When someone gives you something really, really, extraordinary, it can be hard to know how to say thanks, and this is one of those times. Our third full length album “The Fiddle Preacher” is finally finished and in our hands. The road to this point is an an unbroken chain of happy circumstances, lucky breaks, as well as friends new and old who lifted us up and believed in us when we sometimes weren’t sure of ourselves. The Fiddle Preacher is all about the gifts we’ve been given and strive to pass on. For us the gift of music, handed down from our parents to both of us is the language we speak and the currency we trade in. We hope we can give back at least a fraction of the beauty and passion we’ve inherited.

So many of you supported us in this project and we couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you. Knowing you were waiting for us to finish drove us on when we might have dithered. Many of you preordered more than one copy, or hired us for a house concert, took us up on an offer for dinner and a concert, attended one of our private fundraising shows, supported us through one of our other fundraising initiatives, or just let us know you were excited for us to finish.

We started our celebration with a bang at a standing room only CD release party at 9th and 9th concert series. In celebration of the title track we were able to book Salt Lake City’s one and only “Fiddle Preacher” Bronwen Beecher to open the show for us. It was a night that will linger long in our memories, a packed sanctuary at the church that hosts the concert series. A sold out crowd of all our best friends and family, and a sense that despite all the turmoil in the world, we really can “get by with a little help from [our] friends” as the Beatles so eloquently put it.

In the words of one of our own songs, “Sometimes you just know, and this time was like that.”

If you want to hear the album you can listen via the player on our home page.

Here’s a few pictures from the event courtesy of Duane Jennings and Floyd Wilkes. Special thanks to Matt Seabury for playing bass with us, Bill Green for sound support and our superb audio engineer Ken Kruckenberg for putting up with us over the past year!

How do you deal with those times when you are stripped bare and nothing and no one can hold back the pain, or restore you to the place you were before? These losses come in many sizes and shapes, but all of them share the same silent loneliness, the same cold barren ground of loss. Peter’s been doing a lot of work both personally and as a counselor on dealing with grief. Recently, over the course of a week, a song came to us, like a gift from the universe, a validation of both the difficulty and the beauty of the grieving process. We wanted to share it with you so we got right into the recording studio and here it is.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and if this song resonates with you, we hope you’ll consider supporting our new CD by preordering a copy. Because this song came as a gift, we’re also offering it as a gift to you. If you’d like the link to a free download of this song just contact us in any of the following ways.

1. Join Our Email List

2. Like us on Facebook and send us a message requesting the link.

3. Send us an email at OtterCreek@OtterCreekDuo.com asking for the download link. We'll send it to you and won't add you to any lists.

Donations of $15 or more come with a copy of our next CD, currently in production and due out in June of 2015. We will ship  it to you free of charge as soon as it's available!

Happy New Year! We know we’re a bit late but we’ve been busy here at Otter Creek Central. We’re starting the New Year off with the great news that a collaboration of ours with Salt Lake City Based Singer Songwriter, Wendy Lowder, will air on the season finale of the TLC series Sister Wives! Add to that a whole string of recording sessions and rehearsals for our upcoming album which is due out this summer. We’re already taking preorders to help fund the project so if you think you’d like to buy in at the ground level, now is your chance!

We ended 2014 with a cross country tour that carried us from the Golden Gate Bridge through the heartland of America and all the way east to Plymouth Rock. Along the way we played in cities and towns big and small, Concert halls, gymnasiums, parks, restaurants and homes.  We experienced unseasonable warmth, braved a polar vortex,  took the southern route to Boston to avoid a blizzard that dumped five feet of snow in one day and drove for the first time ever in freezing rain. We hobnobbed with farmers, schoolteachers, miners, artists, musicians, businesspeople, individuals from all walks of life. We made new friends, experienced some startling kindnesses, and hopefully did a few ourselves. At every stop we ended our show with everyone singing Woody Guthrie’s This Land Was Made for You and Me.  The resounding message we came home with is that we all belong here together in this country.


We feel more passionate than ever about calling ourselves folk musicians, for folk music is the music of the people. No one person owns it, no industry controls it. No one culture or people can claim it as their sole heritage. It is the birthright of the amalgamation of people who now reside in this land we all call home. Friends, we belong together and we see the music of the people as a vital part of a democratic society.

We’re titling album 3 after one of the songs we’ve written, The Fiddle Preacher. It is about how music can bring us together when almost nothing else can, it’s about the spirit of America, it’s about democracy, and most of all, it’s about We the People!

We gratefully accept donations to help produce our next album The Fiddle Preacher. Donations of $15 or more come with a copy of our next CD, due out in June of 2015 which we will ship to you free of charge as soon as it's available.

Practicing. Believe me, this is something we know about because over the years we've tried everything, and if we didn't try it, I daresay one of our students has. Mary once figured out how to read a book while playing a piece she’d memorized (awesome time management skills eh?). After a few days of this, her family asked why the piece she was working on sounded like it was getting worse every day instead of better. Peter had an even better idea. He and his brother invented imaginary practice. They’d come home from school, watch TV, and then both report they had done their practicing when their parents got home. Unfortunately for Peter (despite a vow of secrecy) his brother spilled the beans on their revolutionary new method. Peter got grounded until he managed to actualize all those hours of imaginary practice.  Over the years we've tried all kinds of things, slouchy postures (that’s Peter), doing it the easy way (that was Peter too), wishing really hard (mostly Peter), convincing ourselves our teacher was just kidding about that, (definitely Peter), fiddling around instead of playing the piece we were supposed to be working on (Peter), checking out what the worst sounds were the instrument could make (Peter), staring off into space (Peter), etc… (Peter - seems like there’s a theme here). 

