Rick Doogie Blog - Nov 2011

Nov 11 & 12 - Rick & Krys at Odd Side Ales, Grand Haven - Rick & Krys return to their favorite Grand Haven venue. As Krystal always likes to say, this place is a perfect match for our Rick & Krys show. People who like adventurous brews are usually adventurous in their musical tastes. And that's where we come in. At Odd Side Ales, we hear our favorite compliment over and over, "we love your music, you play so many different styles and genres". That's our goal. We want to do classic rock, blues, folk, alternative rock, ballads, country, and we want to be "genuine". Rick often states his goal; "if the person who wrote the song came into the bar and heard our performance of his song, I would want to make that songwriter proud of the way we do his song." Enthusiasm and fun are the keys. Music is all about Emotion, so we don't put any restraint on our emotion while performing.
Friday's crowd was small but very intense. Our enthusiasm was answered with equal enthusiasm from the brew-loving group at Odd Side Ales. Saturday was a packed house, and we again had a rowdy good time.
Did I mention, "we love this place". I'm so glad that Chris the owner is having a successful career as a microbrewer. Like our acoustic music show, Chris does his best to give people the premium brews that they want, along with a good dose of adventurism. Thanks for taking a chance and following your heart, Chris. You provide a great alternative to the meat-market Bud-Lite venues scattered along the LakeShore. Keep up the great work!

^{We send out an occasional newsletter for Rick & Krys, and their rock band Tricks.
Keep up to date on some interesting parties and shows.}

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Rick Doogie Blog - Oct 2011

Oct 28 - Rick & Krys at New Holland Brewing Co, Holland - Rick & Krys returned for our 4th appearance at New Holland. What a classy place. They have "pursuit of excellence" written all over them. We feel honored to be part of the tradition of excellence that brings top-notch food, awesome brews, and an eclectic selection of great live music to downtown Holland. Everyone loves New Holland.
On this fun Friday night, we managed to bring in a bunch of gals from Allegan to celebrate Judith's birthday. We spent a few festive hours drinking and dancing. See the photos for living proof. We also were glad to see a table-full of our Tricks fans from Hudsonville area. And, Rick got a handful of old Trendway friends to stop in for the TGIF party. "You work hard all week, now you deserve to play hard." That's our battle cry. We tried our best to mix up the Rick & Krys tunes so that we provide a mix of drinking music, dance music, and relaxing music. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who traveled a bit to see us. We know it's hard to line up that designated driver, but you gotta do it, just to be safe. Thanks so much to the Allegan party people for making a special trip over to Holland for us. Thanks to the Hudsonville / Grandville people for coming all the way over to drink and dance with us. We really appreciate it, and it's not that fun when we don't have the dancers. You know it's true. Thanks to the Doogie pals who showed up, especially Nanette for making it a family affair. Same with Larry & Matt. And Rodney & Maribel. I miss my Trendway buddies.
Ricks and Krys want to express our deep appreciation to the hard-working, friendly, and good-looking New Holland staff. We know it's not easy being the "best place in town". It takes hard work and brains. Thanks so much to Erica for looking after us. Thank you to Cory for helping us set up and tear down, and for running sound. Thanks to the bartenders and waitresses for all your kindness and service. Thanks to Lyndey for booking us and trusting us. And lastly, thanks to my good friend Shaun for hooking us up with Lyndey. It's a huge network of social interaction. We each do our part to make the fun times happen.

