I’ll be appearing on WGN TV tomorrow morning (Thursday, July 17th). I’ll be playing on their morning show with the Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band, to promote our Friday appearance at the Great Performers of Illinois festival.

Our slots are tentatively scheduled for 7:45 and 8:45, and may feature people dressed as giant ears of corn. No promises.

I’m playing a kid’s concert tomorrow (Saturday, June 7) in Millennium Park with the Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band. Annie Coleman, who called so well for us at Looptopia, will be leading the festivities. There’ll be shows at 12 and 2, so bring the little ones by and say ‘hi’. It’ll be way more fun than watching The Little Mermaid again. I promise.

I’ll be playing mandolin with the Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band for their annual square dance blowout. The dance is at 9pm at 2000 W. Fulton in Chicago. The GHRSDB are good folks. We shared a flatbed truck at the Hideout’s Day in the Country this past summer.

Annie Coleman from the GHRSDB is a third-generation square dance caller, and she’ll be calling the dances all night.

I believe there’ll be copies of this beautiful show poster available for purchase at the show.

We had a great time yesterday kicking off the Hideout’s A DAY IN THE COUNTRY fest.

We played a 30 minute acoustic set from the back of a 1950’s flatbed stake truck, on the street in front of the Hideout, which was among the coolest settings in which we’ve ever performed. We played mostly original songs, including a few new/unreleased ones like Kip’s TAKEUP REEL medley and THE DIRTY DOG.

The Golden Horse Ranch Dance Band and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader String Band also delivered fine afternoon acoustic sets from the flatbed, and the rest of the bands went electric from indoors on the main stage. Pedal Steel was abundant, figuring largely in the sound of just about every band once the proceedings moved indoors.

Lawrence Peters booked himself a helluva a shindig, and it went perfectly in all regards. Not only did we celebrate Lawrence’s 42nd birthday, but every band brought something special to the event, the HonkyTonk Barbecue was excellent, the Sugarkist Pies were stellar, the Hideout staff did their usual amazing job keeping things orderly and fun, the local police and fire-marshalls were tolerant of the not-entirely-legal truck performances from the street (city property…), and the place was packed full of people clearly happy to be there for the escalating sets of bluegrass, old timey, country and honkytonk.

Here’s a link to all the pictures I took yesterday (none of Tangleweed playing in here, but our set was video-taped, so perhaps we’ll get some of that up at some point).

Huge thanks to Lawrence and the gang at the Hideout for including us in an amazing day. I sincerely hope they considering making this an annual event.