New Town North Dakota

Since my little set at Swallow Hill in Denver, I've been on a little adventure around the region. I took a few days and worked on some cover tunes to play a few 4 set nights at 4 Bears Casino in New Town, North Dakota. Last Wednesday we packed up and headed north to Rapid City, South Dakota. We arrived around 5 pm and decided I would play an open mic night at The Dakota Soda. As it turns out, it is run by an old friend of mine Mike Reardon who has been playing in the region for years. I played my couple of tunes and Mike suggested we walk down the street to Thirsty's. I got up and did a few tunes and jammed with the host and local guitar legend, James Van Nuys. What a great guy and killer guitarist. I hope to make it back up that way and play more with him soon. We said goodnight to my old friend Randy Ross, who always asks me to say hello to my mother for him. Hi Mom, from Randy. The next morning we headed north again through the oil country. There are lots of camps springing up everywhere and oil rigs everywhere you look. I couldn't help but think of the gold rush and how similar it must have been for the locals of the day. That's a different story though. We arrived at 4 Bears and I went through some tunes and set up some gear. It was obvious after the first night that I would need more old timey country tunes, so I worked on that for a pretty good part of the day on Friday. I recalled many of the songs I used to play with my father when I was a child. My folks would often have friends over and the guitar would come out and he would sing. Charley Pride, Merle Haggard and a ton of other cool stuff. Eventually, I got to the point where I could play along and am very greatfull that we had that connection. It's something I have had the chance to do with my children and I'm thankful for that as well. Saturday we got up and headed back to Rapid City where in about 15 minutes of being in town ran into my friend, Mary Rasch. She is a very well known musician in those parts and has traveled around the county playing great music. It's always a pleasure to run into her and her family. We will stay in touch for sure. After dinner we went and listened to another friend from back in the day, Chris Cady. His band Violent Hippie has been a mainstay in the Black Hills for years and he continues to please. We listened to his solo show for a bit, got some rest and headed back to Colorado. I will spend this week doing some home recording and I have 2 shows coming up. One at the Bellvue Bean and a house concert in Berthoud Colorado. Check out the website for details on those shows and as always, thanks for keeping us in your thoughts as you are always in ours.

Violent Hippie : http://m.myspace.com/home.wap?bfd=webnext&isredirected=true#friends.list/profile/49745294 James Van Nuys : http://jamesvannuys.com/music.html New Town Wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Town,_North_Dakota Rapid City North Dakota. : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_City,_South_Dakota Mike Reardon : http://www.mikereardonmusic.com/ Randy Ross : http://www.attatribal.com/about-atta

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