October 2010

Summer's gone and before long the holidays will be approaching rapidly. It has been a very productive summer for the Chippewa Valley Blues Society and associated groups. We have produced and/or sponsored a great series of events this year.

Beginning with Lust For Blues III in March with three excellent bands, we got the year off to an excellent start.  Nearly 150 paid the admission in support of our primary fundraiser, which was held at the Metropolis Resort in Eau Claire.

The Tuesday Night Blues Series presented fourteen different bands throughout the summer. Unfortunately we were forced inside to begin and end the season, but the crowds were always enthusiastic and appreciative of the musical offerings, as well as our efforts to produce a series that runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. TNB had its first Motorcycle Show and a second opportunity for young musicians to showcase their talent on Young Blues Night. There were seven different non-profit community organizations sponsored and the response was very good. A cumulative total of roughly 4000 enjoyed these concerts. Tuesday Night Blues has now put on 29 concerts the last two summers and is being recognized as a great enhancement to the quality of life in the Chippewa Valley. We want to thank all the bands, our generous sponsors, our tasty and creative vendors and especially the wonderful, faithful fans for making this series a weekly mini-fest. There were many new members gained for the Chippewa Valley Blues Society, and we will continue to try to provide them good reasons to belong.

The third presentation of Blues On The Chippewa was hugely successful. Thousands came to Durand to enjoy all the free music presented in the Memorial Park and in the bars afterward. The Car & Motorcycle shows had a terrific turnout. The Pepin County Food Pantry benefited greatly from all the contributions of edibles and cash. What a great annual event! Sixteen Bands and even more performers and it’s all FREE!

I want to recognize, again, all the support for the above events that has been forthcoming from the good folks at Shari’s Chippewa Club. Rob, Shari and Dan Callan originated the idea for Blues On The Chippewa and organized the original effort and recruited the community support that has culminated in a community event that now attracts attendees from the entire upper Midwest and beyond. These same folks have been involved in the Chippewa Valley Blues Society from it’s inception and have hosted many meetings and a couple Christmas parties for us. They have continued to host open jams on Sunday evenings for not just the blues, but country and bluegrass, as well as singer/songwriters. There is always something going on there. We were really happy to see the recognition Shari’s received on local TV. Thanks for all you do!

A shout out goes to WHYS radio in general and Snapshot especially, for promoting the Blues on his Sunday morning radio show. He had many of the performers live on the radio on 96.3 AM. That is a great community service. If you can’t get them on your radio, you can catch them on the web at whysradio.org.

In future Blues Notes, I will bring you some histories and more info about performers, concerts in the region and other blues news from around the country.

Thanks for lending me an ear! See ya around!

June 2010, Summer Blues Season is Here!

Terry DeMars of Mojo Lemon and others have been busy organizing a benefit for Magic Deb Klossner, Howard Luedtke’s bass player, and probably better half, who has been fighting a battle with breast cancer and can use both the moral support and financial help. June 13th at Poo’s On The Pond in Chippewa Falls. Six (6) bands, starts at 11 a.m. with Howard and Jim Schuh.  $5 gets you all day music, $10 music and a meal, $25 all you can eat & drink (beer) and all the music. There will be raffles and a lot more. Sounds like a great day!

June 1st is the opening of Tuesday Night Blues. We are back and ready to boogie. It’s gonna be Funk, Rock and plenty of Blues with Left Wing Bourbon out of, what is becoming the regional musical mecca, Durand, Wisconsin! LWB performed last summer at Tuesday Night Blues to a very responsive crowd.

This year’s opening night is also a benefit night for the Veteran’s Assistance Center at Klein Hall. The first of seven nights this season that we will be co-oping with area non-profits. We will be featuring The Eau Claire Humane Association on June 15th with The Blues Dogs something we like to call “Dogs for Dogs”. Feed My People Food Bank on June 29th  has Code Blue with Catya & Sue Orfield providing the soundtrack. On July 13th The Chippewa Valley Free Clinic will be benefited by the musical skills of Dave Lambert out of La Crosse. The Community Table is reunited with the dynamite musical revue Deep Water Reunion that comes from all over Wisconsin. These guys have been providing a good portion of the musical background for the Chippewa Valley Blues Society since our first event. If you haven’t had a chance to catch them you shouldn’t miss it. 

We begin August with our “Young Blues Night” on Aug. 3rd in conjunction with Big Brothers and Big Sisters. The Love Buzzards will be the back line band for the evening. We are looking for young players to step into the spotlight and show us their chops. A chance for individuals or bands to play a couple tunes for an appreciative audience. On August 17th Ellen Whyte will be returning to us from Oregon and will bless us with her fine vocals backed by the Sue Orfield Band and will be providing backdrop for our 1st Annual Bike Show to help  United Cerebral Palsy fight their grand fight. That will be our last benefit of the season for 2010, but not our last night of music.

