So the other night, some of my friends down here in Nashville were shooting a video just for fun. The catch was they had to produce the whole thing in 48 hours, start to finish. Anyways, I play a random dude who dies during the fight scene. If you watch carefully, you’ll see me fall to my knees in the cheesiest overly dramatic manner, much like one of those henchmen in power rangers or one of the footsoldiers in teenage mutant ninja turtles.
So i’m just chillin back at Sputnik Sound here in Berry Hill of Nashville, TN.
Last night I met up with some people at Fido that I initially met through Couch Surfing. If you haven’t heard of couch surfing and you travel alot, or would like to, then you should check it out at www.couchsurfing.com.
Anyways, we met a Fido, had some coffee, and played Telephone Pictionary. (it’s the game where you start by writing a phrase and pass the paper onto the next person who draws a picture to represent the phrase. You pass it again and the next person tries to figure out the phrase. Depending on how many people you have this process repeats until it gets back to the originator). Then we went to the Belcourt just to see what movies were playing, but played too much pictionary to catch the one that was playing last night, so . . .we decided to walk.
It started raining, but that didn’t stop us. I ended up talking to Irina, she’s a student at Lipscomb and is originally from Russia. Well, she’s only here with a student Visa. When I said that my family came from Estonia she got really excited, and told me that she knew I looked Finnish or something. As it turns out, the language of her part of Russia is closely related with Estonian and we decided that in some way we are ancient relatives (from my grandpa’s side, since apparently my grandma’s ancestors though Estonian actually migrated from Scotland). We had a really interesting conversation about world view and religion, and we all got totally soaked in the rain.
Last night I stayed with my friends who live just south of Sputnik. You should check out their band Lorien. Their new record “Esque” comes out on the 28th, and it’s phenomenal!
Today I’ve just been hangin out here at Sputnik with Mitch, Josh, and Andy, which brings me to my original purpose for posting. Josh just showed me this video he made before he grew his enormous Vance-like beard (which is suiting since his middle name is actually Vance). Anyways, check it out. It’s a monster movie about The Attack of the Fatty Corpuscle. Warning this video is not for the weak stomached.
For those of you reading on Facebook Click Here. Since Facebook won’t let you embed video in your post from YouTube.
Wow. . .I made it. I’m exhausted and I’ve only slept a grand total of 6 hours in the past 48 hours, including the hour nap i just took in the parking lot. You see, I’m probably the world’s worst procrastinator. . .or maybe the world’s best. I’m really good at it. That on top of the fact that I had 2 different web projects this week as well as a nice chest cold made for a perfect storm of the last few days.
I woke up Saturday with no voice and a laundry list of things to get done before i left to come down here, I got done what I could before I headed up to Cleveland for the Valentine’s Party gig with The Speedbumps. I didn’t get out of the gig till 1am, and my car started acting up. So now not only do I have less than a day to get everything done on my list, I have a car that I have to fix or I’m not going anywhere.
Long story short. Everything worked out. I even got a few hours of sleep before I left at 2am this morning, and now I’m here at one of my favorite places in the world…the Opryland Hotel.
It just worked out this year that the NACA national convention was here in Nashville, so it gave me yet another excuse to come back to my home away from home. For those of you who don’t know about NACA which is probably everyone accept the people that are here, it stands for National Association of Campus Activities. In a nutshell it’s an organization that connects entertainers with college activities directors. So right now there are about 1200 college students and countless bands, solo artists, speakers, and even balloon artists here all trying to book or get booked on a college campus. This is my first experience with NACA. I’ve heard alot about it, so i’ll let you know how it goes.
Vance Powell one of my friends from Nashville won a Grammy Yesterday!
Unless you knew someone, or are just totally obsessed with the Grammy’s you probably didn’t see him. But you see that stylish dude with the killer beard? That’s my dude Vance accepting his Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The album that won was The Raconteurs “Consoler’s of the Lonely”.
Here’s his wife Di and daughter Tia in the audience.
Di’s the one with her hands together sitting down next to Tia who’s taking a picture.
I met Vance and his wife Di in Nashville back in 2005 when I was recording “Tide” with Mitch Dane. Vance was also the guy who just recently finished mixing “eightynine” my newest album that should be coming out sometime this year.
Anyways, Vance and Di are some of the coolest most hospitable people I know. Vance is an amazingly talented engineer and I’m pumped that he’s getting the recognition he deserves.
I got to see the Fiction Family show tonight in Canton. In case you aren’t familiar with the band, it’s a side-project of Jon Foreman (switchfoot) and Sean Watkins (nickel creek). I was so bummed when my camera battery died, and i couldn’t find the charger. Oh well, I found a video from a concert earlier in the tour. The radiohead cover was definitely the highlight of the night. Here’s Fiction Family performing “Idioteque” in Philadelphia. They played it a little different in Canton, but you’ll get the idea.
Oh, and for those of you who read my blog on Facebook. I’ll include the link, cause it strips all embedded flash. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5OBZhkSr1o
