Thursday morning

Well, I'm up early enough to work out. Make that five times on the elliptical since I got it for Christmas. I think that's once more than I went to the Y all last year. Ah, the waste of money... Anyway, I wanted to catch you up really quick on the past couple of days.

They have been busy, these days. It seems like every night has some activity or group or event or something. It's been great stuff, though, and I think it's about to settle in to the new year's groove.

I worked Monday on my record and then the rest of this week have been engineering and playing guitar for an EP that Jeremy Casella is producing for an artist named Lance Brewer. It's cool stuff, very Johnny Cash, and it's been fun to just worry about the sounds, letting somebody else make all the decisions.

I met with the band Alathea yesterday to talk about the possibility of producing their next record. They're meeting with a couple of producers so I don't know if I'll get to do it, but I think it would be fun. They played me a couple of new songs that were pretty strong. And that would mean I'd get to hang out with Garett more, which is always a good time.

Alison and I have been, very slowly, watching through the episodes of a TV show called "Freaks and Geeks". It's sort of a comedy-drama following a brother and sister in high school in 1980. The younger brother is a geek, as are his friends, and the daughter is like a junior "mathlete" who starts hanging out with "the bad kids". It's a really interesting show, the acting is great, as is the writing, and it looks into all these characters beyond the stereotypes. It got cancelled after one season, and that's sad. It is such a vivid portrayal of high school, especially since I was pretty much always in one of those two camps (i.e. I stopped thinking Star Trek was cool when I started playing guitar and listening to Pink Floyd) so it's made me really nostalgic. Anyway, I highly recommend that show to anybody wondering what to cue up next on their netflix. And it's stinking funny.

Well, enough procrastinating. Time to go burn off the baby fat! Oh, and Monday morning I'm going to visit the place I hope to move the studio. Please pray that this place works out, as it's kind of the last tree I have to bark up currently. All right, thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave any comments with your thoughts on what that black thing was on Lost last night and how great that episode was.

The Longing

I forgot to write this in my last post, but I just found an old demo of one of my favorite songs I've ever written. It didn't fit on the last Normals record or "Photographs" and I guess I just forgot about it. Josh Davis recorded it back at Belmont, along with acoustic versions of "Photograph" and "Kankakee" that may see the light of day later. Anyway, this demo is pretty exciting and I'm pretty bummed I didn't realize I had this song for the current record. I highly doubt it will be forgotten again. It's over on the Drawing Board and I'd love to know what you think of it.

it's Friday night and the mood is right...

Man, it's almost 1 o'clock Saturday morning now and I'm about to head to bed. I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you guys know what was going on.

I've spent most of this week working on my record. I feel that it really turned a corner this week from being a work-in-progress to something almost finished. Most of the tracks are done and I'm about halfway through with the vocals. I'll have it done a healthy time before it goes to mix, which will be very refreshing for me. I'm almost always still recording while other songs are being mixed and I'm so glad to not have to do that on this one. It's really sounding amazing and I honestly can't wait for you to hear it. I think you'll really like it. I do.

A couple of days ago I was singing a vocal track for one of the songs and realized "I don't want to sing this." Some of the lyrics to these songs are quite personal and have been birthed out of things that aren't necessarily public fodder. Not that the thoughts weren't valid or worth writing about, but they all weren't the type of thing to put on a record and have to sing in two years in some club in Milwaukee. So I stayed up really late and re-wrote the lyrics for a couple different songs. I think (I hope) that they turned out even better than what I had originally, but it was a hard thing to do. Even though I knew I didn't want to use what I had, I really liked it, and so it was tough to let it go in hopes of finding something more, or at least equally, inspiring. The Lord provides, though, and I'm now more excited about both of these tracks. I won't have to mute the vocals when friends drop by the studio anymore. And Matthew Smith got his name in a song. Not "Smith" though, just "Matthew." In three months somebody will get to link to this post when somebody on a message board asks who they think that lyric is about, so I hope he likes it.

Today I worked on Matt Long's project, and we'll knock out a bit more tomorrow. Ben Shive kicked some major organ/piano butt and did pretty much the whole project in one day. For the recording enthusiasts out there I used a new preamp today, the A Designs "Pacifica", a new design based on the old Quad-8 boards, and I absolutely fell in love with it. A very up-front, punchy sound while still being very musical and full. A great counterpoint to the Neve's and API's I usually use. Anyway, enough geek talk.

I'm still on the hunt for a space to move the studio, though I'm chasing a few leads and hope to find something next week. If you're the praying type, I would appreciate your prayers for this search. I know it's going to be a great thing, but it's been a bit draining and frustrating, on top of trying to get so many other things done. I'm confident, though, that the right place will make itself known in the right time. Ideally, it will be accompanied by a choir of heavenly angels singing Handel's "Messiah" while a bright beam of shining sunlight comes to rest on a glorious "For Rent" sign. I'll let you know.

That's about it from the work side. I've gotten to hang out and catch up with a lot of great friends this week, Cason, Ben, Jason Feller, Billy Cerveny, Justin Rosolino, etc... and I've really enjoyed it. Chris and Bethany Mason spent the evening over here and just left about a half an hour ago. We had a great time. Jeremy Casella and I are meeting tomorrow to plan some upcoming projects and I'm looking forward to that time as well.

All right, it is way past my bedtime, and I'm almost done with the book "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" which is freaking incredible, and so I'll probably be up a little bit more. Good night and thanks for stopping by.

good to be back

All righty then, the holidays are over and we're all getting back in the swing of things. I have about six posts in my head I will try to sit down and write in the next couple of weeks, but for today I'll just give you the quickies.

The Osenga Project, the pre-order site, is now up and running. Currently up there is a live video of one of the songs, taken from the last performance at the New City in Knoxville, and an acoustic demo of another of the new songs. Members have access to (what they hopefully would deem) the goodness and can comment and talk about it with each other. If you haven't pre-ordered, now is the time to do it to get the good stuff.

In similar news, my EP "Souvenirs and Postcards" is about out. To my untrained eye it looks like I've got about twenty copies left. Unlike "Photographs" a re-printing won't be for a while, so if you wanted to get a copy, I wouldn't wait. I'll take it out of stock on the store when that happens.

Cason and I are in the trenches of the new record this week, pouring on the guitars, at long last, and the stuff is coming together really well. I've had these songs in various states of complete disarray for so long that I've kind of grown scared of a few of them, and to finally hear them getting finished I am able to breathe all sorts of sighs of relief. And they're all going different, and better, places than I originally expected. Methinks Cason has something to do with this...

And finally, because what's a blog without one, here's a list of my new years resolutions (which will really be mine this year, as opposed to the year I was asked to write some for publication in CCM magazine and they changed all my answers...)

1. use that elliptical!! Lose the ol' 20.

2. read a book that's not a novel

3. write a book that is

4. be playing five to six solo shows a month by the end of the year

5. get the Velvet Eagle to be a sulf-sustaining entity, and most importantly, get it out of the basement!!

6. learn to mix on an analog console (I just got one, more on that later)

7. return phone calls and e-mails

8. find a mentor

9. take my wife on a vacation

10. foster a daily habit of study, prayer and meditation

With that I shall leave you. Blessings to you all in this new year! Thanks for your continued love and support for me, my music and my family. Stay classy 2006!

new ebay stuff

Ok, a couple of preamps are up on ebay right now. I've got a session to go to, so I'll post the other stuff (a vintage Shure line mixer, a huge power conditioner and a couple cases) later tonight. Go to the link for "My ebay" over here ----> to check it out. Thanks!