At the end of the year in 2006, things were pretty upbeat for The Adventure Seekers. On the strength of our little homegrown record and essentially one live show, we were invited to play Midpoint, the biggest music fest for unsigned bands in the Midwest.

Then we got a couple of big surprises. We were nominated for a Cincinnati Entertainment Award in the prestigious Best New Band category and played a set at The Brink showcase. We didn't win. The richly deserving Buffalo Killers took home the hardware, but it was an unbelievable honor to be there. THEN the record was picked as one of the best local releases of the year by CityBeat. Riding high.

Things cooled off in the first half of '07. You see, we were all playing in a band called Wojo that had a pretty good year too. We just stood in different spots on the stage when we played as The Adventure Seekers. It started out as a made up band, and to be honest, Wojo was our main thing. We could have combined the two, I suppose, but there really wasn't room in Wojo for two primary songwriters. 

In July the Wojo bandleader left…umm…abruptly. And cancelled all the gigs we had. He assumed - I'm speculating a little here – that we wouldn't or couldn't play without him. It is true; we only had about 6 viable songs for live performance. But as Jerry Hedge might say, Come on.

We were able to rescue some of the shows we had booked and stubbornly decided to play them. The first shows were a little ragged. We were missing a big part of our sound. But the big thing was the ENERGY. We were having fun on the band stand. Matt, Aaron, Luke and me were putting the roll back in rock and roll.

We got invited to play shows with some of our favorite bands and favorite people in the world – Messerly and Ewing, The Screaming Mimes, The Newbees, The Beau Band, Lonely The Seabird, John Whitaker. We adapted our songs for acoustic sets with Matt Shelton, Clark Wheeler, Lines and Spaces, For Algernon. (If you're not living around here check these people out. If you are, get out and see them. They are all absolutely brilliant.) We ended the year with the distinct honor of playing with The Newbees to celebrate the release of their amazing CD, Amsterdam. Yes, the place was jammed and the vibe was like heaven. My kind of heaven anyway.

Then a wonderful thing started to happen. Our very own Luke Alquizola started writing great, thoughtful, rocking songs for the band to play. Everybody is contributing to the arrangements in a way they never have before. We've been road testing them in our live sets. We've started to sound-treat the rehearsal space to get ready to make a proper band recording. (Thanks Becky. Thanks guys). That's our story. We're looking forward to '08. Hope you are too.