Yesterday the Times Daily paper came to the middle school here in Florence, AL and took some photos of us working with the students and our mini-concert and interviewed us. Here is one of the pics from the mini-concert and a link to the article on the residency and upcoming show. I think it will be a lot of fun to play with the students in this concert on Friday. We'll be playing "The Edge of Night" w/ the High school students.

Times Daily Article Link

-Jenn

We played an interesting show yesterday at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC. It was for all the university students (about 900) at 11am. Hah! The show went great, inspite of the early show time. Many students were bustling to classes after, but a large majority stopped to visit with us on the way out at our cd table and told us how much they liked it/buy cd's. More visited our website/guestbook and myspace, facebook, etc. to become new friends on the web. Interesting difference in an audience of all younger than 21 and compared to a mixed age audience. Usually, we sell a lot more cds at the show and less ITunes/downloads/web stuff later- not this time almost the complete opposite. I wonder if that means CD's are totally on the way out? Well, it certainly gives more support to the idea.
After the show at Presbyterian College, we headed to AL for a music residency.

Today we started the first day of our music residendy in Florence, AL for the city schools. I'm constantly surprised about how early so many people besides me have to have to wake up (and that they can pull it off)...today it was a 7:45am class starting the residency. We went all day long w/ 2 masterclasses and a mini-concert for one of the schools. Jon and I each taught one string and guitar class at the high school and the mini-concert was then for 5th and 6th graders. I felt my energy dwindle at about 5pm today and my stomach growl for dinner. I usually don't eat dinner until much, much later and stay up even later. I think I'll be dozing off after finishing this blog. Ahh... this is when I wish I was super human and could find some secret well of energy.

Tomorrow will be similar but with new students and a little later start of 8:45am.
Friday we play a concert at the HS theater for the public and the ticket proceeds will benefit the music programs in Florence. I'm looking forward to performing at a decent hour....yay!

-Jenn

We had a great time in Hopkinsville, KY over the weekend. We were scheduled to perform with Arvin (percussion), but he unfortunately came down with the flu just before we were to leave, so we ended up doing the show as a duo. Hopkinsville is just above Nashville, so the drive wasn't bad. We had hoped to perform in the Alhambra theatre, but the renovations that they have been working on won't be finished for a while yet. Carol (Arts Director) was kind enough to give us a tour and it will certainly be beautiful when it's complete. The decor is striking, following a moorish theme and echoes of the Alhambra palace. Ronny, one of the arts volunteers, was kind enough to video some of the show for us. This is a clip of Jenn playing the Bach Prelude on her electric cello.



PS>> the video cuts out as Jenn is naming the strings on the electric cello. They are from Low to high: F C G D A E

--Jonathan

We returned home from Athens on Tuesday night, to find our side yard charred and black. At first, we thought that the neighbors had burnt their yard, on purpose and it had just crept down into ours. (Some people do a controlled burn their yards in the spring to kill weeds.) Anyway, we went in to sleep, not being able to tell much about it at night anyway. On Wednesday, we were able to get a better look and after talking with our neighbor we learned that it wasn't a controlled blaze, but an accident. I could see on the neighbors house that their siding had been melted as we'll as few other un-identifiable things in their yard. The flames had missed our house by about a foot and a half!. Don, our neighbor, had said the fire sparked up quick and luckily the fire department had gotten over quickly too!

ideas rule the world - choose well

The road South quickly went bad. We left from Marion and only made it about an hour south before things went from being OK to really bad...really fast. The first exit we were able to stop, we did. All of the hotels were already sold out at 1pm. Luckily we found a room just west, 10 more miles, in Carbondale. We're stuck in Illinois for today, but look forward to getting back home soon!

The snow let up for a few days in Minnesota only to return on our way from Austin to Maquoketa, IA. The Oak Center General store has to be the funkiest venue we've ever played in! The Oak Center is a functioning organic farm. On the bottom floor is an organic grocery store, while upstairs houses a the concert venue. Pretty cool. The food was great!!

The Paramount was a lot of fun. A gorgeous renovated theater and Scott helped us dial in the sound just right. We were able to use the Bose sound system in conjunction with the house sytem. The Bose gave a directional sound from the stage while the house helps to fill in. Here are some pics:

The worst driving of the tour was getting to the Paramount from Lake City. The Road went from passable to white out conditions pretty fast. This fluctuated off on for most of the drive, which was pretty unnerving. We just took it really slow, and arrived in Austin with plenty of time to spare.

