Author Archives: Phyllis Erck

About Phyllis Erck

Dobro player and singer

Making Music on the Prairie in Molt, MT

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Here’s a nice write-up on our bluegrass friends in the Billings area

 
Our Towns: Molt, Montana

Making Music on the Prairie

Ed Kemmick, Billings Gazette
published: 02/07/2010
 
Molt

Molt

The Prairie Winds Cafe in Molt, Mont., seats 56, which is about four times the population of Molt itself. Yet on most Saturday mornings, every seat is taken, and another 15 or 20 people are standing in the hallway near the kitchen, patiently awaiting their turns.

It’s not just Fran Urfer’s pies that bring people in. Nor is it simply the setting–a tiny island of commerce in a sea of rolling grassland that runs to the foot of the Crazy Mountains in south-central Montana. What draws folks from miles around–and from every state in the nation and 42 foreign countries, according to the guest book–is the live music played there on Saturday mornings from 9 to noon.

Jerry and Fran Urfer opened the cafe in 2001, after spending three years remodeling Kepferle Mercantile, an old general store that featured hardware on one wall and groceries on the other. The music was Larry Larson’s idea. He lived just down the road and thought the cafe would be a fine place for his band, The Hogback Five, to get in some practice.

“The first thing you know, we had some other bands coming out,” Larson says. “Now, if you want to play here, it won’t be in 2010. They might squeeze you in by 2011.”
Customers have to squeeze in, too, often sharing a table with strangers and then parting as friends before the morning is over.

They call it the Bluegrass Saturday Breakfast, but the 10 or 12 local bands in the Prairie Winds’ rotation also play old-time country, folk, and gospel. You might even hear a little Cajun, Dixieland, or vintage rock ‘n’ roll.

“It’s been the funnest thing in my life,” says Dave Webinger, a 69-year-old barber and guitarist whose band, Cold Frosty Morning, was playing in Molt the Saturday before Christmas. “We all work, so we just play for fun.”
The bands also play for tips, their fiddle and mandolin cases slowly filling with greenbacks, and Fran treats them to breakfast and lunch.

Molt is 20 miles from Billings, the biggest city in Montana, but out on the empty prairie, it might as well be frontier days. The cafe, on Wolfskill Avenue, still features the building’s original pressed-tin ceiling and fir flooring.

Molt was a thriving grain-hauling hub until the railroad pulled out 30 years ago. Now the town consists of five houses, a church, a tiny school, a tire shop, a grain elevator, a fire department, and a community hall. The Prairie Winds put Molt back on the map.

The place is aptly named, too. It’s a rare day when the flag at the post office next door isn’t snapping smartly in a stiff breeze. It’s almost as rare not to find at least one dog snoozing in the shelter of the cafe’s entryway.

“This, to me, is America,” says the Rev. Bill Vibe, the Los Angeles-based interim pastor of the Congregational church in nearby Laurel. Vibe had come to the kitchen just before noon to compliment Fran on her cooking and tell her how much he liked the cafe. “We’ve sat here since 9:30 this morning, and I just had the time of my life,” he says.
Fran says people thought she and Jerry were crazy when they talked about opening a cafe in Molt, but now it’s not unusual to go through 20 dozen eggs on a Saturday morning, and every week she hears from people like Bill Vibe. “That’s what makes it worthwhile,” she says, “when people come in the kitchen and say things like that.”

The new “Our Towns” column features stories from top newspaper reporters across America. Watch for it regularly in PARADE.The Prairie Winds Cafe in Molt, Mont., seats 56, which is about four times the population of Molt itself. Yet on most Saturday mornings, every seat is taken, and another 15 or 20 people are standing in the hallway near the kitchen, patiently awaiting their turns.

It’s not just Fran Urfer’s pies that bring people in. Nor is it simply the setting–a tiny island of commerce in a sea of rolling grassland that runs to the foot of the Crazy Mountains in south-central Montana. What draws folks from miles around–and from every state in the nation and 42 foreign countries, according to the guest book–is the live music played there on Saturday mornings from 9 to noon.

Jerry and Fran Urfer opened the cafe in 2001, after spending three years remodeling Kepferle Mercantile, an old general store that featured hardware on one wall and groceries on the other. The music was Larry Larson’s idea. He lived just down the road and thought the cafe would be a fine place for his band, The Hogback Five, to get in some practice.

