It must've been the beards. That, or the fact that it took a long time for most critics to give them their due. Those are both traits that Trampled by Turtles share with "Deadliest Catch," the popular and ridiculously compelling Discovery Channel series about crab-fishing on the Bering Sea, which will feature one of TBT's songs, "Again," on the new episode airing tonight. In what may or may not be a coincidence, lead Turtle Dave Simonett and bassist Tim Saxhaug are heading to Alaska ("Catch" territory) next month on tour with their side band, Dead Man Winter, whose debut album also comes out mid-August.
The "Deadliest Catch" placement is one in a confluence of bragging points for the Turtles as they wrap up a steady year-plus of touring behind their album, "Palomino" -- which is still hanging around the top 10 of the Billboard bluegrass chart almost a year and a half later. Last weekend, they played to a staggering 4,000 people at a sold-out Cabooze Plaza in Minneapolis. One of their last shows of the year is Sunday at the Newport Folk Festival (see: Dylan-going-electric lore). Then they head back to Duluth to open for Willie Nelson Aug. 6 in Bayfront Festival Park, where hopefully all that pot smoking won't waft up into a passing iron ore boat's wheelhouse and cause the captain to take out the lift bridge.
What a year and a half for TBT. You can almost picture Simonett and the beareded boys all high-fiving each other as if they just pulled in a bulging pot of crab, à la the "Catch" crews.