Just because it is not a night to support your favorite worthy cause is no reason to skip seeing our other excellent bands with The Pumps on June 8th, Pete Neuman & The Real Deal on the 22nd of June. In July it will be the guys voted “Best Blues Band in the Chippewa Valley”, Mojo Lemon on the 6th to wind up the 4th of July weekend. And a very fine group out of the Wausau area The Nitecaps will wind up the month. Filling in the rest of August will be South Farwell, some guys gaining popularity and prominence in musical circles on the 10th.  Finishing out the month on the 24th will be the return of The Tommy Bentz Band out of River Falls and to bring the Tuesday Night Blues season to a resounding finish is the one and only Howard Luedtke and Blue Max.

We are back! We have a helluva line up. We will have food once again, with Joel’s Weenie Wagon, Famous Dave’s, 9 Degrees Ice Cream, a new popcorn vendor and maybe even more. Now all we need is butts in the seats. We are trying hard to be here for you, we sure hope you are here for us as often as you can.

Looking forward to it. See ya there!!!

April 2010

In case you missed it, Lust For Blues III was great! The bands were awesome (lots of positive feedback). The Metropolis created an excellent venue with a Night Club feel. The food was very good (so I heard, as there wasn’t anything left when I got around to looking for a bite to eat), and we had a record crowd for Lust. The CVBS was pretty satisfied with the overall result. It wouldn’t have hurt to have had a few more people attend, but we still set a paid attendance record with fans from as far away as Missouri, Minnesota & Iowa. Several groups took advantage of the package the Metropolis offered for the stay, the water park, activities and concert. Thanks go out to Lucas K & The Coolhand Saint and 22 Oz Porterhouse for your support and superb performances, as well as to The Butanes who certainly lived up to their billing and reputation. Watch for these bands and go out and see them play! You won’t be disappointed.

We are determined to make Lust For Blues IV an even better event for next year, So if you made it to this years Lust, send us some feedback (cvbs_mike@yahoo.com) as to what we did right, wrong or what we might do to improve this event. We want Lust For Blues to be one of the premiere concert events in the region. Something folks look forward to all year.

Speaking of events to look forward to, we are only six weeks away from the beginning of the Tuesday Night Blues series in Owen Park in Eau Claire. We have the line up set with fourteen excellent bands. We have some of our most popular groups back from last season, and a handful of first timers to TNB. Last season we featured three benefit nights to aid some of the local non-profits. This year we upped it to seven benefit nights, which is half of our schedule. Here is this year’s schedule with Non-Profits in Parentheses. 

6/1/10     Left Wing Bourbon (The Veterans Assistance Center at Klein Hall)
6/8/10     The Pumps
6/15/10    Blues Dogs (EC Humane Assoc / Dogs for Dogs)
6/22/10    Pete Newman
6/29/10    Code Blue featuring Catya & Sue (Feed My People)
7/6/10      Mojo Lemon
7/13/10    Dave Lambert
7/20/10    Deep Water Reunion (Community Table)
7/27/10    The Nightcaps
8/3/10      Young Blues Night/Love Buzzards (Big Brothers/Big Sisters)
8/10/10    South Farwell
8/17/10    Ellen Whyte (UCP & Bike Show)
8/24/10    Tommy Bentz Band
8/31/10    Howard Luedtke and Blue Max

Unfortunately, or fortunately really, we have more great talent in the area than we can showcase in the Memorial Day to Labor Day schedule. So if one of your favorites isn’t playing this year, we very well may be featuring them next year, or at one of the other events coming up.

August 3^rd will be our Young Blues Night. Any Musicians under the age of 25 that would like to participate are encouraged to contact Dan Callan @ 715-495-8091. Dan’s band The Love Buzzards will be providing the backups for that evening. Thanks Guys for all your support, and especially Dan for all your work with this group.

As a side note, we are aware that Mojo Terry Demars has been actively trying to organize a benefit for Deb Klossner of the Blue Max band. As of this writing I have not been notified of when, where, bands, etc. but I will keep you posted.

We are always looking for new members. Check out our website at cvblues.com. A $10 Membership fee is a small price to pay to help promote all the ”free” music we put on.  The Blues Society doesn’t have many perks to offer it’s members yet, but we are working on it. If you want more info contact Mike at cvbs_mike@yahoo.com.

See ya round!