We had a wonderful time on Sunday afternoon at the Pines.  Perfect weather, a lovely venue, great help, and, above all, terrific performances.

You can find photos from the day at Josh Stearns’s Flickr Set, Tom Adams’s Facebook album, and my Facebook album.  I’ve set up a YouTube playlist (embedded below) with the videos I’ve posted and a montage Tom Adams (of Reelife Productions) put together; I’ll add more videos to that if I come across them.  You can also go to my YouTube channel to see my videos separately.  The videos include Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell & Family, all performing together for the first time in public (joined by a bunch of other folks, including Tony Vacca, Rani Arbo, Scott Kessel, and others!).

I don’t know the precise numbers yet, but I can say safely that we raised thousands of dollars.  Thanks to all of you and to all of our amazing sponsors for the support!

And, as I noticed late in the day, the day of this event marked exactly six months out from Meltdown 2011!

The CD is now available at A Child’s Garden as well as at Cup & Top and Turn It Up.  Tuesday, it is available everywhere!  (Pre-order now from Amazon if you don’t have a local record store to buy it from.)  I don’t know if I’ve made it clear before, but it will be available on iTunes as well.

Tickets for the Pines show are available (with no service charge) at Turn It Up and at the Toy Box.  You can also buy them online with a pretty reasonable service charge of just 99 cents per ticket at Brown Paper Tickets.

We have some great sponsors already lined up for the show here.  If you’re interested, contact me soon.

We’re about a week away from the record’s August 10 national release date, so how about some updates?

First, buying the CD:

• Locals: The CD is available at Turn It Up Records (Northampton, Brattleboro, and Montague Center) and at Cup & Top Cafe (Florence Center)!
• Non-locals: The CD will be available at your local record store, assuming the existence of same.  If they don’t have it, ask for it!  It has national distribution from E1 and will be available through any major one-stop.
• If you don’t have a local record store, you can order it from Amazon.  Use this link and the nice folks at This Might Be a Wiki will not just donate their commission but also match it!

Second, seeing the release shows.  There are a bunch:

• Sunday August, 15: Dog on Fleas, Grenadilla, Uncle Rock, Rosendale Theater, Rosendale, NY (Details)
• Friday, August 20: Elizabeth Mitchell & Family and Frances England, Mill Valley Library, Mill Valley, CA (free) (Details)
• Saturday, August 21: Dog on Fleas, Lunch Money, Randy Kaplan, Deedle Deedle Dees, Armory, Somerville, MA (Details & ticket link)
• Saturday, September 11, 11:00: Randy Kaplan, Johnny Bregar, and Recess Monkey, Multnomah Arts Center, Portland, OR, presented by A Child’s Time to Rock! (Tickets)
• Saturday, September 11: Deedle Deedle Dees, Gustafer Yellowgold, Dog on Fleas, Knitting Factory, Brooklyn, NY (Tickets)
• Sunday, September 26: Dan Zanes, Elizabeth Mitchell & Family, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Deedle Deedle Dees, Tony Vacca, Grenadilla, Pines Theater, Look Park, Northampton, MA. (Buy tickets now!)

Third, other stuff:

• Songs from the CD have been getting play on lots of family radio shows, including our show, Sirius/XM, Ages 3 and Up!, and so on.  Do you do a show and haven’t gotten the CD yet?  Send me a note (show at sparetherock dot com) and we’ll hook you up.
• On a related note, Sirius/XM’s Kids’ Place Live (I won’t be doing the wacky capitalization, nope) recorded what sounds like an amazing Rumpus Room in-studio with Uncle Rock, Dog on Fleas, Recess Monkey, and Grenadilla.  It’ll air the weekend after the CD comes out; check out some pictures here from Out With the Kids.
• There aren’t a lot of reviews out yet, but Out With the Kids sure liked it.
• Zooglobble has a limited-time preview of the Lunch Money song.  Go check it out!

That’s all for now.  Please — please! — tell your friends and family about the CD, send them a link to ManyHandsCD.com, and buy/order the CD today!

Well, this year’s Green River Festival is, as Jim Olsen puts it every year, in the books. This was the first year the festival had a family tent, and they invited me and the River to put it all together. We had a metric boatload of fun. I’m uploading a ton of videos to YouTube right now. If you want to see my first batch of pictures, visit here for day one and here for day two.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the festival and stopped by our area.  If you have any suggestions for future years, please either e-mail me (show AT sparetherock DOT com) or comment below.

Saturday and Sunday, folks!  For the full schedule, including the two grown-up stages, see GreenRiverFestival.com.  Here’s the lineup for the Meltdown Camp Stage (there will be demonstrations from New England Circus Arts):

Saturday

1:30 Sarah Lee Guthrie & Family

2:20 Sweetback Sisters

2:45 Elizabeth Mitchell & Family

3:40 The Nields

4:30 Under the Tree Music

5:00 Primate Fiasco & Puppet Parade

6:30 Deedle Deedle Dees

7:30 Academy Freightshakers

8:20 LuxDeluxe

9:00 IMA Bands: The Feel/TBD/Horrible Appetite

Sunday

12:00 Flannery Brothers

12:50 Ratboy Jr.

1:40 Mister G

2:30 Joe’s Backyard Band

3:20 Alexandra & the Good Batch

4:10 StarFish

5:00 School for the Dead

5:50 Royal Order of Chords and Keys

Throughout both days, Under the Tree Art will be leading all sorts of great kid-friendly activities — arts, crafts, music, and more!

We’re crazy lucky to have The Nields here in the Pioneer Valley.  They’ve got a super fun new DVD, “Organic Farm,” out now, and they’re having a DVD release party for it at the lovely Tuesday Market in just a couple of weeks – Tuesday, June 15, from 2:30 to 5:30.

And of course, don’t forget that they’re playing the Meltdown Stage at the Green River Festival!