some real actual news

Why hello, didn't see you there. Welcome to my blog. That was dumb. Ok, so I have some actual news today, which is nice, for a change. The first is that I'll be playing a show here in Nashville a week from today. July 14 at Midtown Fellowship's 12 South Venue. I'll be doing a half-hour acoustic set, along with 2 other singer-songwriters. Matthew Jones, who runs the venue, is trying to start up a weekly Thursday evening songwriter event, and this will be part of it. The cost is $3 and goes to the ongoing running of the venue. Not a huge deal, but I haven't played out by myself in a while locally, and I'll probably play a few new songs as well.

In other news, I had a good meeting with my friend Chip today. He is an old friend who has run my website for the past couple of years. In a couple weeks or so my website AndrewOsenga.com and this here blog will be becoming one and the same. I'll have updated photos, tour dates and music on there, and it will all be built around the blog. I've come to really enjoy this type of forum, so we'll see how it works as my main site. This address will still work for the blog, though, so you shouldn't have to change anything. If you have any suggestions of things you'd like to see on the site, now is the time to let me know. We'll have another redesigning for the release of the next solo record.

Tomorrow Caedmon's will be playing a headlining slot at LiFest in Wisconsin, which should be fun. Festivals are fun to play, but the daytime slots can be pretty grueling, so hot and sweaty and loud. Playing them at night, when the crowd is a bit more settled and the breeze is flowing, is one of my favorite things about being in a band. I'm excited to play a full set again, as well.

Today I headed back to Vittles for lunch, and introduced the glory to Todd and Randall. We had a great time, gorged on Southern cooking, and then just sat and talked for about two hours. It was nice to hang out beyond a work setting. I'm so grateful to have such great people and Godly men in my life.

I guess that's about it for today. Oh, yesterday, Todd, Garett and I recorded what we think is the last song for the new Caedmon's record. It's called "Fellowship", I think. All we had were Cliff and Danielle's vocals and we built the rest around it. I played bass, which I love. Usually, when I play on CC records, it gets re-recorded by the time of release, but since the record is due today, I think, I have a chance of getting it on there. I actually played two parts, one far left and one far right, and they're both pretty funky. A total Lanois "The Maker" rip-off, but who cares. Anyway, we'll see if it makes it.

We're going to hang out a bit with Clay and Sarah tonight. It's Sarah's birthday. Alison is making some cupcakes now and I'm sure some Nerts will be played again. Ella is getting better at napping and she's discovered a little toy piano that she can bang on, and it's very cute and makes me excited for piano lessons when she gets older.

Well, if you'll be at the show in Wisconsin tomorrow, please come and say hello, and I'd love it if anybody could make my set at 12 South next week. Again, suggestions for the new website are much appreciated as well. Take care, and I'll talk to you soon.

4th of July

Well, happy Independence America. Hope you guys had a good time. How was mine? Oh, thanks, it was nice. I slept in at my own house, hung out with my wife and daughter, played my 12-string mando-guitar on the never-ending Caedmon's record, went to my brother-in-law's place for a cookout, played some Nerts and am now at home watching Conan while my family is sleeping. A nice, relaxing day. I have a session with Greg Adkins tomorrow, then have to finish up some Caedmon's and Indelible Grace stuff before our show in Wisconsin this Friday. Should be a good, short work week, but I don't know if I'm ready to get back into it. I've had a nice relaxing day and I don't want it to end.

This weekend we played at two big festivals, in Pennsylvania, I think, and in Dallas. We had three mornings where I had to get up in the 5 o'clock hour, and frankly, I don't do that very well. So I needed a slow, sleep-in day. This weekend I had a hotel room to myself every night, which was very nice. Having the studio and the busy-ness of the road and my family, I rarely get much time to myself. I think I'm an introvert at heart, and every now and then, if I haven't gotten some time alone for a while, I kind of have to disappear a little bit and regroup. So this weekend I went to two movies, Batman and Star Wars, and read some old science fiction stories that always crack me up. I liked Batman quite a bit, I must say. Very... believable? Anyway, I got to just be alone, read and write and clear my head. I think I could have used another day of it, but I'm grateful for the little respite God gave me.