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Rick Doogie Blog - Sep 2011

Sep 30 - Rick & Krys at Vander Mill, Spring Lake - Rick and Krys debut performance at The VanderMill Cider Mill and Winery.
And boy was it cold. It rained for the past few days before this gig, and we were pretty sure that it wasn't going to happen. There is no room indoors to play, so this gig is "weather-dependent" as they say. The rainy weather cleared just in time for our 6 o'clock start time. The sun even came out, and there was a nice rainbow, but it was still pretty windy, and about 50 degrees. That puts the wind-chill in the mid 40's. Nevertheless, the place was hopping. Families come with their little kids to play outside on the hay bales and ride on the Apple Train and climb on the playground equipment. There was also a bit of a bar-like atmosphere as young adults hung around chatting, listening to our music, and sipping hard cider or apple wine. It was much busier indoors, but there were always plenty of people standing around outdoors and cheering us on. They wouldn't let us stop at 9 when we were supposed to be finished. We played until about 20 after. And it was getting colder and colder, but people wanted to see how much my cold fingers could take. Krys and I never took a break for the whole 3 hours plus, because we were having too much fun.
Owner Paul Vander Heide really has it all going on. They just started to feature home-made sandwiches and other food. They have a bakery, regular ciders, hard ciders, ice cream. They also have all kinds of great gift items on their shelves.
You really need to come over to Spring Lake and check this place out. We really hit it off with the staff and patrons. Paul said we could call any Sunday or Saturday afternoon for the rest of autumn, and he said we could come and play a few hours if the weather is nice enough. This is a great time of year for the VanderMill. Everyone is into cider, sandwiches, pumkins, and apple wine. This is their time of year - Harvest Time!
Thanks so much to Paul and his great staff. Thanks to our friends and fans who came over to Spring Lake to hear us. Nice place, eh? If we get a chance, we'll be back there this fall, especially if we get a good stretch of Indian Summer weather. We love this place, and it's not just because Paul gave us a big bottle of hard cider and a half-gallon of regular cider on top of our pay. That is good stuff. Fresh is best!
See the pics for the fun -

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Rick Doogie Blog - Aug 2011

Aug 26 & 27 - Rick & Krys at Odd Side Ales, Grand Haven - Rick and Krys had a double-header in downtown Grand Haven, Friday and Saturday nights. That town is full of people during the summer, especially on weekends, especially when the weather is nice. We had all that going for us this weekend. We could barely find a place to park downtown. Lots of people coming and going, groups of friends doing the bar-hop walk around town. And when they get tired of the meat-market places, they come over to Odd Side Ales, where the brews are the finest in town. And we try to match that with quality acoustic tunes. By the crowd reaction, I guess we're doing an okay job. Saturday night we had record $$ in the tip jar. Gas money, baby! We had lots of people asking for business cards so they could check out our schedule. We like this place and don't care about playing anywhere else in Grand Haven, although there are lots of venues with live music. We prefer Odd Side Ales because this is the place where people come looking for some extra special quality in their home-brews. So, it's not the normal "Bud Lite" crowd. It's a more adventurous and art-loving crowd. We like to match that adventurous attitude with our musical show. We'd like to thank our new friends from Odd Side Ales. Thanks for coming out to see us. We love having an attentive audience. No matter what quantity, the important thing is Quality. Thanks so much to Chris the owner for having us. See you again soon.
Check out the good-looking people from Saturday night.

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Aug 20 - Rick & Krys at Porch Party for Tom White, Allegan - Rick and Krys donated a free "Rick & Krys Show" for the Kandi Gibson benefit auction held last fall at Eagle Creek golf course. Tom White out-bid Pete Bortz after some furious bidding action. With his Rick & Krys show, he decided to have a party to celebrate his 50th birthday. So, this was a freebie gig for us. But, a very fun time with mostly people we know from the Allegan area. We had about 20 people sitting around the pool and the deck, drinking and eating and jamming with our acouctic tunes. Very casual atmosphere, and a beautiful sunset on an otherwise rainy day. The rain let up long enough for us to play from about 8:30 until midnight. There was even a little bit of dancing on the deck, even though it was a bit cramped quarters. We did our best to kill off the pony-keg of Bud Lite. Great time, and a nice close gig, only about 8 miles from our house. I wish we could do parties like this all year round, but we are in Michigan, after all. It started slightly sprinkling around 11:30, so we did a couple more songs and called it quits for the night. Thanks to Tom for buying the Tricks show at the benefit auction. We had a great time. Happy Birthday, and many more. Thanks to the friends who came out to Tom's for the party. Good times in Allegan.

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Aug 13 - Rick & Krys at Housewarming Party for Shawn & Tiffany Andrus, Alamo - Rick & Krys played for an intimate party in Shawn & Tiffany's garage, at their new house. It was rainy all afternoon, so Tiffany said a lot of people thought the party was cancelled. Anyway, we had 20 people or so - enough to have a fun party. Shawn grilled up some homemade hotdogs and sweetcorn, and Tiffany had some other good party treats to eat, like cupcakes and s'mores. And there seemed to be plenty of wine, beer, and sangria to go around. Everyone really liked the Rick & Krys tunes, and it was great being a part of this intimate garthering of friends and family. We just set up in the garage to avoid the rain, and we were right in front of the fridge, for easy access to cold drinks. To highlight the home-warming party, we also had a birthday for Shawn's dad Dan, so we sang our Beatles song. And Ryan & Bethany were celebrating their 2nd anniversary, Rick sang "Something That We Do" in their honor (that would be the photo with the couple kissing). We made friends with some of Tiffany & Shawn's friends, and we got promises that we'll be seeing these folks at an upcoming Tricks gig, either at the Casino or Wayland Hotel.

