Columbus’s hard rock, heavy blues playing five-some Citizens Brigade have unleashed their debut album 13 Shiny Guns. The disc un-holsters 13 shiny new tracks filled with the working man’s ethic: hard earned, hard played blues and influences ranging from Black Sabbath to the Black Crowes. 13 Shiny Guns delivers the boozy blues and hard rock double fist fight of a backwoods brawl behind the woodshed. Troy Bennet’s vocals greet Elvis, Danzig and play Chris Isaak’s wicked game with a rockabilly twang.
The title track shoots off with a harmonica solo into a back-porch juke, jive and jam honky tonk’en on a XXX rated jug of shine. It’s a good ole cow tippin’ tune with an angry anthrax surprise. The Skynyrd-esque “Time Grow” is mid tempo enough to rock on the porch sipping some extra spicy strong ice tea then knocks the taste out of your mouth with a surprise ending sucker punch of thrash and speed. The tank’s a “Quarter Empty,” but there’s still plenty of diesel and gas to set the road on fire. “Noboy’s Cryin’” over you city fool so get back on the porch and mind yo’ damn business.
Memories of you are going 4 Feet Deep after drudging me through the emotional swamp muck and I’m burying the old powerful conjuring’s on a bed of liquid flowers flowing downstream to the currents deepest, darkest resting place. “In My Mind” opens the page on some early Van Halen in a backwoods, barn rehearsal room mud stomper. “Rock in a Can” shakes with some clankin hard edged influence from Faster Pussy Cat, Black Crowes and Black Sabbath. Speaking of, Kyle Campbell starts “Yeah” with a riff straight out of Tony Iommi’s personal collection. www.brigadenation.com
Throughout the years since the first Hog Jam, Herdman has constantly tried to make the weekend bigger and better this than the previous. This year, Herdman has enlisted another festival organizer and friend Jim Hamden to help make the eighth installment the best one to date. “We both work so well together, even though we are completely different people”, said Herdman. “I am just thrilled that we are actually doing this together, and plan on working together for a long time to come.”
All around the world, there are so many great jam bands. The Grateful Dead and Phish are two that have seen their popularity continue to soar. Dayton has their share of jam bands, as well. One band in particular, 
For the folks who enjoy bluegrass,
Yellow Springs is a special place for those who know it well. The town hangs it hat on being heavily centered on the arts. 
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With the video learning failing horribly, I called up Gebard to see if he could help. He mentioned that if I ever wanted some help, he would be kind enough to take some time and help me some. We sat down one afternoon in February and he gave me a couple of printed sheets of songs to dive that had the chords on top of the lyrics. The finger placement when playing the guitar is like trying to learn a foreign language. I remembered the years of learning Spanish when I was high school, and wanting to scream because it wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to. This feeling of frustration showed itself when playing with Gebard. He would show me the positioning of the fingers for each of the chords that were needed when playing Helpless by Neil Young. At times I thought that I would start to figure out the fluid flow that makes the song sound amazing. However, my fingers would let me down. The holding of the strings is a complex strategy. If you hold down on the strings a certain way, the sound played is muffled. There isn’t much of anything. So, you have to learn how to play with the tips of the fingers. It’s difficult. This isn’t a process that comes overnight.