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Emily and Andy do a live in the studio performance of her song “Sailor”.

 

 Emily Deloach: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (645)

Andy interviews Nashville singer/songwriter Emily Deloach in the second installment of the “Conversations” series.

#1 - CLICK HERE

The most Pre-Trib entrepreneurship I’ve ever seen. It’s creative, I’ve got to give them that.

#2 and #3 - CLICK HERE

You don’t have to get these for my studio, but I won’t be mad at you if you do.

So it’s been a while since I’ve had time to post. So sorry. It’s been crazy this week. Alison and I are going to take a little vacation starting Sunday, so I’ve been piling up all the work from this week and anticipated next week as well. Somehow that’s going to help me relax?

In typical AO.com form, the most I can handle right now are the glorious bullet points, so here we go!

- First off, thanks to everybody who has sent in ideas for Letters to the Editor, Vol. II. I’m so excited to get to go through them and share the songs, and the process, with you. If you have an idea, I’d love to hear it.

- Secondly, thanks to everyone who was helpful in trying to get me a show in Austin. Stu Smith rose to the occasion, and set up an evening at Austin City Church. Alas, some things came up that forced us to reschedule our vacation to something a good bit closer to home. Soon, though, we’ll make it happen. It was really wonderful to get the emails and ideas of you guys trying to get me a place to play. We should do that more often. I should go on tour or something. (More on that soon…) Anyway, thanks again, and so sorry it didn’t work out.

- Saturday Christopher Williams, the talented singer/songwriter/neighbor, spent six hours in the very tall trees in my backyard cutting down dead limbs with a chainsaw on a pole. It was awesome.

- Saturday night I made a fire pit, something I’ve wanted to do for five years, with some of the afore-mentioned downed limbs. We now have a giant pile of firewood, the ability to make S’mores, and a pile of branches on our curb that is bigger than either of our cars.

- I’ve been finishing up a record for Andy Dolson this week. He’s a talented guy and it’s coming together nicely.

- Sunday morning our daughter Sadie is getting baptized. We’re looking forward to that. A special time, for sure, and both of our parents are coming to town as well.

I guess that’s about it for me today. I’m really excited for a little vacation, it will be our first really since we’ve had kids. And then I’ll get to be excited to get back, since I’ll get to start on “Letters II”. Thank you guys for letting me do this.

And let me know if you need any firewood.

Last year I did a little project, an acoustic EP, where all the songs were based off of ideas and photos submitted by readers of this site. Well, that little project turned out to be one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. At the last minute I decided to add “Vol. 1″ to the title, in hopes of continuing the idea later.

It’s later now.

And I’m excited.

So here’s the deal. I’m going to start working on this project in early July, and for this to work at all I will need your help.

The main thing I’m looking for at this point are your ideas. A poem, a photo, a story that’s always inspired or intrigued you; anything you’ve ever thought “somebody needs to write a song about this…” I want to write that song.

Also, any ideas you have sonically. Instruments you’d like to hear or rules you think would be fun to follow. (Strict “rules” were a big part of the first project.)

You can send your ideas to me at this address:

ideas4andy@gmail.com

Anything you send me I’ll read and whatever inspires me I’ll try to write about. Two quick things:

1. By submitting your ideas you release ownership of them to me. (i.e. you won’t get any royalties or copyrights for songs that come from them).

2. If you send me a story you want to share but you want kept confidential (outside of obviously informing a tune) try and make a note of it. Not that I’m going to say anything like this anyway, but I’d hate to post “Jack Jones gave me this great idea about his really embarrassing secret!” in my blog and find out later that wasn’t really for public consumption.

So that’s about it. I’m going to annoyingly document the process this time, and I hope you’ll join me. It was an amazing experience making music with the people that listen last time and I hope to take it a few steps further this go around.

You guys are amazing. Thanks for letting me play music and try out these crazy ideas.

Here we go!

 

 All Shall Be Well - live [4:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1097)

This will be the other part of most of the podcasts. The other person in the conversation and I will be recording live acoustic versions of a tune together. Thought this one turned out well. What a great song. Hope you enjoy!

