HGSB Live at the Bean and the Rock

This weekend we will be doing two coffeehouse shows in New England. On Friday night March 19th we will be at The Dog Rock Coffeehouse in Walpole MA. This will be our first time performing at the Rock, it looks like a nice listening room venue and we are looking forward to the show and making some new friends. The music starts at 8 pm in Blackburn Hall located at 30 Stone Street.

On Saturday March 20th we will be returning for our second performance at The Vanilla Bean Cafe in Pomfret, CT. It has been a few years since we last played The Bean; as I recall it was a very nice restaurant with delicious and very reasonably priced food with a separate listening room for the music. Like The Homegrown String Band, The Vanilla Bean is a family business. The cafe opened in 1989 in a restored early 19th century barn and is owned and operated by the Jessurun Family—Barry, Brian, and Eileen. (Barry's wife is well known singer songwriter Maria Sangiolo.)

Knitting Circle

We had so much fun and got such a good response from the knitting circle we did at Cafe Lena in January that we decided to do it again at The Vanilla Bean. So come on down early, grab a bite to eat, and join the circle. The knitting, crocheting, and chatting starts at 7 pm, the music starts at 8:00. The Vanilla Bean is located at 450 Deerfield Rd (at the crossroads of Routes 44, 169, and 97) in Pomfret, CT.



The Dog Rock Coffeehouse                  
Blackburn Hall
30 Stone St
Walpole, MA


The Vanilla Bean Cafe
450 Deerfield Road
Pomfret, CT
860-928-1562

37 Hours on the Road

Maps, Shubb capos & Blue Chip guitar picks: "Tools of the Trade"

This weekend we made a quick trip to New Jersey and Maryland. We were only gone for 37 hrs, but we covered over 700 miles! Driving through a couple of disaster areas, over flooded waterways, through driving rain, power outages, and hurricane force winds. Here's how we spent our 37 hrs on the road. 14 hrs driving, 5 hrs setting up/breaking down, 8 hrs sleeping, 6 hrs visiting our friends Joe and Dottie in Bethlehem, PA, 1 hr lost to the spring ahead time change, and 3 hrs of playing music. All in all a pretty typical two days on the road. Those three hours of playing and our visit were great. Two good sized and attentive audiences, despite the nasty weather, in Chester, NJ, and Hagerstown, MD.

Next weekend it's another quick road trip. This time we will be heading north to Walpole, MA, and Pomfret, CT. Friday night we will be at The Dog Rock Coffeehouse in Walpole and Saturday night at The Vanilla Bean Cafe in Pomfret. Try and catch a show and say hey to the Travelin' Homies if you can. This weekend will close out a month that saw The Homegrown String Band visit 6 states: NY, NJ, CT, PA, MA, and MD.

Road tip of the day: Shubb Capos, Blue Chip Picks, and Rand McNally Atlas—don't leave home with out 'em!

Photo by Rick Jackofsky