Last Saturday, the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival asked five of the top ten vote-getting bands in their annual Last Banjo Standing competition to prove their worth. And when it comes to one of the most subjective things one can ever compete in (live music), that’s no small task. While it proved tough, CBB Fest organizers were finally able to decide on the final two additions to this December’s festival, sorta.

While Aetiology was pinned for the opening spot on the Congress Theater Main Stage, and Urbana’s Corn Desert Ramblers were chosen to close the Pavilion Stage with a classic hootenanny, it was quickly agreed upon by all involved that soloman Sean Shiel would sit-in with Corn Desert.

In case you’re wondering, the word “aetiology” is mainly used in medicine, where it is the science that deals with the causes or origin of disease, the factors which produce or predispose toward a certain disease or disorder. Don’t Google image search it.

Join CBB in welcoming the bunch, and grab 3-day passes (or 1 and 2-day passes) before they’re gone at clubtix.net/cbbfestival!

This Saturday, Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Festival organizers, along with your help, will choose two talented bands to win a spot at the main event on 12/4 at the Congress Theater.  Now in its third year, the annual indoor music festival being held in Chicago from December 3-5th, 2010 at the Double Door, Congress Theater, and Lincoln Hall. The winning bands will be showered with praise and good fortune and win bragging rights to last a lifetime. Plus, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to share the main stage with Edward Sharpe, Grace Potter, and living legend Honeyboy Edwards?

Out of over 30 band submissions, only two lucky acts will win a coveted spot at CBB Fest and $250.  But first, we need to whittle away the others in a CBB Last Banjo Standing play off contest this Saturday, November 13th at Kinetic Playground.

Voting is currently underway and everyone who wants to make a life- changing difference for some deserving artists is encouraged to vote once per day at through http://www.CBBFestival.com/contests11:59pm on November 12, 2010. Each e-mail address will be allotted one vote per day.

Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Festival organizers will choose 5 of the TOP 10 Vote-Getting artists to play a battle of the bands at the Kinetic Playground, at which we’ll choose our two winners.  The Last Banjo Standing Battle of the Bands is open to the public, and will be held at Kinetic Playground on Saturday, November 13th. Admission is $7, doors open at 8pm, music begins at 9pm, and this is a 21+ show.

“The Last Banjo Standing contest is a fantastic opportunity for local bands to join an amazing line up of national headliners for a set on a Chicago stage,” says Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival producer Michael Raspatello, “The Shams, Sexfist, and Great Divide, former LBS winners have all ben playing CBB fest ever since.”  Is your favorite band in first place? Vote for the finalists online to make sure your favorite band wins a spot in the Last Banjo Standing play-off at Kinetic Playground on 11/13, and a spot on the Congress Theater Stage on December 4th, 2010!

About CBB Fest

From December 3^rd-5^th, Chicago’s favorite independent producers and worthwhile charities will host an eclectic tribute to the genres that started it all.  From the cultish explosion of psych folkers Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros to the undeniable sexual energy of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, the current derivations of roots music are alive and well.  Yet the link to Robert Johnson is also alive and well, literally.  95-year-old David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Johnson’s lifelong friend and witness to his mysterious death, joins the bill as the oldest remaining Delta blues musicians touring today.  Ending the weekend with a dub-infused dance party, Studio One legends The Skatalites help remind us how boogie-woogie became wobble wobble.

The Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Festival will offer a musical reprieve from the merciless Chicago Winter by adapting elements of a summer music festival to the historic and intimate indoor setting. In addition to nearly 30 hours and 5 stages worth of nonstop music, the weekends activities will also include a pickin’ circle, a live-art exhibition and indoor gallery, charitable raffles, film screenings, and impromptu marching band performances.