Spark Screen Breaker.

The last ten weeks or so have been a blur to say the least. From the Midwest to the east coast back to the Midwest to the west coast back to the Midwest and to the southeast coast. a whirlwind. Been home a few days and it’s back to it tomorrow as we head to Columbus, oh. Laundry to do, deposits to make, a trailer axel to grease, etc. gonna try to recall some of what happened over the last several weeks…

Did some dates with Rose Hill Drive from boulder, co. good fucking rock and roll band and nice bunch of people. Hope to do some more shows with them for sure. As we headed back from the west coast (first we had to spend a night in Astoria, OR where they filmed the movie “the goonies.” went to that beach where one eyed Willie’s pirate ship sets sail at the end) we had a couple of stops before our show in Chicago. Thanks Jared and friends as always at Nutty’s in SD. We brought the rain again, but rock and roll prevailed that evening! Thanks to all in Decorah, IA for your hospitality and kindness; we’ll be back for sure.

Chicago. By the way, we have a new fucking president and he’s from the hippest city in America. And I couldn’t be happier. Anyway, the Double Door was rockin. Good to have our friend Scott Tipping join us for that one and for the next few weeks. We’ll be back DOING ANOTHER FREE SHOW AT DOUBLE DOOR ON NOV. 29TH. After Chicago, we got one night at home and it was memorable to say the least. We opened for one of our favorites LOS LOBOS. We joked about hoping that we’d meet them and not to “get our hopes up, etc.” well after our set at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, I was tapped on the shoulder by the Lobos tour manager who asked me if I wanted to leave my gear on stage to sit in with the guys. No shit. Got to talk to some of them before their set to thank them for the invitation and before I knew it I was playing with Los Lobos to close out their set. Amazing. On their encore, Scott T. and Tim both sat in and killed it! Hung with those guys after and they are as nice and down to earth as you would’ve hoped they’d be.

The next day we drove to Asheville, nc to hook up with the Squirrel Nut Zippers. What a fantastic band! Great tunes and arrangements. Lots of soul. Didn’t really know much about them aside from that Jimbo Mathus (played with buddy guy on sweet tea) played guitar and sang. Well he also plays trombone and writes some great tunes as well. We had him close out our set with us at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta with one of his tunes off of a blues record. “if yall wanna play Boogie Music, I’ll play Boogie Music with yall.” late night after and one to remember. Did a couple more nights with the Zippers and it was back to the Midwest for a couple of days.
Headed out last week with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Thanks to them for having us, but please, no more Journey at the end of the night. Kidding. Not really. Anyway, good times in St. Lou, Davenport, and KC. Nice to be back in the middle of the country and to see some familiar faces for sure!

Leave early tomorrow for Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. Always an adventure. Hit it as the trio the next few nights. Should be fun to play some old stuff and new. Thanks to Scott T. for rippin it the last few weeks, we’ll see you in J-town!

Yes We Did.

Ed

Been A Long Time..........

It's been two and a half months since the last "from the road", and boy have we logged in some miles...............August started off up in Wisconsin, two great nights both in Sheboygan, and Elkhart Lake, thanks to Jason Popp and Co. for everything up there. The end of the month kicked off The Places We Lived Tour, one night at the High Dive in Champaign, followed up by two kick ass nights at Paulie's(R.I.P) in B-town. Next up was Sept 5. at the Metro in Chicago, this was the start of a September run that included a string of dates with Ha Ha Tonka, if you didn't get to catch these guys on the tour, please check them out. The tour took us all around the midwest, thanks to all who attended these shows, always a blast to see everyone out. Also thanks to Ha Ha Tonka, John Henry and the Engine, Little Man, and all of the other acts we did shows with during the tour.

After we parted ways with the guys from HHT in Cincy, We rolled into the Big Apple, for a week of press......including Fearless TV a nationally syndicated music show(stay tuned for air date). We were also able to attend the Broadway show Hairspray, compliments of George Wendt, Thanks to George for having us, the show was amazing, never been to a Broadway show before....quite an experience, i reccommend it! Our week in the NYC ended up with two great shows, one at Piano's in Manhattan, and one at Union Hall in Brooklyn. Good to see everyone in NYC. Thanks to Jersey Jim, Steve, and Sarah for all of the NYC hospitality, see you all next time.

