Halloween show Thursday and a new jam
Hello friends!
It's been too long.
The majority of my creative energy this past month has been spent rebuilding the monthly jam I've hosted for the past five years.
In September, the owner of the Golden Dagger announced he had sold the venue without giving any heads-up. Things were in limbo for a week before I was informed that the new owners didn't want to continue with the jams. It really stung--the Golden Dagger (and previously Tonic Room) jams have been essential part of my creative process and life rhythm for a long time.
Perhaps fatefully, however, a couple days later I received an offer to start a weekly jam at Porkchop, a barbecue restaurant in Edgewater.
I was nervous and excited. On one hand, working with restaurants can be very tough--owners just have a very different set of economic and cultural expectations than dedicated music venue owners. On the other hand, it was a chance to create a musical gathering every week and build something I really believe in.
So far we're four jams in and it's going very well. The combination of people from the Dagger jam, new neighborhood folks, and people from my music community who hadn't come out to jams in the past has made for some great sounds. We're doing different themed jams each week. A couple of groove-based jams in the style of the Dagger, a latin jam (which just happened last night), and an open mic for people who have solo / duo material they want to test out. I made a separate newsletter for this jam. You can follow the Porkchop jam here.
WZRD Halloween Spooktacular October 26
Getting back into the swing of things, I'm very happy to announce that Prosthetic will be performing at WZRD 88.3fm's Halloween party this Thursday Oct. 26th at 7pm.
The event is free and open to the public and will take place in the Northeastern Illinois University Student Center (you can put it into maps), where WZRD makes its home. The show will also broadcast live on 88.3fm for the north side of Chicago and on wzrdchicago.org.
We'll play for about an hour and be followed by a cool rock band called the Everyday Specials
Doing a Prosthetic Halloween show has been an informal tradition of mine, so I'm very stoked to bring it back. I'm also happy to be partying with the Wizard (WZRD). In the past month, two near and year (yet profit-driven) companies--the Golden Dagger and Bandcamp--that have promoted themselves as the most artist friendly thing around have essentially tanked due to the pressures of growth and expansion. It's a complicated issue, but what I will say is that, at the end of the day, I think culture lives with the people on the ground who make things happen regardless of profit and recognition--and the WZRD is an unassuming and effective beacon for that ethos.
Hope you can tune in!
Talk soon,
Tommy