Hello dear friends and music lovers!

This has already been a very busy and successful summer for Misner & Smith and we're very proud of all that we've accomplished. Now we humbly ask for your help, join us as we take our music to the next level!

Our NEW album, 'Seven Hour Storm' is already moving forward! We spent four days of intense work with our producer Jeff Kazor (The Crooked Jades, Richard Buckner) and our sound engineer Bruce Kaphan (David Byrne, R.E.M., The Black Crowes) and completed pre-production for the new album, 'Seven Hour Storm'. The sessions were full of inspiring ideas and plans for the shape and sound of the new music! 

TODAY we launch our fundraising campaign to raise the money needed to complete this project. It is our most ambitious album yet and we're very excited to share it with you! There are also many perks or 'thank you gifts' available at every level of donation. Every dollar counts and gets us closer to our goal of finishing this album. You can also help us tremendously by spreading the word and sharing this information with your friends and family by email or on social networks like facebook and twitter. 

We are using the online fundraising platform of Indiegogo.com. This is a secure website that will handle all contributions made to our campaign. Please let us know if you have any questions about Indiegogo or how it all works.

When you contribute to this project you become a part of of this album and with the simple act of giving you are directly funding art that you believe in. Join us on this journey and become part of this next chapter for Misner & Smith!

All of our gratitude!

Sam and Megan

~Misner & Smith~

How can a 'little' band get bigger?

The new album, "Seven Hour Storm" is taking shape already! We've had four days of 'pre-production' sessions with our producer Jeff Kazor, our Sound Engineer Bruce Kaphan, and our full band - Henry Misner (Cloud Season) on electric guitar and Rob Bayne (When the Billionaire Plays Guitar) on drums!

We spent four days over two weeks in Bruce Kaphan's studio in beautiful Niles, CA and came away with some gorgeous demos and lots of amazing ideas for the upcoming album, "Seven Hour Storm".
The first day consisted of deep discussion about the direction of the new album, we asked lots of questions and brainstormed about how we can broaden the scope of our music for this new offering. We also devoted time to mic testing, choosing the perfect mics to capture the sounds of our vocals and instruments. The results were amazing, on the second day of pre-production we recorded demo versions of the songs that are slated to be on the album as it is now in live takes. Then we listened back to what we'd been able to capture. The sound is immaculate, a beautiful snap shot of our full sound as the duo.

Megan Smith & Bruce Kaphan

On the third day we had a four hour session with our full band and captured demos for five of the songs that will be on the new album complete with the full band sound. We had a blast playing with Henry and Rob and after the recording was completed we sat down and had some more thrilling discussion about musical possibilities and arrangements for the new album. The ideas were flying and it continued to inspire and inform our direction with the new music.

Henry Misner & Rob Bayne

The final day was all about deconstructing the elements of our sound as the duo, defining the key ingredients that make the Misner & Smith sound what it is. We broke down the song "Seven Hour Storm" and recorded it in it's separate parts, vocals and acoustic guitar. Then we started to play around with the arrangement, adding more vocals and playing with the feel and sound of the guitar parts. We walked away from the last day of pre-production with the feeling that the sky's the limit for the sound of this new album. Even the small adjustments we made of adding extra vocals onto the title track, "Seven Hour Storm" made the song open up and the result was inspiring! And after four days of intense work we walked away with a really good feeling about the direction the music is taking us.

Sam Misner & Jeff Kazor

So, why is it important to us to do this next album in a studio with a producer, a sound engineer, and guest musicians? 

This is the question we get most about this new album and it's a great one.
Over the last eight years we've put out three full-length albums of original music. Halfway Home and Poor Player were both recorded in a studio as live takes, we played the songs live and the sound engineer captured our performances without any "over-dubbing" or adding extra tracks of instruments and vocals. And of course our live album Live at the Freight & Salvage was an amazing experience and captured a truly unique and electric night of live performance in a state-of-the-art acoustic concert hall with a full audience. It also gave us the rare opportunity to pre-release three of the songs that are to be included on our new album to give our audiences a glimpse into the near future of our musical direction. We're very proud of all our albums and all that we've accomplished because of them and now we're ready to try something new! Our imaginations are teeming with more musical ideas than four hands and two voices can produce on their own. The songwriting and specifically the lyrics of our new songs are filled with stories and characters that beg for musical exploration, these new songs are pushing us to dig deeper into our music than ever before. We're looking forward to getting the chance to really flesh out those musical ideas and bring them to fruition with this new album.

