New Tour Log

What a few days it's been!! The fates have led me back out onto the tour bus (or perhaps better said the Boogie Train) of my old pal and bandleader Michael Katon. We'd worked together over a decade ago, through 8 European tours over around 5 years, in the late 90s and early 2000s,  but except for a few local gigs we hadn't  been playing together recently. So getting the call was a charge! After this last year, I really needed to get out and play a tour somewhere, and this was just the ticket. Cynthia, bless her wonderful heart, totally agreed and her support convinced me to give it a shot.

Mike and I got together occationally for a few weeks, at his house and over Skype, running over possible tunes and just getting used to playing together. There was some question for a while as to who was gonna fill the drum chair, until he got ledgendary rocker Johnny Bee to come on board! By then there wasn't much time though. After a couple of rehearsals with him and Bee, we packed, said goodbye to our friends and loved ones and climbed onto a Delta flight heading to Amsterdam.

The first flight was looong...not just that 7 hour trip, but due to engine troubles we were in the plane on the ground for 2 hours!! Kinda frustrating. But fortunately the jet as underbooked and we could stretch out a bit, I even commandeered three seats and made a bed of sorts, and had a few hours of what seemed like sleep. Then from Amsterdam to Dusseldorf on a very small jet, and there we were...stiff and very bleary indeed, but OK and glad to see our friend Henny who had come to pick us up.

So here we are. Mike and I got out our axes and played a bit, talked with Henny, ate and drank some of his excellent Belgian beer. Henny is one of the good guys, by the way, an excellent cat that I'd met on our previous travels. A very funny and intelligent Dutchman who is about the size of a standard Sequoia tree. His house here in Beek is very comfortable and a great staging area for us to get it together...tomorrow we'll head out to the music store and get a few things, we'll call  the rental agency and collect the amps and drums, just sort things out. There's a couple of days before we get on the ferry and go to England, our first leg of the tour!! I'm pretty jazzed about it.

Well, I don't know if I'm making much sense, so  I'll stop now. Jet lag is such a strange thing...I thought I'd outsmarted it but here I am awake at 3 in the morning! Back in Michigan it's about 9. I'm gonna try that bed again.

The Frozen North And The Long Route To Southern Spain

So the Arctic Winds, or the Polar Vortex, or the Great Storm Ion, came down upon us here in Michigan and gave us a good paddlin' that's still going on!! It's 4 below zero Fahrenheit out there tonight, and all the cats and chickens are in shelter...the chickens in their heated coop, and the cats here in the house. Last night it was 15 below, with a wind chill of -36. For some reason I checked the temperature in Antarctica at  Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and it was -8, so for a while we were a good deal colder than THEY were!! We're OK though, and it's gonna warm up later in the week...well, I hope so, anyway.

I'm getting ready for my tour with Michael Katon...actually packing stuff up now. It's less than two weeks away!! I'm still doing Skype practices with Mike, and those are going pretty well, although I haven't played with the drummer Johnny 'Bee' Badanjek yet. We'll have a couple rehearsals all together with some luck before we go. Usually I'm pretty sanguine about going out and doing it, and I'm sure we'll be fine...if Mike can just make up his mind which tunes to do!! Thing is he's just got such a large catalog, and sometimes I think he'd like to do 'em all. And who knows, maybe we will.

It's gonna be really interesting!! This tour will take us from England, Scotland and Wales to Germany and The Netherlands; and then into southern Spain. There are rumors of a quick flight into Sweden for a show too! Frankly, with the cold still chilling my bones, lovely Barcelona sounds bitchin' right about now. I'm interested in how everybody will approach this trip...I know I'll have a different perspective than the last one I was on 12 years ago...my musical paradigm is broader, I'm more confident in my abilities, and my goals are different. I want to be more appreciative of opportunities like these that come up, and to try and make every moment, onstage and off, really good. It's quite a gift to get to do this, and believe me, I know that!!  

Here's the entire tour schedule so far (the Sweden date isn't up yet, and may not happen...who knows?). I'll post up any changes!

