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First (Second?) Friday
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Northville Eagles
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Free Beer News
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First Friday becomes second friday for 1Q16
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Free Beer Reports
Beer Mas at the New Way Bar
It's the most wonderful time to drink beer, even though it might have been the Candy Band's Last gig!
SATURDAY DECEMBER 12 2015 -- The 14th edition of BeerMas was a tad bittersweet as The Candy Band is calling it quits after this gig. But that did not stop everyone from partying with vigor! Our annual Christmas celebration started with Domino Effect. Then the Candy Band hit the stage and did their regular set. No gimicks or games. One last time, some kids music to soothe the adults. Next up was Paula's new band "Paula, Rob and Hippie Bob" who were full of surprises including a surf version of the Lions fight song "Gridiron Heroes" (Scott's Favorite Song!) Free Beer set up our gear and only had to wait for Jim Edelman to arrive from his family dinner, unfortunately scheduled for the same evening. The set kicked off with a Motor City feel including The Mutants and Iggy Pop. Then the party light turned on and the dance floor filled . There was a bit of a mishap at the start of The Grinch for our Holiday set, but we laughed it off, did the song correctly after our second start and finished off the evening playing whatever the crowd wanted including Brittany and Rocky Horror. Hopefully the Candy Band reunion tour starts on Beermas #15 next year.
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The Last First Friday of 2015 at Cowley's
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When black Friday comes to cowley's
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Free Beer and the "Have a Heart for Ernie" Benefit Raise over $4,000!
All Day Music Fest features Montrose Street Project and Paula Rob and Hippie Bob!
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14 2015 -- The Montrose Street Project has been one of Free Beer's friend bands since they asked to jump into our lineup at Beermas a few years back. One of their members, Ernie Balcueva has a rare heart disease that has taken the live of his 4 brothers and required he get a heart transplant. He needs our help and we are glad to lend a hand.
Saturday November 14th was our chance. Erniefest! at Norm's Field of Dreams. They had a silent auction, raffles and great music all day! There was a different band almost every hour. It was acoustic during the day and amplified during the evening. The PM session kicked off with the world premier of Paula Messner (Roommates, Motor Dolls, Verticle Pillows, Candy Band) and her new band "Paula, Rob and Hippie Bob". Next up was Free Beer (we brought our PA System too!) and we got a great reception from all of Ernie's Family and Friends. We even brought a few of our own friends. Last, as a special treat to Ernest Balcueva, his most recent band, the Montrose Street Project reformed with every MSP member ever, from the moment they first played a basement on Montrose Avenue. MSP included Veronica Gabriel, Steven Dubicki, Paul Tranchida, Amy Shaw King, and Jon Liu! And MSP also stole Scott Brown and Dewey from Free Beer and singer/guitarist Charlie Sunne, who did sets at ErnieFest Part 1 from 3-7 PM. All tolled, we helped raise almost $4,000 for Ernie's heart transplant medical bills. if you missed it and still want to donate, you can find adresses and the like on the "Have A Heart For Ernie" Facebook Page or Event Page. |
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First Friday of October at Cowley's
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FRIDAY OCTOBER 2 2015 -- Our First Friday installment was made great by Deedee Judy and her gang that usually show up at the Stay and Play Social Club gigs. Everyone got there between 9P and 9:30P (we were worried) including Keith, Mary Kay, Tom, Coco, Bob, Ilene and a bunch of our other friends joined by some new folks we have not seen before. Dance floor was full for the entire night and we even got Mary Kay and Audrey up to sing "I Will Survive". We are taking November's First Friday off so it will be almost 8 weeks before we return to Cowely's.
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Harvest Moon at HOWLEY's
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 18 2015 -- Well it kinda happened just like we thought it would. At 9PM there were two big reserved tables ... one for the "Guiness Cup Golf League", the other for a wedding rehearsal dinner ... and the rest of the place was our friend as we all waited for the Harvest Moon Festival down the street to dismiss the Beer Tent. Brand New Sock Monkey was instantly soiled when the Bride accidentally dipped his foot in her ketchup, then on her gown, then for this picture. There were some early Beer Tent patrons on site who hit the dance floor for set one. We started set two and that's when karma doubled down. Not only the did the Beer Tent close, a thunderstorm began and everyone ran into Cowley's. There was one "ugly" incident when a fan tried to steal the Sock Monkey, but Patty Brown fought her off and returned the Sock Monkey to it's rightful owner! See all the pictures here.
