All my favorite singers couldn’t sing. Now there’s one less of them still performing. We’ve seen musicians retire and unretire before, but unless David Berman is pulling our leg, Silver Jews are now no more. The band’s performance Saturday night at McMinnville, Tennessee’s Cumberland Caverns was their last, and included this emotional take on American Water’s indelible “We Are Real”. But first, Berman gives a brief introduction: “If you’re in a position in your life where you need to make a change, this is the best time,” he says, citing all the changes going on these days. One of the most recent historical changes, the inauguration of President Obama, flies in the face of the work of Berman’s father, whom the Silver Jews main guy recently revealed to be right-wing lobbyist Rick Berman. Strange victory, strange defeat.

Update: “Smith and Jones Forever” is now on YouTube as well.

via “Introduction / We Are Real” / “Smith and Jones Forever” (Live at Cumberland Caverns; final show) | Pitchfork.

Videos just posted of The Grascals performance at the Bluegrass Underground taping. What a great band!

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Here are 2 video clips from The Infamous Stringdusters Bluegrass Underground performance… November 2008.
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Wow! Spectacular performance of “Midnight Tears” by the Steeldrivers during their Aug. 16 taping.

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via Chris Volpe’s MySpace Blog:

Last week, we went to Cumberland Caverns near Manchester, TN, hiked down 400 ft
to the bottom of the huge cave, and played music. Phil Harris recorded the live sets performed by Travis Stinson and the Volunteer String Band, Nathan Lynn from Bawn in the Mash, and yours truly. I played a couple songs with Tyler Grant on banjo, a handful of solo tunes, and then was fortunate enough to play a couple of tunes with the Volunteer String Band, including a funky bluegrassy version of "Dusty Bibles"…The sessions will air on WSM 650 AM in September. WSM was the original broadcaster of the Grand Ole Opry back in the 20s and 30s, thus making country music (ala the Carter Family) and bluegrass (ala Bill Monroe) known the world over. WSM was the first radio station to broadcast worldwide. Thanks to Phil Harris, Travis Stinson, and the folks at Bluegrass Underground for making it happen…

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The Volunteer String Band, led by Travis Stinson, performed down in the Volcano Room to allow audio engineer Phil Harris to prepare for the acoustics of the cave. This “test run” was killer! View the video above.

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