NEWS

July 23, 2007 - Debut at The Brew Kettle -&- Austintown Lube 1 Year Anniversary

I had the pleasure of performing my debut gig at "The Brew Kettle" in Strongsville, OH this past weekend…a very unique and hip place. This micro-brewery has a full service bistro style restaurant and, of course, it's own selection of brew. They also have an arrangement that allows customers to come and use their facilities to brew up their own beer recipes. They supply all the materials including the kettles, fermenting storage space, and cool storage so the customer can come and tap in to his own brew at his leisure.

Although it's a long and narrow room, there is a supplement in-house sound system and a very kind gent named Anthony who is there specifically to keep the sound in-check and evenly dispersed the sound to different parts of the room. I had a great response from the crowd all evening and an enthusiastic invite back to the place next month by the owner / operator, Chris McKin...he and his wife Pam were most accommodating.

I actually use to live no more than two or three blocks from this place (or…where it now stands) many a year ago when I lived in Strongsville while playing with the band Love Affair. It was good to have one of my very best friends that I made at that time at the Brew Kettle gig. Mike Zullo is like a brother to me. I also had the pleasure of having my brother in law Jeff Aho come down from Loraine, bringing along a crew of people that he works with at Key Bank in Cleveland. Thanks bro and thanks to all those who came out and enjoyed.

Saturday evening was an early gig at Quaker Steak & Lube in Austintown. It was that location's one year anniversary party and I was honored to be one of two featured acts for the evening. I played from about 6:15 to 8:30 and then "Pipedreams", a 60's psychdelia band played from 9 to 12. Great crowd, great time…Happy Anniversary Ausintown. Lube.

April 24, 2007 - "Smokey's Deer Lures" DVD Project

I've just finished up a video/DVD project called "Smokey's Deer Lures". Based out of West Virginia, John "Smokey" McNicholas is a trapper by trade and has been making his line of deer lures and other scent products for over 20 years. The DVD we put together is basically the exhibit show that he puts on at many of the hunting Expos in the tri-state area (Ohio, Pa, W.Va.). He introduces each product and gives some background and advice on its use. He also produces a line of "calls"…those tubes you blow into to make animal sounds in order to attract deer, coyotes, and other critters of the wild.

Very interestingly, Smokey opens all his demonstrations by plucking out the national anthem of his guitar, dedicating it to the troops. We added a little accompaniment guitar to that and put a collage of pictures and Smokey pickin' scenes together for an intro that came out very nice. It is featured in the "Client Video" section of this site.

Even more interesting was the staging. Three buck-head trophies, two stuffed coyotes and an assortment of other animal skins were arranged into a great outdoorsman's dream. Pete Kringeta, my past employer and current associate, did a great job of providing the staging area including lighting control and rigging. The video is for sale exclusively through web site http://warrencustomoutdoor.com, run by Paul Almashey, a Warren, Ohio based e-merchant that markets many other hunting supplies and accessories in addition to Smokey's line of products.

April 20, 2007

I've added some mp3 audio downloads to "The Music" page. There's a few cover song medley's from my solo act and a couple of my originals.   Please check it out.

April 7, 2007

I had the pleasure of playing a Happy Hour gig at the Quaker Steak & Lube in Austintown last night. It was also my wife Lynn's Birthday.   Our friend, Jeri Germano, shares the same birth date with my wife, and so it was also a pleasure (as has been customary in the past) to see Jeri and her husband Dave (also an old school mate of mine), come out for a joint celebration.   Our friend's Rich (Uncle R&R) and Di were also on hand, as were Bob and Pooh! Thanks to you all for helping to make Lynn's Birthday special.

June 20, 2005

There's some new info posted in two areas that were previously "under construction" First, I provide some new detail concerning my video and multimedia production and products on the "Key Sevices" Page.

June 1, 2005

A new beginning.   This basic web presence has actually been established for a couple of years in the form of an ISP subscriber's home page.   I'm now taking the step of establishing "jimgolen.com".   Absolutely easier to remember, plus coming off of a domain name server will allow me to implement a few things like streaming and downloadable media.

September 3, 2003

The initial posting of this site.   Although there are still a few pages to be constructed, the site currently presents a lot of pertinent information.