Last weekend was our last with our dear friend, drummer, and curmudgeonly misanthrope Josh Lava. By the time you read this, he will be in a van the size of an elephant driving to Portland, OR. We squeezed every last bit of rock and perfect pitch out of him by playing back–to–back two hours shows. On Saturday night we took a band field trip to Benton Harbor, MI. Elizabeth has threatened to settle down there and become a real estate magnate, based solely on the friendliness of the locals –– which is so much friendliness, in fact, that they surrendered their finest microbrewery (The Livery) to us for the entire evening. Between a good–sounding, mid–sized venue, a brand new arts center (The Citadel), and the Keyclub Recording Company, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a satellite chapter of the Chicago music scene pop up there. It is also far enough from any hipster neighborhood in Chicago that it will be years and years and years before it becomes overrun with Akira clothing stores –– not to name names, Wicker Park.

We commandeered Simon’s in Andersonville on Sunday for Josh’s final show and played virtually every song he has learned during his tenure with the band. If that isn’t enough, we added a new song to our arsenal of non–traditional and heartfelt covers. To be honest, though, “No Diggity” has been one of Canasta’s go–to mic check tunes, so it was only a matter of time before the entire thing was unleashed on our unsuspecting audiences.

While we’re auditioning potential drummers, we’ll still have some shows for you, the next being on September 29th at the Clark Street Concert Series at Lincoln Park Market. And of course, work on the album continues this month with horns, vocals, and some guest artists. If you want a more detailed breakdown of all of that, you can check in on us on Facebook, now that we have a non–confusing/numerical address –– it’s www.facebook.com/canastamusic. Looks like some Italian fella got the jump on us for www.facebook.com/canasta, but since “canasta” was an Italian / Spanish word before we got our grubby little hands on it, we’re going to let that one slide.