VBS and More!

Fun news! It came time again this year to sit down and get a song out for Cornerstone Mesquite Baptist Church in TX.  Every year for the past 3 or 4, I've co-written the VBS theme song with Michelle Lenk.  This year was pirate themed, which was great fun to write and produce.  Michelle wrote the lyrics and emailed them over for me to write and record some music.  I immediately thought of a guy I knew here who plays accordion:

Gage Gleim

(Gage Gleim).  Had a blast bringing him in on it - it was my first go at recording accordion.  Also, for a fun note, you can hear everybody who worked on the project in the gang vocals (ahoy matey) with Darren (drums), Gage, and my wife Kat! They just finished up with VBS there with a successful week.  Here's the finished product.  Keep in mind this is different from my usual stuff - It's for a children's sing along.  Expect some silliness:

The Latest and Greatest

Hey everybody!

I wanted to drop in for a quick update about my music life here in Nashville.  Things are great!  I've been playing out around town - some solo, some with the band.  There are so many cool, different people that you get to meet at these writer's nights.  I hope to share that on this blog pretty soon.  If you're listening to my music, there's a lot of other writer's out there who haven't made mainstream yet that are still super talented individuals - and I hope to share that with you soon.  That's in your future.

But...the band has been recording.  We working hard on getting an EP together to get our sound set, and something to be able to put in people's hands.  I've put on my sound-engineer's hat, and I've been having a lot of fun with that.  There are so many more possibilities in song-writing if you are not only putting the time in on the lyrics and music but also on the production.  I'm really excited to be sharing that very soon.  We've already sent one track off to be mastered and should have it back within the week.  Two more are already in the process of being tracked.  We've been busy!

This is Waldon Rowe at our recent gig at Ugly Mugs:

Song Corner: Zeno's Fountain

Happy New Year's!

I know everybody says that this time of year, but I really mean it this time.  It's a rare New Year's this year in that I'm really excited about the upcoming year.  It's not that I'm usually depressed, but most of the time around this season I'm reflecting on the previous year wondering where things got off track and how I'm going to make things better.  This year I'm just excited about plans that are happening and the potential for the upcoming months.  So just believe me as I say "Happy New Year" to you all, because this time I really mean it. :)

Here's a song I wrote that I recorded with Nashville artist Eric Landshaft (check him out!).  He's a great vocalist and harmony genius.  He also gets cred for the ukulele playing on this track (I have to look that word up every time I write it out).  So give his name a click and take a listen.  He has some other tracks that he should be releasing in the near future for which I can vouch for their greatness, so give him another friend request on facebook and wait expectantly.

This song he recorded with me is one I wrote and produced as an personal experiment - like a mad scientist in the lab.  It's fairly abstract in content, and we made strong use of vocal harmonies (thanks Eric!).  It's somewhat based on Zeno's paradox (hence the  terrible song title) and  the idea that the main character feels that their not able to move on or develop their life.  Maybe something similar to what I might have written on a lesser New Year's.

Without further ado: