Urban Monroes News Updates

We will be giving an interview with England's "Bluegrass Around the World" with Lynne Butler this Thursday.

Below is a link to a review of the Urban Monroes at NWSS. Many thanks to Northwest Festival Reviews
http://tiny.cc/no5f2

Comment of the Week about Darrington Bluegrass Festival - "The Urban Monroes blew me away" Betty Jo

There is an interview with the Urban Monroes in Bluegrass Music Profiles Magazine. If you are interested, you can read it at http://tiny.cc/1zwu4

- Comment of the Week- " I love your sound and your music, can't wait to hear you this weekend" Ki

Here are a couple of articles you can read in Cybergrass Magazine about our shows at Darrington and String Summit

Darrington Bluegrass Festival
http://www.cybergrass.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7493

Northwest String Summit
http://www.cybergrass.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7533

In the near future look for an interview with us in Bluegrass Music Profiles Magazine

-Comment of the week
"I received the cd's and to put it mildly, I LOVE THEM!!! definitely my kind of bluegrass" Keith

It's been a busy couple of months with an even busier month ahead. Coming up we will be playing Northwest String Summit and Darrington Bluegrass Festival. At Darrington we will be playing right before Rhonda Vincent and at NWSS we will be right before the Stringdusters. We have a new single coming out in July. This will be the second from our new CD "Pavement and Pathways" The first single "When the Aspens Turn" was released earlier in the year and returned an impressive airplay report.

Our latest video will be featured on tv in North Carolina on Chester Thompson's Old Time Radio Jamboree who has also been playing our music on their radio show for the last couple of months. The show recently moved to television. We will be giving an interview with them soon.

In the coming weeks look for an interview with us in Bluegrass Music Profiles magazine. When we know the date and issue we will let you know. Happy 4th of July everyone!!!!

It has been a very exciting April. Below are several reviews and artcles published this month. We'll just let those do the talking for us. Happy Spring to everyone!

-Facebook Message of the Week
"I checked out your website (urbanmonroes) yesterday and played all the songs on my computer at work all afternoon for all to hear...loved it!! I'd love to catch a show sometime...great grooves!! Pamela

-"As a music journalist it is my duty to report the facts. I followed the Urban Monroes in two consecutive shows. The first was a festival in Florence, the second was in Eugene at the Emerald Valley Opry. Beautiful Alison Krauss-like vocals in a consistenty captivating delivery had every eye and ear focused on this band. Explosive instrumental picking from each of the Urban Monroes made for two very exciting evenings. I can not recommend this band more." Steve's Bluegrass Blog

-"I'm listening to the Urban Monroes tracks right now and your music is ridiculously HOTTT!! Thanks for sharing your music with me and I can't wait to play you on my show!!! The Bluegrass Mix Radio

-"I got your single "When The Aspens Turn" in the mail this past Friday, and I really enjoyed it. I also played it on my Bluegrass Show this past Sunday evening, and I had a nice response from my listeners. Please send me a radio air-play copy of "Pavement & Pathways" to share more of your material with them when it's available". WGTY

-We are featured at World Wide Bluegrass- the largest listener supported bluegrass radio station in the world. Please stop by.You'll love the place: www.worldwidebluegrass.com

We all survived April 1st, although it's not nearly as scary as April 15th. For some reason, it seems appropriate that the tax deadline and the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's death fall on the same day. So with these deeply contemplative thoughts possibly troubling our minds, we would like to shift gears to something more uplifting and once again thank Cybergrass for their work in supporting the bluegrass community and for the article they ran on the Urban Monroes appearance at Darrington Bluegrass Festival this summer. This will be our second consecutive time at the festival and it will be a whirlwind weekend. We are playing a 9 pm show on Friday night then scurring off to Portland to play in the Northwest Spotlight at String Summit on Saturday. Then back, back, back we go to Darrington to play a 1pm Sunday show. Should be lots of fun with much jamming and wonderful memories to come.

