JoAnn Rocks; Koz Rolls

JoAnn Riedl
Friday the 29th
7pm

JoAnn Riedl is a Stumpjack favorite. We always have a good time when JoAnn comes to perform. She's bold and brassy and belts out her own tunes with such passion and fearlessness. It's impressive what she does with just her voice and an acoustic guitar.

"JoAnn combines folk, punk and rock into her at times gentle yet percussive guitar style. She is a self taught guitarist who lures you in with her sultry voice and her rhythmic tendencies."

www.myspace.com/joannriedl

Koz
Saturday the 30th
7pm

Koz, the man of big songbook and multiple genres. From pop to folk to big band to jazz to even a little country, he does them all. He plays sax and clarinet, guitar and banjo, has more stage gear than Aerosmith and is prone to wearing loud Hawaiian shirts. Plus, he's my high school wrestling coach and as such has a good sense of humor toward all the ribbing we give him. That makes for a very fun evening.

Joann Riedl poster by Zac Jacobson

Brothers Burn Mountain tonight

Brothers Burn Mountain
Check this out: http://www.myspace.com/ryanjessedermody

Play their tune, I Want a Sun to Burst. It is just excellent work.

Tonight at Stumpjack...7:00pm

Johnny Coffeeseed am I, maybe?

Just finished separating and re-potting my coffee shrubs. I'm a little dubious as to whether the little buggers will take to the separation. I was a little rough on a couple of them during the root separation. We'll see how they fare in the next week or two. Keep your fingers crossed...we may have the first ever "coffee farm" in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

Got five slender saplings from the separation.

Promised one to Greg Buckley. If this little guy makes it I think he'll look good on Greg's window sill.

Bye-bye Maria and Sooz! Brothers Burn Mountain.

Friday, May 22

Gypsy Trip

7pm

Flamenco and Spanish guitar. The 3-piece version of The Gipsy Kings, perhaps. Check out some of the videos of their performances at the Gipsy Trip myspace:

www.myspace.com/gypsytrip1234

This is also the night of the "We're Moving to South Dakota" party for Maria and Soozie, who are...moving to South Dakota.

Maria & Soozie and John are moving to South Dakota (in case you didn't catch that already). Come on over Friday night to wish them good luck and happy trails. It's also John's birthday and we'll be celebrating that tonight as well.

Saturday, May 23

Brothers Burn Mountain

7pm

I really like the music these guys create. Please, please, please check them out at their myspace:

www.myspace.com/ryanjessedermody

Here's a review of their music by someone who I think was tripping on peyote...I have no idea what the hell they're talking about here, but it's kind of an entertaining ramble nonetheless:

"When I found out these guys spend most of their time in wild nature, it didn't surprise me. They know how to get the wind ruffles of their hair into the sounds. Bring a flower to their show. Bring an impossible bottle of wind. Bring the flames in your eyes. Play your breaths like they were strings reaching toward the sun. Play your breaths like they were roots sprouting from the invisible tree of your existence. Admit that you can't see the tree because it's so amazing to be alive, and there's just these leaves called tear drops, called words, called skin; and what's underneath the skin pours outside the skin through the sounds. It all comes from the heart."

-Diarmada Music Monthly

SOMETIMES TONIGHT

Saturday night (May 16)
Rebecca Sometimes

7pm

While other kids were hanging out and playing video games after school, Rebecca would come home and play guitar. Since she first picked it up in the 6th grade, she has had no greater desire than to write good songs. A visual artist, Rebecca paints pictures with words and strums colorful, rhythmic progressions. She can be seen playing local taverns across the Chicago area, toting her well-worn Seagull guitar and rockin' out with moody, haunting, & personal lyrics about love and rejection.

www.myspace.com/rebeccasometimes

India Exchange Group visits Stumpjack

Last Sunday several Group Study Exchange delegates from India visited Stumpjack Coffee for a couple of hours as part of their tour and visit to our area. They were a lovely group, friendly and sincere. It was a pleasure to meet them and an honor for Stumpjack to be on their itinerary.
The guy wearing the porkpie hat looks like one of those shady characters in those old B&W films based in exotic, foreign lands...the opportunistic American expatriate who runs guns and illegal booze out of some nightclub that serves as a front for his shifty operations (although he ends up being the good-hearted hero who saves the day at the end of the film).

Click here for the newspaper article.

BIG NEWS! BIG BIG NEWS!

I was going to wait to announce this on the blogsite until I had completed this week's Stumpjack Scat newsletter, but that's going to take another day and I'm just too excited to hold off any longer. I spoke with Pato Banton last week and he has agreed to play the Stump again. In fact, this is what he emailed to me after we spoke:

Hi David, I would absolutely love to do Stumpjacks again.

It was actually one of the most fun shows I've ever had in my whole career.

I think the power outages lightened my mood.

Let me know what you can offer and I'll confirm with my team.

Thanks for everything bro. I'm very excited to come back and see you guys too. (Especially Mr Green)

One Love Always

Pato Banton

Read that again, especially that second sentence, "It was actually one of the most fun shows I've ever had in my whole career." Unbelievable! Here's a Grammy nominated artist who has recorded many international hit songs and worked with some of the biggest names in music, including Sting, Peter Gabriel, UB40, Chrissie Hynde, Steel Pulse, Ziggy Marley and others, saying that his performance here a couple weeks ago was one of the most fun shows he's ever done. "Awesome" hardly does justice to how cool that is. Pato and the other musicians in the Now Generation band told us after the show on Saturday and on the following Tuesday when we saw them perform in Milwaukee that they were treated so well and that the Stumpjack audience in Two Rivers was so joyful, appreciative and respectful that they were eager to return for another engagement if at all possible.

Pato Banton. Image by Nate Walkner.

That's a huge credit to all of you who attended the event. Pato and the band saying those wonderful things made us all so proud for Two Rivers and everyone who came. Nice job, friends...well done. There's more to this story, so many cool little anecdotes and moments that I will no doubt be giving this experience a whole chapter in the Stumpjack book I'm writing. But for the sake of brevity, right now I just want to announce that PATO BANTON AND THE NOW GENERATION ARE COMING BACK TO STUMPJACK COFFEE!!

Pato at the Stump. Image by Nate Walkner.

The concert/party is going to be on Friday, September 18th. You need to do two things if you want to attend:
1) Mark and clear your calendar if you want to be here for this incredible concert party. 2) Get your tickets now, because we have to limit it again and I predict they're going to go even faster than last time...and once we hit the limit that's it, it'll be too late for anyone else to get in.

Another good thing is that we have some time to make things even better than the first concert (no more running up and down stairs to fix popped circuit breakers for this boy, I'll tell you that!).

We're selling tickets starting now. Ticket prices will be $5 more than last time because Pato and the band are coming in from outside Wisconsin this time (last time they fortunately had some other gigs in Wisconsin and it was opportunistic to get them over here), but even at $20 I think everyone who was at the first show will tell you it's a steal.

More on this to come in the next several days. Stay tuned.

TONIGHT John Lambert to perform at the Stump

TONIGHT

John Lambert
7pm
We're excited to have John here...it'll be his first appearance at the Stump. so please come on out and show him a rousing Two Rivers/Manitowoc/Stumpjack welcome. Check him out at http://myspace.com/johnlambertthejl4