Cowboy Songs

I'm working on a record this way with a guy named Jarred McCauley.  They're all songs about cowboys, but not country songs.  Sort of Patty Griffin meets Sufjan, singing about cowboys.  It's awesome.

We're doing six, no seven, songs in a week.  We're starting the songs, recording them, finishing them, mixing them and then moving on to the next one.  It's been a super fun way to work.  Usually you do things a piece at a time.  Guitars one day, drums the next, etc...  This has been so fun, to just get the idea, do it, and then do the next thing.  I think it's going to make for a really special and unique record.

I can't wait for you to hear it.

In other news, the tour is a week away.  I can't believe it.  My guitars are in the shop, my old Gibson Falcon amp finally got the time in the shop he's been needing for about three years, and shirts and pint glasses have been ordered and are going to be here in time for the first show.  So excited.

Hopefully tonight I can make another post about the tour specifically.  But to answer a few questions I've gotten via email this past week:

Yes, you can come to a house show.  They're open.  Email me about the specific show, because depending on the house, we're capping attendance.  For instance, the show in Indianapolis is taking paypal (ten bucks) to reserve spots.  50 people total.  So email me if you'd like the info on how to get the tickets.

And please try to bring a couple friends.  The whole idea of the tour and the house show setting is to talk about community, and I'd love for the evening to be shared with friends.

All right, I'm actually at the studio now, typing in between takes, so I need to go.  I'm hoping to have time tonight to catch up on my email, so if you have any questions about the tour, please ask!  (And if you emailed me a week ago and I haven't replied, I'm sorry and I hope I can get to you tonight...)

Peace Like A River

What a glorious couple of days these past few have been. Alison went out to Colorado to visit our new nephew, Colton, for a few days. This is not why the days have been glorious, of course. It's been the obvious missing joy. But it has meant that I've been hanging with the girls, not responding to emails or answering phone calls or staring at screens, just getting to relax(ish) and enjoy the time with my daughters.

I turned 31 yesterday. I made a few strips of Benton's bacon, had a heart attack, awoke from the coma and loaded the girls in the car to go eat Five Guys with Cason and his family.  My daughters are in love with their son Rowan.  He just started walking.  We talked about the Sixpence record he'd just been working on and ate burgers, while my children attempted to eat Rowan.  It was great.

The weather here has been awesome the past few days.  After the most snow I've seen in my 13 years in Nashville it's finally back to being Southern.  65 degrees and blue skies in February.  Sign me up.

The girls rode bikes/trikes and we went to the playground.  We absconded a little birthday cake left over from the surprise party we throw Paul Eckberg Wednesday night.  Finally, sugar-crazy and meat-hazy we settled in for the night, and after the girls were in bed I watched a little 'Lost', folded some laundry, and read Leif Enger's "Peace Like a River" until I fell asleep.

(Note to everyone: Read that book!)

Today was another gorgeous day.  We got home from lunch after church and were going to take naps, but the girls were immediately in the climbing tree as soon as the car had stopped.  They were having so much fun I just imagined up enough energy to give up my own nap (which I had been pretty excited about) and let them play.  I read on the porch in a rocking chair as the girls were laughing and doing something with their dolls and the swingset, I never figured out exactly what.

I couldn't help thinking that 12 1/2 years ago I rolled into this city in a tired old Mazda with two cheap guitars and a box of paperbacks, feeling quite utterly alone.  I got a speeding ticket that first night, in the rain.  I was lost.

And now, in this same city, which I have grown to love, I feel completely at home.  I have been given such wonderful family and friends.  Life, for all its pain and confusion, is sweet.  And in this moment I really sensed it.

The Fear of Driving -OR- the fear that drives me

Another chilly February Nashville Monday morning, (I had to capitalize 2/3 of that phrase!) but this one doesn't feel quite as cold since I was just out in the farm country of Northern Illinois. The freezing wind comes racing across the flattened corn fields, picking up snow and throwing it at you along the way. We were there to celebrate my cousin Lisa getting married Saturday and my little ones were the flower girls. Very cute.

