Jym's brand new CD is now available for purchase. You can order online from CD Baby (see the Buy link on your left), or you can pick up a copy at any Moxie Chicks performance. You can listen to excerpts from the CD by clicking on the Music link. Here are some of Jym's thoughts on this new project: As much fun, and as creatively satisfying, as it is to work in the recording studio, carefully crafting and polishing a musical statement from the raw materials of words and music and the talents of the contributing musicians, there is something transcendent in a live performance when everyone is synched together and feeding off each other’s and the audience’s energy. Twenty-five years ago I recorded my first solo album, The Lines Are Open, live in concert at The Coffee House, assisted by my friend Brett Kemnitz and recording engineer Jonathon Leubner (Jon’s and my first project together). When Brett proposed that he put together a band to back me up on some of my songs as an added feature for his annual spring concert at The Coffee House, I jumped at the chance to complete a circle of sorts and invited Jonathon to record the performance. For my set I chose half a dozen songs that I had not yet recorded on my own albums (three songs – “Down in New Orleans,” “Sisters,” and “Springtime in Ohio” – had appeared on recordings by the Moxie Chicks, the band that my wife Carol Lee Hopkins and I are part of). Brett played acoustic bass guitar, and rounded up lead guitarist Craig Siemsen and Dobro whiz Jerry Danks, both of whom I had worked with on past recordings, and also brought in Chris “Ives” Iverson, who played banjo and harmonica. We had two rehearsals to learn the songs, and another run-through the evening of the concert. The resulting performance was loose and relaxed, but with an energy and enthusiasm that kicked the songs up another level. Six songs, however, do not an album make, so I dug back into the archives and dusted off a set Brett and I performed at the Old Time Music & Crafts Festival in Shawano, WI in August 1981. A chance mid-winter encounter with one of the organizers of the festival had led to an invitation for me to perform. I invited Brett to come along, and we had a great time playing at the afternoon workshops and making new friends. Brett had a new song called “Reagan Time” that was a huge hit at the workshops, and went over quite well at the evening concert. The reception that we received was so encouraging that it led directly to the recording of Reagan Time & Other Love Songs for the 80s, our joint record released in 1982. The evening concert was recorded for broadcast on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Simply Folk program, and now after near 30 years it makes it appearance on an album. [These six songs (re-recorded later) appeared on Reagan Time & Other Love Songs for the 80s and The Lines Are Open. With the exception of “Holidays,” which (in a different live recording) appeared on my album East Side Guy, all of these songs make their CD debut on LIVE…now and then.] Two more live tracks are included as a bonus. “Frank Said,” recorded at The Coffee House’s 40th Anniversary Concert in 2007, has previously been available for download from my website and on the CD Songs for Frank Zeidler, which also includes Larry Penn’s “In My Father’s Mansion.” “House of Cards” was recorded at The Coffee House in 2008, and features my wife Carol on vocals and our friend and fellow Moxie Chick Jon Pagenkopf on slide guitar.