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144 – A Tribute to Mark Brink

Recorded 31 August 2010

This episode is a tribute  to a friend and great musician who passed away recently, Mark Brink. David Kav and I talk about Mark and his impact on everyone around him and how we got to know him as a musician and a person.  I also play a couple of his songs (recorded live) at Uncommon Ground here in Chicago and a short excerpt from an arrangement of Mark’s. I’ll let you listen, rather than try to recap here.  Here are the links to things discussed in the tribute:

And last, as I promised in the show, here are the lyrics to the last song played on the show:

The Saddest Song That I Never Wrote (vocals by Crystal BowerSox)

The saddest song that I never wrote
I thought I’d write about you
But I didn’t need to find
the perfect rhyme or reason
for things that came true

So the Saddest Song That I Never Wrote
had no beginning,
but happily ends
For we both understood
what we loved and was good 
was the Loyalty
of True Friends

Words and Music ©2008 Mark Brink

Mark, you will be missed

[00:30:47]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-387753.mp3″]

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You want more? You got more!


Jim & Tim in the Beer Garden at the Beacon Tap

Photo credit Theresa Carter 2010

Okay, I’ve been remiss in writing. I’ve had a few things happen that kept me from writing about our last gig (And I’m not going to go into them here). And I will post some pictures, but let me tell you how it went and some news because of it and more.

The gig was fun, got there, got set up, said hi to the people we knew and started playing.  Now we had a good group of friends at the gig, which is always nice and a couple people came out that I literally haven’t seen in years, good surprises. But the best surprise of all is the unintentional one, and by that I mean the one that just sort of grows out of the situation.

We had a table of people come in that didn’t look any too interested in us or listening to us play. They seemed to be disinterested at best so at least from my point of view, I just tried to focus on the rest of the crowd who were enjoying us. Pretty standard performance, you just can’t please everyone all the time and so you go with the ones you do make happy. Well, I began to notice a change and soon enough, this table started lighting their lighters and more people came to the table (I found out after we were done that people at that table started calling their friends to come and hear us play and just have a great time at Beacon Tap, works for me!).

Even though it’s too late for long story short, what happened when we finished playing, they came up and asked how much it would take for us to stay and play a little longer. I told them it wasn’t up to me, they’d have to talk to the management at Beacon Tap. So they took up a collection and went to the folks there at the Beacon and we ended up playing for a little over an hour longer. Always a good thing when you have a gig like that. And the best thing? We talked with the Management there and they booked us for two more gigs in August! So you’ll have plenty of opportunities to come out and hear us and we’ll have a great time at a great place to have some summer fun! You just can’t beat that.

You want more? You got more! originally appeared on Jim & Tim on July 31, 2010. Tweet This

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Gig Redux

Okay, so it’s really not a Redux, we were scheduled for this one before the infamous power outage cancelled gig at Beacon Tap, but it is our first gig there.

We had our regular rehearsal last night and let me tell you, it was a good run through for tomorrow’s gig to be sure. We rehearse in the closest thing to a factory that I’ve ever spent time in and there are a lot of fans, but no air conditioning in the area we rehearse. If you’re in the Chicago area you already know where I’m headed with this. The temp was in the 90′s with high enough humidity that it took all of about 10 minutes before I’d sweat through my T-shirt. Now you may think that’s  pretty gross, but I look  at it a little differently. It’s good training for the gig. You see, the forecast is pretty much the same for Friday night and we’ll be outside in the Beer Garden. I’m hoping for a breeze, but I’m not counting on it.

Besides, if you ain’t sweating, it ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll, right?

Hope to see you there tomorrow night and stop by and say hello if you’re there.

Gig Redux originally appeared on Jim & Tim on July 15, 2010. Tweet This

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It’s out of the bag now!

Whew! I can finally talk about something I’ve had to keep quiet about for awhile now. It’s no secret that the City is cutting back on some of their offerings due to budgetary reasons (Like the fireworks with the Grant Park Symphony playing the 1812 Overture? Not tomorrow, not this year anyway). And one of the casualties of the budget wars this year is Venetian night, which would have been Saturday, July 31st.  But who says we have to have the city to have Venetian night anyway, right?

