This evening I discovered that Amy Speace will be playing at Café Nine in New Haven next Tuesday. Last year, she was one of the 2008 Falcon Ridge Emerging Artists. I liked what I heard of her online before I went and then enjoyed her performance at Falcon Ridge. I wasn’t surprised when she ended up getting the most votes to be asked to return this year.

So, this got me looking at the list of performers for this year’s Falcon Ridge. The first name that jumped out at me was Girlyman. If I recall properly, Girlyman was Miranda’s favorite band for a while and we went to see Girlyman perform in Hartford. From there, I looked for one of Kim’s favorite bands, Lowen and Navarro. The performer’s list included Dan Navarro, but not Lowen and Navarro. I quickly went to the LowNav website.

A black and white picture is front and center. There is a crack in the middle of the road leading off to mist covered mountains. Next to that are the words, “El Fin Del Camino”.

It's been just over five years since Eric Lowen's diagnosis with ALS, and after 250 performances logged since that giant day, we now find our shows this weekend in Annapolis Fri June 5 and Alexandria VA Sat June 6 must be our last.

I sit in front of my computer, trying to find words for my reaction. If I had known that that would be their last performance, would I have tried to make it to Alexandria? Would it have been too difficult? I don’t know.

As I prepared to write this blog post, I thought I would check to see who this year’s emerging artists would be. Ron Olesko has the list up. Last year, I listened to most of the emerging artists before going to Falcon Ridge and writing my initial reactions. I figured I would try to do the same this year, if I can work it into my writing schedule.

The first artist on the list is A. J. Roach & His Strange Pilgrims. The site is in Drupal and has links to ten different social networks. I’ve followed him on Twitter, and became his fan on Facebook after listening to a few of his songs on sonicbids.

It is late now. I will find time to listen to more of the emerging artists later, but now I should head off to sleep.