Nashville Weeps

Today our friend Josh Davis moved to Dallas. I told him last night that I would write a blog entry about this and call it "Nashville Weeps" and today was a fitting rainy day. He has helped me out on most of the records I've done the past few years, mixed both my solo records, and taught me how to do a lot of what I do today. More than that, he's a good friend, and I'll miss having him around.

Also today, I spent way too long switching the pickups in my Les Paul. I got really worried I was going to wire it wrong and blow something up, so I spent hours reading specs online, only to find out that it's ridiculously easy. The new pickups sound incredible, and I singed off a little bit of the front of my hair when I leaned over to look at something in the body of the guitar and forgot that I had set my soldering iron right there. You can't tell, but it smelled funny and made me really appreciate my forehead like I never have before.

I've also been listening to Sixpence a ton again. I just got their greatest hits, which is basically "Kiss Me", a bunch of covers and five or six new songs. Which are amazing. They really were the greatest band around here in a long time, and I'm really sad they're gone. I've probably seen them more than any other band, at least that I wasn't on tour with. I really probably saw them more than twenty times, and almost every time walked away thinking "man, I need to go write new songs right now, and probably practice a lot, too." I just love that you can tell they put so much of themselves in their music, and that it is just so stunningly different, and beautiful, from anything else made around here. If you've never listened to them, you should. I think their last record "Divine Discontent" was probably the best record from the "Christian" music world in at least five years, probably a lot longer. It sounds so great, and the songs are amazing, as are all the parts they choose to play. Just great. I want to be Matt Slocum. I'm also rambling. And I need to go to bed.

Rainy Day / New Pickups

The weather's been pretty bleak today, as should be expected, but it has been a good day, nonetheless. This morning I headed over to the Playground Studios, where B.J. used to work, and where Stephen Gause was mixing Greg Adkins' record. We listened and made our final tweaks today and I think Stephen did a wonderful job. Now it's off to mastering and it will be done.

I worked all this past weekend with Jake Randall, and we finished tracking on his EP Saturday. It has a very nice, natural, almost Van Morrison sound to it. I tried to not use delay on any guitars, and almost did it. :) Oh well, you can't change who you are.

Friday night our friends Rann and Kristin got married. It was a really beautiful wedding, held in a (very nice) barn at an old plantation. Not to be a name-dropper, but Alison Krauss and Ron Block did all the music. That was good. That was very, very good. And Cliff did part of the wedding, which was both cool and hilarious. Overall, a great celebration of a great thing with some good friends.

Speaking of Cliff, he left a guitar in my studio a long time ago that he is wanting to sell. It's a Lowden, in beautiful shape, used all over every record made here in the last year and a half. I think it's a Red Cedar top with Spruce back and sides. He asked me to help get the word out. It's got a hard case as well, and it'd be great to get $800 for it. I'm going to put it on ebay in a couple days if nobody on here wants it. I'll probably start the bidding at $900, so it will be cheaper if you wanted it now. Just e-mail me if you're interested.

I'm also going to be changing the pickups in two of my guitars, my Strat and my Les Paul. A long time ago I used to have a mid-80's Japanese Strat, and one of the pickups went bad in it. I had never really thought about them before, but I had to buy a new one and put it in to be able to use the guitar. I couldn't believe a) how easy it was and b) how much better it sounded. Anyway, I sold that guitar to a nice fellow named Weston and bought a 1979 American Strat to replace it. I like it a lot. I've been really amazed by the differences in pickups and how much better a guitar can sound, just by swapping them out. Apparently, except for high-end custom makers, most pickups aren't made the way they were back in the 60's and 70's, and it's part of the reason all those guitars sound so much better.

I met a guy at a show we played in San Diego a month or so ago who works at Suhr guitars. They make high-end Strats and Tele's and their own pickups. He sent me new pickups for both my Strat and Les Paul. They're also building me a new guitar, which I can't wait for and will put pictures up of as soon as I get it. Should be within the month. Anyway, I put the Strat ones in today and really like them. I had the original '79 Fenders in there still, which always sounded great, but these new ones have a nice depth to them, that I'd not heard out of this guitar. I think I'm going to dig them.

I'll put the Les Paul ones in later tonight or tomorrow. That guitar right now has the original neck pickup and then a Seymour-Duncan Supra-Distortion (which sounds way more heavy metal than it really is) in the bridge position. If you've ever seen me play live or heard a record I've played on, you've heard that Les Paul with those pickups. The Les Paul is a 1978, so the neck pickup is as well. I believe the bridge pickup was put in a year or two later, so they're both of that era.

Also, I tried out a little trick on my Strat that really seemed to work. And I've heard it works as well on Tele's and other single-coil guitars. You know how they can be so noisy? Picking up weird buzzes and hums, especially in rooms with bad lighting or weird grounding issues. Well, I bought some aliminum foil tape at Home Depot for six bucks, and lined the inside of the guitar and the back of the pickguard with it. You can't see it at all once it's put back together, but the humming is totally gone. I guess it helps ground it, or blocks out stray magnetic fields in the air or something, I don't know. All I know is, it was quick and cheap, and that noise has kept me from using this guitar in lots of different rooms, and now I don't think I'll have to worry about that anymore. I am a happy man. You can find way more information on that than you'll ever need at www.guitarnuts.com/wiring or something like that. A lot of that stuff seems kind of over the top, but the foil thing I'd heard about and they have great pictures and tips on how to do it.

