August 2009 - Posts
It's hard to believe that is already been a year since last year's Chicago Triathlon but alas, here we are. Team Tri-Umph was back and bigger than ever this year as a few more threw their hats in the ring and gave the glorious sport of triathlon a shot. Manager Vince Iwinski & Tour Manager Don Richards joined in on the fun Sunday at the World's largest Tri in our beloved hometown. (A personal shot out to my wife for completing her 2nd tri, my brother-in-law Dave for setting a PR, his fiance for rocking her first Tri & MWF for her inaugural Tri as well)
Pre 4:00 am wake up calls were the norm as we headed down to setup the transition area. The first waves hit Lake Michigan at 6:00 am which was a brisk 63 degrees (where did Summer go this year?). But the sun eventually reared its head and it turned into a picturesque day for racing. A fierce headwind while riding north on Lake Shore Drive made for a more challenging bike ride but the tail wind was a welcomed addition on the way back. The run course was its usual scenic self as it hugged the lakefront south of downtown.
For all of you looking for a goal to get you off the couch, consider this sport. The multi sport life is just ADD enough to keep it fresh and eternally interesting. The camaraderie is second to none and hey, if a bunch of rock and rollers can swing it, why not you?
Transition area at 5:00 am is filled with an air of anxiety and excitement
The sun rises as the first wave of swimmers queue up
Vince looking tough.... arrrgh matey!
Watch out for errant arms and legs as a swift blow to the head is a triathlon rite of passage (and continuing occurrence for that matter)
Vince hops off the bike and prepares for the run
Is that the Willis Tower over there?
Hi five at the finish line
Kevin, Andy & Ryan at the Finish
mmm... potassium
Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of Don but I can assure you ladies, he was looking good. Stay tuned for the professionally taken action shots!
We heard the news about the passing of our friend, fan and wonderful human being, Chris Keefer, on early Friday morning. It hit us like a ton of bricks and caught us all by surprise. There really aren't words that can capture the feeling of losing a good soul like Chris. I'll never forget arriving in Jamaica for the first time to find a hand-written note from Chris, detailing how much he was looking forward to the weekend and that we would have dinner one of those nights. There were many notes, trinkets and interactions that followed this, and many more that happened with each of the guys in the band. Getting to spend some quality time at that dinner in Jamaica with Chris and his equally sweet wife Susan is something I'll never forget. When you were in his presence, you were moved by his smile, his unassuming wit and the twinkle in his eye - you got how much zest for life this man had, and that he wanted to share it with you. Why is it that the good ones always seem to go early? Chris was one of my favorite people to look down and see on the rail. Always engaged, always having a good time and always there for the love of the music.
On Monday, Umphrey's McGee wrote and recorded a piece in his honor. Here it is for you to enjoy. Let's all be a little more like Chris Keefer today and pass on the joy and happiness that he exuded. Here's to you Chris, you will be missed.
-Joel & UM
A few weeks back I took the opportunity to pull out the spare CD burner and snag a few 'solo' tracks during our 10KLF performance. The following clip is about four and a half minutes of Jake's guitar channel that I grabbed from the end of "Can't Ya Hear Me Knockin'". Notice the nice tank reverb that he likes to use for the section. Happy listening (and transcribing for you guitar players)!
(Thanks to Brett Saul for the great picture)
Last week we shook off the city for a few days and gathered for our annual UM retreat. It was a time for us to sit back, take inventory of all things UM, and figure out how to keep plowing forward with new & innovative ideas musically and beyond. We covered a ton of ground over a wide spectrum and recharged the batteries to ensure there will be sufficient face melting in the years ahead. Here are a variety of audio out takes, video clips, and pictures for your perusal.
Joel plays around with Lake Shore Drive, a Chicago classic by Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah
Ryan relates the joy he receives from his growing rat tail
Woodshedding...
tasty, tasty murder
Logging hours around the table
Keyboard Wizard
"Hoo Ah"
A conversation in open tuning
Can't all be work
This ditty was recorded in the middle of a lake just after midnight as the moon began to rise
Warming up in the back of the bus before the Mulberry Mountain Festival in scenic Ozark, AR
In the summer of 1999, we embarked on our 1st tour. We'd seen our local heroes, Ali Baba's Tahini (featuring some guitar phenom named Jake Cinninger, you might have heard of him), pull off a successful month long jaunt on the East coast the previous summer. So we thought, why not. You can only play the South Bend, IN - St. Joseph, MI circuit so many weekends in a row. We had somehow convinced Kevin Browning and family that we would be excellent stewards of his big, green suburban for this tour we had concocted. Actually, Kevin more willingly offered it up to us once he realized we had no other plan. It should be noted that this particular tour had the brilliant routing of hitting the music mecca of Buffalo, NY not once, but twice. We were huge in Buffalo, is what that appears to mean. Except that we weren't. This is also why you don't have your keyboard player double as booking agent, but believe me, it's not easy booking an East coast tour when your claim to fame is that you can sell 300 tickets in Michiana.
