This weekend’s shows at Bogey’s in Clearfield, Utah and Club Allure in Sandy, Utah were a great welcome back to my home state.
Bogey’s is a large Vegas-style club with a big stage. The staff and guests were grateful to have me out on a Thursday and were impressed with my blend of comedy, story-telling, and rock-n-roll - some of the staff felt like I was “the best band they’d ever had out.” I had a great time partying with the locals up there and am looking forward to coming back next year sometime. Highlights of the show included improv songs “Dead Baby Pie” and “Malleable Penile Implants” thanks to some creative, funny, and very unique audience suggestions - ha, ha. It was a great night!!
The Club Allure show on Saturday was for a packed house, with 100 - 200 people in the crown room at the club in Sandy at any given time. People were dancing, singing, and genuinely enjoying the show on all sides of the stage. One pretty lady flashed me and then climbed on-stage and put a $20 bill in my underpants, which is always appreciated on several levels. Audience influenced improv songs included “Ken’s Sexy A**” (about my business manager’s best asset) and “The Pull0ut Method.” Another epic night, and we’re only half way through the Utah leg of the tour.
I’m really looking forward to my next 4 shows here before heading back to Hollywood. Utah is where I really came into my own as an artist and found a home in the local music scene, so it will always feel like home to me when I hit the stage here.
Kevin Burdick Live at Bogey’s in Clearfield, Utah performing “Never Let Go” from the album, We are the Walking Wounded (available on iTunes):
Kevin Burdick Live at Club Allure in Sandy, Utah performing an improv song “Ken’s Sexy A**” (warning, PG-13 language):
I’ll be back in Salt Lake City from 11.5 to 11.17, after spending much of the last two months in Hollywood. Come out and spend some quality time with me at one or more of these 6 shows. RSVP, so that I can be looking for you ;>) ** For free tickets to the Club Allure and Liquid Joe’s show’s please call: 801.604.5816
11.06.08 Bogey’s - Clearfield, UT
11.08.08 Club Allure** - Sandy, UT
11.10.08 5 Monkeys - Salt Lake City, UT
11.12.08 Woodshed Bar & Grill - Salt Lake City, UT
11.14.08 Liquid Joes** - Salt Lake City, UT
11.15.08 Lucky 13 Bar & Grill - Salt Lake City, UT
This last weeks shoot for the “Wake Me Alive” music video was a full and wild day of shooting. The crew showed up on-the-set at Stevens-Henager College in Salt Lake City, Utah at 7 AM last Friday and began getting the set ready for the hospital scene in the video (you’ll note I’m in a coma in some of the photos). The rest of us stumbled in about 8 AM and started getting our costumes, hair, and make-up straightened out. I can only image what the students at the college were thinking as they saw a sweaty shirtless tattooed man running around the halls followed by a video crew (I’ll leave the reasons behind those scenes to your imagination). By midnight, we had created the building blocks of a masterpiece (or so I’m told).
Big thanks to Kannika Coley who plays my ‘love interest’ in the video - she did a great job and we had great on-camera chemistry - Jaime Fletcher for filling in as the nurse on the video, Cynthia Dean for her hair and make-up work, and the entire crew at Super Heumann Productions for their super-human efforts. The video should be released on-line in mid-October and we will be posting more details as we get closer to it’s release. The single “Wake Me Alive” is currently available on iTunes.
I have to admit that I was overwhelmed with all of the kind well-wishes, calls, texts, and e-mails I received from fans and friends across the world with my recent sabbatical. Really, I’m doing fine. I’ve just taken a break and pretty much done nothing - slept, ate, went to the beach, watched TV, and enjoyed life in a house again. No, I’m not in rehab and no, I don’t have a drug problem. Yes, I probably still drink too frequently, but I’m working on it.
I really want to take a minute to thank Overtone Media’s President Christian Ashton for providing this Hollywood Sanctuary for me to rest and recharge. It’s nice to have a place to call home again. We’ve made some new friends here in L.A. and Christian has taken Ken under his wing and begun working with him directly as my business manager. I understand that they had a great meeting today to help plan out the next phases for my career.
Below are a list of upcoming shows here in Southern California. I really look forward to seeing any of my local friends and fans out at one or more of the upcoming shows down here:
9.05.08 The Cat Club - West Hollywood, CA
9.09.08 O’Briens - Santa Monica, CA
9.11.08 TRiP (formerly Nocturnal) - Santa Monica, CA
If you couldn’t make The Filling Station show this last weekend, you did miss a high-energy, inspired performance from ‘yours truly.’ Luckily, one of my oldest friends and one of the top photographers in the country happened to be in the house, so you get to see the show through his eyes. Enjoy!
