Whiskey Jo Blues Jam

Songs were

Tin Pin Alley

Mary Had A Little Lamb

Criss Cut Saw 

Tube Snake Boogie

Jesus Just Left Chicago

After Midnight 

Country Blues

The Weight

All Along The Watchtower

Never Been To Spain 

Mary Jane's Last Dance 

Willie And The Hand Jive 

Knocking On Heaven's Door

Kansas City 

Sympathy For The Devil

(Taz) 

Taz Grant sang on Tin Pin Alley, Mary Had A Little Lamb

Matt Panek sang on Tube Snake Boogie, Jesus Just Left Chicago, After Midnight,  Country Blues

Billy Bourbon sang on the rest of the songs and played bass

Tommy Bruner played guitar

Donna Joe played percussion

Terry McDowell got the night off

Brett played Harmonica on Kansas City 

Freddy Jones played harp on the Taz and Matt Panek numbers

I played drums

(Tom Berdo took the photos) 

Not sure who Taz was, but he was from Chicago and started things out with Tin Pin Alley, a slow song that he asked me to speed it up later on.  Tonight was the first time I ever got to play alongside Matt Panek, a guy that played with Kevin Burt and other blues bands.  The Country Blues was a ZZ Top song but not sure what it was.  

Not many jammers were there due to the bad weather and tornadoes that were ripping up parts of rural Iowa.  When I bailed out, I asked Jeff Brown if he wanted to go chase some storms and he gave me a funny look.  Steve Sttratton was there but I don't think he played.

Tom Berdo took some unflattering pictures of me to which he threatened to post.

A lot of blues was played tonight and thanks be to Tommy, Billy and Terry for the practice.  I am seeming to feeling more rusty than I should.   I think I played more than 14 songs and eventually they will come to light.  It took me a good three hours to remember we played CrossCut Saw. 

Artisan-Free Bird

Songlist

Summer Breeze

Free Bird

It Hurts Me Too

What Goes On

Fever

For What Its Worth

Mike McMeins-Drums on Free Bird

Mike Zhome-Backing Vocal on For What Its Worth

For all my time of playing, the dreaded Free Bird has been played.  Halfassed by Paraphernalia Tyrus, attempted with FOAD and somewhat getting used to from Blues Rox but I have never played it as a solo artist.  So basically this week, I discovered that it was much more easier to play than originally thought. But I thought I would dust it off as a straight forwarded version and not a slam.

Free Bird probably is more about me than originally thought.  It probably deals with my way of life with everybody that I have known and Asperger's or not, it is a damning assumption of my life and those who get stuck being my lover.  This goes back further, around the time with Penny during the high school years.   And has never changed.

Nevetheless Free Bird is overplayed, every bar band has to play it and some fucking drunk will request it.   Russ detests that song and I thought I did for a while too, but Blues Rox has played it better over time.  I'm sure people thought I was being funny but in all honesty, I wasn't. 

Summer Breeze was the lone original, It Hurts Me Too an What Goes On, were debuted.  And trying not to waste time, I did a shaky version of Fever but got Mike Zhrome's girlfriend to dance along with it.  And he got invited to sing on For What Its Worth.

Last time I used Virginia Harlow's Marshall amp but this time I opted to go into the board.  It had a tinny sound to it, the board that is, so perhaps I used the amp instead.    

Not a lot of jammers tonight but Ed Butler followed me and then Mike Zhome played a few covers and that was it for tonight.  I continue to experiment  and play around, with mixed results tonight. 

Rumors-Remembering Amy

July 10, 1982.  

I didn't date much in my life.  Not that I really wanted to.  I have been a failure when it came to love, even in high school, my first love was 500 miles away and already barefoot and pregnant before she turned 15 and Janice never panned out.  At least Penny took a chance and we did go out a couple times before I ended things.  And found out later on, you can't go back to the innocent days.  With that Penny was the most truthful one, she knew we were not going to work out.

Oh I had infatuations with some of them, when I worked at the gas station.  Nobody panned out.  I did write a song called Molly's Folly about a girl that came to the station but later on, she did have a boyfriend who eventually married her. 

So, I was at Show Biz Pizza, pissing away quarters on video games and suddenly, this petite black hair girl came up and bothered me for a bit, saying her boyfriend left her and took off and could I drive her home. So I did and this started a strange three week affair to which I got late night phone calls which my irate mother would lecture about calling late.  Amy and me did a couple trips up to Lindale and played video games.  None of my friends were impressed with her, nor my folks.

But it had to end and it did later underneath the full moon to which we managed to watch a softball game or two.  I think at that moment later around 11 30 and a rising moon, she revealed how much she had fallen in love with me.  I originally shrugged and asked if she wanted to make love and she said Could We?.

