The tradition started in 2004...Joby, Jay, Nick, Nad and others came together from three corners of the USA to rock out Nick's garage for two days and continue the Rockford and college impromptu concerts. Every year, Bradley players, Rockford players, and friends come together and jam with guitars, bases, and percussive instruments to create awesome and unique music.

Nick's garage is packed with instruments and microphones and is the perfect environment for jamming, togetherness, and party atmosphere. Joby and Nad contribute their guitar and drum skills, and Jay brings his talents on guitar, drums and bass. Nick and friends can be heard rocking their behinds off on any of 2000 percussion instruments.

Any jams that were recorded and mastered are available in the downloads area.

Please enjoy the fruits of their labor!

This post has been a long time coming now. The Annual Jam went off without a hitch this year, building from a few people jamming out on Wednesday night to full on jam party by Friday and Saturday. It was a killer year that, surprise surprise, set another record with a total of 93 tracks recorded. The tracks from 2013 are availiable in the downloads area here including zip files from each day for ease of downloading.

There are so many jams from this year, that it's hard to say which ones even make the top 25. A few that stood out to me are: Diddley Bow, Octaban, Volume Knob, Octobass, etc... Listen for yourselves and let me know what your favorites are.

I cannot wait to see what 2014 will bring. Till then people.

With the 2013 Annual Jam less than 2 weeks away, we've finally completed the proposed greatest hits album from 2009 - 2012. We've dubbed it "Drinking Since 8 AM," and it's available, as a zip file, in the downloads area here. The compilation includes 37 of the best jams, and 4 of the funniest interludes captured over the past four years.

Much thanks to Dan for all his help putting this together. He and I have gone back and forth as we reviewed and evaluated the over 220 tracks recorded since 2009. The original goal was to have a greatest hits compilation that would fit on two CD's, but in then end, that just wasn't enough room. We did manage to keep it to three CD's though.

I'll be bringing printouts with information on how to download Drinking Since 8 AM, and I'm also hauling five sets of CD's to Rockford with me for those who may be less than computer savey.

There are so many great jams on this album. I just can't wait to add a bunch more to the library here in a couple weeks. See you all soon!

It's approaching that time of the year again ladies and gentlemen. After chatting with all the Jam regulars, we've settled on Jam weekend being September 6th and 7th. Turns out we're doing it the weekend after Labor Day again.

Sarah and I have already bought our plane tickets. We're flying in the Saturday before, on August 31st. The plan is to spend a night with the Chicago family, one with Nad & Lisa, and one with Gary, Jill & Calvin before we head into Rockford.

From what I've heard, Jay is trying to get at least a couple weeks off for this one, like the last couple years, so I'd expect him in the greater Illinois area close to a week before we get there.

It's the 10th anniversary of the Jam this year, so let's make it one to remember for a lifetime!!! Wish I could say that I've done many of the things we talked about last year for the 10th anniversary, but given life and my lazy nature, I haven't pulled it off. I still have some hope, but time is running out quickly.

2012 Jam... Oh how I love you. Let me count the ways, Family, friends, jaming, partying, failing to wake up before 3pm, failing to go to sleep before 7am, BEERS, SHOTS, GREAT FOOD, disc golfing, complete and total insanity!

I realized this year that sometimes it takes a week plus of insanity to regain the sanity lost throughout the rest of the year. All of our lives and jobs are taxing, and it turns out that the Annual Jam is a great release for all the pent up energy that we really don't have a good outlet for the rest of the year. I can honestly say that I don't know what I would do without the Annual Jam... Not only do I get to bang on drums, strum the guitar, mess with the bass, hang out with friends and family, but I also get to blow off all this steam that I didn't even realize I had built up. What can I say, every year The Annual Jam becomes a bigger part of my life, and I never want to give it up.

We delayed the jam to the week after Labor Day this year because it was beyond scorching hot last year at that time. Turns out it worked for us; Labor Day weekend was super hot, but the next weekend, which was the jam, turned out as beautiful as we could possibly have hoped for. At this point I think the jam should always be after Labor Day.

I don't have the recorder yet, so I cannot speak to when the jam tracks will start appearing on the site, but I'm hoping that I should have it by next weekend. The last I remember, around 7 am on Sunday morning of the jam, there were over 60 recordings on the MR8-HD. We'll have to see how many of them actually boil down to decent tracks, but I'm thinking this may be a record setting year.

Jacob rocked the house this year with the help of some of the regulars, Jay & Nad, you know who you are. He even sang some Gogol Bordello, man was it awesome. Not only did Jacob tear it up this year, but Jay Man decided to learn how to sing. Who can possibly complain about a bunch of custom sung Gogol Bordello? I cannot my friends... It was flat out awesome! Turns out that's a great description of the jam in general this year.

Hell yeah everyone. I'm not sure how we pulled it off, but this year was better than last. Man I love it.

What can I say all... Another great jam has come and gone. Like those before it, this one was an absolute blast that I think I may still be recovering from :)

This year Nick decided we needed to start the jam on Thursday, thus making this the first three day jam in our history. Those of you who join us know that adding that extra day could be rather dangerous... and it was. But we all soldiered through, partied, jammed, consumed, etc...

There was an unseasonable heat wave in Rockford this year, so we all cooked in the garage Thursday & Friday. We had to keep an industrial fan going just to keep us cool enough to play. Unfortunately that means the recordings from those nights will have a nice little hum going in the background, but that's what it took, so no complaints here.

I got the recorder in Monday. I was getting ready to write a program to extract the tracks of the device because I'm sick of the 20 some steps it takes to get one full recording off it. Fortunately I did a little searching online and found that Fostex, the manufacturer, provides a little utility that allows me to extract the 4 tracks that make up 1 recording in a single step. Score! It doesn't completely automate the process, but close enough that I'm half way done extracting Friday night.

A couple other items of note from this year. Nick's family acquired a dog this year that was just under five months old at the time of the jam. I tell you, that is one mellow puppy. This year also includes Jacob's very first guitar Jam. He played rhythm, Nado soloed, and I banged on some drums. It was pretty sweet. Go Jacob! Look forward to jamming with you next year.

The 2010 jam was a complete success!!! On top of that... No major injuries for anyone involved; Fantastic! This year we determined that we were attending the 7th Annual Jam. After so many jams it amazes me how different each jam is even though the same core group of people attend every year.

This year was more mellow than the recent years in that not quite as many people attended and a few of us did our best to avoid the hard liquor, but it was by no means a snoozer. There was a great jumble of catching up with friends/family, eating wonderful food, jamming on all sorts of instruments (including congas), playing frisbee, and drinking a plethora of beer and liquor.

I spent around eight hours last Sunday (10/03/2010) in a marathon of pulling tracks off the MR8-HD recorder. Last year it took me a long time to get everything transferred to my computer for processing, but I managed to get all the tracks off the device on Sunday. Now comes the fun part... Over the next two - three weeks I'll be ripping jams from all those tracks. Once I get a couple mastered, I'll create a download area, post them up there, and modify the website's player to have the 2010 tracks on the play list.