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Upcoming Floodishness

It's spring and The Flood is rising again. Time to dry off that Christmas calendar and note a few upcoming events. So far, there are three 1937 Flood performances on the schedule for Spring 2009, all in Huntington. On:

-- Saturday morning, May 16, the boys will be back for the 42nd annual Coon Sanders Nighthawks Fans' Bash, a Dixieland and early jazz festival that draws musicians and trad-jazz fans from all over the country. This is the seventh year in a row that Dale Jones has invited The Flood get up early and play jug band tunes for the bash's Saturday morning breakfast session. This year, we're hopeful that our old cohort and former Floodster Chuck Romine will sit in with us on tenor banjo for the set. The event will be at the Ramada Inn Limited at 3094 16th Street Road. (Incidentally, in case you missed it, we put up a nice little video tribute to Chuck on YouTube last week -- click here to see it.)

-- Saturday night, May 30, the band gets to fulfill a long-time dream to play the historic Keith Albee Theater in downtown Huntington. Rockabilly pioneer and gospel music artist Billy Adams is coming to town to perform in the historic venue (925 4th Ave.) in a benefit concert to aid diabetes research. The organizers have kindly asked The Flood to be the opening act for Mr. Adams, and the guys couldn't be happier. (Well, maybe they could be, but let's not discuss how some of them go about that...)

Bob and Jazzou
 

-- Sunday afternoon, June 14, The Flood re-unites with steamboatin' buddies Jazzou Jones and Bob Schad in a concert at ARTS Resources (the Old Huntington School), 900 8th St. The riverboat piano/banjo legends who played and sang for years on The Delta Queen andThe Mississippi Queen will be in town to perform on Saturday night (June 13) with the Huntington SymphonyOrchestra at Harris Riverfront Park. Then they're staying around for a day for an afternoon get-togetherwith the Family Flood.

We'll have more on these events as we get closer -- for now, we just wanted to reserve space on your busy social agenda.

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Nice Words from Br'er Lavender...

Our friend Dave Lavender gave us a nice shoutout in the Herald-Dispatch last week about the "Hip Boots" CD. Heading a section of his column with the title "The Soggy Basement Boys," Dave wrote:

It was a long winter. So long that everyone and their cousin has a new CD out and so long that The 1937 Flood said the heck with it and finally released their own bootleg tape.

With an obvious homage to Dylan's infamous "The Basement Tapes," one of the state's best known string bands, The 1937 Flood has scoured the dusty and even the digital archives to put out the new CD "Hip Boots: The Flooded Basement Tapes."

It's a clever "then" and "now" collection of nearly two dozen songs that showcases the long and wonderful kazoo-and-fiddle-powered trip that's been 30 years of The Flood.

Step in The Flood's time machine (i.e. recordings made from everything from digital recorders to reel-to-reel machines) to hear the family-esque band that's featured a ton of musicians including Rog Samples and Chuck Romine, Stewart Schneider, Bill Hoke, Randy Nuckols, Michelle Walker, Kathy Castner and many other folks who have played with the band that was started and still driven by former H-D'ers Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen and fiddling Joe Dobbs.