Old friends reunite to play some bluegrass

Alan Munde and Elliott Rogers, both of Austin, are old friends. And they’re old buddies with banjo players Wayne Shrubsall of Albuquerque and Tom Adler of Santa Fe.

They are musicians who have been playing bluegrass and old-timey tunes for years. They’ll be performing in different trio combinations in the two New Mexico cities.

Munde, a banjo player, and Rogers, a guitarist, will be on stage with Shrubsall tonight at the South Broadway Cultural Center. Then Saturday evening, Munde and Rogers will be joined by Adler in concert at the Santa Fe University of Art & Design.

	Old Friends WHEN and WHERE: 7 tonight at the South Broadway Cultural Center, 1025 Broadway SE; and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16 at the O’Shaughnessey Performance Space, Benildus Hall, Santa Fe University of Art & Design, 1500 St. Michael’s Drive, Santa Fe HOW MUCH: For the Albuquerque concert, tickets are $15 general public. For phone reservations, call 298-5589. For the Santa Fe concert, $15 general public; $10 Santa Fe Music Alliance members; free for SFUAD students and faculty at the door

Munde, known for his long association with the band Country Gazette, likens the life of a professional musician these days to room remodeling, rather than fixing up a whole house.

“We’re mostly remodeling bathrooms,” Munde said in a phone interview from Seminole, Texas.

“That’s what the music world is like right now. We do a little of this and a little bit of that and we cobble it all together and it ends up sustaining you.”

He is on the road with Rogers, and they’re doing duos, like the one they did last week at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, and where Munde spoke to students in a creative arts/commercial music program about a topical subject: How do you make a career out of the music? And, how do you not only develop musical skills but your entrepreneurial skills?

From there, the two were playing in Seminole, in Lubbock, Texas, and then in Fort Sumner, N.M.

Besides the concerts in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Munde and Rogers were going to do a series of workshops in the two cities.

“We’re doing as much as we can,” added Rogers, a former Albuquerque resident.