As seen on Mog: MUSIC SIGNPOSTS ON THE WEB’S LONELY ROAD
posted by: w1llits 02/12/2008

San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival
For nine years now San Francisco has been doing a pretty epic Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival with about 50 bands hailing from all over the country along with some our own home-twangers. The festival is huge too, I mean, maybe you didn’t realize but bluegrass has recently taken the helm of trend-induced ritcheousness. Punk rockers? They dig it. Euro-nerds? Are you fucking kidding me? Anyone who’s anyone digs the grass. For some, bluegrass might be little more than an accessory to their pearl-snap flannels, but I consider it some of the best beer-drinking music ever, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let wading through a bunch of kooks spoil my own favorite unhealthy indulgence. Sure, we’ve all happily drank a PBR or two to Van Halen I, but have you ever pounded a cold one while hearing the heartbroken drone of Trampled By Turtles or Old Crow Medicine Show? It’ll change your life and I wouldn’t kid. So when I heard that the Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival was coming up I giddily planned an evening of chewing tabccy and stompin my heels and all that shit.
Kemo Sabe was on a bill with The Earl Brothers (two of my favorite local bluegrassians) at the Cafe Du Nord along with Pine Box Boys; who’s acutally the kind of band who if you so much as mention their name in the Mission you’ll immediately gain access to the cool-kid table. After reading this line-up it was clear to me that only a complete retard would miss this concert- my retardity aside, I got my tickets as soon as they opened the door.
After we got our stamps, me and my girlfriend, Katie, went to a nearby park to pound a couple tall-cans. Once we were buzzedly prepared, we went back to the Du Nord to get more beer! Oh, and to listen to the music. By then the place was half-full of people; men dressed in their cow-polk best and women, inentionally looking accidentally hot. Me and Katie saw her friend Mac from Oakland talking to Simon from Kemo Sabe. Turns out they had had DUI class together once upon a time and were circumstantially inseperable ever since. Me and Katie asked Simon for a beer but he gave us his autograph instead. We were fucking stoked. Shortly thereafter Kemo Sabe took the stage. Watching Kemo Sabe play isn’t like watching three musicians at a paid concert, they look more like three guys who are hanging out in their back field, laughing and singing and making fun of Britney Spears’s baby; it’s obvious that they’ve been playing together long enough that they might as well be brothers. I felt like we were all part of some inside joke as the boys laughed and twanged until they ended their set in a three-man dog pile on the stage. They laid motionless until we all shrugged and went back to the bar. Fucking rad.
Next was The Earl Brothers. I’d seen these guys a couple times before and was one happy bumpkin when they started their set. I swear to god these guys travelled in time from the 1920’s...or the set of O Brother Where Art Thou? Either way, we were stoked.They all stood and sang around this one old-school microphone, each with his own distinct vocal awesome. Their banjo player is this incredible old-timer with a voice that croons like a beautiful echo from a spitoon, and their guitar player has a blond pompadore and looks like Jonny Bravo. I thought they were a good follow-up to Kemo Sabe, who has their own kind of bluegrasss variation that feels a bit more modern, as The Earl Brothers are your classic old-time boys. Either way, consider me PBR ’d. Speaking of which, by the end of The Earl Brothers’ set things were beginning to grow hazy and my eyelids were definately at half-mast. I was ready to either cash in my chips or pick a fight, but neither would apparently do: The Pine Box Boys were due up and all the hipsters were drooling with anticipation. Besides, I’d need another surge, as my roomate was about to get off of work and wanted to meet us for some more suds. The night was still young, bitches! I went to the bar.
As the Pine Box Boys took the stage people came out of the woodwork. These guys were clearly the VIP ’s of the whole fiasco. I’d never seen them before and I wasn’t too disappointed. They’re the genuine article. It’s no wonder they’re so well-appreciated, I just couldn’t help but wonder why everyone here seemed to think these guys were the hippest shit ever, when I honestly thought Kemo Sabe and The Earl Brothers were just as good, and in some regards a little better. I mean, I’m not looking to be lynched from the scene or anything, but I didn’t really like the singer’s vocals. There I said it. He just seemed like your cookie-cutter country singer. I mean, he had an incredible steez, what with his cowboy hat and death-sentence handle-bar mustache, but I felt like he sounded a little like a dad-band singer from the county fair. That aside I thought they were bitchen. My memory’s a little askew (as should always be the case with bluegrass, am I right?) but I remember their shit not stinking at all: their drummer and bass player played like they had sold their souls to either the Devil or Regis Philbin and their fiddle player was incredible...and hot, she was also hot. So despite the dadness, I thought Pine Box Boys were pine box bitchen.
The rest of the night is only tangible in odd memory-spurts, but I’ll spare you. I mean come on, this is a fucking music article.

Watch him surf it. (see the video section)