String Theory Media

From East Nashville to the Far East

The city of Shanghai is out my window, looking like a shiny metropolitan cyber-scape in a Sunday morning sunrise. The sky is blue, and the skyscrapers are striped in silver. It’s quite a picture.

So yes, I’m in China. It’s the morning of my third day and while I’m mostly over my jet lag, I still can’t sleep past six and I crash hard at about 10:30 at night, putting a crimp so far in our nightlife. I’m here with my wife Taylor who’s on assignment for several publications. I’m mostly on vacation but looking into a music story, more of which in a moment.

Getting ready for this trip was a major time crunch, which partly explains why I haven’t posted in a while. We got a bunch of work out the door that we hope finds its way into your life in the coming months:

We finished the final cut of Last Train Home’s Live at IOTA DVD, which I directed and shot in April. Fearless leader Eric Brace will be working on the final mix with audio master Doug Derryberry in the coming weeks to polish the sound. Having watched this show now oh, about 75 times, I can honestly say it’s a great night of music by a great American band. Can’t wait to experience the final cut in 5.1 audio. Leave your email HERE to be alerted when it's released.

Also ready for release is STM’s half hour bluegrass epic “Four Days of Infamy,” a road documentary about the fabulous Infamous Stringdusters. Sugar Hill Records is making plans for some screenings but the film will begin its roll-out on August 27 at The Bluegrass Blog. Details and a preview HERE!

We're also fortunate to be working now with the Nashville Symphony, and in the last days before leaving I shot and edited interview videos with five musicians and one conductor for the NSO's website. Those will be rolling out in the coming weeks as introductions to the orchestra for kids.

So it’s been busy, but now I can relax and take in what I can of this vast, ancient and dynamic country. I’ll be posting some personal travelogue here for those who are interested, and on Tuesday I’m meeting up with Cathy Chen, the only Chinese member of the Country Music Association. She’s promoting country music over here via this very Chinese site, and I can’t wait to find out what kind of market she’s finding. More to come…

Tom T and other Monday notes

I'm just back, via a much-delayed late night flight from Denver, from a friend's party in the Colorado mountains with special guests The Infamous Stringdusters. I got to catch up on their extraordinary summer (including their debut at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival), catch a fantastic show for an intimate audience, and witness hours of amazing jamming. Thanks to friends and Andy Anderson and Rachel Gaffney for one outstanding party. We also screened the first finished version of "Four Days of Infamy," my road documentary about the band that's coming out formally in the next month or so. Watch this space for news about that.

Today's new STM content alert is about my story from this morning on WPLN Nashville Public Radio about the legendary Tom T. Hall and his wonderful wife Dixie. It was a highlight of my time in Nashville meeting them. Hall has just released a new album of bluegrass songs he and Dixie have written over the past few years. I highly recommend it. Catch the story with intro HERE. Or just click HERE to listen.

Finally, Alexa Hinton writes a really nice and moving story in today's Nashville City Paper about Jenny Plume, musical therapist at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Definitely worth a read.