This is officially the first article of 2025! This month’s article will start way back with New Year’s Eve. The first month of the year was definitely a busy one, so I better get started!
New Year’s Eve was a full day of festivities. It started at at Snapper’s with an 80s themed party with Matt Jameson Live bringing the music! It was a total request party with tons of fun and shenanigans, all while raising money for United 4 Animals. Janet and the whole team at Snapper’s really did a great job and put on one heck of a party!
After a quick nap at home to recharge, I went around and scooped up my friends and headed up to Shermans Creek Inn for Love Rocket and to ring in the New Year at midnight. Every song Love Rocket plays makes me want to dance! I was having so much fun dancing around, acting like an idiot, that quite a few people thought that I was drunk! Lucky for my friends, that was not the case and I was able to get everyone home safe and sound. Good thing I did because New Year’s Day was a whole other day of fun at Shermans Creek Inn.
There’s no better way to kick off the New Year then with music ALL DAY LONG!!! From 8am, all the way thru midnight the next day! I unfortunately overslept a bit from the shenanigans the night before, so we missed Corrina Rose, but we did make it in time to hear Mike Foltz. Cindy and I quickly had the bar singing and clapping, especially since the first song we heard was “What’s Up” by the 4 Non Blondes! Which just so happens to be the same song we closed the night with when we sang karaoke! But before that we also got to hear Cody Ross Smith with his amazing country songs, covers and some really amazing originals. Then a new duo for me to see, The Night Howls, which is Ed Krepps on guitar and Slade Heller on drums. For only being two guys they really brought the party. By this point in the day we had quite the central music posse that showed up to join in the fun, and fun was definitely had by all. The last part of the day was karaoke! Cindy and I finally got our moment to shine on stage. Selfies were taken, it was a blast! But the stars of the show was definitely Chris Auxt and Derek Avalon and their rendition of “Teenage Dirtbag”. Shermans Creek Inn does an amazing job at supporting live music and their community as much as possible. Every month their schedule is jam packed with entertainment, almost if not, every day of the week! Check out their schedule in this issue and get out there and support a venue that goes above and beyond to have the best entertainment in the area! I know we had a blast NYE and NYD at SCI!
The first Friday of the year was a busy one! We sucked some more people into our funnel and Suzi and Jason Carst came along for the ride on a very strange night off for Jason. He finally got the chance to check out some of the other local musicians. We started our adventure at Wolf Brewing for Derek Henry and John Staz. They had a packed room, every table was full! Jason was amazed seeing Derek playing his right-handed guitar, left-handed, upside down and backwards, but yet still successful. When people first see Derek they can never understand the voodoo that he do! HA! Next we zoomed down to The Horn Pub for some fun with Hank the Buffalo. The Horn Pub was in full rowdy mode when we got there. It was awesome to see another packed venue. We squeezed in, sang, danced, and had a blast, hanging around with our friends! You can join Hank at the Horn Pub every first Friday! Last but not least, we zoomed up to Flinchy’s for Matt Jameson Live’s last set. Again, jam packed, but super fun! Everyone loves Matt at Flinchy’s so he always has the place packed! Matt has recently added about 20 songs to his Song List, one of those is Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off”!
The next night I had some new victims along for the fun! Holly and Matt! Matt finally had a night off, and what better thing to do than support live music. We headed down to Carlisle for Dave Gates at Hungry Run Distillery. What a cool little venue on Pomfret St. While we were there Megan and her hubby Matt showed up too! We had a great time singing along with Dave and requesting all of our favorites! Next we all zoomed down the street to Hook & Flask for the last set of Colin x2. Colin Alvarez was playing with his drummer, who is also named Colin. They were also taking requests and the party continued til well after the music was over!
I went out of town for a bit, but when I got back the party was back in full force with a trip to ABC in Mechanicsburg for the 176ers Dueling Pianos! They had ABC jam packed, tables were sold out 2 weeks in advance! Luckily we squeezed in with Jen and Dave and we were still able to enjoy the show! I can’t quite understand the madness of how these guys have so many requests and cash flying everywhere! It is constant music and constant fun all night long and they still can’t get to all the requests. After their early show we still had some time to zoom over to Flinchy’s for Dave Gates’s last set. It was packed tight with a lot of other musicians and always fun times were had by all!
