I apologize to the friends that have been reading my blog all this time. I want to keep it up to date but it always seems to be last on my list.

I have been swamped since i stoped touring with Smokin Joe Kubek. I miss the road life but i am clear it was time for me to be home for a while. I have been pushing my local band, Road Dog's pretty hard. We are sounding great and have a bunch of gigs lined up. I want to invite you to come see us.

I wanted to let my friends know that my time drumming with Smokin Joe Kubek Band has come to an end.

A year and a half ago i was given this opportunity through a few miraculous events. I dropped what i was doing and hit the road. My time was well spent. I am a much better drummer/person.

We found a great drummer to take my place. Her name is Ms Morgan and she lives in Dallas. wwwmyspace.com/txdrummergirl I wish her and the band all the best.

I will miss the road and all the great music. i will miss the band and all the great fans. It was the greatest year and a half in my life. I hope i get the chance to make music with them again some day. Thanks to all the fans that made me feel welcome along the way. Fell free to keep in touch.

I am excited about spending more time at home with my beloved Ruby. I am diligently working at my construction company as we struggle in the harsh economy. I am working hard with my local band "Road Dogs". we have 9 gigs booked in the coming months and i am working on keeping us hopping.

I learned a ton in my time with SJK. Most importantly I truly learned a lot about myself.

Thanks to everyone that helped me live a dream. This was a privilege that i was so freely given.

Peace.

Dave K

www.davekdrums.com

This club is right on the water in the downtown area. The only bummer was a large flight of stairs down to it. We get pretty tired on the road and carrying our gear up and down stairs is a huge BUMMER. Right next to the club is Pikes Place Market, the birthplace of Starbuck's coffee of which we are huge fans. We got loaded in early and went back to the hotel to relax a while. I had taken a long walk for exercise that morning so i was especially sore. We showed up and launched around 9:00 i think. Parking a van and trailer in a downtown area is no walk in the park either. Our show went well. There were SJK fans that can from as far as 2 hours away. I met Antoinette (celebrated her birthday with us) who said she would come the next gig in Tacoma...and did. Thank so much. We came 2000 but that another story. The show was fun except for some sound system struggles. People were dancing right away and dug what we did. We are book back there on August, 24th 2008. We took the elevator on the way out since we could park on the street at 2:30 AM.....

Fun gig and i believe the food was good but i can't remember what we had.

Before the gig we visited the Wormoth Guitar factory just outside of Tacoma. www.warmoth.com/ It is a very cool family owned business with some amazing guitars for sale.

We visited the Jimi Hendrix grave site today before we loaded in. It was moving to visit there.
I am puzzled why the guitar is facing the wrong way.

This was a cool little gig but on by the Rainy Day Blues Society. Good sound ,good crowd and good food... Off to Seattle with a stop at Guitar Center Portland... Snare drum needs help and Joe is getting a few thinks.

This is Johna and his mom. We had a great chat about music. He plays guitar and is doing a report for school on the blues. He told me he likes all genres of music. He really dug our show. i love seeing young people at our shows. They are our hope for the future of the blues. Yeah!

This gig was put on by the Central Valley Blues Society I believe. If not they were there in force. I spoke with Steve who I had met on the Blues Cruse in October 06. This was a fun gig but the sound was a little hard for us to hear. We made the best of it and had fun. The place was packed, peole danced all night and we had some pretty good Pizza.

Our Green room was in this very cool old house adjacent to the stage on the campus grounds.

Joe, Bnois and Paul on the Video Ranch stage with its green screen.

