It’s been two weeks since the surviving members of Grateful Dead announced that they would be performing a final farewell three-day concert event over Fourth of July weekend at Chicago’s Solider Field. The most important psychedelic rock band in history turned fifty years old this year. Another equally significant anniversary for 2015 is twenty years ago this July were the final performances of the Grateful Dead with lead guitarist and bandleader Jerry Garcia.

Recently, the music world has been teeming with musicians who have stepped up to either replace or support bands that they are not necessarily permanent members of, yet. My last three reviews (Yonder Mountain String Band, STS9, Electron) have detailed surprise replacements/additions who have extremely floored die-hard audiences of the original lineups.

GW: How does it feel to be highlighted by such a well-established presence in the music world like NPR?

CB: It's honestly...really crazy. People are always saying "the internet is so powerful," and you know that, but, when we hit NPR, we got easily 30,000 music video views, it just happened, we got 200 likes on Facebook in like an hour. It's just crazy!

GW: You're one of 10 people in the whole year of 2015 that we're gonna be telling our friends about... I mean, does it feel like a dream?

“Do your work, but do your thing,” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The String Cheese Incident concluded a two-night stand at Eugene’s McDonald Theatre (Jan. 19), leaving little doubt about whether they had done their work, but had they done their thing?

The third installment of regional jamband Old Shoe's winter festival will move to the Mayne Stage in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood on February 7th.

National touring bluegrass act The Rumpke Mountain Boys from Cincinnati will join Old Shoe. The bill is rounded out by local favorites Mr Blotto and Chicago newcomers Miles Over Mountains.