Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street.

I can't believe that in 8 minutes it'll be June. Wow. Although I know that Summer officially begins on June 21, for my own practical use, tomorrow is the day. Here's a picture of Paavo (yes, that's a drawn-on moustache and giant foam noodle), who is also ready for Summer Fun. He asks each day, "Daddy, can we go swimming at the lake?"

After a couple of mentally taxing weeks, I'm looking forward to tons of fun, flexibility, and freedom in the next few months!

Here are some facets of life that I'm excited about:

DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT
It's been one year since we moved to this house and in recent days Dawn and I have made great strides in finally unpacking and setting up the remainder of our stuff. We got a new vacuum that really destroys filth...it's been shock and awe for the carpeting around here. I purged a huge laundry basket sized load of clothes from my closet and dressers....we've raised the requirements on "clothing worth keeping" (why am I keeping shirts I haven't worn in 8 years?) in our family, and are preparing to flood the local clothing-donation places with fashions spanning nearly two decades.
Finally, we've reached glorious feng shui deliciousness in our basement family room thanks to the purchase of the 25-cubbied Expedit shelf from IKEA. Paavo and Svea's toys are now sorted into lovely species groups...wooden train stuff, round Fischer Price people, foam shapes, Lincoln Logs, army guys, Legos, etc. Our basement feels twice as big as before! And man, did Paavo and I have fun putting that shelf together. "Expedit" indeed! IKEA stuff is fun to assemble. Paavo manned the alan wrench, I tapped in the little fastener-pegs, and we had Alejandro Escovedo's newest album rocking in the background.

TRAVEL AND TOURING
Tomorrow we wake up and hit the road across the state of Wisconsin to the legendary Door County where we'll meet up with the maternal side of my extended family for a big wedding of one of my cousins. I'm looking forward to jacking my iPod directly into the Aux input on the car stereo and setting that puppy on shuffle. It'll be the first road trip in my family's new Saturn Vue Hybrid, and I'm excited to fly her down the open road.

Also, I've got some cool musical dates lined up in mid-month throughout Chicagoland. I'll have 5 gigs in 4 days...now there's a good use of time. All that, plus today I bought plane tix for a nine day zip through Texas at the end of June...it feels great to have the tickets purchased, reserved, rental car confirmed, etc. I'll get to play music in four states in June!

MUSICAL CREATIVITY
Last week I dropped off a completed recording with mix-master Matt Patrick (who did such a great job with many of the songs on my new Best of the 20th Century album). It's a song I initially wrote and recorded back in Fall 1999 for the Sound Theology project...with the awesome Matt Thobe of the band Dolly Varden playing drums. I scrapped the idea and it didn't make it on the album, and I kept the drums and guitar sitting around for years. Three different sets of lyrics later, I finally finished the tune, and rounded it out with bass guitar, shaker, tambourine, and stacks of cozy harmony vocals. I'm quite proud of the results...I think that after eight years, it'll be worth the wait. We'll see what Matt does to it in the mix!

Also, a couple nights ago I did something that I haven't had a chance to do for months: fire up the ProTools and work on unfinished recordings! This past week I edited the drums and rhythm guitar parts for a song called "World of Wheels" that I'm close to finalizing. The lyrics were written WAAAY back in the early '90s (I'm still reading them off of the original piece of scrap paper where I wrote them down) but I had totally forgotten about them for more than a decade. The music was written and recorded with my brother Tim in our hometown of Ishpeming, MI during a very fruitful recording session back in Fall of 2000. Tim played drums and I played a crappy electric guitar my brother found at the dump, with only three strings on it. The strings (all low ones) were tuned in some widely open power chord, and it allowed some pretty cool riffs. A couple months ago I realized I could sing the "World of Wheels" lyrics over the guitar/drums rhythm track, and BOOM, 'twas a match made in heaven. Or at least in Edina.
Now that the song structure is complete, I'll probably add additional guitar and vocals next. Eventually bass, acoustic piano maybe, more percussion. It's a very classic rock type of vibe. Cool fact: it shall be the first song I've ever recorded in F#.

Okay...gotta go switch the laundry. (Oh, and all the laundry-based frustration I expressed last week has been resolved. A couple days ago I did more laundry singlehandedly than I've ever done in my life before, and what progress! Folded everything, hung everything, put everything away, filtered out kids' clothes that they'd grown out of, purged my own wardrobe...it was profoundly satisfying.) Alright, down I go to the basement.

"Complain," Pentecost Sunday, and a great weekend

It's Pentecost Sunday on the church calendar, and man, has this been the weekend that I needed! These past few days have been a real time of recharging and relaxing and enjoyment. After posting my previous blog entry, I had a bout of "blog regret"...which I've never dealt with before. I even thought about deleting the previous post all together 'cause it was too much of a downer or something. There's always a tension between un-edited honesty and mental venting (which I think is good), verses editing and intentionality (which is good, too) in the topics blogged about.

