CGT at the Granada Theater in Dallas Texas

CGT at the Granada Theater in Dallas TX. Photos by Bill Ellison

Houston and Austin

9:27pm. I'm backstage at the One World Theater in Austin TX. And we are just getting ready to go on for our second show. First show was great! We had 3 vibraphonist from UT join us for the Marsh and Melrose...amazing!

Agave Gardens at One World

In Texas they have BBQ at the gas stations. It says "worst BBQ in Texas" but it was great!

Sometimes we get to stay in nice hotels. This hotel in Houston is one of them.

Sold out show last night in Houston! The Mucky Duck is a funky little music venue on the south side on Houston. Back in 1998, we were doing a Borders Book store promotion tour, we played at the Borders Books in Houston and one of the audience members recommended that we go and play the open mic at the Mucky Duck, and he had already reserved a time slot for us that night! We played 3 songs for the open mic, and we were invited back and have been playing at the Mucky Duck once a year since. We always have great shows there with great audiences, and the people from the venue take very good care of us. A bonus this time was that they actually had a dressing room for us in the back; a recently remodeled room that doubles as a wine tasting private party/ musician dressing room.


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Day off in Austin

CGT, Tyler and Bruce Stofft at FlipHappy Crepes.

After the 14 hour drive from Birmingham to Austin, we are enjoying a day off here in one of my favorite cities on the planet. Beautiful weather, great restaurants and very cool people! Maria's Taco Express and Alamo's Draft House were yesterday; Jo's coffee, Fliphappy Crepes, and Opal Divine today. Fliphappy Crepes is amazing. I've had some excellent crepes before in Paris and Quebec, but I have to say that the Cuban Crepe at FlipHappy Crepes is the best savory crepe I've ever had. And the whipped peanut butter crepe with dark chocolate sauce, bananas and almonds....Wow!!!!!

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Birmingham to Texas

The concert at Workplay in Birmingham was on the small side with just under 100 people in attendance, but still very good. Shaun Hopper played a great opening set of arrangements and originals on solo guitar. I really love the workplay venue, especially after having played several times at the roach infested venue that we used to play in Birmingham. Some of the "hardcore" CGT fans drove all the way from Chattanooga for the show...thanks guys!

Yesterday we drove 830 miles from Birmingham to TX...whew, what a drive. We stopped at Waffle House in Meridian Mississippi, hoping that it would be a quick meal, as Waffle House usually is, but this one was the slowest waffle house ever, and I think we always mess the cooks up with all our orders of different styles of hash-browns.


Texas Sunset from inside the van.


Crossing the Mississippi River


Somewhere in Mississippi on Interstate 20


View from my hotel room in Birmingham. Motley Crue was playing next door to this hotel and there were some very noisy fans on our floor after the concert.


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Atlanta

Southern Hospitality, CGT accommodation in Atlanta


Mark and Hideyo at Chateau Greenbaum


Headed west on Interstate 20, near Talladega Alabama

We just past the famous Talladega raceway, a good indication that we are in the heart of Nascar Country. Tonight we play in Birmingham Alabama. Hopefully we won’t loose too many audience members to the Oscars.

On Friday night the concert at the 5 spot in little 5 points Atlanta was completely sold out!!! Umphrey McGee was playing next door at the Variety playhouse and their concert was also sold out. Recession?, what recession?! The manager from the Variety playhouse came over to the 5 spot to tell us that the Umphrey McGee guys invited us over to see there show, but our show went fairly late and we didn’t end up making it over, but very nice of them to offer. Our show at the 5 Spot was really great. The audience was very enthusiastic and they helped make it a high-energy show. We played Bohemian Rhapsody for the encore, and the audience joined in singing along really loud. There must have been a lot of good singers in the audience as it was some of the best singing on Bohemian we have ever had. Impressive!

Last night we played a private concert at our friend Don’s house for his 50th Birthday party. Don has a beautiful modern house in the suburbs of Atlanta, and did an amazing job setting his house up for the concert and birthday party, renting a very high end PA system and completely rearranging the great room for concert venue style seating. There were over 100 people in attendance. The concert was filmed with 5 HD cameras and may be released in the near future. We arranged a special “Heart of the Sunrise/Happy Birthday” song for Don which as a big hit. Our friend Mark joined us on Zundoko Bushi playing the Zen Drum. Mark played great and the audience was enthusiastically clapping along. Thanks to Mark and Christine for the amazing hospitality during our stay in Atlanta.


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Ocilla GA

Peanut Farm in Southern Georgia.


Tyler, Hideyo, Bert and I, back in the van, on our way from Atlanta to Ocilla GA.

Tifton, GA – Holiday Inn

9:04 am. Last night we played the first show of the tour in a small town in southern Georgia called Ocilla. The concert was in a very nice small church, and was part of their “community concert series”. CGT played this church two years ago, and they told us that we were the most requested group to return for the concert series. The show was really great, and the audience was wonderful. People of all ages filled the church and it felt like everyone was really into the concert. I even the teenage girls that were busy texting with their friends, stopped texting and listened!

The past few days we have been rehearsing in Atlanta at our friends Mark and Christine’s house. We were very productive in our rehearsals, reworking some of the new original pieces and also playing some music we haven’t played for a long time. I felt like these strong rehearsals helped make the first show of the tour a good one, as all three of us were playing very well. And the new original pieces that we reworked are sounding really good now, and got a great response from the audience.

It’s time to get back in the van and drive back to Atlanta for our show there tonight.

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Snow...and getting ready for the tour

It has been snowing here in Utah for the past 2 days. I leave on Monday for Atlanta to meet up with Bert and Hideyo and Tyler. We will rehearse for a couple days at our friends Mark and Christine's house and the first show is on the 19th in the southern part of Georgia in a town called Ocilla.

I've been very busy getting ready for the tour. I've still got about a million things to do before I leave on Monday, but I'm making good progress. Most all the hotels for the tour are now booked. And I have been in touch with several of the concert promoters advancing the upcoming shows. In addition to all the CGT business stuff, I have been getting some good guitar practice in too. Working on both old and new music. The old music is a piece of Beethoven that the CGT used to play, but has not played in almost 10 years. And the new music is the new CGT original pieces that we continue to work on for a new CGT CD that we hope to begin recording sometime this summer.

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