October 6th, 2005
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  10/10/05 - St. Louis

I hate to see…ah, you know the tune. Well, weren’t a purty picture, a herd of crusty Cowboppers at 6 am, (and of course, the splendid PintoPammy). We made it across town just before rush hour and played with the kids at JFK High School, they were swingin Night Train, an interesting choice for that time of the morning. Ron R had em a goin though, we got in some licks, taught them the Bruze scale—not to be confused with the blues scale—and jammed til first period ended.

Then we retraced our steps and caught the rest of Illinois’ 66, and ambled on foot across the Chain of Rocks Bridge . Then, an executive decision was made, I headed for the Hill, St. Louis’ famous Italian district—which is chock full of great spots to eat—and dined like Caesar. Some of the hearty Italo-American food, deep red sauces that’ll have you playing behind the beat for a week…yeah! We were almost skunked for a sec, today being Columbus Day, but there were a few that were serving, so we lucked out. Might have to go for another round tomorrow, might be the last last hit before the west coast, I’m gearing up for some good Bar B Que after that.

Stopped in at Fazio’s a world famous guitar store, they got it all going, great equipment and a cool education scene too, I’ll be back, you can bet on it. David might have found a new amp too, we’ll be testing it out tonight at our concert at JFK, and it looks like we found a few extras for the show in first period, I’ll let you know how it turns out.

We made the hit, a small but mighty crowd…mighty small. Was a whole lot of fun. The band sounded better than ever, fun as usual, and some new cow bop-a-holics in tow, turned out they were a western swing band from Lake of the Ozarks, they called themselves Barnyard Jazz, so, we ain’t the only ones with the idea. We listened to their CD in the van on the way back to the pad, it was more traditional western swing than our stuff, but swing was the operative word, really good, a great steel player. Ron R, the band director from JFK sat in and burned down a whole bunch of choruses, man the kids are lucky to have him! And by the way, the kids played Night Train for an opening act, thanks guys! David digs the amp, it is a little thing with a big sound…wow! Well, got to go check my eyelids for leaks, got two workshops and a gig tomorrow…and hopefully, another meal on the hill. Buona notte!

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