Long trip home from NY, were able to sleep in our own beds for three days! Then we were off to the Rockies. Great show last Sat at the Highland Pacific in Denver. Good to see everyone in Denver again, its been too long! For some reason, I think there were more people from IL at the show than people from CO.......weird.....anyway, We stayed up in the mountains with our good friend Amy after the show, and it snowed! Woke up to great views of the snow covered mountains and trees. Sunday night was Breckenridge, great show, hope to get back during ski season.

Which leads us up to the last two nights, Boise, ID and Seattle, WA with Rose Hill Drive, thanks to everyone who came out in Boise, and Seattle.......RHD is a great rock trio, looking forward to next couple nights with them in Bellingham, WA and Portland, OR

REMINDER: OCT 24th we will be back in Chicago for a FREE SHOW at the Double Door. It is a first come first serve kind of thing so i recommend getting there early to ensure you get in. Hope to see everyone there!

Nick

Louisville, KY

Louisville, KY

We went down to Louisville last weekend. At first we were supposed to just do one slot at the Forecastle Festival but a couple days before we left our manager managed to get us a slot playing live at WFPK, Louisville’s great public radio station. I guess someone must have cancelled, but we’ll take it! Listen to what we did here: http://www.wfpk.org/CMS/?page_id=73 It’s a great big room for a radio station and they get 50-60 people in there to watch you play which makes the act of playing live music that much more rewarding.

We got down there the night before and set up camp at our friend Adam’s place. He’s the guitar tech and gear specialist for Nashville Pussy. Anybody like any lust with their rock & roll? Anyway, when we get there he’s drinking beer on the back porch of the house with his friend John. We join in until 3 or 4am and then sleep a few hours. We did the radio gig for an hour and then set out to find a hardware store. While purchasing Gorilla tape the clerk at the store lets Nick in on a little story. Some Louisville girl found out her boyfriend was cheating on her. She comes home to find him passed out drunk. She proceeds to put him in a chair and Gorilla tape him from the tips of his feet to his neck. Here’s the kicker… The hardware store guy said he lost a lot of skin while the paramedics undid him. No shit. Watch out for that G tape. Use with caution. Nick and Fish fixed amps while the rest of us watched the Cubs.

It was weird not having a show to do on a Friday night but we made up for it by cooking brats and drinking a ton of beer. Adam’s from Owensboro and he makes relish with his grandpa and he sent us home with a quart of it. Thanks again. We owe you a tee shirt if you’re reading this. Saturday we watched the great Chicago band, Tortoise. Crashed at a hotel because Adam had to get back to Owensboro. That brings us to Sunday. We saw a nice article about our good friend Pokey LaFarge in the local entertainment paper, The Leo. Not surprising since he’s been killing down there for quite some time now. Check out Pokey if you get the chance. We got to the Forecastle Fest, loaded in, and listened to this guy Otis Gibbs. He did a really nice job. Then we all got gift certificates for new Merrell shoes! And if anybody knows anything about the current state of footwear in Backyard Tire Fire you know that this was a real blessing. I’ve almost run out of sole. So we got our gift certificates and then set up to play. Had a great set of loud rockers and started back to Bloomington, IL. I almost forgot that we got to see Joe from Production Simple down there too. Joe’s been fucking great to the Tire Fire. Can’t wait till next time we get to hang with that guy. Big thanks to everyone that helped us load gear and everyone that hung out with us on such a hot summer day. They didn’t get the free beer rolling until we were ready to leave.
We’ve got a new album coming out in late Aug. We’ve got a few tracks from this on our myspace page. Thanks for reading and enjoy.

Cracker’s Hickman likes the Tire Fire, Plus - Live on WFPK tomorrow

Hi Folks,

Leading into Forecastle Festival on Sunday, we'll be live on one of the best stations in America, Louisville's WFPK tomorrow Friday 7/25 at 12pm EST (11am central) on their Live at Lunch program. The band will be playing new songs off The Places We Lived, and talking to WFPK about the upcoming release. You can stream the segment in live time here:

http://www.wfpk.org/CMS/?page_id=26

Also - one of my favorite bands of all time is Cracker. We had the pleasure of playing some shows with them and got to know the guitar player and co-founder of the band Johnny Hickman. Real cool cat and a bad ass player. Anyway Johnny mentioned us in an interview he did yesterday and had some kind words for the Tire Fire. Dig it!

http://www.duluthbudgeteer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=22607§ion=homepage

Seeing as how Cracker's sound is so eclectic, what do you listen to in your free time?

