Dell Fest 7-25-15

Last Saturday I drove 3 hours to play a solo set at Dell Fest in Wisconsin. Dell Fest is held at the home of Dell and he hosts musicians in the area to come play a set on his beautiful property in northern Wisconsin. I was invited to play by musician Mary Bue, whom I've played with in the past.

It was a lovely drive. I love driving. Is it terrible that I do? I just love hitting the open road with a playlist of my favorite songs to sing along to. Although, as I learned, not the best thing to do to bring a playlist of songs you like to sing along to on a 3 hour road trip before you have to perform. Sing shouting to Beyonce does more than just warm up your voice. It also strains it a bit. : )

It was also very hot out. I've been relieved as of recent years that my performance nerves have died down a bit so that I don't sweat as much on stage. But when it's 90 degrees and humid, sweating is unavoidable. It's also meant that my guitar slipped out of tune even more so than usual. Gotta get a new guitar (plans are in the works for my birthday!).

It was great to meet the people there. Everyone was very kind.

Photo by Mary Bue.

Set list for Dell Fest 7-25-15

• The Reminder
• Cohabitate
• A Story
• Safety Mode
• Good
• Rayner Park (Rank Strangers cover)
• Oh, Sun (unreleased)
• Adore
• For the Time Being

Next week kicks off a very busy August of shows that includes our residency at the 331 Club. We'll be there every Tuesday in August with some great bands! Hope to see you!

The Nomad 7-2-15

Wow. I'm getting really bad at this blogging thing. A month out from recaps of the shows I played. It's especially weird as life has been fairly mellow lately so I should have all the time in the world to blog. But it seems the less I have to do, the less I want to do anything. I'm better off when I just keep moving.

Anyway...

We played The Nomad a few weeks ago! And by 'we', I mean, me, Shawn, Colleen, and Laura. It was a last minute show and so Sara and Bart were unable to do it. Instead, we played a stripped down guitars and vocals only set. And it worked out well. I often feel like a lot of the songs on the new album only really shine live with the full band, but this worked surprisingly well. I gotta hand it to the band on that one. Shawn did a lot of guitar improvisation to make up for missing pieces and Colleen and Laura completed improvised backing vocals for a song we had not rehearsed with them before. They are all pros. I am grateful.

We also played with some killer bands that night.

Monica LaPlante

and

Ripper 

Really glad this night worked out and we were able to play in some capacity. It was super fun. I look forward to playing with both of these bands again some time.

Set list for The Nomad 7-4-15

• The Reminder
• Safety Mode
• Float
• Daughter
• Car
• Salt 
• I Wanna Know
• Lens
• Adore 

 Post-show lady selfies.

We've got a super busy 6 weeks coming up. We have the Tuesday night August residency at the 331 Club, plus a couple of other shows sprinkled in. FUN FUN FUN!!!

After these shows, we'll be taking a break as I have to get a pretty major surgery in late September that will keep me out of things for about 6 weeks. Here's to a hopefully quick recovery!

Reactor Release Show 6-13-15

Hello!

This is super late. I've been wanting to post about this show for weeks now because it was super fun and we have never sounded better as a band and it was for the release of Reactor - which is all I've been talking about for months.

But things just got busy and weird.


I think I'd been so preoccupied with this show and releasing this album for so long that once those things were done, I needed to take step back from it and let the rest of my life back in.

And I found out I likely need a pretty intrusive surgery this fall. So that has taken over occupation in my mind.

But I have another show tonight and I'll want to recap it, so I should get this one done first, right? : ) (At The Nomad in Minneapolis. We play at 10pm)

It was a fun show.

And we have never sounded better. I was so proud of my band.

We had all 6 of us. Laura jumped in on keys to add to the sound. Colleen picked up some additional percussion. Catbath and Strange Relations opened up the night and I LOVE those bands.

 Catbath.

Strange Relations.

Sara got a new drumhead decal of Robbie Dog's paw print! LOVE IT.

And we got t-shirts! which have totally spiced up our merch selection.

Like I said, my band was awesome. None of this could be done without them. I love when we all get to play together.

Set list for the Reactor Release Show at Eagle's Club 6-13-15

• The Reminder
• Lens
• Reactor
• I Wanna Know
• Float
• Introvert
• Daughter
• Running
• Car
• When You Were Mine (Prince cover)
• Safety Mode
• Yesterday
• Beg, Borrow, or Steal (encore - yes! encore!)

And Reactor is out now available to buy (or stream) at the following locations:

Bandcamp: http://bit.ly/1JRPkfM
iTunes: http://apple.co/1JRPiEw
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1R4rYSY
CD Baby: http://cdbaby.com/cd/nikibecker3

And at Electric Fetus in Minneapolis.

Thank you for listening!