New speakers have been installed!

The new BRAS speaker system has been successfully installed! On Saturday, 24 Nov 2012, the old speakers were taken down by Rob Tobiason with help from Bob, Norm, Jan and Al. Rob donated and installed the speakers many years ago. After the old speakers were down, new cable lines were run for the new speakers.
 
Today, the new speakers were installed and tested. The install was done by Jon ( ProSound speaker installer) and Ryan ( the ProSound manager).

-Al Klayton

TAARKA at the Black Rose Open Stage Friday!

TAARKA seems like an unusual name for a band until you look it up its root, tarka. One meaning comes from Indian cooking, a favorite pastime of the band’s fiddle player. It’s a common Indian word for a spicy seasoning mix. Seems perfectly appropriate for a band that describes itself as performing “a blended evolution of Western and Eastern folk traditions of jazz, rock, bluegrass, old-time, Gypsy, Indian, and Celtic music.” Spicy mix, indeed.

Our musical TAARKA consists of four of today’s top, classically trained, eclectic -acoustic music pioneers. David Tiller, Enion Pelta-Tiller, and Troy Robey make up the core of the group. In the spirit of their name, they mix in either Ben Blechman or Grant Gordy to create a piquant quartet.

TAARKA’s tunesmithing combines the group’s vocal talents with David’s mandolin and guitar, the energy of Enion’s four and five-string violins, and a foundation provided by Troy’s standup bass. To round out the quartet, Ben adds more fiddle or hand-drum spice. When he joins the group, Gordon mixes in texture on guitar.

Collectively and individually, members of Taarka have shared stages with members of the Grateful Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow, Ricki Lee Jones, Blues Traveler, Kaki King, Darrel Anger, and many others. Some members have also been Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp performers and instructors.

To say that TAARKA is a string band is a little like calling a pre-War, herringbone Martin Dreadnought “an old guitar”. But strings are in the band’s DNA. My favorite review of their music goes like this: “TAARKA is like a drunken cross-cultural wedding party where the bride’s family is a bunch of bluegrassloving back-to-the-landers, and the groom’s crew is composed mostly of vodka-swilling Ukrainian bandits. Good times, good people, good times.”

All that said much more simply; we’re in for a treat on November 23rd, when TAARKA takes the Black Rose stage. We hope we’ll see you in the audience at our little, log concert hall in the forest.


-Bob Lord


Want to see more about Taarka? Visit their website: http://www.taarka.com/

Show Details

Showtime is Friday, November 23rd at 7:00p.m. Doors open at 5:30. Cost: general public $7.00, Students $5.00, BRAS Members $4.00, Children 12 - under are Free.

Grass It Up November 9th in Black Forest

Its been a while since we had this outstanding local bluegrass group grace the Black Rose Stage. At Black Rose we had a little scheduling mix up but one good thing came out of it...we get to have Grass It Up back on our stage!

Grass It Up

November 9, 2012 at 8 p.m. at the Black Forest Community Center

Tickets: $7.00 general admission, $4.00 for BRAS members, $5.00 for students, kids under 12 are free! For more info go to http://www.blackroseacoustic.org

 

Just as the elements of a song – notes, words, rhythms – take form only when combined into lyrics and melody, so too the members of a band coalesce when they take to the stage or the recording studio. Grass It Up has become famous for their live performances, whether at their regular gigs – pickin’ on the patio of the Front Range Barbeque and playing at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs – or at special events such as the Meadow Grass Bluegrass Festival, Keystone Bluegrass and Brews, headlining the Happy Ass Ranch Bluegrass Festival, The Indy Music Awards or competing in band contests at Telluride Bluegrass and Rocky Grass. Grass It Up started in Alabama with David Jeffrey, Shannon Carr and Jim Marsh where they garnered a substantial following before relocating to Colorado in 2004.

They organized and performed at Lavapalooza at Lago Arenal, Costa Rica in 2007 and 2008.  Grapes and Grass in Sonoma, CA 2009 and 2011. They welcome Colorado based musicians such as members of the world famous Flying W Wranglers, Bruce Hayes, Alex Johnstone (Spring Creek) and Keith Reed (Open Road) to join them on stage, and they’ve shared gigs with bands including the Oak Ridge Boys, Spring Creek, the Packway Handle Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Crooked Still, Drew Emmitt Band, Hazel Miller, New Monsoon, The Haunted Windchimes, El Toro, Acme Bluegrass, White Water Ramble, Oakhurst, Sons and Brothers, Elephant Revival, Head For the Hills, Peter Rowan, and Creating a New Sense.

Grass It Up has received positive reviews from Bill Forman of the Colorado Springs Independent and Cathleen Norman of Pow’r Pickin’ Magazine. Grass It Up is the most popular bluegrass band in El Paso County, garnering consistently substantial audiences and the acclaim of the “best of” surveys at both the daily Colorado Springs Gazette and the weekly Independent.