I really like the "How to Blog" article by Tony Pierce and have learned a lot from reading it. Pierce would commend my previous blog entry...here are a couple points from his "how to" list:

11. say exactly what you want to say no matter what it looks like on the screen. then say something else. then keep going. and when you're done, re-read it, and edit it and hit publish and forget about it.

15. don't be afraid if you think something has been said before. it has. and better. big whoop. say it anyway using your own words as honestly as you can. just let it out.

19. push the envelope in what you're writing about and how you're saying it. be more and more honest. get to the root of things. start at the root of things and get deeper. dig. think out loud. keep typing. keep going. eventually you'll find a little treasure chest. every time you blog this can happen if you let it.

So, I chose not to delete the previous entry. I felt that way as I typed, so it is what it is. Thankfully, I've felt MUCH better in recent days. As a bloggy palette cleanser, I offer this awesome live performance of the song "Complain" by one of my all-time favorite bands, King's X. This wonderful song is a brilliant sermon on counting one's blessings, and when I watch this video on this Pentecost day, it's as if I can see tongues of fire on the heads of Doug (bass), Ty (guitar), and Jerry (drums):

Okay, everybody sing along: "Complaaaaain, so much easier, comPLAIN, so much easier, comPLAAAIN, so much eeeeeasier!"

Ahh, that felt good.

Yesterday Dawn coordinated a carnival in our backyard for pre-school aged friends of Paavo ans Svea. My awesome wife's brilliance as a leader and educator and camp counselor was on full display, and everybody had a blast. I finished up the day going to a movie with my friend Steve...we saw "Grindhouse" at the bargain theater. It's a '70s-style double feature...the first half by director Robert Rodriguez was awesome, but Quentin Tarantino's second half was lame lame lame lame. I slept through the middle of the second feature. It was good for the soul to see a one-legged Rose McGowan shoot hoards of zombies with a prosthetic machine gun.

Got up this morning and helped distribute communion at church. I hadn't done that in years 'cause I'm usually playing music during distribution, or else wrangling my children. "The body of Christ given for you." That was my line. Came home and took a TWO AND A HALF HOUR NAP (yahooo!) with Svea, and then we woke up and I spent a couple hours playing with her. Today she learned to crawl...it was so cool. I was relaxed and happy and refreshed. Had four ham rolls and four cupcakes for lunch, and hit the road with Dawn and Paavo and Svea for a fun trip to the mall and Target, all while listening to King's X (same song as above..."Complaaaaiiin!") on the rocking stereo system in our new car. The addition of a Saturn Vue Hybrid to our family has been another boost in the good vibes of my week. Now I can go on tour with my guitars, amps, and boxes of CDs, AND bring the family along, too!

Tons of good stuff to look forward to in the coming weeks. Yes, there are ups and downs in everyday life. It's fitting at the start of this Pentecost Season that I feel a refreshing breeze blowing through the universe. "Oh day full of Grace" indeed...

Rundman's Guide to Parental Burnout (plus recovery, royalties, etc.)

I realize this might sound whiny or annoying or something, but hey, what are blogs for anyway? Right now I should be asleep since we're hosting a big Start-of-Summer carnival here at our house in nine short hours, but I enjoy blogging, I need some personal time, and I need to vent. And I hope that this post can send a message out across the internet to my stay-home-parent friends like Nate and Tera, with a shout of "You are NOT alone!"

In the ups and downs of stay-home-parenting, these past few weeks have been pretty tough. I thought that by sharing my daily schedule with you, dear reader, you might get an unrequested window into my sticky, unshaven, unshowered, and zombie-like existence as Paavo and Svea's Dad and caregiver.

If you, too, want to travel down the wild and wacky road of parental burnout, here's a schedule that I've been using that's really taken a toll:

1AM: crawl into bed after feeding a 4 oz bottle to crying baby
1AM-6:30AM: wake up numerous times with and/or without spouse to address needs of aforementioned crying baby
6:30AM: wake up for good to feed baby, eventually catch the opening headlines on the NBC Today show. I like Al Roker. Lauer and Viera are tolerable, I love Ann Curry. Natalie is okay, but distractingly and disturbingly skinny.
7AM-6PM: eleven hours of non-stop solo parenting with two beautiful but demanding children under the age of four
6-10PM: four more hours of non-stop duo parenting with spouses' assistance...bedtime rituals being my least-favorite tasks to accomplish
10PM-1AM: three hours of printing out contract forms, returning booking-relating emails, addressing envelopes, fulfilling CD orders, updating webpage tour dates, writing out set lists for band members, writing out checks to pay bills

Repeat again and again for three weeks.

