Name: Fireside Collective & The Dirty Grass Players
Start: 2025-03-28T20:00:00-04:00
Location: 600 14th Street NW Washington DC 20005

Fireside Collective & The Dirty Grass Players

DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM | SHOW BEGINS AT 8:00 PM

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FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE

Fireside Collective has been on a roll since emerging seven years ago from the fertile roots music scene of Asheville, North Carolina. In quick order, the progressive bluegrass group released its debut album, won the 2016 Band Contest at MerleFest, earned an International Bluegrass Music Association Momentum Band of the Year nomination, and embarked on an ambitious touring schedule that’s earned an enthusiastic reception from traditional bluegrass to wide-ranging, eclectic music festival audiences alike.

Blending the characteristic interplay of bluegrass instrumentation and harmonies with strong original material and exuberant energy, Fireside Collective has drawn on folk, blues, funk and a wide variety of bluegrass sounds to create a distinctive body of work that’s all their own.

Each member—Joe Cicero (guitar); Jesse Iaquinto (mandolin); Tommy Maher (resonator guitar) and Carson White (upright bass)— brings a strong, original voice to his instrument, and the unique contributions of different lead and harmony vocalists complement the variety in the group’s many original songs. “Depending on where you come from and your experience with folk music, you may think we’re very traditional, or on the other hand, consider us a progressive act,” says Iaquinto. “We appreciate both ends of the spectrum and may lie on a different end on any given night.” But whether they’re bringing the classic sound of bluegrass or exploring new musical territory, Fireside Collective delivers a fresh, energetic approach and a blast of enthusiastic creativity that’s electrifying audiences across the country.

DIRTY GRASS PLAYERS

With a nod to the past and glance to the future the Dirty Grass Players are keeping alive the long history of bluegrass while pushing the traditional genre into the next generation.
The Dirty Grass Players are an energetic explosion of old-time pickin’, coloured with an inventive, newgrass hand, that is given lyrical life by their soaring vocal harmonies that exist on an ethereal plain. They live at the crossroads between the traditional, which is the backbone of what they do, and the progressive with their innovative forward-thinking approach. The Dirty Grass Players, with their steady, workman-like precision and loose adventurous spirit are a band that can both confound Bill Monroe and cause him to smile uncontrollably. Their music is progressive, traditional, experimental, imaginative, and at its core, Dirty.
The Dirty Grass Players formed in 2015 with guitarist Ben Kolakowski and mandolinist Ryan Rogers at a series of informal picking sessions in the Baltimore area. The band quickly started to garner attention in the area, culminating in them winning the competitive Charm City Bluegrass Festival Battle of the Bands in 2017. The band’s original bassist and fiddler left shortly after and they solidified around the addition of bassist Connor Murray. In 2024, Sam Guthridge joined on banjo and the band reemerged as a powerful four-piece.
Since then they have released two albums, 2020’s Beneath the Woodpile and 2023 Shiny Side Up and established themselves as one of the most exciting young bluegrass bands around. With their high-octane shows they have become a mainstay on the festival circuit, being invited to play at some of the the most prestigious gatherings from coast to coast including Delfest, Grey Fox, Kingman Island, Hot August Music Festival, Dark Star Jubilee, Ramble Fest, First Class Music Fest, and many others.
Their latest album Shiny Side Up, produced by The Travelin’ McCourys’ Coldy Kilby, continues to further the evolution of bluegrass with its hard-driving sound that showcases the progressive, darkside of bluegrass with its forward-looking, non-traditional playing and songwriting. In its praise of the album, Bluegrass Unlimited says, “Shiny Side Up validates the arrival of the Dirty Grass Players onto the scene and shows bluegrass is in good hands going forward.

For any wheelchair or ADA needs, please contact the Box Office in advance of the performance at (202)-787-1000.
Please note that the front row of tables and chairs will be cleared for this show to create a general admission Pit. Be advised that there may be some seated areas where vision of the stage is obstructed.