Alison and I finished watching BBC's "The Office" right before I left for those shows. Man, I think I have to say that it was really one of the best things I've ever watched. Up there with M*A*S*H for a show unbearably funny, a little sad, and very vulnerably and emotionally real. I seriously have rarely laughed as hard, nor have I cared so much about characters as I have with this show. Now, if you have a hard time understanding British accents, and if you get easily offended (they can be a bit crass) this is probably not the show for you. I really loved it, though, and keep showing it to everybody around. It was honestly pretty inspiring. Good art always is.

There are only two seasons of the show, and each has just six episodes, then the series ends with a pair of Christmas specials. Very short. Brilliant. One of the later episodes leaves the main character at a real low, and he has this moment of honesty that you never see before. It brought me to tears, it was so true, and I stayed up playing guitar for an hour or so afterwards, just wanting to keep that honesty and emotion in the air a little longer. I am very fortunate in that some of the people whose art inspires me at this level are friends of mine, so when I have a moment with a piece like this I always want to call the person and tell them. Unfortunately, I don't know any of these people, and I never will, so they'll have to stay in the Bono, Bruce, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Tolstoy pile of people I'll hope to thank in Heaven.

Well, I should get to bed. Conan's almost done and my battery is almost out. Have a great week, feel free to say hello, and thanks again for reading.

Live 8 thoughts

So today, I've been watching the Live8 shows all day here at my hotel in Dallas. I had to leave for a few hours to go and play at the Celebrate Freedom Festival, a Christian music festival bigger than many of the Live8 shows. I was surprised by some of the differences. The Live8 shows were all about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and healing the sick. The Christian festival today seemed to be basically be all about providing a "safe", i.e. without cussing or sex, entertainment for our Christian kids. Live8 was imploring the leaders of the world to be responsible for the life and death of a continent. We watched the Chik-Fil-A cows dance and Bob and Larry push their new video. I don't mean to come down on the festival, or the people at it, but I really was disappointed that non-believers, people who adamantly stand against the Church were taking responsibility for what Jesus asked US, the Church, to be doing. Obviously, that's a terrible blanket statement, and there are many, many, many people doing wonderful things within the Church for the world around them. Caedmon's is a part of that. Compassion, World Vision, Dalit Freedom, Living Water, and all the churches who support these excellent ministries, are leading this charge. But I couldn't help noticing the differences watching one festival and going to another. They were too close to me to not contrast them. However, Pink Floyd's re-uniting was not near as cool as Tait and TobyMac getting back together to sing Jesus Freak. That was a joke. Pink Floyd. Holy Cow. So freaking great. Anyway, I think I'm just a little discouraged that the event we took part in didn't seem to be near as Christ-like as the event of a bunch of rich, spoiled rock stars and actors. I hope that we can look to what happened today, people uniting to help care for the poor and needy, and realize that the world should be looking to US, because it really is OUR responsibility to take care of the hurting around us. I think if we spent more time fighting hunger and poverty instead of retreating into our corners and priding ourselves on songs that say Jesus and don't say cuss words, the world really would see more of Christ in us. Please pray for me that I can be more active, both globally and locally, in reaching out beyond my own little world. I am definitely way too interested in my own life.

In other news, I went to see Batman Begins last night and really liked it. I thought it was the best Batman I had seen yet. Tonight I'm going to try to see Star Wars, I still haven't been able to. We've had two nights free here in Dallas, and I've enjoyed the rest and getting to just go see a movie by myself. Pretty nice to slip away every now and then. I wrote a song this morning on the guitar Josh left in my room. I was thinking about some stuff Alison and I had been talking about, how our parents affect our parenting and who we are, and some history that we had come up in conversation with the Caedmon's gang. After I heard Annie Lennox sing "Why", which is one of my favorite songs ever, I knew I had to write a song. It's called "Time." I think I like it. I'll post the demo if, after living with it a little more, I still do.

