Meet the New Bluesmobile

These pictures and many more are all up on my Flickr account, but here's a peak at the newly-Christened Bluesmobile!

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Jake was here visiting for the hristening, and we made our long-yearned-for appearance at the weekly Stone's Public House blues jam on Sunday night, May 29th. Here's the links to our 4-song set!

Intro & Messin' With the Kid (music starts about the 3-minute mark:




2nd song, Stray Cats' "Look At That Cadillac":




3rd song, "Shotgun Blues":




Last song, "Flip, Flop and Fly":




Keep the Faith!

Wait'll They Get A Load Of Me!

Two years ago we started with this:



And by last fall we had this:



What's next? Stay tuned, the answer is only a couple of weeks away!

A Half-Expected Trip in an Unexpected Way

Last week I went to the Farpoint convention in Timonium, MD (just north of Baltimore), the winter "sister" con to July's Shore Leave of fame and legend. But I shouldn't have.

It was actually The Momma's idea that we go to the con (which of course I normally don't bother with)... Adam Baldwin (Firefly/Chuck) was to be the main guest, along with Bonita Friedericy (also from Chuck, which if you're not watching is a shame!). So plan we did. About a month ago we heard Baldwin had to cancel... we thought about cancelling too because of that, but we already had lot of friends looking forward to seeing us so decided to stick with it.

The week of the con, Buster got sick... wasn't feeling well for a couple of days before, but with a 72-hour cancellation policy for the hotel it was already too late to cancel outright without losing our deposit night. So we figured we'd see how he was and decide last minute. I came home from work after midnight that Wednesday night (we were to leave Thursday morning), and not only was Buster not feeling much better but now The Momma was starting to feel worse! So I was figuring, ah well, we'll skip it, I'll suck up the hotel money, no biggie. The con itself wasn't that big a deal to us, we mostly just wanted to see friends.

The Momma did mention though that it was certainly fine with them if I wanted to go by myself. (Yes, I'm blessed that way, she's awesome!) My first thought was Naw, no need for that... even though there were friends to see I wasn't sure I felt like hopping into the Bluesmobile for a solo 7-hour drive (we'd been planning to take The Momma's Hyundai hatchback for this one so I'd done no road trip prep on the Bluesmobile). But within 10 minutes of that decision, I had an email from another friend... a friend from one of the blues forums I participate in, one of these guys I've "known" online for about a year, but have never met. He lives in York, PA (about an hour north of where I would be going) and was suggesting getting together for a blues night in Baltimore. Well, that certainly was an interesting idea since I never have gotten 'round to going into Balty for a blues night on any of our trips, and it was a great chance to meet up with a new friend. so I figured I'd give it more thought.

In the end I went to bed figuring I'd set my alarm early, then hop in the Bluesmobile the next morning and either drive to work, or drive to Baltimore! The real deciding factor was that Thursday turned out to be a beautiful day, one of the first we've had in ages... hey, how could I not go on a road trip? So sure enough I threw my harps, laptop, and a few clothes in a bag and off I went. Happy to say the Bluesmobile, unprepped as she was, had no problems and it was a beautiful day for a ride, I really enjoyed myself. Made it in quite a bit less than 7 hours, though I was pretty tired at the end of course. (Long gone are those days when I can drive 24 hours straight with hardly any breaks!)

I settled into my room around 5:30pm and touched base with Mike (my blues friend) via email, gave him my mobile number and he gave me a call; we agreed Friday would be the better night to get together since he was busy Saturday, and that was also the night I'd prefer to stick around the con. He said he'd check the Baltimore club schedules and call me back. An hour later he did, just as I was deciding between room service or going down to the hotel restaurant. His question: "So, I don't know how much energy you've got but how would you feel about tonight? There's a blues jam up my way."

Well, I was exhausted... so of course I said "Sure!" There was actually nothing much going on that he could find on Friday so this seemed like the best option, plus I loved the idea of going to a jam since I would probably get to play, of course! So minutes later, dinner unordered, I'm back in the Bluesmobile heading another hour north into Pennsylvania. Got to his place around 8, we said our hellos, then jumped back into his car so he could drive us another 30 minutes to - SOMEWHERE in Pennsylvania! But the jam was great, the venue awesome, they had Sam Adams available... we had a terrific time and so, some hours after not even being sure if I was even taking the day off from work, I found myself up on a stage somewhere in Pennsylvania blowin' harp with some great blues musicians! Truly a cool night. (I just found out a couple of days ago that apparently I was in Harrisburg.)

