Road Notes 2000

Happy Holidays to all of you out there surfing through Four Shadow land. I wanted to take a moment to send my warmest wishes to all of you during this holiday season. I hope it brings you all near to family and friends, and fills you with the joy of the season. How cheezy was that?! Well it is that time of year, so MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Greetings from Bedford, NY.

For me personally, this has been a great tour, so far. We ate at an amazing little Eye-Tahl-eean dive in Oley, PA and had these incredible things called "Garlic Knots"!! MAN OH MAN, WE WAS ALL IN HEAVEN!

you see, they take pizza dough, and then add lots and LOTS of garlic, Parm, and oil, bake, and the result is the most unbelievably tasty little snack of good good goodness!

right now i am at the Rippowam Cisqua School in Bedford, NY. the 8th graders behind me are saying hello to all of you readers out there as i write. "Hi George!"

from here we are heading to Mamaroneck, NY for a show in the Emelin Theatre. My mom and pop are gonna be there, as well as my lovely girlfriend, Tracy's folks. By the way, my Love is in London for another 2 months, and then she will be back in Massachusetts....I MISS HER VERY MUCH!

so, i hope this note finds you all well, and i will try to add more as more happens.

also, kevin and i are writing a new "dixie land" tune.... stay tuned.

C-ya....Honk Honk!

hello fourshadowites!

i write to let you know that we still indeed exist, although our schedule has kept us somewhat busy of late, and that has not allowed us much time to write enough notes from the road.

here are some things we have recently done:
1) listened to tapes from tons of talented guys wanting desperately to be in this cool group (only a small exaggeration).
2) fallen in love with one of those guys (nate altimari, you're my hero!)
3) accepted him into the fourshadow fold (ouch! that's my fold you've been accepted into!)
4) shopped for and secured accomodations for him in edina, a suburb of minneapolis (so he didn't have to sleep on kevin's floor!(the story of nate's accomodations is a lively one, so ask him about it when you meet him!))
5) begun practicing in earnest with him so that he can rock the house for you all lovely people.
6) received our THIRD shipment of new discs from the place in alabama that presses them for us. this means, according to all sources, that we are selling cds and tapes of where have you been at a very high rate. it also qualifies us, they assure us, for the not-yet-created-though-certainly-it-should-be-soon,-don't-you-think? INDIE PLATINUM RECORD award. therefore, many thanks are due to you great fans who keep buying our albums even though you already have twelve (hint, hint)! thank you!

so things here are great, and nate (our new guy if you haven't yet picked that up) is absolutely the coolest, both as a vocal percussionist and as a tenor. we are so lucky to have him!

if you haven't seen the group in a while, please do come out to see us again. the guys and i have been really enjoying our recent practices, and am really excited about the new sound that we have, and wish that you all could hear it too.

take care everybody,
kevin

Heyo, hope your August was happy. Ours was busy right up through the last week. We went on a whirlwind trip to Boston for the Northeast Performing Arts Council, where we did our thing for northeasterly arts presenters and started to look at our schedule for the 2001-2002 season (which seems so far away). In the ever-pioneering spirit of Four Shadow - we are on the cutting edge of technology after all - I proudly present the first ever... Illustrated Road Notes! (insert impressive theme music here) Enjoy...

Our weekend begins in the wee hours of Friday morning as we check in at the airport (oh boy - we get out of the van for a whole weekend!). Here is my rendition of the checkin process. (Stacy had stayed up all night working on updated promo materials and ate sugar to keep that youthful energy up.)

Upon arrival in Boston we caught an expensive shuttle, which we initially had to ourselves but ended up sharing with about 15 other people. Here it is.

Saturday was the showcase, which seemed to go pretty well. We had a great sound/stage crew and a nice theatre. Hopefully some east-coast gigs will develop out of our time there. Sunday morning I met Joe and Drew in the hotel lobby to check out and discover that Joe had racked up a pretty hefty (over $100) phone bill while surfing the internet. Today's lesson: always read the fine print on hotel phones for local charges! Here's Joe at the front desk.

Our journey home had a layover in Cleveland (if you know what I mean) and we switched planes. Some of us noticed Kevin's unattended bags by the gate as we boarded the plane shortly before noon. He was nowhere in sight but darn if we were going to miss our flight. Surely he'd show up soon. Well, he didn't. Apparently he'd gone off in search of a particularly elusive lunch. But we didn't know that, and the airport security didn't know that when they started wondering about the unclaimed guitar case and carryon left at the gate. Airport security paged for the guitar's owner on the plane, and as I vouched for Kevin's flakiness I was told that they'd been "about 2 minutes away from calling the police to come pick it up." Here's my rendition of what might have happened.

Hope you enjoyed my little sketches. Forgive the quality - I'm a singer, not an illustrator. Maybe one of the other guys will tell you about our weekend at The Great Minnesota Get-Together. Until then, carry on...