So The Local Tourist and Free Spirit Yacht Cruises have teamed up to present Bringing Back Venetian Night and Jim & Tim will be aboard The Free Spirit providing the live music for the entire cruise! Man, I’m excited, this is going to be a ton of fun. So here are the details:

The cruise is from 8:00 – 11:00pm on Saturday, July 31st.  There will be an Italian Buffet meal, an Open Bar and we’ll be sailing to watch the fireworks at Navy Pier from the water! The cost is $99 per person with everything I’ve just talked about included.

[UPDATE: This event has come and gone] Come and join us and a lot of fun people by buying your tickets for Bringing Back Venetian Night!

It’s out of the bag now! originally appeared on Jim & Tim on July 2, 2010. Tweet This

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137 – Weather, weather everywhere

Recorded 22 June 2010

On this episode of With A Voice Like This I talk about:

the June 18th Jim & Tim gig, well okay, scheduled gig. who knew that Mother Nature had other plans for us that night and the next and…well, why not take a listen and see what you think?

Oh and a link to the I talk about in the show while I’m at it, eh?

[00:15:33]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-370060.mp3″]
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Gigus Ingterruptus

Right now I’m sitting in a Starbucks writing this (And I hate Starbucks coffee) because the power is still out from a thunderstorm last night. the same thunderstorm that struck just before I left for the gig at Beacon Tap last night. and that’s what brings me to the topic of this post. here is the play by play of last night, printed as soon as I could get me some internet access. Sit back, relax and enjoy the post, even if it is with a cup of Starbucks coffee. (c; One more thing,  a bunch of people showed up and we sat around the parking lot for about 2 hours, then I headed out to no power. the group split up and did different things.

18 June 2010

Well hey, this is shaping up to be an interesting night. We had a thunderstorm roll through about 4:15 in the afternoon, carried some winds and rain with it, not a lot of thunder , so since the gig wasn’t until 7:00, I headed over to the Beacon Tap, only to find that the power is out. Not everywhere mind you, it was out at my place, so I basically got ready in the close to dark, but I’m far enough away from the the venue that there was no way to know. Driving over, there were areas with and without power, so it was a crap shoot.

As I write this, it’s about 6:10 PM and although it’s cloudy, it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain anymore, so if the power is out, we may still perform, so here I sit in the parking lot. It’s not a bad temperature out and I’m willing to stick around for a little while, see what happens. I can’t tell, but it look s like the Starbucks across the street has power, I’m going to check that out and if it does and I can get online, I’ll post this on the site, give a play by play of the situation. Ah, first gig stories, nothing like them.

The Starbucks doesn’t have power either, so I’m just sitting in the parking lot waiting to see if anyone I know shows up, just seems like the fun thing to do right now. I’m starting to hear that power is out in a lot of the surrounding communities and the traffic here right now is unbelievable. These are the types of days made for a pay or play clause, but we don’t have one and that’s not a bad thing.

Gigus Ingterruptus originally appeared on Jim & Tim on June 19, 2010.

*customer not included

This is one of those ‘I wish someone was with me’ stories, but since no one was there with me, I’m going to share it with you.

My Birthday is this month and the other day, I received an e-mail coupon from “Name withheld” ‘s Pizza, a local pizza place for a free Birthday Entree (see below). I mean, they’re known as a pizza place and pizza is a part of their name (see the mostly grayed out logo in the upper right of the coupon, I put a red circle around the word pizza in the logo). I’m looking forward to some free pizza for my birthday. That is, until I read the disclaimer and get to the last line “Not valid on pizza.” (Once again, I circled it in red near the center of the coupon).

So already I think this is a bad deal…But does this stop me from getting a free meal? Uh-uh, No, no, no, no, no. So I go in last night, a little later than the dinner rush because I’m by myself and don’t want to deal with the wait.

I get there and the host greets me and asks how many, I say one, he says go ahead and sit anywhere you want. I choose an area with not too many people and they all look like they’re near the end of their time in the restaurant. The host brings my menu and says my server will be right with me. Standard later in the evening restaurant stuff.