BTW, some pictures from that night HERE: http://bit.ly/dPJdqK



So that was already worth the trip, then the convention weekend was also a lot of fun. Much smaller than Shore Leave it reminded me of the early days at SL... I spent most of Saturday night just sitting at a table with Mr. & Mrs. Little Guy, reminiscing and catching up, which we always want to do at SL but somehow rarely find the time to manage for more than a few minutes here and there. And caught up with old friends Betsy, Tom, Laura and others, as well as a couple of fellow Blues Brothers fans that I've met down there before via the Blues Bros forums... just a lot of relaxing and catching up. It still felt weird being there without the family, but all in all the trip went great and was a lot of fun.

I never did get a good story up here about Buster's first trip to The Delta with me last December, but needless to say we had a fantastic time and you can see tons of pictures from that trip HERE: http://bit.ly/fsOenG

Being the Blues Brothers - In the EARLY Days!

Been a while and certainly been a helluva busy second half of the year! 3 weeks in Hawaii, and a return trip already to the Delta with Buster... what a blast! But for now, I wanted to share an old OLD video here that I finally got converted and posted to YouTube, a performance by me & Jake from 1983. Singing through live mics but with recorded music, a nonexistent cameraman and a 4th generation dub from a VHS camcorder. History! Enjoy... or ridicule as you see fit!

Let the Good Times Roll!!

Last week Jake & I made a blues pilgrimage we'd wanted to do for many years, spending 4 nights in the northern Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the blues! We couldn't have had much better a time of it. We spent the week in apartments located directly above Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, MS and spent every night downstairs listening to - or contributing to! - some great blues music. During the day we made day trips throughout the upper Delta, as far west as Rosedale, and south to Indianola and Leland, travelling highways 61 and 49 up and down. Whew!

We made great friends with the house's sound engineer, Walt Busby, and had a great time hanging with him each night, sharing music, drinks and general camaraderie. We met and talked with several other local blues artists as well, like Josh "Razorblade" Stewart and LaLa Craig, getting to know them all at least a little. I feel like we made some new friends, and a part of my soul is still there.

Here's the link to our photos from the trip, captioned for your enjoyment:

Delta Photo Set


We also got to play a couple of songs on their jam night last Thursday, and got invited up again for a couple more on Saturday night. Thursday was jam night so we'd talked it over ourselves ahead of time, and were able to drive the bus when we went up... picking the songs and telling the and the keys and beats. We did "Shotgun Blues" and "Driving Wheel", and I think we pulled it off pretty well! Saturday night we were invited to join the feature band, the All Night Long Blues Band, and were a bit more at their mercy but we did okay, covering "Let the Good Times Roll" and "The Thrill is Gone" with them!

I've got video from the two Saturday night songs, courtesy of Buster & The Momma watching us from home over the club's web feed:

Let the Good Times Roll (Jam Part 1):



The Thrill is Gone (Jam Part 2)



I wish I had more from Thursday, where I think we were probably better, but The Momma's computer froze up Thursday night before we got on. A friend at work did get a series of 10-15 second snippets of the Thursday night songs (all his cellphone could do), so at some point I'll try and stitch them together and upload it for at least a taste.

I already can't wait to get back there!

Bismo Jams

Yup, been another long, dry spell... and only a quick fly-by post here! But for those that missed it, and before I lose track of them myself, I wanted to link in a set of videos.

A couple of weeks ago I finally did something I'd been saying I should do for many months... packed up the harps and hit my local blues jam, a few miles down the road at Stone's Public House. I'd always been a bit hesitant since I've never really played with a live band before... except for our old Blues Brothers performances (where I could basically mimic some of Dan Aykroyd's solos) I've really just been a ling room player. But with some gentle pushing from both Buster and my brother in the blues, Jake, I finally gave it a go, and was aclled up to join a group of players (didn't - and don't - know any of them!) for a 4-song set.

Here they be. (I have one full solo in each song.)

Run Run Rudolph:

3rd:

Last:

Paul "Baldy Beerbelly" Cooperstein

Remembering Paul Cooperstein... 10/7/2009. Friend and fellow Traveling Beerbelly. 10/7/2009. Shown here (on the left) with his brother Barry at the McAuliffe holiday party, December 2005.

Blues Harmonica Blowout

Buster & I went to the harmonica blowout in New Hampshire this past weekend, couldn't have had a better time. The show featured Mark Hummel, Sugar Ray Norcia (from Sugar Ray & The Blue Tones and formerly a front man for Roomful of Blues), Billy Branch (Chicago legend!) and Lee Oskar.

