Sometimes a gig is just a gig. You put your name on the calendar, you show up, you play, you go home.

And then sometimes a show comes together in a way that makes you think, okay, this one's going to be a little different.

Thursday, July 9th at The Lone Girl Brewing Company in Waunakee is one of those shows. Music starts at 6:00 PM. It's free. And I'm not coming alone.

If you've never been to The Lone Girl, let me set the scene a little. It's Waunakee's craft brewery — the kind of place that feels like a neighborhood spot the moment you walk in. They've got an industrial-chic taproom, 12 rotating taps of their own brews (IPAs, stouts, ambers, more), elevated bar food made with locally-sourced ingredients, and a genuine commitment to bringing live music and community events into the space.

It's the kind of venue where you can settle in with a good beer and actually hear the music. I always enjoy playing there. The rooftop patio has good energy.

They're at 114 E Main Street, Suite 101 in Waunakee — easy to find, worth the trip from Madison or wherever you're coming from.

Here's the part I'm genuinely excited about.

This show is billed as Nick Venturella & Friends, and the "friends" part isn't just a billing flourish. I’m most thrilled about getting to hang out with you…You are coming to the show, right?

I’m also super pumped to get to hang out on stage with some of my real musician friends. Let me introduce you.

Dan and I go back to high school. Like, seriously back. We played together in a four-piece rock band called Din Addiction out of Waukesha, WI, and when that group dissipated as everyone headed off to college, Dan and I weren't ready to stop writing together. So we didn't.

That's how Gemini's Rival was born — stripped-down, guitar-driven indie rock, just the two of us. We played everywhere we could: college campuses, house parties, coffee shops. Eventually adult life did what adult life does and pulled us into different cities, different states, different rhythms. But we never fully stopped. 

Regardless of the distance, a few years back, we decided to book annual trips to meet up at an AirBnB location where we would spend a long weekend recording our music. Then, we’d go home to separate states to do overdub takes in our makeshift home studios, and mix and share tracks online until we finished a batch of songs and released them.

The magic of recording technology and the internet is what allowed us to begin re-recording songs from our original catalog and breathing new life into them.

So far, our efforts have yielded several songs, originally written in the '90s and early 2000s, re-recorded and reimagined. You can listen to them on Bandcamp (or your favorite streaming platform) if you want a preview of what we sound like together. Tracks like Night to Die, Once in a While, and Wonder Woman give you a good feel for the energy we bring.

Then in 2025, Dan and his family moved back to Wisconsin. Which means for the first time in a long time, Gemini's Rival is back in the same state. July 9th will be our first live public performance in nearly 20 years, and I can tell you honestly that I cannot wait.

If you don't know Dave Tamkin yet, here's your introduction.

Dave is a Chicago-bred, Colorado singer/songwriter, now based in the Madison-area. 

Fun story: I’ve known Dave for more than 15 years but only met him in real life for the first time last year.

Our paths crossed online while I was in Wisconsin and Dave was in Colorado at the time. I was promoting a book I had written about local music business and Dave was writing about similar things in his local area. Dave asked me to write a couple of articles for his Head Above Music online publication (you can actually still read those articles here), and we kept in touch online and followed each other’s musical pursuits until a few years ago, Dave moved to the Madison-area and he stopped by a songwriter-in-the-round event I was playing at where we met for the first time in real life. 

OK, back to Dave and his music…

Dave has a style that's genuinely hard to put in a box. He plays acoustic guitar with a rhythmic, percussive intensity that makes his solo performances feel bigger than one person should be able to pull off. His songwriting is personal and direct — the kind of lyrics that make you feel like he's been listening in on your own life a little bit.

He's been at this a long time and has shared stages with artists like Guster, Rusted Root, The Violent Femmes, Eric Hutchinson, Willy Porter, and more. His live versatility ranges from intimate solo acoustic sets to full-band performances with his ensemble, DT&CO. — but it's the solo shows where you really understand what kind of player he is.

If you want to get to know his music before July 9th, his website is davetamkin.com. Go listen. Then come see what it sounds like in a room.

Here's roughly how I'm thinking about the evening:

A night of original music (and maybe a few covers) featuring three Wisconsin-area artists who've all been building something for a long time. There will be guitar. There will be good beer. There will probably be some inside jokes between Dan and me that date back to 1998, and we’re all just going to have to deal with that.

Music starts at 6:00 PM. No cover.

If you come out and you find yourself wanting to stay connected — to future shows, guitar builds, and whatever else is happening in this little creative universe I'm building — the best move is joining Between Songs.

It's where I write about all of it: music, craft, the overlap between building a creative life and building a business. New issues come out regularly, and it's genuinely the best way to stay in the orbit.

Join Between Songs →

And if you want to dig into my music before the show: nickventurella.com

See you Thursday July 9, 2026!

- Nick

Nick Venturella & Friends Thursday, July 9, 2026 | Music starts at 6:00 PM The Lone Girl Brewing Company | 114 E Main Street Suite 101, Waunakee, WI thelonegirl.com | 608-850-7175

The Lone Girl Brewing Co.
Nick Venturella and friends, including Gemini's Rival (indie rock duo - Dan Lezama & Nick Venturella), and the amazing, Dave Tamkin.
Thursday July 9, 2026 | Waunakee, WI | 6-9pm

Peace Farm Collective
Saturday July 11, 2026 | Spring Green, WI
Nick Venturella music performance time: 12:30 - 2:30pm
Nick will also be showing/selling some of his unique, upcycled guitar designs (nickVguitars)

Introducing: The B.A. Baracus guitar

B.A. Baracus was the fictional brute with a "bad attitude" (and a fear of flying) played by the famed, Mr. T. in the 1980's TV series, The A-Team. The team - a group of elite ex-military mercenaries foiling the bad guys corruption for truth and justice.

B.A. Baracus drove the team van, which was a cool, mostly black, GMC conversion van with a bad a** red stripe.

The B.A. Baracus guitar is meant to represent the design of The A-Team van. with it's red stripe and red lettered black top-hat knobs (emulating the red mag wheels on the van)

The guitar is a 25.5" scale classic vibe-like (S-S-H) super-strat-style upcycled guitar, hand painted with vintage tuning pegs. Crank this thing to 11 with some distortion tone and become an elite musical mercenary with a bad attitude - "What you talkin' 'bout, fool?"

Stay positive, stay healthy, be kind.

Help others sign up for the Between Songs newsletter by sharing this link: https://nickv.beehiiv.com/

Nick Venturella Endeavors LLC
NickVenturella.com

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