Karl

hello!

i just wanted to drop a quick line of thanks to all the folks we just met down in kansas at saint mary college. we had such a blast singing for you guys! your energy and spirit was so infectious, i couldn't help digging every moment of that show.

i hope you guys have a great start to your school year, hopefully we'll get to see you again somewhere down the road.

speaking of the road, i wanted to just let all our fans everywhere know that the van is now 230,000 miles old. it passed that milestone on our way home from indiana. naturally, we are nearly giddy that the van has made it thus far, and believe that it may even make it to our next gig! here's hoping!

in all seriousness, karl and i have been out shopping for a new van recently, and it looks like it's soon going to be time to make that plunge, because let's face it: it's better to get places than to not get places. you know what i'm saying?

so this is just to let you know that if you are a long time four shadow fan and you love that big blue beast as much as i do, please do come out and see us and say hi to the van, because who knows if you will ever see it again... i know i'm being all sentimental, but you get kinda attached to the thing when you live in it for so long.

peace

love, kevin

Goin' Out With A Bang!

This one was just too funny....I HAD to post it! After some good shows at the fair in Fairmont, MN, we headed out on an overnight drive to Indianapolis, IN for a two-day stint at the Indiana State Fair. The shows were mui fun, and we thank everyone that came out for thier support! During the drive down, we stopped late into the night for gas and snacks at a deserted station in Somewhere, U.S.A. (everywhere outside of Alaska looks pretty much the same to me. heh heh!). The race was on between Karl and Kevin for the one person men's bathroom in the joint, and Karl was the winner. Kevin, dancin' to the rhythm of the beat of his bladder, took a furtive glance around and then snuck into the vacant one-person women's room. As he emerged from that mysterious cave of wonders of the female gender, a raspy voice rang out from across the store: "HEY YOU! TURN OUT THE LIGHT IN THE LADIES ROOM, WILL YA?" The ever confused Kevin frowned and quickly flicked off the light, all the while mumbling that the light was on when he got there, etc. As Karl, Kevin, and I approached the counter to pony up for the gas and purchases, we noticed a strange little woman leaning on the newspaper rack next to the register, seemingly content to be quiet and ignored by the customers and lunchlady-ish cashier. Suddenly (and I DO mean suddenly) the odd woman cries out "Thirty Seconds!" Well, being the tactful people we attempt to be, the three of us said nothing and just regarded her warily. I admit, however, that I was curious to know whether she was thirty seconds into some sort of Guiness World Record ("Longest Time Spent Annoying A Gas Station Lunchlady"), or if something apocryphal was about to occur in the coming half minute. Could this be the second coming of Jesus? Perhaps the moment was about to arrive when aliens from another world (or perhaps the midwest) would make first contact with mankind? Perhaps....perhaps.....and then the great moment arrived. In a voice loud enough to make us need to visit the restroom again, she bellowed out "BANG!! I'M 50 YEARS OLD!". Apparently, she had chosen this gas station out of all the other potientials to celebrate her 50th year on terra firma. And out of all the gas stations in the world, we had to walk into hers. Heh heh. Well, being the tactful and respectful gentlemen we are, we handled it in the best way one could possibly expect us to handle something of that nature. We ran. Before we could embarrass ourselves, Karl and I quickly and casually exited the establishment and proceeded to laugh like rabid and confused hyenas all the way to the van. Needless to say, it was quite a mentally challenging gas stop. For all of us.

In other news, as Karl previously wrote, I am indeed leaving the group, and will be ending my engagement at the Doane College gig in Crete, Neraska on Sept. 7th. To all the fans and friends who have seen me and supported my singng and percussing with the group, I tip my hat to you. You've all made a transplanted Alaskan feel quite welcome in your neck of the woods. Amber and I will be doing the wedding thing soon, and you can keep up with me and us via email at jwmichael@yahoo.com, or on my homepage. In the words of Bob Hope, "Thanks For The Memories". Joe

Hello once again, diehard Four Shadow fans. Of course you've noticed by now that the website has been renovated. Hope you like it - comments are of course welcome. But we figured it was time to get the new logo and new promo info up into our virtual home. Enjoy.

Drew spent his 26th birthday on stage (as it should be) and was thrilled to learn that he shares his birthday with the legendary Isaac Hayes (of "Shaft" and "South Park" fame). Shows have been going well - we have had a great time cruising around Iowa and Minnesota the past few weeks and have met some cool folks. Later this month we head to both Indiana and Kansas for a little variety. Come see us soon - we've got some new songs and even some sweet new dance moves.

Joe's impending departure may come as a surprise to some of you, but he and Amber are excited about their future together (and the commute between Alaska and Minnesota is a bear) so we wish them the best. Joe will be spraying spit into the crowd as our vocal percussionist through the first week of September and then moving on. We're already getting some audition materials from interested folks to try and fill his shoes (which will of course be a challenge) so keep an eye on the website for more info as that develops.

One of the special additions to the site this week is the "Meet the Group" section - every few days this month I'll be posting personal info and idiosyncracies for each of us - Kevin's page is already up, the rest of us will follow soon. Get to know us each a little better than you ever imagined.

Anyhow, enjoy the new site. Keep checking back often for updates, 'cause I'm still working on it. Hope to see you real soon; thanks to all of you for your ongoing support.

