Flosenga

This past weekend my good friend Nick Flora and I headed off in my Toyota Matrix and played a handful of shows in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  

Our friend and graphic design hero Jon Eichler created this little ditty and it started showing up on Twitter.  So we embraced it.

This is my last bit of touring until this December when I head out with Andrew Peterson for the BTLOG tour.

Between now and then, outside of a handful of sessions, it's just me and Leonard in our spaceship. What a blast.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will now share exactly four thousand words with you about our run of shows last weekend.  Then I will hit "Publish" and blast off for the rest of the day.  

 

 

Spaceship Concert

So after we finished construction on Day 2, we went to Baja Burrito and then had a concert.  We pulled off one of the walls and performed in the ship.

I played a bunch of new songs from Leonard, finished AND unfinished.  And I had a few friends join me.  It was an amazing time.  Check it out...

Special Guest #1 - Friend and neighbor, Christopher Williams.  Check out his amazing new record, "Stone Water Wood Light" HERE.

Next up: New Nashvillian Drew Michael Blake.  He came and volunteered for the build and was just great to get to know.  I thought it would be fun to have him play a couple songs.  And he killed it!  He has a new EP coming out soon, and if it's as good as him live it will be well worth checking out.

And our final guest, the legendary Don Chaffer.  Waterdeep is awesome and Don is half of why.

It was a special night.  One I'll never forget.  Thanks to everyone who made it happen.

Building - Day 2

Sorry this is a few days late.  By the end of day 2, building and the concert, I could barely speak in complete sentences, let alone put together a blog post.

I took this morning off to nap and read and got a basic recording setup rocking in the spaceship in the afternoon.  Actually made some music in there today!

Anyway, day 2 in photos...

  

I was working really hard.

The ceiling is a huge white sheet, called a "scrim", that we rolled up end to end, like a scroll, and then tightened over the frame of the ship.

Here's where the lights (that we found in a junk room and some geniuses rewired and hung from the ceiling) meet the ceiling of the ship.

 

Building - Day 1

Wow, what a day.  Amazing folks came and worked crazy hard on this crazy dream of mine.  I can't believe it.  What a gift.  I'd tell you more, but I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking.  

This is my Mom.  Getting interviewed.  I hope she talks a lot about my 7th grade year.

Stephen Lamb made this panoramic shot.

This is where we left off tonight.  Walls, panels, floors and ceiling tomorrow.  Then a concert to say thank you.  Going to be another awesome day.  And now I have to go to bed.

I did eventually finish doing the dishes.

Wow.  Yesterday was a strong day for songs.  But not until later in the day.  

That song I've been so excited about, "Beat of my Heart" hit a major roadblock.  I wrestled a verse to the ground over the course of an hour to both A) love it, and B) realize it doesn't belong in the song.  It's cool, but not what that song needs.  So I kept scrapping and writing, scrapping and writing, until I was just frustrated.  I finally said, "screw it" and just changed guitars and started trying to find something else.

And I did!  Pretty quickly I established another chord sequence.  It started out feeling rhythmically like "Beat of my Heart" but then gradually, as I uncovered a lyric, found its own pacing.  And it has got a crazy catchy chorus.  I'm so excited about it.  Right now it's probably titled "Out of Time".  Who knows.

I tell people often to set aside time to write.  Put it on your calendar, shut off your phone and computer and just write.  Don't wait for "the moment" to hit, because you can make that moment show up by putting yourself in its path.

HOWEVER, if that moment does hit outside of your pre-ordained writing slot and you have the opportunity to actually chase it.  DO IT.  Which is why, at 12:30 last night , three dishes in to clearing out the dishwasher, I ran to the living room, grabbed the old Yamaha acoustic that sits in there and wrote until 3.  

Yes, I am crazy tired today.  But I got a second verse to that "Out of Time" tune and found a structure and one of my favorite lyrics in a long while for an idea based on Adam in the garden and God saying, "It is not good for man to be alone."

This morning I got the girls ready for school and once they were off, took a short nap and flew to the studio to play guitar on the new Slugs and Bugs record, which was so fun.  Now, back at the studio after lunch, I've got about three hours to revisit what showed up last night.  Going to try to assess this pile of ideas and see if I can get one or two into an actual first draft of a full song.

Posting this blog and then…  COMPUTER OFF.  There's writing to do.