April 2011

I’m sittin’ here struggling for words. The snow is pretty much melted off the roof, and what is left is drip, drip, drippin' on down. I CAN’T WAIT FOR SPRING!!!

With all the recent turmoil, there has been a lot of news, lately. Rallies for weeks in Madison, some with as many as a 100,000 folks expressing their discontent with change in Wisconsin. Add to that an 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hitting Japan, causing unbelievable devastation and loss of life. The tsunami rolled all the way across the Pacific and caused huge losses in some northern California coastal harbor cities. That’s a fact that has been largely overlooked because of the huge mess in Japan with the meltdown at nuclear plants and recovery efforts their. That is a lot of stuff goin’ on!

Somehow in the midst of all of this The Chippewa Valley Blues Society still managed to pull off Lust for Blues IV on Sunday March 13th at Action City in the Metropolis Resort complex in Eau Claire. While many of the attendees were pretty wore out from participation in the Madison rallies, they still managed to rock and stomp with the best of them at Lust.

Sparky & The Wipers pretty much blew the roof off the joint when they got started at 2:30! Even though they haven’t performed much of late you wouldn’t know it with the way they funked things up. Tight as the proverbial drum, they made it hard for folks to sit still in their seats, and kept em' rockin' in the aisles for a couple hours. What a treat! These guys were cooking’ with gas.

In amongst all the people were some really fine silent auction offerings from Rock fest Tickets to framed limited edition Blues Coalition prints. Some of the most popular items were donated by Sport Motors Harley Davidson. Action City donated a handful of Unlimited Play cards as well. Lots of good stuff, not to mention Bar-B-Que plates, hot dogs and drink specials. No one went away hungry if they didn’t want to.

About 5 o’clock Mojo Lemon lit things up in a way that almost made you forget Sparky and the boys. It was a version of Mojo you have never seen before and likely won’t again. This very limited edition of Mojo just blistered the crowd with guitar solos traded by Josh and Mike Schlenker, who was sittin' in for Will Chopper. So instead of Guitar keyboard, bass & drums, they presented with dual guitars and no keyboard. Man did they present! Like I said a version of Mojo not seen before. Call and answer, dual leads all blessed by Mojo Terry Demars’ soulful growl beltin' out the lyrics. Truly awesome! These guys always are, but this was unique and it was Lust and, man it was just special! If you weren’t, you should have been there, caused you really, really missed out.

I want to shout out to everybody involved for their help. Thanks, Much!! That includes this publication.

Next month I will be introducing this summer’s events and lineups, including Tuesday Night Blues and Blues On The Chippewa.

Please go to cvblues.com for additional info. We will soon be introducing a new website, I’ll let you know next month.

Thanks for lending me an ear. See ya around.