On a Saturday evening there was a big football game, but that didn’t stop Flinchy’s, they just bumped up Hank the Buffalo’s show from 3-6pm in the middle of the afternoon, and the place was still packed! You literally could not move in the place. It was super awesome to see that Flinchy’s found a way to still support music, and it paid off for them in the end because that place was super packed! After their early show we zoomed down the road to the Fredericksburg Eagle Hotel for Keith n’ Sonya’s Acoustic Roadshow. It’s always cool seeing a husband and wife jammin’ together because they have a different chemistry than other musicians. It’s pretty awesome to see. We also sucked more victims into the funnel and had Cindy’s brother Roger, and wife Michelle hanging with us too! The party is always merrier with more! Speaking of more, it was time for more music, so we zoomed over to Hollywood Casino for Dance Fever, and our friend Megan’s birthday. After a few spins on the dance floor, we still had one more stop, back to the Horn Pub, but this time for Matt Jameson. This night they were being creative by having Matt play between commercials of the Steelers game, and after the game was over, it was time to party! I don’t even know how late the party continued, but I was beat, and it was time to go home! What a fun, music-filled day!
I had a very rare Terrific Tuesday Trip down to Ski Roundtop for Megan and Dave at the Fireside Bar. It was awesome to see quite a few people from the music scene down there to support these two! It was a bummer to see that they close the slopes so early, back in the day I used to love sitting there watching the skiers fly down the mountain! Megan and Dave had the Fireside Bar rocking’ keeping us all plenty warm. I really enjoyed Megan playing us a couple songs on her guitar after the show, since I missed that part during her actual show. She’s been taking lessons from Chris Auxt at his new Guitar Lesson Studio in Lemoyne, and you can tell he’s already teaching her so much!
Matt Jameson Live is now hosting Open Mic at Blue Sky Tavern in Lewisberry every Wednesday from 6:30-9:00pm. After everyone performs, there’s also time for everyone to have an Open Jam, which can be tons of fun! I managed to make it down two Wednesdays this month. It’s always cool to see musicians trying new things and sharing their talents with the crowd. Someone asked me about how does Matt get so many people to show up, and to me it’s because of not only the opportunity to play music, but also the camaraderie that goes along with it. All the musicians are chatting about strings, pics, venues, songs, chord progressions, all of this musical banter. Sure you can look this stuff up online somewhere, but when you can discuss it amongst your peers and learn from each other, it’s truly magical. Even for someone like me that just comes to watch it’s still super cool to see and hear. It’s such a safe space to just share your talent and have a good time! Plus as my travel season creeps in, it will be a great place and night in the middle of the week to go see a lot of my friends jam and have a good time!
After a great workout on a Thursday night at Kingdom Fit, I met up with Michelle for some dinner at Flinchy’s, and we had a bonus night of music because the DJ cancelled, Shine Delphi picked up a last-minute gig. What an awesome surprise! He’s such a talented musician. After listening to a set of his music I zoomed into the city to Sturges Speakeasy for The Exactlys! Dan Mowery is always out supporting so many people, I wanted to support him. His music wasn’t “Exactly” as I thought it would be, but it was a blast! The “dance floor” was packed, and people were having a wild time on a Thursday. Since us NA drinkers have asked for hot tea, Rachel the bar tender, stepped it up for us, and also added Hot Apple Cider, and Hot Chocolate to their beverage menu! Sooo delicious! Once again another bar going above and beyond. It’s so appreciated.
On a Friday I zoomed up to Liquid Noise in Marysville, to not only help them celebrate their 1st Anniversary under new ownership, but also hear the ever so talented Nate Myers and Pete Netznik! It’s been way too long since I heard these guys. I sat with the Mayor and Queen of Funcannon, Mike and Pam, and we had ourselves a beautiful night, listening to beautiful music!
To end the night I swung into XL Live for The Four Horsemen, a Celebration of Metallica! It felt amazing to bang my head and have a good time with some metal heads! Thanks again to DJ Hollywood (Rich Waddell) for inviting me up to join them in the balcony. Those seats are definitely worth the extra money, but you have to call in advance if you want to reserve one of the sections. I believe each section can have at least 10 guests, it’s well worth it! The best part about seeing shows at XL is that really there’s not a bad seat in the house. It really is a great place to see a band!
The last night of the month I zoomed back to Carlisle to hear Matt & Phil at Back Porch Brewing, and Megan and Dave right next door at Hook & Flask. It’s pretty cool to be able to bop back and forth to such great musicians! Of course I wished it was Summer time so I could’ve just stood outside and enjoyed all of the music! Kudos to Back Porch for brewing their very own NA Beer, it’s pretty yummy! I wish it had a cool name.. but I’m just happy that they created one!
Well that’s the end of all of my live music shenanigans! Don’t forget it’s time to vote for your nominee for the Central PA Music Awards! The BIG show is going to be on March 3rd at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, followed by an After Party at The Village. They are only about 15 minutes apart, so hopefully people will adjust to the new location and still have one heck of a party. The seats are going fast! If you want to come and celebrate our local scene, get your tickets now!
I will once again be traveling a lot this month. But I hope to catch as much live music as possible! When you see me, please say Hi! Thank you to everyone for reading this article and all of your continued support!! Get out there and Support Local Music.
