"the town that greets ya"

At least that's what one passer by sain of me and kenny as we sat adjacent to a small city park in salem illinois while drinking our coffee. As I look at the main intersection of salem I feel like I'm back in the 1950's. Salem hasn't changed much; not the downtown, at least. We are playing here tonight in what has been fondly labeled "the cougerville of illinois". Our usual establishment, becky's, has been closed since we were last here, but TDubs(our local illinois promoter) has kept us in the salem loop at the Village Garden for tonight's show. We are accually playing outside the bar, so more people could see the show, and I'm told the town of salem changed a city ordinence so we can leagelly play outside. It helps that a few of our fans here include a county judge and various members of the city counsel :-).
Last night we played mabry's, in greenville, illinois....yea I don't know where that is either, but we did get to take a rollercoaster of county roads to get. I told chet that I had his back, just in case.
I met some interesting folks there inluding two traveling business men who are helping us in the indianapolis market, one dude who spent four months in a coma after a falling 284 feet in a snowboarding accident(he also had to jump from a burning plane last year....hasn't really been his decade), and a woman with a hole in her head...I felt it...it was weird....accually she made me feel it....it was weird. she was accually a very nice woman, and she came to the show with her boyfriend simply cause the heard about us, which leads me to believe that somehow rural america gets a news feed that the rest of the country doesn't subscribe to. I mean, we're in greenville. I think we should do a tour of towns with 5000 people or less and call it something like "getting some boon 2009 tour". Just a thought.

KZOO

Here we are at Conga Coffee in Mt. Pleasant (there really aren't any mountains, from what I can see......liars) interneting with Kenny on a push leather couch contemplating the different between tube socks and tambourines.
Woo! Opening night in Kalamazoo was pretty amazing. It started pretty slow cause we rollin into town like 5 hours early, the bar would only serve us PBR, and the other bands said that this club was in the armpit/ghetto of Kalamazoo.......sweet. When the music started rolling, however, the night exploded. We played with the Alex Mays band and Dooley Noted, and I realized its been awhile since we've shared the stage with bands where every member was outstanding!
Billy Clements was the bassist for Alex, and I have never been so blown away watching a bass get played. Google "one arm bassist" cause this guy didn't have a right hand, and he traveled the hell out of that bass! All finger tap.....unbelievable.....seriously....I'm either still drunk or really blown away still cause I can not get over this amazing display of technique(just kidding, I don't drink).
After the show we had to drive to Detroit, cause we didn't have a place to crash. i don't know how lucas did it, but we got there and are crashing with Rambo....seriously that's his name...John Rambo....no bandanna, for the next couple of nights.

Eastern Tour Eve.....

.....is kind of like Christmas Eve except there are no reindeer, or chimneys, and the only present you get is 10 days in a row in a van with three other dudes. That smells terrific! Seriously, though there aren't three other guys i would rather do it with. We start in Kalamazoo, MI at a place called the Corner Bar followed by:
Robusto's - Grosse Pointe Woods, MI Feb. 6th
Old Miami Bar - Detroit, MI Feb. 7th
Wilbert's - Cleveland, OH Feb. 8th
Howler's - Pittsburgh, PA Feb. 10th
New Oxford Coffee - New Oxford, PA (acoustic show) Feb. 11th
Sullivan Hall - New York, NY (Greenwich Village) Feb. 12th
All Asia - Cambridge, MA Feb. 13th
Jillian's - Albany, NY Feb. 14th

It's a nice little run. We haven't been that way yet, so I'm really excited to meet some family I've never met before and reconnect with old friends. Peace.

We're all Martyr's

In preparation for our Eastern tour in February The Lucas Cates Band is hitting the road for a long weekend.  We have to get used to spending 24 hours together...god knows that's a chore(for those of you who know us, you know nothing is farther from the truth).  Actually, we're like Captain Planet....when our powers combine we turn into a really tall green man who can fly and recycle.

  Last night we played Martyrs in Chicago with the Wu Li Conspiracy and the Steakhouse Mints, and had a blast!  Wu Li was all acoustic/folk with a twist of lime.  The Steakhouse Mints left me stunned, confused, entertained, and exhausted....they were awesome.  

The sound on that stage and in that room was some of the best ever, and the staff was wonderful.  It was a really great start to what looks to be a good weekend.   

This will be made possible in part by the new application Kenny downloaded to his phone.  Surprise, its the fart application.  So now I don't know if the farts are coming from Kenny or Kenny's phone until the laughter turns to looks of disgust.  Which almost makes me happy that I'm getting sick.

Whoever thought that you could drink away a sinus cold....is stupid.  I have a sinus cold, which kind of sucks on the road because I don't want to spread it to the rest of the guys.   

I also got to spend time reconnecting with some old friends who now live in the Chicago area.  Unfortunately they all had to work on Friday....suckers :-)  

See you in Louisview.