what time is it? 4:30! It's not late, nah, it's early, early!!

It’s late Wednesday night and I should be in bed. I’ve been working on some different things for my new website, though, and am very excited. This week has been a good one so far, as well.

This past Thursday I played a small set at 12South, here in Nashville. It went pretty well, besides my incredibly stupid attempt to play a song I had written the night before, with only my chicken-scratch hand-written lyrics to go by. I had to stop it a couple times in the middle because I couldn’t read my own words. The song is a new favorite of mine, though. It’s called “early in the morning� and I finished it at about 5am Thursday morning, so it’s fitting. More on that later. Other than that, I played a couple “Photographs� songs, “Mother India� and another one from my album-in-progress, a rocker called “Santa Barbara.� My parents were in town for a few days then, so they got to see me play, which was nice. After the show, we came home and packed up for our trip to North Carolina, where Alison grew up.

We got back from Alison’s parents’ place on Monday, which was also Alison’s birthday. Ella was spent after all the traveling, and her second plane ride, and so she and I stayed home while Alison and her girl friends went out to dinner. I had a great time with Ella, and finished the new Harry Potter. Which was great.

Tuesday I spent most of the day in my studio, adding some extra guitar bits to an almost-finished Indelible Grace 4 cd. It’s sounding great, and there are some beautiful songs and inspired performances throughout.

Today I worked on that new song “early in the morning.� I had done the acoustic, some vocals, and part of a loop the day before, and picked up where I left off today, with Cason to help out. He added some great keyboard stuff, and really helped shape and define the loop a bit more. Jeremy Casella dropped by then and added a touch of piano and some really incredible background vocals. On one passage in particular, he totally amazed and surprised me. It’s always astounding what other people will bring to a work of art. I’ve been learning over the years that part of the craft of my own projects includes inviting friends I trust and respect and giving them the freedom to add what they feel. Anyway, Jeremy took a part which I wrote to be mainly a transition and put a breath of beauty on it to make it a moment. Very cool. And I don’t want it to sound like Cason didn’t add anything. The thing with Cason is, he does with every note he plays, so you kind of forget he’s a little genius after a while. I am smoke and mirrors without that guy, though, that’s for sure.

I really like this new tune. I wrote it when I couldn’t sleep the other night, hence the 5am, and really the idea of the song. I have this old guitar that Bobes’ dad gave me a year or so ago back in Normal. It’s a big, old acoustic, with no name on it, and a sort of home-made bridge. I leave it tuned down two steps and use it for a lot of writing. It just has this deep, resonant delicacy to it. This was the first song I wrote on it that I felt needed to be performed on it as well. The song is pretty much based around a melodic figure that just seems to belong to that particular guitar. So, thanks for the song, Bo, I have a feeling it’s been in that guitar for a while.

Lyrically, I based it, in structure more than substance, on an old novel of Steinbecks called “The Pasture of Heaven.� He tells story after story of this little town in Northern California, and it doesn’t seem to have a point until the last page of the last chapter. The way he tied it all together, from the random details to a sudden, and subtle, point, just really impressed me. I’ve tried to write a song about the book for a while, and never could. It turned out, the problem was I was trying to write a song about California, which I love, but don’t really know, when I should have been writing about my own neighborhood. The Lord knows how many songs are waiting to be written for the people on my own street. And Lord, please forgive me, for not getting to know them better during this time we’re sharing our little avenue. Anyway, I really like this song, and will probably post an acoustic version of it on the Drawing Board when this new site goes live.

Other than that, tomorrow Greg Adkins is coming back in. We’re on the way to being done with his record, and I’m really enjoying how it’s feeling. I hope that he’ll be as happy with it as I am. We’ll spend two days this week, and two days next, and I think we’ll be basically ready to go to mix.

Ella is just getting cuter by the minute, it seems. My dad was playing with her last week and buzzed his lips together for her, and she loved it. Now she just tries to do it all the time. It pretty much just ends up spreading slobber all over the house, but she just grins the whole time and it makes this great little noise, and we couldn’t love it anymore. It’s amazing how fast she’s gone from a newborn who sleeps all the time and barely opens her eyes, to a four-month old baby girl who smiles and grabs things and loves to look at pictures in books and her parent’s faces. It really is amazing, and I’m starting to see how it really is going to go too fast.

Well, that’s about it for me. I definitely need to be getting back to bed. Thanks for reading and I can’t wait for you to see the new site in just a couple of days.

A Brief Interlude

Someone play some string-change music: Andy's Webmaster and I are going to be doing a switcheroo, moving the entries, comments, etc. from this Weblog to Andy's site. Comments will be turned off in the interim.

Thanks for your patience!

quick note

Hey everybody,
Sorry I haven't replaced those photos yet. I will soon, no worries. We're here at Alison's parents' place in North Carolina, just getting ready to leave and fly back home to Nashville. We've been busy here hanging out with the family, and of course, reading the new Harry Potter book. I honestly doubt I'll post again before I finish it, but that should only be another day or so. It's pretty good. Also, today is Alison's birthday, so anyone who knows her, please send her your well wishes. Thanks for reading and I'll have more soon.

