Hot Rize co-founder Nick Forster joined “String Cheese Incident“:http://www.stringcheeseincident.com for its encores on Saturday at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Forster who also is the co-host of the nationally-syndicated etown radio show (with his wife Helen) added guitar to ‘High On a Mountaintop’ and ‘How Sweet It Is.’……….

Speaking of Hot Rize alums, banjo player Pete Wernick was one of the individuals who performed at the ‘Jeff Austin & Friends’ show on Saturday night at the Fox Theater in Boulder. Wernick appeared during the second set collaborating with Austin and his bandmates in “Yonder Mountain String Band”:http://www.yondermountain.com, for their anticipated but unannounced performance. Ross Martin and dobro player Todd Livingston (Hit & Run) also appeared during the Yonder set. During the initial set Austin primarily performed with Yonder’s Dave Johnson, offering songs from his forthcoming Songs From a Tin Shed release which he recorded with the Big Wu’s Chris Castino……….

“Al and the Transamericans”:http://www.alschnier.com/mm/transam/main.html opened a string of “moe.”:http://www.moe.org shows over the past week and on Friday at Murat Theater’s Egyptian Room in Indianapolis, all of the band members made an appearance with the headliner. This proved rather easy for Al Schnier and Vinnie Amico who are members of both groups but over the course of the night keyboardist Kirk Juhas and lap steel guitarist Gordon Stone took the stage with bassist Erik Glockler also joining on vocals for the evening’s final song, a version of ‘Jingle Bells’………..

The members of Umphrey’s McGee invited their crew to the stage during a jam on Friday night at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana. The band’s sound engineer Kevin Browning appeared on guitar, Lighting Designer Adam Budney played bass, Tour Manager Don Richards was on keys and Monitor Engineer Bob Ston sat behind the drum kit where they were proudly, collectively billed as ‘Miss Tinkle’s Crew.’