Fantastic show, each player taking a 4-song set before they all got together for a jam session to close it out. I was most excited about seeing Billy Branch, and he didn't disappoint... though they were all terrific in my opinion he stole the show. Buster admitted he agreed with me... indeed, Buster said overall this was the best concert he'd ever seen! (He was the only kid there, as well, and being in the 2nd row it didn't go unnoticed.) Lee Oskar was very interesting, doing some unbelievable technical stuff although the style didn't touch me emotionally as much as the other players.

After the show Buster wanted to shake the guitar player's hand... Rusty Zinn, who was amazing the whole night backing all of the different styles as well as getting quite a few solos where he could really shine. (I was might proud of Buster for picking up on how great his playing was and important he was to the whole show!)

After chatting with Rusty I wanted to say hi to Billy, which I did, but Billy was much more interested in talking to Buster... he'd noticed him bopping around during the show and was delighted to see a kid there. After offering Buster some words of encouragement when Buster mentioned he'd tried piano but didn't really go anywhere with it, Billy gave him one of his (show-used) harps... man, I'm jealous!!

I was also very proud of Buster when Billy said he'd autograph it for him, or if he'd rather we could just clean it and he could PLAY it... Buster decided he'd rather play it. Abso-frakkin'-lutely!

Here's a couple of pictures, but I only had my cellphone with me so they're on the blurry side... somehow I almost never remember to bring a camera to concerts, guess I'm too busy grooving the tunes.

Sugar Ray Norcia:





Billy Branch:





Lee Oskar:




Jamming!

Monaco Photos

New photos posted (finally!) of the new Monaco. CLICK HERE.

Star Trek Lives! (Spoilers)

Buster & I went and saw the new Star Trek movie last week, so it seems a good time to post my thoughts on it.

When I talk about it I always find myself mentioning a short laundry list of things that I didn't like, but for the most part they didn't hurt my enjoyment of the film much. Buster & I both walked out of the theater loving it, and I was feeling very happy that "my" crew was back, and they'd sold me on it!

SPOILERS BELOW!!

It was all about the characters, it wasn't particularly plot-driven. Fortunately I don't mind losing some plot in favor of characters, although I despise losing plot just in the name of more action (as with so many of the later 007 movies for instance). But the cast was excellent almost all the way through (I wasn't a fan of Ben Cross as Sarek, but hey, he's following Mark Lenard!), and for the most part I loved how the main characters came together.

I didn't like the excessive comic relief of both Scotty and Chekov; I think they at least got away with it more (pulled it off better) with Scotty. Chekov's accent was way too much over the top, although the actor himself seemed pretty good in the role.

And what's up with the giant hands?

Otherwise though the cast sold me, and I was especially impressed with young Mr. Kirk. Of all of them I went in the most skeptical of him, as I've always thought of the rest of the cast as characters, but Kirk was the Leading Man... he was Shatner! And yet, I quickly found myself accepting Chris Pine, and by the end I really did feel that he'd captured the essence of the character and I was sold. Many of the earlier scenes with him (like in the bar scene) where my gut reaction was, "Really?", once I took a moment to think about if a young Kirk would act that way... yeah, actually, I can see it, especially with his different upbringing.

The other thing that I really didn't like was the set design... I don't think there was a single interior ship set (Enterprise or Nero's) that I liked. Nero's ship looked like the warehouse from "Buckaroo Banzai" (and not only because of the torture scene). The Enterprise seemed to lack a common production theme... the bridge looked like the Apple store we'd criticized ahead of time, Engineering looked like the brewery it was filmed in and not like the inside of a starship (you'd think I'd be in favor of a space brewery, but Noooooo!). Sickbay and the transporter room also had disparate looks and feels, none of these places felt like they were part of the same ship. I didn't like any of it, but it again didn't really hurt my appreciation of the characters or what there was of the story.

As I said, I thought the story was just good enough to serve the function of the movie... which was simply to reset the Star Trek universe so they can do whatever they want going forward. I actually think this was a great idea, and worked well, as it really does mean no more concerns about canon while at the same time allowing them to re-introduce any elements from "classic" Trek they feel inclined to explore. Well done.

The only thing that I really didn't like in the movie from an overall enjoyment aspect was the entire ice planet sequence, which seemed contrived and lame beginning to end... from how Kirk gets marooned there (I mean, c'mon, really?!!) to how he leaves there and everything in between. The sequence exists to introduce Kirk to Spock (prime) and Scotty, and I'm certain there are many better ways that could have been accomplished without being chased around Hoth by ice monsters. Ugh. But before and after that scene I was fine with it all.

So yup, a lot of individual elements I find myself complaining about but at the end of the day it is indeed nit-picking, in the end the film worked for me emotionally and got me to believe that these characters, whom have always been "MY" crew, were back and ready to sail. Keep on Trekkin'!

