We have continued as a band because we love making music with each other. We share that love with our listeners, and they bounce it back to us. We roll out a set sparkling with diversity – traditional bluegrass, newgrass, folk, and jamgrass. Song selection is one of our superpowers, and we use it to maximize audience joy. We also use doughnuts to maximize audience joy.

We have performed at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, Berkeley Bluegrass Festival, Parkfield, CBA Father’s Day Festival, and the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-time Festival at Salesforce Park. We have standing gigs at pubs and microbreweries around the Bay Area.

Critical Grass is proud to continue in the tradition of musicians who have used their songs to spotlight the important issues of the day. Our sets touch on race relations, immigration, economic equality, the environment, and LGBTQ rights. We celebrate women songwriters, including Kate Wolf, Martha Scanlon, Kathy Kallick, Hazel Dickens, and the I’m With Her band.

‍

We are a semi-professional band, but fully professional in dealing with promoters, venues, and festivals. We follow instructions and make our host’s job as easy as possible. If you ask for a merch inventory, you get a Google spreadsheet. If you tell us we have a 9:30am set, we are backstage at 9:00am.

We are tightly bound to the regional and national bluegrass network. Our guitar player, Chris Quale, is the band parent of Crying Uncle Bluegrass Band. Our fiddle player, Leah Wollenburg, and banjo player, Jeremy Reinhard, are playing with Laurie Lewis in the summer of 2026. When you work with us, you get tied into our network.

We have a professional social media person who ensures that your news is our news. We have a blog on our website that we routinely update. If you hire us, that can turn into a permanent blog post on our website.

‍