Last night in Tunica, Mississippi, not far from Memphis, we opened up our 2005 schedule with a rip-roaring night with our ready-to-rock Southern friends who came from Alabama, Tennessee, all over Mississippi and other locales.

Bluesville is one of our favorite places to play. When we reformed in 1999 it was one of the first venues to welcome us and as we have grown, so have they. It is the kind of place where some of the best support folks from the road have chosen to set down roots and help build it into a state of the art concert venue and they are constantly looking for ways to make it better. They plan to add more seats in the upper section to accommodate the growing audiences who have discovered what a cool place it is to see bands like STYX and the others who come there to soak up the historic vibes of the club and the region in general.

It was certainly a touchy-feely crowd down front. Boy oh boy! The Southern girls were in rare form and out to have some fun, and we were not there to stop that from happening. Panties, bras, shirts and other garments were heaped on us all night long. Meanwhile we were having a great show. Our soundcheck was so intense we knew it was gonna be a thumper, and man was it, right from the git go.

My mother, my sister and her new husband Scott drove up from Montgomery, and my brother-in-law Donnie and his wife Pepper came in from Tennessee, along with several other wonderful friends from Clarksville. It was a perfect way to start off the new year.

Daniel Wills flew to Memphis straight from his Christmas visit to London, England, where he was visiting his parents and friends and getting his English accent retuned. His friends busted him on how Americanized he had become, but that's what happens on the road. We all start to have our own language, mimicking each other's accents, etc. Since we come from all over, most of us can do the accent of the other guy. Daniel was amazingly lucid considering he was six time zones off on his internal clock. Libby, our lighting director, visited Ireland during her time off. You might think as much as we travel we'd never want to set foot on a plane if we had the chance to go home, but you have to understand that people who like to travel have insatiable curiosities and want to see what else is out there on our planet.

Jeanne and I spent 8 days and nights in Paris with our friend Bobby Procop and his lovely girlfriend Amondine, eating, walking and shopping our time away. The French people, despite what you may be led to believe in the media, are incredibly friendly to Americans. While they may disagree with our president, they separate that from their personal feelings towards us as people. Their hospitality was tremendous. It was the first trip we've taken in ages where we didn't want to leave. There was so much more to see and do...

We have a lot to do to get our recording completed for a March release, but we're zooming along. It's going to be a great record, unique in its content and you will be very pleased with how it ROCKS. Man oh man, I just heard Lawrence's vocal on "I Don't Need No Doctor." Wow! And JY's performance of "Locomotive Breath" makes that song forever a JY song. The sounds remind be of the STYX I joined in 1975.

Any way, that's enough for now. As usual, it's time to go in search of a good cup of Joe. And by the way, every time I buy a Starbuck's coffee, I think of you incredible fans who have given us Starbuck's cards. STYX fans never cease to amaze us.

Onward!

TS