Had a few great holiday gigs this year. First off, RKB the full band performed at The Still in Largo on Christmas Eve Eve (Dec 23rd). Thanks to Suzette & Terre, Shaun (rocking job on Lights, man), Michelle & your crew who came out, and to Hillary and Jason for their hospitality. We’d also like to thank Suzette and Terre Porter for their wonderful Christmas gift of delicious goodies!

Photos (and video?) by Terre Porter.

The following evening on Christmas Eve, my AMAZING piano player Alan Pelno and I held our first annual Christmas Spectacular at the GrillSmith Restaurant in the Countryside area of Clearwater, Florida! We’d like to thank all the GrillSmith staff (‘specially Jules and John) and our star “super fan” Macey for making Christmas Eve a wonderful family-oriented… well, CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR!

So as we wrap up 2011 I hope you all had a great holiday season and I wish you the best for 2012! Join me on New Years Eve for dinner at Hula Bay in Tampa where I’ll be playing 5-8:30pm.

Lastly, don’t forget my brand new single “The Moment of Youth” is now available for just $.99 cents on iTunes!

Click here –> 

Thanks guys and have a safe and happy new year!

- Rob

iTunes and the rest should be along shortly but for those of you who can’t wait (I know, pretty much ALL of you!! …right?…right?) “The Moment of Youth” is available NOW as a single for only 99 cents at CDBaby.

The link below says “album” but it indeed one song for 99 cents.

Don’t forget to vote once a day, every day for “The Moment of Youth” on MusicTampaBay.com. There’s no signup or anything, just hit the vote button!

Please join me this Friday night with the band at The Still at 11561 Walsingham Rd Largo, FL 33778 for our last official band gig of the year.

Merry Christmas!

- Rob

I decided to set up the audio recorder and we really got some good stuff considering it’s directly off the mixer. In the audio player is a mix of 10 song clips cross-faded together into a single 7 minute mp3. We got some good stuff!

Rob K & Alan Pelno @ GrillSmith in Brandon FL 7/7/11

The first thing we noticed as we began laying out the PA was that the stage was made of steel. The second thing we noticed was that it was painted black. We were to perform in 91 degree direct sunlight standing on basically what amounted to a flat-grill. Our 4th of July BBQ was going to start earlier than we had planned!

By 3:30pm we were set up, soundchecked and ready to rock ‘n roll! First set went off without a hitch. We took an intermission about 4:25pm and I went into Stumps to use the facilities.

Itchy, burny… why am I so itchy? YIKES! (no it wasn’t poison sea-urchins) My face and forearms were already sun burned. After downing a few waters at the bar (thanks ladies), I went back out for round 2.

By this time the sky was starting to look a little erm… well, ominous. About 5:30pm we finished the second set to sprinkle sprinkle… (remember now the entire band was set up without any cover). Without waiting to see what would happen next we broke out the plastic sheeting and tarps. No sooner had we covered all the “less-than-easily-replaceable” gear the sky opened up, the wind picked up and it rained for about half an hour.

Hey, we were FINALLY cool!

I should say that I personally had a great time. I try to take this stuff in stride. Things are what they are you know?

The only thing you can do is prepare the best you can. Nothing got wet that couldn’t handle it except a single braided patch cable and a padded speaker bag.

I want to give a special “thank you” to Tiffany Davies, Executive Director of the Tampa Attractions Association for being so accommodating and going above and beyond trying to make us comfortable in the early heat.

At any rate, after those two sets the show was over and “we got the hell out of Dodge” before the masses descended upon us for the fireworks over Tampa bay. After I’d packed up and loaded out I paused to look at the sky over downtown and as I watched the tail end of the storm move west into the setting sun I was reminded of that timless old adage…

“We’re going green… greenage!”

Happy 4th of July!

Hoping this weekend finds you happy, healthy and stuffed full of grilled food! The weather has decided to bless us on this our nation’s birthday weekend and we’re looking for more of the same tomorrow. The band will be playing in downtown Tampa tomorrow at Channelside from 3:30 until 6:30 PM.

All fooling around aside, in this day and age we take a lot of our freedoms for granted and it helps (me anyway) to sometimes revisit how in fact we got here. So here for your “reflecting” pleasure is the Declaration of Independence.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!

Well another year at FishHawk Ranch is in the books. It has to be one of our favorite gigs.

Upwards of 500 people easy in attendance and everyone is so friendly and appreciative of us performing for them. This year however was not without its adventure.

I departed about 2:45PM for the hour-long drive over to Lithia FL. I’d got about 10 minutes into the trip when I got a call from Lee (drummer for this gig) that he’d been in a car accident. Now usually he yanks my chain all the time so I was like “ya right, see ya there” but it was for real. I guess he’d gotten sideswiped over in Ybor cutting between I-4 and the Selmon Expressway. So I immediately diverted to his location to see what was going on. Driver side door bashed in, window blown out, side view mirror sheared off. Thankfully he was OK and his car was drivable (barely).

We arrived at FishHawk about and hour and a half later than we expected but we got going on time and it DIDN’T RAIN! We’d planned to shoot video, record audio and do a photo shoot but things didn’t quite work out. We did however have a great time and look forward to seeing the good folks at FishHawk again soon. You guys are the BEST!

There are a few more photos on the Facebook fan page. Check them out!

Stay tuned!