ready to get home

Had a fun show in Canada. Josh Moore is my bass-playing, last-minuting hero. Yet again, we're getting up in four hours, but this time we're flying home. I can't wait to see my girls.

I'm playing a show in Nashville(ish) in a couple weeks, as well, and I'd like to see you there. Here's a poster with the info. Joe and the folks putting this on are great and I really hope we can get a good turnout for him.



Finally, I've gotten a lot of good response about my need for an intern. However, because I don't yet HAVE the intern, I haven't had a chance to comb through and get back to those folks yet. Hang tight and I'll try to get to it this coming week.

Thanks to everybody who came out to the show in Winnipeg tonight, especially the crew who drove 14 hours from Alberta. You guys were amazing. All right, I'm going to get a little sleep. I'll write again once I've spent some time with my family.

Interesting Day

Well, today was, um... interesting. I woke up, did two hours of radio interviews over the phone in my hotel room. Derek and I shared a room and I'd hear him laughing at me from under his covers everytime he heard me answer a question with "Caedmon was a monk..."

We're off early, early in the morning to a show in Canada. We just found out that our bass player Aaron's passport expired last month and he can't go. Not sure what exactly we're going to do, but I'm sure it will work out. I haven't been to Canda in a few years, so it should be fun.

Cason, Will, Paul and Tyler are on Leno tonight, playing with Mat Kearney, so I'm staying awake to catch them. Again, thanks to everybody who's picked up the record and passed along a kind word. If you want to see more details of our past few days head over to caedmonscall.net to read Bryan's blog (and see some of his video clips).

Also, here's a clip of the song "Ten Thousand Angels" from our Houston show. The song is one of the two bonus tunes from Overdressed. Stepping out for the guitar solo wasn't decided until after Derek started the tune, but I really liked how it turned out. Hope you enjoy it.

All right, Mat and the boys did great and I'm going to try to sleep. Canada, here we come!!

Release Day

So our record came out today. We spent a few hours at a radio show playing a bunch of tunes and talking about the record. It was probably the most fun I've ever had at a radio station, maybe because we played full-band and it felt like making music. And a few million people were listening. So that was good.

I finally got a nap this afternoon. Four hours. Maybe that's more than a nap. I think it's actually "slumber". Either way, it was wonderful.

So the other night we were at Chili's and you can give a dollar for St. Jude's hospital and color a chili pepper to hang on the wall. Here was mine...


Here was Todd's...


Also, the other night, at our show in Ohio, Michael W. Smith played after us. Now I'm not ashamed to admit that I was a pretty big fan a while ago. A LONG while ago. Like THIS long ago...


So while I was busy working, putting away my gear and kissin' the babies, Cliff was busy grabbing my computer, searching through 8000 baby pictures in my iPhoto to find the above piece of glory and show it to Michael himself. It's a bit hard to see the computer screen, but here's Michael enjoying the adulation of his 12-year old fan...


OMG!! HE TOUCHED MY COMPUTER!!

Anyway, that's about it for me today. Thanks so much to all of you who have sent me notes about the new record. I'm just thrilled that so many folks are enjoying it so much. You put everything you have into these 0s and 1s for years and every now and then some magic happens and it transcends. It feels like that's happening with this record and I'm just honored to be along for the ride. So thanks so much.

And if you haven't checked it out yet, you should be able to get it anywhere. it's white and has a fig leaf on it. That's a metaphor. Very deep. See you tomorrow.

"what city are we in?"

I've got to be in the lobby at 5:15 am to make it to a big ol' interview tomorrow morning, so this will be short. We've been having a good, and incredibly busy, time. It's been fun to play the new songs and get to talk about them.

We had a four hour drive today, after a few interviews and an amazingly scorching outdoor-at-noon concert in Austin. Cliff and I headed off on our own for that trip and only got a little lost. That was good.

The show Sunday night was really fun. Maybe not exceptionally performed, but a whole lot of fun. We played some really old Caedmon's songs and some of the Derek songs we haven't played, well, since I was in the band. The highlight for me, though, was getting to play "Hold the Light" live with the band for the first time. It felt like a pretty cool moment, and I was just thrilled to get to contribute to the night that it was.

A couple of quick links for you regarding Caedmon's stuff...

Bryan Allain, who is currently at YouTube work in our hotel room, is blogging like a fiend about this release week stuff over at caedmonscall.net. He's got some videos, some photos, and a bunch of other stuff going on. And we ditched him, accidentally, the other night after the show.

Portland Studios designed the artwork for the "Overdressed" and it's honestly my favorite Caedmon's artwork ever. They did an earlier version of the cover that I really loved, but didn't seem to be quite the right thing for that particular need. It's an amazing Chris Koelle portrait of Adam and Eve. It looks like this...



They're printing 100 limited edition posters of it and those are available at Portland's webstore. They'll go quick, so hurry on and grab one if you're interested.

The last link I want to leave you with was passed on to me by my friend Adrienne. I think you'll find it inspiring and thoughtful. Make sure and swing by tomorrow to catch a personal message from your hero Michael W. Smith about yours truly. As for me, it's a few pages of "The Prince of Tides" until the Ambien kicks in.

on the way to Houston

Many thanks to the Akron, OH airport for finally giving a brother an internet connection. It's 5:40 am and we're on our way to Houston for tonight's show...

(and then I was informed we were boarding and I had to get on a plane. We got to Houston, grabbed some burgers and are now setting up for the show...)

AND.... there's internet here as well. Whew. I'm checking my email for the first time in a few days.

Last night's show was... interesting. It was an outdoor festival, and it rained a number of times throughout the day. During soundcheck the rain was blowing in sideways across the stage and we all ended up under tarps, trying to protect drums, lights and amps. To little success. Here are a few camera phone pics...

Aaron Sands and Garett's head


Cliff


Harold, our sound guy


The day was pretty awful, to be honest, we were all super tired and the weather was nasty and nothing on the stage seemed to work right, audio-wise. But the show was a blast. An absolutely great time. The crowd was soaking wet, so was my pedalboard, and they were just excited to be there and they got into it. I just had so much fun. So thanks to everybody who stuck it out and waited for us.

I'll be updating a lot this week, if possible. It's release week (meaning the record comes out this Tuesday) and we'll be all over Texas doing EARLY morning radio shows like crazy. I don't plan on sleeping very much. But I'll probably play "There is a Reason" 800 times. And hopefully we'll achieve the band goal, which is of course to see "Superbad".

Jeff Miller, our occasional bass player, is leaning over my shoulder and he says "hi".

All right, we're going to run over some songs for tonight's show, so I'm going to go. One last phone pic before I leave. Here are my daughters Ella and Sadie looking at fish at the zoo. Sadie can't walk, but she can't stand up while holding stuff, and she LOVED leaning against the glass watching the fish. Good times...