Two days

I've had two days in the studio with Neilson Hubbard now, and it's going well. We've been deciding which songs to pursue and then outlining them, getting the keys, tempos, grooves and main melodies down.

These songs are very different for me. They're very, dare I say it, "pop", but naturally. I've been relating more to simple songs recently, more Tom Petty, less Radiohead, and that's where these tunes are sitting. And I really like it. But it's different. We'll see where they go from here.

Garett is coming in today to lay down some of his percussion-y goodness. Instead of putting down the major drum kit right away we're going to start with layers of perc rhythm. We want the foundation to move naturally so that the drums get to be more dynamic on top, without having to worry quite so much about being the metronome/heartbeat. Should be a lot of fun. It's a bit more of a Peter Gabriel/Paul Simon approach.

I think, at the end of the day, we're trying to do with my music what this guy does with jumping out the windows of buildings. And now it's time for a family trip to the grocery store before heading back to the studio for Day 3. I'll try to take some pictures today.

"They Seemed to be transformed..."

An excerpt from "Bound for Canaan" by Fergus M Bordewich, a book about the Underground Railroad.

Conductors who were in a hurry, or desperate, sometimes literally flung fugitives onto a passing ship, and hoped for the best. In one such instance, a steamboat captain named Chapman, en route from Cleveland to Buffalo, was hailed about three miles offshore by four men in a small boat, two of them merchants with whom he had done business the day before, and the others black strangers.

One of the whites threw on board a purse containing fifteen dollars in silver, and asked Chapman to land the black men in Canada, telling him to take his pay out of it, and to give the passengers what was left. The sight of the new passengers didn't please the captain, who, imbued with the racial prejudices of his time and place, found them "very black, coarse in feature and build, stupid in expression, and apparently incapable of any mental excitement except fear."

Fortunately, however, Chapman was a man with a heart, and he ran in near the Canadian shore, and landed the men on a beach, where they were met by the agents of the underground... ...Chapman handed the men the entire fifteen dollars, and told them they were free.

What he then witnessed startled the captain.

"They seemed to be transformed; a new light shone in their eyes, their tongues were loosed, they laughed and cried, prayed and sang praises, fell upon the ground and kissed it over and over. I thought to myself, 'My God! Is it possible that human beings are kept in such a condition that they are made perfectly happy by being landed and left alone in a strange land with no human beings or habitations in sight, with the prospect of never seeing a friend or relative?' "

"Before I stepped upon my deck I had determined to never again be identified with any party that sustained the system of slavery."

---------

This is a powerful story, and it's also a powerful metaphor. We are all slaves to something. What or who is your master? What would your freedom look like? How would it affect the people who saw it, like this captain? Is it worth it to pursue it? How will you?

Left Side of the Brain, Meet Right Side of the Brain

My weeks are starting to be busy in a new way right now. A lot of business-y things are going on and so it's been a lot of meetings, a lot of brainstorming, a lot of making of lists (and checking them twice). It's all very good stuff, and I think I'm just going to lay it all out when it's a little closer to complete, but it's enough to say that we're trying to get the Andy O machine off the ground in the next year, and I'm really excited.

I've been trying to find time to write new songs recently. It hasn't been easy to shift from the business to the creative, the left to the right side of the brain, but I have a few things I'm excited about.

I'm going to go in the studio with Neilson Hubbard starting next week, which should be fun. He produced Matthew Perryman Jones, Glen Phillips and Emily Deloach, and is going to help be another set of ears for me on these tunes. We're just going to start with a handful of songs and see where they take us. I'll keep you posted next week. Probably very posted actually.

I've also started carving out some time this summer for Letters to the Editor, Vol. 2, so if you get a good song idea, write it down. I probably won't ask for them until June, at least, but I thought I ought to get it on your radar.

A couple of other things (in beloved bullet form)

- This site is awesome.

- I played with JJ and Dave Heller last night at the Exit/In here in Nashville, and we opened for Chris Sligh of last season's American Idol.

- The new AndrewOsenga.com is getting close to finished, and it's looking (and working) killer. Can't wait to show it to you.

- I love the new Colbie Caillat song "Realize" just as much as I loved her first one. It's amazing, and hopeful, to me that a good, actual song can still get played on the radio. I didn't think they still played real music these days.

- You ever get that feeling that you're supposed to be somewhere, doing something, but you can't remember what? I have that feeling all the time.

Ok, now I'm going to go try and turn off the business and finish a couple tunes.

if they don't win it's a shame

It's Tuesday now. The final show of this leg of the Overdressed tour was Saturday night, and it was a great show. It was the smallest room we've played a full show in possibly since I joined the band five and a half years ago. And it was really fun. It just felt like there were people everywhere, with a balcony that stretched around both sides of the stage. And it was Illinois, a psuedo-hometown crowd for me. A good way to end it.

The Cubs game was a great experience. Our seats were, literally, the last row of the furthest section out beyond third plate. Here was the view behind us...



Jeff and I freezing our collective toucas off in the wind of the Windy City...



Cliff, Josh and I out front...



And our friend Ryan and I... He came along this past weekend to shoot video and stills of this great tour. He was a blast to be out on the road with and a few of the things I've seen so far have been amazing...



Now that the tour is over, I'm about to dive in nose-deep, (or ankles-deep, depending on how you dive I guess...) into songwriting for a new project. I'm going to do some experimenting with a couple different people to help me with a bigger vision, and I'm looking forward to that. More on that subject as it becomes clear.

For today, though, I'm taking the day off to be with my family. I took the girls to the zoo this morning, where we met up with Todd and his son. Baby alligators are awesome.

Oh, and the Cubs won 13-1. Pretty great game to start with.

Root, root, root for the Cubbies

We're playing in Chicago today and Jeff, our bass player, got us all tickets to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. I've never been to a major league baseball game, and I'm excited. More later...