We're off to Tokyo, Japan and our favorite club out there- the Cotton Club. And we're very excited to announce a new album- a live album called "Live Blood". I've got a copy and it's smokin'- full of old and new tunes. My favorite is a new tune we just started playing live called 'Can't Take It'. It was originally recorded by the fantastic blues singer, Lavelle White, and was brought in as an example of the direction the writing the next album should go in. The band liked the mix of horn driven funk and blues that seems to suit Lydia's voice so well that we started playing it live and now it's on the album!

We're hearing that a major Tokyo radio station is playing a different song from the album every day until we get there. Ticket sales are doing well- it's not cheap to see live music out there- tickets for this intimate nightclub go for a minimum of $87 and top out at $175. Now that's a night out! It's a great feeling to play a packed house no matter where we play.

We will be joined by our former drummer, Chris Sandoval, out there as Donny Baldwin can't make it out. The rest of the line-up will be the steady players with the band. We're also introducing a few of the vintage gospel tinged tracks we haven't been playing in a while to spice up the set- we'll be doing 2 shows a night and it'll be amazing!

We fly directly back to Oregon on the way home to play a big festival featuring a reunion of the Jefferson Airplane folks. It's called "Concert for Big Red" and should be a blast if we can recover from the flight and time change! We lose a half day going to Japan and then gain it back on Sunday's show- wow, that's going to be hard!

Hope to see you soon at a concert near you! We're celebrating 40 years as a band- same as ToP. BTW, I caught them out at the San Mateo fair and they had 8 horns, including Lenny Pickett and 3 keys and 2 guitars. Best they've ever sounded!

LP & CB