Baton Rouge Show Postponed

Hey everybody -
I don't know if you know how excited I've been at the thought of my first full-band solo show in quite a while, but I'll have to stay excited for it a bit longer. Due to the hurricane, this Tuesday's show at The Varsity in Baton Rouge will be moved. I'll have a date for you soon. Let's all keep New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas in our prayers. The Normals recorded "Coming to Life" in New Orleans, and that city has always meant a great deal to me. We'll see what the morning brings...

15 minutes before 'Lost'

Ok, I've got 15 minutes before the show 'Lost' starts, and I'm really into it, but I want to write about my week really quickly. The rest of our vacation was great. It was so nice to sleep in, play in the ocean, watch old Pink Panther movies and finish a couple books. We got home Sunday evening and my friend Bobes got here an hour or so later.

Bobes and I went to high school together, and he just got back from a year teaching English to kids in South Korea. He has some great stories, none of which involve him telling the kids he was pregnant. Now he's in his first year at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. It's been great having him here for a few days, getting to hang out again.

Monday I ran a bunch of errands, attempted to find a case for a hard drive I bought that my computer is apparently too old to use. It's currently on ebay. Please buy it. We hung out with the Weigels, and their new baby Zoe, that night, and then dropped by the Casellas and hung for a little while. It was good to get to catch up and enjoy some time with them.

Tuesday morning Bobes and I went over to Derek Webb's place. Cason is helping him produce his new record. They were doing some rough mixes that day and we got to sit and hear a few new tunes. The stuff sounds great and I think it'll be a cool record. Shane Wilson, who is an engineer I've long admired, is tracking and mixing it. We talked a bit about him helping me mix my record, which was one of the most exciting conversations I've had in a while. He mixed a few of my favorite records and I really hope it pans out to work with him.

We ran a few more errands and then went in the early evening to go hear Donald Miller speak. He wrote the books "Blue Like Jazz" and "Searching for God Knows What" which I thought was absolutely incredible. He read a chapter from that book, and then a chapter of a book he's currently writing about boys growing up without dads. It was really funny, well-written and poignant. He then took a few questions and ended by reading the preface to his newest book, a re-write of his older one "Through Painted Deserts." It was beautiful and really moving. I bought the book and can't wait to read it. He also mentioned Derek and Andrew Peterson as his hope for Christians making good music. I was proud of my boys.

Speaking of, Andrew Peterson's 'The Far Country' is releasing next week and I think you should all order it. Get it from his website, it will help him and his family. And it's incredible.

Today, Alison, Ella and I went to a photographer's place who had taken some shots of Ella. We were picking out some pictures to get prints of, when Ella had a little "accident." Let's just say: poop everywhere. We picked the rest of the shots out VERY quickly and came home to change. In the afternoon I went over to Paul Eckberg's, where Mitch Dane is working for a while, and played some guitar. I also attempted lap-steel, to some fairly humorous, and embarassing, results. I dubbed it: "the sound of slowly strangling a Hawaiian." I ended up ditching the attempt. I'll go back tomorrow early morning and finish up a few things and then work a day session with Jake Randall at my place.

Ok, 'Lost' is on. Bye.


I forgot to tell you, Monday night my friend, and neighbor, Kenny, and his wife Eileen, came over to see the studio. Kenny is in a big wheelchair, and it took a little wriggling around to be able to get him in, but he had wanted to see it for a while. He is mentioned in my new song "early in the morning" and I got to play it for him then. They really liked it, or at least acted like they did, and it was a great honor to get to play it for them. I'm excited about becoming better friends with them. Show's back on. Bye.

Here's to you, Mr. Robinson

Pat Robertson, please stop saying crazy things. We here in America know that you are just kind of a crazy old guy and that no one takes you seriously, but people in other countries don't all know this. When you say we should kill people, specifically Presidents of Venezuela, because they have things we want, specifically oil, you are advocating murder, and a number of other things the Bible, which you say you believe, speaks out very harshly against. So please stop. Quit your fake news show. No one believes it is real.

Seriously, though, what's the deal with this? How can someone so "Christian" as Pat get away with this? Sure, he predicts the Apocolypse every couple months, something the Bible says no one can do, not even Jesus, but people might actually take this comment seriously. And those people listening will be Venezuelan kids looking for an outlet for their anger at America, not the American government.

But why does someone feel that the Bible can justify murder, especially when its motivated by "they have what we want"? That is so evil, covetous and dangerous. And what he's advocating would be considered an act of war, or worse, terrorism. I mean, if someone in a foreign country went on TV and said that their government should kill Bush, we would label them a terrorist. How is Pat any different, just because he's American? He's not. He's an embarassment. So please, if you support him or his "ministry", stop. Put that money to good use with Compassion International or World Vision. Support Americans loving and helping people, instead of this crazy superiority complex. I'm not ashamed of Jesus, but I am ashamed of some of His people. Let's work to not be like this.