Elloree instruments

First of all, I'd like to take this first paragraph to do the obligatory, and SO overdone, apology for not blogging enough. Although, for those of you that used to wait eagerly by your screens for months on end waiting for a new journal post on the Normals site, I'm still knocking them out of the park. Anyway, it's been a crazy couple of days (but when isn't it?)

That being said, I'll give you the quick AO update and move on to the topic of this post. I spent all of last week tracking a kids record for Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame. We got probably 90% of it done and had a blast. I've recorded both of those guys so many times I've lost count, but this was the first time I recorded them doing pirate voices, conversations about whether or not backhoes go to the moon, or spoken word poems interspersed with whistling duets. And to top it off, my parents came to visit on Friday and Saturday, and my dad not only played trumpet, but he was also one of the pirate voices. I love my job.

Tomorrow I'm going to play guitar for a guy named PW Gopal and then Tuesday and Wednesday will be in Kansas City working on a project for Don Chaffer with assorted other Nashville indie types. Don was in the band Waterdeep and has long been one of my heroes so I'm looking forward to working with him again. I'll be back in town on Thursday and will play a late show at Trevecca University here in Nashvegas and then Friday and Saturday will be in Florida with Caedmon's. Yeah, busy week. I'm only gone four days, though, and will be home a day in the middle, so that's not too bad.

My record is now finally mixed and sent off to get mastered. I've got to get the song order figured out, though, and kind of have no idea where that's all going to land. I've always kind of regretted the song order of my first record, but always loved how the Normals albums flowed. Maybe I'll try to get their opinions... I've also got to figure out a title. Any of you who heard any of the songs on various sites or in concert, or have just read enough me blabbing about it to have any suggestions, feel free to share them. You never know. I'll be working on the artwork this week as well, and finishing up the art for the Photographs re-release and will post the new cover for THAT sometime this week.

Ok, I've been meaning to tell you about this stuff for a couple weeks but have never remembered when I've been in front of my computer. Rick Felkel at Elloree Guitars down in Louisiana has built me a number of instruments over the past three years or so and we've gotten to become friends. He's a great guy and builds wonderful sounding instruments.

He has long partnered with a crisis pregnancy center in his town called "Life Choices." I've tried to find a link for them but don't know if they have a site. Anyway, each year he builds an instrument, puts it up for auction, and then sends them all the proceeds. Last year Caedmon's autographed a mandolin for it, this year we signed it and Jars of Clay did as well. I'm going to post this on their message board and on caedmonscall.net and if you guys could help spread the word as well, that would be great. He'll probably start the auction later this week or early next week, and I'll spread the link around when he does. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the mandolin. It's the same model as the one he built for me.





and here's one with the Rick, the builder, and Lindsey Breard, who runs the Life Choices center...



Last year, Rick built me two electric guitars at the same time, one was a 12-string mando-guitar and the other a baritone. I have been raving about both of these instruments pretty much since the day I got them and have used them on literally every project I've done since. Cason and I were pretty much freaking out about the baritone last month when doing the guitars for my record and I called up Rick and asked him to build us two more: a 6-string and a 12-string standard electric, built the same way as the baritone and mando-guitar. I love guitars with a passion, you may have noticed, but I honestly have no concept of how they're made so I thought it would be kind of cool to have him send me updates on the progress of these instruments and post them here on my blog.

He's sent me two pictures of the guitars so far. Before that he mailed me a couple of wood samples and Cason and I each picked the wood we thought would be best. Then we called Rick and talked us into using other kinds that would sound better. Thanks Rick. Both guitars will be ash with, um, I forgot, some kind of wood for the neck. Hopefully he'll say in a later update. Maybe they're all ash. I think that might have been it. Anyway, here is the wood that will be the body of each guitar...



Then he sent this e-mail and picture...

"I got the two bodies cut out. One has a little wider neck block than the other, since one is going to be a six string and the other a twelve string. Since I took this picture, I have cut the taper for the arm rest and where it lays against your chest. I'll probably get routering for the pickups, controls, and neck in the next couple of days. I'll get another picture to you once that's done."



