To round off my awesome week of musical adventures, the band and I went to Al Fresco Place Recording Studio to begin recording a new studio record!
First of all, I love Al Fresco Place Studio. It’s one of the most laid back and comfortable studios I’ve been in. And Jeff Carpenter, the owner, engineer and more, is so great to work with.
The new studio album is called “Sobering.” It’s actually an older collection of songs and it’s getting a new life with the help of Jeff at Al Fresco Studio and the Kevin, Butch and John of the Nick Peay Band.
The next musical adventure last week was my monthly couch concert series, Live From Your Living Room. This month I was excited to have Mark Kramer, of Tender Mercy, who just released a new album on cassette called, “Sacred Sphinx.”
I’ve always loved Mark’s musical style, his sparse, echoey chordings and reverby vocals. His new album, “Sacred Sphinx,” is fantastic. He played several songs from it during the live part of Live From Your Living Room. We ended up play about 50 minutes, which is a bit longer than usual, but I just love listen to Mark’s music.
After the live portion, we sat and talked about Mark’s background and songwriting style. I was really interested to know what led Mark to the sparseness of his songs. And I was totally surprised by the answer!
You can watch the live video from Live From Your Living Room below. Make sure to check out the full podcast at Live From Your Living Room or subscribe and download the podcast on iTunes.
Holy cow, what a week! I’m so glad to be getting back into the swing of performing again. And last week had some great live shows, as well as some other exciting musical adventures!
This week is going to be busy. I mean, very busy. But, I’m really excited about everything that’s going to happen this week.
In order, tomorrow, Tuesday March 24th, I’ll be heading up to Newport, Kentucky to perform at the Southgate House Revival. I’ll be in the Lounge starting at 9:30 pm. It’s free to go into the Lounge. Here’s the event on Facebook.
Thursday is the March Live From Your Living Room show, featuring Mark Kramer of Tender Mercy. Mark and I will start at 8pm and will perform songs live from my living room for about 45 minutes. You can watch the live show here. After the live broadcast, Mark and I will talk about how he got started, how he approaches songwriting and more. The live show with the additional discussion will be posted as a podcast on iTunes by next week.
Then on Saturday, the band and I will be heading into the studio to begin recording a new album called “Sobering.” It’s a concept album (imagine that, me writing a themed album) that tells a story throughout the entire album. That is scheduled to be released sometime this summer.
Also on Saturday, I’ll perform at The Bard’s Town with my friends of By The Bushel. The show starts at 8pm and will be in the lounge downstairs. It’s a free show and it’s family friendly! Check out the event on Facebook.
Tender Mercy‘s 5-song EP Sacred Sphinx follows up on his 2014 debut of the same length. His milieu hasn’t changed a bit: it’s still Mark Kramer’s forlorn voice, a gently plucked guitar, tape hiss, and reverb.
A new study in Applied Animal Behavior Science shows that cats prefer “species-specific” music. What they say that means is that, cats responded better to music which contained frequencies that cats use in their communication.
To us, it doesn’t really sound like music. But the cat’s seemed to respond well to it. You can listen to some samples here.
I’m not going to lie, I definitely rounded up my two cats to play them some new tunes when I read this article. The first song got their attention a little bit. They turned their heads in the general direction of the computer. But didn’t really let on as to whether they were enjoying it or not.
The second song seemed to really interest them. It had some bird chirping sounds. But, again, they just kind of shrugged, like, “Oh yeah, we’ve been listening to bird chirps since before it was cool to put them in ‘music.'”
By the third song, they’d totally lost interest. I guess I’ve got hipster cats.
It’s a brand new year, and I’m bring you a brand new Live From Your Living Room! My first guest of the new year is Sean T. Johnson. His band, By The Bushel, is releasing a new EP this week. We’ll talk about that, and hear some songs.
Get By The Bushel’s new EP, “No Shade No Shelter” at these fine online music stores:
I never really think of the new year as “starting over.” I still have projects left from last year that didn’t get finished. I can’t very well just leave them and start new projects. Well, I guess I do that anyway, but I still like to get things finished once I start them.
Leigh Ann Yost joined me on the couch for another Live From Your Living Room. Leigh Ann and I have been playing music together for a long time and as usual, we had a lot of fun.
In order, tomorrow, Tuesday March 24th, I’ll be heading up to Newport, Kentucky to perform at the 