 It's time to kick off your shoes and let your hair down during WMPG's Bluegrass Music Festival and Arthur Nichols got a preview from station volunteer Merrill Marsh. So Merrill, there is a Bluegrass Festival coming up soon. Yes, I'm very excited about it. It's our annual WMPG Bluegrass Spectacular. The Spectacular. Yes, yes. We used to use extravaganza in the Spectacular and so now we just said spectacular. So how long have you been doing this? Ten years. Ten years, well. I started out as a fundraiser for this radio station that Tom Flynn and I put together. He was a former DJ that moved to Minnesota and it was to be just a bunch of local bands that I happen to be friendly with and say let's go on stage and promote it for, promote the show for fundraising for WMPG. So Bluegrass has gotten to be, I mean it's always been a popular genre but it's experiencing a lot of popularity now, isn't it? I think so because of the teachers that are involved in 317 Main where you can go and learn actually how to play Bluegrass. So it expanded in the city pretty much through a lot of people jamming and picking together. So it's sort of a communal thing as well as a performance. Are you a musician yourself? I play in the grass holes on occasion when they invite me. But I started the band in the back of Buck Dancer's Choice with Carl Logan and he dubbed us the grass holes and since then we've been performing and some people cringe at the name, other people get a chuckle out of it. So are the grass holes performing at Longfellow Square? They will be, they've done all ten shows as well as The Jerks of Grass which is Carl Logan's band and there will also be Tricky Bridges which is a band formed by a bunch of guys that we know including Seth Doyle who is a mandolin player who was a former grass hole. So okay so grass holes, jerks of grass, Tricky Bridges and also you have a special guest that night. Right, we always like to invite the kids from 317, they really wild the crowd. It's usually a bunch of youngsters that have been jamming together on weekday afternoons and this is their chance to do their first or maybe second performance in front of a live audience. So it's a great way to carry on the tradition. It's a wonderful way to carry on the tradition and to show what bluegrass music, how much it can help the community and help one to learn music. So where is this 10th annual spectacular? Well it's moved this year. It's going from the church on Munjoy Hills St. Lawrence, it's now going to One Long Fellow Square and it was a decision this year because it was the 10th one and we wanted to get as many people involved as we possibly could. Sure great, that's a great venue, big enough but nice and cozy and so let's see, so it's that Long Fellow Square, what day is it? It's on Monday May 14th, it's always on a Monday evening so it doesn't inflict with all the other great music we have in Portland area and it starts at, the doors open at 6 and I think the show starts, the show does start at 6.30. And so there's a cover I think, right? All the proceeds go to Benefit WMBG and I believe the cover this year is $12. Great, that sounds good. So I know that this is not quite bluegrass but do you know Chris Moore, do you know who Chris Moore is? I don't. Okay, but do you have other connections to the big world of professional bluegrass and Nashville? The jerks are the ones that are really more in tune with touring outside of the state and whatnot, Tricky Bridges is an up and coming band which is one of the things we like to promote. We've always, the third act has always been sort of a new and upcoming act in the Portland area. So those are the guys that you're apt to see outside of the arena of Portland. And so you're going to see some typical violin, mandolin, guitar, a couple other instruments. Very traditional bluegrass music will be played, a couple of originals will be played by some of the bands but they'll stick pretty much to the great bluegrass format and with the traditional bluegrass instruments. Great, so I hope you get a great crowd on Monday, May 14th, right? That's correct. And Longfellow Square. Yes. And this is to benefit WMBG. Totally to benefit WMBG for the 10th year, a great radio station that we have in this wonderful city of Portland. Dynamite, that sounds great. Thanks for coming. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.