Music Report for Feb. 15, 2005

Well, it's been an interesting weekend. I wound up with two sudden-notice gigs that I greatly enjoyed. Friday night I played at Eyedrum with Ken Lockie's band, Cowboys International. Ken is a quiet pleasant guy, which gives you no clue he used to be Johnny Rotton's roomie - but more importantly, he's widely credited as being one of the founding fathers of the "New Romantic" movement that influenced much of the music we remember from the 80's. Ken was also an early member of PiL and The Clash. A quick Google on his name will turn up lots of stuff.

Then on Saturday I served as sole accompanist for Marlyn Campbell, a vocalist I worked with in South River Band. (Imagine Julia Roberts, only prettier, with a voice) That experiment went quite well, and will be much better in the future. I'll notify you as soon as we get something else booked.

Now the regular Jam Report:
Last night at Crystal's On The Square went well, even if it was a bit thin - after all, Crystal's is fun but not what most folks would consider a Valentine's Day destination. Ms. Michael Broderick performed beautifully on "My Funny Valentine", a duet that let me go crazy with some of those big chords and substitutions that can rarely be used with a band. Directions to Crystal's later in this message.

Tonight I'll be hosting at The North End Pub & Grill, a nice venue in north Alpharetta. The North End always draws talented jammers. If you haven't been, c'mon out! Directions follow.

Wednesday night I'll be back with Larry Griffith, Ricky Fargo, Jon Schwenke and Pete Battista at Kennesaw Billiards. That's a nice venue, please come on out and jam &/or party with us.

And finally, in the Helpful Hint category, I've learned about two very good websites for roadmaps. Forget Mapquest, MapBlaster and the rest, these are the next generation and very cool. Best is http://www.map24.com which is an active Java-based map system. Second-best is the beta version of http://maps.google.com Try them out, using the addresses below!