Steve Ritchie

I watched the Mexico/USA World Cup match the other day, and as Cuauhtémoc Blanco put the game away for Mexico with a penalty kick I was reminded of something.

Last summer I was at BMO Field in Toronto to see Toronto FC play Chicago. Blanco was playing for Chicago at the time, and my seats were very close to field level behind the Chicago bench. During the warmup (I always go early - a vestigal compulsion from life on the road, I guess) I noticed a small child who was also paying close attention to the…

I can't remember the last time I was aware of people making plans to actually sit down and listen to something on the radio, but that's exactly what I heard over and over again last week. And what they were planning to listen to was me.

Well not me exactly, I just wanted to say that. Rather, Enio Mascherin and me; he's my co-host and the creator of the Hundred Mile Music Show that launched last Thursday.

It turns out the premier of our quaint little one-hour once-a-week radio program was, in its own…

The whole debate on health care seems surreal from outside the United States. It's like... well I actually can't think of an analogy. It appears some powerful vested interests have managed to convince a lot of people that public health care - which everybody else in the world has - will mean death, destruction and the end of civilization.

Or maybe down there it will, I don't know. American culture seems such a bundle of contradictions. America succeeded in the greatest achievement in all of history - they…

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
…

My Dad once said that if your biggest complaint in life is that you think your taxes are too high, you really don't have any problems.

Having said that, I have no idea how the Government of Ontario thinks they're doing its citizens a service by implementing the so-called HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) next summer.

For those of you who live outside Ontario, this refers to aligning the 5% GST (Goods & Services Tax), an already-existing value-added tax levied by the national government, with the 8% PST…

This morning in Duluth, Minnesota, a man named Chip Stewart died. Chip had been battling cancer off and on for several years, and some time ago it became apparent to everbody, including Chip, that this battle would be the last.

Chip emailed me last week saying he was on a farewell tour of his own. He planned to come out to the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota last Thursday to see us play one more time. He was going to come early so we'd have a chance to hang around the green room and visit. When he…

When my old guitar processor died a couple of years ago, I did some surfing and discovered a lovely piece of equipment made by TC Electronics called a G-Natural Acoustic Guitar processor. "An aw-royt bit a' gee-ah," as Robert Graham would say.

If you're interested in electronics for acoustic instruments, you might be interested in the comments I made in for an on-line forum back in April of 2008.

I play in a full-time touring acoustic/roots band, and I've used the G-Natural for about 2 1/2 months now.  …

Well, here I am! Welcome to my brand-new just-out-of-the-box website. I hope you'll check back now and then to see what I'm up to.

I owe a big debt of thanks to Wendy, Tanglefoot's webmistress, who took a lot of time out of her already busy days to help me set all this up.

These days I'm mostly pre-occupied with the last three months of touring with Tanglefoot. We don't get too busy until the beginning of October, so I'm hoping to put in some studio time on my solo album over the next few weeks. I…