//May 13th, 2012

CHECK OUT THE SHOWS PAGE. We've put up our public shows through June. We've got great stuff coming up with visits to Player's Pub in Bloomington, Indiana, BB's and Blues City Deli in St. Louis, and the amazing Zoo Bar in Lincoln, Nebraska. We've got new places on the schedule like Lefty's Holler in Charleston, Illinois and Boone's Saloon in Springfield, and old favorites such as The Friendly Tavern in Danville, Illinois and The Iron Post here in Urbana. Come see us! And-- check back, there are going to be some additions to this schedule. Right now we are even being "embargoed" from mentioning we are playing a certain festival this summer until it is formally announced. Is that cool, or what?

WE'VE GOT LOTS OF SPECIAL EVENTS COMING UP. First off, if you live anywhere in Central Illinois, come out to the Willow Ridge Vineyard & Winery for their blues festival on Sunday May 27th. This year they've got our pal and mentor Nick Moss with his awesome Flip Tops. We go back for our third Chicago Blues Festival in June. And we've got another Chicago event on Sunday June 10th-- it is the Better Homes & Gardens Chill & Grill in Waveland Park (on the Lake-- about Wrigleyville). That festival will offer lots of interesting things to see and do and amazing things to eat. We are really pleased to be a part of the Easter Seals "Kick'n the Asphalt for Autism" run-walk in Decatur-- we are the entertainment part of the event at Central Park. And that reminds us, we've done a deal with Katz Martini Bar where we will do "after" shows for all three of the Blues in Central Park events in downtown Decatur this summer. This great community music event always goes off on the third Thursday of the month, and the first one is June 21st. You think we can get our friend John Nemeth, the star of the night, to join us at Katz?

NOTICE WE END JUNE in Colorado-- we are really looking forward to Boulder and Winter Park, and the great Blues From the Top event, supporting Blue Star Connection. Check out Blue Star Connection, and give some serious thought to supporting this cause. And from there we go to California, Oregon, Washington, Montana. We are privileged to play the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland on this trip.

ALL CHOKED UP. It has been a sentimental month. Can you imagine driving stealthily from Illinois to Rhode Island to play a surprise party? To be the surprise? We had a last minute twelfth anniversary party at Mike 'n' Molly's in Champaign. An even dozen. That'll get you thinking. And what a night at our Friends of the Blues Show in Kankakee. Transmission in the old church van died on the way there. Put a little extra adventure into the event. Put our problem solving skills to the test. But Dwight came through. And the show that night was one of those BLOW OUTS. Many thanks to Steve the Harp for sitting in that night and blowing some MEAN harp.

THE BEAT GOES ON. The new album FOUR is still getting radio play-- we really appreciate that. FOUR got an extremely complimentary review in the latest issue of prestigious LIVING BLUES magazine. Buy yourself a copy. The JUBILEE episode featuring Kilborn Alley continues to air on public television stations around the country. If your public television station isn't airing JUBILEE, ask for it. Did we mention, you can now create a Kilborn Alley radio station on Pandora? Customize your very own Kilborn Alley radio on-line!

AND AN APOLOGY to Deborah Mehlberg of Blues Man Records Events & Entertainment-- we have misrepresented on this site that the Ain't Nothin But the Blues Festival in Bloomington, Illinois we are playing in July is run by a local blues society, when it is Deb's baby. Come out for this wonderful festival, featuring Ana Popovic, Sam Lay, and other great artists July 20th and 21st.

THERE IS SOME MORE EARLY RECOGNITION and a few reviews for FOUR. J.D. Hathaway, who authored the liner notes on the album, whose reviews range over roots and rock, put FOUR in his top fifteen albums of the year on the collective music blog BLINDED BY SOUND on December 30th. Doc's Juke Joint, the weekly blues program from WGMC in Rochester, New York included FOUR in his best albums of 2011 on the wonderful January 1, 2012 year end review show. Early brief reviews appeared at MIDWEST RECORD on November 25th, at American Blues Scene on November 23rd, and at the Music City Blues Society from Nashville, Tennessee in December. We are pretty sure you can find all these things on the www, if you go looking there.

WE REMIND our friends in Champaign County that it is time to renew your membership in the Prairie Crossroads Blues Society, and that our friends in Macon should re-up with the Decatur Blues Society, our friends in McLean should join or rejoin the Blues Blowtorch Society, that our friends in Sangamon County need to be sure they are members of the Illinois Central Blues Club, our friends in Peoria and Tazewell counties need to get up to date with the River City Blues Society, and our pals in Kankakee County need to pester James Walker about how they can make a contribution to his amazing "Friends of the Blues."

WE HEAR a new Kilborn Alley application may soon be available for your smart phone, I Pad, and whatnot. Don't expect us to answer much about it; we tend to think technology stopped with the Fender Stratocaster.

WEFT-FM (and streaming on-line throughout planet Earth) has blues Monday through Friday from 11:30 to 2 Central Time (US). We are especially drawn to the Tuesday show, usually hosted by our pal Dave Wright, and with frequent guest fill-in, Mr. Andrew Duncanson. It is interesting, given basically a whole room of blues albums to pick from, to see what Andrew plays. Listen to WEFT, try to read the tea leaves of Andrew's inscrutable tastes.

THE FIRST WEDNESDAY of the month shows at D.R. Digger's have turned into quite the deal. We call 'em "juke" shows because-- well, have you ever seen Digger's?-- and because there is a lot of sittin' in and always some tasty pitch in eats.

HOPE YOU LOOK AROUND the site, now you are here. The Press page has been spiffed up and now takes you to a bunch of recent reviews, The Media page has downloadable photos, our album covers, song samples, and video links. We are contemplating adding even more. Jessie Gillan, librarian extraordinaire and jill of all honorable trades in Gotham City, makes this possible.

DON'T BE BASHFUL about following us on Twitter, friending us on Facebook, or on Myspace. Myspace is usually the first place we update new shows; it has remained an exceptionally good platform for a band to present itself, even though it has lagged in general use. We can't tell you what this means, but we have over 9,000 Myspace friends, over 102, 000 profile views, and over 58,000 song plays.

CHECK THE SHOWS PAGE, and just check back often to see what we're doing!

DID YOU KNOW, or maybe you knew and forgot, Kilborn Alley Blues Band has a distribution agreement with Burnside Distribution Corporation of Portland, Oregon? What this means is, when you are looking for the four Blue Bella releases, BETTER OFF NOW, TEAR CHICAGO DOWN, and PUT IT IN THE ALLEY have your local records store contact BDC about getting the cds.

. . . it is the music which changes the place from the rear room of a
saloon in back of the yards to a fairy place, a wonderland, a little
corner of the high mansions of the sky.
---Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)