Mid Alantic Tour

The top picture is the wonderful crowd at Chick Halls Surf Club outside of baltimore MD.

Update... The muffin was sold. Here is a picture of the happy new owner. See the threat in the previous post for more info.

Our first show on this run was at JM Randals Club in Willaimsburg VA. We were able to load in earlier in the day and just show up for the gig. There was a great crowd and the ownership treated us wonderful. I talked to many people that came quite a way to see us. That is pretty gratifing. By all acounts the folks loved what we did. It was funny i caught the wait staff and bus people rocinkin out to our show. We were fed some really yummy food after the show. I am getting used to eating at 1:30 AM. Back to the room for some sleep.

Friday morning up and at it. We only had a short, 1 hour drive to Varginia beach to the next show at The Jewish Mother Club. The drive was senic as part of it was around the Chesapeque bay area. We rolled into the beach area and went strait to the club. We were able to load in right away and set up. While we were there we enjoyed a killer lunch at the club. The hotel they provided was right on the ocean and our rooms looked out on the atlantic to a beautiful clear day. I cought a nap and then did a little work on the computer. As i was sitting next to the sliding glass door working i looked up to see a sudden storm heading strait for the hotel. It was freaky like a tornado with thunder, lightning, rain, and 50- mile an hour wind. As soon as it came it dissapeared. It lasted maybe 15 minutes. Wierd. We rolled up to the club around 9:00 PM to find it full of frienly faces. The local blue sosiety was there in force. They held a raffle at our break and helped to make us feel welcome. I got to chit chat with a few fans before we started. This show was fun for me. The seats were right up close to the stage. I can not always see the faces of the folks but i could this night. I realized that i like to look at the people as a mirror to see thier reaction to what we are doing. I can ussally pick out 3-4 hard core listeners and i watch then. We did our 2 sets and broke our stuff down. Once again we got some great food from the owner Sonny and had a bunch of laughs. Load out and off to bed.

Next morning we headed north to Maryland. This as a senic 4 hour drive untill we got to the Washington DC area. The traffic was skrewed even though it was a Saturday afternoon. Oh well, take the good with the bad i guess. We arrived at Chick Halls Surf Club for load in. This club has been a music hall for 50 years. We were given some of the history by Mike, our sound guy. We got set up and headed for the hotel. The traffic was horrible going through the Maryland University area. UGH. We were all looking for a nap which we eventually got. Side note... No starbucks today> Not good. We head back to the club all fresh at 8:00. When we arrive the club was packed and folks kept rolling in. Many in attendance where very familiar with the band. Again the local Blues Society was in the house. This is so important to the art form and i encourage you to join one, today. I have not met these music lovers and it is cool to hear them tell me all the SJK shows they have seen. Tonight we totally rocked out. The patrons hit the huge dance floor right away and we fed off the energy right away. I am listening to a recording of it right now. These folks ate it up. Love it.... This is why i am out here making art with these talented musicians. See the above picture taken by me right before the encore. One of the people i saw i actually knew from the blues cruise. His name is Kevin and he drove 50 miles to see us. We will be playing on the cruise in January and Kevin will be there (WWW. bluescruise.com) We were mobbed for autographs and photos after the show. Again we were fed well and off we went. A few of the fans helped us carry the stuff out.. Very cool. I am winding down now at 3:00AM. It is hard to come back to the room and go right to bed. I am all jacked up from the energy of making music and feeding off the crowds energy. Tomorrow we we play in North Carolina. I am very excited cause a great friend, Gabi D. will be coming to the show. I have not seem her in 15 years. I appreciate her driving 3 hours to come see us........ BTW I finished my Jimi Hendrix biography last night. I don't want to ruin the end for you. It is sort of sad how it ends. I did feel grateful that i did not die from my drug addiction. I certainly partied as hard as he did for many years. Having been clean and sober for 20 years i have a completely different perspective on the 70's... Glad to be alive. Good night folks