Oh, and there's a few other factors to add to the mix. They are:

+ Try being sick for 20 days straight. I got sick on April 28th and it lasted 'til May 17th. Lost my voice and couldn't sing at my own CD release show. I finally saw a doctor and found out I had strep throat. Oh, and I got both kids sick, too, and gave baby Svea the croupy cough.
+ Give up all social life, personal enrichment, creative expression, quality time with spouse, the reading of books/magazines.

Some other things to give up, intentionally or unintentionally:
+ give up personal hygiene...showering can take 5 minutes, and I don't have that kind of free time. If I can bathe every three days or so, I've got something to be proud of. Can't shave, though...takes more than 5 minutes.
+ give up clean clothes...I like to wear my fake-army shorts for four days in a row. Shirts for two days straight. The mountain of clothes-to-wash downstairs on the concrete basement floor is approaching 5 feet in altitude. If anything does get washed, there's no way it's gonna get folded, and no-way-in-heck it's gonna get put away in the right place.
+ give up clean dishes, and clean kitchen environment. That's right, our dishwasher broke down a couple weeks ago, it took a week to get the technician out to the house, he checked it out, and the problem was that the electrical hard-wire to the house had burnt out, which was not in his jurisdiction. So I had to get my electrician friend Lloyd here to re-wire the appliance to the house. He came today and did it, got the machine running again, but now we're leaking out of the bottom of the dishwasher, so it's still unsafe to use. Gotta wait 'til June 2nd for the Whirlpool man to come back out. Try washing 40 nipples by hand each day, plus dishes used by grown ups and normal people. And try to find counter space to air-dry all this stuff....I'd need to build a 25 foot drying rack in the back yard.
+ give up an orderly house. All incoming mail, children's art projects, and diapering supplies can completely take over the dining room table. Dozens of shoes of all sizes shall rule the living room, but if you want to find a matching shoe to complete your pair, there shall be none found anywhere. Spouse can misplace new driver's license in a mountain of to-be-recycled junk mail in a gigantic skyscraper pile in the library.

Here's the real killer for me: Just when I think I see some light at the end of the tunnel, some unexpected thing (usually very minor) happens, which takes up an unintended hour or two (or three) of my time, resulting in yet another swamping of life. Here are some surprises that can ruin a potentially-successful day:
+ potty accident(s)
+ incorrectly added deposit slips
+ misplaced clothing
+ spilled food/beverage
+ poor customer service
+ the presidency of George W Bush
+ busted dishwasher
+ salt-bridged water softener
+ "check engine" light
+ rain
+ incorrectly fulfilled cheeseburger order
+ child sleeping when they should be awake
+ child awake when they should be asleep

Stir all these factors in with the above daily schedule and you're right on track for a first-class freak-out. Move aside all nearby furniture, and prepare to cry on the floor in the fetal position.

Thankfully, I'm over my sickness finally, and we've reached the weekend (a three-day one!) when I've got Dawn's help the entire time. Plus, next week we've got a family road trip (I love that!) when we'll see my parents. And the weather is getting better, and I've got some fun personal stuff ahead. I've got to cling to the little moments of niceness wherever I can find them, and I got a little treat today. Here's a pic from earlier this evening of Svea covered in sweet potatoes...but in the foreground you will notice a ROYALTY CHECK I just got from ASCAP. A few times a year I'm thrilled to find a check in my mailbox from ASCAP, paying me due to the use of my music on radio/TV/etc. around the world. Sometimes it's for a LOT, sometimes it's for $0.06 (literally), but today was a pretty good one: $60.00 for airplay of my songs "Forgiveness Waltz" (in Britain) and "The Glasses Song" (in Sweden and Canada). When I was a kid, dreaming of being a musician, I couldn't imagine that my songs would get played on the radio anywhere. Now that I'm getting royalties from airplay around the world, it's a thrill that never never gets old. It's a wonderful thing to get paid for writing songs about theology and corrective lenses, and to know that folks all over the earth are hearing that music. So it gives me an extra boost to get through the remainder of the day.

ALSO, another key to my recent recovery from burnout: TELEVISION. For the first time in MONTHS, last night I watched over an hour of TV. I caught the reruns of "30 Rock" (pretty funny, but I'd seen it before), "The Office" (never seen that one, about the sales conference...very very funny, as always), and the first half of "Studio 60" (a show I always enjoy, but Dawn says that last night's episode was pretty lame). I missed the last half 'cause I fell asleep on the couch...at 9:30PM! Dawn woke me up just enough to help me into bed, and I slept uninterrupted for EIGHT FREAKING HOURS. Svea woke me up at 5:30AM, and I felt like a million bucks. Refreshed, energized, happy, clean, and ready to rock. So I snuggled with Svea until the arrival of Ann Curry at 7AM. Today was a good one. Chipotle for lunch, Panera for dinner, many many ounces of iced tea, REM on the stereo, and happy kids.

