Gillian Welch, Sept. 4th at Liberty Hall! Yay.

We have one pair of tickets to give away to see one of our favorite artists, the amazing Gillian Welch, perform at Liberty Hall on Sunday, September 4. We thought we’d put a twist on this giveaway and help out the great Lawrence food distribution center Just Food as well. It’s easy to enter – just bring a non-perishable food item into Mass Street Music and we’ll give you an entry form. It’s as easy as that. Really, really want those tickets? You can enter as many times as you like, just bring more food in and we’ll give you an entry form for each item. Please be sure all food is new, unopened, not expired, and preferably something delicious, tasty and nutritious (I made that part up, but seriously folks, no old vienna sausages or anything ok?) We’ll draw the winner on Thursday, September 1. More details and a complete list of items Just Food is in need of are listed here.

We’d like to thank our good friends at Pipeline for the Gillian tickets! Check out all our great ticket giveaways on our contest page.

Our good buddies at Fender have hooked us up with a pair of tickets for the upcoming Keith Urban concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City on Friday, August 19 and we’d like to give the tix to you! Stop by Mass Street Music and ‘test drive’ any Fender acoustic or Fender electric guitar and we’ll enter you in the giveaway. We’ll draw the winner’s name on Monday, August 8 and notify the winner (you?!) by email or phone. Full details available on our Contest Page. Good luck folks!

Lucinda, Wanda, Vanilla - oh my

We’re thrilled to have teamed up with some great promoters in Lawrence to give you a chance to win some seriously great concert tickets throughout the spring and summer! We’ve made it super easy to enter to win too. Just stop by the store and drop your name in the bucket at the front counter, or check out our Contests Page online where it just takes a minute to fill out an online entry form. We’ll never share your email, so no spam from us folks, just a chance to win tickets to great shows like Lucinda Williams, Wanda Jackson, and more.

Additionally, we’ll be giving away a lot of great tickets on our Facebook page from time to time. We’d like to give a great big thanks to our friends at CrossroadsKC.com, Up to Eleven and Hunt Industries for the amazing ticket giveaways. Be sure to check out all their upcoming shows, because you never know when we’re going to announce another giveaway! Happy Spring!

The headline pretty much explains it folks – we’re super excited to be giving away one pair of tickets to see the incomparable Lucinda Williams at the Crossroads in Kansas City.  She’s performing on Wed., May 11. How do you win these great tickets you may ask? It’s easy! Just stop by the store, fill out an entry slip and you’re entered – or you can check out our online entry form right here.  Winner will be drawn Mon., May 9. We’d like to give a big thanks to our buddies at CrossroadsKC for these amazing tickets!  Look for more great contests throughout the spring and summer.

The Eastman AC420 - beautiful and lively dread!

We hope you’ll join us Thursday, April 7, at 7:30 pm for a very special evening…the Eastman Experience! Our good friend, Steve Bernstein from Eastman will be bringing a truckload of incredible Eastman instruments…from mandos to mandolas, Adirondack topped acoustic dreads to smooth jazzy electric archtops – plus some cool custom surprises. Learn more about this great line that we’re diehard fans of, and find out why (well, if you’ve been following us long, you already know many of the Mass St staff actually own Eastmans ourselves due to their  great build quality, tone and value price). Our own John Flynn will be on hand to help demo instruments, but more importantly, you’ll get to try them out too and learn more about the great Eastman build process. We think you’ll find, as we have, that Eastman offers incredibly well made instruments at equally incredible low prices. Whether you’re looking to buy a new instrument or not, are just curious about Eastman, or want to win the Eastman AC120 we’re giving away that night (that’s right!), we think you’ll find it to be a great evening at Mass St. Music. We’ll be there and hope you will too.

Hand carved - when we say these are well made, we mean it.

The holidays can be a little daunting with expectations, obligations and such, so do yourself a big favor and get in the real spirit of things with good friends,  great music and a good cause. These upcoming events are put on by great friends of Mass St Music and are sure to be the perfect warm up for the impending season:

Americana Music Academy presents A Celtic Christmas
Irish, Scottish & Traditional Christmas Music
Friday Dec. 3, 7:30 pm – Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence
Saturday Dec. 4, 7:30 pm – Potwin Presy Church, Topeka

This will feature bands and musicians from Lawrence and Topeka AND students and teachers from the Americana Music Academy. Proceeds go towards the Americana Student Scholarship Fund. Tickets are $10.50, available at the Lawrence Arts Center (785-843-2787) & at Americana (785-830-9640).

