So I got the flu… I hate getting sick, but whatever, every year about this time it seems to happen.  I spent an entire night ridding my body of everything it had in it.  I mean everything.  Seemed to me like a good time for a fresh start.

Some backstory,.,,  We had our trailer stolen, it contained all of our PA gear in it.  Thankfully our fans, who are amazing, stepped up and donated over $10,000 for us to go get new stuff.  We have already purchased a few speakers and a new trailer, and over the next month we will be replacing everything we lost.  I will miss the old stuff, but there are no material goods that can’t be replaced.

Today I awoke feeling better about myself than I have in years.  I am realizing the control I have over aspects of my life and I plan on exercising them, beginning with exercise.  I went for a nice long walk today.  I think I should do that everyday, or at least every other day…  I did some yoga and now I am blogging, once again things I should do everyday, or at least every other day…

Tonight I have a show with Nic in Milwaukee at The Milwaukee Ale House.  I hope the voice holds up, the last few days of harsh bile treatments may have weakened it a bit, we shall see.  Then Saturday we have a show in Richland Center of all places.  Should be interesting, but I am optomistic!

I have been listening to Ryan Adams “Lucky Now” 0ff Ashes and Fire, “Champaign, Illinois” by the Old 97s and The MSB Family Band (the cd we will be releasing in late March.)

We had a great jam session with Kenny Leiser of TLCB and Josh Smith at our benefit.  I think the 6 of us should play together more often… It would be epic! Alright, I need to go pay some bills,, literally late fee’s are a thing of the past.  They left me with so much gastric waste around 4 am on Wednesday.  Live well everyone, and God Bless!

There is a new “Hardest Working Man in Showbiz.” Six shows last week, which isn’t that big of a deal, but Three of them were on Saturday alone.  I started my week with a chill little happy hour show at Tex Tubb’s on Atwood.  Looks like I will be doing every other Tuesday from 5:30-8:30, it’s a neat little place and I had a really good time playing.  Wednesday I went up to the Dells to play a show at Marley’s.  That was a strange experience.  I guess I am less comfortable playing dinner music for families in a water park town, but that is fine with me.  I hope I don’t get comfortable doing it…. Thursday we played a full band show at The Great Dane downtown, those shows are always a good time and we had a great turnout of our wonderful fans .  Then came Saturday..

The alarm went of at 6 am, I got a ride down to the Memorial Union, where we had parked our trailer the night before.  The skies were very ominous, so we set up inside at The Rathskeller.  We played our first set right after the Mini-Marathon started, which seemed kinda silly cause there was no one there.  By the time we had finished the weather outside was beautiful, so we schlepped our gear outside and set it all up again to play where all the people were lol.  We played till 1 pm, then packed up our gear, again, and headed for The Riley.

Rileyfest is an institution in the Madison area and this would be our 4th time playing it.  The tent was packed, the beer flowed and we couldn’t remember if we had played some of these songs already .

After getting our van packed up, again, we pointed The Red Zeppelin towards Lake Geneva for our final show of the day at Chuck’s Lakeshore Inn.  This place is always a blast.  The bartenders feel the need to pour you a shot of whiskey every time you pass by on your way to the bathroom lol.  The whole bar danced from the first note we played till the last rock n roll ending.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how the ladies that go to Chuck’s have the best legs of anyplace on earth…  It’s really quite remarkable.. Anyhoo, yesterday was spent recovering so I can do it again this week.  See you around

special thanks to our road crew Apak, Frymark, and underage Rory, also Andrea our merch girl!

I have decided that I am addicted to TV.  I got netflix a while back, and since then I have watched every episode of My Name is Earl, Mad Men, and Phineas and Ferb (I have a four year old boy.)  So I decided to take a week off of the idiot box.  I am on day 4.  Could be worse.  I feel like it has robbed me of some creativity, as I haven’t written anything new in a while.  Hopefully this churns up the creative juices.

Shows have been good, but exhausting.

Starting pre-production on our latest project.  We are retiring to a barn in Northern IL near the Mississippi river to record a stripped down acoustic “Americana” album.  I put that word in quotations because I have no idea what it means…  The plan is to put up a mic in the middle of the room and put a mic near each performer, play the songs a bunch of times, then mix it down, and SHABLAZZLE, we will have a cd/dvd ready to go.  I am hoping to coin the term “shablazzle,” so feel free to use it.   We are following that up with a proper studio cd in the next few months as well.  I am hoping this project will balance out the soul sucking process of recording a rock record.  Sometimes overdubs and heavy mixing takes its toll on a person.  I will keep you updated on the progress..

I have a solo show at Tex Tubb’s on Atwood tomorrow (tues) at 5:30.  The full band is at The Great Dane on Thursday and we have not one, not two but Three shows on Saturday…  Madison Marathon in the am (Memorial Union Terrace,)  Rileyfest from 3-6, and Chuck’s Lakeshore Inn (Lake Geneva) at 10 pm.. Please come out.. thank you, that is all

Played our annual Capital Brewery show last night.  I look forward to this one every year.  Last night didn’t disappoint, it was hot, packed, and everyone was dancing.  The best part about these shows are the kids.  The dance floor is always packed with kids from 3-12 years old, spinning, dancing, running around.  Then at the end of the night they ask you to sign schedules and stickers.  I usually let a bunch of kids up on stage after the show to see the guitars and drums, they always like the drums the best.  This is something we don’t get to experience that much playing in bars all the time.

Thurs we played to Dane Co fair on the Q106 country stage.  It’s fun doing country shows from time to time, even though I don’t really consider us a “country band.”  I do consider us versitile enough to do just about anything though.