I’ve never been an athletic dude, not by anybody’s possible perception. I signed up for last week’s race to help raise money for a good cause and to try to get in better shape.

Well, I’ve kept up running though the race is over. I’m really enjoying it and plan on sticking with it for a while. The weirdest thing is that it’s making me a music lover all over again.

Until two weeks ago I haven’t had a working tape player, let alone CD player in a car in seven years. At work I constantly have my head between a pair of speakers, but it’s always making music, never listening for fun. By the time I’m done with a day at the studio, or soundcheck and a show, the last thing I want to do is listen to music. (NPR baby!)

But leaving my house behind, putting in my in-ears and cranking up the ipod has been incredible. (Thank you Westone for greatly improving my sonic experience, on the stage and elsewhere…)

It’s probably because I’m slow, but I can get through a 10 song record on my normal neighborhood routes. Some of my favorites so far have been:

Tom Petty - Wildflowers
Finn Brothers - Everyone is Here
The Choir - O, How the Mighty Have Fallen

The Finn Brothers would be Neil and, um, his brother. Neil was, of course, the main force in Crowded House and is one of my all time favorite songwriters. And his guitar work just fascinates me. Cason just gave me this record and I can’t get enough of it. There’s a song on there about two brothers in bunk beds talking late into the night because they’re scared of the dark. They sing it in harmony. It should be cheesy, but it’s just kind of awesome. And it made me want to call my brother and tell him I love him.

My brother’s on vacation in Hawaii right now, as a jealous side note.

I had an amazing moment a few nights ago listening to that Choir record. It’s their latest and my good friend, and sonic hero, Shane Wilson mixed it. The Choir were one of my favorite bands in high school. They’re pretty much two guys, best friends, who’ve spent the last 25 years together making music. Steve is a drummer and he writes the words, Derri plays guitar and sings. I’ve since gotten to work with them a handful of times and become at least “hey man, how are you?” friends with them. This makes me feel somehow cool and terribly not cool at the same time, if that makes any sense.

But I was running through my neighborhood listening to these old friends sing new songs about who they are and what they’ve been through. All the while their voices take me back to high school and the sounds remind me of Shane and his very current genius. And then I run past Randall’s house, who has become my song collaborator, just like Steve and Derri. After that I hit the stretch I drive to take Ella to pre-school, which makes me think of my beautiful, hilarious daughters. The moon was out, the sky was clear, a light breeze was blowing and these sounds and sentiments were washing over me.

I can so often get my head so deep into music making that I never just enjoy what music does. How it takes these fragments of who we were, who we are and who we hope to be and lets them dance together in a new way.

And if I have to be the neighborhood’s huffing, puffing, balding dude in the too-short shorts to keep that dance going, well, I might just need to get a headband, too.

My wife and I are going to take a little trip to Austin, TX the week after next. I thought it might be worth trying to find a place to play while we’re down there, something to help offset the cost of our trip.

Does anybody down that way know of a church or coffeehouse or houseshow-type thing where a man might be able to sing some songs and cover a couple plane tickets? Shoot me an email if you have any ideas. Thanks!

So last night at our neighborhood group we were going to try some group babysitting, hiring somebody to watch all the kids in the basement at the same time to save us money on each hiring one at home. But there was some miscommunication with the sitter and, long story short, the guys gave the night to our lady friends and we took the kids to a playground at the elementary school a few blocks away.

All was fine and well until my three-year old ran up to me, “Daddy, I need to go to the potty!” I looked around, no sign of a bathroom anywhere. Frankly, I know it’s possible for girls to go outside, but it’s not something I’m incredibly familiar with.

We made an attempt around the corner of the school building, but the nerves outweighed the need and we headed back to the playground. Ten minutes later we were kicking a ball around a field when I heard again, “Daddy, I need to go to potty!” We ran for the trees, but it didn’t look like we were going to make it.

So right there in the middle of the elementary school field, I put one arm out to set her legs on, the other behind her back, and held her in the air a few inches above the ground hoping she could do her business before my arms gave out. Then the magic happened. And she changed plays on the last down.

She stood back up, pulled up her clothes and yelled to all her friends (and mine) “I pooped!!! In the field!!!”

I’ve never been more proud.