Crazy bad dreams

So I had a dream about the band last night. Usually it's Tony that has these kind of dreams about us playing Hockey together or something. My dream goes in a whole new direction. The Dream starts off.........

Josh, Tony, Jeff and I(Ben) have just finished up practice for the day, when Josh turns to all of us and says, "Hey guys, you know what would be cool?" If we robbed a bank truck!" We all laugh because we think he's kidding, but no, Josh is very serious about this endever. So the next thing I know, the band I are unloading bundles of cash from this bank trunk into our trailer. We grab the last bundle, when two police officers walk up. At this point Tony turns to one of the officers and says, "Is it hand-cuff time?" Which the officer replys, "Yes Tony, it's hand-cuff time." So we are all hauled off to jail, where they put us in plastic see through jump suits(Don't ask). The guys and I are sitting in a cell waiting to see the judge. Jeff is takin out first. A few minutes later Jeff walks by the cell, that is still holding Me, Josh and Tony, and casually waves and says "I'm out of here", and leaves us. He just fricken left us!!!! Not a, hey I'll try and get you guys some help, noooo! Just a, see ya! Next to go was Tony and Josh at the same time. So I'm left alone in the cell. A little while longer and they came for me. An officer walks me into the court room, where everyone and their mothers are sitting, looking at me. I'm talking my Mom and Dad, Brothers, Cousins, Aunts and Uncles, Friends, my fricken Boss was there! The Judge looks down at me from his bench and says, "What were you guys thinking?" I reply, "I have no idea." The judge says back "Well don't do that again!" and lets me go! That's it! Don't do that again. So I start to leave the jail when something catches my eye. Tony and Josh sitting in a jail cell wearing orange jump suits with a number as a name tag. And all I say to them is,"I'm outta here!" And I woke up.
So that's my band dream. Hope you enjoyed it.

Benjamin

Lately...

Que tal, amigos?
Long time since a blogger message. There's a lot of new stuff that's been going on lately. We got to play at the Mall of America! We played 6 tunes during the Back to School Fashion Show. We played on a 9 foot tall stage while a bunch of high school kids modeled on a runway right below us.

Check this out.


Here's a shot of me catching air. Check, out my ups!


This Saturday, we're playing at Bunker's. We LOVE playing at Bunker's. The last time we played there, it was 100 degrees outside and the air conditioner was broken, but we still had a huge turnout. Thanks again to all you rad fans that stuck it out. I think everyone still had a great time. I know we did.

Bunker's is one of our favorite places to play. Some of our favorite bands play at Bunker's regularly. Here's a picture of the July's schedule...

We've enjoyed playing with most of these guys and gals. Some, quite a bit. Bunker's Music Bar is definetely the place for us. I can't wait to play this Saturday. Hope to see you all there!

-Shua

Pacelli Golf Day

We got the excellent opportunity to play the Pacelli Golf Day benefit in Austin, MN a few weeks ago. Tony and I both graduated from Pacelli, so it was a great change to get out and raise some money for the Shamrocks. We actually played some golf that day as well, if you want to call that golf. Of course, I had the best game that day (I had the most strokes).

Before the show, we decided to go "old school" in the todler play area back-stage at St. Edward's gym. Oh yeah, check us out.



Yeah... we take ourselves too seriously, don't we?

Peace,
Shua

Why Summit Avenue?

So, we have frequently been asked, "Why are you guys called Summit Avenue? Did you go to St. Thomas?" Let me just make the record clear, no one in the band has EVER gone to St. Thomas. As a matter of a fact, Tony, Jeff and I are all proud Johnnies (St. John's University for you 'out-of-staters'). Our buddies in Panoramic Blue are also proud Johnnie alums. Well, 75% of them. AND Kevin and Matt from Quietdrive graduated from St. John's. Wow, that's a lot of studs coming out of Collegeville, MN.

But, I'm clearly getting a bit off track, which NEVER happens to me. Back to the name... Jeff, Tony and I were in a previous band called Another Day. Another Day had a song called Summit Avenue about our runnings-in around our old rehersal space in St. Paul not too far from the famous road. When Ben joined the band, one of his suggestions was "Summit." We told him about our song and he was totallly down with the name "Summit Avenue". Thus, the legend began...

Since then, we've shortened the name to Summit Ave. Don't worry, we're not going to go all CCR, ELO, or OAR. Maybe NKOTB, though. You know what I'm saying!

Peace,
Shua

How far can you go on 3 gallons of gas?

When we initially created our new website, the entire band sat down and we had a heart to heart about journaling (is that a word?) on our website. We all agreed that we would keep the journal up to date and give all of you something to read on both our site and on our MySpace blog. Tony even agreed to learn the English language just so he could write a journal entry! Well, here we are, over two months removed from our last entry. So let me get you caught up on some stories and news.

Just recently, we finally have started to look like a real band. We are now driving around in a full sized red conversion van with a trailer hooked up to the back. No more minivans for us! And yes, this is our 4th or 5th van. We have started to lose count. And yes, this van and trailer is putting us into debt a bit, so when Josh asks you to buy him a drink at the bar...help a brother out! And say prayers that this new van and trailer getup isn't going to have to suffer under the same curse our other vans have.

Funny story to tell. We recently played at Rookies down in Rochester. Josh and myself were driving the van (our old minivan) down there and all of a sudden Josh says "I'm not able to accelerate." A certain four-letter word soon followed when he looked at the gas gauge and realized we were out of gas. Luckily, Tony was following us and was able to drive up to the next town and get us 3 gallons of gas. At the time, we were 26 miles away from Rookies. So we would need to get 8.66 miles per gallon to just barely make it there. No problem right? Josh urged us to get gas as the gas gauge plummeted just 4 miles from the venue. I insisted that we continue on and try to make it. Well...of course...we ran out of gas again...this time right at the top of our exit where we were able to see Rookies! Apparently, our minivan wasn't encouraged enough by Josh and I cheering it on the last quarter mile as the engine sputtered. We are now big supporters of filling up before our gas gauge gets dangerously low.

Lastly (since this is getting long), we wanted to thank all of you for your tremendous support over the last couple of months. We have had some amazing crowds at our shows and we just went through our first 1,000 CD's and had to order more to sell. We feel like our show just keeps getting better - we have three new originals we have added in the last two months and many new covers to keep things fresh. Keep spreading the word about Summit Ave to your friends, co-workers, MySpace friends, etc...and we'll keep talking you up like usual too!

And don't worry...that blog entry from Tony will be coming soon!