//October 28th, 2008

THE AMAZING HONEYBOY EDWARDS! Thursday, October the 30th, Kilborn Alley Blues Band will once again join in concert with the extraordinary David "Honeyboy" Edwards, this time at the beautiful Orpheum Theatre in downtown Galesburg, Illinois. Of course, Honeyboy, there as Robert Johnson lay on his death bed in 1938, was on that very short list of blues players Alan Lomax recorded for the Library of Congress in 1942. His singing and playing takes listeners back to that day, but Honeyboy will join with Kilborn for a set during this show, and the crowd will get to see Honeyboy crankin' it up! Call the Orpheum for tickets.

THE BLUES BLAST MUSIC AWARDS will be held in Chicago at Buddy Guy's on Sunday, November the 2nd. Kilborn Alley has been nominated for "Best Blues Band," and will play the event and back up several of the other nominees. This is going to be a huge evening of blues talent at Legends. Confirmed to perform are Magic Slim and the Tear Drops, Nick Moss and Gerry Hundt, John Nemeth, Teeny Tucker, Eden Brent, Dave Riley and Bob Corritore, Gina Sicilia, Too Slim and the Tail Draggers, and Sugar Ray Norcia. Expect surprises! Tickets are $25 at www.IllinoisBlues.com and that site also links to an offer on a bargain hotel room for that weekend.

KILBORN ALLEY HITS THE ROAD in the next few months to Pittsburgh, Louisville, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and even London! Keep an eye on our schedule here and on Myspace. KABB has made a heck of a bunch of friends in Eastern Ohio, Western West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania in the last two years; so, it is going to be a great pleasure to play the Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania's annual holiday party, which will be held on Saturday, November 15th at the Rhythm House Cafe in Bridgeville, PA. The opening act will be Felix & the Hurricanes, then there will be dinner, and Kilborn will go on about 10. This is going to be a great night.

FINALLY, THE SLIPPERY NOODLE! Friends and family have been after the band for years to get into the Slippery Noodle, one of the USA's genuinely great blues bars, in downtown Indianapolis. The day has arrived. KABB takes on the Noodle for two shows, Friday, December 12th and Saturday, December 13th. Make the pilgrimage to Indy, to worship blues at this shrine.

FRIENDS OF THE BLUES in Kankakee, a remarkable not-quite-formal blues society, will be featuring Kilborn Alley at one of their special week night shows in December. The band hasn't been to Kankakee for a while, and is really looking forward to connecting with friends. This event will be on Tuesday, December the 9th at the Elks Club at Aroma Park. "Aroma Park"? Don't think about it too hard.

THE STUFF THE COOL KIDS DO. Thinking back over these last few months, Kilborn Alley has sat on sacred blues ground eating crawdad at Rosedale, Mississippi; turned the sultry Iowa night into blues fusion at the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest afterjams; stood in the dust in White River Junction, Vermont grinning at James Montgomery doing his thing; melted into a puddle on the Omaha Blues Cruise; basked in the crowds at Cincinnati and Wheeling; set off the dancing throng of college kids at Beloit; and joined in the ecstasy of reunion at York, Maine. If they have also sat by the roadside waiting for a tow, it is to keep coming right at you.

WON OUR THIRD STRAIGHT C-U MUSIC AWARD Thursday, April 3rd, there was a big show at The High Dive in Champaign, where they gave out the Fourth Annual Champaign-Urbana Music Awards. Everybody's got to be from somewhere, and we are from this amazing "Big Ten" university town, home of the main campus of the University of Illinois. Certain things get done world class in our home town, and there is not a lot of wild applause for mediocrity around here. So, youth culture mecca that it is, we've got a thriving, and sometimes wonderful and even important music scene. The "important" part of the equation is fragile, but you get the idea. These awards are sponsored by radio WPGU-FM and Buzz-- which is the arts & entertainment weekly of the Daily Illini. So we won best Jazz/Blues band in 2006 and again in 2007, but it all seemed a little off because almost all the other nominees were jazz groups. This year the category was just "Blues," and the nominees were our good friends, the guys who lent us many a hand in starting out, in some ways our respected "elders" (notice we put that in quotes so nobody can say we said they are old) and admired good examples-- Candy Foster and the Shades of Blue Band, Bruiser Rumenie's band The Impalas, the Delta Kings, and Billy Galt's Blues Deacons. Now this is a popularity contest worth being in! So, we were pleased to win, and would the nominators please stop nominating us!

HOUSE OF BLUES RADIO HOUR. So we are tough guys, not affected at all by empty stuff like celebrity. Hollywood. Yawn. So, why were we so tickled to hear ourselves discussed, our song played, the same song made into the theme of a hilarious extro narrated by none other than Elwood Blues over yet another of our songs, on the "House of Blues Radio Hour"? What a trip!

RUNNERS-UP to KOKO TAYLOR! Thanks to your generous support, Kilborn
Alley's Tear Chicago Down was the runner-up to Koko Taylor's Old School
in the Bluescritic.com reader's ballot for "Best Contemporary Blues
Album" of 2007. This is a tremendous honor, and we appreciate your
votes.

GO TO YOU TUBE (TM), search for Kilborn Alley, and see what comes up. Here is what we think you will find: an amazing mini-documentary that ran repeatedly beginning in 2006 as a part of WILL-TV's "Prairie Fire" series. Built around footage shot at the Shades of Blue music festival on 8 July 2005, and subsequent interviews, this is a treat. Next, you will find some live performances taped at The Iron Post in Urbana, Illinois on 11 January 2008. You'll see some smokin' hot play there.

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 two Blue Bella releases, TEAR CHICAGO DOWN and PUT IT IN THE ALLEY, have your local records store contact BDC about getting the cds.

DON'T FORGET, while this site changes slowly, the Kilborn Alley Blues Band Myspace page changes almost daily, at least in some small way-- and additions to the performance schedule get posted there fastest. Check it out at: myspace.com/thekilbornalleybluesband

. . . 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)