Thoughts From The Townedger-Jan 2020

Already we're a month into the new year.  Time is going way too fast.

The Sanctuary fundraiser for Julie ended up 500 dollars contributed by friends and musicians.  I'm still proud of the fact that those who said they're showed up, most of them did.  Only Steve Black Wolf was too ill to attend. He was missed

Mike Maas was part of the Waubeek Travelers and he and me are facebook friends.  He didn't make much of an effort to hang around with the audience Saturday, but we did say hi and I shook his hand. Mike did say that he only wanted Freddy Jones to help him on stage and I honored his request.  Alas, Ron LaFleur took up the bongos was playing offbeat which didn't please Mike and on the second song he pretty much told Ron where to put the bongos at.  The third song, Mike stopped it and said he couldn't concentrate  due to too much talking and with that, we lost Lorie and Donna Jo.  Ron packed up too, so Relapse ended up being the last band to play.  Jason Clines did play my percussion and I ended up playing the bongos behind the stage on Paint It Black.   Overall, I thought the Benefit went fairly well, but usually when you bring many musicians together for any cause, you're going to deal with some egos and hurt feelings.  On a positive, some of our most Conservative of friends managed to do the most for Julie, that includes Ron, Brenda and Greg Mein, Mike Bear Clair and a couple others.  Patrick Lower had some sort of frustration at the beginning but MJ talked him into staying and running sound.  And Patrick is very good at running sound.  And of course, Mike Maas for performing.

My 59th birthday wasn't much,  I shoveled Julie's driveway and sidewalk as she recovers from Hip Replacement and then went to Salvation Army and found a couple records and CDs, like I usually do on my birthday.  I made the big mistake of telling Ray Larson about my birthday and he broadcast that to anybody in earshot.  Karl Hudson and Jeff Overly sang Happy Birthday and Ray bought me a beer, he wouldn't buy a pepsi.  I saw Craig Erickson play at Iowa Brewing Company and said hi to Tommy Giblin.  And tried one of those Surf Zombie beer.  7.4 percent alcohol but it had a bad aftertaste what I couldn't get rid of and almost burp puked.   Then went to see Mike Serbousek and River City Drifters at Rumors with Tami Soukup.  They sounded like they haven't practiced much as nobody could play Riding The Storm Out.  Steve Buzzy Shepherd is a FB friend but he never did acknowledged me tho.

Julie and me had been a part of each other's life now for almost three years and somehow we managed to last longer than my musician friends out there.  I find that fascinating since our relationship is as platonic as it gets.   I think Julie has a soft spot in her heart of eccentrics and introverts.  Kyle Oyloe was an eccentric but I didn't know him long enough to be an introvert.  Julie did say that they had a 25 year plus friendship and playing in bands together.   Tami's breakup and divorce proceedings could possibly play a role in our friendship but in reality, I'm not looking.

As it stands, I think Blues Rox will be more of a presence around the area.  There is talk about opening for Avery/Crowes Band, which is more blues based than rock.  Brian Bries knows them better than I do.  We'll see if I can convince the guys to do a show at the Sanctuary this summer, or maybe better, opening for It's  A Beautiful Day once things get finalized.  Jim Jacobmeyer has all those 60s acts at his disposal.   It was 2 years ago that Maury Baker jammed with me and others at the Mockingbird, now a memory.    We may try to get a bass player as well, I'll try to convince Russ Swearingen this is the way to go, tho he would have issues to play Free Bird.

Speaking of Russ's cousin Mike, I doubt he'll ever SING again.  Too many Marlboro Menthol and bad peppermint schnapps.

That's it for the monthly get together.