New Trip Photos Posted

Okay, so I lost my muse... what can I say?  Anyway, in the meantime please do follow my Twitter posts (which can be accessed through the link to the right on this page), and of course my Flickr pages via the PHOTOS link!  I've posted a bunch of pictures from our recent Disney trip... an okay trip but it was for the most part very cold (yes, even by New England standards!) while we were there, and I somehow screwed up my knee while there so spent much of the time limping around World Showcase.  (The knee STILL hurts, suspect I'll be needing to see a doc about that soon.)

We also just got back from a weekend in St. Louis that was surprisingly fun, photos from that trip on the Flickr page as well.  The highlight: the City Museum there, a huge playground that really can't be described!

Disney Revisited!

Just touched down in Orlando, another Disney trip, this time with the family! Listening to Disney music on Disney Magical Express bus, en route to Polynesian. Watch Twitter feed for updates!

Boston House of Bules Grand Opening

Boston finally has its own House of Blues again, after the original HoB in Cambridge closed about 5 years ago. This past Saturday night (2/21) they had their Grand Opening VIP Party, and though invitation-only (which is a shame) Jake & I were able to get in by way of a charity auction.

So we made the show, and had a fantastic night! Friday afternoon Buster & I suited up and hopped in the Bluesmobile to pick up Shotgun at Logan airport; he'd flown in his suit, sans shades and tie but then added those finishing touches just after deplaning. The three of us enjoyed a nice dinner at Pizzeria Uno's before heading back to Bismo's Bluesmansion for the night.

Saturday, after dropping Buster off with friends to spend the night, Shotgun & I headed into town to check into the hotel room included in our auction package. We cruised by the House on the way in, and got plenty of appreciation both driving down Lansdowne Street and while cruising through the city in general. After checking into the hotel we went up to our room... and looked at each other. Then at the single king-size bed in the middle of the very nice room. Then at each other again.

About 45 minutes later we'd finally gotten a room with two double beds instead... crisis of brotherly love averted! After dinner on Boylston Street at a nice little Irish pub ("Solas"), we hung in the hotel room listening to music and each having a small glass of bourbon (Blanton's) while waiting for showtime, then headed over.

We'd found out (finally!) Friday morning that the House management had decided NOT to park our Bluesmobile out front... they had tenting up along the front of the club to provide heat for the lines, and didn't think it was practical to try to set up a parking area for us. We'd debated just leaving the Bluesmobile at the hotel then, to avoid extra parking fees and to free up my liver for enjoying the night's VIP open bar, but ultimately we both knew she HAD to go with us. So we drove her back over and after cruising by the line once, circled back to park her in the garage next door.

The line was a little surprising... VIP or no the wait was well over half an hour to get in, as they were checking people in at tables in the foyer, similar to registering for a SciFi convention. But eventually we were in, and after that the night was just fantastic!

The place is indeed very big, three levels. The main floor (all standing room) has a bar lining each side wall, then a step down to the main dance floor. I'd decided that since we DID bring the Bluesmobile and I'd be driving home, I'd stick with beer for the evening, so asked for a Sam Adams... but they weren't supposed to sell bottles that night, only cans (presumably to avoid broken glass on the open dance floor, though why they wouldn't pour out into cups is beyond me), and none of those beer choices appealed to me. So I had bourbon (Woodford Reserve). What can you do, ya gotta have standards!

The gospel choir had just started when we got in, the same group that will be performing when they get the gospel brunches started up there. (We chatted with one of the singers for a few minutes between sets when she came over to get her picture taken with us.) A lot of the folks in there were mingling around, hunting out the free food sample tables. We made our way right up to the front of the stage, of course, and basically settled in for the evening. We thought about looking around more first, and maybe checking out the Foundation Room (that our VIP tickets gave us access to for the night), but ultimately we're there for the MUSIC so we pretty much stayed put. Plenty of people were coming by to chat with us though, and we were also in demand by many, uh, very attractive ladies who wanted their pictures taken with us in numerous fun poses. (I gotta search Facebook and the like to find copies of those for ourselves, they're great ego-boosts!) There was also another woman there dressed as The Penguin, which was very funny... when we first noticed her moving our way through the crowd, we started ducking and dodging the other way and soon she was chasing us through the crowd, armed with her own ruler!