I've been listening lately to a band called Backyard Tire Fire, which I really, really like. They opened some shows for us, and I'm still crazy about their record "Vagabonds & Hooligans."


*Right on Johnny, thanks for the shout out! Hope we do more touring with those cats in the future...

Rock & Roll,
Ed

St. Louis

good times last weekend at lucas schoolhouse. wanna thank Joe Stickley and Sean Canan for opening the show. they've got a real nice thing going with sean switching between mando and guitar. good harmonies. enjoyed those guys thoroughly for sure. thanks to Dan at lucas for setting us up with a place next door and for all the hospitality. great to see brian sax and little jenn and all the familiar faces. can't wait to get back there in sept. for a record release show!

it just so happens that we'll be playing a benefit show in St. Louis THIS SAT. AT THE PAGEANT along with our friends Bockman, chicago farmer, BOJ, etc. i think we're on late, but get there early to hear lots of great music!
can't wait to get this new record out there and back to touring...

cheers,
ed

P.S. GO CUBS

FTR: From Panhead's to Ribfest

Well it's been over a month since the last entry and here I go. I don't really remember much of what went on in the last month. I do, however, remember the Panhead Billy's gig. Thanks for having us for the grand opening Panhead Billy. Pirouette Pete can really cut a mean rug. Look at the guy. I know we had some gigs after Panhead Billy's, but I can't recall what they were. I do remember Milwaukee's Summerfest (on our stage before us it was A.K.A. Coverfest). The world's largest music festival. It goes on for like 3 weeks, I think it might still be going on right now! That brings us to Naperville's very own Ribfest. That was a fun set. I could hear Fish for once. It was nice to see some family and friends out there. Happy B-day mom! New album coming out next month (8/26)! Stay posted. We are headlining the Metro in Chicago the month after that (9/5)! STL on Friday (Cubs won the big series over the holiday weekend in St. Louis in case anybody was wondering).
M. George Anderson

nice to be home...summercamp, paulies, etc

gotta say it's been nice to be home. weather has been wonderful, the cubs have the best record in baseball, we got a new record deal, and the band is playing well. the rev/nashville tour was a great time. good people. can't wait to get back out there with them in dec. anyway, here's what we've been up to...

a few days after returning home we shot out to davenport to play the redstone room. such a nice place. it's in the upstairs of the river city music experience museum which is basically a shrine to music. little listening stations with photographs and information about different cities in the US and the kinds of music that came from those areas. good stuff. the show was fun and we want to thank our friends Jim the Mule for opening up.

drove home the next day and had a night off. matt and tim and nick went back out to chillicothe to see and hang with our friends Clutch and said those guys rocked the way they always do. hope to catch them next time they're around. pure rock fury. we had our own set out there at summercamp on sunday at 1pm. last year i think we played the same time and the same stage, if i'm not mistaken. the difference was that last year we played in san diego the night before and flew home after the gig in a drunken state to IL to play our summercamp set and had to play on rented gear while nick drove our stuff home from the west coast. we had been out with clutch for at least a month at that point and were exhausted by the time we made it to chillicothe. this time we were fairly rested and got to play our own gear and i had a great time. lots of folks for an early set. band played well. hung around for a few hours after and checked out our friends Phonograph from NYC. good to see and hear them.

and then last sat. we played in bloomington (which is kind of a rarity these days) at paulies and had a nice turnout. thanks to Pokey Lafarge and the Tractor Kings for opening. this was kind of our first night with our friend R Fish Carpenter helping out on guitar and vocals and some keys. we'll be working in Fish over the summer and bringing him out with us in the fall for The Places We Lived tour. the new record (like most of our studio stuff) is involved and has many differnt musical parts in the arrangements. having a fourth player will help us try to recreate what we did in the studio. anyway, he did a nice job and has already learned a shit ton of material. we learned the Kinks tune Victoria the day before and soundchecked it and played it toward the end of the night and it was a blast. hung out at Rob O.'s place until the wee hours and woke up the next afternoon and watched the cubbies win again and again and hopefully again tonight out on the west coast!

