Crooked Creek and a new CD

So this Summer my family and I will be traveling to YoungLife's Crooked Creek Ranch for a month. I'll be the musical artist and will help lead songs and other random things. My wife and children will hang out and have an awesome time.

YoungLife is a high-school para-church ministry (meaning it's not affiliated with any one particular church) and it was a huge part of my life in high school. It's really the place where I met Jesus, though I had known about Him all my life. Through years of conversations with leaders and, particularly through the time I spent at YoungLife's camps, I really tasted the grace and freedom of Christ and his redemption.

It's a huge honor and blessing to get to go back to the place that was so transformative half my lifetime ago and get to help out. We've done a few camps before, back in the pre-children days, but haven't been in six years. And we're thrilled.

I'll be able to sell CDs at the camp, but there's a pretty rigid pricing policy and, basically, you don't make much money, if anything at all. I'm going to compile a CD of the songs I'll actually be doing at camp, as well as re-recording some songs I've written but didn't record on my own (After the Last Tear Falls, Hold the Light...) and just have one CD available. I hope this will make it easier for kids there to decide to support us by picking up one of my records.

Cause, you know, kids are really digging CDs these days...

I doubt this will cover the entire month of lost income, though, so I'm going to try and have the CD ready at least a month or so ahead of time and offer it on here. A lot of the tracks you may have already, the new recordings and maybe a couple new songs withstanding. Hopefully, between selling them on here and at camp, we can at least break even for the month.

We're going to camp because we completely believe in what happens there and are thrilled to be a part of it, and hopefully this little project can help make that happen for us.

I'm still compiling a list of songs I'll be performing there. If you have any suggestions of songs from my records or Caedmon's/Normals/other co-writes you think could work there, or you'd just like to hear a new recording of, let me know! And any other suggestions of ways for folks to support our time in Colorado are welcome as well!

Thanks! You guys are awesome.

Andy O April Tour Dates!

04/05/10
Square Peg Alliance House Show
Nashville, TN – Limited Seating
RSVP REQUIRED: squarepegalliance@gmail.com.
7 PM

04/07/10
House Show
1803 Tutwiler Ave
Memphis, TN
7 PM

04/08/10
1 Covenant Drive
Covenant Presbyterian Church
Little Rock, AR
7 PM

04/09/10
Axis
West Monroe, LA
Venue phone: 318-348-7370.
7 PM

04/10/10
3333 Oak Ridge Dr.
Westminster Presbyterean Church
Bryan, TX
7 PM

04/11/10
2115 Taft Street
Music on the Porch / Ecclesia Church
Houston, TX
5:30 PM

4/11/10
Serial Box - Live Taping
Limited Seating
Details to come

04/12/10
The Journey
4101 Northview Drive Suite C-2
Jackson, MS
7 PM

04/16/10
House Show
Lee’s Summit, MO
7 PM

04/17/10
Bethany Lutheran
4200 N. 204th
Elkhorn, NE 68022
Box office: 402.289.4440
7 PM, $10
w/ Eric Peters & Andrew Peterson

04/18/10
Eastridge Presbyterian Church
1135 Eastridge Dr
Lincoln, NE
7 PM
w/ Eric Peters

04/19/10
1271 First Ave SE
Brewed Awakenings Coffeehouse
Cedar Rapids, IA
7 PM

Which states are actually considered New England?

Ah, a nice, quiet day in my studio. Well, not that quiet, but at least not the sound of a cheap Toyota radio trying to drown out the sound of a cheap Toyota engine.

Today is just random odds and ends: answering emails and doing a little remaster of Choosing Sides to add a track to it (a song called "Memory" I wrote a month or two ago and am quite fond of). And now it's winding its way through the Apple store to be on iTunes in a few weeks or so. I'll keep you posted.

So my last run, up to what some would say New England, was fantastic. I started in Virginia, then headed up to New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and finished up in Baltimore. I'm not going to lie. It sort of felt like a driving tour with the occasional rest stop and concert.

But the concerts! Oh, the concerts! What fun I had.

- I played in a coffeehouse with a delightfully Spanish name, which I mispronounced at least six times during the show. Which is ok, because one of the owners requested an Andy Gullahorn song. I think we ended up even.

- I played in the church pastored by one of my best high school friends and sat in on a Miles Davis tune with a killer jazz trio who opened for me. This was awesome.

- The Community Coffeehouse in Danbury, CT asked me to take a break in the middle of my show, something I usually don't do. It was a good call, though, because they were serving cupcakes and meatballs downstairs during the intermission. Never eaten that in the middle of a show before.

- Bryan packed about 80 people into a fake-Amish barn surrounded by decidedly unfake-actual-Amish people. And horses. It was a beautiful night.

- Matthew and Maggie stuffed almost as many people in a living room half the size as the fake-Amish barn, and Peter singlehandedly sold more merch than a Backstreet Boys show in 1999.

Such amazing people who welcomed me into their communities and gave me their ears and hearts for an hour or so. I feel incredibly grateful.