But this night was strange.  She mentioned that her boyfriend have given her an engagement ring to which I looked at her and ask why the hell am I here then.  She then proceeded to have a wanting to make out and in a split second told me she loved me.   And I was thinking...oh shit.  I didn't bring the rubbers.  The big red flag was waving at me, I didn't fell compelled to be a rebound relationship or a one night stand, tho she was hot.   I told her, I like you but don't feel the same about you.  She was disappointed but we held hands for about 10 minutes and then went home in separate directions    Oh, she called a couple times then after that moved on.   I did ask about her about a year later but was told she moved out.   I would run into her one more time, six years later, with the guy she was with all this time and two daughters.  We didn't acknowledged one another, she probably didn't know who I was under the glasses and hat but I'm sure I was wearing the same shirt that I did back in 82.  

Paraphernalia did a song called You Were With Me, and while it might have been dedicated to her at that time, it came from a song called Heart Of Stone with different lyrics.  I don't play it that much, I don't see the need.  But Amy was not on the scene when Heart Of Stone was recorded on July 2 of 1982.

I did write a couple songs that were about Amy, one was indirect, Summer Breeze, which the final verse was "Tried to call you, but it's nothing at all, leave a message don't you say that I called" but Looking For A Way Out was more direct and told the story of  about that fateful night in 82, that I didn't score, simply of the fact that she was engaged and I wasn't about to sample the dish, tho had she made the first mood, it might have been a different story.  I never played Looking For A Way Out live and not about to, it's off the First And Last Reunion and very wordy, but Geoff Redding did include a two note ominous tone that ended the record on a decent note.  Perhaps I'll revisit that song and album in another time.

39 years ago and I can't remember what I was looking for when I go into the next room but I can still see clearly that night at the Centipede game and having this girl hang around for no particular reason at all outside that her bubba boyfriend was showing off his 4 by 4 and she wanted a change.  And for almost three weeks, she realized that what she was looking for, she had all the time. 

(Monte Olsen: Photo Credit)

Songlist at Rumors

Turn The Page

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Summertime Blues

I Wanna Be Sedated

With

Billy Bourbon

Tommy Bruner

Jeffrey Taylor 

Tim Canfield

R. Smith

Terry McDowell

And Phil Bo (in photo) 

Tammie Unash's birthday bash had plenty of drummers, and Terry did a decent job pairing people up. Brenda and Greg Mein were there and their songs were done by Sir Bob Miller.  DJ Hovenstot, Herman Sarduy, Rick Wengl and Tim Kauffman were the others holding down the beat.  The guys wanted a more heavier beat to Turn The Page, to which I complied and did so.   The Ramones song was Tommy's suggestion.   Would have loved to help Greg and Brenda out more but that was not my call and Bob and DJ were already there.   I was there for the potluck and sandwiches. 

Six Years

Time flies way too fast.  Way too fast for my liking.  

Back in 2014 I made Forthcoming Trains, an album that borrowed some of my original material that didn't fit the original sound that I had in mind.  Except for Knocking On Heaven's Door which Bob Dylan wrote and somehow I thought covering that would score some cool cred.  But as the record got played, mostly on Lucky Star Radio (We All Sleep Alone made number 1 for three weeks off and on), but this started up the idea of playing one more time in a local band, to play the original songs in front of people and one last attempt to play rock star before I turned 60.

Karen Waters was the one that suggested that I get back to playing again.  I'm not sure what processed her into saying that but I did venture out to Checkers earlier in the year and hung out at the back while Bart Carfizzi scoured for people to play, but I made no effort to play.  I was still dealing with stage fright that wouldn't go away (or Asperger's for that matter) but one night after work, I jammed with Rodney Albaugh on a couple of songs and well, he's the one that got the ball rolling.

I eventually made my debut at Wrighleyville on this day in 2015, playing to the house band of T Ray Robertson and Guitar Dave Bonham,  I did a couple songs on drums, undisciplined as hell and playing too loud and too fast.  But the house drum set was terrible, a warped pair of hi hats, a couple of trash can lids as cymbals (there was a Paiste 302 bronze that actually sounded decent) and a twenty dollar drumset that made me long for my old Ohio Arts flashing light toy drum set.  31 years removed from the OK Lounge and occasional sighting, mainly 1991's jam with The Routers, a band that my former boss Greg Nutter was part of.  A 1993 Attitudes jam with a husband wife group, to which my lack of playing slowed down their groove.  Then after that, back to the basement, back to the music room to record as The Townedgers.  But in 2015, I was the newbie, a veteran of the original music and band but to the rest of Cedar Rapids and other places, just another unknown.