Let the weekend begin. I have survived.

Toilet Shuffle

Tonight as I knelt before the porcelain god and cleaned the toilet (and the rest of the bathroom, too) I experienced a particularly satisfying series of songs shuffling through my iPod. With my headphones on, my bottle of Fantastik Orange spray in my hand, and my feet tapping along, I heard these songs in this order:

“VOICES CARRY” by ‘TIL TUESDAY
I really like all of Aimee Mann’s work, but lately I’m really appreciating her initial band, ‘Til Tuesday. In fact, while using iTunes on the computer, they’re the band I see most often because that apostrophe in their name sets them up as the first band alphabetically, even before the next artist (also before the actual alphabet), 3rd Matinee. I loved this song when it was brand new, and I’ve always loved it. In fact, I arranged the song myself on acoustic guitar and played it a lot at my own coffeehouse shows in Oregon when I began my career in the early ‘90s. I saw Aimee play it in concert only once however...at Park West in Chicago when she toured with her husband Michael Penn with their Acoustic Vaudeville show. Seeing the song performed live by its writer reminded me how strange and wonderful the song is, chordally, structurally, etc. It’s a shame Aimee is so sick of it, or embarrassed by it, or whatever, ‘cause it’s truly a classic.

“BALCONY” by DOLLY VARDEN (acoustic version from the Duets album)
This Chicago band became familiar to me because I was friends with their bass player Mike Bradburn. When I moved to Chicago in 1996 I got to know the whole group, and played many gigs and did many recordings with members of the band, and WOW, they never fail to awe me. This song is one of my all-time favorite Varden songs, and the mysterious lyrics leave me breathless every time...especially the line “right through that screen door / there was a concrete face / showing slides of the Grand Coulee Dam.” Oh, to have written that line, regardless of what the heck it means! Steve Dawson’s vocals, melody, and chords are enough to make me stop cleaning the toilet, and just sit there cross-legged on the bathroom floor in a pile of crumpled orange paper towels, eyes closed, my brain completely off in the song someplace.

“DISAPPEARING ACT” by SAM PHILLIPS
A rare, almost lost Sam song, appearing only on her little known Zero Zero Zero album: a strange “Greatest Hits” type of CD, probably released to fill out her record contract. This one really is a sonic bridge between her more straight up pop/rock tunes of her major label era, and her more torch-song Nonesuch Records era. I got to hear and meet Sam last month in LA, and it was a thrill to spend a few minutes with her. I think she’s honestly a genius, and I’ve learned much about melody, chords, and arrangement from listing to her albums. The thing I’ve grabbed most from her, however, his her rhythm acoustic guitar playing. I remember seeing her in 1995 (or so) on the Martinis and Bikinis album tour, and watching her right hand strum her guitar: she only moved her wrist, her elbow was immobile. And she hit it hard and perfectly rocking. Up to this point I had strummed my instrument like Sammy from the BoDeans or something...a total bash from the shoulder on down...of course, with no groove, no control, no accuracy. Since then I’ve really worked on playing rhythm guitar (tracking the Sound Theology album all alone taught me a lot, too), and since then I’ve become a strummaster. Drummer Troy Alexander always mentions how easy it is to play drums in my band because he can lock in with my right hand strumming, and I take that compliment and owe it to Sam Phillips. It’s often those seemingly simple things that are the most difficult things to perfect.

“STRONG HAND OF LOVE” by BRUCE COCKBURN
It’s not often that Cockburn will play (much less record) a cover song, but here’s a great one. Written by underground songwriting legend Mark Heard, this lovely and deep song is perfect for Cockburn because it sounds exactly like a song he would’ve written himself. Heard, who died too young in the early ‘90s, toured with Sam Phillips (above), produced Vigilantes of Love, and lurked in the background of many of my favorite artists.

“YOU LOOK LIKE SHEILA” by WALTER SALAS-HUMARA
From Walter’s first solo album Largartija in the late ‘80s, as sort of a quick break from his work with The Silos. This is a cover tune (I don’t even know who wrote it), but Walter has championed this brilliant bit of proto-indie-rock for ages. When I used to see The Silos in Chicago ten years ago they were still playing it regularly (and adding other women’s names to the verses like “Penelope”). The song is kinda cute and funny, but it’s total coolness rises it high above novelty. Walter’s playing drums here and most other instruments, too, there are perfect female harmony vocals. This is a textbook case of “deceptively simple.” There are only two chords on the verses, but they’re played in a totally fresh way that you’ve never really heard before, and when the bridge comes along it sneaks in some very unusual moves that give a great little zap of delight to the listener. It’s really a masterpiece of garagey pop with a Lou Reed twist or something. Somewhere here in my basement I have a cassette containing a solo acoustic version of this song that I recorded for Dawn while I was a senior in high school....I should dig that out and give it a listen. The more I think about it, the more I realize what a big song this was in my own development as a songwriter.