We drove seven hours to Normal on Thursday, then two to Kankakee (where the wedding was) on Friday, then another seven back home yesterday. And I must make this confession:

I'm scared of driving.

Not totally sure why. Always so close to being able to just run off the road, hit a bridge post, be sideswiped by a drunk dude, fall asleep and lose control. Any of these things are a possibility at any time and sometimes that can just put me in a complete panic. Especially now that I have a family.

My mind will start following the path of this or that little scenario until I'm sweating and heartbroken and so angry at how horrible life has gotten, though nothing at all has happened. The cruise is on and I'm just driving along, wishing the slow semi in this lane hadn't picked now to try and pass the slow semi in the other.

In just under a month I'll hop in my little Toyota and drive to 25 different cities here in America to play some songs. So I feel it's time to deal with this fear somehow.

By dealing with it I don't mean trying to "conquer" it. I don't believe that really happens. I think that fear is not a thing in and of itself, but a symptom of a deeper disbelief. We go from thinking "this thing has power over me" to "I have power over this thing". It seems to me that to "conquer" our fear is just to replace one half-truth with another.

The real issue is often control. Specifically, who's in it.

And my friends, when I am driving I become more aware than at any other time of just how completely I am not in control of my own life. And also how fleeting this life can really be.

Chesterton talks in "Orthodoxy" about the sanity of the insane man, something about how it's a preoccupation with a very real possibility, and therefore is quite a sane reaction to an insane world. The real craziness is being able to function at all in a world so bent on our destruction.

And so, driving down I-57 to I-24 yesterday with my wife and my youngest daughter asleep and Ella buried under a "house" of pillows and blankets she built around her car seat, I started to pray. Something akin to the Lord's prayer, I realized later. "Let Your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven, and give me today what I need to make it through..."

I have a feeling I'll be saying that prayer a lot in the months to come, and I look forward to seeing the ways it gets answered.

I love Snow Days

Man, what a couple of days! It snowed a couple of inches here in Nashville, which is a lot for a town with three salt trucks. It pretty much shut our city down for three days, which was great. We borrowed some sleds and joined half of our neighborhood sledding down our hilly streets. It was so fun.

Here's how fun:



Many thanks to our friend, and neighbor, Suzanne Williams for taking that photo!

I've been having a great time working on the booking thing as well.  My eyes are a little sore from squinting at a combination of Google maps, facebook and my own awful handwriting, but it's coming together.  I'm even thinking of adding another run out to Nebraska, through Missouri and Iowa in late April/early May.  Here's the schedule as it's shaping up now.

March 3 - Huntsville, AL
March 4 - Birmingham, AL (still open)
March 5 - Georgia/South Carolina (still open)
March 6 - Charlotte, NC
March 7 - Knoxville, TN

March 11 - Indianapolis, IN
March 12 - Cincinnati, OH
March 13 - Elmhust, IL (Chicago-area)
March 14- Champaign, IL

March 18 - Charlottesville, VA (still open)
March 19 - Teaneck, NJ
March 20 - Danbury, CT
March 21 - Lancaster, PA (pending)
March 22 - Akron, OH (pending)

April 7 - Memphis, TN
April 8 - Little Rock, AR
April 9 - Dallas, TX
April 10 - College Station, TX
April 11 - Houston, TX (pending)
April 12 - Lousiana/Mississippi (pending)

And then I’m toying with adding another run to the Great Plains. Once again I have folks in mind for each of these dates and will be in touch with them, but if you see a date here you’d like to host or help out with I’d be grateful! Just shoot me an email at: andrew(at)andrewosenga.com

April 28 - Ironton, MO
April 29 - Lee’s Summit, MO (Kansas City)
April 30 - Omaha, NE
May 1 - Lincoln, NE
May 2 - Cedar Rapids, IA
May 3 - St. Louis, MO

Also, with any of those "still open" dates, if you'd be interested in hosting a show in that area please let me know.  I was genuinely surprised by people's response and how quickly folks got in touch to bring me to share with their communities.  It's been a very encouraging couple days and I'm so grateful.  Thank you!!

More soon...