August 2021
Dear Fisherfolk,
It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating 40 years of working together. This year makes 45 years for us. Wikipedia states that the Beatles were active as a band from 1960 to 1970. In contrast, the Rolling Stones are still active after starting in 1962. That's almost 60 years! That puts Trout somewhere in between the Beatles and the Stones! Pretty good company!
Our travel schedule has been purposefully light. Caution seems especially appropriate these days. We're still doing live streams from the Trout House Studio. Our next internet show will be Tuesday, August 10th at 7pm Central time. We broadcast to our Facebook page AND our YouTube Channel. You can see us in person on the 17th of August. We'll be playing in New Paltz NY at Mohonk Mountain House. On the 19th, TFIA will play a FREE show at Collegeville Community Park. in Collegeville, PA. Ezra currently brings five instruments when we go on the road: his new 12-string guitar, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, an electric bouzouki, and an electric banjo. For those of you keeping score, that's 37 strings to tune and replace! Both of us still proudly use Elixir strings.
We have a new t-shirt design featuring the artwork of our dear friend, Beans Barton. Kara and Jeff at Backwoods Rags in Fayetteville did an amazing job printing these up for us. The shirt comes in adult sizes on a super-soft Bella Canvas poly/cotton blend. We're also offering a deal on some of our overstocked CDs. Buy any mailable Trout item and get your choice of Big Round World, Merry Fishes to All, It's A Puzzle, Who Are These People? or Closer to the Truth for FREE! Add the CD to your shopping cart and the discount will automatically apply when you check out. E-mail our wrangler at Susan@troutmusic.com if you have any questions.
Keith and Ezra have been spending a lot of time at home and in the studio. The results of this are a whole bunch of new songs and a lot of work towards a new album. The working title for the new CD is Safe House. We're currently working on the mixing phase of the project. We'll let you know as soon as we have a projected date for its release.
One of the side benefits for Ezra of being at home all this time has been cooking! After doing a lot of research on YouTube, he's amped up his grilling skills. He's also been given some pretty incredible recipes from friends to try. It's watermelon season right now so here's a recipe from Patsy Clark for Watermelon Salad (with Ezra's commentary in parentheses). It's really delicious and refreshing!
Watermelon salad:
Approx 3-4 cups of cubed watermelon
1/2 cup crumbled feta (I used garlic herb but any will do)
2-3 Tbl. of white balsamic vinegar or if you can find it, ancho Chile balsamic. Patsy doesn’t use regular balsamic vinegar because it makes it a weird color (I've found I can deal with the color of regular balsamic)
1/2-1 Cup of shredded mint (I use spearmint. I've gotten by with half the mint)
Take care of yourselves and each other.
Troutfully yours,
Keith and Ezra