Now I’ve Got to Get My Act Together

This is my first experience with writing to a blogsite. Sometimes you feel like you’re speaking into thin air. In other words, you never knew if folks are listening or not. Well this may be changing. Last night the folks that run the http://www.mokanopry.com/ website paid Heartland Unplugged a visit. They publish to their website information about area jams, such as ours. They were very nice and complementary in their write up about HU. They’ll never know how much we appreciate that. Anyway, they published a link to this blogsite, so now I’m afraid that someone may actually be reading this. So I had better start being more regular about writing to it. We had a very comfortable, fun night of music last night at HU. Most of the regulars showed up to play and sing. Once again we held it in the Friendship Room Hall of the Church. This room has small tables that are just right to hold the cheeseburgers, chips and drinks that are served. The casual atmosphere helps to promote friendly conversations. For the jammers who sat in a circle and passed the microphone, the new wireless microphone that Doc picked up at the Musician’s Friend outlet store worked great….no more mic cable to bother with. The extra jamming rooms made a great place for seasoned musicians to play together. They also provided a place for us folks just starting out to get together and try to come up with songs that we can later play and sing. We continue to get compliments about what a great campus the church is for this kind of thing. Everyone’s crazy about all of the soft chairs with no arms, too. I don’t think people were thinking about us when they first bought these chairs, but they certainly did us a big favor. You won’t want to miss the next HU. It’s always held on the fourth Friday of the month, from 7 ‘til 10pm. Hope to see you there.

Getting Ready

September's Heartland Unplugged is this Friday night and we're all anticipating another fun filled enjoyable evening. What a blessing it is to see our numbers continue to grow. Such wonderful people...both those who come to play and also the ones who come to sing or listen. I also am always amazed at how helpful people can be. As the jam continues to grow there have been some who have come forward and volunteered to help in all aspects of running the jam. It's great. I'm very hopeful that even more will volunteer to help as we try to keep up with the growth. We continue to hear comments from those who attend that the church is ideally set up for a jam like this. HU currently has the largest turnout from those who like bluegrass/gospel type music, but we keep encouraging those who enjoy other types of acoustic music to come and join in. I personally like folk music from the 60's and will try to interject that every now and then. We're also hoping to hear more acoustic blues type music. You all have a nice day and I hope to see you on Friday.

Two Events This Month (September)

Well, I’m back again. I can’t believe I feel like I’ve been so busy that I can’t spend even five minutes and type something in on this thing (a blog is a noun isn’t it). The last couple of HU’s have been terrific. We’ve moved the main stage (hall) down to the “Friendship Room” near the front of the church. It’s providing a much more intimate setting for us all to partake in lots of familiar acoustic music. We still had an additional jamming room or two. We’re also very thankful for the additional volunteers who’ve come forward the last few times. It’s really making the evening flow much smoother.

We’re getting very excited about the upcoming “Community Fun Day” outside at St. Luke’s. It’s going to be from 11:00 to 1:00 on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 16th. I hope everyone will be able to turn out for this one. HU is going to take part by helping to erect a large tent with a stage and sound system at one end. Doc’s already been contacting musicians to come and play.

A week later we’ll have the regular HU on Friday night, the 22nd. I’m sure it’s going to be another memorable affair. In addition to the normal cheeseburgers we make and sell, we’re also thinking about offering grilled chicken sandwiches.

... looking forward to the next two weekends.