How cool is that? Ok, that's been more than enough rambling for me tonight. Thanks Bobes and Sarah for the early phone call and the rest of you, have a great week. I'll post again soon, probably in Kansas City. Oh, and remind me I need to tell you about our neighbors who blew up their house last week. Great story. Good night.

a few more pics

I worked more today on Andy and Randall's kids' record. Very, very fun. I can't wait to see how Ella will love these songs in a year or two. We went to Dan McGuiness for lunch today. It's a great Irish pub with a killer house amber. Mmmm.

Lost was great tonight. I just love that show.

Here are a couple photos from the past few days.

Shane and me when I went to pick up my record...



And here are a few of Ella these days. She loves to turn the DVD player off and on. Every day last week I would come home with a couple mixes and put them in that player. Until the next day after work we'd get to hear the first few seconds of the first song on that disc about a thousand times. Very fun.







For those of you on the pre-order site, tomorrow the song "House of Mirrors" will be streaming for just the one day, so make sure you head on over and check it out. If you like it, leave a comment over here to let people know what you think. Thanks and have a great night.

Six songs, Kid Songs, Love Songs and Lanois

Happy Valentine's Day all you lovebirds out there. Or happy Single People's Awareness Day. Whatever your take on it. As for us, we feel guilty asking our single friends to babysit on Valentine's Day, so we're celebrating on Thursday instead. And it'll be easier to get a dinner reservation then.

A few months ago I couldn't stop talking about a project I worked on for my friend Chris Mason. That record is finally out, today I believe, and you can listen to it here and buy it here. I'm pretty proud of the way this turned out, sonically and vibe-wise and all that, and I think Chris wrote some pretty great songs. If you found this website because you like my music, I'm pretty confident you'd enjoy Chris's as well, so head on over, check it out, and support another great independent artist.

I saw Daniel Lanois in concert last night. It was really great. For those of you who don't know who he is, he produced probably six or seven of my all-time favorite records (Achtung Baby, The Joshua Tree, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, EmmyLou Harris, Bob Dylan...). He's also one of my favorite guitar players and just an all-around incredibly inspiring musician. He had the same band that he had the first time I saw him, but they've gotten way better and thankfully, they've also gotten a new drummer. And this guy was great. They played at the Belcourt Theatre, which is the first place I ever played Andy P's Christmas show, kind of cool. Anyway, it was an inspiring show, musically, visually, all sorts of ways. Watching someone play with such a freedom and a passion reminds me of why I started doing this in the first place. And then I sit there and dream up things I should do next. I started thinking about lighting in my new studio, where to sit the drums, how to approach building songs to have a more cinematic scope (maybe showing old movies silently on a wall while people play?) I just love being taken to a place where it's just natural to create, even in your daydreaming. Oh, and EmmyLou showed up and sang four songs with him. Dang.

I started working on that kids record with Randall and Andy yesterday. It was a lot of fun. We're trying to get the basics of EIGHTEEN songs in two days, which is crazy, especially when they're singing about their pet tigers and bored kids and then try to sing it faster and faster. It's actually been a ton of work, from the engineering side, to have so many songs that have to stop and start, speed up, slow down, all these different things, but it's been very fun.

Well, I should get running. For those of you on the pre-order site, I'm going to post a stream of one of the new songs on Thursday, so make sure to be checking that site out. Thanks for stopping by and I'll write again soon.

Done with the Mix

I just left Shane's studio after listening to the last mix and I can't believe it, but it's done. And it sounds fantastic. It's been amazing to hear these tunes really come to fruition after working on them so hard for so long. It'll get mastered sometime here in the next couple of weeks. I'll stream one of the songs on the pre-order site sometime next week. Geof just needs to show me how and I'll give you a couple days heads up to make sure you can catch it.