hope hilliary and heff had a relatively painless move to NYC this weekend; you'll be missed in the windy city. that's all i got. see you at a show sometime soon...

cheers,

ed

REV+PUSSY+BACKYARD TIRE

4/18/08 Chicago, IL

We’re on our way home from the last of our dates with the Rev. Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy. It’s been about a month since we started out with them so I’m going to do my best to walk you through some of what happened. The first date was in Columbia, MO at the beautiful Blue Note. Our friend Dylan set us up with a warm up gig in the afternoon. As always we saw a lot of friends in Columbia and it was the first time we’ve played at a sold out Blue Note. Tons of fun. The next night we played a sold out Metro in Chicago. Thanks to everyone for making Chicago such a great place for us to go. Our friend Will took a lot of badass photos that hopefully we’ll post soon. We did the Rave in Milwaukee. What made Milwaukee famous made us have a lot of fun. We played First Ave in Minneapolis and that show was fuckin awesome. Conrad sang Lawyers Guns and Money. I’m waiting for them to call and tell us we got a star. We did the Majestic Theater in Madison and our friend Felicity put us up for the night at some nice place down town. Thanks to Madison big time, and Joe and Nicholas up there too. If anyone who is reading this ever has the opportunity to see a show there; the Majestic is gorgeous. We did our first show at the High Dive in Champaign and the closest show we’ve done to home in quite some time. It was kind of special because of all the hometown people who made the trip down. It was packed like a can of sardines in there and I always like that. Makes it more fun. At this point in the tour we got word that there would be some cancellations while the Rev took care of some family issue. It was a drag that it had to happen; but we were at home and not rotting in some hotel somewhere so that’s good. The shows we missed are being made back up in December as well as a bunch of others so we’re looking forward to that. We rejoined the tour in Troy NY. This was our first night seeing Nashville Pussy and our first night on the tour playing first. It was exciting to find out that there was a big group of people who are familiar with our music and were really looking forward to having us. So thanks Revolution Hall and everyone who understands the Tire Fire up there. We made fast friends with Blain, Ruyter, Jeremy and Karen. Blain rode to Buffalo with us and we spent the day off in Cooperstown going through the Baseball Hall of Fame. The place is amazing. First of all for about a thirty mile radius outside town you find out that everything is about baseball around here. Baseball Cafés, Carwashes, Antiques, Everything. And then you get to the Hall of Fame. They give a AAA discount so that’s good. We all saw so much cool shit it’s hard to even start. Ted William’s locker. They got a whole room on Babe Ruth, a whole room on negro leagues; they’ve got a file for everyone who’s ever seen any play in any major league game ever. They’ve got so much cool shit and the place feels really historic. We did the Tralf in Buffalo and the Crock Rock in Allentown, PA. One of my favorite places to play is the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA. It’s only the second time we’ve had the pleasure and we can’t wait to get back. We did our first show at the Ram’s Head in Baltimore. One of many gigs on this tour that was across the street from a police station. It’s just an observation but I think we did like six or seven shows right across the street from the police station in the past couple weeks. Thanks to Brett in Baltimore. We did the Rex in Pittsburg for the first time. It’s a converted movie theater. I liked it. Everybody was really cool and encouraging in Pittsburg. We did the Newport in Columbus and partied with Ed and Matt’s aunt until the early morning. We had our second appearance at the Bluebird in Bloomington, IN. I don’t really know if anything exciting happened in Bloomington because I just remembered that we had to drive all the way to Dallas over the next day and a half. House of Blues in Dallas is great though. We got to hang out with Panhead Billy. And on to Houston the next day. Our final night with the Rev. Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy and we had a blast. Over the month we really got to hang out with everybody a lot and if anybody actually has made it to the bottom of this thing I’d like to say thanks and thanks especially to Kevin for handling our sound. From Houston we drove all night and most of the day to get to Oxford, MS to do our first headlining show in a while. The band was tight and good after being on the road for so long and we all had a great time. Despite the extreme, extreme fatigue that we were suffering from. Everytime we drive all night and skip a night’s sleep it gets tougher. Thanks to Tom Speed in Oxford for your support. You know we need it. We’re stopping at a rest stop and I’m done writing.