Also, I met some people today who read this and said hi this afternoon. Thanks. That was cool. Glad to know somebody there even knew who we were! It was nice to meet you. All right, that's it for me today. Tomorrow I'm going back home to be with my wife and baby. Been away three days and I miss them both a lot. Can't wait.

getting ready for a big weekend

So today I'm going to be getting ready for this weekend's Caedmon's shows. We're playing pretty good slots of two of the country's biggest music festivals, Creation East, in Pennsylvania, and Celebrate Freedom in Dallas. Todd, Garett and I met yesterday to come up with a set-list and work out arrangements so that we can emphasize the more energetic and visually interesting part or our set for the festival crowds, a lot of whom probably have no idea we're the kind of band we really are. Tomorrow night, at Creation, they're estimating almost 100,000 people, and the festival in Dallas is apparently the largest annual music festival in the world now, with attendences up to 300,000. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched to get to play to these crowds. I think the largest crowd I've been in front of is about 15,000, and that seemed huge to me. I'm also excited because this will be the inaugural gig for my new big pedal board. I usually just fly the smaller one, but for shows this big, I want to make sure I have every possibility sonically. If anybody reading this is going to either of these festivals, please try and say hello. I have to be at the airport at 4:30 tomorrow morning, though, to get there in time for our sound check, so if I try to sleep on you, just walk away...

Oh, also, if any of you were planning on coming to see us play in Georgia on the 3rd, don't. There was apparently some screw-up in the booking, and only three or four of the thirty bands scheduled are going to be there, and we're not one of them. I'm sorry if you already bought your tickets, it was out of our control, believe me, and we'll try to get to Georgia soon to make up for it. I don't know how to go about getting refunds, but I would imagine you could call the place you got them from in the first place and they could help you out. Sorry!

Air-Conditioning!

So three years ago, the AC in my car stopped working. I took it in to get it recharged, and they said that my car had an out-of-date system and needed to be replaced to be legal. They told me this would cost around $800. So I've spent the last three summers with my windows down, telling myself that I would cough it up next year. Frankly, that's about as much as my car is worth, and I'm just too cheap when it comes to this stuff to spend that much money on just being comfortable.

Then last week, it went out on Alison's car, too. We both drive old Volvo's. Mine is a 1990 station wagon that is continually on the verge of meltdown, and hers is a '94 sedan that still seems almost new. But they're both old, and I assumed that if my car had an out-of-date AC system, then so did hers. It might not be worth it to fix the climate control on my car, but Alison's car has the baby seat in it, and that's the one we use for long trips, and frankly, I'm not so cheap that I'll make my wife and daughter drive around in the South with no air-conditioning. For the baby, that's downright dangerous.

WELL, thanks to our good friend the internet, I did a little research and found out that you can convert your system very easily, and very cheaply. They sell kits for like 50 bucks at every auto parts store in the country. So I bought two of them. This morning, I get up knowing I am about to be a hero by restoring the gift of frigidity to my sweltering family, only to see stickers all over the AC systems of BOTH cars telling me that they have already been converted.

Using the first kit I was able to recharge both cars in surprisingly little time, and with startling ease. On the way back to the auto store to get my money back for the second kit I begin to think two different thoughts.

1. Those people at the shop three years ago lied to me. They didn't have to redo my system. That was already done. They were going to charge me eight hundred bucks for thirty dollars worth of freon. Crooks.

2. I've wasted a lot of sweat. I have driven that car all over Nashville for three years in the heat, and could have fixed it so cheaply any time. Newman!!

Anyway, today I did a ton of errands, drove all over town, and felt like the happiest eskimo in the world. I mean, I had that thing cranked to the max. It was about 12 degrees in that car and I couldn't have been grinning any bigger.

So, the moral of the story is: um, well, I guess, it's... go to AutoZone and ask them first before you go to the shop. And if you have a Suburban that you would like to donate, my wife really wants one.

The End.