What’s the best way to celebrate birthday 52? With a show in New Hampshire of course. Where’s Aubrey played a show in the middle of nowhere in New Hampshire for a receptive audience at the Mole Hill Theater. As always, we played a benefit performance, this time for the LEAF (nutritious lunch) program of a public charter school operating out of the same revamped machine shop where we played the show.
Alstead
A machine
We played our sets right next to a huge blue machine. Not sure what it actually used to do. Stamp out complete cars??
Where’s Aubrey and the big blue machine
The show was high energy and fun, one of the best we’ve played.
Where’s Aubrey: Gary McGraw and Rhine Singleton
Laying into the fiddle
Rhine sings
Mando and the big blue behemoth
Where’s Aubrey in Alstead, NH
no silly allowed? definitely no silly.
fiddle and the big blue behemoth
What kind of stuff does it take to play an acoustic act??
the stage
Well, to be fair, we played our two set show. Then after a break we electrified the whole thing with drums, bass, and electric guitar. The LEAF Cutters were born. Dancing happened. Much fun was had.
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A message from Rhine
Dear Friends and Music Lovers –
Because you and so many others turned out last Saturday night, we not only had a total blast playing music, we raised $1250 for the healthy lunches program at the LEAF school through donations at the door. The silent auction brought in another $1000, so the event truly was a smashing success!
And, you were a wonderful audience to play for. So, we’re sending our heartfelt thanks. Hope to see you at another music event before too long!
We played a show last year. Hah. OK, last year was only 7 days ago, but it’s true. During the show, we dropped a new CD called “diversion” which you can order for yourself. Have a listen to our favorite track!
Collectively, we raised $1181 for Habitat for Humanity’s work in Clarke County, bringing Where’s Aubrey’s all concert total to $15,662.
The concert was a blast to play. Here are some pictures. In each set, we started out with only two people on stage, Gary McGraw on violin and Rhine Singleton on guitar.
Where’s Aubrey performs at the Barns of Rose Hill 12.29.18 (photo Amy Barley)
Eventually (during both sets) we were joined by stunt guitarist Allen Kitselman and drummer Nick Schrenk (both of the Bitter Liberals).
Nick Schrenk of the Bitter Liberals plays drums with Where’s Aubrey 12.29.18 (photo Amy Barley)
The gang’s all here. Allen Kitselman play stunt guitar with Where’s Aubrey 12.29.17 (photo Amy Barley)
Where’s Aubrey plus two Barns of Rose Hill 12.29.17
The highlight of the evening for us was honoring our biggest fan and long time Berryville arts supporter Michael Hobert. Here’s what I said about Michael from the stage.
Michael Hobert (photo Jen Lee)
Rhine Singleton (photo Tom Singleton)
Where’s Aubrey mid-jam (photo Tom Singleton)
Gary McGraw (photo Tom Singleton)
Rhine concentrates (photo Tom Singleton)
Paging Allen Kitselman, Allen Kitselman to the blue courtesy guitar (photo Tom Singleton)
The energy was palpable during the show. Thanks to the 100+ people who came to see Where’s Aubrey perform. We’ll be back.
Where’s Aubrey Jams at Barns of Rose Hill 12.29.17 (photo Jen Lee)
Goofing off on stage (in the middle of a song) (photo Jen Lee)
Yeah, this is fun (photo Jen Lee)
Sensitive Big Boy Music not just reserved for the Bitter Liberals (photo Jen Lee)
We will be releasing our eighth CD the day of the show. Art by Eli McGraw. Music by Rhine Singleton and Gary McGraw. At the show, we’ll be playing all of the songs from the new CD plus some of your favorite Where’s Aubrey tunes.
We will be joined on stage by Allen Kitselman and Nick Schrenk of the Bitter Liberals.
Where’s Aubrey is at it again, playing a benefit concert! We hope you will join us in Berryville on Friday 12.29 as we debut our new CD “diversion” and tick our philanthropy total up over $15K while directly benefitting Clarke county residents in need of housing.
We hope you will join us for an impromptu barn concert featuring Where’s Aubrey on Friday July 22nd. We’ll be raising money for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. The concert itself is free with a $20 donation suggested for the Food Bank.
