It's Alive!

Finally, the vid of Dan and Derek downloaded. It's on our YouTube account as well as right here. The other video below is of Kerry Michaels playing his song "Just a Dream" from last night's gig. That's on our YouTube account as well. Have a couple more vids to place on there yet...Dan Walkner, another of Kerry, and maybe a couple short silly ones from some chitchat in the shop. YouTube is great but I do wish that the videos would display sharper than they do...they always appear to get a little blurry in the transfer from camera or laptop to YouTube.

Derek Pritzl and Dan Walkner...on tune they wrote together

Kerry Michaels..."Just a Dream"...he nailed it.

This weekend: a mid-day musical soiree

Eric Nassau

This Friday night (Sept 12th) Mr. Goodtime, Kerry Michaels, will be groovin' the Stump at 8:00pm. Fresh off of his successful and finely received SputnikFest performance with guitar whiz Tom Reynolds, Kerry will be playing some new tunes from the new CD he's working on.

Kerry Michaels

Eric Nassau poster...click to enlarge

Then, on Saturday (Sept. 13th) for a not-entirely-unusual noontime show (I think we've had three noontime shows now in the past couple years), folk troubadour and talented songwriter Eric Nassau will be performing at Stumpjack while on his current tour of Midwest cities. Eric is the real deal and you can get a taste of what I'm talking about by going to his myspace site and listening to some of his music (http://www.myspace.com/ericnassauandfriends). Eric has performed with a lot of well-known artists, a few of whom are mentioned in this release that the Herald Times Reporter published online here. So come on down for lunch and the chance to hear some mighty fine live music from a man with a beard that makes those guys in ZZTop jealous.

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.

Kerry and Bill Flickr pics

Bill Walkner...photo by Nate Walkner.

Just finished putting the images onto Flickr from the weekend...Kerry Michaels from Friday night and Bill Walkner from Saturday night (the last four gorgeous photographs of Bill in that set are by Bill's son Nate's hand...beautiful shots aren't they.) Again, Flickr sets are also in the right hand column.

This Friday and Saturday night

Kerry Michaels - Friday night at 7:00 pm. Last week, I think it was, Kerry was spotlighted in the Herald Times Reporter Weekend Edition. He remains one of the real special talents in the local music scene...every time he plays with us it's a fun time and the music is always outstanding. Kerry's working on a new CD right now, and he'll likely be playing some of his new songs Friday night.

Bill Walkner - Saturday night at 7:00 pm. Bill performed for his son Nate's photography opening last month...and we had to have him come back for his own gig after listening to him that night. Bill wrote a most excellent folk song about Stumpjack Coffee too and that alone is worth coming to hear Bill play on Saturday night.

Live Music at the Stump this weekend

Saturday night at around 8:00
Kerry Michaels doin' his thang...

Entertainment this weekend...

Last night, Friday the 18th...

Friday night (18th) and Saturday night (19th)

Kerry Michaels is bringing his fantastic songwriting and guitar playing skills to Stumpjack.

Both nights' music begins at around 8:00 and we'll go til around 10:00.

(We're pushing the start time back an hour for our live music nights, starting and ending later)

It's always a great time when Kerry plays, so be sure to swing on by.

Last night too...

Tonight...just a few minutes ago...get down here now!

Prom Night in Two Rivers

Last night Kerry performed, prom dates danced together, people sampled Russian beer, and the evening weather was fantastic. Another fun, relaxing and beautiful evening of music and friends at Stumpjack.

Two Rivers' Prom was last night and we had some finely attired couples enjoying the space and coffee after the dance. Kerry was great and played a few slow tunes to dance to. Ahhh...amore'...pretty cool to see.


We are going to be experimenting with our beer list a bit more frequently, adding and trying out some unusual brews from time to time, and right now we have three new Russian beers on hand (in addition to the fantastic Sleeman beers that have become our mainstay). I'll write more about them in a different post, but since we brought them in a couple days ago people have been sampling them and the critiques have been very good.

Kerry played one of his new compositions for us last night, a lovely though somber ballad that reminded me just what a fine songwriter he is.

We've got a pretty full schedule of weekend entertainment next month (3 weekends in a row right now), so check back in a day or two when I post the calendar here. Ciao!

Live Music Saturday Night

Kerry Michaels will be bringing his songwriting and guitar playing talent to the Stumpjack this Saturday evening at 7:00. Be here or regret it brother!

"Don't forget the camera..."

Kerry Michaels, Saturday night at Stumpjack Coffee Co.

This past Friday and Saturday nights were a lot of fun. Friday's wine tasting with Brad and Shaun Schmiling of Von Stiehl Winery was a great time, with several new faces coming into the Stump to sample the wonderful wines of Von Stiehl and try our coffee...huge thumbs up reviews on both (we know because we always ask!). We were comfortably busy, with time to chat with everyone and do a bit of wine inspection ourselves. The only thing that went wrong was that I got so involved with chatting and hanging out that I forgot to take any pictures! Oy!

Brad and Shaun have also recently opened a new B&B in Algoma just a couple blocks from the winery, the Havenly Inn. I think we're going to take advantage of this place sometime in the next month or so...a beautiful B&B next to a great winery, what more could you need?

Sandy and Terry, Kim, Dana and Paul enjoying Kerry's music.

Last night (Saturday) Kerry did a brief show for an appreciative crowd (some of who reported feeling a little morning "slowness" from the wine party the night before...ha!). He's become something of the official Stumpjack House Band since we opened, always ready to step in if we need him, with a long list of tunes that include very original versions of familiar songs as well as his own excellent material. It is unfortunate that that he recently suffered an injury to his hand (hence the short show this night) and had to cancel several gigs with us, but he's on the mend and will be back soon I'm sure. I'm tellin' you all now, this guy has talent and a warm stage presence that gets people involved with the performance. His own songs are as good as anything you might hear on the radio and he has an ability to make other people's music his own. Here's the Kerry Michaels myspace site. I did manage to remember to take a few pics last night...here's a couple.