I didn't keep a log of what I did back then.  It was usually crap like Hold On Loosely, Mustang Sally, Brown Eye Girl or the all time drunkard's fave, Free Bird.    When Russ Swearingen finally joined me in August, we jammed to Rocky Mountain Way and perhaps Rock Me Baby.  Russ and I tried to get something going off and on but we never did get off the ground.  Perhaps in 2006 with John Field, we could have gotten something going, but the flood of 2008 ended that, John Field lost everything and his sanity and Russ and I tried with another bunch of folk in 2009 but I didn't think we had much going.

While the first jam was a case of getting over the jitters, I didn't shy away and returned back to the basement, instead I continue to go to various jams and interact with more players and beginning to fit in musically, tho the usual complaints of too fast and too loud was commonplace.  Bart and Tim Duffy hosted the Rumor's jams till Bart quit and Tim moved to Georgia and Terry McDowell took over.  And somehow I was always there, ready to pick up and practice with the legends of this town.  And there are many legends that I did play along with,  Dennis McMurrin, Craig Erickson, Tommy Bruner, Dan Johnson, Rare Earth bass player Randy Burghdorf, Brook Hoover, Al Hendricks, Tommy Giblin.... all figured into me finding my own groove. 

While I finally got over the stage fright on drums, the next step was to play guitar and sing, which then The Acousta Kitties got me to play a few songs later on.  Eventually one of them, Julie Gordon would become a bigger part of this life, but in a perfect world Kyle Oyloe would still be alive, and they would still be together.   But nevertheless, Julie has been a musical partner tho, they have been few and far between.  But I have shared the stage with her with Dreams Of Arcadia or The Mad Dogs or even The Acousta Crabbies. I have shared the stage with Lorie Parker, Cathy Hart, Belinda James, Tiffany Mahenery, Cecie Stark and Kimberly Kat Blue, but my fave moments remains when Julie Gordon sings the songs.  

When you're a musician, music is a part of you till the day you die.  Oh, I could retire and return back to my old life but the urge would come back and take over again.  Why it took 31 years is a matter of ambition.  To be honest, I didn't have much of that when Paraphernalia/Tyrus closed up shop.  Wrighleyville no longer has music jams, and we lost fellow people along the way, Kyle Oyloe, Tommy Patterson, Ron Dewitte, David Bosier to name a few.  Bands come and go and somehow we came full circle.   I did managed to play in some good bands that never pan out, The Wiley Kats, with Timothy Wiley, good guitar player, Ben Benyard, underrated bass player but didn't have the ambition to keep playing.  The Egads, with Belinda James and Mark Randolph, Larry Alexman had a great batch of songs to play but family life kept him from the stage and Mark's bi polar issues doomed him from the beginning. And The Boy Scout Hippies, which will always be Ron LaFluer's band.  Now I'm in Blues Rox, with Kris and Brian Bries for over a year and a half and it's fun to watch Kris branch out to be one of the better blues guitar players in town.  With Russ playing bass, it's like Paraphernalia all over again. Out of all the bands, Blues Rox is the last great hope for me to be in a band that might turn out to be something special.  Kris is only 20 and he has his life ahead of him, I'm sixty and on perhaps my last go around.   But the last go around has been going for  six years.  As long as I'm not dead, I look to the next day that I take the stage, behind the drums or with guitar in hand.

I hate to think the next six years will go by this fast, by then I'll be 66.  But as long as it's fun and as long I can hold a beat (be it fast and loud) I'll continue to play the rock star.

 

' 

Checkers-With Mark Awad, Jeff Taylor, Dan Hartman, Jeff Craft.

Songs:

For What It's Worth

Good Time Charlie Got The Blues

Wang Dang Doodle

Switch Board Susan

I Fought The Law

Spoonful

Cinnamon Girl

Let's Work Together

Dead Flowers 

Willin'

Rolling And Tumblin'

Encore:

Amie

I played guitar

Mark Awad played bass 

Eddie Jarrell replaced Mark on Willin' and Rolling And Tumbling

Jeff Taylor played keyboards on 2, 3,4 sang lead on 9, 10 and played National Guitar

Jeff Craft played keyboards on Willin' and Dead Flowers 

Dan Hartman-Sang and played guitar on Amie

Kat Blue added backing vocals on Amie

Carl Meiners was there.

Murry, gave a nice tip on Spoonful

Jeff Taylor, usually known as the keyboard player got out the old steel guitar for his numbers.  His version of Willin is closer to version 1 than the Sailing Shoes version.  He knows how to sing the blues.

And the Cubs stunk up the tube again. 8-0.  They suck. 

