Midwest Tour, vol. 1

Alright, where to begin?

Well, the tour got under way for me one week ago today when I flew into Chicago to meet the rest of the folks involved. The lovely Ms. Neumark flew in on Tuesday afternoon and we had our first and only rehearsal that evening. Julie and I are touring with the Ted Wulfers Band and those guys are backing up Julie with me during her set. So, I took the el to a location sort of near the rehearsal studio and Ted picked me up on the corner of North and Clybourn and we went to a bar to meet the Julie and the rest of the guys.

Side-bar: Great way to meet somebody for the first time...jumping into their huge rapist style van on a corner in one of America's largest cities.

Note-to-self: If Ted and I ever start a band, call in North and Clybourn.

Anyhow, so we met at the bar, went to the rehearsal studio and rocked out for about 5 hours. Now that really is a cool way to meet musicians. Why not play some music for a few hours to break the ice? Jeff (drums), Aaron (guitar) and Aron (bass) are all really great guys and amazing musicians and it was a lot of fun to get this long jam in right at the beginning.

This brings us to Wednesday and the first show of the tour in Grand Rapids, MI. This was actually a great show to start off with. Cool small bar called Juke's that had a really great vibe with old record covers all over the walls, a decent sized stage for such a small place and a video camera broadcasting the show on two TVs in the bar. The owner, Dave, is a really nice guy and seemed pleased and appreciative to have some good out-of-town music in his bar instead of the regular open mic for the night. Hillbilly, our sound guy, was a cool and interesting cat from Alabama who was really into all three sets. So, drive back to Chicago at 3am aside, it was a good night and a promising start to the tour.