We wish to thank KGNU "Old Grass Gnu Grass" and KRSC 91.3 "Bluegrass on the Hill" for spinning our music over the last couple of weeks. A ginormous thank you to World Wide Bluegrass (www.worldwidebluegrass.com) for featuring us again. We also want to thank RiverCity Music Festival for sponsoring our performance at the Energy Trust show at the Portland Expo Center. It was a huge event packed with thousands of people and it was fabulous to be a part of it.

Well, it's always nice to be featured at World Wide Bluegrass, and if you swing by www.worldwidebluegrass.com you'll see that the Urban Monroes and the CD "One Fret Makes a Difference" are featured there again. That CD is about have some company though as our new CD "Pavement and Pathways" is almost here. In support of the new project, We did an interview with Uncle Billy Dunbar. An award winning bluegrass DJ, Uncle Billy hosts a couple of bluegrass shows in addition to a WWB show and the interview will be airing on all of his shows in the coming weeks.

In the last few days we've also added a couple of major festivals to our schedule. First, we're very pleased to be part of the line up for Northwest String Summit on July 17th this year. This is an amazing larger-than-life event that should be incredibly fun. Second, we've been invited to Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival in Denver Feb 18-19, 2011. Another excellent festival that we're extaordinarily pleased to have on our calendar. Prior to that we added Rivercity Bluegrass to our 2011 lineup, also Coombs Bluegrass Festival (B.C Canada) and Ogden Bluegrass (Utah)

"I was prepared for a good time, but I wasn't prepared to be blown away by one of the bands on Saturday's roster. The Urban Monroes, a bluegrass band from the north part of the Willamette Valley, are just a superb example of a contemporary take on traditional bluegrass. Their playing was tight and fast when it needed to be--just listen to their take on "My Window Faces The South"--and swingy and slow in their lovely version of Karla Bonoff's "Home." Listening to the CD here at home, we get to play our favorites over again and focus on the musicianship as well."

Here we are nearly three weeks into 2010. It’s at about this point every January that most New Year’s resolutions have been compromised or totally abandoned. If you are among the many frustrated resolvers, take heart! The Urban Monroes resolved to have this winter update completed and posted by July and if we can do it, you can too!

The performance year started with the Eastside Bluegrass Concert Series. With the event’s largest turnout to date, the evening was a smashing success for the venue and the band. The turnout and CD sales made it possible for the band to make a donation for Haitian relief following the disaster there. Next up this month will be Winter Folk in Florence, OR. Packing out the Florence Convention Center every year, Winter Folk takes place not far from Sea Lion Caves (the world’s LARGEST sea cave); the trip will give us the opportunity to do a little sightseeing as well as performing.

We’ve added the Darrington and Goldendale bluegrass festivals to the band’s 2010 lineup. This will be our second year in a row at both of those and stay tuned as this summer’s festival season continues to expand. We’ve also confirmed three new festivals for the 2011 season.

The New Year also saw the release of our single “When the Aspens Turn” to 1300 radio stations. Stay tuned to your favorite bluegrass radio station to hear the Urban Monroes’ latest radio rendering. Feel free to let them know you liked it, if you’re so inclined.

All of us in the Urban Monroes hope your 2010 is going great. Let the events in Haiti remind us of how blessed we are, and consider this an opportunity to help out those in need.

Facebook message of the week:
"OMG!!! so I just checked out your website. Love the way y'all MASH it!!!! I'll be telling everyone to look for you"
Alexis

We had a busy weekend in radio-land and thought we’d share some of the highlights with you. On Saturday Morning 12/5, we aired on Boulder’s KGNU “Old Grass Gnu Grass show” with Cuz’n Nickels and KVMR’s “County Line Bluegrass” in Grass Valley, CA. That night, Gentleman Jim was playing some Urban Monroes on World Wide Bluegrass. (It’s rumored that we also snuck into the chatroom there.) Sunday 12/6, we aired on “Bluegrass on the Hill” with Jeanie Evans on KRSC FM in Claremore, OK. Coming up this Wednesday, if you tune into 98.5 FM CKWR in Ontario “Blueridge Express” will be playing us as well. I expect our version of “the Grinch” will be making its annual appearance which it also did on World Wide Bluegrass last night.

