TricksBlog - July 2011

July 4 - Dorr's Annual Independence Day Festival

^{Steve comments:
The Dorr 4th of July Celebration is back!
This year’s festival makes it easy to forget last year and the cancelled festivities due to 142nd avenue construction. This town loves a party and turned out big for the parade, carnival, fireworks, food, and fun times.
Much appreciation to all the hard working volunteers who made it happen, especially Melodie Niemczyk, Mark & Elise DeYoung, Bob Wagner, Marcia Halloran, Connie Holbrook, and many more.
Speaking of volunteers, Mr. Jim Maynard who is a civic leader with the Lions Club, The DBA, and much more won the hot air balloon ride. Congratulations Jim!
Thanks to everyone for your support of Dorr Recreation Youth Ball Teams, especially all who bought a Brat at the Park. Dick’s wrote a check for $550 to Dorr Rec. Assoc.
|Denny |Fred}
Tricks returned to their home-town stompin' grounds in Dorr, Michigan. Dorr's 4th of July celebration is legendary for many reasons. First of all, they have a huge parade in the morning, that is out of all proportion to the size of the little town. After the parade finishes up around noon, everyone heads on down to the park for some festival food, most famously the Ox Roast Sandwiches. This year's new addition to the scrumptious hot food selections was Dick's Market award-winning Bratwurst Cook-out. (Dick's Market Website). There are kiddie rides and games, and fun events at the stage, like this year's Zumba demonstration, dance performances of all ages from Dorr Dance Academy, Cultural dance demonstration from Gun Lake Tribal members in full regalia and accompanied by Traditional singing and drums, followed by a "beautiful baby" contest, and then Karaoke from "Karaoke, Al's Way".
By late afternoon, the crowd in the park thins out as everyone goes back home for a nap, a dip in the pool, and a change of clothes. By about 7pm, the park starts getting lively again. That's when Tricks took the stage. We played right up to the start of fireworks, cutting short our version of Ted Nugent's "Free For All". A big highlight this year was the balloon launch. There was a raffle drawing for a balloon ride. Just before Tricks started, they drew the winning ticket, and the winner, Jim Maynard immediately grabbed a friend and jumped in the hot-air balloon, and took off to parts unknown. That was quite a sight, and an adventure for the lucky winner Jim.
Thanks to the Dorr Recreation Association for hiring Tricks for another fun concert in the park. Thanks to all the sponsoring businesses and individual volunteers who bust their hump so everyone else can have fun. Thanks to all of our Tricks helpers, friends, and fans for helping us put on a rowdy show in the park. Special thanks to Roger for video work and for loaning us his extra big speakers to give us some help with that "outdoor" sound. Thanks to our good friends Denny and Fred for bringing their fancy SLR cameras to give us a photo journal commemoration of the day.
There are lots more details, and lots more people to thank. But I'm going to wait and see if Steve can give us some words. After all, besides being co-owner of Dick's Market, head of Dick's Sausage Shop and Smokehouse, an officer in the Dorr American Legion, Steve is the newly-elected president of the Dorr Business Owners Association. He might have a few words, if he can find the time in between jobs.
For now, check out some of these pictures from the Big Fun Day in Dorr.
^{|Denny |Fred}

^{Check out some video from this big Independence Day Festival Tricks Concert. Fun!}

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TricksBlog - June 2011

June 24 & 25 - Hotel Bar & Grill - Wayland

Tricks had a fun final weekend of three-in-a-row at Mary Kay's Hotel bar. On Friday, we had our pal Jane celebrating her birthday. Small crowd, but we had fun with Jane and a few other rowdy people hanging out. On Saturday we celebrated with our friend Donna for her birthday. And Casey stopped in with a busload for friends who were out celebrating Casey's 21st birthday. There's was a bit more action on Saturday, mostly thanks to the Wayland Street Art Fair going on all afternoon. Rick & Krys sang a set to open the entertainment at one o'clock in the afternoon. Thanks to everyone for stopping in and making the Hotel your party place. Best wishes to Donna, Jane, and Casey for your birthdays.
We expected our 35 Year Tricks Anniversary t-shirts to be done this weekend, but Roger had some problems with the printers. They gave Roger a sample shirt, and it wasn't the quality shirts that we ordered. So, we're holding out for Roger to meet with the owner of the printing business, so we get it done right. We don't want to be selling cheap crappy shirts to everyone. Hopefully, we'll have shirts by the 4th of July in Dorr. That will be a good place to sell shirts. Tricks is playing in the park on the 4th, right before the fireworks.
Thanks to Mary Kay and the Hotel staff for being the "hostesses with the mostest". Sorry about the thin crowds, but June is grad month and wedding month, and it's hard to compete with all the backyard party action. Tricks has a few odd summer gigs, and then we're back at the Hotel in September.