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Free Beer / Second Saturday at Cowley's
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12 2015 -- This is the weekend stuck between Labor Day and The Harvest Moon Festival. Free Beer got a jump on the partying! Michigan defeated Oregon St. earlier in the day, so Kurt was happy. All of us Sparty's in the band had to sweat it out as Oregon took on Michigan State starting at 8PM. Jeff is so much of a Sparty that he went to the game instead of filling in for hte prodical Dewey. Mike Wielgat jumped in for the last minute bass playing duties and learned our new songs during the week. We went on as the first half ended and set one took us through the middle of the 4th quarter, so we all sat and watched until the Sparty's won! Some fund things about the night? Word was out early that it was Dan's Birthday, so we spent most of the set celebrating that. Marcel brought his Mom to see Free Beer all the way from Singapore! Sean (Shawn?) got up and sat in on Drums for Tom during the second set.
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Free Beer at the Ford Arts Beats and Eats!
Picture this! We didn't!
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5 2015 -- Free Beer got booked on the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort ROCK STAGE. That's on Fifth Street between Woody's on the north and O'Tooles to the south in front of the train tracks. We were right smack dab in the middle of the festival, smack dab in the middle of the afternoon. Yes a train went by while we were playing. No, it was not during Johnny Cash! Also, the Rock Stage featured some other great acts like The Howlin' Diablos (Saturday) and the Reefermen (Monday). On Saturday afternoon, if you got there a bit early you enjoyed being warmed up by The Beatles (Dig a Pony) and followed by the J. Geils Band (Raputa)! There were lots of great moments on stage at Arts Beats and Eats for Free Beer. One of our favorites was when Scott pointed the mic at the crowd to kick off “Add It Up” with a count off, and the entire crowd responded in unison with “1-2-3-4”. But we have no visual record of our performance. It all happens so fast, getting on and off the stage, that we forgot to hand someone a camera. So if you happen to have a photo of the band, post it on our Facebook page and we will reward you with a Free Beer from Free Beer the next time we see you. Special Thanks to Laura Colavecchia for the “Straight Outta Royal Oak” picture. Wine for you. Sorry you missed Brittany and Rocky Horror! |
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GOT School'd on the First Friday of AugustFarmington School Of Rock opens for Free Beer on First Friday
FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 2015 -- Last May, we invited the Farmington School of Rock to come up on stage and do a quick 25 minute set before we went on stage. They brought a lot of friends and a lot of energy so when they asked us for another go at it, we said yes and the Cowley's were game too. The adults from the Farmington School Of Rock were supposed to hit the stage about 9PM, but their drummer was running late. Stefan almost had to sit in! But the guy showed and what he lacked in timeliness he made up for in rhythm. They ripped through a set of 10 songs, got off stage and we got started about 9:45PM. It was a great mid summer crowd, knowing that people can have fun outside and up north. The School Of Rock gang stuck around and filled the dance floor. Great night overall. |
Hey Rochester, Beer Me!
Free Beer back in Rochester for our Northern Fans!!
FRIDAY JUNE 12 2015 -- It’s been a while since we have appeared at the Rochester Mills Beer Company and it was good to be back in Tom’s neighborhood. During our set up we noticed a number of birthday parties and a rehearsal dinner for the Anger wedding party. We sympathized. Late start time of 10PM did not stop the crowd. Plenty of folks travelled a good long way to see us. The Anger party even stuck around for a few extra hours, including Johnny Anger, to whom we dedicated Folsom Prison Blues. We noticed that it was our 21st Anniversary of our first gig and Mike Cody’s birthday too! We’ll be back. Find all the photos here! |
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SUmmer Starts at Cowley'sFRIDAY JUNE 5 2015 -- While summer has not "officially" started, we treated it like a Summer Friday as a band. We introduced a bunch of new songs to the setlist, like "Into The Mystic", "The Letter" and gave a second go round to "Running Down A Dream", "The Boots are Made For Walkin'" and "Ring Of Fire". We also debuted our first Ladies T-Shirts, only to find out that they either were a size too small or Free Beer Ladies are really sexy!! We met Brian and Laura, and Brian got to jump up on stage to sing Black Key's "Lonely Boy" with us. Lots of new fans who seemed to like us even though Scott was a little off his memory game. Maybe he'll be great the next time they see us play. Lots of love on the dance floor from the Drama Mama's from RO though!!