Tim

5/5/08 Cooperstown, NY

5/5/08 Cooperstown, NY

5/8/08 Lancaster, PA

5/9/08 Baltimore, MD

5/11/08 Columbus, OH

5/15/08 Dallas, TX

from the road

4/2/08 New York, NY

4/10/08
As I write this we’re just south of Champaign driving towards Carbondale to do a night with our very talented friends, Seepeoples. We’re fresh off a short tour that took us to New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto. Thanks to Kevin Calabro from Hyena records for hanging out all day in New York. We did an interview and a few songs for liveatfyi.com in Manhattan and then made our way across town to the Sullivan Music Hall. We played a rare show as a four piece with our good friend Scott Tipping covering guitar and some keys for us and then watched The Beautiful Girls perform. They’re actually Australian guys. Not girls. Good band nonetheless. After New York we parted company with Matt so he could take care of some family obligations and continued on with Scott in charge of the bass. We got to see my brother Phil as well as some great Clutch fans in Philly. In Boston we played at Harper’s Ferry to a packed house. Boston was rowdy! I saw two full-fledged fights right outside the club. Chicks were right in there fighting with the guys. But Boston treated us well and from there we left on our long drive to Canada. It was our pleasure to play at the legendary el Mocambo where over the years the Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble, and Bob Marley and the Wailers have all played. It’s a perfect bar. Really really dark with great sound. We had a great fucking time. We met some really great new Canadian friends and said goodbye to our new friends in the Beautiful Girls and their crew. We had to haul ass back to the states to get Scott to Chicago on time for a gig but we made it just in the nick of time.

4/4/08 Allston, MA
Now its later in the week and because I didn’t post this here’s what happened after I wrote all that shit above. We hung out with Seepeoples and our friends from Carbondale on Thursday night. Thanks Dave, TJ, Mark and Jill. St Louis was a great show. We played with our new friends the Hipnecks at a very hip room called Lucas School House. We’re all hoping to make it back to St Louis very soon. We celebrated my birthday with Bockman and a bunch of friends. We played Peoria at Aemon Patrick’s on Saturday all night. They party late in Peoria. Thanks to Miles to having us out. That’s all Folks!
Tim

4/6/08 Toronto, Ontario

4/6/08 Toronto, Ontario

Home Today 3/13/08

Langerado Florida 3/6/08

This installment of from the road is coming to you from our van traveling between Memphis, TN and Bloomington, IL. Back on I55. We played Langerado down in Florida last weekend to a sun burnt and energetic crowd. Thanks to everyone for packing in and giving us a chance to entertain you all. We had the opportunity to hang out at the festival for a couple days after playing and were able to make some new friends and reconnect with some old ones. I do think that much sun was tough for us Midwesterners after the winter we had. We camped and our neighbors were great to us. Thanks to Tom, Kathi, and Candace. We played a bunch of sessions and interviews that are going to be up on the internet; some of them include: Jambase tv, Relix Cold Turkey, Earphoria and others. Thanks to Tim from Railroad Earth for sitting in. I got to see Blind Melon. Congratulations and best wishes to those guys. We left exhausted and sunburnt and ready to drive. We spent a day with Goober in Gulf Shores, AL. Happy Birthday Turkey.

Last night we had the honor of recording at the Legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, TN. Its tough to put into words the feel this place has and the feeling I had last night. We were all walking on air. The whole thing was filmed to be released on a couple of blogs. The one I know its going to be on for sure is called Earvolution. We went in with plans to record five songs and ended up doing fourteen. I’m happy to thank Jeff who set the whole thing up, James and Matt our engineers that night, the video crew, our new friends from Beale St. Caravan, and our tour guide. We took a tour before the session and were inspired by the history of the place and the people who made such beautiful music there. Enjoy the photos. We can’t wait to come back. We’ll be sure to let everyone know when the music and video become available. Coolest thing I think I’ve ever done. I’m sure everyone agrees. We’re home for a day and then up in Joliet at Heroes and Legends. We’re doing tons of shows coming up all over the country so come out and see us soon.