Now it's nearly time to launch our BIG fundraising campaign to get the funds together to make this album the most ambitious project we've tackled yet!

How can a little band get bigger? With tons of exposure and buzz!
We take a lot of pride in our music and how hard we work to craft and shape it into something that music lovers can really enjoy on a deep level. But, it takes lots of money to push through all the information that this modern world has to offer and get our new music above the fray. A well-recored/produced album can make all the difference to a first time listener who has the clout to give us a good review or some airtime on a radio station with a huge listener base like NPR. And with a big push in the promotion department we can make serious strides to getting our music to a wider audience and begin the slow climb to playing larger music festivals, etc...

Indiegogo is the crowd-funding platform that we've chosen to use for our campaign to make our new record. We hope you'll join our team and help us make this recording the best that we can make it not to mention getting it out to the world at large! We'll be launching our fundraising campaign this week and every dollar counts, every friend, family member, and acquaintance you share our campaign with helps us to reach our goal. Be our record company by contributing to "Seven Hour Storm" and be a part of what is to come for Misner & Smith!

Here's a little taste of what we accomplished in pre-production . . . enjoy!

The NEW ALBUM "Seven Hour Storm"

We can barely contain our excitement as we plan the next steps towards our newest and biggest project yet! Misner & Smith are now embarking on our fourth full length album, Seven Hour Storm. Packed with NEW original music and crafted carefully, we are pulling out all the stops on this project.
Over the last eight years, we've completed three albums, Halfway Home (2004), Poor Player (2008), and, Live at the Freight & Salvage (2010).

As some of you already know, we began our musical partnership after being cast in a production of the musical, Woody Guthrie's American Song in 2004. That experience became the backdrop of our first notes together. As we sang in harmony during the show we realized our vocal blend was a special one, beyond the everyday, we felt lucky to have found each other and the sound we discovered began to take shape in our own music. But Woody Guthrie's influence is always present in what we strive to accomplish with our own work, songs that tell stories, filled with hope, in universal themes.
Now we find ourselves in another production of this same show and filled with all the same inspiration as before. Performing this piece in one of the best acoustic halls in the country, The Freight & Salvage. Working with some of our favorite artists on this show and singing some of the best songs ever written.

The cast of Woody Guthrie's American Song 2012 at The Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley, CA.

Photo by: Ray Chavez Mercury News

We cannot think of a better time to announce the beginning of our fundraising campaign for our new album. On July 25th we will launch a fundraising campaign to record, mix, master, manufacture, and promote our newest offering, Seven Hour Storm.  We will be using crowd funding to raise the funds necessary on the online fundraising platform Indiegogo. The campaign will run just under two months and you can help. This is just a heads up to let you all know about this upcoming opportunity. We are counting on our fans to be our record company. To contribute directly to our music and make this album with us!

And we've already begun the recording process! Though this album will be a long term project, due out in early spring of 2013, we are not wasting any time in getting a good start. We will be working with Sound Engineer Bruce Kaphan who has worked with well-known artists such as David Byrne, The Black Crows, Camper Van Beethoven, R.E.M., and Sheryl Crow. And Jeff Kazor, well known for his work with The Crooked Jades, among others will produce the album. We have already had a handful of 'pre-production' sessions in the studio with great success! The idea behind this album is to push ourselves musically and by making an album with more musicians and a producer, etc... we hope to position ourselves for the next stage of our career as Misner & Smith. But never fear, we are all very aware that we want to keep true to the sound that we've developed over the last eight years. 

So, we hope you'll come along with us on this journey and take this rare opportunity to directly contribute to art that you believe in. Please stay tuned, we'll be writing about all of our adventures along the way. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, we could never do this without you! Here's a little taste of what's to come, the title track "Seven Hour Storm" in it's original incarnation...

'America' MiSNER & SMiTH LO~Fi ViDEOCAST

Misner & Smith are The Deli's 'Artist of the Month'!

