New Faces, New Places

Been trying to nail down a date at Lucas Schoolhouse in Soulard. Been trying to get the Pulsators up here from San Francisco.

Put the two together and - voila! Let's get Serapis and the Pulsators at Lucas Schoolhouse.

What a fun night. Serapis played a couple hours, the Pulsators played a couple hours...we did a couple songs together. Bumpy...Iko...

Then, on Saturday, the Pulsators took the Main Street stage in Saint Charles "Hot Summer Nights" and rocked the place for 3 hours.

Rick Clifford sounds better than ever, and the Pulsators - Johnny, Doug, Karl, Mick, Rick, and Glen, are a great bunch of guys, and tremendous musicians.

Let's do it again next year - out on the coast.

Autumn in Augusta

The leaves haven't started to turn yet, but you could smell fall in the air outside of Augusta, MO.

The cool weather was a nice break.

Nice to see the Chamberses with their entourage, and the Carrolls (fresh from their tour of Russia)

A couple more times there this year, I think.

The Perks of Musicianship

One of the (many) neat things about playing music is that you get to talk with a lot of people about the music they enjoy.

We try to turn people on to music they've not heard before. People we like - such as Afro Celt Sound System or Todd Snider, Leftover Salmon or Raul Maol/The Mavericks...

Likewise, folks turn us on to stuff we've not heard...Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans. At the Famous Bar, a guy named "Pooch" strongly recommended checking out Chris Rea. Check out this video: The Road To Hell.

Rea has a very haunting slide guitar sound, reminiscent of Mark Knopfler, or even Ry Cooder.

Check him out.

Gladstone's in Soulard

If you've not been to Soulard recently, you owe it to yourself to get back. There's a real nice vibe.

Saturday afternoon/evening at Gladstone's is a great little party. A handful of tables, a couple dozen people, a nice afternoon on the patio. Someone said it's "like a private party."

Five-oh stopped in the street to listen as Gene sang about calling them "...a couple of d*cks". They seemed to not mind.

Pulsators in a couple weeks.

Out.

Here comes Fall...

Wrapped up August at Mount Pleasant Winery, on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River valley, in Augusta, MO.

The weather stayed cooler than the 100+ that we've been seeing, and the crowd was having a ball.

The winery is booked by Benet Shaeffer, drummer/percussionist now spending a lot of time with a great group called Gumbohead. Gumbohead bills itself as "...a collective of rhythmic rapscallions and tuneful tricknologists who find great joy playing music born in and influenced by New Orleans and southwest Louisiana." They are a talented group. Check them out.

A couple more wineries this year. Autumn in Augusta should be terrific.