My Biography By Mick Bates (Row Bucker)

 Starting with the Cuban Missile crises and most recently with Y2K I have thus far survived three major Armageddon events and countless minor ones. Currently I am looking forward to 2012 when the Mayan calendar says the earth will end. If my luck holds and I survive 2012 I am looking forward to the singularity when computers will be able to interact intellectually with humans -- that will be cool!

Though I have tried countless times, music is an addiction I have not been able to kick and I play it because I cannot stop myself from doing so.

Greg Landkamer

Greg began playing instruments in 1962 and has been collecting them since that time.  Greg has become an instrumentalist with much experience  and  has been associated with many different vehicles, creating who he is as a musician. Namely:

Odds and Ends (1966-1968)

Lyre & Slave (1970-1976)

Delta Landing (1977-1979)

Everybody & His Brother (1983-)

The Blatts (2001-2002)

The Nightshades (2004)

The Row Buckers (2006 - present

Greg Landkamer was born December 1, 1953 in Mankato, Minnesota.  His early musical training included piano and clarinet lessons in elementary school.  He taught himself to play guitar on a toy he received as a gift in 1964.  Early influences were his oldest brother Jack on piano (frequently succumbing to “get your guitar” requests whenever Jack would sit down at the piano) learning early Paul Butterfield and Dave Brubeck tunes.  His first band, “Odds and Ends” (1966-68) included (future producer) Robert Colby on vocals, Mike Ryan on drums and his brother Pat on bass. This was at such a young age that  “we used to have to wait until the t-ball game was over so Pat could come to practice”.  Later in high school he formed the band “Lyre & Slave” (1970-76) with Paul Nelson on bass, Tim Heelan on drums, Jerry Zuhlsdorf on guitar and Tim Cline on vocals. The band had a touch of airplay with an original instrumental tune, “The Jazz Song Part Won” on the local radio station “It was fun to be out cruising around town with buddies and hearing your song come on the radio while still in high school”.  In college, he played with a country band “Delta Landing” (1977-79) which included Dave Smith on organ and bass, Tim Cline on guitar and vocals, and Dave Bateman on drums and vocals. After a “day job move to the Twin Cities” he focused on home recording under the name “Everybody & His Brother” (1983- ) producing 6 solo albums of original material to date. Guest artists on his recordings have included Patrice Pakiz on English horn, David Rue on vocals and Anthony Landkamer on electric guitar.

While teaching science at Lester Prairie High School, he met Mick Bates and the two of them started a rock band “The Blatts” (2001-02) with drummer Jamie Andrews. When Andrews left to assume the position of education director of the Minnesota Opera, he and Bates performed as the acoustic duo “The Nightshades” (2003-04).  Greg is a multi-instrumentalist and considers himself a “JOATMON” (jack of all trades master of none) - but hearing him play we tend to disagree on that last point, He is quite a musician. He “likes to keep life simple” and lives alone with his golden retriever in Watertown, Minnesota.

* Trivial fact - Greg is a published author - while working at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the 1980s he co-authored 6 publications in cancer research and immunopharmacology journals.

Nancy Winter Bates  BIO

How incredible. My first “EVER” Festival was in 2001. My dear friend Shanda Landes invited me, and I will always be grateful to her for that invitation. I had never attended a concert, let alone a music festival. I was blown away by the sense of community I felt there. Everyone seemed to be moved by the music playing in every corner of the campground at every hour of the day. It was the MBOTMA August Festival 2001.
I brought home some bluegrass CD's that I couldn’t afford and shared them with Mick, but he knew and loved bluegrass when it was  “un-cool,” and still was not moved enough to stop writing his current book. However, when I received the musical schedule for the 2003 Bluegrass Festival, guitarist Tony Rice was going to perform.  Mick considered Rice a great musician, so he agreed to go with me.  My husband had been practicing during all his free time, and he wanted me to play with his band. After playing on two dulcimers, a psaltery, and a violin, I decided to give working with my husband a shot. Would it be a disaster? I told myself - I didn’t play like anyone else, that I might touch someone, comfort someone, and even disturb someone enough to practice more!!
Today, I can’t keep Mick away from bluegrass gatherings; we go to every festival we can. He went back to an early musical love, learning flat-picking on his old friend, that piece of wood and steel. Mick and I practice a lot, heal each other, help each other—and disturb each other when simplicity sets in too much!
 

Mary McKennan:  I have been a musician since childhood, playing mostly folk in the late 60s and early 70s.  Then in 1976, I bought an Ode banjo, like the one my father had played.  I performed at the Cafe Extempore as a duo with musician/songwriter, Patrice Kersting, in late 70s.  In the early 80s, I played banjo with the all-women bluegrass group, "Clamity Jane", along with Shirley Mauch, Sandy Njoes, and Nola Barrett.  In the late 80s, the gift of a violin added fiddle to my life.  In 1990, I joined a group of missionaries on a trip to the Soviet Union, playing and performing on the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow. 

After that, life got too busy for music for a time, until I met Mick Bates and Nancy WinterBates and Greg Landkamer at the Three Crows Coffeehouse in my home town of Delano in October 2007.  The basic values of this group and the personalities just seemed to fit my ideals, and I joined them, playing banjo, fiddle, and viola.  The group has a tremendous amount of talent and diversity, and I expect great things to happen as we work together.  They have brought music back into my life, and I am very, very happy to be a part of the Row Buckers.