THE DELI'S FEATURES --

June Artist of the Month Sam Misner of Misner & Smith sat down with the Deli to talk about the duo's busy summer touring the U.S. Catch the Americana/Folk revivalists in SF before they're on the road again at The Rockit Room on July 9 with Jonny Cat & the Coo Coo Birds.

Deli: How is 2011 shaping up for the band and what can fans expect?
We’re really having a great time in 2011 so far—we just got back from two weeks touring in England, did a Pacific Northwest tour before that and will be heading back up there this August. There’s a good chance that we’ll be going down to Austin and the Southwest this fall too.

In the meantime we have a couple shows in San Francisco with our full band, which we love to do when we can. Rob Bayne plays drums and Henry Misner plays electric guitar. Most of our shows on the road are just the two of us—though when you travel with an upright bass it’s like having a third person in the band who doesn’t carry anything. We’re planning on working more with the full band this year, and for our next album we’re hoping to fill out the instrumentation more than we’ve done in the past too. We love the idea of having the songs work in both formations, still centered around tight vocal harmonies and lyrics but with some more intricate arrangements. We won’t ever leave the duo thing, though. There’s something really pure about two acoustic instruments and two voices.

Deli: Describe the best live gig you ever played and why?
The first time we played at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley a couple years ago was definitely a high point. The venue has such an amazing legacy as an acoustic venue for over 40 years, with many of our heroes on the list of people who have played there. We were honored to play there in the first few months in their new space, which is a beautiful 450 seat theater with great sound. Plus we had decided to record the show for a live album, so there was this undercurrent buzz of excitement that really pushed us to play our best. We released Live at the Freight & Salvage in the Fall of 2010 and have been getting some great feedback about it from both fans and reviewers alike.

Deli: Who are your biggest musical influences?
The Band, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, The Beatles, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Gram Parsons, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Woody Guthrie, Grateful Dead, the Muppets, Talking Heads, to name a few…

Deli: Who are you currently listening to?
Dr. Dog. We can’t say enough about those guys. Especially their albums “Fate” and “Shame, Shame”. Really intelligent songwriting and arrangements that are fun at the same time. Everything they do serves the song. And we love what they do with vocal harmonies—it’s complicated stuff but they sure make it sound easy. And the fact that they can pull it all off live is amazing.

Deli: If you could make music in another time, when and where would it be and what scene would you join?
That’s a tough question because there are so many time periods that had fantastic music and there’s great stuff happening today. Judging from our influences we’d probably have had a lot of fun in the 1960’s and 70’s folk and rock scene. We’d also feel right at home on someone’s front porch in Blue Ridge Mountains in the 1800’s.

Deli: What do you love about the Bay Area?
It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world, first off. The more we tour and are away from home the more we realize what a special place the Bay Area is to live. Where else can you be so close to mountains, the ocean, the redwoods—the Marin Headlands and up to Point Reyes is an incredible. And then you throw in all creativity that’s going on and supported here, it’s quite a combination.

Deli: Favorite venue in the Bay Area?
The Freight & Salvage is our favorite venue that we’ve played, although, we also love the vibe at The Independent in San Francisco and we’d love to play their stage with the full band someday.

Deli: Can you name a few other local bands you feel particularly close to on an artistic level?
The Crooked Jades, Coyote Grace, Misisipi Mike (and all his musical projects), The Magic Leaves, The Stairwell Sisters to name a few.

UK TOUR with British duo Breeze & Wilson

So here we are! We made it over the pond to the old country and we're resting up for a few days with the Beswicks (Megan's Mum's family) before we set out for the midlands and our first three shows on our first UK tour!
Five years ago we traveled to England and met Breeze & Wilson at a meeting of the Real Music Club run by Neal Dalton. We've kept in touch since then hoping that we would one day be able to meet up again and share some shows together.
Back to present day, we are now back in England for the next two weeks and Breeze & Wilson have been kind enough to organize seven shows for us to play with them during our time here. We will play two House Concerts and the rest of the shows are to be held a Village Halls around the Midlands area. This is our first tour out of the U.S. as Misner & Smith and we couldn't be more excited about being here. No doubt there will be plenty of adventures to be had and stories to tell upon our return.
Check back here on our blog for more entries about how the shows are going and what's happening on this tour. Thanks for tuning in! To watch a video of our performance on the Santa Rosa radio station KSRO click HERE.

