Steel Bridge Song Fest 2012

It’s that time of year and Mike Mangione & The Unions are off again to one of our favorite festival gigs: Steel Bridge!

2012 Steel Bridge flyerThe festival runs from June 7-10 and we’ll be playing the main stage on Saturday June 9 during the day and taking part in the pub crawl event that evening. Musicians take over every venue in Sturgeon Bay (even the bowling alley!) and your festival ticket allows you entry to every location.

(We don’t have our venue info finalized for the evening of June 8 yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we do!)

Steel Bridge 2012 Weekend Passes are On Sale NOW at all TicketStar Locations,
online at TicketStarOnline.com
or over the phone 1-800-895-0071

$25 tickets purchased through Ticket Star will include a digital download of Steel Bridge Songs: Volume 7 (2012 Release)! These will be mailed out to you a a later date.

Ticket allows access to all venues and also allows for priority admission to venues that are nearing capacity – ahead of persons paying the per venue cover charge.
Certain venues may require passes for entrance.

Big Thanks to WGN TV!

Full view of the WGN studio

WOW! It was so much fun playing on WGN TV and the folks there were amazing. Growing up in the Chicago area, WGN was THE TVchannel – Bozo, Ray Reiner, Frazier Thomas classics on the weekend, Lester Fisher from the Lincoln Park Zoo. Man, it was just great to walk through the studio and watch them do the news and then get a chance to play them in and out of the breaks. Plus a full song at the end of the hour which you can see here:

Mike Mangione & The Union: “Offering” on WGN TV

Back From a Little Break

Mike Mangione & The Union at Lincoln Hall

Didn’t have a lot going on in June and July but we did get a Chicago show in. Thanks to WXRT for previewing a track from “Offering” and highlighting the show, and to our pals in the Chicago Roots Collective for putting the bill together and setting up backline for the bands to share.

Video for two songs is available on my YouTube site: http://youtube.com/LLRLRR.

Hihat stand FAIL!

Maybe it was the 5 shows in 3 days and all but I broke a hihat stand last week. The pedal came away from the post and and 30 minutes and two handfuls of grease later I finally gave up.  Truth be told, it was a DW 5000 two legged model that I never really liked anyway.  It was always wobbly or it would lean on uneven surfaces and i could never really get it too feel stable and rock solid.

So I called up my man West Wheeler at Taye and ordered one of these:

Taye 6000 HiHat stand

Can’t wait to put it through its paces when it finally gets here!

Great shows yesterday!

Had a blast at WMSE and Shank Hall last night.

All the folks at WMSE are so pro – they treat you like family and the sound that goes live over the airwaves is just amazing. I have audio of the three song set (Offering, Darling Little Sister, and You Were Beautiful Once) and I’m going to try and post it this weekend or sync it up to some video I shot and put it on ye ol’ YouTube if I can.

Shank was also a blast – we played for alsmot two hours and it was great that folks just kept asking for more. Had a little trouble with the encore since we don’t really do that and my hihat stand went kaput. Thankfully it was when I was packing up for the night.

Ohh, and I tweeted Mick Shrimpton from Spinal Tap just for fun, here was his response:

Hahahaha – I love the word “git”….

Milwaukee Double Header

Mike Mangione & The Union at Shank Hall 2009

I love double show days!

Two shows with Mike Mangione & The Union on Friday 5.21 –

Show #1 – playing on WMSE 91.7 during their pledge drive. I love playing at the WMSE studio- did it twice with Pezzettino – and this will be my first time with Mike and my union pallys.

Show #2 – Shank Hall, woo hoo! It’s always nice to play under the ol’ stonehenge :

The show is also serving as a bit of a record release since we are now officially selling the new release on CD
(its been available for digital download at CD Freedom and (of course) at iTunes

http://shankhall.com/
http://www.wmse.org/

Lots to do this week!

Three Mike Mangione shows this week after being off for most of the month – I need to get back up to speed!

We’re playing at SPACE in Evanston (Chicago area) on Wednesday and this is my first time playing there. New venues are always tricky – it’s a “listening room” – you have to know how much room you have and what gear to bring. (Six people on stage!)

I am thinking that it’s going to be a kick/snare/floor and two cymbals type of affair. Sometimes it cool to bring a stripped down kit and really pay attention to what you are playing but we are recording so an extra tom for variety wouldn’t hurt. 🙂