Alabama

Okay, so it's been three months since I blogged. I've meant to; after all, since I last posted here, we made our live debut at Pat DiNizio's 5th Annual Memorial Day BBQ. My talented brother Chuck served as our lead guitarist, and it was an honor to open for the Smithereens. You can check out video footage of our performance on the Pop Goes The World channel on YouTube.

As I wrote earlier, the gig we landed at Pat's BBQ fell in the category of "It never hurts to ask." Pat added me as one of his Facebook friends earlier this year and when he posted something about the plans for the BBQ, I emailed him (twice) and asked if we could play at the event. Eventually he responded and said "yes." (We can't thank him enough for the opportunity.)

Our upcoming gig at Soul Kitchen in Mobile, AL falls under the same category. A musician friend of ours, Bobby Butchka, moved from Jersey to the Mobile area several years ago. During a stop in our area last fall, Bobby recorded some lead guitar tracks on "Hero's Trial," a song from our upcoming album. At the time I floated the idea of lining up a gig for us in Mobile, with him as our lead guitarist. He said he was all for it.

Fast-forward to May of this year. I was planning a July trip to visit family in Mobile. Why not try to set up a gig for while I'm down there? I researched the local music scene and sent our CD to three clubs ... none of which was Soul Kitchen. After all, I'd visited their web site and saw that they had national acts on their bill; it seemed to me that it was the Mobile equivalent of Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ (Bobby later confirmed this for me).

Ironically, the one club promoter that responded to our mailing said we weren't a good fit for his venue, but suggested we get in touch with Brad, the booking manager for Soul Kitchen. When we emailed Brad, he got back to us right away. He wrote that he had heard of Bobby but he wanted to get some sense of how we would draw at his club. We told him it was hard to predict, but we would try our best to promote the show through Facebook, the local press and radio. The discussion seemed to end there.

Then I saw on the Soul Kitchen web calendar that a band had been booked there for Saturday, July 30, the date we were looking for. I was immediately discouraged, and called Bobby to tell him so. But when I mentioned that the band booked for that night was The Ugli Stick, Bobby said: "I know those guys!"

I called Brad and asked if we could open for the Ugli Stick; he said that if it was all right with them, it was all right with him. Bobby then called the band's frontman, Eric, who gave us the thumbs-up, and with a return call to Brad, we were good to go at Soul Kitchen. Crazy how these things happen ...

P.S. Earlier this week, Lagniappe, the local alternative magazine in Mobile, gave out its annual Nappie Awards, in which readers weigh in on the best and worst of the city. Soul Kitchen was picked as the best place to see live music; Bobby Butchka was named best solo performer; and the Ugli Stick were chosen as best band. So it would seem that the planets truly are aligning for this show!