Check out the "official photos" here!! |
MAY DAY! First Friday is the First of MayFRIDAY MAY 1 2015 -- May Day May Day! First Friday also happened to fall the same week as Jeff Brookmyer's first 39th Birthday and Jim Edelman's perpetual Birthday. Jeff has done such a great job of concealing any personal information about himself that we had never realized in all of these years that his birthday is the day after Jim's Birthday. So we've been whoopin' it up for Jimmy every year, and Jeff (like a bass player) has been standing in the background getting low. So we decided to make a big deal about Jeff's birthday this year. That included a cake, dancing girls, candles and the like. The cake was one of those special cakes that has your picture in it. It was a picture of Jeff and Jim. After singing Happy Birthday, Jeff skewered his likeness in cake with his index finger!
Musically, we had used the 6 weeks since St. Patrick's Day to learn some new tunes. This First Friday featured Firsts of "These Boots Are Made For Walking", "Running Down a Dream", "Livin' For The City", "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "Ring Of Fire". See all of the photos HERE! |
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11A-3P
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St. Patrick's Day!TUESDAY MARCH 17 2015 -- All the plans were made and now we just had to execute them. The Free Beer "forward team" came out Monday Night to Cowley's to set up our PA system and the Sean Riley Band followed soon after to get ready for their early gig on our stuff. Then off to a good night sleep so we could get ready for St. Patrick's Day. A Tuesday! First stop, McGuckin's
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5P-11P
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MCGUCKIN'S PUB -- We played first at McGuckin's in Taylor/Allen Park and Superball followed us. So Free Beer arrived early, but since we were using Superball's PA system, there wasn't a whole lot to do except wait around for the crowd to show up. McGuckin's as a small bar but they erect a tent 3 times the size of the bar to handle the expected crowds. So we pulled up a chair and waited. We had a camera so we took some pictures of us waiting. Eventually, a couple of those party busses of people in green showed up and provided us with an audience so we hopped on stage and got to it. Line up is our typical St. Patty's Day crew ... Free Beer with Jeff on bass, adding Jim Fiddle Flynn and Ron Jewell on vocals. We were doing the "4 Irish Songs / 8 Rock Songs" set switching out Kurt for Ron and Jim when we were playing the Irish songs. Maybe it was because it was Tuesday, but the crowd never reach capacity. There was a "short person" who was willing to get his picture taken with you and a guy that lost his balance and fell on his butt when he tried to tip his beer back to finish it off. See all of the photos HERE!
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COWLEY'S -- 3PM rolled around and we packed up our gear from the tent at McGuckin's and headed north to Cowley's in Farmington. Ahh, this is more like it. We got there and Shawn Riley had finished their set and were loading out. Nice and warm, lots of people still there but a little room to add some more. Most of our friends were already there and it took no time to set up since we did that already on Monday night. As soon as we kicked into the Irish set the dance floor was filled. Marcel had brought his fiddle. Jim was doing a set with his old band Superball so Marcel filled in. Even when Flynn came back, Marcel stayed so our ranks had grown to 8! The place really started to get full around 7PM. Then all bets were off. Full dance floor, crowded back, plenty of gals in green, beer and whiskey flowed. Suddenly we looked around and realized we were in the middle of our 5th set of music! We looked over to the bar and saw the Cowley's staff still ready to serve but clearly worn by the battle. They gave us the "cut" sign. Yep, time to play our last song. It was 11:30PM on a Tuesday night. The bar was still full, people were still on the dance floor. It was Tuesday night. We finally had to tell people to go home. Only on St. Patrick's Day. See all of the photos HERE!
