Honest Grandmas

I love family. These are the people that love and support you no matter what, right? I mean, if no one else in the entire world believes in you, they will. My family has been notoriously supportive of me and my music from day one. They're always going out of their way to make it to shows and tell all their buddies about us as well. Sometimes they're almost overly zealous. Sometimes... not.

Last week we finished up a little tour down in the central valley and got in real late. The next morning, Jess and I straggled up to Lake Tahoe for my Uncle Randy's wedding. It was great fun hanging out and talking golf with all my lawyer cousins. The conversation turned from golf to music and, inevitably, to American Idol. (Jess and I are always having people tell us to audition for that show) That's when my Grandma walked up. "Oh no!" she said. "Nathan doesn't have a strong enough voice for that." The conversation abruptly stopped and everyone found an excuse to walk away. I know I don't have an American Idol voice, but I didn't know my Grandma knew it too.

Peace, hope and love- Nathan J.

Open Mic Night

If you were not at the last open mic at Basement Wines you missed out on a great time. There were numerous incredibly talented musicians who came out to share their talents with any who would listen. I am terrible with names so I won't even try, but the we started of the night with a couple of tunes and were followed by a country duo. They consisted of guitar/singer and a dobro player. The singer had been there a few weeks ago and I was excited to hear him play again. I was not disappointed in the least bit. He plays an old time country style which the dobro fit in perfectly. Next Bill got up to play and he can play the guitar remarkably well. The night also featured a guitar player, a girl singing some covers, an impromtu (sp?) blues jam, and then we closed the night off with a set of dance tunes.

I am super excited at how well the open mic is already doing. At our third week, we are already getting a name for a fun place to come and play, as well as a great place to listen to some truly incredible music. I hope that we can keep up the good times. So if you have not been able to make it out to the Open Mic Night at Basement Wines, you should.

Kyle Ray

p.s. next week I will remember to bring my camera and maybe even get some videos so you can see what you are missing.

Auburn Street Fair

I got a call from Nathan the other day saying that he had a show at the Auburn Street Fair on Sunday. I told him that I would put it up on the website and all of that exciting stuff. As I understood it, he was going to be playing the show by himself so Colette and I planned on continuing our move to Rocklin. Before we could start though we had to meet some friends in Auburn and figured that we would stop by to say hi to Nathan and Jess since we were there. When we found where he was playing i noticed two extra mics set up and realized that he was expecting me to be there as well. I felt bad, he had been trying call me (I was at church) and couldn't figure out why I didn't show up. Oops, I guess next time I will be there.

Kyle Ray

Chief Crazy Horse Inn

Thanks to all the folks that made it out to our show last Thursday at the Chief Crazy Horse Inn. As always, we had a great time and look forward to our next show there on the 21st of August. In the meantime we will be at the Old Town Auburn Street Fair tomorrow from 11-2 pm. We are also at Basement Wines in Colfax every Tuesday night from 7 pm till closing. Come have some good wine and catch some of our new tunes and pick up our new CD if you haven't already.

Kyle Ray

p.s. check out Basement Wines new website, it looks dandy.

Open Mic Night

Last Tuesday was the first open mic night of many to come. We are really excited about this event and expect it to become a great time for all people involved. Whether people are performing or just sitting back and relaxing, it is a great place to hang out (plus they have free Wi-Fi).

This last event we did a few sets: one to start the evening, one to close and we were joined by "William Day" in the middle of the evening. We performed Flagstaff Street Jam and another song I can't remember and let me tell you the man can seriously throw down on guitar. He never ceases to amaze me. The crowd was also graced by the performance of a man named Jim who sang us a couple of cowboy tunes. A great singer/songwriter which I am looking forward to hearing this next week. I would recommend coming out and hearing this man perform this next week.

So with that said come out share some music or sit back relax and enjoy the show.

KVMR

We wanted to send a big thank you again to "Walking Larry" from KVMR, for having us on the air last Saturday. As always, we had a blast hanging out with him, chatting and playing a few tunes. Thanks to Colette as well, for walking around with our little Rosebud when she got restless.
And hey, Happy Cinco De Mayo to all!
:)
~Jess

On the Radio

Saturday morning we went over to see our good friend Walking Larry on KVMR, a great listener supported radio station out of Nevada City. We were set to go on the air at 9:15 am so we got there around 9:00 to catch up and get ready for the show. We brought KVMR and Walking Larry our new CD, which he will hopefully give some airtime.

Once on air we played several tunes that we are hoping to put on our next album. Of course we did some talking, mostly about life in general, but we were also able to steer the conversation around song writing and recording. Larry also gave us the opportunity to plug our next show at Chief Crazy Horse on May 15, and an open mic night we will be hosting for Basement Wines every Tuesday at 7:30. We will have more to share on that later, but the event will be kicking off this Tuesday at 7:30 at Basement Wines in Colfax.

All in all, we had a great time hanging out with Larry and can't wait to do it again. We took some pictures which we will get on here soon...until then...

Kyle Ray