When Jedi of Opalhill Drive called me about doing a couple shows out in Magna, Utah at The Filling Station I was a little skeptical. Magna is a mining town and The Filling Station is known as a biker bar. After some discussion and a pretty good sales pitch, I thought, “What the hell.” And so, two months later there I stood at the aforementioned biker bar in the middle of mining town Utah, USA.
The crowd on Friday was very stand-offish. I had one lady yelling at me all night to do her random list of cover tunes and when I obliged to do one “Kevin Burdick Style” she was more pissed off that it didn’t sound like the original. You asked me for “Shook Me All Night Long” and I play the piano. What did you expect? Oh, AND I’M NOT A COVER BAND!!
Luckily, the Saturday night crowd was way more into the show, showing their appreciation with both applause and some dancing. I was so grateful to see some familiar faces had made the 20 minute trek out to support their own favorite local piano man. Saturday was also a little more challenging when my usual drummer, Chris Hancock, called in sick. Luckily, guitarist Chris Doucet (who happens to be one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever met) filled in on the drums with no practice and virtually nailed all of the songs.
Highlights of the two-days included doing several improv songs with Jedi (lead singer of Opalhill Drive), who was able to think quickly on his feet and create some of the funniest freestyle lyrics I’ve heard. He was an absolute blast and the Opalhill Drive guys were a lot of fun to play with. I just really enjoyed them and was grateful to have made some new friends.
Big thanks to Jared and Rex Platt for stopping by the show and photographing, Ken Gray for handling the business side, V and E for handling merch sales, Chris/Chris/Brad for rocking the stage with me, and Opalhill Drive for being incredible hosts and just all around great guys to party with.
Live acoustic performance of “Tiny Dancer” at The Filling Station:
The Club Allure show in Sandy, Utah this last weekend was dubbed my “angriest show to date. ” After touring on-and-off since last October, I believe that the wear and tear of the road is finally beginning to show. Strangely enough, most people said it was one of my best and most intense shows they’d ever seen me put on.
Touring this much has been extremely gratifying. It’s always been a dream of mine. But it has taken it’s toll on my personal life - I’ve lost friendships that I failed to properly care for on the road, sacrificed chances at a normal relationship with a woman, and have felt betrayed by a number of people I considered family. I guess when you’re “out of site” you are technically “out of mind” for some people. Of course, my true friends try to make me feel better by saying thinks like, “they weren’t you’re real friends anyway.” Of course, this is probably true, but it doesn’t make the sting of loss and betrayal any easier to deal with. So this week I’ve been mourning the loss of some very important relationships and have been licking my wounds.
Fortunately, I’m always able to take my pain and situations that affect me into my songwriting. In spite of just releasing an album, I already have two new songs completed that have been inspired by these feelings of love and loss that I have been experiencing lately. I feel blessed to be able to have some clarity in these difficult moments with which I can write beautiful music. I actually performed one of these new songs, “Am I So Disposable?” at the Club Allure show to very rave reviews.
A big thanks to Keith Hubbard for stepping in on short notice with the bass guitar and also “The Rob” (who played drums on many of the tracks on the new CD) for filling in on the drums. Thanks also to Chris Doucet for his magnificent guitar work, even with one injured hand. Also thanks to Scoop Einer for promoting the show, Ken Gray for his management and support, and the myriad of fans who showed up to rock with me.
Note: All of the tracks from “We Are The Walking Wounded” are now available on iTunes. If you haven’t heard the album, do a search for me on iTunes and see what you think. It’s quite an achievement and the people who have picked up the album already say that they are in love with it.
I read an article about a baby that was born (yesterday) on 08.08.08 at 8:08 AM who weight 8.8 LBS (this is true). What’s crazy is we also gave birth to our own 8 pound baby late last night as we rocked Liquid Joe’s and delivered the new CD “We are The Walking Wounded” to a packed house!! It was a huge celebration and if you missed the show, you missed history in the making. I have been getting texts and messages all morning from friends and fans who picked up the CD at the show about ‘what an epic achievement it is’ - I may be biased, but I do think it’s my best work so far.
The show began last night with some new twists. I busted out my grand piano (a huge pain to set up), and instead of the drums in the back of the stage on the riser, we decided to put the piano up top. I also added a smoke machine and at the beginning of my set, during Cigarette Girl, it appeared as if my piano was on-fire as smoke began pouring out of it.
The highlights of the night included an improv song about my tender relationship with a donkey, a funny birthday song, a quick performance of the hidden track on the new CD, Chuck Thompson (the cellist who plays on several tracks on the CD) came up and played a couple songs with me on his cello, and really just having the opportunity to play for several hundred people at a packed Liquid Joe’s.
Big thanks to Brad Verrier (Bass), Chris Doucet (Guitars), Chris Hancock (Drums), Chuck Thompson (Cello), Ken Gray (My awesome business manager), Scoop (Promoter), Joel Pack (My Producer), Brittney (Our sexy merch girl), the Liquid Joe’s staff, The Better Life Band (for kicking off the show at short notice), and the many more people that supported this show and came out to rock with me.