My server comes to the table and gets my drink order (a Mountain Dew, I know you were dying to know that), then gives me a minute to look over the menu. My server comes back and I order my entree.

“Would you like Soup or Salad?”

“Ah”, I think to myself, “This is better than I first thought it would be.”

“What’s the soup?”

“There’s Minestrone, French Onion or Chicken Tortilla.”

Not being one to rush into a decision, I pause for a few seconds.

“I think I’ll have the chicken tortilla.”

And off my server goes to put in my order and get my soup. My server returns pretty quickly with my cup of soup and a packet of crackers on the saucer, which strikes me as odd, but I don’t give it much thought.

Then I taste the soup and it’s pretty good and that’s when I notice there are no tortilla strips in the soup. Maybe they were put in the bottom of the cup before the soup, so I dig in the cup to the point that I’m practically shaving off ceramic I’m scraping the cup so hard and still, no tortillas. They must have run out of tortilla strips, that’s why they gave me the crackers. So I wait for my server to come back.

“How was the soup?”

“It was good…” And my server was gone with the cup before I could start the next sentence only to return almost immediately with a new table setting for my entrée. “But I have a question about the soup. Shouldn’t it have had some tortilla with it?”

“Oh, that’s just the name. I told them we should probably change it to chicken enchilada soup or something like that.”

“O, o-okay”

Now I start to see a pattern. Just because it’s in the name, that doesn’t mean I’m going to get it. And that’s when it hits me. This could be the perfect night. The night when everything was so wrong it was right. By this time everyone on my side of the dining room was gone, so the only way I could see, or hear anyone was if they were walking toward me and I see their reflection in the windows across from me or I get up and walk to the other part of the restaurant. I’m all by myself, literally and figuratively. But I’m also excited.  I mean the anticipation is building. You see, I’m hoping that there’s something essential missing from my entrée. In fact, I know there’s something missing and with no one around me, the anticipation is just magnified. It’s to the point that I’m so excited that time seems to stop because there’s no way it took as long as it seemed for that entrée to get to me. And just when it was to the point that I was exactly like every Wolf you’ve ever seen in a cartoon with a knife in one hand, a fork in the other, the napkin tucked into his collar, mouth wide open with his tongue lolling out one side and drooling up a storm that out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.  The reflection of the dish in the hand of my server. There was no one else that it could be for. I saw my server turn the corner and I knew that dish was for me and I knew that it was missing something, I KNEW it!

My server put that dish down in front of me and you know what? You know WHAT?!

There was both chicken AND parmesan in my Chicken Parmesan.

My heart sank. This had the promise to be one of my top five story of stories. I had the terrible trifecta in my grasp and it slipped through my fingers. I was beyond disappointed.

And the food? Well, the food was okay, it was good. Not as good as their…pizza.

Which is what they’re known for. And I couldn’t have.

For my Free Birthday entrée…

…Because I’m a valued customer.

Alex, I’d like clues for 1000.

One last thing. My server got a little more than 25% tip on what the bill would have been if the entrée hadn’t been free. Hey, good personal service is still good service. And another part of the reason was for being able to say “Oh, that’s just the name.” with a straight face.

 

Here we go

Hey there, Jim here. What do you think of the new site? I’m digging it. This is the beginning for us. Here’s a brief background on us.

Tim and I have known each other somewhere between 8-10 years, I don’t remember exactly. We’ve sung together a lot in those years, subbed in for gigs, been called up to sing, things like that. We’ve just never put it together as our own gig.

Until now.

Tim plays a mean guitar(s) and sings and my main gig is singing. We do a ton of harmony work. You’ll be hearing everything out of us from Aerosmith to Josh Turner to the Beatles. Yeah, it’s a wide variety and everyone will something they love in what we sing. You can take a look at our Song List and see what I mean. We’ll be adding more as time goes by, just like we’ll be adding more pictures and of course, more gigs.

We’ve set a goal for ourselves of performing by Memorial Day and you can hear what we can do on our Media page and what you hear there is what we can do in any setting. We use MIDI tracks to fill in the rest of the band so we always have a big sound, but a small footprint. How can you beat that?