So you're wondering about the 8 tiny John Deeres...well we sort of made that part up, but it felt Christmasy and was way less manipulative than planting subliminal messages of warm, chewy, melty, gooey, chocolate, chip cookies.

Once again we are being confronted with the inferior quality of some of our American made trees; a little cold weather, a few gusts of wind and poof…the leaves fall off! They are doing this all over the place. It seems to happen every year about this time, too. So predictable, just like the appliance that breaks as soon as the warranty runs out. I hope the Douglas Firs aren’t influenced by this blatant show of mediocrity. The last thing I would want in cold weather is bare limbs.

In spite of their shortcomings, those dang trees with the “on again, off again” foliage relationship can still be influential. A trip through Colorado last year provided the inspiration for Urban Monroes' guitarist Fran Kent to write the song "When the Aspens Turn." Affectionately known as "Aspens" on the set list, it has become one of our favorites. Poetman Records liked it too. Saying the song was, "a winner with top notch playing," the band's recorded version is scheduled for release on Poetman's Acoustic Rainbow Volume 35 in January, 2010. http://www.cybergrass.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7019

To follow up the release of the single, our CD is slated for release March of 2010 with an event/show to be held at the Old Liberty Theater in Ridgefield, Washington. The plan is to have it feel like a mini bluegrass festival that night, with minimal ticket prices and a maximum amount of music.

Hey, we’re featured again at World Wide Bluegrass! After being sponsored by WWB (the largest listener supported, 24/7, bluegrass radio station in the known universe) out of the blue, they decided to once more feature us on their website at www.worldwidebluegrass.com. The Urban Monroes have been invited a second time to play Grass Stock, the Official World Wide Bluegrass festival in Ohio which happens in August. Hopefully the trees in Ohio will still have their leaves…we’ll be looking for shade.

If you get a chance, check out our Myspace Blogs. www.myspace.com/urbanmonroes. You can read about the many radio stations playing our music and relive some of our recent travel experiences. Be sure to watch the Road to Wenatchee video; you’ll see how real trees are supposed to behave.

A trip through Colorado last year provided the inspiration for Urban Monroes' guitarist Fran Kent to write the song "When the Aspens Turn." Affectionately known as "Aspens" on the Urban Monroes' set list, it has become one of the band's favorite songs. Poetman Records liked it too. Saying the song was "a winner with top notch playing," the band's recorded version is scheduled for release on Poetman's Acoustic Rainbow Volume 35. The song is scheduled for release in January 2010

The Acoustic Rainbow radio sampler is distributed to radio stations worldwide. Past volumes have included Mountain Heart, Merle Haggard, Pat Flynn, the Del McCoury Band, and Ricky Skaggs.

"Listen to The Urban Monroe's "If you Stay" and their cover of "Time of your life," they leave me speechless, I mean, literally speechless, they're just that good ... I'm udderly speechless with the vocal ability and instrumental ability of The Urban Monroes."

(the message below was sent to us after our show at Bluegrass and Birdfest on Oct 10)

"My girlfriend, Jean, and I went to Birdfest yesterday thinking we might hear some good music and enjoy the beautiful fall day. Little did we know that we'd discover the best music we've heard in a summer full of bluegrass festivals. You guys are awesome. That's a much overused word these days, but in your case it's absolutely appropriate because Jean and I were truly in awe listening the power, beauty, and soulful nature of your music.

When people think of Bill Monroe, they usually think of a very specific way of playing, the so called "bluegrass tradition" that Bill created. But what Bill Monroe represents to me is pure originality and soul. He was so bluesy and soulful. And there was nothing he ever did that wasn't informed by his personal artistic vision and straight from his heart, I think. You acquit yourselves very well in this version of the "tradition" because there is an authenticity and soul to your music that rings like a bell.

It was a great day for Jean and I. We picked up your CD and are enjoying it very much...So all in all, this was a pretty special Saturday for us. We'll be keeping an eye on your schedule and hope to catch you whenever we can, especially the festivals next summer. I hope you guys hit some of the ones here in the NW. Thank you so much for the music. The world is a better place with the musical karma you're putting into it."

