Dangit! Lost in computer wasteland.

As I write this I'm uploading the last of the videos onto YouTube of JoAnn, Jeannie and Chelsea from Saturday night's performance. Those gals are just the bee's knees! Really strong songwriters and very raw and elemental in their performances. When they perform it's about as close as you can get to the feeling of hanging out at a home party or around a campfire, drinking beer, your pals bringing out their guitars and everyone just having a great time...it's loose and relaxed, a good deal of fun chitchat and laughs, and some truly awesome music.

JoAnn Riedl

YouTube sucks for image quality in the transfer (everything seems to blur a bit), but the sound is pretty good. I'm using a Flip Video camera for everything, a great little gizmo I got from our friend Rob who's down in Texas. The image quality and sound coming off the Flip is excellent; it's on the YouTube end that the image gets fuzzy.

Jeannie Mayotte

I also had some great video of Matt Davies from Friday night and of Greg Pagel from Saturday's noon show. But something happened as I was uploading...everything froze up on the computer for several minutes and when it finally kicked in again all of my videos had been erased. All of them, not just the ones of Matt and Greg, but all of them. Fortunately, the ones of JoAnn, Jeannie and Chelsea were on the camera yet, and not in the Flip files like the others. I'm bummed but what can you do.

Chelsea Z.

Today and Tonight

Saturday, Nov. 8
Live music with Greg Pagel - keyboard and accordion demon.
12:00 noon
Saturday, Nov. 8
Live Music with JoAnn Riedl, Jeannie Mayotte and Chelsea Z. - a trio of rockin' Milwaukee artists.
8:00pm

New Flickr Sets

click the links below each picture or on the right side column

Koz 5/17/08

Kerry Michaels & Tom Reynolds 5/23/08

Jeannie Mayotte 5/24/08

Pagel & Turner 6/6/08

Lloyd Rohr 6/7/08

Bill Walkner 6/13/08

This weekend's music and art

I just saw Kerry and he ragged on me "How come your blog ain't posted?" Oyvey! I BEEN BUSY THIS MORNING, DUDE! Ok, so here is the announcement for this weekend.

This Friday night, May 23rd, at 7:00 will be the opening of the ATC (Artist Trading Cards) exhibit and at 8:00 Kerry Michaels and Tom Reynolds will be laying down the vibe for the rest of the night. Tom is a helluva guitar player, having been the band leader for the Larry McCarren show, along with working as a musician in Hollywood in the mid-80s. We went over to Element a couple weeks ago to catch the tail-end of Kerry and Tom's gig there and, I'm telling you, this guy can play! He is as smooth and effortless as a studio musician, as technically skilled as a road warrior needs to be, and with a hardcore rock & blues sensibility. Kerry and Tom sounded excellent together, and we could see and hear a marked increase in Kerry's enthusiasm and excitement at performing with Tom. Catch them here this Friday night.

I'll explain more about the ATC exhibition tomorrow. For now you can learn a little bit about it on Kim's Persimmon's blog.

cool poster huh...

Saturday, May 24th, at 8:00 Jeannie Mayotte will be coming up from Milwaukee to blow us away again with her sweetness and her music. JoAnn Riedl was scheduled to perform again with Jeannie but JoAnn had to cancel this one (she'll be back again soon I'm sure), so Jeannie will be going solo, which we're very pumped about too. You have to go to her myspace site and listen to her stuff if you haven't seen her here before. The girl knows how to write a song that will stay in your head for days, and she has such a charming humility and endearing stage presence (that is, she often seems to be a little nervous...which is a great quality for a performer with talent like hers). Her lyrics are both biting and personal, and her music is melodic and hook-driven. Saturday night...girl with guitar and voice...no nonsense.

Grizzly Adams with JoAnn & Jeannie

Bill Martell just sent me several photos he took the other night when JoAnn and Jeannie were here, including this one that I like of me with the gals. You won't find too many images of me in the stuff we put on here because, even though I'm a camera hog and a ham, I figure there's enough of "me" in all this stuff already (the whole Stumpjack thing) and my already substantial ego doesn't need anymore stroking anyway. So while for that reason I'm a little wary of posting this picture (besides the fact that I look like an ornery, bearded Scotsman), anytime I get a picture of myself with beautiful women I just have to crow a little...and JoAnn and Jeannie both look freaking radiant don't they!

BTW, most of the beard's gone now...shaved it off a few days ago. Smooth as a baby's bottom.

Images from a few days ago

Click the links below to be routed to the Flickr photo sets:

I really like this dark and atmospheric image of JoAnn...her smile, the neon, the little blue lights over her right shoulder.

JoAnn Riedl & Jeannie Mayotte - Thursday, April 17th

Terry with a lovely creamy stout...mmmm....

Beer & Chocolate Tasting - Friday, April 18th

I must be in a "dark" frame of mind...this one of Derek bookends JoAnn above.

