A couple Decembers back we were doing a show at The Heartland Cafe on Chicago’s North Side. Our friend Rudy Negrete stopped by with his Strat and sat in. Another friend, Josh Davis, happened to be down from Bloomington, with his his harps, and joined us, too. We played everything we all knew together, but didn’t want to stop. So we played “Kansas City”, which we were pretty sure we could fake. Turned out to be a nice end for the night.
Josh pretty much stole the show on it, but Alpha was having a lot of fun on the drums, too. Dorothy and Rudy were both zeroed in on the groove like snipers on a target. I’m mostly off camera, but maybe you can tell I was having fun, too: that’s me throwing in the fills on the verses.
Another night at The Heartland
I Wrote “Jimmy Stu” for all the cosmic cowboys who never thought they’d end up on the daily grind–but did. I’m posting a video of the song, from a show at the Heartland Cafe back when they used to book bands, a performance of it I especially like. For one thing, that night everybody seemed to lock onto the groove. For another, though I always thought of the tune as southern rock/rockabilly, Rudy Negrete soloed on it like a Chicago bluesman, and it worked just fine. If your computer speakers are as lame as mine, I hope you use headphones when you watch this:
Dumbfounding Stories 