“VITAMINS” by JAY FARRAR
When this one came up on shuffle I was tempted to skip over it, until I got to the strange and fresh chorus. Good for you, Jay. Jay Farrar is guilty of singing the same melodies and phrases over and over on every single song, but this one finally offers up a new idea on the chorus. Here’s another annoyance, though: I don’t think the word “vitamins” is anywhere in this song. The chorus goes something like “mad at the world,” and in my opinion, he should have just called it that. Recently I had a discussion with an excellent songwriter who has started titling his songs with words/phrases that don’t appear in the lyrics because he feels like “the title is a part of the artistic expression, too.” Well, that’s a very grand idea, I suppose, but practically speaking, when audience members want to buy that Jay Farrar song called “Mad at the World” but can’t find it on any CDs (cause the song has the title “Vitamins”), then all the artistic expression in the world adds up to not much.

“EFIL’S GOD” by EELS
Now here’s an example of brilliant song titling. The name of this song is pronounced “E Feels Good,” and it refers to the lead singer, whose name is “E.” The brilliant part is this: the song title is “Dog’s Life” spelled backwards, and “Dog’s Life” is the name of a different Eels song! I wonder if maybe “Efil’s God” contains a backwards sample from the “Dog’s Life” song. Hmm...whatever the case, it’s a great song from a brilliant album, Electro Shock Blues, one of the main inspirations for my own Sound Theology album.

“FINANCING HIS ROMANCE” by BOTTLE ROCKETS
This song never made the cut for a normal Brox album, so it appeared on their album of leftovers, called Leftovers. The CD put a bookend on the first and best chapter of the band’s history, when all the original members of the group were still present and perfect producer Eric “Roscoe” Ambel was at the board. After this era the band members changed around, they got a new label and new producers, and since then I’ve had a tough time staying interested. Thankfully though, this tune has the old magic as well as an outro guitar solo bordering on ridiculous, but still totally smokin’ and wonderful and fun and twangariffic. I got to see them in concert a couple times in this incarnation and they rocked so hard it about knocked you out.

“TWENTY FIVE TO MIDNIGHT” by STING
A B-Side from the “You Still Touch Me” single, this song dates back to Stingster’s mid-90s Mercury Falling album, which I love. The album however, was one of his biggest bombs (if not his biggest). Too many slow moody song were included on the album...so why on earth did they leave this one off? This is a nice song, happy, up-tempo (although in 7/8 time, which gets a little tricky and tedious), and cheery. Some of his ‘90s era B-sides are way better than the album tunes. I can’t figure out why some songs make it onto albums and others don’t. Hopefully this Summer’s Police reunion will remind Sting that he can rock, and have fun, and write songs that energize and uplift the audience. Man, I’ve become a rabid pop apologist lately!

“J-WALKERS” by BOB WALKENHORST
Along with the aforementioned Walter Salas-Humara of The Silos, Bob Walkenhorst of The Rainmakers is up there in my Top-2 most influential songwriter list. This song is from Bob’s only solo release from a few years ago, and it’s a light, basic, and fun tune that borrows liberally from CCR’s “Travelin’ Band,” which Bob is totally aware of and happily intentional about, I suspect. It’s an innocent song about seeing a local band perform (a topic Bob has touched on before in other songs), and it makes me think of my own youthful pilgrimages to Marquette, MI on Thursday nights to see local folk duo Jim & Ray sing classic rock tunes at Vango’s Pizza Place.

“MISS MISSY” by JOHN MELLENCAMP
I owe much of my musical life to the 1985-1989 era of Mellencamp. Those records from those years were huge professors in my own school of rock, and the key to the whole experience was the drumming of long-time Mellencamp percussionist Kenny Aronoff. By the mid-90s Kenny was out of the Mellencamp band (along with my other instrumental inspiration, Lisa Germano), and the Mellencamp records lost some steam for me. When JM’s self-titled album on a new label came out in the late-90s I got the press kit on it (I was writing for a music paper in Chicago at the time), but it didn’t do much for me...not even the single called “Your Life Is Now.” BUT, somewhere on the back end of the album came a song that jumped out of the stereo at me, containing that zip and zing I loved about Mellencamp’s Golden Age. I checked the liner notes, and sure enough, “Miss Missy” was a song completed from recordings made from old tapes, featuring Kenny’s drumming and Lisa’s instrumentation, recorded years before! Proof to me that some artists are undeniably boosted by specific backing musicians. After listening to Mellencamp’s newest album Freedom’s Road from earlier this year (or was is last?) I can only say “How I wish Kenny and Lisa were back in the band!”

