WITH FRIENDS TO HELP YOU OUT WHEN THINGS GO WRONG....

So sayeth Neil Young in his great song "Hold Back The Tears."

Gosh, I love Neil Young's music. It's been giving me great comfort ever since I was a kid, when I found my sister Sharon's single of "Sugar Mountain." I was a pretty big Young fan through early high school (bought "Hawks and Doves" and "Re-act-or" the days they came out) and have been a fan since.

So it was a great honor when Eric Hester of Slothtrop asked us and Kung-Fu Sophie to record "Bandit" (Young's great tune from "Greendale") for the More Barn charity CD that Slothtop has put out for the Bridge School. Now, that has (finally!) translated to a show in Reno to promote and sell that disc, plus a little more. Here's the skinny:

The show is FRIDAY, APRIL 11 at MAYTAN MUSIC CENTER starting at 7 PM. We are happy to be partnering with the Reno Music Project again for this one. We love their work and love to support it. We'll be playing an all-Neil set and we've been working on learning the tunes all this month (we've previewed a couple of 'em live in recent weeks). We'll also play at the tail end of Kung-Fu Sophie's set to do "Bandit."

Now, the show costs $10 but you get a neat artifact: a download card on a lanyard that lets you have all the tracks from "More Barn"! There's songs by Steve Wynn, Howe Gelb (very excited about that!), some members of Wilco backing up Phil Lee, and the Waco Brothers, among many others. We'll also have some physical CDs for sale as well if you aren't compu-compatible. Also, we'll donate some of the proceeds of the admission fee to the local WARC chapter in town, a great organization for the developmentally disabled that always needs support and help.

We're being joined by an exciting lineup of Reno folks all doing Young tunes as well, and some doing full sets of his work! They include Tyler Futrell, Neil Greene, Gabriel Traverso, the aforementioned Sophie, The Sunjul, The Stately Gentlemen and Burning Peace! Who knows - we may get others to stop by for a song or two (email me at mistervague1@sbcglobal.net if you wanna launch a surprise or three!).

One other show will help promote this, as Sophie and I will play solo sets on Saturday, April 5 at Discology Reno, the awesome and much needed indie record store on California and Plumas, just above the Satellite and Blue Moon Pizza. It starts at 5 and admission is free, although we'll have lanyards for sale that will let you get into Friday's show.

So, stop by if you like to help celebrate the greatness that is Neil Young and to help with the Bridge School. Love to see you there....

MARK E