For the first time in years all my recordings are in print! It’s a really good feeling to have my entire body of work out there and available.

I did a video for the good folks at Stewart-MacDonald last month and now it’s up. It’s part of their Trade Secrets series and I was surely honored to be asked to do it.

Under the North Star made two top ten lists. StarTribune critics Tom Surowicz and Tim Campbell both picked it. I’m really honored!

I’ve been trying to find a builder to make a copy of my 1935 Gibson Jumbo for quite awhile now and a few months ago I found the man for the job. I’d talked about it with Todd Cambio of Fraulini guitars, but he’s just so busy making Stella-style twelve strings that he simply didn’t have the time.

Well, the good folks at National have done it again! I’ve been so in love with my baritone guitar, not to mention my tricone, that I thought it would be a good idea to combine the two and get myself a baritone tricone. So that’s exactly what I did; it’s a Style 1.5.

This just in! We recently found a number of copies of Hull’s Victory in LP format for all you audiophile types out there. That’s right, you can get your very own copy of Hull’s Victory on vinyl! They’re all sealed, but some of them were promotional copies, with cut corners.

Information about Dakota Dave’s swing through California in January, 2007.

Hi to all. I hope this finds you well. I’ll be leaving home on Thursday for a couple weeks in the northeast and I’m looking forward to seeing many of my old friends. I’ll be in Lansing at the Ten Pound Fiddle along with Peter Lang on the 20th at 8, and a Guitar workshop at the Herb David Studio in Ann Arbor at 1PM on the 21st.

Well, I’m just back from a couple of tours that took me to gigs in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia and Maryland and then to parts of Canada. I had a great time and met a lot of wonderful people. It was a busy time and a lot of driving but that’s what I do. Drive. If I’m good they let me play the guitar in the evenings.

Well, I’m getting ready to head out on a tour that will take me to Wisconsin, Michigan, western New York State, Ohio and Indiana. I’ll be home for a few hours and then heading to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The Yahoo site that handles these messages for me also has a cool calendar so you can see exactly when and where I’ll be. Just log into Yahoo, go to my group (dakotadavehull) and check it out.

The winter, 2006 issue of SingOut! had a nice article about me written by my old friend Jerry Clark. Now that it’s off the newstands you can download it in Adobe pdf format here. It’s a really nice article and it was really an honor to be featured in this venerable magazine. You might want to consider subscribing; it’s an extremely worthy endeavor. You can do that here.

I think I might have mentioned that I got a new guitar from National late last year. It’s basically an M-2 baritone with a few custom features—no fingerboard inlay (athough it has side dots), a solid peghead with the coolest inlay I’ve ever seen on a guitar (MacGregor Gaines is a world-class artist; you heard it here), a custom neck profile that feels a lot like my Gibson Jumbo, and an unusual mandolin-like cover plate that they only made a couple of for guitars.

I’ll be back in Mankato, Minnesota on February 11 at the Bothy Folk Club at 7:30 PM. The Bothy holds their concerts at the Eagles Club, 702 North Riverfront Drive in Mankato. My old pals The Blind Moose Review will be doing the opening set, so it should be big fun. Mankato, as I’m sure most of you know, was the original target of the James/Younger gang’s infamous Northfield raid, but there was some kind of big shindig going on in town that day so they went to Northfield instead and we know what happened there.

It’s good to know that my mailing list Yahoo group is growing. I got this letter today: Hi Dave, I have just become the 100th member of your webclub, or whatever it is called. This is so exciting! Do I get a free prize? Is this like eating the billionth hamburger at McDonalds? Do I get my picture taken with Angelina Jolie? What about the babes, the free carwash, the big lint brush? Can I get Frequent Flyer miles? What about free baby-sitting, car insurance and extended warranties on eyeglasses and guitar amps? God, I can see this is going to be fun. I’ll try to be patient, but it’s not easy. Wow, I can hardly believe it—I’M NUMBER 100! I’m going to cry!!!!! —Jay Peterson

For all my southern California friends, I will be returning to Boulevard Music in Culver City, California on January 21st, 2006. Showtime is 8 PM. It’ll be a split night with Paul Asbell. I’ve not met Paul before, but I’m really looking forward to sharing the stage with him; he has a great reputation. Boulevard Music is located at 4316 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. Call (310) 398-2583 for more info. See you there!

This has been quite a year. I hardly know where to begin. I’m just home from a lovely trip to the Northeast where I had some gigs. I got to spend some time with some great friends, too, Sally Rogers and Howie Bursen, Martin Grosswendt (and his charming twin daughters), Steve Moscov, Mary Faith Rhodes (of John Pearse Strings), Jackson Buck and a few others. I played gigs with Paul Geremia (Johnny D’s in Boston), Peter Lang (Godfrey Daniel’s in Bethlehem, Pa.) , and Doug Yeomans (The Sportsman’s Bar in Buffalo) on this tour in addition to some solo concerts.