“WALKING THROUGH WALLS” by JON BRION
I saw Brion’s weekly show at Largo in LA a couple years ago, and this was the only song from his album that he performed that night. A very sophisticated and swingy crunchy-pop song, this one schools the listener on distorto-guitar solos and honkeytonk piano, complete with hysterically R-rated harmony vocals, and trademark Brion sonic flourishes. Delicious!

After all these songs my toilet and surrounding WC was sparkling, and my brain was happy. Thank the Lord for the iPod on shuffle, and for Fantastik Orange.

Iowa Tour Recap

Spent a fine three days in Iowa last weekend, rocking the mainline Protestant world along the Western banks of the Mighty Mississippi River.

The concerts, bookers, and audiences were lovely, but the highlight for me was the supergroup of musicians that I assembled! These are folks who've been collaborating with me musically since the late-80s (wow!) but this particular collection of people have never performed together. Man, they rocked, and provided me the instrumental backup with which any singer/songwriter would be thrilled. Here's a photo of the weekend band (l-r): Lowell Michelson (drums); me (guitar, piano); Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (bass); Matt Marohl (pedal steel, mandolin, guitar). Every member of the band had a grad school degree from a seminary, except me...I'm the proud holder of a High School diploma from Westwood HS in Ishpeming, MI. But I have an honorary PhD in rock and roll. (My Grandpa Rundman, a painter and paint store owner, had a joke that went; "I have a PhD...it stands for Paper Hanging and Decorating.)

FRIDAY: we provided music outdoors on the lawn of Trinity Episcopal Church in Muscatine, IA. You couldn't have asked for a more ideal evening...warm breeze, the audience lounging in the grass, barges floating by on the Mississippi just down the hill, and trains choo chooing on the tracks. We played for two hours, and did a ton of songs, but some highlights included:
+ "Narthex" with the 150-year-old church building next to us, illustrating the song perfectly
+ A very rare performance of "Rivertown," sung for the first time while viewing the exact river in the lyrics.
+ "747s" played live with a band for the first time ever! Nice harmonies, Richard!
+ "Pomp and Circumstance" by request...quite a bizarre version, but actually fairly accurate. Never played that one before, but now, I'm kind of inspired to try it again.

SATURDAY: spent the afternoon shopping with Richard in Davenport, IA...I eyed a '60s-era Farfisa Organ at the local Music-Go-Round store, and we hooked Richard up with the Best of Dave Edmunds album from Borders, a CD that I've been glued to lately. "Warmed over kisses, left over love..." Later that night we played (for the second time in 10 months!) to a great crowd in the giant sanctuary at Zion Lutheran in Davenport. Musical highlights included:
+ "Gospel Verses" with amazing pedal steel by Matt!
+ "Will The Circle be Unbroken"
+ Selections from the new ELW cranberry hymnal, including "O Morning Star" and "Let Us Go Now to the Banquet"
+ "Workin' My Committee" featuring amazing sax playing by guest musician Randy from the Augustana College music faculty!
+ A full band sending-song of "Canticle for Departure" with more amazing Richard harmonies.

SUNDAY: I played solo for the Ascension Day services at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport. Lowell was preaching, and he wove my song "Forgiveness Waltz" into the sermon...I got to use the gorgeous grand piano, and it was a pretty amazing experience to play that song on that instrument for a few hundred people. And I did Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" for the offertory. The Gospel according to Thomas.

All in all, it was an awesome weekend of friends, visiting, driving, rocking, eating, shopping, and more visiting. 'Twas a pretty intense and demanding drive back to the Twin Cities, but totally worth it. Iowa, I thank you for your support and encouragement. I shall return!

The Muckrakers: 10 Year Anniversary Song and Session

It is indeed the Month of May, and for those of you who've been aware of my creative adventures for the past few decades, you "may" (no pun intended) be reminded of my participation in a musical trio called The Muckrakers. It was 10 years ago this month when our band congregated in River Forest, IL, to spend a week recording our one and only album, appropriately titled May. We made the album in May of 1997, and in 1998 was proudly released on Salt Lady Records.

