Gig at Bill's Blues in Evanston 1/3!!

[Chicago Sandy]

After Marshall's triumph at the first ever Bluebird Night at Bill's Blues this past Thursday night, the management decided to do it again this coming Thurs. night Jan. 3. Details:

Thurs, Jan. 3, 2008, 7-9 pm
BILL'S BLUES & MORE
1029 Davis St., Evanston, IL (2 bl. w. of Metra North and CTA Purple Line stations, 1 bl. e. of Ridge Blvd).

Singer-songwriters in the round, featuring members of the Chicago Songwriters' Collective, in alphabetical order:

Sandy Andina (ChicagoSandy)
Ron Hayden
Michael Plishka
Greg Steele
Susan Urban (SageWoman)

$5 cover, but I'll match Marshall's offer from last week and buy any AGFer who shows up a beer!

Varying styles--AND we've all collaborated with each other in the past, so it should be a lively show. Full bar, Hecky's BBQ available for delivery. Nice way to ease the sting of going back to the salt mines!

[Marshall]

Interesting, Sandy. Nancy sure is working to promote music in the area. Thursday evenings are my church band practise nights. But I can get out of them, if I don;t play a big role in the week ahead. let me see if I can get out two weeks in a row.

[Chicago Sandy]

That'd be fantastic, Marshall! (You also would be a fine addition to the Collective--we meet in the N. Lakeside Cultural Center from 7-9 the 4th Sun. of the month, and meetings are free).

[Chicago Sandy]

Glad to see Marshall there tonight (and not only do we have to get him to join the Collective, we also need to coax Dean Milano to join us here on the AGF). Despite a "senior moment" on one of my less-often-played songs (occasioned mostly by the fact I was flabbergasted to have my full range back--I could barely talk this morning and still wasn't sure I could sing when I left for the gig tonignt, much less in G!), and a key miscalculation (the aforementioned song I could do no higher than D at 5 pm was suddenly a fifth too low at showtime)--a good time was had by all--spontaneous collaborations (vocal and instrumental) broke out all across the stage. All of us had sat in with one another to some degree (whether formally or informally) but the spur-of-the-moment harmonies and guitar duets and trios (on songs most of us had never before heard, much less sung or played) were what these rounds are all about. Mistakes happened, but that's the nature of the format--you have to come up with your original songs "on the fly" to smoothly segue off the previous player, and sometimes that requires digging up stuff you haven't done in years.

And Norm (UncleDizzy60) deserves a special hand for overcoming incredible sound reinforcement adversity: last week someone shorted out the 32-ch. house board; and not only did he have to make do with a less sophisticated mono 8-ch. (6 if we were doing stereo) board, he had to re-rig it after the other soundman had set it up in such a way that nobody could figure out what did & didn't work--we were *this* far from having to go 100% unplugged. 5 performers, 9 instruments, 8 inputs--he made it all work. Bravo!