Tonight we are off to Platteville to play their Home Town Hog Roast.  I am very much looking forward to that .  I am also looking forward to tomorrows show at The Diggs in New Diggings, WI.  If you have never been there, you must go.  It is one of my 5 “must go to” places in WI.  Tiny little biker bar in a town with 2 bars and a church, on a back windy road.  It is perfect! Go ahead, google it and tell me I am wrong

The mayor of my hometown (Cuba City) was killed in a car crash the other day.  Went to the wake today.  Apart from being the mayor of a one horse town, he was my 7th 8th and 9th grade basketball coach.  His son and I went to school together for 16 years, all the way from 1st grade through college.  We are still good friends.  Today at the wake services they had picture boards of photos and a slide show of photos on repeat.  I saw myself in a few pics.  I was a pretty big dork back then, skinny, tall, lanky, pimply.  They had a book to write down your favorite memory of Rabbi.  His name was Bob, but was called Rabbi for years.  I remembered the time he took me and a bunch of our friends to a WWF match here in Madison when we were all about 11 years old.  It was the first time Hulk Hogan ever wrestled Randy Macho Man Savage.. Needless to say it was awesome.  Then he bought me a Hulkamania t shirt.  Yep, that was my best memory of Rabbi.

On my way home from my show tonight at The Milwaukee Ale House I got to talking about this with Nic.  Then I realized that Rabbi had also probably yelled at me more than any one person in my entire existence, even my father.  Although sometimes the way me and my dad carry on, I wonder of he will have that distinction long lol. I am not saying this in a bad way, he was my basketball coach for three years, and I was a bit of an underachiever.  It was his job to yell at me.  And he did it well.  My last year of basketball was 9th grade and we went undefeated.  In retrospect, I should have kept playing.  Also in retrospect, I shouldn’t have bought that purple and black 8 ball jacket… Man, what a tool I was. Who am I kidding, I still am.  Rest in peace Rabbi.

Ok, enough sad stuff, here is a song me and the boys wrote on the first day of summer. It’s called Tonight enjoy!

Steamboat Springs, Colorado. June 11.  Possibly more than anywhere in the country, the people in Steamboat Springs, Colorado understand the importance of Quality of Life. They have a small community that stresses good health, good food, and knowledge of their surroundings. Not only geographically, but socially. There are no chain restaurants, everyone knows the person that makes their food and drink, and where it all came from. They are kind and open minded, and they like to dance. That is more important than the average person realizes.     The Ghost Ranch Saloon is one of best clubs a touring musician could hope to play. Tonight was our first night here, and there was a crowd of 250 people eagerly waiting to drink, dance and enjoy there lives. Then ride their bikes home (all their cruisers come equipped with cupholders.)     Thanks to everyone in Steamboat and especially Brian Smith for setting this up for us. Time for bed, Sunday show at The Little Bear in Evergreen tomorrow.

I think I speak for everyone when I say “Whats up with the f%*#ing weather? I remember when I was a kid, and it hailed… once.  Now its a weekly occurrence.. I could use a week of sunshine.

I am going to try to upload a picture of my mustache from Kenny’s 6th Annual Mustache Bash.  TUGG, The Mighty Short Bus, Lucas Cates Band, and Function rocked the house for some sweet mustache clad music lovers.  It was my first time seeing Function, and they were amazing.  They are from Kalamazoo, MI but will be at Summerfest, so if you see them, tell them The Mighty Short Bus says hi.  If you look closely at the picture of my sweet mustache, you can see Lucas Cates and Keefe Klug in the reflection of my sunglasses (yes, they are woman’s sunglasses.  I found them.)

Saturday we played a killer show at The Milwaukee Ale House.  The Ale House is an institution for music in Milwaukee and John McCabe is one cool Mofo..

Sunday we played an evening show at The Sandy Hook in The Southwest Part of Nowhere, WI.  I am naming this place one of the “Must Go’s” for all live music fans, just ask Sarah Warmke.  There will be others to follow .

Last night I wrote a song with Carleen Wild of Main Street Wisdom (and yes, of channel 15 news.)  We sat in my garage, drank a beer and wrote a song, which we have yet to name… We should get on that.  This song will be on an upcoming EP of duets/Co-written songs featuring myself and local songstresses, the working title is “A Rooster in the Hen House”

K, back to work.  Enjoy the rain!

I met with Pat the other day, and he said that since I was the Project M Champ, I could keep blogging on here.  So I shall..  I will keep you updated on not only my personal escapades, but also the shenanigans of The Mighty Short Bus.  Which can be grand in both scope and scale .

First I need to say what a great season 2011 was for Project M.  Mostly because I won, but also because there was so much talent involved.  Many of whom I was unaware of.  I knew Mark, and had heard of Brianna, but that was the extent of my knowledge of the contestants.  The Anna’s (Wang and Dhybahl,) Chelsea Z, Jason Horowitz, Charlie Kim, Ryan Mauer, Mark and Brianna are all extremely talented.  They were also all really nice people.  I hope we all stay in touch.  Following the work ethic that Project M has instilled with regards to writing, I plan on churning out as much music as my pen can write, and invite any of them to work together on something sometime.  Charlie and I have already committed to writing a song together.  I also was very honored to get to know many of the contestants from last season, thanks to the duet challenge.

There are lots of other projects I am working on including a new MSB record, a record of duets (inspired by the song with Beth Kille,) a solo record and lots of interesting shows in Madison.  It is a lot of work, but like they say, “Ride it tall or not at all.”  See you out there, Frank