I did managed to check out the Olympic Thirsty Jam, but nobody was there.  Karl Hudson and Robin Banks were on a long break, so I venture out to downtown to see what's going on.  Seen Pat Geisland and Stu Fondle outside the bar there, I seen Stu give the ole number one, not sure who he was flipping off and I don't believe he knew me from my hat and glasses,  but I winked back and blew him a kiss from afar.

We love Stu the Do. 

Whiskey Jo Jam-Bird Is Back

Songs played

Love Me Like A Man

Me And Bobby McGee

Gold Dust Woman

Midnight Special

Superstition

The return of Randy Burghdorf

However  Mark Awad was my bass playing buddy

Terry McDowell-Host

Kat Blue-Vocals on the first three

Billy Bourbon-Guitar and Vocal on Midnight Special

Tommy Bruner-Guitar and vocal on Superstition

Nick Lnenicka-Harmonica

Brett Johnson-Harmonica on Midnight Special

With:

David Kirzan, Greg Nost, Bill Whelan, Tammy Unash, Anita Skelton Andy Pasker, Bill Schlatter, Bob Miller and others. 

Tammy Unash:Photo.  Mandela Effect all together since March of 2020.

It's also Kimberly and David's 1st year of being married together.  Congratulations.

This is Randy's first time being out and playing bass since March of 2020.

I am too used to play Superstition in a faster mode than what Tommy plays it,   I think he has more of a set and funkier way than the Beck, Bogart and Appice version which includes a oddball time kinda like Whole Lotta Love.   I will have to relearn how to do that once I rekindle my friendship with Randy in the future.    But then again, i tend to follow Tommy more than I do with Mark on bass since Tommy knows where he's going with said song.

Bill Schlatter managed to crash the jam for the first time with Terry helping him singing the songs.  I think Terry made Bill a little more lively than Bill is for the acoustic open mics.  

Bob Miller and Andy Pasker were the other drummers on hand.  No Wildcat Spratt to speak of. 

Fourth Of July

It's been ten years since the passing of Dennis Pusateri, my coworker friend and co conspirer and all around great guy.  And yesterday, my former love tied the knot with her long time boyfriend.  10 years ago, she was with me when Dennis passed on.  I managed to go to his celebration of life before joining her to hear John Anderson at the fair.  I don't know if there's irony or a passing thought but it could mean life has gone full circle for her.  I did tell her ten years ago, she'd be married before I did.  And that came true. It's not that I became Nostradamus, when she did move down here, all of a sudden we didn't have that great of a relationship anymore.   I do regret that she never got to see me play live in a band. 

Rumors Jam Song list (incomplete)

Brown Eyed Girl

Margaritaville

Mustang Sally

Blue Swede Shoes 

Jumping Jack Flash

You Never Call Me By My Name

Under The Boardwalk

Dead Flowers

Casey Jones

Superstition

Chain Of Fools

Proud Mary

Me And Bobby McGee

Horse With No Name 

Midnight Rambler

Russ Glacklin-Vocal on the first three numbers

Amanda Marshall did three songs of note Chain of Fools, Me n Bobby McGee, and Proud Mary

Tim Canfield played bass and sang on Under The Board Walk

Tommy Bruner played guitar and sang on Superstition an Midnight Rambler

Terry McDowell Host got most of the night off

Nick Lnenicka played Harp

Morris played guitar throughout

Mark Awad came on board to play bass

I did it for the glory of drum playing. 

(Amanda Marshall took this photo)

So I ended up going to my late friend Dennis Pusateri's graveyard site and chatted with him for a half hour in spirit.  His whole family is now there, his mom passed away 22 days after he passed away. I wished he was still around, I miss him terribly.

Brian McKenna, our 3rd shift senior was in attendance.   Good to see him.

Billy surprised me by asking if I wanted to play guitar today.  Didn't plan on it but told time he sees me I might do that just.

Being a smart ass, I pulled a reggae beat to Horse With No Name.  Which kinda threw me off the beat when we concluded with Midnight Rambler.

(Tami Mannick: Photo Credit) Billy, Mark,Amanda, me, Tommy

Amanda from Four Day Creep did three songs, including a wacky Proud Mary and Bobby McGee. I had to follow Tommy's playing on Chain Of Fools, which is more slower than I play it.  Then again I play things too fast anyway (but I was drinking water).

Jeff Allen took this photo of the Surf Zombies Sunday Afternoon)

Upon walking around New Bo, I chatted with a dude in a wheel chair for about a half hour.  Above at the Bohemian, Brook Hoover saw me on the street and was waving at me.  He's  always fun to listen to.  Fab Five Freddy Jones was there too, but he didn't see me.