The last four episodes of Arrested Development were on last night. We taped them and watched them after Ella went to bed and could barely breathe, we were laughing so hard. If anybody caught the name of the non-Fox show they George Michael referenced, that Fox censored out, please let me know. We couldn't figure it out for the life of us.

Thursday night Alison and I actually went on a date. Our friend Adrienne called at about 6:30 and said "hey, I'm not doing anything tonight if you want me to watch Ella" and by 6:50 we were pulling into the movie theatre parking lot to go see the Johnny Cash movie. Which was great. Then we went over to Trevecca, a local university, to hear Dave's band. Dave is my intern. His full name is David Grant. His band is DG Thunder. He plays the drums and sings lead. They were so funny, especially the last tune "I'm wearing girl jeans." It brought the house down. Thanks DG Thunder, for making our lives a little more worthwhile.

Alison's parents are here this weekend and we just watched Duke beat Maryland. That was fun.

The artwork for the re-release of Photographs is almost complete and it looks great. I'll post the new cover next week. I can't wait for you to see it. Chris and Brannon at Portland Studios are just knocking it out of the park. We'll get to work on the new record art full on, once Photographs is wrapped up.

The last project for the Velvet Eagle, at least while it's here at my house, begins next week. Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame are going to do a kids record here. It's going to be a blast and I can think of no better way to finish up my time working at home than with a fun project with some of my best friends. I'll let you know how it goes when we get into it next week.

Well, Ella just went down for a nap and Alison's folks just left so I'm going to hang out with my wife for a while. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Mix - Day 1

Sorry I didn't write this weekend. My computer died, so I couldn't do anything I planned on. It's in the shop now, and I've got a loaner so I can get stuff done. Whew.

I have a couple things to share tonight before I go to bed. First off, and I have been meaning to post this for over a week now, the promoter for a solo show I played in Champaign, IL this past November recorded the show and is selling limited edition copies of it. You can purchase them here. Two of the songs from my new record were played that night and are available on here. Also, Mark Lockett from the Normals and my brother Rob sat in during part of the show and you can hear them as well. This cd is a fundraiser for their church, so it's for a good cause as well. It's 10 bucks, plus 2 for shipping and handling, etc... so a good deal.

Three of the songs for the new record are mixed now. Shane started on them today and, dang, they sound phenomenal. Cason and I walked in to hear them and were just floored. Usually we have to make a bunch of suggestions and changes to get it where we want it, but with Shane it was already there. You guys will not believe how incredible it sounds. We were just so happy with it. I'll get to go hear more tunes tomorrow and I honestly can't wait. And Shane is growing his beard out more and looking very Rick Rubin-ish in the best way possible.

Our Caedmon's show in California was all right this weekend. I got really sick on Friday, after pulling a few all-nighters to get the record done, then putting in the new kitchen floor (which is looking GOOD) and having my grandparents in for a visit. They were all great things, but I was just beat and started feeling pretty rough. About three tunes into the set I realized I was losing my voice. By the time we got to the songs I sing it was just gone. I did a version of "High School Band" involving much audience participation and singing along with my pretty much spoken-word performance. It seems those types of things tend to be pretty great sometimes, though. Maybe it's just that people know they're seeing something unique, that's not at every other concert, but those moments where things don't go as planned can really be inspiring. Anyway, it was good to see the guys and get to play nice and loud. The plane ride was LONG though, probably especially since I was feeling so bad. Oh well.

The greatest thing about mixing week is that you only need to be there for a couple of hours, but since you don't know when they'll be you have to kind of leave the day open. This meant I got to play with Ella a lot today, and that was really nice. She's standing up all the time and kind of inching her way to where she wants to go. She'll probably start walking pretty soon, and I can't even believe it. She's changing so fast and it's so much fun to watch her getting more and more like a "real person" whatever that means...

Anyway, it's getting late and I need to head to bed. Thanks for giving me a few minutes to read this and check out that cd if you get a minute. I'll try to write again tomorrow. Until then...