Ned Luberecki and Stephen Mougin are a pair of busy bluegrass boys. Both serve as sidemen and band members with different outfits (Chris Jones and Sam Bush respectively), and have “regular jobs” in the biz as well. Ned is an on-air host on Sirius-XM’s Bluegrass Junction, and Stephen operates a studio, Dark Shadow Recording. When they have some free time, they tour as a duo, Nedski & Mojo.
They have agreed to chronicle their current N&M tour for the readers of Bluegrass Today. Day 3 takes them to Washington, DC.
Day 3 begins early, again… dang, these are NOT musicians’ hours. Some splendidly awful coffee at the hotel got us on our way to the WAMU studio. It was 7.3 miles and was supposed to take 20 minutes. 40 minutes later, we rolled up to the studio. DC traffic is beyond words.
We had a great visit with the lovely and talented Katy Daley and managed to squeak out a few songs between bits of interview. It’s always “fun” to try to sing and play when you are still half asleep. I don’t remember playing, singing, or saying anything too embarrassing, so we’ll put that in the win column!
Nedski needed to get a bit of radio work done today and, since we were in DC, he decided to swing by the SiriusXm headquarters. After a nice tour of the facility (including a room that oddly resembles the Enterprise Bridge), he got to work and I found a comfy couch, Internet and coffee. Having a moment of downtime on a tour, when you can catch up on work, is never a bad idea!
I was determined to get some authentic crab cakes while we were here in the DC area and we were directed to the Crisfield seafood restaurant. They were good, but they were fried… we actually were looking for broiled crab cakes, which we intend to get on our way out of town tomorrow!
The Bryson House Concert is always a fun show. We have been playing there since the very first Nedski and Mojo tour, and enjoy coming back whenever we can. For folks who don’t know, a house concert is a private show, in someone’s living room, packed with 30+ of your closest (or newest) friends. Because it is an intimate setting, the audience becomes part of the show and fun is had by all! The crowd was in good spirits tonight and I can’t wait to hear the live recording we made, they were quite “involved” in the show!
We were really happy to see Tom Gray at the concert tonight. Years ago, he and Ned played together in both the Paul Adkins and the Borderline Band AND The Gary Ferguson Band (which featured the same musician lineup)! It’s always an honor when one of your music heroes is sitting in the front row, so we took a moment to grab a couple of photos with him (including the gospel pose which you can find on Facebook). Ned had fun playing to his hometown crowd, even his sister and brother-in-law came out to the show.
Tomorrow we make the drive up to Chatham, NJ for the Chatham House Concert. This will (hopefully) be a more relaxing day than today was. It’s late and I’m exhausted!
