[ From Butch Ross ] In Pittsburgh this weekend for PHILLTER IMF (I'll explain)

[News, info and tourdates for Butch Ross]

This weekend ....well starting Wednesday really.
The Phillter International Music Festival. Various locations in the greater
Pittsburgh area. festival.philtter.org or
https://www.facebook.com/PHILLTERmusic/

Where we'll all be
Wed: The Starlite Lounge at Moondogs in Blawnox (featured on Triple D With
Guy Fieri...if such things matter to you)
Thurs: Carnegie Library and Music Hall, Carnegie and also at the Market
Square Farmers Market in the morning.
Fri: The Living Room at Hambone's in Lawrenceville
Sat: Three Rivers Arts Festival (and then later) Mr. Smalls Funhouse in
Millvale
        Plus a late night Beatbox set and a women-loopers-who-kick-butt-set
earlier in the evening.

Phillter stands for "The Performance & Human Interactive Live Looping and
Technology Education Renaissance" but it's just a big umbrella to
encapsulate the wide world that is live looping. If you've seen me or Bing
Futch or maybe Ed Sheeran then you've seen the concept of looping:
Recording a musical part and then "looping" additional musical ideas over
top of it to create a wall of sound. But if you've ONLY seen me or Bing
Futch or even Ed Sheeran, then you really have no idea how good people can
get at this stuff. These guys are the experts.

But one of the other things I love LOVE about this festival is the sheer
diversity of musicians and genres. From Alternative Pop to Hip Hop to New
Age to whatever it is that I do, there a part of it in this festival. Kids
with Ukuleles, Singer-Songwriters, Beat-boxers and Human A Capella Groups,
it's all the noise that one human can make at a time on a stage, somewhere
all over town.

Let's put it this way: Image watching an 60-ish Indian doctor playing
"Pachebel's Canon" on violin, playing each part layer upon layer, using
pitch shifting pedals to recreate the various Cello and Viola parts until
you have note-for-note recreating of the entire orchestral piece. Now
imagine someone leaning over to you and saying "You know, this guy replaced
the fiddler in that Irish band 'Gaelic Storm' while she was pregnant?."

"Wait? What? The band from the movie Titanic?" you say

"Yup, that one" they say.

Well, I don't have to imagine it; that actually happened to me last year.

It's that kind of festival.

Go.

Most shows are $12 at the door but you can get all-fest passes starting at
$35. You can learn more here festival.phillter.org

C-ya out there.

--Br
www.butchross.com

"Now I know what a dulcimer is supposed to sound like" —Jake Shimabukuro