What A Marvelous Night...

... for "Moondance," "Old Time Rock and Roll," "Blueberry Hill" and a couple dozen other tunes played on a perfect warm summer evening. It's reassuring to have an outdoor summer show that doesn't involve swirling black clouds on the horizon, angry red blotches on the Weather Channel map and furious unfurling of tarps to protect gear. Tonight the most stressful thing was deciding whether to eat more WingDings (oh man they were good) or a second crab cake sandwich. We played down in Thurmont, MD for the Guardian Hose Fire Co. and the organizers couldn't have been nicer. Bob Oxendale, our contact person, turned out to be a great guy, and his wife Diane was a sweetheart as well. These are hardworking people trying to raise funds for firefighters, who in a perfect world would be fully funded and Jason Werth would need to have a bake sale to pay for his relocation costs to D.C., but let's not turn this into a rant. If there's no justice all the time, at least there's good people doing good things. Just Friends had a blast tonight. It's shows like this that make the good memories you take down the road with you.

Tomorrow night, we're back at the Dillsburg Legion for the first time since last Christmas. These are some serious dancers and we have to bring our A-game (what is this, the Sports Channel? But I digress).

Our Friend, Mr. Caffeine

I just booked a few shows on the coffeehouse circuit, two at Cornerstone Coffeehouse in Camp Hill and one at a new place for me, Warm Hearts Cafe in Mechanicsburg. (Thanks to Roger and Hemlock Hollow for the lead on this place.) These are smoke-free, alcohol-free and family-friendly venues, and it's always a treat playing for a sober, alert audience. These are no-cover venues, but donations to the tip jar go to a worthy cause, the Change The Strings Foundation, "... because strings can't change themselves." Show times are on my schedule.

Tomorrow, Just Friends plays the Guardian Hose Co. Carnival in Thurmont, MD. It's supposed to be a glorious summer evening, so if you're in the mood for a road trip, we'll see you there.

Life Has Its Ups And Downs

Ups include finally releasing a project after years of preparation and anticipation and months of hard work. Downs include losing an opportunity to promote the sale of that project to a DJ. Hell, they don't even carry crates of albums in and out of venues anymore. "Mouse jockeys" is more like it.

Yes, It's Hot Enough For Me, So Buzz Off

Man, it's a hot one. My little window AC units keep things bearable, but running errands today was a reminder how July in central PA can be. I spent a bunch of time trying to find suitable CD mailers, without success. Funny how life's lessons come at you in strange ways. I am learning why "shipping and handling" can add so much to the price of stuff. Those mailers are a bugger. I'm trying to find something cheaper on the Internet. I sent out a few discs to some folks, and that's cool.

Summertime, And The Livin' Is Easy -- But Cutting The Grass Is Not

Sitting in my office AC waiting for the sweat to dry enough to type this entry, I am nonetheless grateful to be able to go out and do it. I have friends and acquaintances whose backs, knees and other equipment won't take the stress. I wish they were in better shape. Then they could come and do mine while I made blog entries.

Joreen and I had a great time at the New Oxford carnival last night. If you're a Facebooker, you can see the pics I took of Laredo and of my dear wife sitting in front of my CD. She was the only one to get within touching distance of the thing, but we still had a blast. Because of her Mass schedule she couldn't get there in time to perform with me, but we are intent on forming one of those husband and wife duos, like Sonny and Cher, only without the plastic surgery, the fur coats, the right-wing Republican politics, the divorce lawyers and, of course, the tree right in the middle of where I'm skiing. Ouch.

Time to go shower and play Mass. Tomorrow, a day in the AC just typing transcripts. I'm looking forward to it.

"I Do," She Did, We Still Do

Thirty-five years ago today I did the smartest thing, maybe the only real smart thing, in my life. I made Joreen Howell Mrs. Kelly, and she made me a very happy man. In a previous blog entry an anniversary or two ago, I told the story of our wedding. We're getting ready to go to Mass this morning, then breakfast. Tonight I'm opening for Laredo at the New Oxford festival.

Last night we went out, not really planning to make it a full-fledged date, but just down to the ABC for a beer. I sold two discs (woo hoo!) and then we went upstairs and saw an amazing bluegrass band called Dehlia Low. My friends Bill and Roger were there and we agreed that there should have been many more people in attendance at this performance. Of course, there's no justice in music, there's only livin' the dream, selling the discs and making memories, like "the time we spent ten hours getting from DC to Harrisburg." Good times, good times. The show was great, the dobro and mandolin were both first class, and best of all the writing was awesome, so awesome that I spent most of what I made on my record to buy one of theirs.

There is new content on the website. Thanks to my wonderful wedded webmistress, the lyrics to the songs on the CD are up with the backstory to each song. When I say I'm the luckiest guy around, just look at my website. She did that for me. How many guys my age are getting nagged about not painting the bathroom yet? She's the best. I shouldn't talk about her too much, give other mens ideas.

This Thing Is Back On

It's been some time, and the last post mentioned the recording process. It's finished, and here's what it looks like.



There's a lot to say about the whole thing, but to be honest I'm kind of pressed for time. The new website is up, thanks to Joreen, and I'm doing some content for that. I have a bunch of people I want to deliver the record to. There's an element of being reluctant to toot my own horn that I guess I'm going to have to temporarily just get over. The fact is, dagnabit, although the credit for anything good goes to Someone Else, I am kind of proud of what Dave and I have accomplished, with the help of Joreen, Bill Nork, Craig Rankin, John Wilson and the Amazing McGovern Backup Singers. I'll try to reactivate this blog. We'll see how successful I am. I'm going to need to get myself organized and focused if this is going to work. The ultimate goal, somewhere between pie-in-the-sky and fully blown hallucinatory, is to make enough from the sale of the CD to cover its costs and finance the beginning of the next one. Talk to you later.