Holiday Hoedown!
Friday, Dec. 17, 7 pm – Liberty Hall, Lawrence

Featuring the Midday Ramblers, MAW, the Phantoms of the Opry, MC Betse Ellis of the Wilders, DJ St. Nick, plus special guests and surprises! Proceeds benefit the Holiday Adopt-A-Family Program via the Merc’s Giving Holiday Tree. Tickets are $10 advance, $12 day of show. Kids under 12: $1 at the door or a food donation. Tickets available at Liberty Hall (785-749-1972) or through Ticketmaster.

Kelley rocking the keys

One of Lawrence’s favorite singer-songwriters and a good friend of Mass St Music, Kelley Hunt, will be again rocking Liberty Hall this New Year’s Eve, and thankfully like last year, show proceeds will benefit the very deserving ECKAN/Just Food -the major food pantry in east central Kansas, which needs help now more than ever.  Just Food has reported a 20% increase over last year in the number of families and individuals requiring its assistance.  Last year Kelley’s  show provided over $4,000 and many food donations to help cover what traditionally is a break in the flow of money and food donations just after the holidays.

This show will also be the official Kansas City/Lawrence CD release event for Kelley’s latest work “Gravity Loves You” – CLICK BELOW TO READ DETAILS

which isn’t released nationally until Jan. 18.  It features  new songs from Kelley, co-writes with frequent collaborator and Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Nashville writers Dwight Liles and Sara Hart.  This will be a chance for local  fans to get their copy early.  Attendees who bring food or monetary contributions for Just Food will receive a $5 off coupon redeemable at the show for a copy of “Gravity Loves You” or any of Kelley’s other releases. Tickets for this great benefit concert are now on sale at all ticketmaster.com locations and at the Liberty Hall box office at 644 Mass. St.  (785-749-1972). Ticket prices vary from $20-$30 and all seats are reserved.  Rock it local folks!

The Punch Brothers in action

Win tickets to Lied Center events!

Win tickets to great events at the Lied Center – just come in the store and fill out an entry form (sorry, no online entries for these). Winners win two tickets!

Punch Brothers, featuring Chris Thile

One of our favorite mandolin players tears it up with his supergroup!

Saturday, Oct. 2, 7:30 pm – winner drawn Friday, Sept. 24th at noon!

Adam Gyorgy, Hungarian pianist
Sunday, Oct. 3, 2:00 pm – winner drawn Friday, Sept. 24th at noon!

Turtle Island String Quartet, also featuring jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut and mandolinist Mike Marshall
Saturday, Oct. 9, 7:30 pm – winner drawn Friday, Oct. 1 at noon!

Remember we’ve also got some great online ticket contests including Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Valient Thorr, Kottonmouth Kings and more – check them all out on our Contests Page!

Play Well with Others Workshop - Aug. 28th - FREE!

Folks, we’ve some great workshops around the corner including:

Beginners Jam Workshop hosted by Martha Haehl & Mike Walker - August 28th, Sat., 9am – FREE

Martha & Mike, authors of the great ‘Play Well with Others’ guide to jamming, will take newbies & those just wanting to brush up on jamming etiquette through their paces. Just in time for Winfield! This is a free workshop!

Lil Rev Ukulele Workshop with Lil Rev – October 16th, Sat., 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – $20

We’re very excited to have the great Lil Rev visit Mass St Music for this great workshop, suitable for all levels of uke players from beginners on up. Bring your uke if you like, we’ll also have some available to use as well. Lil Rev will also be doing a concert that night at Americana Music Academy…more details to come!

We hope you can join us for one or both of these great workshops!

We’re giving away concert tickets almost every week! It’s easy to enter, just fill out a form, online or in the store at 14th & Mass St. For some contests, like the great Alejandro Escovedo, you might have to answer a pertinent question to be entered. These are great tickets – some to bands you’ll know and some you might not, so check ‘em out.  A big thanks to Up to Eleven Productions and Hunt Industries for providing the great tix. You can stay up to date with new contests & giveaways by checking our Contests Page, or become our fan on Facebook where we’ll keep you posted on the store contests, as well as giving away cool gear every Friday with our Facebook Trivia Contest.