^Fri|Sat

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June 17 & 18 - Hotel Bar & Grill - Wayland

Tricks had very intimate nights on both Friday and Saturday. That is, no huge crowds to write home about. But, we still had fun on both nights. We had a big table-full of bachelorette pary-girls who hung out all night long on Friday. Katie is the bride-to-be, and those girls wanted to dance, dance, dance, ... all night long. We always like those dancing girls.
On Saturday we had a super-special visitor from Middleville. Dave BASSBEAST, Debbie and a handful of good friends came out to keep us company at the Hotel. We had our own little private party. Very few other souls wandered into the bar, thanks to the great weather and all the grad parties. All the way to the bar, we saw houses with parties going on in the back yard. But, thanks to the Bassbeast appearance, we had a great time Saturday night. Especially since Krys was celebrating her never-ending birthday, which was actually on Thursday, but Krys always has to have at least 5 birthday parties to satisfy her party-girl attitude. Krys got presents, candy, balloons, and cards on both Friday and Saturday nights at the Hotel. Debbie and Dave gave her a really cool home-made lawn ornament thing that I've got to get a picture of here. You know how Krys likes her artwork and crafty stuff, especially for her garden and lawn. We had the funnest time hanging and banging with Dave & Debbie. I don't know why we didn't make Dave get up and play one. Hmmm. I didn't think of it until the very end of the night. There's always next time, I guess.
Thanks so much to May Kay for having us. Thanks to Roger for help taking pictures. I think Debbie took pictures, so maybe she'll send me some of hers. Thanks to Katie and friends for partying with Tricks for your bachelorette celebration. Thanks to the Hotel staff for being so cool; we know that the small crowds don't fill your tip jar very well. Next week should be better, with the Wayland Street Fair happening on Saturday. Roger says the t-shirts are getting printed as we speak, maybe by next weekend we'll have the Tricks 35th anniversary t-shirts for sale.
^Fri|Sat

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June 10 & 11 - Hotel Bar & Grill - Wayland

Tricks is back in action after 6 weekends off. We amazed ourselves by how much we didn't screw up. After learning those 66 songs back in February, we had 7 weekends to get nice and tight. We were all very proud of our hard work. After playing at the Hotel, the Sidetrack, the Corner Lounge, and the Casino, we really felt like we were making some progress toward getting these songs into a "finalized" state. But then, ... we had 6 weekends with no Tricks. The hole in our schedule was mostly due to trying to hold some weekends open for new venues. Then we didn't work hard enough to track down new venues, and we were left with this big hole in late spring.
But now, we're back at it. Ozzy & Rick did a couple rehearsals to get the notes and chords back together. We had a meeting at Steve's last Sunday, and we watched some Tricks video from one of our early gigs with Ozzy. All very instructional. Rick has a new "all-in-one" multi-effects pedal to replace his big pedal board, so there was a lot to get broken in.
All in all, we had a great Friday and Saturday. The crowds were decent both nights. Lots of friends came out to see us trying to regain our memory of songs gone by. A few birthday parties on both nights were very helpful to the party scene. A good time was had by all. The band was reasonably tight every now and then, so there may still be hope for us.
Thanks so much to everyone who came out this weekend; friends, family, fans - you know who you are - love ya, man. Thanks to the Wayland Hotel staff and especially to Mary Kay for keeping the rock bands going in Wayland. Thanks to Roger. Speaking of Roger, we are in the process of getting new Tricks t-shirts made to celebrate our 35 Year Anniversary. That's 1976 to 2011. You heard me; Thirty-Five Years of rocking SouthWest Michigan. If you need a Tricks history lesson, you can start back at the beginning, here. The new t-shirts are going to be either green & white, or maize & blue. We'll see which ones sell out first. Stay tuned.
^Fri|Sat

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June 11 - <sup>Steve's Kielbasa Cook-Out with entertainment by Rick & Krys

Steve Says: King Kielbasa did it again!
We served 800 grilled Kielbasa's at the Cookout in just a few hours.
Many folks came back up for another one because they were so good.
 
"Brat Season" is in full swing and it shows at the busy Sausage Shop counter.
Customers are coming from all over to buy Dick's Bratwurst.
To many folks, Kielbasa is just another wonderful Brat variety, which is fine.
To me, Kielbasa will always be the king.
Kielbasa fun -</sup>

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^{to Early 2011
To Late 2011}

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