“The first thing you know, we had some other bands coming out,” Larson says. “Now, if you want to play here, it won’t be in 2010. They might squeeze you in by 2011.” 
Customers have to squeeze in, too, often sharing a table with strangers and then parting as friends before the morning is over.

They call it the Bluegrass Saturday Breakfast, but the 10 or 12 local bands in the Prairie Winds’ rotation also play old-time country, folk, and gospel. You might even hear a little Cajun, Dixieland, or vintage rock ‘n’ roll.

“It’s been the funnest thing in my life,” says Dave Webinger, a 69-year-old barber and guitarist whose band, Cold Frosty Morning, was playing in Molt the Saturday before Christmas. “We all work, so we just play for fun.”
The bands also play for tips, their fiddle and mandolin cases slowly filling with greenbacks, and Fran treats them to breakfast and lunch.

Molt is 20 miles from Billings, the biggest city in Montana, but out on the empty prairie, it might as well be frontier days. The cafe, on Wolfskill Avenue, still features the building’s original pressed-tin ceiling and fir flooring.

Molt was a thriving grain-hauling hub until the railroad pulled out 30 years ago. Now the town consists of five houses, a church, a tiny school, a tire shop, a grain elevator, a fire department, and a community hall. The Prairie Winds put Molt back on the map.

The place is aptly named, too. It’s a rare day when the flag at the post office next door isn’t snapping smartly in a stiff breeze. It’s almost as rare not to find at least one dog snoozing in the shelter of the cafe’s entryway.

“This, to me, is America,” says the Rev. Bill Vibe, the Los Angeles-based interim pastor of the Congregational church in nearby Laurel. Vibe had come to the kitchen just before noon to compliment Fran on her cooking and tell her how much he liked the cafe. “We’ve sat here since 9:30 this morning, and I just had the time of my life,” he says.
Fran says people thought she and Jerry were crazy when they talked about opening a cafe in Molt, but now it’s not unusual to go through 20 dozen eggs on a Saturday morning, and every week she hears from people like Bill Vibe.
“That’s what makes it worthwhile,” she says, “when people come in the kitchen and say things like that.”
The new “Our Towns” column features stories from top newspaper reporters across America. Watch for it regularly in PARADE.

Final 2010 Winter Jam – Ruby’s March 13

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Please join us at our Winter Jam Series 2nd Saturday’s Jan-Mar

Date: Mar 13, 2010
Location:
Ruby’s Inn & Convention Center
4825 N Reserve St
Missoula, MT 59808
(406) 721-0990
Ask for the BLUEGRASS rate when making your room reservation

Description: Jam and potluck dinner
Time: Pickin’ starts at 1pm ’til midnight
Potluck: 5:30pm

There are rooms for several seperate jams to accomodate different levels and styles. If there’s an interest, we’ll have a seperate room exclusively for a celtic jam for you Irish fans.

2010 Stevensville MRBA Band Schedule

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MRBA Spring Festival 2010

MRBA Spring Festival 2010

2010 Stevensville MRBA Band Schedule

12:00 – 12:30 Kids in Bluegrass
12:35 – 1:00 Bonnie Bliss Group
1:10 – 1:40 Ken Benson & Friends
1:45 – 2:15 Darby Sireens
2:20 – 2:50 Three Rivers Bluegrass
2:55 – 3:25 Uncle Bacca Juice
3:30 – 4:00 Mike & Tari Conroy & Friends
4:05 – 4:35 Gravely Mtn
4:40 – 5:10 New South Fork
5:15 – 5:45 Porter Creek
5:50 – 6:20 Will Williams & Gravel Road
6:25 – 6:55 Black Mtn. Boys
7:00 – 7:30 Salmon Valley String Band
7:35 – 8:05 JD Webb & The Downstate Ramblers
8:10 – 8:40 Ramblin’ Rose
8:45 – 9:15 Pinegrass
9:20 – 9:50 Wise River Mercantile
9:55 – 10:25 Hard Luck & Trouble
10:30—11:00 Spring Thaw

Big Sky Big Grass Feb 12-14

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For you skiers and bluegrass lovers in the Big Sky area, you’re in for a real treat next weekend.  Big Sky Resort is hosting the 4th Annual Big Sky Big Grass with national acts Travelin’ McCourys, Crooked Still, Infamous Stringdusters and Bearfoot and regional bands Growling Old Men, Party Line and Jawbone Railroad.  Shows will run for 3-days in the Summit House, just steps from the ski lifts.