Any way with all that experimentation we've finally gotten good at practice and we have some good news. There are ways to practice that not only work, but seriously cut down on the amount of time it takes to learn a piece. You’re reading this so we’ll assume you want to get good. Really good. Championship winning good. Awesome! This blog is for you. I daresay we know a bit about championships having won a few (even Peter despite all that practicing kerfuffle we mentioned above). But the real truth is that we've lost far more than we've ever won. Behind each lovely blue ribbon is a whole string of lesser ribbons (and sometimes a long string of no ribbons at all). You can’t get to the blue ribbon without climbing the ladder it’s at the top of. You have to start where you are at.

One thing about Championship. We think the whole idea of a single winner is misguided. We've played in enough championships to know that while there is sometimes one player who is clearly better than all the others, more often there is a pool of 5-10 monster players who are all so good it’s impossible to choose. So don’t let a “loss” get you down. You didn't “lose” at all. If anything, you gained experience. The only way you lose musically is if you get injured and can’t play or refuse to seize the day and don’t take an opportunity to perform. The rest is all a win, and big or little, wins add up. Here’s a recipe for winning a championship.

1. Prepare. 
   
2. Show up. 
   
3. Repeatedly. 
   

And the rest is luck. So, let’s get this straight at the beginning.  Here’s what Championship IS and is NOT. Championship IS about being the best YOU can be. Do that, and you’re a winner. Championship IS about rising to the occasion, taking a chance, working hard, and spreading a really big tarp out to catch whatever luck falls your way. Championship IS about showing up repeatedly (after you have prepared). 

Championship is NOT about “winning.” Sure it’s nice to get recognition, and if you keep showing up, recognition in some form will eventually show up for you, but don’t try to tell the universe what that recognition has to look like. Just take aim at what you want and get going. Odds are that the stuff that’s in that direction, whether you hit the bull’s eye or not, will be pretty satisfying. 

Oh… and don’t worry. There will be plenty of tips to come, so stay tuned. Here’s a spoiler though: Imaginary Practice™ doesn't work.

There’s a crackle of electricity in the air at Otter Creek central. We’ve got a great new workspace now that we’ve finished our studio and are rehearsing nightly on new material for Otter Creek 3.0. The songs are written, the arranging has begun, and we’ll be rolling out some of the new tunes at our performances over the next few months! And yes... we're going to use ALL of these instruments on the album!

The album is scheduled for release in June of 2015, just in time for our summer touring season but we’ll be beginning presales this Saturday at our yard concert hosted by Michael Stone (owner of MacNichol Guitars and Mandolins) where we will debut three of the new tunes slated for inclusion on the album. Come join us if you can!

Where: Michael's Backyard - 5580 South Neighbor Lane in Holladay
When: Saturday, June 7, at 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Details: Cost is $10 per person. Potluck at 6 pm, Music at 7 pm. House concert. Please call 1-800-849-3305 or check out the event page on facebook for more information or to RSVP.

We had another one of our dream gigs last weekend. Think Bach meets Bluegrass! We were playing for the final concert in a series of fundraisers to restore Utah’s oldest pipe organ, housed at the First United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. At this final concert they were able to raise just enough money to ensure they would be able to proceed with the project. Discussing the history of the project with the church historian we were astounded at how effective their fund raising had been and moved by their passion. Against all odds they decided they were going to raise enough money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) to fix this beautiful instrument.

Incidentally the First United Methodist Church was instrumental in launching our own pipe dream. They provided us space in their sanctuary for our CD release party for our first CD “Hunter’s Moon” in 2010. The concert doubled as a fundraiser for the Crossroads Urban Center and we collected food and other goods to distribute to needy individuals. Later, the music director asked if we might consider having our children sing a number at one of their fundraisers for the organ, prior to that we hadn’t really thought of having our beautiful daughters become part of the act. We arranged “Morning has Broken” and debuted it in their beautiful sanctuary and the rest is history!

It has been a thrill for us to be part of such a beautiful project! Especially for me as one of my father’s first jobs was working for the Aeolian Skinner Organ Company as a teenager. I grew up surrounded by the love of pipe organs and the in-repair parts of dozens of reed organs (their smaller cousins) which my father repaired in his spare time. The plans for the restored organ and the sanctuary it resides in is articulated on their crowdfunding page. I was particularly moved by this piece of the vision “Our vision is to welcome the community into an intimate, beautiful, flexible space for music and fellowship…We envision our sanctuary as a true community space where all can experience the power of music to draw us closer to each other...”

The power of music to draw us closer to each other is what drives us as well. I want to offer a special thanks to our wonderful friends at First United Methodist Church for giving me the chance to do something I’ve always dreamed of! A banjo and pipe organ duet of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” accompanied by a choir of willing volunteers singing along! (wishing you'd been there now, aren't you!)

Friends, pipe dreams are worth the trouble and if you want to have a hand in making sure the oldest organ in the three state area of Utah, Idaho, and Nevada keeps on singing you could do a little organ donation yourself! …and with some luck, that organ will still be bringing people closer together long after we’re all gone.