Doing their part to keep underground music alive, Pavement offshoot the Silver Jews are due to play a super-subterranean show on January 31 at McMinnville, Tennessee’s Cumberland Caverns.

The lo-fi country-rock outfit will tape an afternoon performance for a midnight radio broadcast of “Bluegrass Underground” on Nashville’s WSM radio [via Pitchfork.com]. The show is open to the public, so dig out that spelunking gear and come on down, literally.

Original Article:

http://www.spin.com/articles/silver-jews-play-underground-cave

Boy, one day you’re averse to the very idea of touring, and the next, you’re 333 feet below the surface of the Earth, playing your country-rock for the radio. Strange as it might seem, come January 31, Silver Jews will head to McMinnville, Tennessee’s Cumberland Caverns to play an afternoon “Blueglass Underground” show due for a midnight broadcast on Nashville’s famed WSM radio. The gig is open to the public, and the Jews go on at 3 p.m. local time, with an as-yet-undetermined support act down for the 2 p.m. slot. And I reckon if you wait around long enough, there will be bats!

Silver Jews recently wrapped up their fall tour, so the spelunker’s dream show stands as their next public appearance. Bide the time until then with Silver Jew, the recent documentary on the band that Drag City released last month.

Original Article:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/146931-silver-jews-to-play-gig-in-an-underground-cave

Bluegrass Underground, the new live performance radio show we posted about last month, debuts tonight (8/29) on WSM. The show features a live performance by The Steeldrivers, recorded August 16 more than 300 feet underground at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, TN.

The show’s premise is based around the unique environment where it is recorded, this underground cavern completely removed from any sound generated at the earth’s surface. Each month, a new episode will be taped before a live audience, using as few microphones as possible to capture the natural acoustic sound, and aired on the last Friday night of the month.

Producer Todd Mayo told us that this first concert taping was a sellout, and that The Steeldrivers put on a whale of a show.

Full Article:
http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/steeldrivers-on-bluegrass-underground/

Award-winning Warren County journalist and filmaker Todd Jarrell came out to Bluegrass Underground and produced this piece for NPR…

Cumberland Caverns lie just about an hour’s drive southeast from Nashville, and they’re like many caves in the region: deep and dark. But unlike the others, one room of this expansive cave system seems to be an acoustical oddity that has audiences flocking to hear its very special sound. WPLN’s Todd Jarrell traveled out to Warren County to listen.

Audio for this feature is available here.

Transcript below…

JARRELL: Hunched over a dimly lit audio mixing board, recording engineer Phil Harris concentrates on dialing in the sound before the first show of a new concert series titled, Bluegrass Underground. Harris, a Grammy Award-winning producer, says this venue is very different from any others he has worked…

HARRIS: “I mean the room is fantastic. The sound in here is phenomenal. It has a really nice warm sound unlike a lot of other manmade things that you encounter.”

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MCMINNVILLE — Bluegrass fans most likely listen to their favorite artists and albums on the radio or in concert, but they have probably never experienced anything quite like “Bluegrass Underground.” On Saturday, Aug. 16, bluegrass fans need to prepare themselves for a journey that will take them to the center of the earth where they will discover a world of bluegrass magic.

Cumberland Caverns of McMinnville is hosting the syndicated radio show “Bluegrass Underground,” airing on 650 WSM. The show will be recorded before a live audience 333 feet below the earth’s surface in The Volcano Room, a naturally-occurring amphitheater where time and water have worked together to make one of the most purely acoustical spaces on earth.

Todd Mayo, the show’s producer, stumbled upon the idea for “Bluegrass Underground” when he and his family took a Memorial Day tour of the caves.

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