concert chairs.

Saturday August 8th Playing private blackberry picking party in Sebastopol!

August 16th 10am to 1pm
Windsor Farmer’s Market
Downtown Windsor on the Town Green
We’ll play as a duo. Mmm…

August 22nd
We’ll be attending Cur-ville Dog Days Festival
We’re not scheduled to play this year but we’ll be jamming with friends in the evening and hope to be on the schedule next year.
There’s a great lineup of some of our favorite musicians. We’d encourage you to check out the website http://cur-ville.com/index.html and consider going!

August 29th 9am to noon
Calistoga Farmer’s Market
On Washington Street
with the 3 D’s
Dan Brunetti, David Chapman and Duncan Draper

After that we’re off to the Strawberry Music Festival to camp out and jam with good friends and family for 4 days! Yay!

Hope all of you are enjoying your summer~
Be well,
Lindalou and Michael

Thanks to those of you who have recently signed our mailing list,  given us tips and/or bought our CD! We really appreciate all the support and positive feedback we’ve been getting these past few months!

We’ve been asked to play as a duo at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market on the 4th of July from 9am to 11am. The market will be extended this Saturday and we’ll stop playing during Calistoga’s 4th of July parade and start up again  from 12:30 to 2:00. Then we’ll go over to Santa Rosa to play for a 4th of July party at a new retirement home where we’ve been hired to play for an hour that afternoon.

On July 11th from 9am to noon, we’ll play again at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market with The 3 D’s –Dan Brunetti, David Chapman and Duncan Draper.

Thanks to our friend Alan Morrell, who invited us, we had a wonderful weekend at the Kate Wolf Memorial Festival up in Laytonville. What an amazing event! It’s hard to believe it’s possible but it seems to keep getting better every year! We saw and heard so much incredible music and got to play into the wee hours three nights in a row, with good friends and strangers stopping by our camp, joining the song circle. One song leads to another and it’s hard to stop. Kate Wolf continues to inspire us and her spirit lives on!

Our friends Diane and Ziggy were helping run the Sunset radio station for the festival and asked us to do an interview and play a few songs during the break on Sunday. We invited Ted Dutcher and Susan Ballinger to join us on a Kate Wolf song dedicated to our old friend Gordy Hall. Some of you may have known him and remember his great smile and enthusiasm. He was a kind hearted elf like musician who died (too young) a couple of weeks ago. We would have been at his memorial service in Fairfax on Sunday if we hadn’t been at the Kate Fest. Gordyo always asked us to sing Kate Wolf’s “Across the Great Divide” whenever we saw him, and it felt good to dedicate the song to him on the air. He’ll be missed by many, especially around Fairfax where he was actively involved in the community.

We would encourage any of you music lovers out there to consider coming to the Kate Fest next year, so we can keep this wonderful festival alive and thriving.  Check out the website: http://www.katewolf.com/festival/ if you’re interested in coming next year, or consider volunteering if you can’t afford tickets. It’s well worth it!

Also if you’re interested, please check out these websites to find out about some of the wonderful music we heard there besides the big familiar names like Emmylou Harris and her buddies, etc. Check out our friend Megan Mclaughlin who played some of her great songs for us in camp. Our dear family friend Nory Fussell also played his wonderful songs for us and was asked to open for our friends Paul Kamm and Eleanore MacDonald who played a couple of different sets including  a “tweener” between Richard Thompson and Emmylou Harris on the main stage!

Our new friend Ginger Parish’s trio “Three At Last“  played on the new “People’s Stage” and they were so good I expect we’ll be seeing them on the main stage eventually.

A duo called Ma Muse also played on the People’s Stage and were amazing, as were the Blushin’ Roulettes!

I could go on and on but I won’t. We do want to let you all know about something coming up this summer we hope you might come to. Our friends Laura Hinerfeld and Dale Henry Geist have been putting on a great little music fest the past couple of years. They call it “Cur-ville Dog Days Fest.” It’s growing and evolving and we’d like to encourage you to support it. Read about it here:  http://cur-ville.com/index.html

We hope you’re all enjoying the summer and will get out often to hear plenty of live music!

Enjoy!

XOXO, Lindalou and Michael

Dear Friends and Music Lovers,
We’ve been real busy working and playing music at weddings and parties, retirement homes and all kinds of events.
We’re looking forward to playing several Farmer’s Markets between now and October.

We missed our beloved Strawberry Music Fest last weekend to play a wedding with our full 6 piece band which was a wonderful, uplifting event, and now we can afford to go to the Fall Strawberry Fest!  We’ve been playing every weekend lately and some weekdays and nights as well. We’ve been out making so much music that we wonder when we’ll ever catch up with the chores around here!
We went up to Mendocino Woodlands this past Friday for a rehearsal, to play a beautiful wedding there on Saturday and then rushed back Sunday morning to play a wonderful annual event at the Mark West Creekside yesterday. It was the “Shade Tree Preservation Tour Picnic hosted by Joe Branum Tree Care and Jack Martin of the Mark West Lodge.

