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Bread and Bones
New CD will be released in late June, 2008, with your help! Okay, we have been working on this CD off and on for two years now. Some people have become convinced it is just a hoax, but we are sincere. It is called "I Know Stories" and it is in the post-production phase at long last. Our official CD release concert will be on July 5, 2008 at the Ripton Community Coffee House (though we hope to have the things in hand a couple weeks before that). We need to do a little fund-raising to get it fully finished. If you are interested in pre-ordering a copy, we would certainly appreciate it. For more info, please click here. Thanks.
We are on MySpace Music We haven't put anything up there about our astrological signs, likes and dislikes or anything along those lines, but the band has a MySpace Music page at: http://www.myspace.com/breadandbones Feel free to drop by, become a friend, leave a comment and listen to the music we've posted. There is a fair amount of content that changes often. Much more often than things seem to be changing here.
Richard won a "Rachel Bissex White Light Fund" scholarship to the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference (NERFA) 2007 was the first year for the "Rachel Bissex White Light Fund" scholarships to NERFA and Richard was deeply honored to be a recipient of it (Rebecca Padula also won a scholarship). These scholarships are intended for Vermont artists developing careers as performers and recording artists.
Rachel Bissex Rachel Bissex was a beloved Vermont singer-songwriter and a dear friend. She won a number of awards, including the New Folk award at the Kerrville Folk Festival. She played a number of times at the Ripton Community Coffee House (that Beth and Richard help run), always to great acclaim. She was also a dedicated mentor to her fellow musicians, working selflessly to help support and foster up-and-coming talent. She graciously offered to appear on Richard's solo CD, "Things That Strangers Say," and is on the very first track, "Don't You Trust Me." She was a fixture at NERFA, hosting and appearing at showcases, often pulling in people she felt needed more exposure. She died of breast cancer in February 2005. The White Light Fund, a title taken from Rachel's final recording, honors Rachel's work. The fund, created by Karl Bissex, Mary Trerice and Lynne Goodson, is supported through the efforts of "Occasional Concerts" - a series of performances in Plainfield, Vermont featuring nationally touring musicians. There will be scholarships offered for 2008's NERFA. For more information about this, contact concerts@bissex.net.
Bread and Bones at the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference, November, 2007
Richard is Folk Alley's August Folk Spoke
FolkAlley.com is one the the finest online folk radio stations. They have started "Folk Spokes" to honor the people who work behind the scenes to keep the "folk wheels" rolling in their communities. Rick Shappy, of New Haven, Vermont recommended Richard in August for Richard's long-standing work with the Ripton Community Coffee House and the Middlebury Festival on the Green. Thank you Rick and thank you Folk Alley.
2007 Valley Stage Music Festival
Music festivals are a great way to spend the summer. The second annual Valley Stage Music Festival on August 11, 2007 was a blast. This festival started in 2006 with wonderful music (though the weather could have been better). This one-day event had a great line up of performers this year, with the Greencards, Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, Ed Gerhard, Paul Asbell and Brooks Williams, Avi and Celia and even Bread and Bones (note the little ukulele in the picture). If you are any where near Vermont, check this festival out next year.
2007 Champlain Valley Folk Festival
We were at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival this year August 3-5, in concert on Friday evening and in a couple workshops during the day on Saturday. It was a great time but I had the unusual experience of two separate people coming up to me at different times to say, "Richard Ruane, are you related to Tom Ruane?" One of the people was married to someone who was in high school with Tom, and the other person knew him from his work with SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research). I'm just basking in my brother's reflected glory.
Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Fun
The whole band went (not as official performers, just as campers and festival goers) to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival this year and hosted a great camping setup and wonderful song circles. We were on one of the main camp roads (in "ten acre camping" on the way to "ledges" and "fifteen acre camping"). Mitch had made a flag to make it easier to give friends directions to our site. It was similar to a Jolly Roger pirate flag, but with a slice of bread instead of a skull (bread and bones, you know). We had a number of great folks show up and fill the space with wonderful music, including Andrew Calhoun, the Dust Poets, Phil Shapiro and Carrie Shore, Rebecca Padula, members of the band Pesky J. Nixon and a lot of other great folks playing and listening such as Tamuv and Josh, Kevin, Harry, Jake, Megan and the Sheridan Brownies, John, Steve, Su, Eric, Christy and many more. Our neighboring campers were very supportive and kind. It was one of those perfect, free-flowing, multi-night song swaps that remind me how important music is and how many talented people there are (and how it is possible to go nights without much sleep and still almost function). Thanks to Anne Saunders, Howard Randall and the many, many other folks who put this festival on (even the actual, official music presented on stage and in the dance tent was good).
