Thursday, August 18, 2016

Summer Not Over Yet!



We know that our guitar playin’ friend Gary Hendrickson can play the blues. And we know people who say that only through pain and adversity can you truly feel the blues. Well, after a knee-repair relapse, Gary is feeling both. We all hope he heals quickly.
Gary’s misfortune means Big Wes Turner’s Trio will NOT be at the Essen Haus this Thursday (August 18). Instead, The Sparks Band will be playing their deep repertoire of hits and obscurities from the 60s (with Tom sitting in on bass).
On Saturday, August 20, The Maintainers play on the deck at the Varsity Club in Merrimac (inside if it rains). Blues stalwart Mel Ford on the guitar, rhythm section Tom and Rick from Big Wes T’s Trio, and filling in for the vacationing harmonica-man Frankie Lee, Ken “Birddog” Olufs. Where is the Varsity Club, you ask? Head up through Lodi, past Okee, to Lake Wisconsin (also known as The Wisconsin River), take the free ferry across, turn left, then keep eyes right. You can’t miss it.
Still on the calendar (Thursday, August 25), a concert right outside the Green County courthouse in Monroe, Wisconsin, with the Birddog Blues Band and the fabulous Family Business.
And the very next Saturday (August 27) The Sparks Band steps in again at The Varsity Club—Beatles, Animals, Stones, and Kinks, Oh my! Even Beau Brummels, and Left Banke. Easier than building a time machine.

That’s it for keeping all up to date. Did anyone notice a promise to deliver more than a list of gigs in the previous post? Something about the "ART" of bands in bars. Well, time is short and the deadline looms, so we must make do with this teaser...

...A svelte guy in a sport coat and no shirt is up on a stage with a wireless microphone jumping up and down in time to some music that is so dominated by booming bass-drum quarter notes that its essence is mostly just that. His “band” is a couple of guys behind him with laptops. In front of them are hundreds, maybe thousands, of people yelling, screaming, pumping their arms in the air, and generally displaying signs of excited participation in whatever it is you call this. A concert?

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