Cool Jazz Trio to play the Stump TONIGHT

We are more than pleased and excited to have Saxi Dan's Peas-a-Pye Trio performing at Stumpjack tonight. It's a bohemian rhapsody kind of night. Come on down and mellow out to some good jazz and a Fat Tire Ale.
Saxophone: Dan Schielke
Guitar: Craig Peaslee
Drums/Percussion: Eric Pye
From Craig's Myspace:
Composer/Arranger/Guitarist Craig Peaslee has been impressing audiences for years with his compositions and guitar prowess. Craig's compositions reflect his interest in all genres of music: from Middle Eastern Folk to American Blues; Western Orchestral to traditional Chinese music, Jazz, Rock, Country and combinations of all the aforementioned musical styles. Musicians have enjoyed performing Craig's works to the extent performers have declared that they would "Perform Craig's music at anytime." As a guitarist, Peaslee is primarily a solo performer, playing originals as well as his takes on pieces from nearly every genre from Bach to rock; including his arrangements for double neck guitar of such famous and popular tunes as: Bohemian Rhapsody, The Pink Panther and If I Only Had A Brain. Listen to Craig at www.myspace.com/threeneckbeast

Then, Saturday night at 8...Z-Man brings the Scat Acoustic Funk.

Z-Man (Zach Cleven) hails from Green Bay and this will be his first gig at the Stump. From Z's myspace: My musical journey began in 2008 when I was experimenting with the acoustic guitar and finding my meaning of life. The first song I learned was Bob Marley's "Redemption song" and it took off. I decided my musician name of Z-MAN with my real name being Zach Cleven it fits well. My music has grown to become a huge part of my life as I continue to become stronger as I mature as a songwriter. As I evolved on the guitar I began to develop my own style that many describe as ONE OF A KIND. The Z-MAN wouldn't be where he is, if it wasn't for his friends & family supporting the good vibes of his music and keepin' the spirit ALIVE. He brings a unique twist of skat acoustic funk to the world and isn't lookin' back.

Tonight's Cheap Date Special

CLICK HERE to go to Kim's blog post detailing tonight's yummy wine/tapas/artisan pizza special...all three for one low price of $20.

T-shirt colors; Closing shop early this weekend.

Here's a nice image with the colors of the tees that Nuclear Dave brought in yesterday. Colors might look a tad different on your screen compared to reality, but you get the idea.

Stumpjack will be closing early today and tomorrow (Saturday), at around 3:00. It's class reunion weekend. Somehow they wrangled me onto the reunion committee for this one (I can confidently declare that I fulfilled my role as the "dead weight" of the committee quite admirably).

So, again, Stumpjack will be closed at around 3:00 today and tomorrow.

New Stumpjack T-shirts

The beautiful and charming Samantha modeling the absurdly named heliconia pink.

We just received a special delivery of Stumpjack tee-shirts this morning courtesy Nuclear Dave Theiss. Sizes m, lg & xl and colors kiwi green, honey, cherry red, texas orange, heliconia pink, and my favorite, prairie dust. A small version of the Stumpjack logo is also on the back under the collar, which I think is pretty cool too.

Sam in kiwi green.

New Belgium Brewery meets Stumpjack Gelato

Just made a batch of New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale and Vanilla Gelato. New Belgium Brewing is the Colorado brewery, Fat Tire is the name of their flagship, and they have recently opened distribution into Wisconsin. Everyone around here thinks the name of the brewery is Fat Tire, so maybe we should just call tit Fat Tire Gelato, but we'll stay true to the brew and call it 1554 Enlightened Black Ale & Vanilla gelato. I like that you need to be 21 or older and show an ID to get some. And we do, of course, have 1554 and Fat Tire on hand in bottles as well.

Here's the script on the 1554 Black Ale from the New Belgium website:
Born of a flood and centuries-old Belgian text, 1554 Enlightened Black Ale uses a light lager yeast strain and dark chocolaty malts to redefine what dark beer can be. In 1997, a Fort Collins flood destroyed the original recipe our researcher, Phil Benstein, found in the library. So Phil and brewmaster, Peter Bouckaert, traveled to Belgium to retrieve this unique style lost to the ages. Their first challenge was deciphering antiquated script and outdated units of measurement, but trial and error (and many months of in-house sampling) culminated in 1554, a highly quaffable dark beer with a moderate body and mouthfeel.

Wed. Nite Especiálé

For tonight's Wednesday Night Special CLICK HERE to go to Kim's Wine All You Want blog to see the details of what delisciousness she has in store for this evening.

A few more picnic images

The troops in action.

Here are a few more images from last Friday's Stumpjack Picnic at Point Beach State Forest. Click here to go to the Stumpjack Flickr site where I've placed the image set. And don't forget to check out Brian's and Marty's sets, the links to which I've indicated in the post from Saturday, July 11.Keeping them warm.

John gets the bocce ball started.

Molly eating a strawberry.

Big basil plants

We've got 9 basil herb plants growing; 7 sweet basil and 2 cinnamon basil. Here's an image of 4 of the sweet basil plants, which started out as little 6"-8" plants with plenty of room between each one. Now they're around 16" high and so wide that they look almost as a single, large bush, with big, fat luscious leaves. Fresh basil smells wonderful and tastes just as wonderful. This is the stuff that helps make a margherita pizza so darn good...a Stumpjack margherita pizza.

