the last Thursday night of '05

wow, it's a busy season. I stepped off the tour bus early, early Monday morning, Dec. 19 and don't feel like I've stopped since. We traveled to Normal for a few days to celebrate Christmas, saw about 8000 people and headed right back home. It was good to see all our family and friends, but it was a bit hectic.

It's been great to be back home, I should say, though. Ella started crawling about a week ago so we've been grabbing everything below knee-level and moving it somewhere safe, which of course meant moving this shelf so that shelf could go here and then this chair should probably go over here where the thing is so we'll move that to the closet where the other things where and... you get the idea.

In other news, I've been looking for a small workspace that's NOT my basement to set up the studio, thus allowing me to finish the guitar part even during baby naptime. It's been great working at home but the times they are a'changin. So if anybody happens to have a space to rent, let me know...

I'll also be clearing out a bunch of gear on ebay hopefully tomorrow. A FocusRite ISA 428, a couple of different ART channel strips, a small console and various other stuff. Stay posted. And please buy it.

Oh, and I got an elliptical machine for Christmas so the next time you see me I'll be ripped.

I should probably get to bed. Hope you all had a great Christmas. We continue to and are grateful for this time with our families and friends.

Oh, and thanks to all of you who picked up copies of "Coming to Life" last week. So many of you put a friend's address as the shipping destination and I thought that was awesome. It was so cool to watch people sharing the music with other people. That's the greatest thing an artist can ever hope to see and it was an unexpected blessing. On behalf of all of the guys I thank you very much. And with that, I bid you adieu...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

from my family to yours...

the cut

I forgot I meant to post this picture on Sunday. This is a camera phone shot of my new haircut, one side by Jill Phillips, the other by Sandra McCracken. Yes, those are children's activity scissors we found in a drawer at a church. And yes, I'll be getting it fixed before Christmas...

"Coming to Life" $5 Christmas Sale!

For all you last-minute shoppers out there who were wondering what out-of-print cd by a tragically under-appreciated* Nashville rock band you were going to get for all your friends and neighbors, I have good news for you. From now until Friday I'm going to offer The Normals' "Coming to Life" album for $5 with no limit. This was the first of two records we made that really, we thought, defined the band they way we wanted to be. I still play songs from this album every solo show, because I love it. So, since I'm almost out of every other cd, AND I enjoy spreading love for my friends and what we created together, I give you:

the $5 "Coming to Life" extravaganza...

Also, I should say this, if you're wanting to order something from the site this week, orders will be shipped out daily until Friday at noon, after that the next shipping date will be Wednesday after Christmas. Thanks!

settling back in

Well, the last Christmas show was Sunday night, and it was a blast, as usual. This was probably the most fun I've had on tour since I was 19 and 20 and driving around in a van with the Normals and Matthew Perryman Jones was opening for us and Weigel was running sound. Those were good days. And so have been these. It was just an amazing time to spend with some of my best friends. It's great to be done and back home, but a little bittersweet for sure.

Yesterday I just ran a ton of errands and tried to get a lot of business stuff done that had been on the need-to-do list for a while. Some I can't tell you about yet (ooh, what is it!?!) some was just boring, and some was working on the pre-order site, which you, by now, probably all just imagine contains information about the next Guild weekend, but lo, I assure you, it's almost there. And thanks again for your patience.

Last night was a memorable Nashville music night that I came totally unexpected. Jones called me about playing guitar for a three-song set at a writer's night thing at a club called the Mercy Lounge. Weigel was playing bass, Cason was on keys, and Andy Hubbard was playing kit, so it was a great band. We've done it before, and it's fun, but it's usually a bunch of sad, slow, boring solo acoustic guitar stuff and we're this lone rock band. Last night, though, as we were getting our stuff off stage, the person announcing stuff said "next up: the Bees!" and I couldn't believe it. They have been Nashville's greatest secret band. we all know who the lead singer is, since he used to host a similar night at a different club a few years ago, but that's about all we know. They played a few shows, then broke up, and had an album that never came out yet that everybody seemed to get, and it's honestly one of my favorite records. Apparently, they're playing together again and they played three new songs and were amazing. Right after that my friend Griffin House got up and played, who hasn't lived here in a while so I hadn't seen him in months. Jeff Irwin, who played bass for the Far Country tour and on my new record, played with him, as did my friends Ian and Court and ol' Cason sat in on a tune as well. They also played all new songs and they were killer. Very dynamic, very Springsteen, just a huge voice and charisma. It was really fun to get to play with my good, old friends and then to get to just sit and enjoy some great music. Fun times.