This is my first newsletter of the year, so... welcome 2013!  Thanks for your continued subscription to the JK Wireservice.  I use ReverbNation to maintain this subscription list (similar to Constant Contact, but music-oriented), and if you are interested, they have an entire social network dedicated to music.  Also, if you wish to unsubscribe, please feel free to click the 'unsubscribe' link at the bottom of this email.Its already been an eventful year...

Do you believe in augurs? As a bookworm and English teacher, I always look for them in literature and instruct my students to do the same. Omens of good things to come and harbingers of impending doom are common tropes in fiction. But the portents woven into those narratives are intentional and premeditated – mechanisms to clue the reader in to future events. Real life is another matter entirely.

A concert tour organized to encourage voter turnout has taken on a new dimension in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Organizers Magic Hat Brewing Co., CEG Presents and HeadCount announced today that all proceeds from the  four city “Participation Tour” will be donated to the Red Cross and other storm relief efforts.The tour begins Friday in Baltimore, followed by stops in Philadelphia on Saturday and Washington, D.C, on Sunday. Then on “Election Eve,” Monday Nov.

By the fall of 1994, the Grateful Dead scene was growing unmanageably large. Even large mainstay venues that the boys have been performing at for decades were too small anymore. The performance that used to be a not-so-well-kept secret had grown to sell out the largest football and soccer stadiums.

Specific aromas have the power to transport me back to an earlier, more youthful time: the earthy redolence of decaying leaves, mesquite smoke wafting from a neighbor’s barbeque, and even the gamy stench of a hockey locker room. I also have triggers for my ocular, haptic, gustatory, and aural senses. All of us do. And I thought sensory recall was the closest thing I would ever have to a time machine. But on Friday night, Phil and Friends changed that – not once, but twice.

Its been a hot summer, but this past Furthur tour on the east coast was an incredible (and sweaty) blast!  And now the John K Band is pleased to announce that as the summer rolls into the final stretch, the John K Band will be out on the road for a Labor Day Weekend Mini-tour!  A three-night run that sees us returning to the 8x10 in Baltimore (Fri Sep 2) and the State Theatre in the DC area (Sat Sep 3) and then making our first real road-trip to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ (Sun Sep 4).

Furthur began their spring tour with a prequel three-show stop at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado on Friday.

Furthur played this past weekend at MCU Park in Brooklyn New York, home to the Brooklyn Cyclones and just adjacent to one of the most famous amusement parks in the world, Coney Island. Growing up 10 minutes from NYC I felt almost embarrassed to admit I have never been to Coney Island before.

It was another jam-packed night outside the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. You would have thought you were seeing Furthur on New Year’s Eve 2009 all over again. It was just about impossible to get into line outside the arena as there were so many people walking up and down the cordons with their pointer fingers in the air hoping for some miracle ticket to gain entry into DeadHeads kingdom; a Furthur show.