Juleps The Juleps represent a collaboration among members of various Chicago bands that has grown onto a project of far greater depth than the original “side project” label might have indicated. Working within a rather loose freewheeling concept of roots-rock/country and Americana-meets various strains of British Invasion, the Juleps have created an impressive lexicon of songs in their spare time between other band commitments hangovers and personal days. Music from “Kickbutt City USA”, their first CD released in 1997 in the Chicago area only, enjoyed heavy air play on the venerable WXRT Radio and rave reviews from the Chicago daylies. In the summer of ‘99, the band posted a page on MP3.com that include some tracks from Kickbutt City and some unreleased material. With little or no self promotion (and no live dates), any of a number of their songs have occupied top 10 and top 20 download positions in the New Country charts most of the time since. On a similar web-note, Sky Blue Boulevard climbed all the way to #12 on garageband.com during their Spring 2000 Final Countdown. Having recently bid a fond farewell to vocalist Cathy Richardson and, after an exhaustive search that included many of Chicago's top singers, the band serendipitously found Melissa Rose. Inspired and re-energized by Melissa’s presence and awesome talents and by the prospect of kick-starting a great band into high gear, they are currently working on recording and writing new material for a release by year’s end. The Juleps are: Gary Yerkins: Principle singer/songwriter for the Insiders, a consistently top draw Chicago area band who have in the last 12 years recorded two CDs for Epic/Sony as well as four releases on Chicago indy Monsterdisc. Insiders songs have also been heard in the films, Queen’s Logic, A Normal Life and Henry, Portrait Of A Serial Killer2. Jay O’rourke: Producer/engineer and lead guitar player for the Insiders. O’rourke has produced projects for Material Issue, Pat Denunzio, Nash Kato/Urge Overkill and many other solo artists and bands. He also plays in the Fuzzbusters, a Chicago area retro instrumental band. Ed Breckenfeld: Drummer for the Insiders and the Cathy Richardson Band. Melissa Rose: Lead singer/songwriter for Chicago based Soul Intention and Gertrude. Gertrude received an award in 1998 for best female fronted band in Chicago. Guess who the female was? Grant Tye: Grant has been lead guitar player for many notable bands, including , Robbie Fulks, the Cathy Richardson Band, Michael MacDermott,Sonia Dada and Dick Holiday and the Bamboo Gang. Fran Kondorf: Fran has played bass in various Chicago punk, rock, blues and country bands including the Blue Watusis and The Country Melvins.