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....