Ronnie Earl and The Broadcasters was the next act, a very well-respected Boston-based (with some national exposure) blues band, and it was a great set. After that there was about a 25-minute break, which meant more photos and more mingling, all very fun with all great people. Nina, the barmaid working our area, came by frequently to chat and even hung with us during her break. I was resisting a second bourbon... not 'cause I didn't want one, but because I'd found it's difficult to dance - especially Blues Brothers dancing! - with a sloshing cup of bourbon in your hand! (You can see this in the TV video linked to below.) But Jake ordered a second one and when Nina came back she had one for me too... 'cause she knew I really wanted it. She was, naturally, correct! I sipped it for a bit then downed the rest in a hurry once the Sacred Hearts Band took position on stage.


The Blues Brothers show was awesome, of course! Pretty similar to the show I saw last summer, and what others have described seeing in Atlanta, Texas and elsewhere, though with some local flavor and some special guests thrown in. James Montgomery, a local harp hero, sat in for many of the songs, notably a kick-ass version of "Muddy Water" (aka "Boston You're My Home") worked up for the town. Skunk Baxter was also there and played on a few songs, and best of all Paul "The Shiv" Shaffer, Mr. Entertainment himself, came out for the second half, leading the band in "Green Onions" and then playing through the second set!

The real highlight though was Sam Moore, who came out for a few songs and of course took the lead on "Soul Man". He looked and sounded fantastic, and it was especially fun watching Danny staying off to the side and just grinning ear-to-ear watching HIS idol playing his own song! Shotgun & I were also both pleased to note we could easily see from our vantage point that Danny did indeed have "ELWOOD" on his knuckles. (And as for ourselves, when the genuine article, no-imitation Blues Brothers are in the house, Shotgun & I went with, well, "SHOTGUN" and "BISMO" on our own knuckles.)

After the show ended, I'd say around 12:15am (the Brothers started their performance at 11pm), we hung for a few as the place emptied out and thought we'd at least look around a bit more. We went up to the second level (a standing-room mezzanine) and found the Foundation Room was still open! So we decided to check it out after all. It was filled to capacity so they were letting folks in as others came out, but with the concert itself over the wait was only about ten minutes before we could get in. We saw Judy Belushi-Pisano talking to some folks there, though didn't get a chance to meet her (or any of the band, alas).

Once in, we ended up spending about two and a half hours in there! We chatted with a great many people, and we ultimately settled into a smaller corner room on a couple of couches with a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings (hmm, it felt like the cast of "Friends"!). They didn't have any glass bottle restrictions in there so we were finally able to enjoy a couple of Sam Adams as well.

Jake spent about 90 minutes chatting with a young lady who was about to get married and so was enjoying her flirting, and who was also apparently soon to be joining the Army... Jake having just retired from the USMC that gave them plenty to talk about. He found out only after they'd been talking quite a while that this young lady was Judy Belushi's niece!

Meanwhile one of the other 20-something young ladies, very, uh, nicely attired, decided my harp playing was making her homesick for Kentucky so she came over, snuggled in against me for the next hour or so and asked me to teach her how to play! I was, of course, happy to oblige. (It's just suck and blow, ain't it?) We finally closed the place down when they kicked the last of us out around 2:45am, picking up our commemorative show posters on the way out. (I'll get a photo of posted at some point, haven't taken a picture of it yet.)

Now, it being hours after the show ended we had to find someone to unlock the Lansdowne Garage for us since it had already been closed, but fortunately we were able to get ourselves extricated. We pulled back up to the front of the hotel, looked at each other and realized we really didn't want to sleep there... we only had the room because it was part of the auction package, after all. Since I hadn't had much to drink (sure, two bourbons and two beers, but that was over an almost 7-hour period, with close to 3 hours between the bourbons and the beers alone!) and hell, only lived 25 miles away, we walked into the hotel at 3am, grabbed our overnight bags and checked out. After all the trouble to get the double-bedded room, I don't think we as much as SAT on one of the beds! But it felt the right thing to do. By 3:45am we were home, had a nightcap bourbon and hit the rack.

Now the part you're waiting for, here's the link to the rest of my photos from the night:

Boston House of Blues Grand Opening - a set on Flickr

Also I showed up in this live story from WBZ-TV (local CBS affiliate) that aired the other night:

WBZ-TV Video Archive - wbztv.com

I DID take some videos of my own, and hopefully they won't pull the vids on me since technically posting a concert vid like this could be an issue... but I doubt anyone'll be complaining! Here's the YouTube link:

YouTube - BismoBeerbelly's Channel

Okay, now I'm ready for a vacation... only about 36 hours until we're on a plane for Florida!

Meet Honeyboy Edwards

I still owe you a post or two about our trip to that incomparable blues mecca, Walt Disney World, last month ;-P .... we had a great time, and yes, we did find some decent blues while there! But for now I'll catch you up on my latest blues show.