Tim

Langerado Florida 3/7/08

Langerado Florida 3/7/08

Gulf Shores, AL 3/10/08

Mobile Bay Mobile, AL 3/11/08

Sun Studio Memphis, TN 3/12/08

Sun Studio Memphis, TN 3/12/08

Sun Studio Memphis, TN 3/12/08

Sun Studio Memphis, TN 3/12/08

Bloodkin Run

3/1/2008 Jacksonville Beach, FL

3/1/2008 Jacksonville Beach, FL

It was nice to be back in the ATL at Smithe's Olde Bar. It was a good thursday night for rocking and rolling. We would like to thank the staff at Smithe's for everything. It is a great room for music, however, the load-in is really something else. Bloodkin is a really fuckin' good band from Athens, GA. Bloodkin rocked. The next day we went down to Macon, GA. The place we played is called The Hummingbird and what a great rock club it is. Thanks to Vic for treating us so well. We like free hotel rooms. It was good to hang out with Abbey Owens, a fellow musician who has played there at the Hummingbird. We hope to return there soon. Next time we need to see the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, as well as Duane Allman's, Elizabeth Reed's, and Barry Oakley's graves. Bloodkin rocked, again. It was fun to hang out with some of those guys late night back at the HoJo. The next day we drove to Jacksonville, FL. Freebird Live is a relly nice music venue. This place is located just a stones throw from the Atlantic Ocean. It was nice to see some folks from The Simple Man Cruise (Brian and company). We had fun playing at such a nice sounding loud room. Thanks for having us play Judy. Ed sat in with Bloodkin for three tunes towards the end of their set. And Bloodkin rocked once again. I like their song "Easter Eggs."

M. George Anderson

3/1/2008 Jacksonville Beach, FL

3/1/2008 Jacksonville Beach, FL

atlanta

we're hanging in asheville, nc for a couple of days with good friends and head down to atlanta tomorrow to play the first of three shows with bloodkin. we've faced some rough weather, had to put a couple of new tires on the trailer, we were bumped from the National Theater grand opening in richmond, va (and then they let me open the place with an acoustic set), rewired the trailer lights, i lost my coat on day 2, got a sick snow lion old school blue coat from goodwill today, nick's jeep car alarm went off for 3 hours in front of my house until our hero Micha from GOOD GUYS AUTOBODY broke in and popped the hood and disconneted the battery (my poor neighbors loved that), and all within the first 6 days.

thanks to the radiators and their people for the good times. played some wonderful rooms. real nice old theater type places. great to see maryann in raleigh. cheers to tim and stacy for their hospitality. rick and kara in nc rule as always.

now we head into the deep and dirty south. look forward to hearing and hanging with bloodkin. one of my personal faves. just some good rock and roll. think Stones in the early '70s. anyway, happy to hear the folks are digging the new EP SICK OF DEBT, pass it around...

cheers,

ed

off we go...

Madison, WI, 2.16.08

time to pack up and head south. really looking forward to getting out of the cold for a few weeks. seems like this winter has been a tough one. wanna thank all that attended the show in madison last sat., we had a great time and look forward to getting back there in april with the rev. horton heat!

leaving tomorrow, so it's time to wash clothes, make sure the van is ready and that all the gear is in working conditions, etc. probably throw some strings on the guitars. gonna do some shows with rock veterans the Radiators for a stretch and then we'll get down to the dirty south with Athens, GA rockers Bloodkin. can't wait for langorado! never seen the beastie boys or rem. really wanna see built to spill and ben folds as well.

on our way home we get to stop in memphis and record a full day at the legendary Sun Studios where rock and roll was born! this will be video taped and shown on a couple of different blogs, so keep your eyes peeled...

we'll update as we go. hopefully get some photos posted for ya...

cheers,
ed

Back to Back to Backyard Tire Fire

We just finished with three Fridays in a row in our hometown of Bloomington/Normal, IL at the NV Ultra Lounge and I’d like to say thanks to everyone who came out and made all the shows memorable occasions. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we had a great time. Ken, The Rock & Roll Giraffe, came out all three nights and has posted some writing on the subject of Backyard Tire Fire here:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=95364450&blogID=350172333

Welcome to the New Year!

