Leftover Salmon has announced dates for their 2012 Fall Tour, which sees several familiar stops, some of which the band has not visited in over a decade. The tour rolls through the Northeast, Southeast & Midwest with festival stops at The Festy Experience & Yonder Mountain String Band's Harvest Music Festival at Mulberry Mountain.LOS Fan Club Ticketing goes on sale at 10am (EST) on Thursday June 14th.

I have a problem. It’s not a joke. I am addicted to music. I have been a victim to this addiction since 1987, maybe earlier.  That was my first live music experience.   My addiction to music has affected me adversely in the following ways: uncontrollable smiles, a feeling of connection to everyone around me, and a sense of synchronicity with harmony and syncopation within my everyday surroundings. 

I spent my entire weekend at DelFest thinking of a musician who wasn't even on the lineup:  Doc Watson.. I had heard of his declining health just before I departed for the festival.  I overheard many at DelFest expressing their own concern.  It appears we all had a feeling, sadly.  I wish we'd have been wrong.

I had a dream about Steve Martin, last night..

I knew I'd be writing this story, today.. That's likely why he was on my mind.  Of course he was in a white suit, with an arrow headband on his head.  [I'm a child of the seventies, after all..] But instead of playing for laughs, he was picking his banjo with fire, along with a bevy of world-class bluegrass musicians.  This was an especially fun dream, considering I've never seen him perform in any capacity beyond the movie theater.

Suwannee Springfest, held March 22-25 at the beautiful Spirit of Suwannee Music Park, Live Oak, Florida was the rainiest, most violently stormy festival I have ever attended, but it was still a great time and the show went on.  It rained off and on and then just on until late afternoon Saturday. After lightening struck by our tent and the crescendo of its thunder rang in our ears, the sun did come out in all its glory.

Summer is music festival season. Plain and simple. It’s the easiest time to travel to whatever destination and have the assurance that you will be comfortable and satisfied with variable weather conditions. July festivals do have their pitfalls on that end though, with scorching temperatures and fields filled with thousands of festival-goers, sometimes the dead of summer multi-day musical festivals can be exhausting and problematic to those who are more about the music and less about sunscreen and lugging camping gear around.

The first thing a salmon does from birth is establish its home.