Check up on us to see how we’re doing or just come to the page to see and if I can ever get that Facebook Like box working right, you can even join our page on Facebook…But then again, you can do that already, can’t you? Well, I hope to see you soon at one of our gigs and get a picture with you.

Bye for now.

Here we go originally appeared on Jim & Tim on April 30, 2010.

131 – Sell, Save and is this Oasis?

Recorded 06 April 2010

On this episode of With A Voice Like This I talk about:

At Any Rate

  • The WordPress eStore plugin a plugin that allows you to sell digital downloads of your music safely and securely. I even show you what I did in a fairly short time with my own Music, etc. page using the plugin.

News You Can Use

  • A quick update on the Chicago Event Promoters Ordinance and what Alderman Eugene Schulter had to say about it as reported by Center Square Journal.

 

Portrait of Alderman Eugene Schulter from 50 Alderman/50 artists (photo credit to "TLC, the most awesome chick in Chicago"
Portrait of Alderman Eugene Schulter (photo credit to "TLC, the most awesome chick in Chicago")

One More Thing

  • I got some snail mail from Oasis Disc Manufacturing and I don’t know anything about them. Anyone care to give me an opinion?

[00:24:18]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-341710.mp3″]

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130 – I’m giving it away!

Recorded 30 March 2010

On this episode of With A Voice Like This:

Well, I had something to give away and it was the Eats Paste EP from Toy Block Music which is available throught the website starting 1 April. And don’t forget that a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the EP go to Pager to help with infant reflux disease.

But before I drew and announced the winner (yes, delayed gratification is the keyword here) I did a follow up with some additional information from last week’s show, regarding ReverbNation,  Audiolife (ReverbNation’s  partner in the Reverb Store)  and CD Baby.

And now to the big news. I had quite a few entries to win the the free download code for Eats Paste and I wish I had enough codes for everyone who entered, but  I only had one. And the winner was April. Congratulations and I’ve sent you your code via e-mail and the EP will be available for download on the Toy block Music website starting Thursday, 1 April. How appropriate, I just noticed that the Winner is April and the EP’s available in April. Don’t forget to let me know what you think of the EP, I’m sure you’ll love it!

One Last Thing

I spent just a little bit of time talking about my trip to see The Marriage of Figaro at the Lyric Opera of Chicago last Wednesday. I had a good time and couple of stories as well.

[00:16:40]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-334791.mp3″]

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129 – All things new from ReverbNation

Recorded 23 March 2010

This episode of With A Voice Like This is about the changes ReverbNation has made in the past couple of months.

News You Can Use
I take a look at the four changes/new additions to ReverbNation since 29 January 2010:

  • The complete
  • The launch of the
  • The new announced 22 March 2010
  • The announced 24 February 2010 for print on demand merch with partner Audiolife

I also take the time dot a little compare and contrast with a couple of services I’ve used to this point and see how ReverbNation‘s services stack up against them.

  • I compare the digital distro packages with my experiences with both SellMusicDirect.com (A print on demand site no longer in existence) and and take a look at their offerings, pricing structures and payment to artists [Note: I made an assumption about ReverbNation‘s package pricing, simply because turnaround time was too short before the live show to get a clarification when I found the source of my confusion, but I think I got it right].
  • I then compare both CDBaby and mainly to the new Reverb Store and again look at their offerings and pricing structure

One Last Thing
This is the last week to enter the contest for a free digital download of the Toy Block Music EP Eats Paste, to be released April 1, live drawing to be held on Episode 130. Just tell me your favorite children’s song from your childhood and you’re entered. You can enter in one of 5 ways:

[Edit: I just realized I incorrectly called ReverbNation’s partner in the Reverb Store “Audiofile”. They are correctly identified in these show notes as “Audiolife”. My apologies]

[00:33:24]

[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-333625.mp3″]

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128 – Psst, Wanna free EP?

Recorded 16 March 2010

A couple of stories and a contest (yes, I make you wait until the end of the show for it) on this episode of With A Voice Like This.

4-AM
A proposal that’s going out for 4-AM and the stories that go along with it (plus a background phone ringing, oh it’s tough to be popular during the live portion of the show (c; ).

