Make the most out of TIPS at your SHOW!

Make the most out of tips at your show!
This week Lou aka Loudini and Kevin show you this no brainer, easy tactic for making the most out of your tip jar. You DO have a tip jar? Don’t cha???

Featured Loudini artists include Jared James Nichols, Sheepdogs and The Stone Foxes. Birthday shout outs to Steve Marriot (Humble Pie), Phil Collins (Genesis), and Marty Balin (Jefferson Airplane)

You can't teach the blues. It's not something that can be codified in music books or learned on YouTube. It goes much deeper than that and it comes from the inside. It's about the way the guitar strings are bent and the sound gets transmuted directly from a player's soul. It's simple at the end of the day. Either you've got it, or you don't. JARED JAMES NICHOLS has definitely got it. The Wisconsin-born, Los Angeles-based singer, writer and guitarist's new EP Old Glory & The Wild Revival channels blues grit and gusto through bombastic arena-size rock 'n' roll. It's raw, raucous and righteously real. As soon as he got his first guitar at 14-years-old, the stage immediately called to Jared. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he grew up minutes away from The Alpine Valley Resort—where Stevie Ray Vaughan performed his last show. However, no divine coincidence could truly foreshadow just how adept at the six-string he would eventually become. He personally traces the beginning of his story back to a blues jam that his mother brought him to. "Two weeks after I got an electric guitar, I was on stage with all of these old cats from Chicago playing the blues," he recalls with a smile. "The music immediately resonated with me. It was all about the feeling and the soul behind it. None of these guys were music nerds. They were true blues guys playing what they felt. That power and reality struck a chord in me." Soon, he found himself practicing for twelve hours every day. Hitting up the local jams, he ended up sharing the stage with legends including Buddy Guy, "Honeyboy" Edwards, and "Big Jim" Johnson as well as opening for Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Derek Trucks. By his 21st birthday, he had logged over 500 gigs. After a short stint at Berklee School of Music in Boston, he headed out to Los Angeles where he garnered numerous accolades at the world-renowned Musicians Institute, winning the 2010 Jerry Horton guitar contest, the 2011 Les Paul tribute contest, and the 2011 "Outstanding Guitarist" award. 2012 saw him release his debut EP, Live at the Viper Room, gaining the notice of both Guitar World and Guitar Player and inking a deal with Sony/MTV's Hype Music Publishing. However, everything simply laid the groundwork for Old Glory & The Wild Revival. Teaming up with Aerosmith engineer Warren Huart, Jared began working on the five-song set in early 2013. Honing his voice as a guitarist, songs like the first single "Let It Go" speak through a delta-style soul with the right amount of rock bravado. "That one is a blues rock song about love and give and take," he reveals. "It's got its own style and it opens the door to what I'm doing". Elsewhere on the EP, "Blackfoot" charges forward with a riff as sharp as a tomahawk and a whole lot of spirit punctuated by Jessica Childress of The Voice's backing harmonies. "In Wisconsin, I was surrounded by Indian reservations and culture," he continues. "I'd do casino and reservation tours as a kid. When I wrote the song, I was reading about all of these badass tribes. I love that spirit and vibe inherent in Native American culture. The Blackfoot were truly bad motherfuckers. That lick is what I feel their culture represented." On stage, it truly comes to life. Jared's presence becomes amplified with guitar in hand. Audiences have experienced that everywhere from his performances at NAMM and SXSW to the iconic Sturgis Buffalo Chip Festival where he will play alongside ZZ Top and Kid Rock and the Harley-Davidson 110th Anniversary in Milwaukee this summer. Ultimately, he lives up to that idea of Revival in the EP's title. "I want people to get excited," he concludes. "I want them to feel like anything is possible in this music. I want them to know great blues rock exists. If I can give someone the same inspiration I was blessed with, I've done something right."

Members: Ewan Currie - Guitar and Vocals, Ryan Gullen - Bass and Backing Vocals, Sam Corbett-Drums and Backing Vocals Shamus Currie - Backing vocals and keys

Genre: Good Ol' Fashioned Rock and Roll

Hometown: Saskatoon, SK

Members: Shannon Koehler Elliott Peltzman Vince Dewald Ben Andrews Brian Bakalian Spence Koehler

Genre: Rock, Blues

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

THE ROCK BAND FROM SAN FRANCISCO

The Stone Foxes are San Francisco's rock band.  They bear the torch of their predecessors with the knowledge that rock 'n roll can move a new generation. They’ve played in front of thousands at festivals like Outside Lands and Voodoo Fest, they’ve headlined the legendary Fillmore Theater in their hometown and they have supported acts like The Black Keys, Cage the Elephant and ZZ Top.  Now, with the release of their fourth album, Twelve Spells, they have solidified a place in their City's rich rock 'n roll history.   

Founded by brothers Shannon(vocals/drums/harp) and Spence Koehler(guitar/vocals), who came from the Sierra Nevada foothills near Tollhouse CA, The Stone Foxes started back in the Koehler’s SF State days in the Sunset District of San Francisco. Two weeks before they went on tour in 2011, they decided they needed a keyboard player and they added Elliott Peltzman from Fairfax CA to play for a couple months...but he never left. They needed another drummer who could also play bass and guitar for tour in 2013, so Shannon called his high school friend Brian "The Buffalo" Bakalian...he never left either.  Their old friend Vince Dewald came in to jam one day later on that year, and after the Indiana kid started singing, playing his lefty guitar, and his brother's right handed bass upside down, it was a done deal.  Finally in 2014, after convincing(basically begging) Vince's old bandmate to move back from his home town of Boston, Ben Andrews came out to play guitar and violin.  After their first practice with Ben, the circle was finally complete and they had beers at the Lone Star tavern on Harrison Street to celebrate their new found brotherhood.  

 The Stone Foxes are an experience to dive into, to get wild with, to sweat with.  "The Stone Foxes have an energetic style that's rooted in swampy, foot-stomping rock...ambitious arrangements with diverse moods ranging from acoustic twang to thunderous electric-guitar riffs." 

-NPR/WXPN "WORLD CAFE" Invoking the audience with their commanding stage presence, even jumping down into the crowd if the mood strikes. Their fans know they are in for something action packed and they light a fire in the band, just as the band spreads fire back into them. Guitarists digging in, lead vocals changing between two unique voices with impassioned nuance, and keyboard and organ sounds that fill the space with smoke and burning embers. There are crunchy drum tones, wailing harmonica draws and violin cries that can silence even the most raucous of rooms. But this is not a sit-down-and-watch kind of event. Like Elvis once said about rock n roll, “If you feel it, you can’t help but move to it.” The Stone Foxes' live show brandishes this kind of dynamic passion on stage.  It's impossible not to feel it. 

With the release of Twelve Spells, the band has chronicled their new beginning.   

"Garage rock gold...the sound of a band hitting their stride.” - PANDORA 

“Perfect back-to-basics rock” - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

The sounds they are creating are new with tinges of western darkness, punk, surf, and americana, but are strongly tied together by their everlasting rock 'n roll core.  Lyrics about gentrification, income inequality, romance, and heart surgeries pour out of their stream of consciousness.  It's a fresh rock 'n roll album that chronicles the years of their unification, taking on the issues of their lives and our times.     

"Driving this Weekend?  Listen to Twelve Spells by The Stone Foxes...Time will fucking fly." - DENIS LEARY

MEMBERS

Ben Andrews

Brian Bakalian

Vince Dewald

Shannon Koehler

Spence Koehler

Elliot Peltzman