First Stumpjumpers Picnic in the books

The first annual Stumpjumpers Picnic took place yesterday at the group camp site at Point Beach State Forest. The weather was awesome, the food was awesome, the beer was awesome, the company was awesome. I reckon we had, by my recollection, 26 stumpers enjoying the evening (not counting the grumpy ranger dude). We think we're going to do a picnic again in October for our annual anniversary party, and we'll put that info out there when it draws near.

Below are a few images that Brian took.You can see all of his pics from the evening on his Flickr site by clicking here. My Dad also took a bunch of photos and I'll post those when he gets them to me.

Pat smuggles in some questionable beer (Schlitz, fabulous marketing program, but so-so beer). We brought New Glarus Stone Soup and Dancing Man for everyone. Pat was forced to endure much ridicule and pelting with pine cones.

Pat, Pat, Peggy (looking very hip), Larry and Jayne. I believe they are discussing what would be the proper punishment for Pat for bringing in the Schlitz (you'll notice that Pat, on the far left, looks worried and is starting to back-walk away from the group).

Grilling some steaks I got from a couple of stumpjacks I harvested during a late 2008 northwoods hunting trip. My Dad in the background taking a picture of the ground for a photographic series he's calling..."ground."

Everyone observing the masterful skill with which Larry cuts his steak. The guy is an artist I tell you.

"Who wants the first slab o' stumpjack!?"

The food that everyone brought was fabulous. Who doesn't love potluck picnics.

Kim, I and Bobbi get schooled in bocce ball by Mike. The guy was seriously humbling the rest of us.

After we ran out of pine cones to throw at Pat, we resorted to the bocce balls. Pat is just out of the photo, buried up to his head in the ground. Kim throws the first ball while I mentally measure the distance.

Chillin' round the fire...what a great way to cap off the week.

Thank you, John (right) for bringing the bocce ball set. I think Molly is playing catch football with Glenn in this picture.

Kim placing stones and hard pine cones under the tent on the side where I would be sleeping, while Becky waves a magic wand at Mike to try to turn him into a Taylor guitar.

Great color in this picture by Brian. We got rain around 11:00 or so at the end of the evening. Stayed overnight and listened to the rain dance on the tent.

Mike and Kim. Photo by Marty. Click here to see Marty's pictures from the picnic.

Nathaniel returneth with a vengeance

Thursday Night Live Music

Thursday evening at 7pm

Nathaniel Seer

Nathaniel is from Indiana and is in the middle of an extensive tour. He'll be stopping by Stumpjack Coffee on Thursday evening. This will be his second appearance here and he is well worth seeing. Nathan is one of the more passionate and earnest musicians we've had here. I love his sound, as it reminds me of one of my favorite 80's bands when I was in college: The Call...great powerful vocals, clever songwriting, passionate delivery.

Start your weekend early and come hang with us this Thursday night.

Tonight's wine, pizza, tapas special

From 5:30-8:30 tonight.

Appetizer: Herbed Cheese Bread

Artisan Pizza: Wisconsin Extraordinaire
(A tasteful blend of Wisconsin's finest ingredients including brats and cheese curds.)

Wine: White Zinfindel

All this for one low price of $20.
Make a reservation.

The winner of last month's Wed Night Special drawing is Alice Sheehan!
Alice won a ticket to the most fun concert of the year: Pato Banton and the Now Generation band on Sept 18th at Stumpjack Coffee.

Random images from the last couple weeks

Cheyenne showing off her huge left hand with the kung fu grip.

Nicole and Kent and Nicole's boy, I believe, during Lillie Lemon's gig.

Larry gives the Fat Tire an A-OK; Peggy watches Lillie Lemon.

Kim prepping tapas.

Nic over at Red Bank...I need to get out of the shop once in a while too.

Some fine coffee that Larry and Peggy brought back for me from their trip to Costa Rica.

Jesse holding my smoke-stick during Scott Hanson's gig in Central Park.

Please help make Stumpjack #1

Stumpjack Coffee needs your help, all you Stumpers and Stumpjumpers out there. It's time for the annual Best of Manitowoc County, where you give props to your favorite places and services. Stumpjack would be most grateful if you would take a few minutes online to do the survey and if you would consider nominating Stumpjack for the following categories:

• Atmosphere
• Coffee Shop
• Lunch
• Beer Selection
  
• Ice Cream (gelato!)
• Pizza

Of course, there are any number of places that serve great pizza or ice cream or do a great lunch...vote your personal favorites. The biggies for us are Coffee Shop, Atmosphere, Lunch and Beer Selection, so please enter us for these categories especially.
The other two categories of Ice Cream and Pizza might be longshots for the Stump (although we do think we do those things pretty well, not as many folks know about it as know about the more popular places that serve pizza and ice cream.

Go to this link and fill out the survey: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB229CFA3UUTC

It'll take a few minutes because you've got to enter at least 50 different places for the ballot to count, so grab a beer or a cup of coffee and settle in for a few minutes. It's kind of fun and the places who do win will surely appreciate your support. Support your local businesses and friends.
Finally, please forward this to all of your friends online too and ask them to vote for Stumpjack in those categories too. It is a popularity contest, after all. Thanks so very much.

Lemonheads Unite!

TONIGHT 8pm

Lillie Lemon

at Stumpjack Coffee
The perfect kick-off to your 4th o' July weekend.
image by Brian Powell

Hey, a link actually links

Kim's niece, Samantha, is in the shop this afternoon, which gives me a little free time to work on some things that have been on the to-do list for Zeus-knows-how-long. Finally getting to work on our links up there underneath the header. Just hooked up the "Javalogy" link with yesterday's HTR column (that'll be where they all can be found).