Don’t forget, you only have until midnight tomorrow to order the new CD at the discounted $8.99 rate until it goes up to $12.99 Monday morning. Big thanks to the many people who have already ordered it. You should be receiving your signed copies later this week: http://www.kevinburdick.com/buy.html
Performance of the track, “Goodnight Darling, Goodnight” off the new album:
The 8 AM soundcheck at today’s Wharf to Wharf show would not have felt so early if I hadn’t stayed up until 4 AM last night celebrating my birthday with friends, but so goes the life of a rockstar.
Let’s start with last night. Ken and I had a couple friends come up from Los Angeles to hang with us - George, a great guy who just happens to be homosexual and Mexican (both of which I’m supportive of) and Vero who happens to be hot, straight, and attached to nearly all of Ken’s man parts. So it wasn’t surprising that my birthday night turned into a 1-on-1 celebration with George while Ken had his own 1-on-1 thing going on. George and I ended up at a few bars on Castro Street in San Francisco (which is apparently a predominantly gay area of the city) and before I knew it, I was the meat in a giant homosexual danceclub sandwich. Luckily I am very comfortable with who I am, and so I just rolled with it as I had 6 gay men dancing around me, grinding against me, and making me their sex object. Ladies I now know how you feel. Needless to say it was my own “Night at the Roxbury” moment. What I learned is that I am a sex object, not just to women, but also to some dudes apparently, and that is flattering. Let it be known that Kevin is cool with men and women and their individual sexual preferences. However, let it also ring forth across the land that Kevin Burdick is totally straight and is only attracted sexually to the ladies and the boobies.
So, after my birthday celebration we pulled into the area of the Wharf to Wharf Festival in Santa Cruz and slept at about 4:00 AM this morning. Big thanks to Ken Gray for driving while I attempted to sleep. We got up around 7:50 AM and quickly started setting up. To give you an idea, the Wharf to Wharf Festival centers around a 12ish mile race that wraps around Santa Cruz from the boardwalk across the city. There are a number of bands that entertain the runners and the townspeople throughout the city-wide festival. We got to introduce the music of Kevin Burdick to 15,000+ people today and it was a lot of fun.
The highlights were some of the improv songs we did, and also playing with Max and Dave here in San Fran, which is always a highlight in itself. One improv song in particular that makes me chuckle was “It’s not too late to win” which I sang to the people in the very back of the race about not giving up. I reminded them that, although they were in “14,235th place” it wasn’t too late for them to win it all - especially if we could figure out how to teleport them to the finish line using techniques I’d learned on Star Trek. Funny stuff - I really don’t know where it comes from, even at 8 AM.
Pulling up to The Cantankerous Fish I expected to see a small bar mixed with a Long John Silvers and a Joe’s Crab Shack; instead what I got was a sexy high-end restaurant with some of the most delicious food I’d ever eaten. The bar/restaurant pulled out the all star treatment for us, letting us park the tour bus directly out in front, giving us free drinks, and expensive meals for pennies on the dollar. It was a lot of fun.
The crowd at the show was incredibly gracious and we sold a ton of merchandise. We watched people finish their meals and stay for an hour or so after just to hear more music - I was very appreciative. Non-customers stopped on the street and huddled in groups to hear more. Over the evening we probably played to 200 - 250 people. I have to admit that people in Northern California really appreciate their artists (and I really appreciate the people of Northern California). My experience with the shows up here have been some of the best performances to date.
Big thanks to Max on drums and Dave on bass (two of the coolest cats ever and I’m proud to be playing with them), Ken Gray my ever faithful tour and business manager, the staff at the Cantankerous Fish, Jennifer for having booked the show, and Dusty the inflatable punching clown for haunting my dreams as I sleep (you start to get a little cabin fever living in a tour bus for a month).
This weekend’s shows at Bogey’s in Clearfield, Utah and Club Allure in Sandy, Utah were a great welcome back to my home state. 
The Club Allure show on Saturday was for a packed house, with 100 - 200 people in the crown room at the club in Sandy at any given time. People were dancing, singing, and genuinely enjoying the show on all sides of the stage. One pretty lady flashed me and then climbed on-stage and put a $20 bill in my underpants, which is always appreciated on several levels. Audience influenced improv songs included “Ken’s Sexy A**” (about my business manager’s best asset) and “The Pull0ut Method.” Another epic night, and we’re only half way through the Utah leg of the tour.
I’m really looking forward to my next 4 shows here before heading back to Hollywood. Utah is where I really came into my own as an artist and found a home in the local music scene, so it will always feel like home to me when I hit the stage here.