Wow what a day. This afternoon we played in front of 7000 people at San Jose State and then we drove to Sand City near Monterey to play in front of 4 people in the studio. The show was broadcast worldwide on the net and on 5 stations owned by KPIG from Redding to San Luis Obisbo and all the way to Reno. This will take some explaining. Mike Nesmith has been a pioneer in music, movies and video since leaving the late 60's mega group and TV show "The Monkee's". Mike is working on a new technology he invented and is using it on his new site http://www.videoranch.com/. Video Ranch broadcasts concerts live from their studio. Patrons can log on and see the concert in Mike's new 3D type image and hear it in higher than CD quality. Here's where it gets interesting. When you log on you can choose an animated body for yourself and place yourself in the audience. What you see on your monitor is the live musicians and yourself and other concert goers along with a "Virtual Venue". You can manipulate your animated body around the venue and what you see changes as you move around. You can also make your body dance and carry on. In front of the stage where we played is a drop down projection screen where we could see the "audience" moving and dancing around. While you watch there is a live chat taking place which we can see on the bottom of the screen. It takes a few minutes to adjust to playing to this audience on the screen. Mike was behind the camera egging us on the whole time.We took 2 breaks for the radio to ID themselves and run some commercials. While we did the host asked us questions typed in from the audience. Interactive indeed. There where SJK fans from, among other places, Czech Republic, UK, Asia and all over the USA. My sister Janet was logged on and I could see her dancing around right up front, just like she does at Los Lobos shows. At the end of our show many in the audience turned into Pink Flamigo's which we were told is the Video Ranch equivalent of a standing ovation.

This was a very cool experience to be involved in. In the future (now) you will be able to see your favorite bands, live, without leaving your home. If you have a big TV and a great sound system hooked to your TV you will have something very special. This will never take the place of a real "Live" show but if SJK is not playing in The Czech Republic this week it is a great next best for fans living there. They also have a local band and run old classic movies. Check them out with their free trial period. See the wide range of artists they will be performing there soon.

The view of the stage from the control panel.

After the show we had a chance to chat with Mike. This guy has a million cool story's. He was there and lived the dream playing sold out stadiums and hanging with the stars. Mike, his wife Veronica and their staff treated us very nicely including stuffing us full of great food and insisting we take some cookies along with us. Very nice people.

Check out their site and tell them Dave K from SJK Band sent ya!
www.videoranch.com

My step son Chad G and my daughter Dalen in the house.
My international buddy Alan D and his girlfriend Kim came from Colorado to see us play. We met on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise and have stayed in touch for years.

It was great to be back at Cozy's. I was very excited cause i was going to see my wife and kids for the first time in 4 weeks. I have traveled 9,600 miles in 4 weeks and it was great to see them. My sister Janet came up from San Diego and spent a day with our friends from Woodland Hills, then Janet 1, Ralph, Janet2, and their kids Lucas and Daniel came to see us also. They all look great and i got to meet Lucas girlfriend who's name escapes me. I felt like the show went well. There is no substitute for "Road Chops". Every night seems to get better and better. We all drove back to San Diego in Alan's rented van and i go into MY OWN BED at 4:15AM. I woke up with my wife by my side....YES!

Fred L and Bnois King
My daughter Dalen and her friend Angel. Dalen is so excited every time she sees us play. I love that about her.

Our head of security, Scottie. He co-wrote 2 of the songs on Blood Brothers
My set list, pocket watch and my picture of Ruby. Her picture gets displayed on every gig.

Well we drove from Dallas to Las Vegas in 2 long days. We had a water pump go out on the morning of day 2. We limped to Bills Radiator in Gallup NM. Nice guys and they managed to get us back on the road by 6:30 PM. I drove us to Las Vegas over the Hoover Dam and arrived at 2:00AM. I slept good. The next day we loaded in to the Casino and had a great dinner in the Buffet. Joe's friend Scottie and his mom Terry met us at the club (they live there) and helped us out a bunch. I have never played in Las Vegas and it was exciting for me. The stage was big and well equipped with great sound guys to help. The room was large and filled up fast. Bolder Station has a national blues act every Thursday night for free. I had a great time and met some cool people. I feel funny sometimes when i meet people that have been following the band for years and tell me about the other drummers. I feel lie a newcomer (i am). We went to Burger King inside the casino after the show and had lots of laughs. I did loose $15 in the casino... Surprise, huh? The next morning i enjoyed the comped buffet again and we hit the road for LA.

I got to San Antonio in time for a little rest. Our show was the next night. It felt great to sleep, sleep, sleep. Our show was at the same Venue we played at for the NA convention. This show had back line so set up was a breeze. The rest of the band drove down from Dallas. The show went well except for when I started the wrong song. Oh my God I was mortified. The Blues Society treated us well and the folks dug what we did. We got done at 8:00 PM and drove back to Dallas that night.