These blogs about our weekend trips are getting closer and closer together. That's a good feeling, getting on the road more. After a summer without Stefanie, it's good to have the family back together - and I never get sick of seeing people react to Stef and the band for the first time. But anyway, Brendan asked if I could blog all over his face, and I was like, "Um...dude." Anyway, there are a lot of links in this entry, and a big nugget of news at the end.

For Halloween, we headed out to Terre Haute and played at The Verve, where we have many fond memories of our last visit. A few of us did a spot on the NBC 5:00 news there, which was like the morning show we did last time, but without the horrific 4:30am call-time. So, reasonably awake, we watched as Stef fielded a few interview questions and did an acoustic version of "Nobody" - our new favorite song. These acoustic performances keep cropping up because Brendan's been kicking ass at getting us TV and radio appearances all over the place, and they usually can't accommodate an 8-person band with a horn section. So we grab a couple of acoustics, and sometimes Smillie joins us on percussion, and we whip out a few tunes. It's so different (for us at least) from the full-band treatment, it's like being in a Eli Jones tribute band. I also like that the rest of the band will be listening or watching at home, and will text us afterward with "nice interview" or "zzzzzzzzzz." (Yeah Schram!!) I dig it. And actually that weekend we had a ton of these media appearances - Thursday night on WLUW in Chicago, Friday on NBC in Terre Haute, and Saturday on with the full band on WEIU in Charleston. Good work, Brendan!!

So yeah, we kicked out the jam on NBC, and then headed to the Verve - but only after finding out for sure that George's Cafe was closed for the day. Can't pass up some George's. A Terre Haute band called Cuba opened up the set for us, and they rocked it pretty well. Energetic power pop with a singer that can really sing. Nice! They were dressed as presidents.

...And we were dressed as a Wizard of Oz ensemble with a twist: Stef was the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba to all you Wicked fans), and the rest of us were flying monkeys. Kudos to Greg our new bassist for conceptualizing that, and massive, massive gratitude to my girlfriend Rachel who whipped up our sweet-ass costumes for us. (Rachel's not in the costume-making business, but she does own a fabric store & sewing school in Chicago...which all you crafty types should check out.) The shit looked pretty awesome - custom-made vests and hats, and wings and monkey masks...well, you get the idea. We'll get pictures posted later today. So we hooted and eep-eeped our way up on stage, and had a really great time as we always do at the Verve. Seeing a bunch of friends that we met on our last visit was mighty good - good for the soul. We did the obligatory Halloween covers (Thriller & Ghostbusters), both of which went pretty well. Thriller's a tricky tune. Jonathon's friend Nathan stepped up to do the Vincent Price rap, which was great with me because I don't think any of us really wanted to do it. He and Kassandra were also good enough to host the after-party, before we stumbled back to Jonathon's Dad's house where, God bless him, he'd laid out sleeping bags (with padding), cots, and everything we could possibly need. I tell ya, the love in Terre Haute is a wonderful thing. Lucky we got Edwards to show us the way.

I totally didn't mention that Stef's family traveled with us on this trip - her Mom, Dad, boyfriend, brother, and daughter were all in tow. It was really good to have the entire gang there. The weird thing is, they had to split the next day, so then it was just Stef -- which is only weird because her Dad Dave generally travels with us everywhere we go, as kind of our driver/moral support/road manager guy. Traveling without Dave was strange - and especially so because less than an hour after we parted ways with him (but held on to his 15-passenger van), a pair of stones flew up out of the road and dinged the windshield. Clearly this means we're supposed to travel with Dave all the time. Or that he's the only one that should drive the van. Or something.

Okay, so morning after Halloween (or maybe early afternoon), we all headed to George's. If you're ever in Terre Haute, try to make it to this place. Good Greek food and diner burgers, and Albert, the co-proprietor, couldn't be sweeter or more hospitable. George's!! George's forever!!

It's a short drive over to Charleston, IL, where we played at Friends & Co the next night. It was the 21st birthday of Ron, who was sitting in with us on trombone that weekend, and aside from playing his ass off, he gave us just one more reason to celebrate. Happy b-day, Ron! We also had the pleasure of Garrett Schmidt sitting in on trumpet. Garrett's a monster, as our Charleston fans can tell you, and he's the brother of our former bassist Jeremy Schmidt. (I almost wrote "former brother." Heh.) He's just too much music for one man. So the band was nine strong that night - which was just slightly smaller than the audience. It was intimate, but a lot of fun. Chris DeRosa (from ) opened for us with an acoustic set, and I was really impressed. He handles the solo arrangements really well, both with covers and acoustics. Strong work.

Oh, and beforehand, we'd done an in-studio appearance at WEIU, the local college radio station. We got the whole band in there, although it was a strange setting - we were in two adjoining rooms, neither of which was optimized for band performance. We made it work, though half the band couldn't see the other half. While waiting for our time slot, we peeked at the EIU student newspaper, which had an article on us and a review of our album. They quoted something I'd said in an interview, but credited it to someone named Matt Bellamy, so that's my new name these days. I think the name's been corrected in the online version by now.

So back to our show at Friends & Co... With just the slightest provocation (one Charlestonite calmly said "One more song" when we were done) we launched into an unplanned 4-song encore...hell, one song just led into another song. We now know that Rick James's "Mary Jane" maps pretty well onto our song "Ain't Going Back." Good to know.

And Stef power-drove the Buick home all night!!

Last night, we played FitzGerald's in Berwyn, which is of course a great spot. This was the pre-party for the Chicago Blues & Bluegrass Festival (which we're not playing, but How Far To Austin is, and we got the honor of opening for them last night). It was a short, tight set, but there was one big dramatic moment. If any of you are still reading, here's the big news: Stef's boyfriend joined us onstage for the end of "Before I Know Your Name" to say a few words, and after some really touching remarks, he dropped to one knee and gave Stef a ring. Stef of course said yes, and there wasn't a dry pair of pants in the house. Most of the band didn't even know this was going to happen, and I know one or two folks got it on video....we'll post it when we can. In the meantime, that sound you hear is hearts breaking all over the midwest. Stef AND her man are both off the market for good!! :)