For more information check out the Big Sky website

Travelin’ McCourys on YouTube

Stillhouse Jammers on YouTube

Crooked Still – recording of “Ain’t No Grave”

Lil Smokies on YouTube

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Here’s a nice clip of Li’l Smokies.

You may recognize their guest fiddler former MRBA member, Rachael Wogsland (Carla Green, the bass player’s, daughter).  Rachael was sitting in with them while home on Christmas break.

Be sure and come out to hear these guys at our first concert next Friday!  We need your support, by attending, to make our concert series a success.

Montana Slim String Band – Gt Falls, Feb 6

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this just in from Great Falls

Stone Soup Productions presents

Who: MONTANA SLIM STRING BAND
         from San Francisco
What: original & traditional bluegrass

When: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2010 @ 7 PM
Where: 1ST ENGLISH LUTHERAN CHURCH (726 – 2nd Avenue North)
How much: $10

Tickets at: Vintage Sellers (105 Smelter Avenue in the 2J’s Complex),
– Planet Earth (116 Central Avenue),
– Penny’s
Gourmet To Go (815 Central Avenue),
– First English Lutheran Church
office (112 – 8th Street North)
– or out-of-town folks may call
406-771-1544 to reserve tickets. 

Yep, the name says Montana but they’re actually from San Francisco, and this is one very talented young outfit.  Montana Slim were in alists in the 2009 NorthWest String Summit Band Competition and they’re working their way around the western United States right now in support of their CD “Slim Pickins.”  Sandy & I were down in the Bay Area at Thanksgiving and we got to catch two brilliant sets of original bluegrass music at The Connecticut Yankee so when MSSB called to say they were going to be coming up through Montana, we figured we’d better throw a Stone Soup hoedown.

Brent McClain: mandolin, vocals
Jesse Dunn: rhythm guitar, vocals
Sean Duerr: lead acoustic guitar, vocals
Turi Hoiseth: fiddle, vocals
Dave Lockhart: upright bass

My favorite review of MSSB’s music:

“A lone mandolin announces their arrival. Like much of the full-length
debut from the Montana Slim String Band, it’s a classically high
lonesome sound adapted to something quite non-Bill Monroe. While the
pluck and snap of the instruments harks back to a fine lineage of
mountain music and bluegrass, there’s subtle modernity to their tales,
appealing boy-girl harmonies and nuanced playing. Montana Slim is a
direct descendant of fellow S.F. region granddaddies Old And In The
Way, and they exude a similar love for good songs played with open
feeling and strong sincerity. From the remodeled sea shanty that begins
this 11-track song cycle to the speedily picked ode to love’s
intoxicating fullness that closes the collection, Slim Pickins
encapsulates a very pure string band aesthetic that’s likely to flip
the wig of anyone into Hot Buttered Rum, Chatham County Line and other
contemporaries. But like these peers, there’s a personal thread
stitched into the traditional vibe, a line of color that emerges in
pockets and accents that stray off the beaten path. This ain’t no
“jam-grass” but it’s clear there’s plenty going on upstairs in this
classy, strongly musical ensemble that I think Mother Maybelle would
have loved.”

– Dennis Cook, Jambase

http://www.myspace.com/MontanaSlimMusic
Click the link above and you can listen to some of their songs.  I strongly
recommend “Don’t Fly Away” and “Whiskey Ain’t My Wife.”

This band, well… dare I say it? Yes, I do!  This band kicks butt!  Tight harmonies, solid pickin’, great original songs, and fine covers all say that the future of acoustic music is in VERY good hands with young people like Montana Slim String Band. 

Don’t look for a piece in the Trib’s Hot Ticket because once again I’ve gone and missed the deadline (d’oh!), but if I’ve learned anything in this town over the years it’s that I can always count on friends to share things around by word-of-mouth.  Your help, please?  Maybe even forward this email to some friends? 

Here’s hoping we’ll see you this Saturday night for music that’s guaranteed to chase the winter blues away!

+ Tim Christensen