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Aug 6 - Phelpstock - Annual Campfire party at Tommy & Tara Phelps, Irons - Tommy says "best ever". I'm not sure about that, but I know it was the "first ever" Rick, Krys, & Ozzy Show. That made it very special and very fun. This was our annual little party in honor of Tommy's birthday. Without interruption, we've had a Tommy b-day party every year for at least eight years now. At first, we had the annual party at Tommy & Tara's backyard pool in South Haven. But, about five years ago, the Phelps bought a small cabin and a big chunk of land near Irons . Ever since then, we've been having the party up north, backwoods style. There's never a huge mob of people, usually just a couple dozen friends, family, and friends of friends. It's casual. No dress code. BYO, or not. There's plenty of drinks and food getting passed around. Tommy stays pretty busy dishing out the shots, and Tara keeps up with the food situation. There's plenty of paths to go exploring on during the day, and usually there is a group that goes on a canoe excursion in the afternoon. We cater to all ages here in the woods of Irons, whether you want to kick back around the fire or go off and get lost in the wild woods.
This year might have been the best ever as far as music, because we had Ozzy playing bass with us, which allowed us to do lots of songs that we never tried before with acoustic guitar. We even did acoustic Pink Floyd "Money" - though I'm glad we weren't recording. But, it was a big hit with the drinkers and party people around the campfire. We once again had Rick's pals Linda & Kim from Trendway past and their group from "the other side" or Irons. Rick & Krys played for their party in the woods last month . Those are the dancing people in the pictures. They need to get up and boogie when they hear a good tune. Drinking and dancing go together for those people. Others were content to kick back around the fire with their drink and listen to Rick, Krys, & Ozzy going at it. We dug deep into the Tricks catalog of songs, coming up with a few experimental numbers. Very fun time. We played from about 8pm until past 1am. Tommy's son Aaron showed up with a bunch of his 20-something pals. And Aaron did a good job playing Djembe drum with a bunch our songs in the adventurous last set.
I'd tell you more, but what happens in backwoords of Irons stays in the backwoods of Irons.
Thanks to Rick for chopping lots of wood, thanks to everyone who brought food and drinks to pass. Thanks to Ozzy for coming up with Nick & John. Thanks Aaron for the good percussion work, Thanks to Tara & Tommy for the hospitality.

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Fall & Winter 2011 Schedule

^September

^{• Sep 9 & 10 - TRICKS, Wayland Hotel Fri | Sat
• Sep 16 & 17 - TRICKS, Wayland Hotel Fri | Sat
• Sep 23 & 24 - TRICKS, Wayland Hotel Fri | Sat}

^{• Sep 30 - Rick & Krys, Spring Lake - Fri
Vander Mill Cider Mill & Winery}

^October

^{• Oct 9 - Rick solo at Hilliards- 4pm to 7}

^{• Oct 14 & 15 - TRICKS, Hilliards - Fri | Sat
• Oct 21 & 22 - TRICKS, Hilliards - Fri | Sat}

^{• Oct 23 - Rick solo at Hilliards- 4pm to 7}

^{• Oct 28 - Rick & Krys, 10pm to 1am
New Holland Brewery}

^{• Oct 30 - 1pm to 4pm - Sunday Family Funday
Rick & Krys at Spring Lake
Vander Mill Cider Mill & Winery}

^November

^{• Nov 5 - Doors 6pm - Dorr American Legion
Annual Harvest Fest, Dinner / Dance / Party}

^{• Nov 6 - Rick solo at Hilliards- 4pm to 7}

^{• Nov 11 & 12 - Rick & Krys, Grand Haven
9pm to 12, Odd Side Ales}

^{• Nov 18 & 19 - TRICKS, Wayland Hotel}

^{• Nov 20 - Rick solo at Hilliards- 4pm to 7}

^{• Nov 23 - TURKEY EVE Wayland Hotel
• Nov 25 & 26 - TRICKS, Wayland Hotel}

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