With the full band at The Alternative Cafe

Playing as a duo is awesome, but we also happen to be lucky enough to know two lads who are stellar musicians and who also love playing with us! Henry Misner (yes, he is related to Sam) and Rob Bayne who also have their own musical project called TOBA joined us for a show at The Alternative Cafe in Seaside, CA this past July. We all had a blast playing together and got some very good live recordings out of the gig as well. Take a listen to what we got that night. What do you all think about a possible live EP with the full band. Let us know what you think and be sure to check out TOBA, you won't regret it.
WATCH VIDEO: 'Compose' with the full band
WATCH VIDEO: 'Seven Hour Storm' with the full band

CD RELEASE-Misner & Smith: Live At The Freight & Salvage

We're back out on the road promoting our latest CD just released this month, Misner & Smith: Live At The Freight & Salvage! This one is very special folks, recorded live at Berkeley, California's famed Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse this new CD captures us at our best. Those of you who have seen us live know that we are most comfortable sharing our music face to face. We had an excellent audience of about 200 people the night this was recorded and when you listen to the album you can feel the energy of that wonderful night bursting out of the stereo! We are proud to offer this CD hot-off-the-presses at our live shows and it will soon be available at CdBaby and iTunes. Thanks to all of our family, friends, and fans who made this recording possible.

Final weekend of " Woody Guthrie's American Song"

One of the things we love about the craft of theatre is working with a group of people to create something much bigger than oneself. At it's best it can be an act of selflessness, a belief that even though theatre is intangible and transient, it is a means of strong communication. A collective experience that can be shared by many different people and when it's done right this experience can have a lasting positive effect on the larger culture or society. It's going to be very difficult to say goodbye to this production of Woody Guthrie's American Song because it feels like it represents some of the best things that live theatre can offer.
We hope that you can come and join us for the last handful of shows this weekend of June 25-27. There are some rush tickets at $15 (subject to availability) for the final five shows. For more information about tickets please call the Box Office (415.388.5208) at the Marin Theatre Company.

Interview with Sam featured on RARWRITER.com

Doug Strobel interviews Sam Misner for the online music magazine, RARWRITER.com. We're featured on the main page, scroll slightly down to find the article.

Misner & Smith are 'featured artists' in the online magazine, The Alternate Root

Check out this review of our first album, Halfway Home in the online music magazine, The Alternate Root. We are featured as 'artists of the week'.
"Woody Guthrie has left America and Americans an astounding legacy. He spent his years giving hope to the hopeless and fanning the flames of social action with a voice, a belief and a guitar. On a personal level, what brought Woody joy was the music. Americana and Folk were in his heart and in his songs.

San Francisco Bay Area folk duo Sam Misner and Megan Smith share a lot with Woody and owe him thanks for a chance meeting. The two acted together in a production of Woody Guthrie’s ‘American Song’. While performing they realized that beyond sharing a stage, the pair also shared a love of the music that the marquee’s namesake brought to the world. Like Woody, Megan and Sam are travelers, with guitars and voices. They are festival and coffee house mainstays throughout the West and Southwest.

Their most recent effort, ‘Halfway Home’, showcases songwriting that pays homage to the folk tradition while adding their own fresh take on the genre. Sam and Megan’s lyrics are as clear and piercing as their harmonies. The chiming of guitars and voices is mesmerizing and infectious, like the laughter described in the title track as two characters enter into a budding romance. The rhythms continues on the songs that move feet and mind (“Fall Away”, “Henry and Lil”, “In Life With Love”) and slow the pace for a more quiet reflection (“Keep in Time”, “Shadow of Embraces”, “Madeline”). Driven by the tasty blend of voices, the music rides along atop bluegrass, folk and Americana sound waves. ‘Halfway Home’ is a powerful testament to tradition, story telling and doing what you love."
-By DANNY McCLOSKEY for THE ALTERNATE ROOT 3/22/10
http://www.thealternateroot.com/index.php/features/featured-artists-of-the-week

Hello friends! We are so busy playing music these days that we hardly have any time to post all our news, but there is a lot going on for Misner & Smith these days so here's a quick update of all the latest!

