Rural Grit Happy Hour--What it started as...what it is today.

On August 23, 1998, the band Trouble In Mind was scheduled to play a Sunday night gig at the Grand Emporium. Three weeks before the gig, the other two scheduled bands cancelled and we were asked if we wanted to try and fill the night. What an exciting prospect...one whole night, designed by us, we couldn..t resist the lure. For a number of years, we had been putting on the legendary 15 hour Tick Festival out in the middle of nowhere, so we knew we could round up musicians and put on a show. In addition, we had also recorded the Tick Fest that summer and wanted to release the music. So, we moved into high gear, rounding up the musicians who had played at the Tick Fest, mastered a 90 minute cassette for release and advertised.

..Rural Grit Records invites you to the 49th Annual Santa Rosa Tick Fest Tape Release Party.. Featuring: Trouble In Mind, The Wilders, The Kemps, Sandoval, Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys and The Santa Rosa Stringband. The four hour show turned into a 5 1/2 hour show--there was constant music with main acts- acoustic and electric, in-between acts, to acts standing on chairs in the audience to battery powered amp wielding musicians mingling with the crowd. It was a huge success.

Roger Naber, owner of the GE, asked us if we would be interested doing such a show monthly. After discussion, we decided that we could do it every 4 months. The next show was scheduled for Sunday, January 1, 1999. It was crazy to take on the odds of having a successful show on the day after New Year..s Eve but we decided to try . We even ended up competing with a snow storm, but the musicians and audience still showed up to participate.

Not long after the success of the January 1st show, Roger, who had just returned from Austin where he had attended a variety of Happy Hour shows at clubs, like the Continental Club, contacted Kc, who had lived in Austin and was familiar with how the Happy Hour shows ran. They discussed Rural Grit putting on a weekly Happy Hour Show. We decided to do it--we..d have a weekly event at the GE, a reputable club; we would have a regular venue for our artists to perform; we could meet more musicians. After some discussion and sweet persuasion, Ike Sheldon (The Wilders and Trouble In Mind) agreed to host the weekly Happy Hour. ..Brother Ike..s Rural Grit Happy Hour at the Grand Emporium.. began on the first Monday of February in 1999.

..Brother Ike..s Rural Grit Happy Hour (RGHH) every Monday 6:00-8:00..--In the beginning, we featured local bands--artists that were part of Rural Grit or networked with Rural Grit artists. Attendance was sparse during the first several months--what in the hell did we think we..re doing? We realized that what we were offering was too much like every other show offered in Kansas City. We decided to make the Happy Hour more like our big shows--constant music of a wide variety with some element of the unorthodox each night. We wanted to create a situation where musicians and music lovers were the regulars.

Our mission statement (Rural Grit is dedicated to the promotion, performance, and preservation of roots music and strives to provide opportunities for like-minded individuals to further their artistic causes) provided the road map for the RGHH. We decided to keep the RGHH acoustic in nature and the focus on Roots Music. The stage plot designed was a single mic set up, a large single diaphragm microphone. This eliminated the need for the full-time sound engineer (Randy, Little John, Jenna, Conrad, Mark) to take music time away using multiple mic set ups. We noticed that with the single mic, artists were placed in a situation where they had to listen to each other with out monitors and they were able to quickly get on and off the stage. There was usually a bass mic and an extra 57 as a spot for quiet instruments, however, these were seldom used.

To create a music, party-like atmosphere and check out booking prospects, the ..Inbetweens.. were created to allow artists who were not featured that evening to participate. ..Duets & Trios.. night (every 3rd Monday) was an opportunity for beginners to interface with skilled amateurs to professional road-dogs and for all artists to test new material/instruments. ..Theme Nights.. (like Death, Disaster and Destruction or Trainwrecks and Catastrophes or Outlaws and the Women Who Loved Them) and .. VS.. nights (as in Hank Williams Sr. VS Robert Johnson or Johnny Cash VS Muddy Waters) were created to add variety and encourage learning new material. ..Electric Freakout.. (every 5th Monday) was a night for our musicians who also played electrically to rock out. Occasionally we had touring bands featured, which opened the need for opening acts, in response the ..Rural Grit All-Stars.. were created. This is a changing group of artists who frequent the RGHH and can be tailored to compliment the touring band. We also put on two 6 hour shows a year--The Winter Tick Fest and The Anniversary Show.

By the end of 2002, the consistent touring of The Wilders kept Ike and company at the Happy Hour less, but by that time, we had met another wave of crazy, musician types who sure did like getting together and exploring musical roots firsthand. All the time The Wilders were beginning to trek across the country, spreading Rural Grit recordings far and wide. At this time we changed the name officially to the Rural Grit Happy Hour.

At the beginning of 2003, the Rural Grit Happy Hour was still in full swing, providing musicians with a unique networking opportunity and the audience with variety each week. Roger extended our hours and the RGHH was the only gig offered on Monday nights. The RGHH had become a place where musicians connected and created new bands, where young bands came to spread their wings, and old timers came back to reconnect with the young. In addition, there was a core loyal following among musicians, patrons and staff. Amazing Grace was there each Mondays feedin' us soul food; it went well with the soul of the music. It was real, honest, it was music from the heart for the heart. We felt like we had actually done something good, something to be proud of and something that was continuing to grow.

In May of 2004 a series of unforeseen events took place: Roger had cut a deal to sell the Grand Emporium. The new owners planned to rip out everything, down to the studs--nothing would remain the same except the stage. We did not want the RGHH to end but where to go after 5 years and 3 months. Other happy hour shows had come and gone but the Rural Grit had outlasted them and now the venue itself!

Memorial Day- a day we usually take off-would be the last day the GE's doors would open and the RGHH would be the final event at the GE. We decided to put on a Big Show--Memorium at The Grand Emporium--everyone was coming together for the last show, flyers were posted, radio and print interviews. Everything was high energy, people were exited. Musicians and fans alike had begged, pleaded, demanded that the RGHH go on somewhere else. We thought , "o.k. but where?" Where indeed. Venues from across the city were courting us. We didn't want to make a decision in such a short period of time, so it was decided that we would "take a summer vacation" at Mike's Tavern playing theme shows and scout out a permanent venue.

The Saturday night before the last show at the GE was when the second of a series of unforeseen events took place. A F4 tornado cut a deadly path through Daviess County MO, home of the Santa Rosa Tick Festival and the magical Tick Ranch studio. Dale, Mary and cousin Jeff made it out alive, but some folks just down the road did not. As for the studio, (really an old farm house) the main record room was amazingly just fine but the roof above the engineer's room was ripped off and 7 inches of rain was dumped inside. It would rain 5 more inches that week and another funnel cloud would threaten two weeks later. However, 40 yards away an earth contact home was destroyed. Now not only we looking for a new venue, but we had less than 2 months to repair the studio and clean up the debris to get ready for Tick Fest. Ever cleaned up after a F4 tornado--it's one hell of a job! The final RGHH at the GE was a huge success--over 150 patrons and 50 musicians closed the GE in style.

At the end of our summer vacation at Mike's Tavern, we decided to move to The Brick. Have you ever walked into a place, talked with the owner and just knew that this was the place for you? So the RGHH continues on Monday nights from 6-9 p.m. at The Brick. We keep to the same format that we used in the past. There are featured bands/artists with "Inbetweens". Every third Monday of the month is Duets & Trios night. Every fifth Monday is the Electric Freakout. We still have theme nights or vs nights. We still use a single mic. We still encourage the networking between musicians.