Yours---William and Jean
(Thank you so much William and Jean!! With Love...the Urban Monroes!)

We have added the Eastside Bluegrass Series and several bluegrass festivals to our calenar. Very special thanks to World Wide Bluegrass for their awesome continued support of the Urban Monroes music. They have had us featured on their site and have plugged and played our music constantly. We love them. World Wide Bluegrass is amazing.

Myspace comment of the week:
"I often come to your page and listen to your music"
-Joyce

Reverb Nation message of the week:
"You are my favorites. I play "White River" over and over..."YOU'RE FANTASTIC"
-Roland

Adding a photo blog at Myspace of the bluegrass festival at Snowbird Utah. Didn't have a chance to do it until now. We had a great time up there.

L.R Baggs rep. John Mooy has been so helpful and supportive during the time of my endorsement with them. Whenever there's been any kind of a question he has been quick to respond no matter where he is. Currently, he is on tour with Loggins & Messina but still found time today to email me from the road with an answer to a technical question. Visit us at LR Baggs

Sept 15, 2009

Looking forward to heading up to Ridgefield, Washington for Bluegrass and Bird Fest. We are playing at the Old Liberty Theater at 1PM on Saturday Oct 10. We understand there will be bluegrass jams all over town in various venues with shows going on at a couple of different locations besides the Old Liberty Theater.

Here is an interview that appeared in the Skamania County Pioneer for the Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival.

Urban Monroes have been added to a great bluegrasss show- KRSC 91.2 FM "Bluegrass on the Hill " with Jeanie Evans who has featured the Urban Monroes in several of the playlists there.

Sept 8, 2009
Playing the Emerald Valley Opry on Sept 12. This will be our 3rd time there. That place is always packed to the rafters. Love playing this event which raises money for local school music programs. How awesome is that? One listen to this mp3 of a high school band trying to play Odyssey and you'll understand the importance of funding school music programs.. Odyssey

August 25, 2009
We played three shows at Enumclaw Bluegrass Festival. Had a great time. On Saturday, we drove up to Mt Reineir which was breath-taking. There are some pictures in our Myspace photo blog. We also found another tremendous breakfast place called Charlies. The people of Enumclaw are wonderful. They even set me up with a bowl of custom blue M&M's in the green room. Read our Myspace blog on M&M's for clarification.

The Urban Monroes have a new video that was shot by the Port Orchard Independant for Olalla Bluegrass Festival. You can find it at the "video" link to the left. We think it's a nice change of pace from the cell phone coverage we've been getting lately.

August 17 2009
We played Olalla bluegrass festival this weekend. This was our second time there. They said we were back by popular demand. We were glad. We love it up there. It's right on Puget Sound in Washington and we wanted to go over and see some killer whales but we didn't have time. In these parts, a person can drive an hour to the coast and can always see whales but rarely are they killer whales. We tried to summon some whales to the stage with a bowed bass but to no avail.

See new photos from our festival shows this season. A fun place to see them is in our "photo blogs" at myspace.

August 13, 2009
We played a Sandy Parks Concert yesterday. Oh my gosh what a gorgeous stage!!! The setting is under huge conifer trees that are lush and dripping with life. It could have rained and I don't think anyone would have gotten wet. There was a beautiful little stream between the audience and the stage just quietly trickling in the background. To offset nature's wonders, the event was also marked by the band's first ever moshing.

There are quite a few new show reviews for the Urban Monroes' festival appearances this season. You can see them at the "reviews" link. (to the left)

August 1 2009
Private Party-Pig Roast!!! Every show we played all season has involved large audiences where every eye was on us at all moments. We love that very much but I think all of us had forgotten what if feels like to just relax until this day.It was nice to have everyone worried about the pig for a change. It was fun. YUM....good food. Nothing like spending a meal with a good animal. Oh yeah....the bass almost melted. It was the hottest day on record.

The Urban Monroes have new playlists for KGNU in Boulder CO, KUSU-FM Utah, and Allessandria, Italy (don't have the call letters for the latter.)

