Grey Fox on BBC

[Tom C]

This is THE festival and I would love a tape or DVD of it if possible from one of our friends across the pond.
If so, I would be happy to start a DVD tour for those who want to dup it. I questioned all the cameras there last year and was told it was for a BBC series, That's the last I heard of it.


Premiere of Destination Music series, featuring Grey Fox:
Destination Music: USA
Destination Music travels to Ancramdale, America, this week to be initiated into the world of bluegrass. Set in the mountains of upstate New York, Greyfox Bluegrass Festival has been a firm fixture on the bluegrass music circuit for the last 29 years. Greyfox features some of the top bluegrass artists in America who mix blues, soul, country and even gospel to produce a truly distinctive sound. Sam Bush discusses the need to push the boundaries of the bluegrass sound and talented quintet Psychograss talk us through their jazz-like approach to performance.

Repeated:
> Sun. Jan 8 01:30 GMT
> Mon. Jan 9 09:30 GMT
> Tues. Jan 10 16:30 GMT
> Weds. Jan 11 02:30 GMT

[swampstomper]

!! Just in time to catch it tomorrow !! Thanks for the tip! We get BBC World over here in the Netherlands and I checked the schedule on EuroTV,it's on at 1930 CET. Sorry I don't have a DVD recorder but I will review it.

[Tom C]

How about VHS? I'll send you some bluegrass. Wait your in Netherlands? I'll meet you at the Grasshopper Cafe in Amsterdam.

[Ray(T)]

Great - I live in the UK but can't receive BBC world - and whatsmore we're paying for it to be produced and broadcast!

[swampstomper]

Well Ray, it is a very positive reflection on your sceptred isle... I'm amazed you don't get it. Of course in the USA they get regular old Atlanta CNN in place of the mildly objective CNN international we get here, so I guess that's comprable.

No VHS either... I am in the stone age when it comes to TV, only a small eight-year old Trinitron and no video apparatus.

I live 2hrs by train from A'dam and don't go there often. Is there a BG scene or is Grasshopper Café just coincidentally named? I did find notice of a BG jam in Leiden on 21 Jan (from the Strictly Country magazine or whatever it's called) and will try to make that.

[Loren Bailey]

Keep in mind that everywhere else in the world uses a diferent format for VHS and DVD (usually PAL) than we do here in the states (we use NTSC). You'll have to have a multi-system VHS/DVD player or pay to have it converted.

Loren

[swampstomper]

The DVD format is the same, it's the region code that's different. And I don't believe that gets set on DVDs you burn yourself. Also there are hacks against the region code if you play an out-of-region DVD on your PC (not sure about DVD players, probably they have an easy mod.) You are right about the PAL/NTSC difference. VHS players here usually can play both formats but ones in the USA only play USA VHS.

[Ray(T)]

Hi swampstomper - I must admit that, until I read the original post, I'd never even heard of BBC World but I checked the website and no you can't receive it unless you have some fancy satellite system - not the standard one you can receive the regular broadcasts on. Its like that in the UK if it aint in London or the South East, nobody's interested. There are 5 terrestrial chanels in the UK we got the fourth here about five years after everyone else and there's no prospect of getting the fifth - and we only live twenty miles from Manchester - that's progress - UK style!

[swampstomper]

OK, I saw it on Saturday, here is the brief review -- VERY DISAPPOINTING.

Here is the longer review. Obviously done by someone with very little knowledege of the music. They went to Grey Fox and shot almost exclusively in the daytime show, which as everyone knows is always relaxed and with a range of lesser talents. Only NGR at night -- and that was by far the hottest act. Only a few seconds of each group, then long interviews in some trailer that didn't mean much if you didn't like looking at your heroes. It was nice to see Mike Marshall say "I would love to meet you all" with his goofy look, but I wonder how the naive audience would take it?

Anyway, the lineup: fragments of NGR (heavy jamming featuring Sam flailing away on Hoss), Psychograss (Anger, Marshall, Phillips), P Rowan, Julie Lee (supposedly the next Alison Kraus but she didn't sound like it to me) backed by Roger Williams and the NE BG Band (not the most exciting group), Doyle (FAR too short!! barely heard any harmony and no mando), The Wilders (a sort of crazy BG/old time mix), The Biscuit Burners (old time), Tim O'Brien (again, almost no mando footage), Uncle Earl (mostly female old time Skillet Lickers).

So -- almost nothing of interest for the mando picker; a poor survey of modern bluegrass; not in formative even on what they showed.

Not worth a DVD or a second look. Sorry.