Free Range Pickin' Archives

With my busy High 48s and teaching schedules, I have not been performing a lot of my original music lately, so I am excited to announce a rare solo gig June 22nd at the Aster Cafe supporting my multi-talented musical friend Ben Cook-Feltz and his band!

I’m doubly excited to say that two of my former bandmates from Free Range Pickin’, Steve Schley and Dan Christensen-Cowan, will be joining me to perform some of my songs (including a debut), some of their songs and even some Free Range Pickin’ classics!

It will be a special night with musical friends old and new, I sure hope you can join us!

Gig Details

Wed. June 22nd
9-11PM (we play first) / $7
Aster Cafe – 125 SE Main Street – Minneapolis, MN 55414 United States
612-379-3138
http://astercafe.com/event/ben-cook-feltz-anthony-ihrig/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1698639950386167/

I had Steve and Dan over to the studio for a practice — Great to pick with these two again!

Naughty Gnome: How Not to Name a Banjo Tune

The Dangers of Crowdsourcing Song Titles

Naughty Gnome is older banjo original that I wrote on my honeymoon (I married a good one) and recorded with Free Range Pickin’ on our Flight Risk release in 2008. In many ways it was a study in picking in Bm, in particular, exploring ways to use the D melodic scale in this key (relative major/minor). While I’m still proud of this tune, I kind of wish I would have spent a little more time on the name 🙂

In the months preceding the recording I had asked audience members at shows to help me choose a title. It was a fun process, people would shout out titles and some wrote suggestions down and handed them to me after the show. In retrospect, I feel I should have picked a name myself (mine or a suggestion) that actually fit the feeling of the song. Instead, I took a vote. While the title seemed “funny” at the time I always thought it was too whimsical for the minor mood of the song…

Here is a recent video of me playing the song solo, what do you think of the name, does it fit the tune?