We were very sad to see four festivals that we were on the bill for cancel this season. We still had a great schedule of festivals we were playing regardless of the situation but you just hate to see a bluegrass festival go under. The economy has been tough for these folks and we can only praise them for their hard work. Amboy BGF, Sandy River BGF, Wilipa Hills BGF, Salmon Festival-RIP

There is going to be a CD give-away on a bluegrass radio station in Goldendale WA which you can stream live.Stay tuned here if you want to get a free copy of our CD "One Fret Makes a Difference." When we get the url to stream the show from, we'll post the info here. They will also be playing our music steadily over the next 3 weeks to promote the Goldendale Bluegrass Festival that we are playing up there on May 29th and 30th.

Tune in to World Wide Bluegrass on Wednesdays at 11 AM Pacific to hear the Urban Monroes in the show.

Tune in to Feilefm.com at 9:30 AM GMT in Belfast Ireland on May 1st (FEILE FM 103.2FM) to hear us in the show Elevansies with Rena Maguire.

March 5 2009
Wintergrass was another unbelievable festival with a multitude of national acts. It was carried off so well. Wintergrass has excellent organization. We played three shows there including the mainstage, Ballroom and the Church. The Church is everything you've ever heard about and more. WOW what a venue. The acoustics are to die for and the audience is so very supportive. At Wintergrass a lot of our World Wide Bluegrass friends showed up like editor Sammie Farnsworth and that made it that much more special to us.

Summing up the reverb nation stuff, we basically moved up those charts till we sat at the number 1 spot in Oregon for several weeks. Lots of people listened and because of that we stayed there for a long time. At Reveb Nation people do a lot to keep their songs at the top of the charts. We didn't do anything like that because we wanted to get a real sense of people's interest level in our music and what the songs would do all by themselves. The result was very rewarding.

This is an excerpt from the Nechville Newsletter published in April: The Nechville company makes banjos and Matt has an endorsement with them. So this was in their Spring Banjo Newsletter.

"Matt Gray is well known in Portland's amazing music scene. His award winning banjo playing runs the range from hard driving Scruggs picking to single string progressive work that is emulated by many of the up and coming players in the region...Matt plays in the Urban Monroes. They have graced the stage at most of the most prestigious bluegrass and Americana events in the Pacific Northwest..." Nechville Musical Products

Tune into the Bradford Street Bluegrass show on WOMR FM in MA 6pm eastern . Fran will be talking to them live in an interview. Also, catch the show every Wednesday. You can hear our music there.

February 11, 2009
Getting ready to play the Emerald Valley Opry again on Feb 14. I will be doing a live radio interview at KRVM in Eugene just before the show. It's a good idea to get tickets early for this venue as it is always jam packed! Big theater too so that's a lot of people in order to make it jam packed.

The Urban Monroes are working on a new CD. Two of the new songs are already being played on several stations such as Fields of Bluegrass with Cary Allen Fields.

The Urban Monroes music is available on iTunes, CD Baby and Rhapsody and many other fine stores. Some of the links are on our front page.

January 15
Rivercity Bluegrass Festival was way too much fun. It was loaded with headlining acts, everything from Darol Anger and Mike Marshall in Pschograss, Cadillac Sky, to Ralph Stanley, JD Crowe, Kruger Brothers, Sierra Hull and...well the list just went on an on. It was crazy good!!!! We had two shows on the Cascade Stage. Found these reviews later- "Urban Monroes is a band to watch for. They have that spark that makes them stand out... That was from Northwest Bluegrass. Then the Festival Owner said, "you are magic together, I couldn't tear myself away from your show" We had such an awesome time there.

Acoustic Rainbow (Poetman Records) has released the Urban Monroes single "Time of Your Life" which has gone out to 1,300 radio stations world wide. Acoustic Rainbow is the world leader in radio distribution of roots music. There was an overwhelming response. Here is a sampling of playlists

On August 1st, tune into Worldwidebluegrass.com and hear our live interview. We will be calling from Cody Wyoming.

-Portland Rose Festival -June
-Amboy Bluegrass Festival-June
-Troutdale Bite and Bluegrass Festival July 12

-We are at Northwest String Summit on July 18. We will be broadcast across the entire festival grounds from our live performance on the Peacock Stage.