Also, we're at just about half of my goal for this year's Ellie's Run For Africa. I'm hoping to raise $2500 which will be enough to help send 100 African children to school next year. Click on that link and help out!

Also, I tried to listen to The DaVinci Code on tape, but it was just too stupid.

Anyway, I got home on Tuesday evening, pretty wiped out from all the driving and podcast-listening. My folks came into town shortly thereafter and so I spent the last half of the week and the weekend just trying to be as present with my family and community I could be.

So now I have about a week and a half of studio work and being home before I head back out for two last runs of this tour. The first will take me through Memphis, Little Rock, Lousiana, Texas and Mississippi. The second through Kansas City, Nebraska and Iowa. If I can find an RV to rent for a reasonable rate I may bring my family with me on that last run. Why? Because it seems fun.

I'll be posting those tour dates here before the day is through. And tomorrow I'll be back to post about a new project I'll be starting in the next few days and will have ready by early Summer.

Keep your ears on the road!

Here's what I've learned about solo touring:

All you do is drive.

Which has left me with a lot of time to listen to music and podcasts and books on tape. Sadly, I have a pretty dang expensive pair of speakers at the studio that I rarely get to just listen to music on. And since my Toyota's pretty loud I pop in my in-ear monitors (illegal Westone plug!) and have amazing listening experiences. I thought I'd share with you some of what I've been digging.

Music:

Peter Gabriel - "Scratch My Back" - Holy freaking cuss word I love this. The arrangements are amazing, the production and engineering are incredibly creative, and the whole is an emotional suckerpunch in the best of ways. Twelve cover songs, all piano and orchestra. He makes it thrilling and reintroduces some great songs. Early fave of the year.
Spoon - "Ga Ga Ga" - Fun, sounds great.
The Weepies - "Hideaway" - Great harmonies, chill grooves, kind of one song over and over, but it's a good one.
Thad Cockerall - "To Be Loved" - Beautiful, chill, brand-new old-school Gospel songs. True and rich.

I just downloaded some new eMusic fair (The National, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend) and have only had cursory listens. Excited to dig in deeper. Though there's a good chance I'll listen to two songs and then hop back in to that Peter Gabriel record.

Podcasts:

Samson Society - Great, inspiring, and heavy. All about honesty, community and Jesus versus addiction.
Midtown Fellowship Leadership Class - From my church, featuring our resident yoda, George, as he states simply and clearly truth that is gut-destroying. Basically, he says something and people ask him to repeat it twenty times. It's not enough.
The Moth - true stories told in front of an audience with no notes.
"You Look Nice Today" - Pretty much just a hilarious trio of morning show type people. They ramble, it's occasionally dirty and pretty much always hysterical.

Books on Tape:

I've only listened to one so far. It was a Clive Cussler book about ships and spies and stuff. From what I hear each of his books are exactly the same. I'd believe and I'd listen to another. While being quite opposite of my worldview, it's pretty entertaining. Think Jack Bauer and James Bond have a baby and it beats up the ACLU.

I've got an ipod of new podcasts and tunes and some new books on tape from the library. I'll keep you posted after this weekend.

Quick tour rundown for this weekend:

Thursday: Charlottesville, VA
Friday: Teaneck, NJ
Saturday: Danbury, CT
Sunday: Gap, PA (Lancaster area)
Monday: Baltimore, MD

See you soon!

1300 Miles.

That's how much I drove, sans cruise control no less, over the past five days. Five shows. Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. So much fun. So much Clive Cussler-on-tape.

I can't thank my amazing hosts enough. Five incredibly gracious people/couples/families who invited me into their communities, fed me, gave me a place to sleep and sent me on my way the next day with hugs and leftovers.

The highlight, besides last night's amazing steak dinner, had to be my night in Charlotte. The evening was a benefit for a girl named Aimee Powell who was killed six weeks ago in an automobile accident. She was a young teacher who was enormously loved and loving.

I thought the night would be sad, but it was a real celebration. So many friends and family had come together for her funeral and then scattered shortly after. This evening they got to get back together, in a different mindset, and enjoy each other and get to connect in their love for Aimee another time.

The venue was fantastic, the air was charged with grief, but mostly joy, and I didn't forget any words. It was one of the nights where it feels the songs come out of you like cold breath and you watch them change into something else before your eyes. It was really special.

But really, each night had such personality and I felt so loved and connected to the folks listening. I'm just so grateful for the years people have spent with my songs in the background of their lives and it's been really exciting to get to be out there connecting the dots on my own.

So thank you so much to everyone who came to shows this past weekend. I'm so grateful.

I'm also hoarse. I got pretty sick the second day out and pretty much lost my voice the last three days. Thankfully, being alone in the car gave me time to conserve my voice and I generally had just enough to get through a show and a few hours of conversation before collapsing back in the Toyota, pop a few Advil and be glad for the next 16 hours of no-talking.

Still, I'm praying it gets better before Thursday's show in Indianapolis.

Well, I'm wiped and we have a Modern Family on the DVR begging to be watched before I crawl into bed. Thanks again, and to the folks in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Elmhurst, IL, and Champaign, IL: I'm coming to town this week and I'd love you to join me!