Our monthly show schedule has been keeping us our toes and March is no exception. This weekend alone we play shows in Novato, Seaside, Davis, & a special House Concert at Stinson Beach. The full details are all available on our website Misner & Smith as usual but some highlights of the March calendar are this weekend Friday March 19th 8:00pm at The Alternative Cafe in Seaside and Sunday, March 21st 4:00pm at Drew Pearce's Stinson Beach Music Party . Then on Saturday, March 27th we play in Berkeley at Caren Armstrong's Celebrating Songwriters sharing the bill with Austin Willacy. In April we'll be playing a few shows in the Bay Area before taking a long hiatus while we go back on the road for a while. Our last show in San Francisco until at least July will take place at The Climate Theatre on Wednesday, April 7th 7:00pm. KC Turner has put together a great bill for the Climate, first up The Skinny, then The Courtney Janes, and then we finish out the night with a set of our original tunes!
On April 22nd we embark on our Northwest Tour of 2010. With stops in McKinleyville, Ashland, Eugene, Portland, Seattle and Port Townsend we are really excited to share our music with a whole new audience. Needless to say, if you have friends or family in any of these cities please spread the word!
As soon as we get back home we begin rehearsals for the Marin Theatre Company's production of Woody Guthrie's American Song. If you haven't seen this show it is an experience you won't want to miss and we're not just saying that because we're a part of it. It is a very compelling show with beautifully crafted language and gorgeous five-part harmonies. This production is one you'll want to share with people you love, so bring your loved ones and be there for an experience you'll never forget.
After the show closes we'll have a couple weeks off before we jump back in the ol' Subaru for our Southwest Tour of 2010. We had a wonderful time last fall when we toured out to Austin, TX and back and this time we've got more shows and more cities than before. Some of the new venues we'll be hitting along the way include, The Bugle Boy in La Grange, TX, Angel's Serenity in Scottsdale, AZ, Fiddler's Dream in Phoenix, AZ, and The Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena, CA.
Well that's most of the news, thanks for reading and hope to see you all out at a show soon!

Another glowing review! Paul Liberatore of the Marin Independent Journal calls Poor Player "outstanding".

"Sonoma County singer-songwriters Sam Misner and Megan Smith began performing together as a duo after discovering their mutual affection for folk music when they were both actors in a production of Woody Guthrie's American Song.
Incidentally, six years later, they've been cast in the Marin Theatre Company's presentation of the musical celebration of Guthrie. It opens May 27 in Mill Valley.
Misner, who flatpicks an acoustic guitar and sings in a firm, pleasant tenor, is one of the most promising songwriters I've heard in quite some time. He works in an intelligent, witty style that reminds me of a less acerbic Loudon Wainwright III.
His song “Compose,” its melody graced by lovely and surprising chord changes, deservedly won best song at two recent regional competitions of West Coast Songwriters.
Charming lyrics like “verses, sonnets and prose/And she knows it's all just ribbons and bows/Some rhymes are harder and sometimes it shows I suppose” are reminiscent of the young Paul Simon.
And there's something unmistakably Dylanesque in the talking blues of the title track, nominated last year in the “New Folk” category by the international music organization Just Plain Folks.
With Misner's acoustic guitar strumming and Smith playing stand-up bass and adding texture with mandolin and guitar, the duo creates a comfortably resonant neo-folk sound highlighted by sweet but strong two-part harmonies.
Smith adds a trio of fine songs to the 10 on this outstanding CD — the melodic ballad “Wanderin' Fool,” the old school folk tune “Polly” and the softly evocative “Rainday.”
"Poor Player" is about a neophyte performer nervously waiting in the wings.
After recently headlining at Freight & Salvage, the prestigious acoustic showcase in Berkeley, these two have moved up in class from that lowly status. Their next album could very well be called "Star Power." "

By Paul Liberatore for the Marin Independent Journal

Published 2/26/10

Our interview with Mary Tilson on *America's Back 40* KPFA

Hey y'all! If you missed our interview and live performance on KPFA last Sunday you can listen to it at *America's Back 40*. The host of 'The hicks from coast to coast', Mary Tilson, asks us about our acting careers, songwriting, Shakespeare, Woody Guthrie and everything in between, plus we got to sing four of our songs live on the air.