Salutations once again to all of you out there visiting our corner of the web. Could the summer go any faster? I can't believe it's already the end of July. We here at Four Shadow have been plenty busy this month: we've added a few new songs to the show, started taping a new promotional video (Karl and I picked out an awesome video camera last week), and today we even went over a new song for the upcoming holiday album during rehearsal (Stacy's been arranging songs like a mad man!). So as you can see we've jumped right back into the rhythm of things after our vacation.

This next week looks like it will be great. We're heading down to the Dubuque Co. fair in Iowa for six, count 'em, six wonderful days of performances. We'll be doing three shows a day from Tuesday through Sunday, so if you're in the area come out and see us, we'd love it.

Thanks so much to all of you who check the website regularly, subscribe to the Four Shadow fan club, and send us encouraging e-mails and letters. Come out and see us real soon!

Drew

Greetings all you Four Shadow fans! Well, June is almost over and that means so is our vacation time. Time to hit the road once again, and what better way to do it than with another highly anticipated installment of NOTES FROM THE ROAD...ROAD...ROAD!

Karl vacated to South Dakota for a quick little getaway from the rigors of managing such a highly sought after group, Joe flew back to Alaska to see family, friends, and most likely some Eskimos...I don't know. Kevin flew to, get this, Ireland! He has some great stories and pictures to prove it. Ask him about it and I'm sure he'd be glad to tell you of his taudry exploits with the blarney stone or something. And I took a vacation with my entire family. The six of us hopped in a camper and drove accross the country and ended up in L.A. It was a blast. I blew a hundred bucks in Vegas and I got the worst sunburn of my life on Seal beach. The sun god was angry that day my friends...ouch!

But now it's time to get back to work. There's a lot going on for us right now: the new album has been released, we're already putting together ideas for the next one, it's fair season and we'll be doing a lot of shows from now through the end of summer, and...oh yeah, there's a new face amongst us, Stacy Carolan. He's great, and I'm sure you'll think as much of him as we do when you come to see us in concert.

Things only seem to be getting better and better as the year rolls on. I'm exited for the future of Four Shadow, this could prove to be a great year for us. We hope you'll come out and support us the way you always have in the past. We can't tell you enough how much it means to us.

The whirlwind that is our spring tour has just begun, and I am blown away at the beautiful spring we are having here out west. Even more mind blowing is the natural beauty that surrounds us here. Every drive is filled with miles of eye candy in the form of steep terrain, snow capped peaks... and then there's that oasis of hedonism in the middle of nowhere, Vegas, which we seem to keep passing. ;p

On Thursday of last week, we visited the Grand Canyon. Man is that place... big. Words are insufficient. We are so lucky that we had time to get out and shoot mad rolls of film (ask Andrew about his cool color slides and his f-stop choices sometime!) and otherwise marvel at the sheer... bigness of it all. I mean, where we come from, flat is the key word when considering landscapes. So that was truly amazing.

I want to give a huge shout out to all the wonderful people of Prescott and Green Valley who came out to see us. We had such a blast hanging out with you guys, we can't wait to come back! Your hospitality was amazing, and your energy was so infectious, we couldn't help but have a blast at all of our shows.

To the women in the show choir who sang for us: I will remember that rendition of "Somewhere Out There" for a long time. You made the most amazingly beautiful music. Seriously. I can still hear how well you all sound. It was inspirational. I'll be running off that high for a while now.

We'll try to write more as time allows. Now sleep calls. Take care!

The Old Guy Speaks

Happy New Year and all that jazz. We are back on the road now that it's 2000 and are looking forward to a very exciting year. Maybe it's all the hype about a new millenium, maybe it's my 10-year high school reunion (eek!) coming up this spring - who knows why, but I find myself looking back at the past several years as well as on toward the future.

For those of you who've been keeping track, I'm the only remaining founding member in Four Shadow. That means of course that I inspire greatness in my fellow singers and am constantly admired by them, evidenced by their tendencies to call me "Old Man" or to laugh when I throw my back out or fall asleep before midnight. At any rate, I am the old guy, the president, the geek, and the only one who's been here for all 6 years of Four Shadow...

The lineup has changed several times over the years - I've sung with over 10 guys in this group - and each time we improve. We have performed in 35 US states. There's no way to count the number of people we've performed for, great times we've had, and how many times we've driven I-90. (Maybe someday I'll post on the website my map that traces all the roads we've driven (if you ask nicely)). We have had the privilege to make a living (finally) at what we love to do, and we have shared songs and stories and nights on the town with wonderful people all across this beautiful country.

The coming year will be a big one, that's for sure. We've finished a 4-song demo and will have the whole album done soon - our first recording in three years, and by far our finest work yet. We will be adding a new vocal percussionist and going back to 5 guys again. We will be replacing Jon as he goes off with his new wife (sorry, girls) and back to take another stab at college. We have a wicked cool new sound system. January gets us to states #36 and 37. We already have a busy spring ahead of us, and the summer and fall are sure to be huge too.

Huge thanks from me and all the guys to you, our fans and friends. We wouldn't be able to do this without your support and enthusiasm. Whether you've been seeing Four Shadow for 6 years or just met us this month, you mean the world to us. See you on the road!

Karl