Last night I experienced a true slice of history, when I was privileged to see David "Honeyboy" Edwards performing at the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, NH. Honeyboy is the Real Deal... an original Delta bluesman, born in 1915 (ten years older than B.B. King!) and playing guitar in jukes before he was a teenager. He used to gig through the south with Robert Johnson himself back in the 30's, and was actually with Johnson the night he was (purportedly) poisoned and died.

This was a show in the tradition of the oldest delta style, albeit electrified... two men with guitars, plus an accompanist on blues harp. The second guitar was a guy named Rocky Lawrence, himself a dazzler with the acoustic guitar and someone I'll be watching for in his own right; Rocky opened with an acoustic set of his own before Honeyboy joined him on stage and his playing is fantastic, in a style very much patterned after Robert Johnson himself.

Honeyboy's first set was a little disjointed at first, as they had some amp problems that resulted in trying to mix Honeyboy's electric Gibson through, as near's I could figure, the same line as Rocky's mic'd acoustic. But the soul was there and when Honeyboy sang, he drew us right in. The second set, on the other hand, was magical. Honeyboy was locked in, playing in his own world leaving his accompanists doing there best to follow along! He also told a few great back-in-the-day stories, or riding the rails in the 40's, stowing away on freight and mail trains to get from place to place. Fantastic. The man was also gracious as could be... 93 years young and still waiting for every autograph to be satisfied, not seeming to mind chatting with all comers.

I fear there are fewer and fewer players like Honeyboy around every day... see them when you get the chance, for you won't get many.

Time to Sing the Blues.....

Yeah, I know, I got "quiet" again... c'est la vie! But a quick note that I'm only two days away from this year's Blues trip... though this time it's a bit of a mash-up as Jake and I are off to visit my other passion, Disney World! We'll be focusing more on food, drink and music than the rides but I'm sure we'll have a great time.

And yes, we expect to be at the Adventurer's Club for it's Last Call Saturday night. Kungaloosh.

Blues and Brews!

Buster & I had a great time Saturday, when we suited up and drove the Bluesmobile up to the Blues'N Brews Festival in Westford, MA. I'd been in touch with one of the festival organizers and they had us drive right onto the field in the stage area to display the car and pose for photos throughout the day.

Pretty much perfect weather... sunny, high 70's... but no cloud cover so the sun was a bit brutal during the middle of the day. I've got the sunburned forearms to prove it where I had my sleeves rolled up! Buster made out better as he used the umbrella I found in the Bluesmobile's trunk, though he wilted for a while in the heat anyway. By 2pm it was already improving and all was good. It was an all-day event, 11am-7pm. Since we were parked in the stage area we had to get there before they opened, at 10:30am, to park and then couldn't move the car again until after the grounds had cleared, around 7:30pm. So a long day.

The toughest part for us was certainly getting up at 8am, as we're well-known night-owls. Buster & I made a pact to try and get to bed by midnight the night before... and we did!

....Two hours later we both got up, since we weren't sleeping, had a quick snack and got to sleep around 3. Sigh.

The first band of the day was Jason James and the Bay State Houserockers... High-energy start to the day, Jason plays like Thorogood with lots of dance music, very enjoyable and must be awesome in a bar setting! Next was Ottomatic Slim, whom I'd heard of but knew nothing about... damn good harp player, put on a great show. For his last song he asked if he could bring a friend up to join him... and up came Magic Dick! Of course, there could only be one last song for Dickie... "Whammer Jammer" live, hadn't heard it from him in many years! I should'a videoed it but was too busy drooling at our luck. Highlight of the day!

Next came the Bruce Marshall Group, whom I've seen around a few times... great player, very tight band. The highlight here was a tribute to Robert Johnson he did with some beautiful slide guitar. Wonderful.

Next came The Love Dogs, another group I'd only heard about but they were quickly added to my list of local favorites! Very funky, good horn section... much like a slightly smaller Roomful of Blues, or a bluesier Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Awesome, fun stuff, and the one CD I bought that day was from them. Not to mention the lead singer, Eddie "Duato" Scheer, had the coolest purple suit we've seen in a while! From just a little bit of distance he looked like The Joker, but in a good way!

Lastly was the headliner, Ronnie Earl. Ronnie's an awesome Chicago-style guitarist, who loves to make his guitar cry and pull the emotion out. I've seen Ronnie before, though it'd been quite a while, and he's always fantastic!

The festival was holding a couple of charity auctions, one of which was for a gold-plated Lee Oscar harmonica signed by Dan Aykroyd. I bought two $5 tickets... but of course didn't win. Fortunately it was won by someone near us, so I at least got a good look at it afterwards:


Sorry for the focus, in the bright sunlight it looked like the photo came out better than it did, should'a used a macro mode. Ah well, you get the idea....