We had a great time on this show and our interview begins about an hour into the program. Enjoy!

Feature Article in Davis Life Magazine

Read all about us in this month's edition of the Davis Life Magazine. The article, written by Doug Fetterly, is an in depth look at who we are, how we started, and why we continue to make music together. To read the full article go to Davis Life Magazine Enjoy!

• Southwest Tour • T OR C

A particularly cold and wet afternoon has kept me indoors at Aqus Cafe in the town of Petaluma, CA where we'll be playing tomorrow night. A hot drink in my hand and my mind is drifting back to no-man's land and jumping in that river called the Rio Grande.

Further south than the mountains of Santa Fe, T or C (as the locals call it) was significantly warmer, but not exactly balmy for an outdoor concert--somewhere in the low to mid 50's, if memory serves. Luckily, we were playing in a covered gazebo/patio area right next to the hot tubs, and Jake, the owner, set up a couple propane heaters and aimed them at the stage area like two large footlights pointing up at us.


People started coming in, appropriately bundled up or carrying blankets. About twenty five chairs had been set up and as we started into our set they found their seats and settled in for the music. The sun had set behind us but we could still make out the line of Turtleback Mountain in the dusk, and the bend of the Rio Grande rolling past us.

We were full of energy and basking in the glow of a warm audience of strangers as the night rolled on. We could even hear cheers coming from the hot tubs, which helped to remind us of what we had to look forward to after we finished playing.



After an hour and a half-long set we thanked everyone for coming out and braving the chill for some live music. After chatting with several of the locals who had come from town to hear us we packed our stuff back to our room and made a beeline for the hot spring tubs. I can't think of a better way to cap off a great outdoor evening show than a soak in natural hot springs a mere stones-throw from where we'd played our last notes.

The three hottest public tubs were under a gazebo overlooking the river with the two other tubs a few steps below. As we unwound in the water, faces full of grins, I remembered the ecstatic feeling from jumping in the cold, cold waters back in Desert Hot Springs and decided that it was only fitting to see if the mighty Rio Grande would do the same. It did.

And our heads hit the pillows that night like stones falling softly through water until our thoughts rested at the bottom of some sleepy river rolling through truth, or consequences, or both.

• Southwest Tour • Arizona to New Mexico

We drove north through Arizona and started climbing steadily. The air began to get noticeably colder as we gained elevation. By the time we reached the outskirts of Sedona, AZ in the late afternoon the clouds had started to gather above the red cliffs and wind began to pick up with a bite. As the sun sank below the clouds it lit up the red rocks with long beams skirting along the ground and illuminating the cliffs from the side, making them seem to hover and glow above us as if on display. Dusk turned to dark and the waxing moon rose slowly while clouds politely cleared out of it's way, clinging to the horizon and leaving their chilly moisture hanging in the air until they returned with a slight mist as we parked in town and found a place to eat.

After a great meal and a few innings of the World Series (Phillies/Yankees) we decided to try and make it to Gallup, New Mexico--a few more hours down the road. With snow a possibility we made our way through some winding mountain roads and met up with I-40 to begin heading east again on old Route 66. About forty minutes west of Gallup we came to a dead stop and looked ahead at what seemed like miles of brake lights. It was coming on 10pm and the dropping temperatures had created black ice all over the road. In the two hours or so it took us to go the remaining twenty miles we saw a U-haul trailer with what appeared to be a family's entire belongings scattered across the freezing road, and a jack-knifed FedEx semi twisted, tipped, and laying forlorn on it's side in the median. A humbling reminder of just how dangerous these roads can be and how fragile our little flesh and bones really are.

We made it to Gallup around 1:30am, found a Super 8 motel off the interstate and quickly unloaded the instruments from the car, out of the frigid New Mexico night. Tired, but safe and thankful to have a place to rest for a few hours, we relaxed and quickly fell asleep with Route 66, frozen river of asphalt, waiting for us to hop back on in the morning...