-We are playing on the main stage at Salem Art Fair and Music Festival on July 19.

Also coming up- Emerald Valley Opry, Gresham Little theater and some of our favorite roots based clubs in Portland this Fall.

Listen to World Wide Bluegrass to hear our music featured in their stream daily.

Tune into the Blueridge Express Radio Show (98.5 FM Ontario Canada) to hear our music. They profiled our in May and continue to play us.

We are currently being featured on the front page of the world's biggest and best Intenet Radio Station, World Wide Bluegrass (www.worlwidebluegrass.com). They also have our entire EP in the stream. We will be doing a live interview with them in August.

Our EP is currently for sale through SNOCAP. The SNOCAP store will soon be posted on this page.

The Urban Monroes appeared on the Top Artist List for the national folk and bluegrass DJ organization. They appeared on the list because of the number of radio plays they received that were reported in January.

The Urban Monroes are featured at the LR Baggs Myspace site with their song White River.

-Fran has an artist endorsment deal with LR Baggs.
She has been using the dual source pickups in her acoustic guitars for several years and swears by them for the tone they provide while preserving the acoustic nature of her instruments.

-We will be featured on Radio Free FM Germany in the coming days on the Americana show with Friedrich Hog

- We have upcoming airplay on KLCC Eugene with Frank Gosar, KXCI Tuscon in Henry Hallet and Radio Upper Galilee in Israel.

-On March 8th we will be playing the Emerald Valley Opry in Eugene. We hope to see you at this lovely theater.

-Please join us for the St Patrick's Day Celebration on March 17th at Mississippi Pizza. The show starts at 9pm and goes to 11pm. We had a completely full house last time so come on down and enjoy. This is a free show.

-We are lined out for some really fun fairs and festivals this summer and fall. We hope to see you frolicking under the sun and blue skies with us this summer.

- During Jan we had many new radio playlist from around the US and particularly from Europe where we have had a surge of airplay over the last several weeks. We thank all of those great dj's for supporting the Urban Monroes

- The Urban Monroes were featured today on KVMR with DJ Eric Rice on the County Line Bluegrass Show. (Thank you Eric!)

- The Urban Monroes thank Steve Winters -Profiles in Folk WSHU, and Mara Noelle-Ruby Slippers KVMR for requesting our music for airplay

- The Urban Monroes thank the following DJ's for requesting their music. Manechem Vinegrad- Radio Upper Galilee Israel, Graham Mcdonald -Art Sound FM Australia, Peter Fraissinet- Salt Creek Show New York, Bill Stuart -Folk Bluegrass and More Florida, Larry Hoyt- Common Threads Show New York

-Tune in to KVMR on Saturday for the County Line Bluegrass Show. They will be spinning several of our tracks. You can stream it at www.kvmr.org with DJ Eric Rice

- We received an awesome new playlist from the show "Country Rose" featuring "White River"

-Oh, we received another awesome playlist from Chicago DJ John Write WLUW at Loyala University. The Urban Monroes say "Thank YOU"

- we received a great playlist from WRKF Batton Rouge with our music in it. Thanks for the spin Taylor Caffery!

-The Urban Monroes thank the following DJ's for requesting their music for airplay: Eric Rice-KVMR,
John Wright-WLUW, Gerd Stassen-Hillbilly Rockhouse, Carolyn VandeWiele-Womanspace &Tue AM Music Mix, Sue Demond-KLOI, Taylor Caffey-Hootenany Power

-We have been asked to play live over the airwaves at the California Bluegrass Association Grass Valley Festival. We will play live in the KVMR tent at the festival. Should be great fun.

-Last week we were spun on Bowed Radio which then went out to a rather large network of radio stations who played the Bowed Radio Show with our song in it. That was kind of cool.

-Last month we were featured in an entire block on a radio show called "Misty Mountain Jam"

-Our banjo player Matt has an artist endorsement with Nechville. Stop in at the Nechville booth at Rivercity Festival to hear Matt tearing it up on his new banjo.