Above you will see the only official photograph of the band (l-r): David Casimir, Todd Berg, and me. Our recording sessions for the Muckrakers album were captured by a then-hi-tech digital camera sitting on the monitor there at Future Parking Ramp Studios in my house on the campus of Concordia University...the camera randomly snapped pix of us as we recorded, and we got some interesting visual stuff...but only one shot captured all three of us. After we manufactured our CD we never played a show, and the band vanished. David Casimir and I have occasionally appeared in concert together and we've been known to play a Muckrakers song or two, but the real band itself never played one gig, and we've never been heard from again.

Until NOW. This past weekend I was on tour in Wisconsin and had a free day to spend in Madison in the lovely home of fellow Muckraker David Casimir. We were reflecting on the fact that it had been exactly a decade since recording the Muckrakers album, and we thought it would be the perfect time to work on NEW Muckrakers song in honor of our anniversary. Of course, for it to be a real Muckrakers song, there needed to be creative and instrumental input from our smokin' lead guitarist Todd Berg, and Dave just happened to have an unused Todd guitar-idea cassette tape left over from 1995! So we put up a photo of Todd (pictured above) and dumped his 1995-era guitar/drums recording into Dave's computer. We pitch shifted Todd's guitar track up to a playable key (B, to be specific), digitally edited the riffs and progressions we liked best, and ta-daaa, we've got a rough sketch of the first new Muckrakers song of the 21st Century! Dave tracked his trademark snakey bass playing, I overdubbed a second electric guitar part, and Dave and I added some classic sinister Muckrakers vocal harmonies on the chorus. I'll be darned if the new song doesn't rock! It sounds exactly like the way a Muckrakers song should sound! The only things we're lacking are lyrics and vocals for the verses, maybe some percussion overdubs, and perhaps some subtle instrumental weirdness. We're gonna keep working on the song through the mail (in true Muckraker tradition), and when it's done we'll post it online so everybody on earth can rock along with us.

Here are some pictures of me and Dave from the Muckrakers session back in 1997, and from our recording last Saturday in 2007. It's kinda funny to see how the ravages of time have reduced our once-smoldering sex appeal. Ahh, but our band was never loved for our glamour alone. No, the handful of people on earth who actually own the Muckrakers album love us for the SONGS. And, in all honesty, it never fails to amaze me how many people actually talk to me about the Muckrakers album and how much they love it. Considering we never played a concert, the album was very primitive, and the subject matter was, shall we say, unusual, we still touched a nerve for a small crowd of listeners. In fact, I feel myself more like a FAN of the Muckrakers, even though I'm one third of the band. There's something special about those songs and those recordings that I can recognize and love from an external perspective.

What do the Muckrakers sound like, you ask? My best description could be: They Might Be Giants meets King's X. Or, Rush meets Violent Femmes. Lo-fi garage prog for AV nerds. Something like that. Visit the official Muckrakers MySpace page to listen to some of our songs, view a TON of photos from the original 1997 recording session, and become our online friend. Check up on the brilliantly strange solo material of David Casimir. Read our press reviews here. And for pete's sake, buy the Muckrakers May CD...it's only $5.

In a big way, I owe my music career to being a part of The Muckrakers ten years ago. It was that session that introduced me to the magic of the Sony Digital Minidisc 4-track recorder, which set the stage for my own Sound Theology album. And it was the creative collaboration with Dave and Todd that stretched me hugely as a songwriter and producer, allowing me to think about music in a whole new way. Some post-Muckrakers co-writes with Dave formed some of the funkiest moments of the Sound Theology album, including such gems as "My Broken Heart is Miss (sic) You," "Failing Rockstar Attempt," and "Dumb Summer" and Dave's performances and input have played a huge role in all my post Muckrakers albums.

Stay tuned for updates on the completion of our NEW Muckrakers song, entitled "Idea 1."

Clearing the Beard, Looking Ahead

I've never been able to grow a respectable beard. If I let it go for a week or two I can achieve vaguely 7th Grade facial hair, but that's about it.

Since returning from my California tour a few weeks ago my life has been so busy that I've had to put personal hygiene on the back burner. Doing the stay-home-Dad routine for 10 hours a day with 2 little kids while rehearsing for a big full-band show and launching the release of a new album leaves barely enough time to shower and put on clean clothes. So I inadvertently produced some sort of beard-situation. This week I decided I would shave as sort of a symbolic ritual to help me gain some basic control of my life. It was kind of amazing...I had forgotten what I looked like under there. I can't imagine being one of those guys who shaves in the morning, and comes home with a 5 o'clock shadow. I could maybe have a next-month shadow.

So anyway, I'm transitioning into a new phase of life. Summer is here (it was 80 degrees today). Paavo's preschool sessions are coming to a close. Svea is almost crawling. I finally got around to fixing and re-filling the basement water-softener machine, a project that I've been meaning to do since last year. Our basement is nearly unpacked...and we've been in this house for 10 months.

