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We traveled out to St Louis this past Saturday for a rare and unique performance by the band Pomplamoose at The Firebird!  After having marveled at their videos, and interesting twists on various covers of some of our favorite tunes, I was surprised and excited to get tickets to the event for my birthday! The only disappointing part of the entire show was the late start; even then, for us that was not quite so disappointing, since we arrived late, to a near sell out.  The line stretched out a half block, and everyone was pretty excited about the coming performance. The venue was perfect too, perfectly located downtown, with reasonable drink prices and a friendly staff.  All that is good though, right?  So maybe there really was no disappointment, after all. John Schroeder, their lead guitarist opened the show, with a bit of solo acoustic work.  One of the tunes a little too sleepy-time, and another seemed to stretch the range of his voice, but h...

We heard that KC & the Sunshine Band would be playing a free show at the Kansas City Power & Light District and decided to head down. It had been quite a few years since we saw the band play; excepting on television, perhaps.  We got there pretty early and had dinner at Johnny's Tavern, so that we could get a good spot.  Turns out we could have probably just shoved our way through around 8 o'clock, rather than standing around for hours. They finally took the stage around 9 o'clock and played for an hour or so, and put on a pretty good show.  A collage of videos are available through the YouTube below view more photos from this event

We stopped in on the Chicago Jazz Festival, while out on walkabout on Lakefront Trail, near Navy Pier.  It was good to relax in the shade of the surrounding buildings, after having been out on the Windy for a couple of hours.  We arrived before anyone was playing the main stage, and just sort of lounged on the lawn.   Within 30 minutes or so though, we were treated to the sweet sounds of the Ari Brown Quintet on Jay Pritzker Pavilion; a great way to spend the evening.  There are a couple of clips within the YouTube below, and the few photos are below that. there are no more photos from this event

We stopped in on a festival going on in Heber Springs, and were stumble on a car show going on at the same time. Numerous hot rods were scattered around, but most of the fleet was comprised of various Volkswagon vehicles from days gone by. view more photos from this event

The latest release of photos picks up where I left off in my last post.  We returned to Mardi Gras 2001, and were equally amazed at the controlled chaos New Orleans descended into. We arrived early enough to catch a friend’s performance at Checkpoint on Lundi Gras, and met some interesting folks from Slovakia.  They had arrived looking for a place to stay, on their way west to get married in Las Vegas. There is no such thing in the days leading up to Mardi Gras.  If you didn’t book it a year ago, you’re on the street.  They were not.  They were invited to stay with us, and we began a long friendship across the globe.   Mardi Gras Day found us all over the French Quarter, later returning again to the street-stage of improvisational music in the Marigny, to dance the night away.  It was a fantastic day of photos that covered nearly every aspect of the Mardi Gras in and around the French Quarter. Returning later in the year for an off-season ...