GB=Great Britain
D=Germany
NL=The Netherlands
FR=France
ES=Spain

fr 24.01.2014 GB Newcastle Blues Club Forest Hall
sa 25.01.2014 GB Kinross Green Hotel Backstage - Scotland
so 26.01.2014 GB Skegness Rock & Blues Festival
mo 27.01.2014 GB Oxford Jericho Tavern - Famous Monday Blues
di 28.01.2014 GB London 100 Club
mi 29.01.2014 GB Wolverhampton Robin 2
do 30.01.2014 GB Chislehurst Beaverwood - London
fr 31.01.2014 GB Sutton Boom Boom Club - London
sa 01.02.2014 GB Darwen Library Theatre - Darwen (Lanashire)
so 02.02.2014 GB - TBA
mo 03.02.2014 GB - TBA
di 04.02.2014 GB - The Talking Heads - SouthHampton
mi 05.02.2014 GB - TBA
do 06.02.2014 GB -The Buck Hotel Reeth - Yorkshire
fr 07.02.2014 GB Caerphilly Patriot Inn - Wales
sa 08.02.2014 GB Colwyn Bay Park Hotel - Wales
9.02 travel like a muhfuka - UK to Europe
10.02.TBA
11.02. D - Bremen/Meisenfrei
12.02. NL - Boxtel/Eet Cafe
13.02. NL - Spijkeniese/De Fles
14.02. NL - Belfeld/De Hamar (acoustic show)
15.02. NL - Ommen/Calluna
16.02. NL - Roermond/De Weegbrug
17.02. D - Nürnberg/Pegnitzbühne
18.02. TBA
19.02. D - Hamburg/Downtown Bluesclub
20.02. TBA
21.02 FR - Arras/Blue Devils
23.02. NL - Eibergen/De StierFebruary
February 25th - ES - Barcelona - RockSound
February 26th - ES - Monzon - Serjos Zona Rock
February 27th - ES -Madrid - La Boite
February 28th - ES- Basque Country - Donostia - Sala Doka
March 1st - ES- Basque Country - Vitoria - Helldorado

  

A New Year, And High Time Too!!

Man, if you've been reading my posts you all know what's been going on this year...certainly one of the most difficult and challenging ones of my life. Both my parents in hospital for long stays with spinal injuries early in Spring, several good friend's deaths, my Mother's three months of desperate hospitalization and subsequent death later in the year, my wife Cynthia's Mother's death two weeks later...it's been very hard. Combine that with rough financial times (well, you take off work to spend time in the hospital), and the interrelated depression and alcohol overindulgence that seemed to be bound to follow me on this journey...and well, I'm not unhappy to see 2013 leave.

I don't know what's in the future, but I know that I have many choices I can make to improve the world around me. And I want to do that. A wise Zen Buddhist said once, "Every action you take either makes your world larger or smaller". I intend to try for the positive actions! I may not have control over what the world throws at me, but I can try to have control over how I react to it. And I think I can do that...with help from my friends and loved ones, of course. I am fortunate that I have so many who care about me. And that includes you there, reading this! Yeah, I'm talkin' 'bout you.

My next steps are pretty easy to take...getting things together here, taking care of my Dad, readying myself for the new tour with Michael Katon. I got the word on that...we're out in the UK and Europe for 7 weeks! This'll be the first time I've traveled with him in over 12 years, and it should be interesting to see what the perspective of that time will bring to the mix of the road adventure. I can only think it will improve the experience! There may be faster young dogs out there, but we old dogs are wilier...so watch out!

And speaking of Dogs, I'm in the studio this weekend to finish off some demos of original material for the Shelter Dogs next album. I'm sure that when I get back those tunes will be completely unrecognizable in terms of arrangement! Pete and Tom are such wildly creative people, they may take them in unexpected directions. Which is the general idea. Hopefully we can start working with them when I get back. 

And while I'm getting those done, I'll be looking at my next solo project...which I pretty much abandoned last year when everything hit the fan. I'll see what I want to keep and what speaks to me now, in light of everything that's happened since. Part of me has no interest in  the solo thing, but another part seems to think it's important to my life in some deeper way. It's like exploring bits of yourself that you may not be familiar with...uncomfortable but good for you. Like Yoga. Hey, I gotta start that up again too.

Well, you can always tell which posts get started after the second cup of coffee!! If you're still reading this, my apologies for a lengthy entry. But I AM glad it's the New Year, and I'm glad I have such great friends and family, and a chance to make things better for myself and the world around me. I'm gonna give it a shot, anyway!!  Happy New Year and the best to you all.