And with the release of the Best of the 20th Century CD, I now have no new material for the first time EVER. No idea about what the next album should be, no brand new songs. Just wide open possibilities. I do have a few dozen old unreleased tunes that are about halfway recorded, so I'll keep picking away at those, but they're all pretty weird...nothing that most of the general population would really appreciate. I've made some plans with some excellent musicians who I really admire...we may try some co-writing dates, just like the pros do in Nashville. I was inspired after attending that ASCAP songwriting Expo in LA last month.

One final thought: as I get older, when it comes to music and coolness and image, I just don't care anymore. If the music brings me joy, then I don't care who's singing it, or where it came from, or if I "should" like it or not. I just like what I like, and you'll see me air-drumming on the steering wheel to prove it. I saw Nick Lachey in LA last month sing his most recent hit at the ASCAP Songwriting Awards, and he was GREAT: awesome vocals, full of passion. You go, Nick! I've been listening to Joan Jett in the car, and she rocks..."Do you wanna touch? YEAH!" I love the tunes in the new cranberry ELW hymnal, and hanging out with liturgist Guillermo Cuellar last month was a musical highlight of my recent life. I washed a mountain of dishes tonight while listening to Gwen Stefani's "Love Angel Music Baby" album, and it was incredibly fun and well-done and energizing. I performed at a confirmation BBQ last night at a church out in Excelsior, MN, and my band and I played "Texas Kyrie," "867-5309 (Jenny)," "Earth and All Stars," and "Stand By Me." I got the Best of Dave Edmunds traded to me today from lala.com and I can't believe I've lived 35 years without this album in my collection...completely butt-kickingly beautiful. It's funny...I caused a small fuss on the blog of one of my favorite songwriter/musicians Terry Anderson when I commented that it was ME who had invited him to participate in my Styx Tribute Album project (a band that he can't stand!). I love Styx, and I love Terry Anderson, and maybe it is totally illogical and bizarre that I like 'em both, but I do. I don't care. I like what I like. Gwen, Joan, Terry, Dennis, Guillermo, Madonna, Keith, Dave, Nick, Warren, Butch, Liz, Avril: I love you all. Thanks for enriching my life and my eardrums. Love and music and joy transcends all barriers of hipness and geography and time. The Grace of God and the music of the spheres is pumping through every atom of creation, and I'm happy to sing along. "Knowledge and truth, loud sounding wisdom, sing to the Lord a New Song." (to quote Herbert Brokering)

"Best of the 20th Century" CD release show

Two nights ago was the CD release show for my new "Best of the 20th Century" album, and it was a lovely evening of loose and rocking sound and visuals at the Loring Playhouse in Minneapolis. This pic (thanks to photographer Micah Taylor) features all the musicians (l-r):
Scott Malchow (pedal steel); Lloyd Garrelts (electric guitar); John Kerns (bass); Michael Morris (acoustic guitar); Troy Alexander (drums); me!; Joel Setterholm (keyboards); John Simshauser (sax, pennywhistle). Behind us is a photo (of me with my little friend Katie) projected by video image artists Will Schroeer and Ryan Torma.

Here's an approximation of the setlist:

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
THE PRINCESS...
LIBRARIAN
SMART GIRLS
+++Scott joins on pedal steel
MEETING NIXON
RIVERTOWN
+++Joel joins on keys
THE BASS GUITAR SONG
FRONT ROW AT THE FASHION SHOW
NOTHING OLD NOTHING NEW
JANESVILLE
CAUGHT UP IN YOUR SNARE (me solo)
+++Lloyd joins on guitar
TAPE
+++John joins on sax/whistle
ARMYMAN
ONLY IF
ASK ME IN NEBRASKA
THESE MONTHS WITH YOU
+++Michael joins on guitar
NO MORE WALLS

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, I did indeed lose my voice. I sounded REALLY hoarse, but I could force out actual notes. It was tough going, but I survived, and by the end of the show I may have even improved a bit. Thankfully, the band was so great and we were all having so much fun that nobody seemed to mind that I sang like Tom Waits with a mouth full of broken glass.

If that CD release show wasn't enough for one week, earlier this evening Kerns, Troy, and I played a killer electric trio set at the International Pop Overthrow Festival here in Minneapolis. Each band plays for 20 minutes, and we did a rockin' little set, loud and locked in. Our songs:
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
SMART GIRLS
LIBRARIAN
THE SERIOUS KIND
TAPE

I don't have another gig for the next 8 days, so hopefully my voice will return to it's normal state of Nick Lachey-like vocal perfection. Time for bed.

By the way, right now shuffling on iTunes is "Pop Life" by Prince. A wonderful song, and a nice local tune to summarize my life. Thanks, neighbor.