Also plenty of good beers to try all day, from all sorts of regional microbrewers. It was like the old "Happy Days" episode, where Richie tells his dad, "All they had was beer... in teeny little glasses!" "How many tiny little glasses did you have?" "72." I stopped with 12 though, over a 6-hour period, and each only 3.5 ounces; had to get Buster home safe, after all! (Didn't stop me from having a couple more "full size" brews after I got home though, along with my weekly glass of bourbon shared with Jake over the phone.)

So all in all a fantastic if very long (and tiring) day. Buster did well with the long day, and mostly enjoyed himself, but he's not sure he'll be up for another one this season. That's pretty understandable, and not something I'd push, so we'll see if we're done for the year. There's a couple more coming up over the next few weeks all nearby, but none we're expected at, so we'll just see how we feel week to week. Either way, August has been an awesome blues month!

(As always, there's additional photos on the Flickr site.)

One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Blues God!

Buster & I, along with my sister and her friend, went to see Buddy Guy and George Thorogood last night at the Bank of America Pavilion (formerly and forever more "HarborLights") in Boston.

It certainly was a great show! My only "complaint", is Thorogood came on after Buddy. Don't get me wrong, I love Thorogood, but Buddy is after all a god. Still, it may be that Buddy didn't want to close, he came out and did an amazing 45-minute set, Thorogood did close to 90 minutes with multiple encores. So it made for a long night. (There was also a local band before Buddy.)

The show was actually opened by Peter Gammons... ESPN baseball correspondent ("The Commissioner"), who came out with Red Sox GM Theo Epstein to welcome us to the venue and then did his own 30-minute rock set (with Theo sitting in on a couple of songs.)

Buddy hasn't lost a step, he looks unbelievable for his age and didn't slow down. Most of our photos came out horrible (they're up on my Flickr site), but a couple came out nice:



As always Buddy went for a walk around the entire venue, playing a 15-minute guitar solo the whole time, here he is as he passed by our aisle (though his attention was elsewhere... as was mine!):



He did quite a few songs from his new CD ("Skin Deep") and was plugging it heavily, the material he played was all great. He also invited up Quinn Sullivan for a couple of songs, a local, 9-year-old guitar prodigy who blew everyone away, truly phenomenal! (Quinn appears on the CD as well for one song.)

Thorogood was also great as always, and had everyone on their feet (including Buster, who's a big Thorogood fan and knows most all his songs) dancing through his whole show.

A lot of folks were yelling for Buddy to come back out with George at the end, but no luck. I suspect that Buddy wanted to pour everything into his set and then be done.

We were exhausted by the time we left but yeah, a great great night.

Been To The Mountain!

Saturday night, I finally saw The Blues Brothers perform live. After almost 30 years! Buster and I went to the Foxwoods resort in Connecticut for the show, to see Elwood and Zee Blues (Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi) performing in front of the Sacred Hearts Band.

The show was electric. The moment the curtains went up the band blasted into a "Soul Finger" instrumental, the band members all lined up side by side at the front of the stage forming a wall of power pushing out into the audience, horns blaring. Wow! Elwood and Zee came out afterwards to a boogying John Lee Hooker-like riff, and broke into "Sweet Home Chicago". The show was powerful and relentless, it kept coming at you song after song, all great fun and fantastic music.

The Brothers did what they're known for... provided a fun-spirited, high energy package showcasing great music performed by an incredibly strong band. They covered the Blues Brothers "era" front to back, from the first "Briefcase Full of Blues" album ("Messin' With the Kid", "Almost", "Rubber Biscuit" and of course "Soul Man") through Dan and Jim's own "Have Love Will Travel" album from a few years back ("Have Love Will Travel", "300 Pounds of Joy", "Swinging Party" and "Driving Wheel", amongst others), and much from in between. Judy Salgado did a great rendition of "Natural Woman", that woman's got a voice on her! They closed by dedicating to "She Caught the Katy" to "Joliet" Jake (John Belushi), and finishing with "Soul Man". They encored with "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love/Love Light".

Though Elwood doesn't move quite as well as he used to (much like myself!), the choreography, while less manic than Back In The Day, was fun and well-suited to their abilities. Zee also spent quite a bit of time during numerous songs roaming the audience, and inviting others to dance... mostly the hot ladies, of course! (Excepting on "300 Pounds", where he was belly-wumping with a few other larger gentlemen from the crowd.)

