Supporting Local Artists (and a new song from me)

This Friday I will be playing some music at The Art Garage, a local art studio that also allows kids (and adults!) the opportunity to explore their artistic sides and give them some lessons at the same time. The Art Garage is owned by artist Jessica Ball and she was gracious enough to allow the people of my church to put on an art show as part of the monthly Peoria First Friday event organized by Ciao (the Central Illinois Artists' Organization). You can see our event page here. We'd love to have you stop by on Friday night. The great thing about the First Friday event is there are a ton of great local restaurants nearby (like Broken Tree which makes some killer pizza and has some great artisan sodas and beers on hand) and a number of the participating studios have snacks and refreshments on hand as well. In other words, make it a date night!

Peoria Journal Star Article: Why Carlos O'Kelly's Closed in Peoria

On Saturday March 29th a little opinion piece I wrote got printed in the Peoria Journal Star. My original version was decently longer, so I thought I would put it up.  You can view the online version of that article here:

In the Spotlight: Will take local and unique over corporate and generic any day

And here's the full version:

When I was young my family went to Chi-Chi's restaurant for our Mexican food fix. But then they closed.

A little later a Carlos O'Kelly's opened up in town so we went there.