Long Days

In a life full of long days i had 2 that stand out in the last week. last Sunday i woke up at 6:00AM in Mississippi. Bnois drove us to Dallas in just under 7 hours. I went to
Love field and got on a plane to San Diego. 5-4 hours later i was being picked up in San Diego by my Road Dogs band mate Terry Padgent. He drove me directly to the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach CA to see our buddy Tommy Castro with his very fine band. We met Ruby out front as she had arrived earlier and got us seats in the front row that were saved for us by Randy McDonald, Tommy's bass played and tour manager. Charlie musslewhite was the opening act and he was 2 songs into it as we entered the club. He is the most soulful harp player ever and his band is tight and talented. Tommy's show is as always very energized. Tommy's drummer Chris Sandoval always inspires me to play hard. Ruby and i have traveled all over to see them perform. I might have just stayed in Dallas for a dew more days if he was not playing in San Diego that night. The concert was over around 12:30 and we hung around to talk with Tommy and the guys. Tommy invited us backstage and we chatted for a while. Ruby and i drove home in the rain and went to bed around 1:30. LONG DAY INDEED.

The other long day was Wednesday. I got up and did my thing during the day then had a walk at the bay with ruby. We went out for dinner then home to pack. I got on a plane at 10:45 PM.
I arrived in Charlotte NC at 6:00 AM and got on a flight to Richmond VA. I then got a shuttle bus to Williamsburg VA and arrived out my hotel at 10:00 AM and directly to bed. Now that's a long day.

Well i i am sitting in Love field , Dallas waiting for a flight to San Diego. Ruby and i have tickets to see Tommy Castro in San Diego tonight. I woke up in Mississippi this morning and we drove to Dallas. While in Dallas last week I went out to 3 blues jams and got to play. I met some new musicians. Joe, Bnois an i were the judges at the guitar center King Of The Blues Guitar contest one night. That was cool. It was hard to judges theses guy but the last contestant blew us away. All the other players were great but this 17 ear old guy was very original and stood out from the others. Joe and i went to the Dallas Guitar Show (naturally) Thursday which is sort of industry day. It was not open to the public yet. I had a blast and bought a few items at really great prices. Friday we were off to Mississippi to play at the Natchez Bluff Blues Festival. It was about a 7 hour drive from Dallas. The drive was uneventful and the scenery was different. I went out Friday night by myself to see some music and eat. I was hoping to find some authentic MS blues but i did not. We stayed at a hotel the first night and the promoter put us up the second night at a very nice old hotel downtown. The gig was in a park overlooking the Mighty Mississippi river. Very cool spot. We could see across the river to Louisiana from the stage. The gig went well. I played on a pearl drum kit supplied by the promoter. It was OK. It had some huge rack toms so i took one off and put up my own cymbals. I prefer my own kit but it is nice not having to set it up and break it down. The crowd seemed to dig us and i had a great time. I got to meet Muddy Waters son in the back stage area. He was going on after us. After the gig Phyllis, Joe and I went out for a drive and saw some very cool houses. then we went out for "retail therapy". This is walking around a mall and soaking up the local color. MS has a completely different vibe that other places i have been. They even sell crawdads(Crawfish) at most gas stations boiled or live.... Joe and i pigged out on great apple fritters instead and then went to dinner.

My flight is ready to board. I will be home for 3 days then off to the mid Atlantic for 4 shows. See ya'll next time.

Dave K Drums...

My Hearts In Texas

Back in Texas. After a week or so at home I am back in Texas. It was great to be home with my sweetie. It was sort of hard to back at work though. Makin music is much more fun. We had a gig in Ft Worth last night at J&J's Blues Bar. I had played there on New Years Eve so i knew what the club was like. We all met at Joe's place at 6:30 to go to the storage facility and head out. Ft Worth is about 30 minutes away...normally. Well a huge storm was bearing down on us. The weather guessers had been prediction thunder, lighting and tornado's. They were right. As we were all climbing in the van after hooking up the trailer the sirens started howling. I have never heard this and it was a bit scary. I later found out the siren means a tornado has touched down nearby. The sky was getting dark. We had decided to head over to the storage a block away and see how it went. At that point Phyllis, (The Voice Of Reason) came out and insisted we get our dumb asses in the house. We did and she was right. Minutes later the sky got darker and darker. We were watching the TV show a satellite image of this huge storm heading right towards us. the lightning and thunder started. Soon the hail came down like golf balls. The power went out n the house and we lit some candles. It dawned on me loading the trailer in this might suck. The images in the house were weird. Strange noises all around including a portable weather radio. I got my lap top out and we looked at a current satellite image. It appeared the worst had passed. Fun's over, back to work. We headed out in the light rain and got the trailer loaded. I drove the van over to Ft Worth. It was quite emotionally taxing as it was still raining and plenty of lightning. A tornado had touched down about 3 miles from the club. I guess a few semi trucks blew over and a store got it's roof ripped off. We arrived safe and loaded in with light rain helping us. The patron started coming in as we set up. We where about 2 hours later than we wanted to get there. Once we launched i totally settled in. We decided to go with the new material on the first set. I felt good about my performance. The place wound up about half full. We were surprised that many people braved the weather. The second set went well also and we had a guest up to sing the last few. The guest vocalist is a very old guy that comes every time Joe is there. It was a cool change of place. After the gig we loaded up and headed back to Dallas. None of us had had dinner so we stoped at Whataburger around 3:00AM and pigged out. The manager guessed we were musicians.. Good guess. We drove back to Dallas and loaded into the storage then to Joe's to unhitch the trailer. Joe then drove me to my suite at Motel 6. I arrived at the room at 4:30 and went to bed at 5:00. A day in the life of a working drummer.