We outran the snow on the way to Omaha, but it caught up the next day. The day of our show the road conditions were steadily worse. The area cancelled schools. There were so many wrecks in the city that the police quit issuing accident reports. Note to self: Don't tour the Midwest in the heart of snow season:) Anyway, we played to a handful of brave souls at Mick's and we'll look forward to getting back under better conditions. The real gravity of the situation hit home when we were headed back to our hotel. The comfort inn, where we were staying, sits atop a fairly large ridge and the road up was covered in snow as the road crews had not gotten to most of the city streets. We got about halfway up the hill and completely lost traction! The road had iced over in the last few hours. We backed up and tried again with no luck.. After watching a few others try to conquer the hill with similar results we were resigned to the fact that no one was going up that hill. What to do? Leave the car at the bottom of the hill and walk the half mile up with guitars, cellos etc.. Snow chains? I checked with a gas station close by and learned that snow chains were illegal in the city and I was unlikely to find a store that sold them at this hour anyway. I talked with a local and asked was there an alternate route to the inn. He suggested going back to Maple street (the main road) and crossing the interstate to see if one those roads led back to the inn. All dead ends. It looked like the up the hill was the only way!! We had seen another road past the hotel during the day so we figured there had to be another way. We doubled back a couple of blocks running into a few tough hills there too. Crossing towards the ridge the roads gradually climbed. We were headed up the ridge in the right direction. This was starting to look good! Passing through residential neighborhoods we finally saw the comfort inn sign in the distance! Yes, we made it. Thank God we wouldn't have to hike through the snow with our instruments tonight. After a good laugh, and feeling like mice who'd found our way to the ever elusive cheese, we loaded in and went to sleep.

We headed over to Cedar Rapids on Saturday. After a night of snow the going was a little slow, but the roads were pretty clear for the most part. We stayed with Nancy Dearborn, who is surely a a patron saint for traveling musicians! After a great vegan meal and conversation we hit the hay. Sunday we played at church and then headed down to Washington for an evening concert. We decided to stop in Iowa City for lunch. We only stopped for about thirty minutes, but during that time the snow really kicked it up a notch. By the time we reached 218 headed towards Washington, IA there was a light film over the roads. We proceed slowly. Several folks passed us by going at least 60-70. So we picked it up just a little. When in Rome..right? Well, about that time we were passed by a red Lexus headed up a slight hill. As they got about a hundred yards in front of us they started to fishtail! They maneuvered back an forth across the right for about 5 seconds barely avoided the ditches on either side, although it seemed like 5 minutes to me. I knew not to put on the brakes or we'd be in the same situation. We crept closer and closer as they were fighting to keep it in the road. The Lexus finally straightened out and without missing a beat speed away into the distant fog. We slowed down...waaay down. To hell with the Romans!

We had a blast playing at the Green Room last night. Getting there was a little sketchy though. We started out from that day from Lebanon, IN. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of snow the night before and the roads were pretty bad. We saw at least three or four cars that had spun out into the median. That was before Chicago. After that it was all smooth sailing on up to Sheboygan. This was also the maiden voyage for using our Bose L1 speakers at a gig. Aside from a little feedback trouble with the cello mic, things went off without a hitch. We'll need to tune in a few things though and I look forward to learning more about the system on this tour.

Ryan and Jerry own the Green Room and Run it along with Mom, Clio (sp?). We normally pack up and head out right after a show, but we enjoyed sitting down afterwards and hanging a bit. Clio hooked us up with the Green Room's specialty shot known as the "Horny Buffalo", which is a variation on a tequila shot. Instead of the traditional salt and lime, it was cinnamon sugar followed by the shot and then a a bite of orange! The family are all musicians and are doing great things in Sheboygan for the music scene. Jerry is also in the Buffalo Joe band. I am enjoying the tunes as I write..

Ryan also hooked us up with some of the Green Room's famous sauces. He started the company with his friend Mick. Check'em out here. pepperheadswi.com They also raise money for pancreatic cancer research (Mick's a survivor). The complete website should go up soon.