We’re looking forward to playing even more music this month:

Sunday June 7th 10am to 1pm
Windsor Farmer’s Market
We’re playing as a duo
on the town Green

Wednesday June 10th  6pm to 10pm,
at The Blue Heron in Duncans Mills
As a trio with Terry Ann Gillette

Saturday June 13th 9am to noon
Calistoga Farmer’s Market
on Washington Street
With the 3 D’s:
Dan Brunetti, David Chapman and Duncan Draper

Also Saturday June 13th 2:00pm to 4:30ish
At the Logvy Property in Calistoga at the end of Washington Street
Celebrating, at last, the opening of the long awaited
Calistoga public pool!
We’ll be playing with the 3 D’s again!

Saturday June 20th 11am to 5pm
Calistoga Art in the Park
Pioneer Park on Cedar Street
with the 3 D’s and our favorite fiddler
Terry Ann Gillette

The following weekend we’re off to camp out, dance and jam with good friends at the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival!

Hope to see some of your smiling faces along the way~
Love, Lindalou and Michael

Spring sure came around fast again…Part of April felt like late July and then it got really cold again…Wonder what May will do? We’ve been hoping for rain during the week but warm sunny weekends! Today it’s raining and we’re packing up to go camping with a bunch of musician friends all weekend..,.
We’re excited to be doing a little test run for future music festivals out at the Mark West Creekside. I mentioned this possibility on our website in March and haven’t promoted it much because the proprietor Jack Martin didn’t really want us to invite the public or everyone we know. So I hope anyone who didn’t get a personal invitation will understand! Hopefully our little event this weekend will lead to future public music festivals in this beautiful location. Hopefully the weather will clear up. Otherwise we’ll all be huddling inside our friend Alan’s festival tents with propane heaters. But he’s there setting them up for us!

On to the next weekend:

We’re playing at the Calistoga Farmer’s Market again!
Saturday May 9th from 9am to noon
With the 3 D’s (Dan Brunetti, David Chapman and Duncan Draper.)

We have 2 big wedding gigs coming up later in May, one with the band and one as a duo. We’re hoping more gigs like that come our way soon. We love playing weddings! Please keep us in mind if you or anyone you know needs music for any kind of event. Thanks!

Happy Spring and good health to all,
Lindalou and Michael

P.S. One more really fun gig has come up in May:

Sunday May 31st  noon to 11pm.
Mark West Shade Tree preservation Tour Picnic
Joe Branum Tree Care is hosting this event.
Bring a dish to share and a bottle of wine.
Barbeque, meat, fire pit and music provided
RSVP to Joe at  942-8954
(We’ll play off and on with the 3 D’s starting around 1:30)

On Wednesday April 22nd 3:00 to 6:00
Cal Mart Customer Appreciation Day and Earth Day!
1491 Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga

Once a year our local market puts on a festive party with live music inside and out, with lots of free samples and a raffle. Everyone has a great time. They’ve had us play this event before. This year it happens to be on Earth Day so we’ll be celebrating that as well. It’s not always easy “being Green”… but we’re trying our best and we think Cal Mart has been working on it as well! It’s a great local market with a good selection of organic produce. We’re happy to have no Safeway or large chain stores in our little town.

We’ll be playing with our band, including Duncan Draper on stand up bass, David Chapman on drums and Dan Brunetti playing guitar and singing harmonies. Our favorite fiddler Terry Ann Gillette will also join us! We’ll be in the parking lot where there will also be plenty of good food samples and smiling faces and who knows what surprises. A rare treat for us to get hired to play on a weekday! Hope to see you there supporting our local market and enjoying the music and our Calistoga community.

Greetings,
I guess we should be learning some Irish songs for times like this…We actually had to turn down a gig for today because they wanted us to stick to Irish music and we weren’t quite prepared for that! Fortunately it’s rare that we have to turn down an opportunity to play music.
Spring is coming on and we’ve been lining up more and more places to play. In the past we haven’t really pursued gigs, they’ve just come to us by word of mouth. This year, since we’ve both been laid off our regular jobs and doing odd jobs where ever we can find them… we decided to put a flyer together to actually try to promote our music for the first time. We’ve been getting the flyer out to local inns, wineries, restaurants, event/wedding coordinators etc. as well as retirement communities and schools. We’ve had some positive response so far and have been hired a few times as a result of advertising. If any of you folks on our mailing list, (or who just happen to be reading this,) know of anyone getting married or planning an event where our music would fit in, please consider recommending us. We kind of specialize in love songs for ceremonies, and also have a band for receptions. At the retirement homes we try to focus on some of the old songs the residents know, filling in a bit with originals and our old favorites. It’s great to see folks smiling and singing along.