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Free Beer First Friday / March!First Friday ... and Kurtmas x 50 too!
FRIDAY MARCH 6 2015 -- What a great Friday. The usual suspects and a large number of Scott's Friends who had never seen Free Beer were there. We had something to celebrate too, and we were going to make it a surprise. Kurt is finally getting old. He's been denying it for a while. He's turning 50 this year!! We all know when Kurt's birthday is, March 18th. The day after St. Patrick's Day. We thought it would get lost in all the craziness on March 17th, so we staged an impromptu birthday party without telling anyone until the last second. Then we passed out actual size likenesses of Kurt's head ... one angry, one happy, one silly and one normal ... 50 of them total (50 years old) to the members of the audience who mobbed the stage at the beginning of the set to sing Kurt "Happy Birthday" with Kurt's Face replacing theirs. Just another great First Friday at Cowley's. Think you had your picture taken with a Sock Monkey? Look here to find out! |
Free Beer First Friday / February!FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6 2015 -- This was a tough night for Kurt, only returning a few days earlier from his mom's funeral. That being said this was one of the best First Friday's ever!! Kurt kicked it off by dedicating the Beatles "You're Mother Should Know" to his mom. We celebrated birthday's from Jim Jim, Rich The Bitch and Janel "Seestror" Edelman. Later arrived Sheree Glynn from a night of dancing to celebrate her birthday. Jeff had to bolt right from his class at Wayne State University to play bass. He also brought most of the members of his class along with him including Han who doubletimed a version of Wonderwall both in speed and skill. He sang and played guitar! Bobby White from the Love Junkies joined us on stage to sing Some Kinda Wonderful. Great night. See you in March!
Of course there are plenty of photos with the Sock Monkey. Check'em out! |
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First Friday of 2015 at Cowley's!FRIDAY JANUARY 2 2015 -- You would figure that everyone is tired out after a good 15 days of straight up celebrating wouldn't you? Not the Free Beer Fans. Every year they never cease to amaze me. Everyone comes out the day after New Years and lights it up. Sure there are a few of us who swear off drinking for the month of January (Scott, we are looking directly at you) but even they have enough residual alcohol flowing in their veins to party like rock stars. It is a known fact that Free Beer tends to make more mistakes on stage when Scott is not drunk. Strange. It's not just Scott either! Stranger. You think it would be the other way around. Special thanks go out to all the folks celebrating birthdays incluuuding Teresa and Denise. Also thanks to Bobby White from the Love Junkies who just got back from the New Years Eve gig out in Port Huron who joined us on stage for a few songs. Want to see the photos? Click Here!
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THE FREE BEER BLOG
So much stuff started piling up on this page it was getting hard to load. So every six months, we will push it back to the blog ... which technically our home page is ... since it tells the story of Free Beer in pictures, text and links in a chronological order ... that's kinda what a Blog is. So we're owning up to it. If you have read this far, why not go for the long haul? Click here to head down memory lane!!
Random Free Beer Related Stuff
Free Beer on Under The Radar MichiganWhat a great episode of Under The Radar Michigan featuring Free Beer recording our video at Groove Box studios.
Here's a link to the episode on UTR Michigan that ran this morning Here's a link to the video we recorded of "Love Me Two Times". |
Nice Article By Gary Graff In the Oakland Press
We know good journalism when we read it ... Thanks to Gary Graff for digging up the dirt on Free Beer and putting it in the Oakland Press. Appreciate it!!
Finally, Someone Sets The Numbers Straight!!
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Free Beer?Some people will go through anything to get some Free Beer!!
How to Catch A Canadian
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Kurt does a Girly Shot!See what happens when Emily sticks something hard in Kurt's mouth, and then the end of it gets all creamy and white, so Kurt rears his head back and swallows all of it, wipes the residue off his chin, just to lean forward all satisfied.
Watch the video and see if we here at www.freebeernet.com have any part of this incorrect. Enjoy! |