There is a real shortage of good live music venues in Madison, maybe even more so in Milwuakee.  We are lucky to play at the Ale House, it’s been there for a long time and has always had bands.  I remember going there when I was 20 years old and seeing Greg Koch and the Tone Controls.  I thought the room was huge, the stage was perfect, and the crowd was really there to see the music.  I have played there about 30 times and some have been amazing, sometimes we are just playing for the barstools.  One thing that remains constant has been John McCabe, he runs the place and is always happy to see us (although impossible to get on the phone lol.)  I felt bad for him this time as he is going through a tough time with his ladyfriend.  I guess that is t the great equalizer for all of us.  John Lee Hooker once said that it didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, man or woman, white or black, everyone has troubles with their love, therefore everyone gets the blues.  I guess that’s the price you pay to be in love, the inevitable blues that come along when things go bad….

I do believe that no one is reading these blogs of mine.  For a while I was featured under the blog heading on the website, but no more.  Thats ok though, most of my blog posts were shit anyways.  Just ramblings about how cool I am supposed to be, what a rockstar life I lead.  Trying desperately to make you believe that I am worthy of your adulation.  I know now that I am not.  I am not cool, I am not a rockstar, I am not much at all.  Since no one is reading I guess it’s safe to drop the bullshit and use this thing as a diary of my disappointment.  That might at least entertain me.

I will try to keep this thing at least somewhat professional, although it is more my personal life that is crumbling right now.  We played at Segredo on Wednesday night.  I was looking forward to the show, we haven’t played downtown in a while (downtown Dane doesn’t count.)  We promoted the show by postering downtown and at the dorms, and chalking the sidewalks of Bascom Hill the night before.  When we arrived the place was packed! 300 kids playing trivia for some sorority fundraiser.  While we loaded on stage they announced the winners, second place, third place, etc. There were cheers, some grumblings, lots of people standing up.  Then before you could say Nikki Menaj, the place was empty…  Not a soul had stuck around to listen to the band that was setting up on the stage. My drummer Dan and I kicked around the idea of writing a song called “The Kids Don’t Care.”  They probably do, just not about bands.  Thank God for Kenny Leiser sitting in with us to keep our spirits up.  A few of our fans showed up, maybe 20, but it felt like a royal disappointment.  The guy that booked it was very cool, saying how we exceeded his expectations for talent and how it was musically the best show he’s seen in a while, but he hasn’t returned any emails as of yet.

Tonight we head to Milwaukee to play at The Milwaukee Ale House.  I am optimistic, as I always am, that we will have a good crowd.  We have had some great crowds there, we have also had some really slow nights.  Last time we played there it was packed, unfortunately I had bronchitis and could hardly sing at all.. I hope to make up for that tonight.

One thing that isn’t disappointing is our new record.  I cannot wait for people to listen to it.  I think it is our best work yet.  We just finished up the artwork and even that is warm and pleasant.  I will blog again soon. But before I leave you I must say one more thing.  I love my family and I hope I haven’t let them down.

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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!