Saturday, November 17, 2007

Live At Tangiers

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 was a great day. For many reasons.

First and foremost, it was my parents' 31st wedding anniversary, and they actually spent it watching my new band play for the first time. It felt so good to stand on stage with a group of musicians that I feel so comfortable and at home with and that do such perfect justice to the music I write. All to be witnessed by a small group of my closest friends, a few strangers, and my parents on their 31st wedding anniversary.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to introduce you to the "other worldly talented" Nate Wood on the drums, the "beautiful, illustrious, and hilarious (although you'd never know it)" Jesske Hume on the bass, and the "perfect filler of any void I create or emptier of any extra space I fill" Sean Woolestenhulme on the electric guitar! Put your hands together. Right now! Thank you.

I am not a person that likes to be told what to do. Likewise, I do not like to tell others what to do. I prefer to surround myself with people that do what comes naturally and that work in a mutually beneficial way. To me, these are those people. We rehearsed yesterday for the first time. I did not need to say a thing. It was as close to perfection as I believe exists. We could have played exactly what we played during the rehearsal and I would have been more than content. With a tiny nudge, I would have been sent over the edge.


From the beginning, I lost distinction between the icing and the cake, and I liked it. We proceeded to play a joy filled, perfectly flawed for the first time, I could not care less if this never ends, first show. It consisted of the following songs:
  • Exit Sign
  • Bird In Cage
  • Look Inside
  • On The Outside
  • Nothing Left To Say
  • Message In A Bottle (The Police cover)
  • Better All The While
  • Circles

I loved playing and singing every note, but the following things stood out to me in particular.
I had played "Exit Sign" a handful of times by myself, and aside from what I mentioned earlier about it, it felt truly incredible to hear such a great group of musicians backing me up. Pure joy.



During "Nothing Left To Say", something came over me and I improvised a verse at the end in which I said something along the lines of, "I find it strange how far a man will go, to find all the things outside himself that he thinks will set him free and take home, when every moment of every day, his soul is whispering the way. It's whispering the way. Soon it will, be the day, when there's nothing left to say".



Then seamlessly transitioning into a version of The Polices' "Message In A Bottle" that rivaled the dynamics of a time-lapsed film of the ocean changing from high to low tide and back again. Finally, we ended with a first time ever performance of the song "Circles", which I finished writing the lyrics for the night before while soaking in the bathtub.

After playing, all involved went across the street to eat dinner and continued to have a wonderful time. If you were not there, I wish you could have been, and I truly hope this sort of night happens again and again and again.

See you at the next show.


Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention. The one and only Katie Oswald took all of the fantastic pictures you are seeing...thanks Katie. You rule!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Playboy U Radio Interview

On Halloween 2007, I did an interview and performed three songs on
Playboy U Radio.

You can click the fancy picture below to listen...