Another special treat for me was the inclusion of James Montgomery playing harp with the band (instead of Jimmie Wood). James is a very dynamic harp player and a New England blues institution, I've seen him play many times over the past 20+ years and on several occasions have shared beers with him. (He actually used one of my harps in a show he did in Cambridge once... I swear I didn't think it could do the things he was doing with it!)

Buster loved the whole show and was dancing to many of the songs... dancing is his thing. He was the hit of the resort, too... though we'd hemmed and hawed about it we did end up going to the show in full Blues regalia, Elwood and Buster side-by-side, with the Bluesmobile in the garage.

We got so many compliments and were so comfortable in the suits (which I haven't often worn in public since Jake joined the Marines way back then) we were wondering, Why did we hesitate? It may be time to let Buster and Elwood Blues become more commonly known around New England. Let's see, we're going to a Buddy Guy/George Thorogood show in two weeks... and rumors persist about a possible return to the area by my own Joliet Jake within a couple of years....

After the show Jim Belushi, still in uniform, signed autographs in the lobby. I got a new copy of "Have Love Will Travel" autographed for Jake, and for myself asked him to autograph a clear peel-off mailing label that I then put on the Bluesmobile's dashboard. It'll do until I get a chance to get the car itself autographed one of these years... Buster also got an autograph and he's quite proud of that. Here's Zee autographing Jake's CD:


All in all a fantastic night. The concert itself, so long looked forward to, was so emotionally powerful to me that it was hard to recall specific sights and sounds even an hour afterwards... just the emotional high.

We also hooked up with a couple of friends we've met through the online Blues Brothers forums, and that was great... Marc "Stein529" from New Hampshire, and Adam "ElwoodJones" from Connecticut. Below Buster and I are pictured with EJ in front of the Bluesmobile after the show:


It was great seeing them (I'd met Marc once before, and regret I didn't catch up with him again after the show) and it's fun having a circle of Brothers in the area.

Now the next goal: to get to see a Blues Brothers show together with Jake! We had an extra ticket for him but he wasn't able to make the trip up from Missouri this time. But with the new House of Blues being built in Boston, we're hoping the Brothers will perform there when it opens and we'll be trying hard to score seats to that one. Keep the Faith.....


(Below, I couldn't bring myself to put "ELWOOD" on the knuckles for this show; there was only one Elwood in the house that night in my mind! So I tried something different:)

(There's also a few additional photos on my Flickr page, links at right.)

Visiting the ORIGINAL House Of Blues

Okay, so I still haven't gone through the pictures from the Bermuda trip! Soon, soon... I'll get to it!!

In the meantime though, yesterday we took a ride into Harvard Square to hang out for a bit, so of course I stopped by the former Harvard Square HoB. Last I'd heard it was a BBQ joint, now though I found it to be a serviceable Irish pub, Tommy Doyle's. Here's some pictures, and a few more can be found on my Flickr site.

The still-familiar (if you've seen the original) facade, now painted green instead of blue:



The downstairs restaurant area:




The once-great music hall upstairs:




Saddest to me was seeing the old hand/feet impressions in the cement of the adjoining driveway, several more of these at the Flickr site but here's The Colonel's:



So there's an overview, not quite the same! And for those who haven't seen the original Cambridge House, obviously quite different as well from the much larger venues that it spawned. It was so intimate, a fantastic club... but of course only a few hundred people to a show.

Sometime in the next month or two I'm planning another drive-by of the Lansdowne Street site where they're building the new Boston House of Blues, scheduled to open this winter, to get some updated pictures. It'll have to be on a non-game day (Rde Sox), though!

Response from Disney

I know I need to get some vacation stories and photos up here, they're coming I promise! Been a very busy week since we got home and we haven't even looked at the photos ourselves yet, though we have at least got them downloaded from the cameras. Hopefully this weekend I'll make a start on them and get some posted by the beginning of next week.

To follow up on my letter to WDW below, I did get a response already... Tuesday morning I got a lengthy phone message on my answering machine from a representative in the "executive offices" of WDW. Though the gist of it was, "It's a Done Deal, sorry", it was at least a fairly personal message and clearly I was heard... that of course makes me feel a bit better about things, even if still mourning the Adventurer Club's imminent passing. (If I can find a place to post an audio file of the message I'll link to it from here later.)

I can only hope that if enough people speak up, maybe they'll re-open it in a new location somewhere in the future... there's precedent, as they did that with Chef Mickey's restaurant after it closed in the Village in '95.

And on the Plus side, it does now look like Jake & I will in fact be in the Club on its last night of existence (and hopefully the night before as well), to close out the place! If the crowds aren't so bad we get shut out, that is... we'll worry about that in a few months.

Kungaloosh!