1/12/08 Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Well everyone it has been awhile since we have posted a "from the road", so long that the "from the road" now has a new look! Ed left off sometime just before Thanksgiving. Since then we have been to St Louis, Joliet, Peoria, Davenport, Bloomington, Chicago, back to Joliet for NYE and then we flew down to Florida for the Simple Man Cruise, and the band has started a three week residency at the NV Ultra Lounge in Normal. Thanks to everyone who came out to the Holiday Jamboree as well as all of the musicians who participated. 2nd Annual Jamboree was a success, Thanks to Kim Anderson for putting it all together. From what I can remember NYE was madness, especially the Ramada INN across the parking lot! Anyone who was there could back me up on that. Thanks to all who braved the snow storm to celebrate NYE with us, and thanks to my sister for hosting the event. After NYE we had a week to rest up and then it was off to the high seas. Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man cruise was an absolute blast. Left out of Miami, with stops in Key West and Calica, Mexico. I don't know if any of us made it to Key West, but we all had a great time at the beach in Mexico. Thanks to Sixthman, and Lynyrd Skynyrd for having us. Hope we get to do it again next year!! As for now it is about 0 degrees outside, Hopefully a nice warm Backyard Tire Fire can warm things up at the NV tomorrow night. Hope to see everyone there. Enjoy the pics.

Dreaming about the warm beach in Mexico,

Nick


12/31/07 Joliet, IL



12/31/07 Joliet, IL



1/11/08 Gulf of Mexico



1/11/08 Gulf of Mexico



1/13/08 Gulf of Mexico



1/14/08 Somewhere over U.S.

November 20th, 2007

I think it's either Matt or Tim's turn, but I've been sick in bed the last couple of days with nothing else to do so I figured I'd try to recall the madness of the last few weeks that probably put me on my back when we got home. Colorado seems like it was a year ago. We were lucky enough to have Andrew Weir on keys for the first 9 shows of the tour and it went swimmingly. Andrew is very easy to get along with and he's got a great ear. I think we threw something like 35 songs at him and he answered the call without difficulty. Thanks to all in CO that came out to the shows to see a sleep deprived rock & roll band. Within the first 4 days of the tour we had to do Columbia, MO, Denver, CO, Boulder, CO, and Lawrence, KS--back to back to back to back. Do the math. Brutal.

The dates with Cracker and Jason Isbell were a good time. Never really heard Jason or his band and was real impressed. Good fucking rock and roll band. And Cracker still rocks folks. All of the guys were real down to earth on the three day run. Hope to do dates with either or both again in the future.

Wanna thank Matt Welsh and Phil Sterk from Phonograph for coming out and opening a handfull of shows for us. For those of you who don't know, Phonograph is a rock and roll band from Brooklyn, NY that has great tunes and tones. Matt and Phil came out as a duo and sounded magnificent. Not to mention they are good guys and easy to work with. Check out Phonograph.

Chicago was rowdy to say the least. Multiple people that I know were carried out of the Double Door. At one point during our last song Time To Go (which is essentially a list of druckin acts that point toward it being time to leave the bar) one of our good friends was so hammered he was picking up the stage monitor and slamming it down on the mic stand which was in turn hitting me in the teeth repeatedly. Thought that was pretty funny seeing as I was singing the line "it's time to go when you grab the mic stand." Old boy was so fucked up he didn't realize he was living the words of the song. Also wanna thank Chicago Farmer for opening a wonderful night of music and debauchery.

At this point all of the other guys went home for a few days. I however stayed in Chicago to see Neil Young at the Chicago Theater on Mon. Perhaps the greatest show I've ever seen. Neil opened with a solo acoustic set with songs like After the Goldrush, Love is a Rose, Mellow My Mind, Hank to Hedrix, A Man Needs a Maid, etc. And then came back and rocked songs like the Loner, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Like a Hurricane, etc. Fucking unreal. And in such an intimate venue.

After Neil, I got one day in my own bed and then it was off to Louisville, Columbus, and a rainy, cold Cleveland. Thanks to Aunt Gracie for the dinner in C'bus and to Uncle Jim and Aunt Bernie for their hospitality and for the breakfast...go Buckeyes! Got up on Sunday, drove to J-town, got on a train to Normal (Nick is getting some electrical work done to the van) and it was home sweet home.

Only problem was that by the time I made it home, I was feeling pretty bad and have been for the last couple of days. Bad cough, hot flashes then the shivers. I guess maybe I had a little too much fun for the last few weeks. So I've been in bed trying to recover for the show in St. Louis and then we gotta get up to the burbs for turkey day and then J-town on Sat. Never any fun gigging when you're sick. Sooooo, I think I'm feeling better (or at least good enough) to get back out there.

Cheers,

Ed