If you ask Julie Loyd her favorite part of touring, she's eminently qualified to answer. She strums, stomps and sings her way through over 170 high-energy shows every year, a stage presence that Curve Magazine characterized as "kick-ass.'

"The performing is really what makes the touring worthwhile," she says, "getting in front of a crowd of riled-up acoustic-rock-lovin' people and seeing how many strings I can break in one show." Maybe that's what drives her to cover so much ground, literally and figuratively. Loyd is known for moving to an area, performing at such an incredible level that she wins a "Best Of" competition, then moving on.

Her tours have always been notable, performing with artists such as Shawn Mullins, G-love and Special Sauce, Alana Davis, Michelle Malone, and Chris Barron (of the Spin Doctors), to name a few. She can often be seen on the stages of prestigious listening rooms such as The Bitter End (NYC), Bluebird Café (Nashville), Club Passim (Boston), The Iron Horse Music Hall (Northampton), and Schuba's in her new hometown of Chicago. She's lived all over the eastern U.S., a product of the highly-educated environs of Charlottesville, Virginia; is a self-described "university brat"; and has been influenced by living in Asheville, NC; New York, NY; Northampton, MA; and Chicago, her current stomping grounds.