Who are the agents?  

Sam is the band's banjo picker, a proud Appalachian-American, and a reluctant Blue Ridge Mountain refugee.  He resides on Capitol Hill --"a place where even squares can have a ball."  He likes living right and being free.  However, he long ago lost all respect for the college dean.  He is a stranger to blue water, and a big fan of country roads, hillbilly highways, and little cabin homes on the hills.  He lives by the old saying: treat 'em right, never wrong.

Brian plays guitar, mandolin, and sings a lick or two.  He acquired his guitar by, well, stealing his little sister's birthday present.  Although she periodically asks for it back, he plays it a whole lot (in his defense).  He works at the NIH and lives in Mt. Pleasant.  He is Maryland stock and will take you swimming in the Potomac if you promise not to be grossed out.  His most Extension Agent-like piece of advice: indoor seed sprouting is an excellent way to get fresh wintertime veggies. 

Amanda Jane is a founding member of the Agents.  After three years in DC, she missed missing the seasons and moved back to the sunny side--California!   She first picked up a fiddle at the 2005 Fiddlers' Convention in Santa Barbara.  AJ is a proud urban homesteader, and her urban farming efforts have been featured on WUSA (local TV), the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the AP.   She works at the USDA Forest Service.

Will is a North Carolina native who grew up mostly in Black Mountain and Pittsboro.   He was brought up in a musical family with two uncles who played bluegrass and a grandfather who was in a country band.  Will started playing guitar at 12 and played with random assortments of teenagers through high school.   He ordered an upright bass from China and learned to play it for a Baltimore bluegrass band in '05.   Upon moving to DC in the spring of '09, he joined the Extension Agents as their first full time bass player.

Bob has been playing mandolin for nearly 30 years after catching the "bluegrass bug" in high school.  Bob grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside the Nation's Capital, at a time when Washington was known as the Bluegrass Capital of the World.  Besides his love for hard-driving, uncompromised bluegrass, Bob formally studied jazz guitar, and seeks to incorporate those elements into his mandolin playing. 

Matt is a founding member of the Extension Agents.    He came up with the band name, in fact.   Matt plays anything with strings, and he writes tunes too.   This year, he's starting the Extension Agents west coast division out in California.         

Josh plays guitar and sings from high on the Mount Pleasant top.   Wind blowin free.  Wonderin about the way things used to be.

Sam plays upright bass, among other instruments, and has a fine singing voice.  If you ask him, he might sing a John Prine song for you, or a Gram Parsons song, or even a Village People song.   

You!   We're looking for a banjo, bass, or mando player to play drinking establishments, farmers markets, and street corners with us in Davis, Vallejo, Marin County, or anywhere in between.   Write to westernextension@gmail.com.