So here are the public venues where you can find us making music in the near future. Hope to see you out dancing and singing along with us soon!

This coming Saturday March 21st  6:00pm to 10:00pm
Calistoga Fair Grounds in the Butler Building
1435  North Oak Street
The Mountain Volunteer Fire Department has asked us to play with our band for their annual Italian Dinner fund raiser. We told them we love pasta but don’t really do Italian music…They want us to play anyway with Danny Brunetti  and David Chapman. It’s for a very good cause and should be a lot of fun with great food! In the local paper it says “Dinner from 6 to 8pm and plenty of dancing from 8 to 10pm.”  We’ve never been billed as a dance band before, and we’re excited about playing an up tempo repertoire for this event. We’ve also been trying to learn a couple of Italian songs before then…
For tickets or more info call Jan  707-942-5002

Wednesday April 22nd 3:00 to 6:00
1491 Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga
Cal Mart Appreciation Day
Once a year our local market puts on quite a festive party with live music inside and out, with lots of free samples and a raffle. Everyone has a great time. They’ve had us play this event before. We’ll be playing with our band in the parking lot where there will also be vendors with samples and smiling faces and who knows what surprises.

Saturday May 2nd details TBA
Mark West Lodge Creekside May Celebration!
Our friend Jack Martin, who owns the Mark West Lodge and the old resort across the road, has been fixing the place up for live music events and plans to be ready for an event in May. We’re excited to be a part of this new venture. This is still in the planning stages, and may turn out to just be a big party, but we plan to play music there, hopefully with a bunch of our great musician friends to celebrate May and the re-opening of this beautiful spot in the woods.

Saturday May 9th Calistoga Farmer’s Market 9am. to noon
We look forward to being back at our favorite farmer’s market with our compadres Dan Brunetti and David Chapman! Hopefully Duncan Draper will show up with his stand up bass and Terry Ann Gillette may even surprise us with her fiddle.

We have a bunch of other dates after this, mostly farmer’s markets, which we’ll post more of in the next few months. In the meantime, please keep us in mind if you know anyone who might be interested in our music at their next event. Thanks for reading this and helping us promote our musical endeavors!

Love,

Lindalou and Michael

It feels a little late to say Happy New Year! But we’ll say it anyway and hope it turns out to be a happy year for all of us and a lot better for the world than the past 8 years….
What a relief it is to see the rain! Sure has been dry so far this year.

I haven’t updated our website in a long time. I finally updated the front page a bit which was pretty outdated. We also finally repaired and added to our photo page. I’ve decided to stop sending out our whole news letters to our mailing list and will just send a short note with a link to this page.

We’ve recently been offered several dates to get out and play farmer’s markets and a few other events where we hope to see you!

Saturday February 14th Valentines Day 6:00 to 8:00
at Christopher’s Inn downtown Calistoga.
The two of us will be playing love songs and instrumentals for their guests
in the lobby by the fireplace.

Saturday March 21st  5:00pm to 8:00
Calistoga Fair Grounds in the Butler Building
1435  North Oak Street
The Mountain Volunteer Fire Department has asked us to play with our band for their annual Italian Dinner fund raiser. We told them we love pasta but don’t really do Italian music…They want us to play anyway with Danny Brunetti  and David Chapman. It’s for a very good cause and should be a lot of fun with good food! We’re trying to learn a couple of Italian songs before then…
For tickets or more info call Jan  707-942-5002

Wednesday April 22nd 3:00 to 6:00
1491 Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga
Cal Mart Customer Appreciation Day
Once a year our local market puts on quite a festive party with live music inside and out, and lots of free samples and a raffle. Everyone has a great time. They’ve had us play this event before. We’ll be playing with our band in the parking lot where there will also be vendors with samples and smiling faces and who knows what surprises.

Saturday May 2nd details TBA
Mark West Lodge Creekside May Celebration!
Our friend Jack Martin, who owns the Mark West Lodge and the old resort across the road, has been fixing the place up for live music events and plans to be ready for his first event in May. We’re excited to be a part of this new venture. This is still in the planning stages, and may turn out to just be a big party, but we plan to play music there, hopefully with a bunch of our great musician friends to celebrate May and the re-opening of this beautiful spot in the woods.

Saturday May 9th Calistoga Farmer’s Market 9am. to noon
We’ll be happy to be back at our favorite farmer’s market with our compadres Dan Brunetti and David Chapman! Hopefully Duncan Draper will show up with his stand up bass and Terry Ann Gillette may even surprise us with her fiddle.

We have a bunch of other dates after this, mostly farmer’s markets, which we’ll post more of in the next few months. In the meantime, we plan to keep making music and we’re looking forward to plenty of rain before all our outdoor gigs! We hope you’re all well and enjoyed the Spring weather in January!

Be well,
Lindalou and Michael