Ok, so sorry if this page loads really slowly right now. I put up a bunch of pictures I thought I had sized down, but they are GIANT. If anybody can help me get these to a more manageable size, I would thank you with a toast of Berry Blue Kool-Aid, which I have waiting for you in the fridge. Don't hate me!

I'm back!

Our server was down for a couple days there, but many thanks to Geof, who not only grounded a shuttle flight today, but also got this, and many other, delightful cyber-coffeeshops up and running again. The past few days have been fairly interesting, so I'll try and give a brief run-down, and I'm going to throw a heck of a lot of photos of all sorts of things on here, so I hope you're ready.

Let's see, the last time I wrote was right after the 4th of July. This past weekend the band traveled to Wisconsin. We got to see Bebo and Gabe play, which is always fun. I hadn't seen Gabe for more than a brief hello since we finished up Andy P's last Christmas tour, so it was good to see him. Our set was fun. They had a killer old tweed Fender Deluxe from the early 70's that I got to play through. That was a joy. I used my new mando-12string live for the first time as well, which was a blast. I have some pictures of it below. It is such an incredible instrument. My friend Jeff Pardo was there, playing with a band called "Denver and the Mile High Orchestra." He's a member of Taylor Sorensen's band The Trigger Code, and is another old friend I hadn't spent much time with, and it was good to hang out with him for a while.

Sunday night we visited a PCA church plant in East Nashville. It was a good service. A number of our friends are really involved there, so it was good to reconnect a bit. Ella totally freaked in the nursery, though, when she heard another little kid crying, so we had to head out early. Pretty much, she talked or cried whenever anyone was speaking, so I was only in the service when we sang. Alison really enjoyed it, though.

Monday I finished mixing Chris Mason's EP. I'm a very unseasoned mixer, so it takes me a while. But I feel pretty good about these mixes. I'm sure he and Cason will have some tweaks, but we'll get it done sounding all right. Can't wait for you to hear it. Very cool stuff.

Tuesday I worked over at a studio called The Fireside Room. It's a great, older place where they cut a lot of Neil Young's 70's stuff, I think. I was there for an album called "The Message Project", with songs based on excerpts from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible. We worked on a tune Jeremy Casella wrote, always a pleasure. He, Sandra McCracken and I all took turns singing lead, with a full-on three-part harmony in the choruses. Really cool. We cut the vocals live, all three of us in a circle, so we had to really nail the parts together. It was a blast. I haven't recorded that old-school in a while. At least not vocally. I also played bass and electric guitar on the song. Ken Lewis played drums, Jeremy played acoustic, and a really great keys player named Jeff Roach added some nice stuff as well. Monroe Jones is producing the record with Philip LaRue, who used to be in a band called Larue. Really nice guy. Anyway, the song turned out beautifully, and it was a really fun day. Ken took some great photos, that I'll post down below as well.

My parents got here today for a quick little visit. It's been fun to have them here. We took them to Vittles for lunch, of course, and yes, it was BBQ day, and then just hung out over the afternoon. They brought my new Rhodes down with them, and I got to fire it up, and let me tell you, it's immaculate and sounds incredible. I'm so excited. Alison's birthday is July 18, and so tonight we went to P.F. Chang's for a little birthday dinner. Very nice.

We're going to North Carolina on Friday for the weekend. Clay and Sarah are having a wedding reception out there, so we'll get to be a part of that. It will be Ella's first plane ride, and her first time out of Nashville at all. How crazy. I was 16 the first time I flew. I was so excited and nervous. Now I just look forward to the hour or two I get to spend with my iPod and my eyes closed. It'll be a fun trip, though, and hopefully a nice, restful getaway.

Other random tidbits for now: I'm looking for another Deluxe Memory Man pedal, if anybody has one they're not using. Mine is getting a little beat up from the road, and I'd like a spare, plus then I could have one on each board. Just thought I'd check here before I go ebaying. Also, Chip gave me a few pictures of the next to last Normals performance, at a festival in Alabama a few years ago. I hadn't seen them, but they're pretty cool. We were opening for Jars, so some of the gear in the background is familiar as well. I'm going to post them, just because I miss my old band and miss the rock and roll days.

I guess that's about it for now. If you're in Nashville, don't forget I'm playing Thursday night at 8PM for 3 bucks at the 12South music venue. I'd love to see you there. My folks will be there, too. I'll play a new song or two, maybe an old Normals tune, and a few album songs as well. Should be fun. I'm always excited to play in town. So yeah, there it is. Now, onto the pictures....

First off, these are the Normals shots Chip gave me. My hair was huge.











Mark and Mike are so cool.



And here are the shots of our session yesterday. Here's Jerry and me.



Me playing bass. Yikes!!
(check out the new pedal board there on the floor...)





and here is how we cut the vocals. Pretty sweet.



Ok, now here are the shots of those new Elloree guitars I've been promising. The little blue one is a 12-string mando-guitar and the big, green one is a baritone, tuned to B instead of E. Both are really amazing. My favorite instruments of his, by far.





and this one just makes me smile...