Sunday
Apr302006
What a Weekend
Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 11:56PM
I said I would post again on the road this weekend, but I never found an internet connection. Sorry about that. It was a wild couple of days, though, and I'll fill you in. Right now Alison is helping her good friend Adrienne clean up the old rental house she moved out of today and Ella is asleep. She started answering the age-old question "what does a cow say?" with a couple variations on the "Moo..." theme. Very fun.
So I told you on Thursday about the accident the Taylor University students were involved in and how the days events, including my performance, were cancelled. I ended up spending the day at home taking care of Ella, as Alison wasn't feeling that well. It wasn't what I planned, but it could have been much worse.
I left the next day for my show in Fort Collins, CO. I flew to Denver, rented a car and drove to the venue. It was nice to get an hour of quiet on the road, in a car with working air conditioning. I got a chance to catch up with a couple of friends. Had a good conversation with my newly-engaged old friend Bobes, and played an invigorating round of humorous phone tag with Don Chaffer. That was nice.
I played at a place called "The Avenue" and it was my second time there. The crowd was really nice and intimate and the concert was quiet, but fun. Two artists played before my set, a young singer-songwriter named Nicole and one of the most interesting bands I've seen in a long time, called SHEL. They're a family group (four sisters and their dad) and they have quite an exotic lineup. A keyboard player, percussionist, Dad playing acoustic guitar, fretless bass/violin and, the highlight: 4-string electric mandolin. I told them they reminded me of the Jackson Five, with more estrogen and without the tan, playing old-school Genesis covers. I was skeptical at first, but they won me over. Definitely the wildest and most interesting music I've seen in quite a while.
After the evening there, which included some BeauJo's pizza, I headed back to Denver in the ol' rental Neon. Caedmon's played at a Fusion conference there Saturday, and we had an 8 am soundcheck, so the band was already at a hotel that night.
This post is taking me forever to write, by the way, because I'm watching the movie "The Incredibles" as I'm typing, and it's just great. Probably one of the funniest, most creative, movies to come out in quite a while. Superheroes getting sued. Come on. That's great.
Anyway, we played at the conference yesterday. Fusion conferences are centered around getting people involved in missions, so when we play them we always get to do extra things about our work in India with the Dalit Freedom Network, so that makes conferences, something we usually try to avoid, a welcomed event.
Over the weekend I read a book called Blink. It's all about initial reactions; what they mean, how they are influenced and how they influence us. It was a very interesting read and I'm still thinking through some of the things I learned from it. Highly recommended. I finished it last night and started a book of short stories by Salman Rushdie called East and West that is very good, as well. They're a lot easier to understand than his bigger novels. His books are often allegories, and a lot of times he references old Hindu stories that I'm unfamiliar with. I always enjoy the books, but I don't always understand them. This book would be a great place to start if you've ever thought about reading him. And you should.
Now, to the fun stuff. Here's one of the greatest news articles I've ever seen. I love that this happened. Also, frequent AO.com poster Caleb Chancey sent me this lovely picture a few days ago...
This has been the desktop on my computer for the past few days and I laugh every time I see it. A couple artists I've been really digging lately have been Cat Stevens and a Norwegian band Josh Moore turned me onto called Big Bang. Listen to the song "Saturn Freeway" on their myspace. It's one of the best songs I've heard in a LONG time. They're huge over there, four times platinum or something, but here in America they've been playing clubs for handfuls a night. Dang. I want to see them bad.
Well, that about wraps it up for me today. I'm writing with the band The Swift in the morning and then heading over to Sputnik Studio to play guitar for an artist named Jonah Werner. Aaron Sands and Andy Hubbard will both be playing as well, and Mitch Dane is producing. I'm sure good times will be had.
Thanks for all of you who left such great comments on the new songs last week. That was really great for me to see. I'll try to get that blog campaign page going this week. The Morning and the new Photographs will officially go to print tomorrow. Can't even believe it. It will be a long week or two until they show up on my doorstep. For now, though, I'm going to enjoy the end of The Incredibles and then head to bed. Hope you all had a great weekend.
So I told you on Thursday about the accident the Taylor University students were involved in and how the days events, including my performance, were cancelled. I ended up spending the day at home taking care of Ella, as Alison wasn't feeling that well. It wasn't what I planned, but it could have been much worse.
I left the next day for my show in Fort Collins, CO. I flew to Denver, rented a car and drove to the venue. It was nice to get an hour of quiet on the road, in a car with working air conditioning. I got a chance to catch up with a couple of friends. Had a good conversation with my newly-engaged old friend Bobes, and played an invigorating round of humorous phone tag with Don Chaffer. That was nice.
I played at a place called "The Avenue" and it was my second time there. The crowd was really nice and intimate and the concert was quiet, but fun. Two artists played before my set, a young singer-songwriter named Nicole and one of the most interesting bands I've seen in a long time, called SHEL. They're a family group (four sisters and their dad) and they have quite an exotic lineup. A keyboard player, percussionist, Dad playing acoustic guitar, fretless bass/violin and, the highlight: 4-string electric mandolin. I told them they reminded me of the Jackson Five, with more estrogen and without the tan, playing old-school Genesis covers. I was skeptical at first, but they won me over. Definitely the wildest and most interesting music I've seen in quite a while.
After the evening there, which included some BeauJo's pizza, I headed back to Denver in the ol' rental Neon. Caedmon's played at a Fusion conference there Saturday, and we had an 8 am soundcheck, so the band was already at a hotel that night.
This post is taking me forever to write, by the way, because I'm watching the movie "The Incredibles" as I'm typing, and it's just great. Probably one of the funniest, most creative, movies to come out in quite a while. Superheroes getting sued. Come on. That's great.
Anyway, we played at the conference yesterday. Fusion conferences are centered around getting people involved in missions, so when we play them we always get to do extra things about our work in India with the Dalit Freedom Network, so that makes conferences, something we usually try to avoid, a welcomed event.
Over the weekend I read a book called Blink. It's all about initial reactions; what they mean, how they are influenced and how they influence us. It was a very interesting read and I'm still thinking through some of the things I learned from it. Highly recommended. I finished it last night and started a book of short stories by Salman Rushdie called East and West that is very good, as well. They're a lot easier to understand than his bigger novels. His books are often allegories, and a lot of times he references old Hindu stories that I'm unfamiliar with. I always enjoy the books, but I don't always understand them. This book would be a great place to start if you've ever thought about reading him. And you should.
Now, to the fun stuff. Here's one of the greatest news articles I've ever seen. I love that this happened. Also, frequent AO.com poster Caleb Chancey sent me this lovely picture a few days ago...
This has been the desktop on my computer for the past few days and I laugh every time I see it. A couple artists I've been really digging lately have been Cat Stevens and a Norwegian band Josh Moore turned me onto called Big Bang. Listen to the song "Saturn Freeway" on their myspace. It's one of the best songs I've heard in a LONG time. They're huge over there, four times platinum or something, but here in America they've been playing clubs for handfuls a night. Dang. I want to see them bad.
Well, that about wraps it up for me today. I'm writing with the band The Swift in the morning and then heading over to Sputnik Studio to play guitar for an artist named Jonah Werner. Aaron Sands and Andy Hubbard will both be playing as well, and Mitch Dane is producing. I'm sure good times will be had.
Thanks for all of you who left such great comments on the new songs last week. That was really great for me to see. I'll try to get that blog campaign page going this week. The Morning and the new Photographs will officially go to print tomorrow. Can't even believe it. It will be a long week or two until they show up on my doorstep. For now, though, I'm going to enjoy the end of The Incredibles and then head to bed. Hope you all had a great weekend.
