Busy Days

Hey everyone,
thanks for the e-mails and comments on the new site, I'm glad you're all liking it. I think Chip did a great job. (Insert plug for Chip and his webskills right here) Anyway, this will have to be a quick update. It has really been crazy around here the past few days. This weekend I traveled out to Ft. Collins, CO to play a Caedmon's show at the Campus Crusade leadership conference. About 5000 people, and all very cool. One of the best audiences we've played to in a while. I also had some of the best pizza I've ever had in my life. A joint called "BeauFo's" or something like that. I' know I spelled it wrong. If someone knows, tell me and I'll fix it. Anyway, that pizza plus a Fat Tire on tap in its hometown: GOOD DINNER. The show was really fun as well.

Today was a pretty crazy day at the studio. We're inches from finishing the recording part of Greg Adkins' record, and we invited Ben Shive to come in and play some keyboard stuff and Andrew Peterson to come and sing on a song. Somehow that led to Chris Mason, Randall Goodgame, plus the above Ben and Andy, and Paul Eckberg and Todd Bragg, David, my intern, a guy with a great voice who I met today for the first time, Arthuer Alligood, and Greg and I, all in the basement at the same time. We got Andy, Chris, Randall and Ben to add bgv's, all around one mic, on both Greg's song "Heavenly Descent" and on my album recording of "early in the morning." What they did on that song just gave me chills. And I haven't laughed so hard since I saw episode four of "the Office."

We should finish up on Greg's album tomorrow, and then I'm off to California and Washington state for a LONG Caedmon's weekend. It will be a fun trip, we're going to a few of my favorite cities (Monterey, Seattle), but I really don't want to leave Alison and Ella for that long. Five days. That will be hard to do. I'm hoping the Steinbeck museum will be open while we're in Monterey, because I'm dying to go, but I've always been there on a Sunday, when it's closed.

Tonight was a fun little time as well. A few of my cousins and my Aunt Paula are all in town, from Kankakee, for a missions trip. They invited me to come and play for a little worship service they had tonight. David grabbed his djembe and came with me to play. I had to print out some lyrics, so I went to Paul's, because he's my neighbor with a printer, and he decided to come too. He played some perc on my songs and then guitar when we led worship. It was a really fun time. Both Paul and David are great musicians, good hangs and good friends, and we got to see some of my family and meet some of their friends, so it was a good time. Ella was up way too late, though. Ella, who, by the way, has started rolling over now, is I think, the cutest baby who ever lived. Just so you know.

Well, it's 12:30 and our session is starting tomorrow at 9:00am, so I need to get to bed. Thanks again for all your kind words and encouragement, and I hope to see some of you this weekend.

New Site Up Today!!!

Hey everybody,
welcome to my new website. Chip at Submerge Media has helped me with it all week, and I think it's fabulous. I won't blab much here right now, cause I have to be on a plane to Colorado in six hours, and oh, I should sleep a little before then.

BUT, there is a new new song up on the Drawing Board. Yes, I meant to say "new" twice. There is also a new free downloadable single. Please grab these tracks and pass them on to anyone you think would enjoy them.

I have wasted hours of my last two days going through my iPhoto for new shots to put up on the photos page, and Chip added a great new interface, so please don't let our time-wasting be in vain and check them out.

The album page now has clips for every record I've considered "my own" and has a discography of a lot of others I had a part in, at least that I can remember. If you know of others, please remind me.

< ------The links for my website are here on my left

and waaaaaaaaaaay over here on the right ------->
I have links to other websites, of my friends, gear I like, music I listen to, people who like my bands....

There is a new bio, updated tour dates, a working store, and, sorry all you mail-order Russian brides who were the only people besides Bobes and Phil to post on my message board in the last year, there is no longer a message board. Instead, you can post on these blog topics, and we can keep it nice and informal. (and spam-free!) To inspire conversation, I'll be posting a weekly, or pseudo-weekly discussion question on this page.

Check out the link to "my ebay" to see the pedals and accessories that are going in about two days. Somebody's missing out on a scream of a deal on that Chorus pedal.

So that's about it. When you have a few spare moments, please sit back, relax, enjoy some free tunes and explore... If you have any questions about the site or notice any bugs, please let us know.

As always, thank you, from my family and I, for your continued support, prayers, record-buying and concert-going. I'd be back at the temp agency if it wasn't for you guys, and I don't take it lightly. Grace and Peace to you all...

what time is it? 4:30! It's not late, nah, it's early, early!!

It’s late Wednesday night and I should be in bed. I’ve been working on some different things for my new website, though, and am very excited. This week has been a good one so far, as well.

