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The Anonymous Writer
This just in from none other than, "Mr. Blue Lew Beckwith." Seems that Lew, upon traveling North to Chicago, made a stop at a place called, Di Vinci's in downtown Deland, Fl. Here, Lew got to hear a solo performance from Alliance member, Ben Prestage.
Lew say's, " Ben is a One Man Show, and there are no other words to describe the man's talent" Ben played many tunes from his newest CD. Catch Ben at his performances, check the Blues Alliance web site and click onto Ben's link for his schedule. . |
Jammin at The Ashley
Everyone including the Blues Alliance Core Band, had a tremendous night at The Alliances' first blues jam at our Corporate Sponsor establishment, The Ashley..... in down town Stuart. Gerry Mullaney, lead guitarist and vocalist led the 5 piece Core Band start-up into some awesome blues tunes.
The Alliance wishes to thank The Ashley crew for their hospitality and to the owners for the flyers and posters they provided.
This night, Tim O'Donnell of The Nouveaux Honkies sat in on drums, thanks again Tim!
Rebecca Dawkins, also of The Honkies played some hot blues on violin in the jam set. Curtis got up and did his thing on vocals. Many musicians signed in and got to play and it is appreciated by all. Thanks for bringing your gear and making the night fabulous
! Michelle De Stefano, was present and we are happy to have this Lifetime Member around with her smiling face, we love you!
The next jam at The Ashley will be Tuesday, Nov. 13th. Don't miss out, support your organization and the blues! PG
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THE IBC IN MEMPHIS 2007, by Tim O'Donnell, The Nouveaux Honkies.
This year was mine and The Nouveaux Honkies first year attending the IBC in Memphis and we want to thank The Blues Alliance of the Treasure Coast, and all our fans for all the support and opportunity to go. We left on Wed. morning, Jan. 31, to start our trek up to Tennessee. The night before was full of adventure when Rebecca and I got the garage door stuck on the back door of the truck we were taking. With the help of many NASA engineers we managed to get it unstuck and the launch was not canceled. We picked up Daniel Davis (drums) and went on to Orlando to pick up Tony Venturini (bass). Once we got on I-75 we stopped in Valdosta, Ga. to eat and headed through Atlanta to Tupelo. We stopped again for more food and the sleet started coming down. With all of this we finally made it to Memphis a little after midnight and got the key to the house that was donated to us by Deena and the U. S. Navy. The place was real nice and about 2 miles from Beale with a trolley station about a block away. We slept and in the morning I went to register and attend orientation. A word of advice is to send only one person to orientation. The room was designed to hold about 200 people and there was probably 500 there. We drew first to play on Thursday at the Hard Rock Cafe. We met up with Cougar, the President of The Blues Alliance of the Treasure Coast. Now, he is a true trooper and blues lover. He drove up by himself and hung with us the whole time and we didn't sleep much. We got to the Hard Rock at 5;30 to set up and were supposed to start at 6. The sound man never showed up and the crowd was restless. A restaurant employee got the key to the sound room and we hooked up our own sound. When they fired up the board it sounded like a Slayer Concert. With all this, they still wanted us to play. A waiter was behind the sound board and we had no bass or guitar in the house and the drums were LOUD! I went up to the band that was going to follow us and said, "You are on 30 minutes after us." They said, "Don't play." This was the consensus of all the bands in our venue. At about 7:30 a sound guy got there and he got things sorted out and we HIT IT! The band looked great and sounded real good! We watched the rest of the bands in our venue and Teddy Lee Hooker was a definite stand out. On the way home the ground was covered with snow and Tony and I took a trip to pull some donuts in the empty buss parking lot. On Friday we played around 9 PM, and the band sounded really good that night. After the venues were all done for that evening, certain venues that were hosting jams announced the winner from each venue. Only the top scorer from each venue advanced and Teddy Lee advanced from The Hard Rock. All of the bands that advanced were incredible and had their show, look, and music down. The coolest thing was walking down Beale and hearing all the music. Good music was everywhere and it was super inspiring to see and hear bands from around the world doing their thing and taking it seriously. As far as our placement in the IBC goes, we would have to get in touch with every band and have all the score cards tallied up. There is no way of knowing our placement but the contacts and networking we did has already helped out our band a million times over. We spent the rest of the weekend going to Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken and going to Paynes' Ribs with Ben Prestage. All the rib joints downtown are complete bull compared to Paynes'. Ben picked us up in his motor home and showed us around the non tourist sections of Memphis. I bought a cigar box guitar from Johnny, the guy that builds Ben's cigar boxes. We watched the finals at both Orpheum and Daisy Theaters. The finalists were incredible in both venues. We want to go next year, if we can. The opportunity is a great one. Next year we hope to see more bands that would like to go and hopefully more participation in the local area from people that want to attend. A big play-off could raise some good money to help whichever band is picked to get there. Thanks again to all who supported us. Tim and The Nouveaux Honkies. |
