December 17, 1999
Shrdlu entertains with music and humor

Stephanie Kouloganis/Spectrum Shrdlu Ashe, who will perform during A New England New Year, holds a kaen, an instrument from Thailand that is similar to the harmonica.

By Lynda Wellman
STAFF WRITER, New Milford Spectrum.
New Milford's "unofficial minstrel" will be celebrating with his music when the region's residents gather downtown to celebrate A New England New Year Dec. 31.
Shrdlu Ashe will be performing as a solo act with his electric guitar, his harmonicas, his fiddle and his Kaen, a Thai instrument made of bamboo that's a precursor to the harmonica with "really interesting sound."
He'll also be performing with Sue Pet. The duo, known as Eclecticity, plays popular standards and a blend of light jazz and ragtime. Ms. Pet plays piano and flute.
"It looks like the town has it together for this year," Shrdlu said last week, referring to New Milford's New Year's Eve party.
It will be his fourth year as part of A New England New Year.
"They got a good early start," the longtime New Milford resident said. "I think the results will be good. I'm hoping people will want to be out for this major event, for the turn of the century."
Local photographer Rich Pomerantz, who dubbed Shrdlu the town's "unofficial minstrel," included him as one of 23 subjects in his 20-photo essay hanging in the town hall through Jan. 5 - New Milford in the 1990s: Faces of Change.
Mr. Pomerantz describes Shrdlu as a performer, comedian, educator and songwriter who has worked on community causes and run or helped establish several coffee houses giving other performers a venue.
A town resident for most of four decades, Shrdlu, 52, left his music career in the mid-1980s to work in construction and later as land manager at the Pratt Center in New Milford.
But he returned to music once again in the early 1990s, and music's been a full-time career since the summer.
"I really didn't anticipate getting back into [music]... then I started to play again and realized it's what I like to do the most," Shrdlu explained.
"It was a long process getting back, finding a way to do it without having to play bars and for peanuts... to get reasonable fees," he said.
Drafted at 19 during the Vietnam War, he served a year in Vietnam as a truck mechanic at the huge Cam Ranh Bay military base. A friend in Vietnam introduced him to the harmonica - and a career was born.
"That year was the most important in my life," Shrdlu said. "I went over a naive kid. Just being in the army was a major adjustment."
He said seeing the beautiful country - and the abject poverty - had a major impact on him. He began questioning the role of the U.S. military.
"It changed my life radically," Shrdlu said, adding that hearing a helicopter now still reminds him of Vietnam.
The impact is still felt. His tour in Vietnam influenced his choice of gifts this Christmas. He's donated a water buffalo through Heifer International in the name of family members.
Shrdlu returned from Vietnam convinced the U.S. involvement was wrong. He became active in several causes, including Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and demonstrated at both political party conventions in Miami in 1972.
He found himself in a group of about 30 friends, seven of whom had the same given name he did - a name he prefers not to mention since he wants it to remain buried in the past.
Casting about for a new name for his budding music career, he chose Shrdlu. It was a name his late father, Edd Ashe, Jr., an artist and cartoonist, had chosen from a row of keys on a linotype machine as the name of a fictional candidate to run for first selectman in New Milford against Russ Carlson and Lou White a few years earlier.
"I already had the T-shirt, Shrdlu for First Selectman," Shrdlu said with a grin.
It wasn't the only influence his dad had.

Shrdlu Ashe: a profile Shrdlu Ashe, 52, a New Milford resident since the age of 9, married the girl next door. He met his wife, Melissa Merkling, when she was a teenager who spent weekends and summers in New Milford. They are raising their son Elliot, 12, in the same house Shrdlu was raised, next to her family home. "That's something special," Shrdlu remarked. As a kid, Shrdlu said, he was much happier being outdoors than inside. "I used hunting and fishing as an excuse to be outside," he said, adding with a smile that he wasn't successful at either. Shrdlu has been successful at being self-sufficient, however, and at times has raised his own food. For more than a decade he was the coordinator of a 25-30-family food cooperative, a job he recently relinquished. The couple have no television. "It's not an issue, it's a non-essential," he remarked, adding that he has no time to watch it and the couple wanted to minimize the impact of television on their son. Shrdlu has been active on the Greater New Milford Peace Committee. The couple founded the Housatonic Valley Waldorf School, which is currently in Brookfield but will be moving to Newtown next year. The school is based on the philosophy of Austrian Rudolf Steiner. Shrdlu's wife is a graduate of the Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School in New York. "I was always impressed by her siblings and friends," Shrdlu said. "I knew there was something special about her education, and I was not impressed with mine." - Lynda Wellman

Shrdlu said he hated being the son of a struggling artist, "but I basically followed in the guy's footprints - I turned out to be a struggling musician."
There's another influence.
His father had a sign in his studio with the words "I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet." Shrdlu's never forgotten the sign, which influences his outlook on life.
In his early career he was a founding member of the K-man Band, the "house band" at the Marbledale Pub, and said he'd love to have a rock band if there was a place to play and the demand.
Shrdlu started out playing fiddle and harmonica on the street as an adult, although he had a year of piano lessons as a youngster.
Initially self-taught, he studied classical harmonica with Robert Bonfiglio in New York City and has had several guitar lessons.
His recent return to a full-time music career has been very successful.
He teaches fiddle, harmonica and guitar at the New Milford Music Store and privately. Shrdlu also leads the band for the contemporary worship service at the United Methodist Church in New Milford, a role that's much more than a job.
"I've been spiritually nourished," he said.
He also plays at the farmers' market on the New Milford Village Green and at New Milford Historical Society functions, takes his act to coffeehouses and is working on a program to take into schools.
"I consider myself first and foremost an entertainer," said Shrdlu, who is also popular at corporate events.
Shrdlu played at the recent party celebrating the opening of Navy + Green on Bank Street, at last week's Business Scene sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and New Milford Savings Bank, and at a recent event for a well-known insurance company retreat where he taught 55 executives to play "Oh Susanna" on the harmonica during a break between seminars.
"I do a lot of non-musical entertainment [in shows]," he explained.
"A lot is spontaneous," said Shrdlu. "The audience and I are in this together, and what happens, happens."
There's always humor, most self-deprecating, not at the expense of others.

Shrdlu Ashe performs at parties, receptions, corporate functions and weddings. For more information call: 860-868-6741. Visit his website at: "http://www.shrdluband.com"!