Derek Pritzl - Saturday, April 19th

Double-Trouble

I've got a ton of stuff to get done today before tonight's little beer and chocolate tasting, so I only have a few spare minutes right now but I wanted to give a huge shout out to JoAnn and Jeannie (Riedl and Mayotte) for their performance last night at the Stump. Musically, personally and professionally those two are just the cat's meow...the bee's knees...the dog's biscuit...lizard's gizzard...any particular critter metaphor you can come up with. Seriously, they're both uber-talented and just lovely people. It's just plain cool when you get to see and hear someone who's really good kicking it out with just a six-string and their voice. If you missed them last night you will get another chance to redeem yourself because they're coming back to kick the crap out of any and all bad attitudes on Saturday, May 24th.

I'll put last night's images up later, maybe tomorrow if time allows. FYI: JoAnn's band, The Barrettes, are schedules to play Summerfest on July 3rd at the Cascio Garage Groove Stage, next to the Marcus Amphitheater.

Now then, tonight we're doing the beer and chocolate tasting I mentioned above, during which we'll be treated yet again to some more lovely music from the lovely Becky Markvart. "Beer, BonBons and Becky"...that's what I should've called this tasting!

Hey, a dynamite Thursday night gig!

This Thursday night at 7:00 Stumpjack Coffee will host a special live music event with the dynamic duo of JoAnn Riedl and Jeannie Mayotte, flown in on a special, secret flight all the way from Milwaukee, Wisconsin (the town that made Schlitz beer famous). These two sheilas (that's Ausie-speak for women) are intense, passionate and exceptional singer/songwriters. The last time they performed here they honestly just blew us away...it was just "a girl and her guitar" kind of set-up...no amps, no electronics...and they just filled the space with their sound. Very cool.

So, give yourself a midweek treat and come on out for a coffee or a beer and listen to something special. 7:00pm Thursday night.

I Dream of Jeannie...Mayotte

Kim and I and the girls drove up to Green Bay today after work, to hit Barnes & Noble and get some sushi...it was a nice afternoon for a drive and I needed to get outta Dodge for a few hours anyway. I grabbed a couple CDs off my shelf as we left the Stump, including Jeannie Mayotte's 6 song EP she gave me Friday night. This thing is sweeet! We played it on the way up to GB and on the way back home and I have it in the laptop right now as I type this post. I wanna do the cover art for one of Jeannie's CDs, that's how much I love this disc. Soon as she gets some more pressed and into our grubby hands to sell for her we'll let you know.

Reidl & Mayotte awesome!

JoAnn Riedl

It was around 6:30 Saturday night and I was starting to get a little worried that JoAnn and Jeannie weren't going to make it on time (or at all) for their 7:00 gig. I pictured them driving somewhere north or south of Two Rivers in the dark, "Where the hell is this place!?" "I told you to take that exit 10 miles back!"

Jeannie Mayotte

But in they walked with thirty minutes to spare, each carrying nothing but a single guitar case. We all said howdy and I asked "Can I help you unload?" "Nope," replied JoAnn, "we're good." Then I felt another little tick of doubt...what, no amps? We're so used to unloading and setting up amps and gear and doing sound checks that I think I felt a little naked without all that stuff (and I wasn't the one performing!). But as soon as JoAnn hit the first chord and sang the first line we all just went "whoa...cool..."

JoAnn and Jeannie, hereafter referred to as "the gals," confessed a bit of nervousness themselves, performing without so much as a microphone to hide behind. While they may have felt a bit exposed everyone else was totally entranced. Those gals got some serious chops. JoAnn would do four or five tunes before giving up her place under our makeshift purple spotlight for Jeannie to do her thing. And so it went throughout the evening with the two taking turns and performing a really powerful mix of songs that alternated between full throttle, full lung wailers and stuff so delicate that it made you lean in and tilt your head to make sure you caught it all. That kind of audience response was also one of the things that we couldn't help but notice: people were quiet and focused when either JoAnn or Jeannie were playing, listening intently and clearly appreciating what they were a part of. It was a small crowd last night, but the applause after each song was loud and immediate.

I don't want to get too much into actual musical or performance reviews in these follow-up posts (though maybe I should...would it be of any interest, I don't know), because up to now my main purpose has really just been to post the images from the event for people to enjoy, and to not say much more than that we had a great time (which we always do...it is honestly always just a heckuva lot of fun when we have live music). But I have to say that this night was one of the best of the best, and that had as much to do with the intimacy and immediacy of the performance as it did with the musical skill and talent the gals possess. JoAnn and Jeannie had a lot of fun too and so we're having them back, sometime in the next several weeks. When we nail down the date(s) we'll let you know on here and on the StumpjackCoffee myspace calendar. You will not want to miss them.

After the gig we all went over to Element Bistro for a drink and smart-talk. Bought a pound of some outstanding cave aged cheese from Kevin (Voysey) in his Abotzo wine and cheese shop there. Jason (Prigge), who is the chef and runs Element, stopped by the table to say hi and said he's going to book JoAnn and Jeannie to play there sometime very soon too, which is awesome. It is extremely cool to have Element and Abotzo in this city, it's a fantastic place (for those who don't know, both businesses share the space). Saturday nights Element has live music as well, and so it's a great opportunity for people to bounce around between Stumpjack and Element (and the Waverly Inn also often has live music on those nights) for some great food, drink and entertainment.

Click here to go to the Flickr images from last night...or on the right side column to see them and any others anytime you feel like it. Remember to click the "view as slideshow" link in the upper right corner above the set when you get to the Flickr page, if you want to view as a slideshow.