At Any Rate
A walk through of the progress on Jim & Tim (Tim & Jim?) project in our work with MIDI

News You Can Use
Here’s the big part where you come in. I won a a free download of Toy Block Music’s EP Eats Paste, which will be released April 1. I’ve decided to pass it on to one lucky winner. How, you ask? (and I knew you were going to ask). Just tell me the name of your favorite children’s song from your childhood and if you want to share, a memory of why it’s your favorite. You can do that in one of 5 ways:

  • Put it in the comments of the show notes
  • Post it on the wall of the With A Voice Like This Facebook Fan page
  • Call the Comments from the Podcast Gallery voicemail line at 630.492.0487 (standard calling rates apply)
  • Use the Google Voice link on WithAVoiceLikeThis.com to have the Comments from the Podcast Gallery voicemail line call you
  • Send an e-mail to [email protected]

That’s all you have to do. The winner will be drawn on the live show for episode 130 on 30 March 2010. Good luck.

[00:18:11]

[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-333624.mp3″]

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127 – Interview with Jim Donio, President of NARM

Recorded 09 March 2010

On this episode of With A Voice Like This I speak with Jim Donio, President of NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) about the association and the upcoming Chicago Crash Course (May 14 – 15) and Convention (May 15 – 17). Jim gives us a brief history of NARM, a description of the Crash Course and Convention and tells us about the the artist’s cost for the Crash Course and 1 year membership.

For more information about NARM, visit narm.com and the registration page for the Crash Course and Convention.

[00:14:47]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-327449.mp3″]

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126 – Toy Block Music ‘Eats Paste’

Recorded 02 March 2010

This episode of With A Voice Like This is a very special interview with Joanna Quargnali-Linsley of Toy Block Music and Misery Loves Co. about the March 4th preview of the EP Eats Paste to be released April 1st of this year.

Joanna tells us about the overall project and how it came about, how the charity Pager was chosen to receive a portion of the profits from the sale of the EP and some of the different experiences. A few of the artists who appear on the EP called in as well to talk about their part in the process (as well as tell a few stories) and best of all? I got to play clips from 6 of the 7 songs that will appear on the April 1st EP release. Here are the songs on the EP and their respective artists:

And here’s the seventh track on the EP, just recorded two days before the show, so a mix wasn’t available.

  • Alice the Camel – David Kav (Website)

GERD Links
For more information about GERD and Infant reflux disease , you can go to

Other sites mentioned in the show

One more thing…
If you’re listening closely in the show, I took it as a personal challenge to find a musical joke in the Toy Block Logo and I won. What did I win? A free copy of the Eats Paste EP. But I’m not going to keep it…Oh no, I’m going to figure out a way to give it away to a lucky listener. Got any ideas? Leave me a comment and we’ll see what happens.

[01:27:57]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-327448.mp3″]

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125 – Three Coins and a Buddy

Recorded 26 January 2010

On this episode of With A Voice Like This:

4-AM

  • How we worked on the three new demos on the 4-AM website’s page
  • I play the excerpted demos of A Little Bit Me, Who Loves You Pretty Baby and It’s So Easy to Fall in Love.

Then I talk about my new as yet unnamed project with Tim

  • How we’re using MIDI to fill out the band and tweaking the files we have
  • Installing WordPress MU and how that works with GoDaddy hosting

And another project I’m working on for a submission for possible inclusion on a compilation of Children’s songs.

At Any Rate

  • I talk about visit to Buddy Guy’s Legends last Saturday night listening to him during his residency in January 2010. Here’s where I sat:

The Light Board at Buddy Guy's Legends

  • Listening to Mud Morgenfield (Muddy Waters’ son) sing with Buddy
  • Buddy’s son play guitar with the band
  • Buddy’s Lesson on the Blues influence in Rock and Role, live.

With A Voice Like This will be taking a brief hiatus to catch up on some back episodes and a little revamping. the next scheduled show will be the first week of March, but I could be back before then. keep an eye out, I’ll keep you updated.

[0:20:58]
[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-317031.mp3″]

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