Three-Day Reminder: The deadline for Applications for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s 2025 Leadership Bluegrass Class is November 18, 2024. The 2025 class will be held March 10-12 in Nashville.
The Northern California Bluegrass Society is a longtime organizational member of the IBMA. NCBS Members are encouraged to apply.
The Northern California Bluegrass Society welcomes the FREE 19th Annual Holiday Hootenanny on Friday, December 13 at 4:00pm. The Stoney Mountain Ramblers and other bands will perform on two stages.
The gathering will be presented by the Devil’s Canyon Brewing Company, 935 Washington Street in San Carlos.
Fine beer will be served and a variety of food trucks will be there. There will be space for jamming. Thanks to Scott Dailey for booking this fun bluegrass evening.
The famed home of several bluegrass-related music and film businesses since 1976 in El Cerrito may be sold unless the businesses can raise 1.2 million dollars to purchase the property.
The venue is home to the music store Down Home Records (global roots music), the Arhoolie Foundation (some of the archives from the Arhoolie Records music recording and publishing house founded by the late Chris Strachwitz), and Les Blank Films (music-related independent films founded by the late Les Blank as Flower Films).
Strachwitz purchased the building with money earned from the publishing royalties on Country Joe & the Fish’s anti-war rag “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die.”
Harrod Blank, Les Blank’s son, who is continuing his father’s documentary film work, has the first right to purchase the building from the Strachwitz trust at market value, estimated at 2.4 million dollars, half of which still needs to be raised. A Go Fund Me campaign to bring in a portion of the needed funds is currently underway.
The Northern California Bluegrass Society supports local bluegrass music. You can include the bluegrass society in your 2024 tax planning.
The Society is a California Not-For-Profit Corporation with Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) status that is also known as the Santa Cruz Bluegrass Society. NCBS/SCBS accepts tax-advantaged donations.
The NCBS/SCBS Tax ID No. is 94-2907716.
Mail-In Donations: NCBS/SCBS, PO Box 390846, Mountain View, CA 94039-0846.
One Week Reminder: The deadline for Applications for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s 2025 Leadership Bluegrass Class is November 18, 2024.
The 2025 class will be held March 10-12 in Nashville.
The Northern California Bluegrass Society is a longtime organizational member of the IBMA. NCBS Members are encouraged to apply.
Veteran’s Day wishes from your friends in the Northern California Bluegrass Society.
Your membership in the Northern California Bluegrass Society supports bluegrass music in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Monterey Bay Area, and in all of Northern California.
Two Peninsula-area radio broadcasters that feature bluegrass music were included in an article about local non-commercial radio stations in the Menlo Park Almanac newspaper. Both KKUP-Cupertino and KZSU-Stanford have significant bluegrass programming. The full article is here:
All ears: Tune in to these 8 noncommercial Peninsula radio stations – The Almanac
KKUP has several bluegrass radio shows, including Monday Night Bluegrass, 6:00-9:00pm every Monday since 1980. The show has different hosts each week, with the Northern California Bluegrass Society Board’s Mike Russell & Michael Hall hosting live bands on the second Monday each month. The article has photos of October 14’s musical guests, The Johnny Campbell Band, and of Russell at the microphone and Lars Bourne doing sound. Bourne is also the MNB show host on the third Mondays.
KZSU has the “That’s Not Bluegrass” show every Wednesday, Noon-2:00pm with Sarah Bellum, who is better known as NCBS Board Member Lois Kellerman. She has been hosting her program on the station since 1998.
The Northern California Bluegrass Society welcomes the FREE 19th Annual Holiday Hootenanny on Friday, December 13 at 4:00pm. The gathering will be presented by the Devil’s Canyon Brewing Company, 935 Washington Street in San Carlos.
The Stoney Mountain Ramblers and other bands will perform. Fine beer will be served. A variety of food trucks will be there. There will be two stages and space for jamming. Thanks to Scott Dailey for booking this fun bluegrass evening.
The NCBS Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival will be held the second weekend of August, Thursday-Sunday August 7-10, 2025 at the San Benito County Historical Park in Tres Pinos.