This past Thursday I played a small set at 12South, here in Nashville. It went pretty well, besides my incredibly stupid attempt to play a song I had written the night before, with only my chicken-scratch hand-written lyrics to go by. I had to stop it a couple times in the middle because I couldn’t read my own words. The song is a new favorite of mine, though. It’s called “early in the morning� and I finished it at about 5am Thursday morning, so it’s fitting. More on that later. Other than that, I played a couple “Photographs� songs, “Mother India� and another one from my album-in-progress, a rocker called “Santa Barbara.� My parents were in town for a few days then, so they got to see me play, which was nice. After the show, we came home and packed up for our trip to North Carolina, where Alison grew up.

We got back from Alison’s parents’ place on Monday, which was also Alison’s birthday. Ella was spent after all the traveling, and her second plane ride, and so she and I stayed home while Alison and her girl friends went out to dinner. I had a great time with Ella, and finished the new Harry Potter. Which was great.

Tuesday I spent most of the day in my studio, adding some extra guitar bits to an almost-finished Indelible Grace 4 cd. It’s sounding great, and there are some beautiful songs and inspired performances throughout.

Today I worked on that new song “early in the morning.� I had done the acoustic, some vocals, and part of a loop the day before, and picked up where I left off today, with Cason to help out. He added some great keyboard stuff, and really helped shape and define the loop a bit more. Jeremy Casella dropped by then and added a touch of piano and some really incredible background vocals. On one passage in particular, he totally amazed and surprised me. It’s always astounding what other people will bring to a work of art. I’ve been learning over the years that part of the craft of my own projects includes inviting friends I trust and respect and giving them the freedom to add what they feel. Anyway, Jeremy took a part which I wrote to be mainly a transition and put a breath of beauty on it to make it a moment. Very cool. And I don’t want it to sound like Cason didn’t add anything. The thing with Cason is, he does with every note he plays, so you kind of forget he’s a little genius after a while. I am smoke and mirrors without that guy, though, that’s for sure.

I really like this new tune. I wrote it when I couldn’t sleep the other night, hence the 5am, and really the idea of the song. I have this old guitar that Bobes’ dad gave me a year or so ago back in Normal. It’s a big, old acoustic, with no name on it, and a sort of home-made bridge. I leave it tuned down two steps and use it for a lot of writing. It just has this deep, resonant delicacy to it. This was the first song I wrote on it that I felt needed to be performed on it as well. The song is pretty much based around a melodic figure that just seems to belong to that particular guitar. So, thanks for the song, Bo, I have a feeling it’s been in that guitar for a while.

Lyrically, I based it, in structure more than substance, on an old novel of Steinbecks called “The Pasture of Heaven.� He tells story after story of this little town in Northern California, and it doesn’t seem to have a point until the last page of the last chapter. The way he tied it all together, from the random details to a sudden, and subtle, point, just really impressed me. I’ve tried to write a song about the book for a while, and never could. It turned out, the problem was I was trying to write a song about California, which I love, but don’t really know, when I should have been writing about my own neighborhood. The Lord knows how many songs are waiting to be written for the people on my own street. And Lord, please forgive me, for not getting to know them better during this time we’re sharing our little avenue. Anyway, I really like this song, and will probably post an acoustic version of it on the Drawing Board when this new site goes live.

Other than that, tomorrow Greg Adkins is coming back in. We’re on the way to being done with his record, and I’m really enjoying how it’s feeling. I hope that he’ll be as happy with it as I am. We’ll spend two days this week, and two days next, and I think we’ll be basically ready to go to mix.

Ella is just getting cuter by the minute, it seems. My dad was playing with her last week and buzzed his lips together for her, and she loved it. Now she just tries to do it all the time. It pretty much just ends up spreading slobber all over the house, but she just grins the whole time and it makes this great little noise, and we couldn’t love it anymore. It’s amazing how fast she’s gone from a newborn who sleeps all the time and barely opens her eyes, to a four-month old baby girl who smiles and grabs things and loves to look at pictures in books and her parent’s faces. It really is amazing, and I’m starting to see how it really is going to go too fast.

Well, that’s about it for me. I definitely need to be getting back to bed. Thanks for reading and I can’t wait for you to see the new site in just a couple of days.

A Brief Interlude

Someone play some string-change music: Andy's Webmaster and I are going to be doing a switcheroo, moving the entries, comments, etc. from this Weblog to Andy's site. Comments will be turned off in the interim.

Thanks for your patience!

quick note

Hey everybody,
Sorry I haven't replaced those photos yet. I will soon, no worries. We're here at Alison's parents' place in North Carolina, just getting ready to leave and fly back home to Nashville. We've been busy here hanging out with the family, and of course, reading the new Harry Potter book. I honestly doubt I'll post again before I finish it, but that should only be another day or so. It's pretty good. Also, today is Alison's birthday, so anyone who knows her, please send her your well wishes. Thanks for reading and I'll have more soon.