The windows were frozen when we woke up and started loading the car early the next morning. A cup of coffee and cup of PG Tips tea warmed us up for the drive to Santa Fe, and a freight train let out a long pull on the air horn as we put the car in gear. Snow dusted the tops of red cliffs along the highway, making them look as if someone had spread icing over them, or powdered sugar. These deep red plateaus had started rising up in our sights the day before as we'd driven up to and through Sedona and we followed them all the way to Santa Fe.

We spent the night in a Motel 6 a few miles out of downtown and after a brief walk around the Mission we made our way to El Farol, the oldest bar in the city. A very warm and pleasant place with a fantastic little stage for music. Hopefully we can book something there the next time we're out that way.

With a four hour drive to Truth Or Consequences ahead of us, we spent the next morning wandering along Canyon Road, dropping into a few art galleries here and there. Gardens were filled with sculptures, abstract, realistic, modern, and even though it was about 28 degrees, the cold seemed to add a buzz to the morning somehow. Everything was crisp and clear, and the conversations we had with people we met were all up-beat and friendly. Several of the galleries had blazing fires in whitewashed adobe fireplaces. And everything seemed to have a touch of turquoise to set off the earthy reds and oranges. There may not be a more beautiful combination of colors on earth.

The highway took us due south for awhile, shuttling us along Albuquerque's outskirts, crisscrossing the Rio Grande several times, passing out of the mountainous north to the flatter and drier landscape of Southern New Mexico. The only trees were huddled in the flood plain of the Rio Grande as it wound it's lazy way through the valley to spill eventually into the Gulf of Mexico several hundred miles away.

But we set our sights for Truth Or Consequences; an ultimatum of a town on the banks of the river, in the shadow of Turtleback Mountain, named after the large outcropping of rocks at the top of a ridge that looks like a giant turtle climbed up for the view and decided to stay there forever.

Riverbend Hot Springs looks right up at the turtle from the west bank of the river and was our destination for the night. It was still a couple hours till our show's curtain so we checked into our room and went into town for a bite to eat. A brief description of the resort is warranted because we had no idea what to expect other than the few pictures on the website.

Rooms were tastefully painted with Southwest tones our eyes had become accustomed to over the past few days in the high desert. The six or seven Double-wides that made up the accommodations each contained varying numbers of bedrooms--some private, some shared, hostel-type lodgings. We were treated to our own two bedroom place, so our traveling instruments had their own bed. But they, and we, had a show to put on first, so we headed down the path to the outdoor patio where Misner & Smith would make their much anticipated Truth Or Consequences debut....

What is a House Concert?

Since we've been performing at more of these 'House Concert' venues recently we thought we'd explain little more about what they are. This acoustic concert medium is fast becoming one of our favorite ways to share our music and we hope you all will join us for a House Concert experience in the near future!

A House Concert is a fast-growing circuit of performance venues all across the country for acoustic musicians. Generous hosts open their homes to provide a uniquely intimate place for musicians to perform and for music lovers to experience a live show. Imagine seeing your favorite artists or being introduced to new ones in the comfort of a living room. These are not house parties (though they often include pot-lucks) but rather a full-fledged concert with the music being the focus of the night.

Anyone can host a House Concert, even you! It takes a little bit of effort to organize, but is relatively inexpensive, and one of the best ways you can support independent musicians. If you are interested in being a host, or just want more information about house concerts feel free to email us at: sammisner@yahoo.com or check out a great website devoted to these types of shows:
http://www.concertsinyourhome.com

Berkeley House Concert *FOLK MUSIC*

For tickets, reservations and more info please email FOLK MUSIC's host at:
audrey12@comcast.net
There is limited seating so reserve your spot today!
Go to the Event invitation on Facebook: http://bit.ly/4OEH65

We will be performing at FOLK MUSIC, a very well established house concert venue in Berkeley, CA. Some of their recent performers include NINA GERBER, CHRIS WEBSTER, and CLAUDIA RUSSELL. A House Concert is a very unique and intimate way to experience live music.

’Living rooms were made for live music.’
~Concerts in Your Home~
http://www.concertsinyourhome.com/index.html

We're At The Freight & Salvage in January!