We had also convinced our local trailer dealer to let us "borrow" one of his newer trailers for tour since our trailer we had purchased from him back in September of '98 had broken an axle two days prior to the beginning of our tour. We were screwed, but under warranty. What a nice guy that dealer was, I think his name was Lundin. He should have known better before giving us that trailer though. I'd be willing to bet that the reason the first one broke down was that we had completely overloaded it with gear. See, we've always had way too much stuff. But I'msure it was all gear that we absolutely needed to put on a show. Yeah, right. It was late June, and it was one of those Midwest Summer days where you sweat just standing in the sun. We had played a final hometown show at Benchwarmers the previous night, where our friends and fan(s) came together to send us off right. The owner of the club, Steve Mitchell, had let us leave our gear there after the show until departure time the following morning. It was definitely a time sensitive thing since we had the long drive ahead of us, so, naturally, we split up. Someone went to Elkhart to pick up the borrowed trailer (Elkhart, IN is in fact the largest trailer-producing town in the U.S.) and the rest of us broke down the gear and got it ready to go. As we got more and more of the gear into the trailer, something just didn't look right with the way the trailer was resting on the wheels. The bed of the trailer had pretty much collapsed on top of the tires, the metal wheel wells were pressed against the tires themselves and it was obvious this rig was going nowhere. This time, it wasn't our fault, I swear!
We were supposed to be on our way to Ripley's in Cincinnati, to open for Ray's Music Exchange, for what would be the final show at that venue before it became a Chipotle. (As a footnote, Ray's was doing their first tour of the West coast following that gig, it was very cool to have that same experience with them.) Well, I got on the local payphone-it would be two years before anyone in our circle of friends had a cell phone-and called up the trailer dealer, explaining to him what had happened. I told him the tour pretty much rested in his hands, and unbelievably, he offered to loan us a different, brand new 14 ft (we had a 12 ft) trailer for the tour that we could return a month later. Great news. The tour was back on. We proceeded to unload the entire 12 ft trailer onto the street and leave a couple people "guarding" our gear, on a sidewalk in downtown South Bend, while a couple of us hauled off back to Elkhart, about a 30 minute drive from downtown South Bend. In case it isn't completely obvious, leaving your band's entire arsenal of gear on a sidewalk in downtown South Bend is a terrible idea. But we had no choice as the owner of the venue had gone back home at that point and we were locked out. Thirty minutes later, the two of us that went back to Elkhart hopped back off the empty, flawed model, hitched up the new one, shook Lundin's hand, said "See ya in a month," and hit the road back to the Bend.
Hoping that our gear would still be sitting there, probably baking on the sidewalk, we arrived to find two dudes we knew sittin on the gear. They had successfully watched over our entire arsenal of musical weapons so that now, a tour might actually happen. The trailer was reloaded posthaste and then, for the first time as a band, we hit the road and started the tour, cruising down US 31, on our way to Cincinnati. Thanks for a night we'll never forget Ray's Music Exchange. I'm glad we made it there to share it with you.
A couple of quick footnotes to our first tour, a shout out is certainly deserved to Jeremy Welsh, who helped book our first Pittsburgh show at the Pittsburgh Deli Company. For years, we kept coming back to this tiny establishment that barely passed as a venue - the food was just so tasty, and they would feed us twice on show days! That was a huge deal considering at least half of our meals at that point were at Wendy's (we had a friend who would give us "Wendy bucks" before tour). We had to carry all of our gear, including a PA, up a steep set of skinny stairs to the 2nd floor. For anyone who's been there, you know how challenging this can be. But we loved that place and it was a fantastic tour stop for us at that point in our career.
The funniest story I've heard recently about this tour came from our new LD Jefferson Waful. At the time, Jefferson managed a band from New England called Uncle Sammy, and he also wrote for Jambands.com. In the interest of getting a little press, I had contacted him about our Boston show at Harper's Ferry. I promised him a guest list spot and he said he'd come out to the show. Upon his arrival at Harper's Ferry, Jefferson discovered that he was not, in fact, on the guest list at all. Being the supporter of music that he is, he paid the $6 cover and came in anyway, noting that our version of George Michael's "Freedom" was a highlight of the show. Sorry about that Jefferson, we'll make sure we take better care of you next time in Boston.
-Joel