One of the cool things was the reaction to the flag Mitch made. We only had the image on it, no words. Within minutes of it going up we had people stopping by to ask us what it meant. The price to find out was to tell us what they thought it meant (and to be sworn to secrecy). Some people had been mulling it over at their campsites for a very long time before stopping by. Here are some of the ideas: The Toast Pirates; Death to Bread; The Bread Pirate Roberts; Dead Toast Society; Camp Slice Bread; Pirate Bakers; Bread is Poison; Jolly Wonder Bread; Atkins Diet; All Pirates are Toast; Anti White Bread; Let's Get Crusted (or Toasted); I Like Toast; Bread and Crossbones; Skull and Cross Bread (or Toast); Hot Cross Bread; No French Toast; Poisonous Bread; No Carbs; Bread Positive; Grilled Cheese and a Jolly Roger; Toasted Pirates; Toasty Roger.
2007 SolarFest Singer/Songwriter Showcase
Richard was part of the 2007 SolarFest Singer/Songwriter Showcase the weekend of July 14-15 and ended up with a third place award. SolarFest is a great weekend festival celebrating the power of renewable energy, the arts and community action to change the world. It was a great festival this year,very well run, with some amazing music and people. I highly recommend going to it next year. Check out their website.
2007 Plowshares Singer-Songwriter Competition Richard was a finalist this year for the songwriting competition held at the Plowshares Coffee House in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. It is run by Erik Balkey, a fine songwriter himself, and the judges included the venerable folk DJ Gene Shay of WXPN, Dena Marchiony of the Philadelphia Songwriters Project, and Gar Ragland of the Mountain Stage NewSong Festival.
Feast or Famine Reunion Richard's previous band, Feast or Famine, had a reunion concert at the Ripton Community Coffee House on April 7, 2007. They were a quartet that performed throughout the Northeast and the Midwest back in the 1980s. They released two recordings, including the vinyl album Brecon Beacon on the Philo/Fretless label. It generated a good amount of airplay, some modest album sales and a lot of good will. The band was recently profiled in the October/November 2006 issue of Dirty Linen. in the "Vinyl Valhalla, Forgotten LPs Not Yet on CD" column (click here to see the article - you'll need Adobe Acrobat reader though). The article discussed the two recordings by Feast or Famine and also a recording by Sundog (another band Richard had been in). There is a song from each of these bands here on this website. Click on Listen to find them. If you are interested in what some of the folks mentioned in that article are currently up to: Michael Chorney (formerly of both Feast or Famine and Sundog as well as viperHouse and Magic City) has a new recording called "Mother Tongue." It features primarily his voice and guitar and is something of a return for him to a simpler, lyrically based form of songwriting. His full catalog of recordings are available from his website, www.grainbinmusic.com. Michael has also been making a name for himself as the producer of Anaïs Mitchell's two latest recordings (including The Brightness on Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe Records). Steve Rosenfeld (formerly of Sundog) is a journalist, has just finished a run as the executive producer of Air America Radio's RadioNation with Laura Flanders, co-author of the book What happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, and a founder of the music sound portrait website BEHINDtheBEAT. Ron Rost (formerly of Feast or Famine and Sundog) plays with a number of groups including The New Nile Orchestra with Kiflu Kidane. Michael Corn (formerly of Feast or Famine) is a guitar teacher in Middlebury, Vermont (the group recitals by his students go by the name of "Children of the Corn") and he plays with the Franco-American group Va-et-Vient.
Feast or Famine Sundog
The Upcoming Bread and Bones CD
As Mitch has said, if you are producing an album yourself, time is your friend. It is true that taking a month off and revisiting a recording gives you a better perspective on what is good and what needs to be redone. At our current rate then, our CD should be really good, if it ever comes out (and it will). We will be putting some more things down into digital bits in the next couple months and maybe it will reach the critical point where we actually release it. We've been doing some of our recording at our homes, some at John Hadden's Resting Lion Studio in Huntington, Vermont (the two pictures above) and some (with our mobile recording equipment) at several very generous people's houses in the Ripton area (houses with good acoustic spaces). It's been kind of like a house concert tour, except recording instead of playing for an audience.
Things To Listen To The songs to listen to online often change. Check back from time to time. There also are a song from each of Richard's previous bands, Feast or Famine and Sundog. In addition, there's a track from Richard's son Sam Chesman's band Groove Unit (he's the drummer). And don't forget the samples from the Things That Strangers Say CD. Click on Listen to go there.
More Things Online If this web site isn't enough for you, we have a band EPK (Electronic Press Kit) at Sonicbids (http://www.sonicbids.com/BreadandBones). This might include some different music than you will find here. We also have a MySpace Music page at: http://www.myspace.com/breadandbones. Feel free to drop by, become a friend, leave a comment and listen to the music we've posted. We are also listed in the Vermont Arts Council's Arts Directory.
Who Isn't Richard Ruane If you are wondering if this is the same Richard Ruane you went to high school / prison / Ireland / Cleveland / Viet Nam with, check the Who I Am (and who I am not) link. There are more Richard Ruanes than you might think.
For information about who Richard Ruane is not, click here. For information about my Campanella mandolin, click here. For previous news items, click here.
This page was last updated on May 11, 2008
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