A TON OF BLUES - Blues you can use blog! 3/2/14 Hello Blues Hounds! We travelled to Lowell’s Back Page Café on Kearney Square Friday night to rip it up and burn it down. We did too , judging by the very large audience’s enthusiastic response! It was personally my first time at the Back Page and I was wowed at everything about the place. It’s a cool little joint with a GREAT wait staff and a damn fine selection of brews to choose. The room sounds great (built in house PA) and they have a simulcast radio broadcast on Fridays with station WCAP 980 am and so we reached those listeners as well – cool-eo! We want to thank all the ATOB fans who travelled to the club for the show as well as the many new fans we certainly picked up who danced and whistled and screamed their heads off at various moments during the show! The only bad thing that happened all night was that I (dimwit) forgot the ATOB T-Shirt’s back at home…..YIKES! Sunday had us back at Hot Shotz - 1293 Main Street, N. Leominster for our regular juke, joint, jam session. I can’t say this enough - Host Shotz serves a number of brands of draft beers in 16 oz. or “Grande’” size 20 oz. for REAL reasonable prices. Of course they also serve bottle beers and mixed drinks as well as great pub food! Off street parking – NO COVER! We had moved the performance start time back an hour to run from 2 PM to 6 PM at the request of Mike the owner and we were a bit concerned about the turnout due to the change. So you think it hurt us? WRONG RUN-AMOK! The audience and jammers not only showed up but we had so many peeps in the house that we ran OVERTIME an HOUR until 7 pm to accommodate all the folks. We want to thank you ALL for showing up and being part of the show. So on to the participants - and there were many! First up we had Kenny Edelman (bass), “Blind Jelly Stu”(harp/vocals), Mike Corrado (drums) along with our own Scott LeBlanc and they poured out some of Stu’s finely aged originals. Stu, Kenny and Mike continue to impress each time they show up and Ken announced he had just landed a steady gig on the bass – GO Ken!! Glen Moisen showed up with his twin re-furbed Leslie Cabs (they look and sound great Glenn) and he jumped up with the guys on Hammond Organ. Then – out of the blue (pun intended) we had Mike “Spud Light” Kelly come up on the SG guitar and pump out some leads - this package was complete and man what a sound! Next we had Johnny Ray (guitar), Matt Sambino (bass), Billy Rags(guitar/vocals), Davey Bergeron (drums) and Fred Geer (harp) pull out all the stops on both some classic roots rock and also cool blues. This was Fred Geer’s first time in the house. He is coming back to performing after some years away and had heard about the juke joint jam – took a personal day off at work to join us! WOW our reputation for a quality jam is making the rounds it sounds. Along came Glen on Hammond to finish the set. This package delivered the blues goods great as well and we were off to yet another fantastic day of music at Hot Shotz. Next was Bill Cooper(guitar) , Scott Sheehan(bass), Amanda Cote (guitar/vocals), the ever fantastic Jay Frigoletto (Hammond) and our own James Thomas on drums. Spectacularly stellar line-up and outcome. We saw Amanda on Friday at the Back Page - she was performing down the street and had performed at the Back Page on Thursday night and so she sat in with us there on Friday for “Love Me Like a Man” At Hot Shotz she did a few and then ran up “Angel From Montgomery” which is one of my favorites - so I horned in to add a bit-o-harp to the tune. I don’t know about Amanda and the crew – I had BIG FUN! It’s not ALL about me, but sometimes you got to “let her buck…..” BTW – A TON OF BLUES always does a couple to three songs between the jammer sets – we can’t let them have ALL the fun. Next up we had the biggest group of the day – with Tony Soul (vocals), Matt Sambino (bass), Ed Kelly (drums), Jeff Beck (guitar), Mike “Spud Light” Kelly (guitar), Kevin Aucoin (sax) , Jim Willard (harp) and Glen Moisen (Hammond) – WOW – can you funk-a-fy baby or can you funk-a-fy? Either way lets Funk-a-fy!!! Need I say more? Next we had Carlos Folger (vocals/harp) who runs his own jam show on Thursday night at J.C. Fenwicks (how’s that for a plug Carlos?) Ken Edelman (bass), are own Scott LeBlanc and James Thomas as well as the great Kevin Aucoin (saxaphone) and both Glen Moisen AND Ron Robuccio at different times during the set on Hammond. Carlos led the guys through Sonny Boy Williamsons “Help Me” and other classics before turning the jam over once again to ATOB for a quick couple of our own tunes. Next we had Jay Frigoletto back up on Hammond along with Scotty, Mike “Spud Light” Kelly - this time on bass, James Thomas back on drums and on Mandolin - Bill Leger. Ya-Hoo what a dynamic and interesting combination of musicians rolling out a gumbo of eclectic sounds, tempos and grooves. Bills leads on the mandolin were exceptional and blended quite nicely with Scotty’s guitar licks. Finally - it was getting round 6:40 by now – we had Scott Bronnes (harp and vocals) finish out the night with the ATOB house lineup of Scott LeBlanc , Jeff Lorenzen and James Thomas. Spudicous Maximus and the Shakemeister were on the sidelines digging the vocal and harmonica stylings of Mr. Bronnes. Scott was worth the wait (hey Scott we appreciate you making the trip up from southern MA/northern CT area) and belted out a half , half dozen soul tunes. And that my friends was that!!! Like I say every week - Hot Shotz is a superior jam location and we expect to build audience and jammer attendance each week – but we cannot do it without your help – become PART OF THE PARTY – tell your friends – those that play and those that just want to listen – to come on down to Hot Shotz - with your AXE (what-ever it is) and join the BIG FUN! We make sure EVERYONE that wants to jam PLAYS! We always have an extra guitar amps on stage for you to plug into - along with a cool drum kit and nice bass amp rig, harpists can use my custom Bassman setup – but should bring their own harps and mic. We don’t provide keys – but make room for yours if you bring em! Sooooo……Come on down! THIS WEEK AND FROM NOW ON 2-6 pm on Sundays….. In addition to our weekly jam at Hot Shotz, our next show will be at Jillian’s, Grove Street Worcester with opener Blue Honey on Friday March 14th – it will be a BLUES EXPLOSION!!!! Hope to see you at either one of our juke joint jam sessions or at another music venue near you! Thank you for supporting LOCAL LIVE MUSICIANS and the venues that support them! That’s all for now –remember; The Blues are Contagious – Catch em’ before they’re gone!!!!!!
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:58:45 +0000
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