Hello Fellow Tumblers! It has been a whirlwind month or so but here's the update: we had an interview with Andrew Johnson-Schmit of ArtsBeat in Prescott. He's clever and I'm not. You can hear evidence of that here:Also, we're excited to announce that Tumbledown House has been nominated for a Buckey Award in the category of Outstanding Musical Artist of the Year. If you would like to vote for us please click here and click the link under online ballot, then type in Tumbledown House under that category. It's simpler than it sounds. Many thanks for your support!
This last weekend we attended the Folk Alliance International in Memphis. We tried to describe it in our last blog; it's basically a kind of freak show wherein 800 or so artists and 1200 music industry people converge on one hotel downtown, much to the chagrin of hotel staff, other hotel guests, and a few local restaurants. Meetings, panels, and workshops take place all day long with interspersed musical acts, and then nonstop shows go from, say, 2PM to 3:30AM, simultaneously, on 3 different floors. Halls are crowded with instruments, people, applause, and many Shhh!ers. No one sleeps. Impromptu jams happen in the stairwells and lobbies. It was manic and fantastic.We enjoyed meeting, re-meeting, and/or hearing several acts including The Two Man Gentlemen Band, The Caravan Gypsy Swing Ensemble, The Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra, The 
Hillbenders, Datri Bean, Steel Wheels, Raina Rose and Rebecca Loebe, David Wax Museum, Alexa Woodward, Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade, Elephant Revival, Charlie Faye and her large crew of Austin cohorts (including Bettysoo), Lake Street Dive, Lail Arad, and many, many others. We roomed with two talented individual singer-songwriters, Natalie Gelman and Megan Burtt who are doing well in their tours out of NYC and Denver, respectively. Don't miss an opportunity to see any of these artists live.We got to hear a ton of music, we made some great new friends, and if all goes well, we might get some killer opportunities out of it, possibly around the world.
We even got to try some famous Memphis "dry rub" bar-b-que downtown (and later sang an improvised drunken anthem on the subject with the Hillbenders in a stairwell at 6AM). When all was said and done, we were exhausted, broke, and sick. Well, one of us got sick, but sick enough to count for two. In conclusion, we had to fork over a ridiculous amount of money to attend this thing and we think it was worth every penny. We're saving up for FAI 2012.Thanks for reading!g.