Who: Where’s Aubrey is Gary McGraw (fiddle, mando, vocals) and Rhine Singleton (guitar, vocals)
What: Benefit Barn Concert (BYOB/BYOC)
When: FRIDAY July 22nd, Parking 7:15pm, music 8:00pm
Where: White Post, VA
Tickets: RSVP and reserve yourself space (we are counting noses)
The good news is that the Brightbox is a fantastic place to see a show. Great sound. Really nice space. Good food and drinks. The bad news is that it’s pretty far from Where’s Aubrey’s Clarke County comfort zone (not to mention New Hampshire).
The stage at the Brightbox Theater (with the orange chair)
The enthusiastic but tiny crowd on Friday 7/17 did manage to raise $500 for Dakota’s Dream Animal Rescue, putting Where’s Aubrey’s fundraising total up to a respectable $13,928. Thanks to our concert goers for their generosity and kindness! We had serious competition from local favorite Robbie Limon (playing outside at the new amphitheater just down the street) and the Bluemont Concert Series performer just across the street. Dang. Special thanks to our bestest fans who made the trek out to Winchester. We love playing for you guys.
Where’s Aubrey live at the Brightbox
Rhine Singleton of Where’s Aubrey
Gary McGraw of Where’s Aubrey
Where’s Aubrey on stage
The show was good. Here’s some video. The first three are from the new CD Chaukori Blue. You can buy a copy of the new CD here.
Allen Kitselman, a fellow Bitter Liberal joined us for four songs, including Devlish Situation.
Where’s Aubrey in Winchester
Original art by April Claggett on the stage and on the CD cover
I am just out of the studio working for two days mixing the new Where’s Aubrey CD (which will be called Chaukori Blue). The new work has 12 songs, all of which we performed live in Berryville in early January. All of the songs were written by Rhine Singleton when he was living in India (near Chaukori it turns out).
Here is what the song sounded like in the earliest recording made in India.
We first played this song together in Italy in May 2014 in a tiny little town called Cedri. We played it way late at night and annoyed the little old lady next door.
Here’s a story of how the song evolved from when I first heard it to now.
Where’s Aubrey sets up for a dinner concert in Montelopio, Tuscany
I spent some time in New Hampshire in October working hard for a few days on all 12 of the new songs. We started with way more than that, narrowed the list, and then began to deconstruct, hook up, re-arrange, and refactor songs in various ways. The bones were all there (and most of the words too), but almost every song got a serious work over into a Where’s Aubrey song.
Here is the first recorded version of A Blue Blue Day. We recorded this with a nexus 6 sitting on a chair in the room where we were playing it.
Version 2 was recorded several hours later.
Then we really worked the songs (including this one) in January to get ready to perform it. Here is what A Blue Blue Day sounded like live in concert in January. (More from that show here.)
Playing the material live before recording was interesting and backwards from our usual approach. But it worked. When we got back together in February to record, the songs were “compiled.”
Rhine Singleton of Where’s Aubrey
Here is the RAW version from one of three studio takes we did in February. (See the post about the studio sessions here.)
Today, I spent an hour engineering the track into a “final” pre-mastered version. Here is what A Blue Blue Day will sound like on the CD
And there you have it. A song from inception to a CD.
In the studio with Will Shenk.
Chaukori Blue will be released sometime in the summer.
In a new summer solstice twist, we put together an impromptu electric band. Gina Faber suggested we call ourselves “Electric Triangle,” which we did. We came up with set lists at 3:30pm the day of the party! Woo hoo.
Here is our rendition of Donnovan’s “Season of the Witch”
Electric Triangle ingredients include:
100% Where’s Aubrey
75% The Bitter Liberals
100% All Natural Fibers
100% Joehammed and the Acoustic Martyrs
Red dye number 5
Rum
We prevailed upon Allen Kitselman to play the Ghengis Angus song Rooster against his will.
The world famous staff of Electric Triangle:
Rhine Singleton, guitar/vocals
Clark Hansbarger, guitar/vocals
Allen Kitselman, guitar/vocals
Gary McGraw, violin/mandolin/vocals
Gina Faber, guitar/harmony/ELECTRIC TRIANGLE
Joe Faber, keys
Nick Schrenk, drums
Mike Aaron, bass
