Normals songs and pics up!

Hey everybody - I've finally had a few minutes to post songs and pictures on The Normals MySpace page. I tried to mostly put up shots of the us that I remember, not so much the photo shoot stuff. If you never got a chance to hear us and were curious, we'd love for you to swing by and check it out. Hope you enjoy!

Oh, How the World is Wide with Web!!

First, the big news: Click here which will take you to the new front page for my site. Click the Album Player to hear the entire album The Morning. If you've been reading me blab on and on about it, but have yet to actually HEAR it, now's your chance. And for free. Please let me know what you think about it, both the record and the player.

In other web-land news, the new Square Peg Alliance site will be up and live next week. We're anticipating it going up on Tuesday. The finishing touches are being done right now and it looks great and will hopefully add some fuel to the fire of that community.

Over here on ilikeandy.com stuff will be changing soon as well. The site will be having a face-lift, courtesy of my good buddy Mr. Chip Hayner, next week. The site will be the same, but the look and feel will better represent the new album. You know, the one you can hear for free right here. Dead horse, I know...

In yet MORE Andy-land news, my store will very soon start to be handled by the Aware Store. It will still have the look and feel of this site, but orders will go through their FAR more organized system, and they'll handle the warehousing and shipping, so you won't have to wait for me to get off the road or out of the studio to get your cd to you. This is probably way more exciting to me than you, but it will be a huge load off of my shoulders, and I'll be glad to be able to be confident that every order will be handled quickly and professionally (i.e. and not in my basement...).

Finally leaving this virtual world we're starting to call home, Alison, Ella and I will be heading down to Texas on Saturday for the first ever Caedmon's Call retreat. Now that the band is independent we have a whole lot of things to figure out. We'll start with the "who's actually in the band" stuff first, and then move on to the next record and touring and how we're going to start handling all that stuff. Also, we'll finally get all FOUR of the new Caedmon's babies together, the cute scale will break, and yes, I'll post pictures.

Cliff has a good friend at a car dealership down there who is going to try and help Alison and I get a new car (or two). Please pray for us that we'd find safe and good cars at a price we can afford. We're pretty sure it's going to work out and we're really excited. Neither of ours are running right now and we're ready to stop bumming rides. And I'm ready for air-conditioning and a tape player. The 80's. I know. Anyway, we go see him on Monday so I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, Ella sleeps in for no daddy, so I best get my butt in bed. If anybody has any photos from the show the other night at the Mercy Lounge, please send them to me and I'll get them up here. Have a great Friday!

Oh, and I was finally able to get my stuff on iTunes. It will probably take a month or more to wind its way through their system and actually be available in the store, but it will be there for sure. Thanks everybody for writing them and asking for me! You guys made it possible.

Much Rock Was Had

Well, the show was a freaking blast. Great turn-out, the sound was great, the band played their guts out and I just had so much fun. Thanks to everybody who came out. I can't wait to hear what you guys thought of it and look forward to seeing some of the photos I know were being taken.

It's back to the studio tomorrow for me, so I probably won't have much time to write more for a day or two, but I wanted to let you know that my interview in Relevant Magazine is up now, and I thought it turned out really well. Jason Boyett, who wrote the Pocket Guides I talked about last week, wrote it, and he had some great questions. If you get the time to read it, I'd love it if you could take an extra minute or two to leave a comment on the article and let them know you appreciate the coverage of my record and encourage them to cover the Square Peg stuff, as well. That would help out a ton.

Thanks again to everybody who came out from Nashville (or Chattanooga, or Alabama, or Georgia, or Iowa...) and I hope you had safe trips home. It meant the world to be so supported tonight. Thank you so much for that.

TONIGHT!

Man, I'm excited. You'd think I didn't play a hundred or so shows a year the way I'm feeling. We rehearsed last night and it was a blast. The band was exceptional, as always, and I have no doubt the show will rock. I rewired my pedal board a little bit, having gotten rid of my old overdrive pedal and replaced it with two others, and I feel as if a "veil has been lifted" on my tone. Even the guys I've played with for years were noticing. Man, tonight's going to be fun.

If any of you know about Woot, it's a hilarious overstock-sale website that sells one item a day. I usually check it every day, mostly because it cracks me up. Eight rock points for the first person to respond with what makes today's post so awesome...

All right, that's it for me today. I'll post again after the show tonight or tomorrow morning. Looking forward to seeing a bunch of you out there!

Tomorrow Night!!

A not-so-subtle reminder for all you Nashvillains...



For those of you who won't be able to come to the show tomorrow night, I hope your stay in the hospital will be short and you have a full recovery. I'm assuming that must be why you can't make it. Or maybe you don't live in Nashville.... I suppose that could be true, as well. Anyway, if you are sitting at work/school/my living room thinking "I know I have a lot of work to do, but I sure do wish I could play an addictive word anagram computer game..." then, friends, I have a great link for you. Enjoy...

Also, there is a group of folks in Nashville working hard to enliven the arts and music communities here called Stalking The Muse. They have artists share thoughts about their art and the folks that surround it. They're highlighting me this week on their MySpace page. They've got four songs up, some different from my page, and they have a blog post titled "Inspiration" that some of you may recognize from my site last month. Anyway, I'd love it if you could take a few minutes to check them out, listen to my tunes and look around at all the great music underground Nashville has to offer. Oh, and leave them a comment saying I sent you.





In other news, I'm about to re-wire the pedal boards again, I'll take pictures and post them after the show. Just picked up an overdrive pedal from my friend Tim, the Pedal Doctor. I can't wait to try it out. We're rehearsing tonight for the show tomorrow, so I'll get to see what it's made of then. I'll try and post some shots of the rehearsal too. Can you tell I'm excited for this show? Anyway, Belated Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there and have a great Monday!