Spider Barbour is a songwriter and biologist living in Saugerties with his wife Anita, two dogs (Didymo and Rhexia) and a turtle (Biggie). Spider began his musical career in 1968 in a band called Chrysalis. He also spoke (under the piano lid) on Frank Zappa's 1968 album "Lumpy Gravy" while Chrysalis and the Mothers of Invention were recording projects at the same studio in New York City. “Woodstock Times” readers will be familiar with the Barbours’ “Nature Walk” column. Barbour’s songs are warped, but listener-friendly, combining peculiar chord sequences and subject matter. Among the titles to be performed are: “Beware of the Mud Men,” “Art Supplies,” “The Great Chameleon,” “Let Me Hibernate, ” “Infinity” and “Lime Kiln Road.” For inspiration, Barbour raises giant silk moths and observes pigmy locusts.

Dunn, aka Little Elmo, plays bass for The Crows and The Blacktop Kings, and has played on sessions for many artists, including Four Men and a Dog, Rick Danko and Levon Helm. Dunn and Curmudgeons guitarist Jimmy Eppard played quite a bit on The Band's latest album, "Jubilation." By remarkable coincidence, Dunn lives in a little place in the Hudson Valley called Stone Ridge, in a big stone house, where he experiments with strangely demented orchestrations of his own songs and old chestnuts such as “One Meatball” (at least 53 versions at last count). Dunn is the tallest Curmudgeon, which gives him the right to smoke cigars and intimidate hecklers.

A man of many hats (and guitars -- at least two dozen), Eppard runs an electronics business, a construction business, plays guitars in at least 13 bands (not one band with 13 names), produces and provides technical assistance to guitarists (instrument tuning, tweaking and getting the right sounds) on concerts and recording sessions. Famous artists he's worked with include Jewel, Henry Rollins and The Butthole Surfers. This makes him hard to find sometimes, but he’s rumored to live in Kingston with his wife Linda, two sons Joe and Josh (who have their own band), and their dog Pepper. Besides playing and singing, he provides clear charts and inventive arrangements for the Curmudgeons.

I HEAR A DOG

Our latest album, available at Hudson Valley, New York music stores or at CD BABY.