I can tell you i slept really good.

Tonight i went to a few local clubs to check out some music and meet some of the Dallas Blues heads.

and now... Good Night.

Rollin in my sweet babys arms... at last

Well it is great to be home. I had incredible time on my first tour with Smokin Joe Kubek. My cherry has been popped and i have an awareness of what a touring musician has to go through.

Lots of work and very little music. The daily music is perhaps 2 hours and the motels, loading and driving 22 hours. Joe and Bnois have been doing this continuously for 17 years. Holy Shit!

I got sick on the last few days of the tour and could not find the energy to get on the computer. I wanted to finish this blog before we get onto the next adventure.

Muffin Update:

We sold the muffin! Check our our e-bay item at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150106800413&rd=1&rd=1. We auctioned a blueberry muffin on e-bay and will be donating the money to Eric Clapton's recovery center"crossroads" on Antigua. The celebrity muffin was owned by SJK for a few days. We got $24.50 for it.... What a country.

Our show in Westbrook MA at Chicky's Fine Diner was a blast. The ownership really went out of their way to help us have a great show. The house was packed with SJK fans. Many people knew Joe and crew from other trips up there. I feel like the new guy in these situations but most of the fans treat me great. This was my 11th show with these guys and it feels tighter every night. I love making music that i am familiar with. Hey the food was great also. I hope we get a chance to play there again.

Marlboro Ma found us at Dante's Bar B Que. Great room with a great sound system. My friends from Long Island came to the show and it was great to see them. I don't get to see these folks too often. we have been friends for over 40 years. There was a group of FBI agents in attendance that are big SJK fans. We stayed at Sandy and teds house in Fitchberg MA. She is a great friend to the band and opened her house and refrigerator to the entire band. Thanks Sandy!

Toupelo Music Hall, Londenderry NH. I stayed at a friends house nearby. They fed us homemade Italian food an energized me with friendship. My cold was kicking in at this point but the show went fine. The place was sold out and the owner Scott helped us feel comfortable there. Nice green room and great food. There where serious SJK fans in the house. Some of them have were at other shows we did this tour. Having packed houses and SJK fans really is a great atmosphere to play in. Most of the music i have been playing for the last few years has not been that way to say the least. Every night with this band is better than all those other experiences.

We drove 2 full days to get back to Dallas from NH. I was really sick at this point. I broke down and drank some Nyquil at one point. Being a recovering alcoholic I avoid taking this stuff but i needed relief. I went to sleep on the floor of the van at that point. We stayed at a very crappy hotel on the Tennessee border. We rolled up to joes house at 2:00 AM or so. I caught a plane back to San Diego the next morning. It was an incredible feeling to be back in San Diego again. I realized i was taking a lot for granted. Ruby and i have spent a lot of time together since my return. I love her dearly!!!!!

I leave next week for Dallas again. Friday the 13th we play at J&J's in Ft worth. The next day we start work on the new album in Dallas at Audio Dallas Studios. We have 13 new, killer songs and a few SPECIAL guest artists. At the end of that week we go to Natchez, MS to play a festival. I will be back in San Diego for 3 days and then off to the Mid Atlantic. I love my new life an am very grateful to all the family and friends that have facilitated this for me.

Stay tuned.

Dave K Drums