North American Tour 2014
Oct 2, 2014 - We left Ottawa bright and early to head out on our two month tour of North America:
It was a very long drive to Chicago where we will sleep tonight before heading to Minneapolis for our first show tomorrow.
Oct 3, 2014 - The rest of the drive to Minneapolis was a breeze after the 14 hour marathon yesterday. We arrived at Famous Dave's and we were treated to this delicious BBQ feast (ribs, pulled pork, chicken, corn on the cob, fries, corn bread, baked beans!):
If that's not the perfect way to start a tour, I don't know what is. The show was fun, and some great folks from the area came out to cheer us on!
Oct 4, 2014 - It was another monster drive today back into Canada to play at the Saskatchewan Cultural Exchange in Regina.
Fortunately, I had time to "unwind" in the hotel pool before the show. Yep, that's a big ol' water slide!
Oct 5, 2014 - On to Calgary today, down the never ending highway...
All the way to the Ironwood Stage & Grill.
Oct 6, 2014 - This morning we woke up to this great view of Calgary:
And, after a much shorter drive to Edmonton, we got all settled in for our week long residency at Blues on Whyte.
Getting all set up!
This is what I'm looking at this week...
When we played here last year, the real highlight was the friendly, fun staff:
Can't wait to hang with these great people and play a LOT of music!
Oct 7, 2014 - Today is the official Canadian release date for our new album "Belmont Boulevard"! We celebrated by playing 3 hours of blues.... Just kidding, we are doing that every night!
Live at Blues on Whyte!
Oct 14, 2014 - This week we performed for 23 solid hours, made some new friends, caught up with some old friends, and even had time for a trip to the water park at the Edmonton Mall! The highlight of the week, though, was when our friend Darren joined us on stage and started rapping in one of our songs!
Live... all week long!
Water park!
Darren joins us on stage...
As fun as the past week has been, it is time to move on!
Oct 15, 2014 - We drove through the spectacular Rocky Mountains into Banff today to play at Wild Bill's.
Oct 16, 2014 - Jamie and I got up early this morning (in other words, 10am), to go on a mountain hike. It was so beautiful!
We saw these huge Elk just hanging out by the side of the trail.
Every corner we turned we said, "this is the best view ever!" Only to find an even better view a few steps later!
Oct 17, 2014 - We played at the Blue Gator tonight, which is a pretty cool venue where it seems like anything can happen. Everyone danced all night.
Oct 18, 2014 - This afternoon we enjoyed another scenic drive into White Rock, BC where we performed at Blue Frog Studios. I mean, I'm assuming it was scenic; we could not see more that 2 metres in front of the car because the fog was so thick!
I've never seen fog like this in my entire life!
Luckily, we made it to Blue Frog Studios in one piece. This venue is normally a recording studio, but they put on theatre style shows from time to time.
(in the lobby)
The audience was so receptive and enthusiastic.
Oct 21, 2014 - After two relaxing days at Mario and Tina's home in Vancouver (thanks for having us again!!)...
We spent the day trying to drive as close to San Francisco as we could. We made it to Chico, California after about 12 hours....
Oct 22, 2014 - With a short drive into San Fran, I enjoyed the unfamiliar California landscape.
We performed at biscuits and Blues tonight, which is a pretty cool venue in downtown San Fran.
Oct 23, 2014 - Jamie and I got up early this morning to explore downtown while JW went to a radio interview.
We found this cool statue which I read about online a few months ago. There's a bench across from the statue, and when you sit on the bench, the statue sits down too!
Also, this 1707 pound pumpkin....
Oct 23, 2014 - We arrived at the Torch Club, in Sacramento this evening.
Charlie Baty, of Little Charlie and the Nightcats fame, came out to play with us tonight. We regularly cover some of Little Charlie's tunes (like Percolatin'), so it was pretty cool to actually get to play them with him.
Also, an old friend/teacher from back in my theatre days came out to see us play, since she lives in Sacramento now. It is so great to catch up with old friends who I otherwise would never have the opportunity to see!
Oct 24, 2014 - We met up with Little Charlie today to get some breakfast at a great mexican place. He drove us there in his cool old car.
After breakfast, we were off to San Jose to play at The Poor House.
Yep, we played "San Ho Zay" in San Jose.
25, 2014 - On to San Pedro to play at "Godmothers" which is in the LA area.
More interesting California scenery...
Oct 26, 2014 - Tonight, we played in Long Beach at Malarkey's Grill. Malarkey's is located right on the water, and I had time for a bit of a walk before our early gig.
Tonight's show was a special one, because Kid Ramos sat in with us. We have been performing one of Kid Ramos' tunes, "Let it Go" for the past year, so it was really cool to get to play it with Ramos.
Here's our version of "Let it Go" from our performance at the Rainbow Bistro in Ottawa last summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4oHO2hRT_Q
Oct 27, 2014 - We are still in LA, and we had some time to wander around Hollywood and Beverly Hills this afternoon. I saw some interesting things like these lamp posts:
And then, as we were heading to dinner, (at a Vietnamese place called 9021Pho.... hahaha), we basically walked right into Paris Hilton. Before I even realized who it was, Jamie said hello and asked if we could have a photo. Paris didn't say much, but she agreed to a photo, and even let JW pet her dog.
We performed at the Maui Sugar Mill Saloon in Tarzana this evening. We had another very special guest tonight - Jimmy Vivino. He's the band leader and guitarist/singer for the Basic Cable Band on the Conan O'Brien show.
We played some really cool tunes with Jimmy, and he even requested to play a song off our latest album - "Watch Your Step". He added some awesome slide guitar to the mix!
Check out some of the videos from the night here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inu6MZNV9Cc
Oct 28, 2014 - Today was pretty wild. Jimmy Vivino invited us to attend a taping of Conan O'Brien. He even got us into the backstage green room. When we first arrived, we hung out in the green room until the taping began. We were standing right in front of Ashton Kutchter and Krysten Ritter's dressing rooms. Andy Richter even walked by and said hello.
We watched the show, and it was really funny, and exciting to see it being filmed. The Basic Cable band played some killer up beat tunes on the commercial breaks.
After the show, we were lead backstage again, and there was Conan just hanging in the green room. We stood there for a few minutes wondering what we should do. Conan looked busy. Then Jimmy Vivino came by, and introduced us, and we even got a picture.
And we got to meet Max Weinberg too, because he happened to be appearing on the show that day.