The 2007 International Blues Challenge- by Ben Prestage www.myspace.com/bprestage Cougar, the Nouveau Honkies and everyone on Beale Street on February first thru the third can testify to the huge amount of talent and larger amount of fun that descended on Memphis for the 2007 International Blues Challenge. This "battle of the bands" was the largest gathering of Blues musicians on the planet, and each band and solo/duo was hand-picked by their regional Blues Societies, such as the Blues Alliance of the Treasure Coast by means of competition or appointment. The level of talent was even higher than in past years since the rules have changed. Now, the only people who are ineligible for entry into the competition are performers who have been nominated for a Blues Music Award. This means international touring bands with major record deals and large management agencies are now allowed to compete! The first band I heard was our home-boys/girl the Nouveau Honkies. They were the first act in their venue, and the soundman didn’t show up. The Blues Foundation who puts on the event didn’t have a back-up, so the show was delayed for what seemed like an eternity. Kudos to the Honkies for keeping their cool! They set up their own sound, and broke into a shuffle with Tim making up words on the spot, about their present predicament. I saw the guys in one of the other bands (who were getting nervous about the sound issue) break into hysterics at The Honkies good humor. Even the judges who were supposed to remain unbiased, couldn’t help but lose some of their professionalism and break into laughter and applause! When they finally found a soundman the N.Hs commenced to rip the roof off the Hard Rock Café in downtown Memphis. It was certainly one of the highlights of the weekend. The solo/duo competition, which I was a part of, was the largest it had ever been. There were more one-man-bands present than I knew existed! One of my favorites, Lee Earl McWaters even played piano, drums, harmonica, guitar in the same song, by himself! There were people from all over the world, and every one I met was as nice and supportive to each other as they could be. Luckily the judges liked my stuff enough to send me to the finals. When I got there, to the New Daisy Theater I was told that the finals were sold out. That meant my girlfriend and the Honkies couldn’t get in. Since I had busked in front of the New Daisy, and I used to know the owner when I lived in Memphis, I recalled a back door used for loading and let my friends know about it. I didn’t get to hear every act in the solo/duo finals (I think there were about seven), but the ones I heard blew me away. My favorites were probably a duo: Roland Tchakounte & Ravassat from Africa and France; and a solo: Israel Steter from West Virginia. One stand out artist and very talented, and pleasant woman was Stefania Calandra from Italy. We talked backstage about playing music in other countries. I never have and it was her first time. While the first act was performing Ms. Calandra, Israel and I talked backstage about stage fright as she hand-rolled us all some cigarettes. I think she was the only one being honest because she aknowledged her nervousness. I tried to convince myself by telling her I never get nervous before going onstage. Once I was up there and I started playing all the butterflies went away and it was just like playing for my friends. I had a great time. The best part though, was when one of my friends, (a talented performer and songwriter from Arkansas, Brian Martin whom I met the year before at the same competition) yelled across the theater. I told him the night before that I enjoyed one of his tunes that he played the year before. In the silence, while I was giving a verbal intro to a song, from the back of the room he yelled out over the whole crowd a request for me to play that song! You can hear the tune "Big-boned and Butt-ugly" at: www.brianmartinmusic.com After the show, The Honkies, Israel Stetar and I went to the parking lot to the RV and had an impromptu jam session with us passing guitars and making up songs, all to the accompaniment of Tony on the bungee cord bass. If we took that group and those songs to the competition, we would have been a shoo-in! In closing, I would love to thank everyone on the board and all the members of the Blues Alliance of the Treasure Coast for keeping the Blues Alive and well! As a result of my trip to Memphis, my new cd entitled "Real Music" will be distributed nationally through the Vizztone Label Group, and I will be playing at the Kalamazoo Blues Festival in Michigan in July. |
Beale St. Surprise
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The I Hate The Tim ODonnell Band
It's official, Tim has giving the band an interim moniker, until such time they all agree on a good name. I could care less what they call themselves, they were awesome. Able to play anything, and they did. Tim played a wide variety of songs, on a guitar he built himself. Yes, him and his dad Pat have that talent too. I met Tim over ten years ago, and he didn't play anything but a radio. Then, one day I went over and heard some incredible riffs coming from his bedroom and asked his dad who was playing that?. "Tim took up guitar last week...." I hate him. Plays Drums too! How about the Tuba? Anyway, they sounded great, I loved listening to Rebecca on the electric fiddle, unbelievable talent and because she is so pretty, you don't have to look at the rest of the band, which is good. Great bass player and drummer,( I will have to learn their names)don't know how they played in that 4 foot by 4 foot stage, but they did. Pretty sure Rebecca poked a few eyes out with her bow. The food their is first class gourmet feast. I have had dinner 3 times now, and am convinced nothing bad has ever come out of that kitchen. The entire staff is so friendly and it is located in downtown Stuart, what could be better. The Blues President himself showed up, with Verna and his sister Janet. Great to see them. See you all out there someday! LaSLo |
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The Brittish review of Ben Prestage,
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Punch the Dog, Get a Form
