In the last 3 weeks I’ve been from MN to ID to MN to ND.  I had a great week at Idaho Servant Adventures with some outstanding folks from Oregon and South Dakota, came back and finished a writing gig for Augsburg Fortress, packed the car and now here I am in beautiful Walhalla ND. 

Somewhere in the midst of that I picked up my latest CD from the manufacturers.  ‘Becoming Liturgy’ is now available – though I’ll give it a more formal blog entry in the next week or two.  Thanks to all who preordered it.  The songbook is ready to put up as well so you’ll be seeing that soon!

The new CD, Becoming Liturgy features 28 liturgical pieces for guitar/piano/drum.  With this in hand I called up to Walhalla Lutheran and asked Pastor Don if I could lead music on Sunday.  He said yes.  So I arrived Thursday night, we made a bulletin and on Sunday morning Walhalla Lutheran had quite possibly it’s first ever guitar led worship.  It went great, thanks Don!

Then on Monday my mother-in-law headed down to the senior center to play cards.  On her way out she said, “If they ask if you can come do some songs what should I tell them?” I said, “Just ask when they want me.”  I got a call in 10 minutes, “Tonights are potluck.  Will you be our entertainment?”  “Yup.”  So Monday night I went and did a little concert at the senior center and it went great.  Last Christmas I came down and led a sing along and in turn they let me stick around and play hand and foot – even though I didn’t have my aarp card yet.  It was a pretty good deal.  Well this gig went just as great.  I did a 45 minute concert to one of the most attentive audiences you could ever ask for.  And it led to another gig.  This afternoon me and the girls headed over to the nursing home and played another show.  I did a few of my songs then the girls did a few songs.   Then we did some action songs all together.  The walker crowd may not be the ideal group for jumping around but they loved watching the girls dance and they clapped and sang away on familiar songs like She’ll be coming ’round the mountain.  So my ND vacation has had a bit of work thrown in, but when you get to do what you love a working vacation ain’t that bad.

Oh, and while I was up here I found an old bike to fix up.  It’s a 20+ year old giant rincon.  that’s right jim, the rincon.

The Houge family recently returned from a week in the black hills of SD.  In true Nate & Jodi fashion we remembered to bring out the camera at one of the stops – Old MacDonalds petting zoo.  Unfortunately that’s the only stop we remembered to bust it out at.  If you only knew how many unphotographed trips and travels we’ve been on…

So here’s what we were up to on the 2009 Houge tour/family vacation.

I played a gig in downtown Rapid City.  Wonderful albeit sparcely populated.  Before I went on there was a demo by a local hair salon.  Lydia got a free hair cut.  I was up next and had fun playing some kids and family stuff.  Halfway through the set I noticed my harmonica was covored in hair.  I haven’t played it since…

The next morning I played at Custer Lutheran Fellowship which was a great gig.  All the music was from my upcoming release “Becoming Liturgy” (available August 2009).  A first for me was leading the singing of the Psalm.  We used Psalm Tone 1 from the ELW.  Everything went really well thanks to CLF being a singing congregation.  Some are, some arent’.  CLF are.

Then we are off to Outlaw Ranch for a week where I was the artist in residence and my family vacationed.  (I got plenty of rest and hiking in too.)  I did this gig three years ago and was very excited to do it again.  I spent the morning writing songs with kids – we wrote everything from songs about the creation account to Helga’s Hamburger Helper Hairball.  And there was a rock/reggae/talking blues opera recounting Samuel’s call.  I love writing songs and what a great group to do it with!  One night I headed over to a sister camp and did a concert for middle schoolers and an elderhostel group.  Kind of an odd combination but it went really well.  Then on Wednesday night I did a concert for the adults at family camp.  Spending a few days with folks, getting all relaxed, creating some common ground, and then doing a concert in a beautful old barn is about as perfect set up as you can find for giving a concert.  It was an incredible encouragement to me as a performing songwriter.  I can’t thank the folks at outlaw enough for the experience.

Throughout the week we hiked and horse backed, crafted and canoed.  My folks got to come along too which was great as far as parent/grandparent time is concerned – you can’t beat having them in the room next door! 

On Friday we hoofed it back via a night in Sioux Falls.  Home on Saturday in time to watch our neighbors blow up the ‘hood.  Not that we didn’t help.  C’mon, firework stands in South Dakota, how could I resist?

So a huge thanks to Rapid City, Custer Lutheran Fellowship, and Outlaw Ranch!  Now we’ll lay low for a week or so before the next camp adventure begins!

And if any of you folks I met along the way would like to have me visit your church/college/coffeeshop contact me!  nate at natehouge dot com.  I’d love to see you again and play some more!

Peace and more,

Nate.

It is official.  We are now a one car/toaster family.

That’s me a couple weeks back at the Victory Muse show.  There are more and better pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahtaylor/sets/72157615602779470/

Rachel Kurtz and I did the song ‘bootstraps’ for the first time in 8 years (it’s on the rare and hard but not hard enough to find boy.girl CD ‘cheaply painted barns.’)  Jonathan Rundman joined in on accordian and Lars Carlson played along for the closer – I’m Troubled and I Don’t Know Why.  The Victory Muse house concerts have been awesome and this Saturday Rachel Kurtz will be playing with her husband, the legendary guitarist, Michael May.  For those of you with the Mysterious Kung Fu…. CD, Michael is responsible for the rock and roll solo on Get In the Tub.  So check out the Victory Muse and check out the show.

This last weekend I got a chance to go to Florida by invitation of Justin Rimbo and the Director of Lutheran Outdoor Ministries of Florida, Chad Cambell.  We led music for a Jr./Sr. High event held at O’leno State Park.  It was warm and relaxing and musically fulfilling.  It’s the last of a long string of travels of mine and it was a great way to rap things up for awhile.  Here are three highlights:

1.  I got stopped at security at the airport on my way out.  They wanted to check my bag.  As the security personal started looking through it she said – “do you have a teapot in here?”  I correctly assumed she was referring to my ceramic coffee cup and said, “Yeah, it’s right under here…”  and reached over and began pulling my socks and underwear out of the way.  She quickly moved the bag away and said curtly.  “You can’t touch this.”  Keep in mind it was 4:30 in the morning so my judgement was a bit off as I immediately started humming the rest of the chorus to this MC Hammer classic.  She wasn’t ammused.  Or at least on the outside.  Inside I think she was cracking up.  Or deciding whether or not to turn me into the feds.  Of course in the end the lingering question remains, so what if it was a teapot?  Whatch out for that guy, he’s already had 3 mugs of chamomile this morning.  Dangerous.

2.  I led a songwriting workshop on saturday morning and the group came up with an awesome gathering song that we used for Sunday morning worship.  My favorite part was they used the simile of hot chocolate as the warmth and comfort we find in gathering together.  It fit the context of camp, but also of being filled, of being a vessel, not to mention comfort.  A lot of us are used to all the old church language in hymns.  It’s good to break out and use new imagery.  This group did it way better than someone like myself, stuck in my ruts, usually does.  Good work!

3. sheesh, what’s number three?  Could be running in warm weather, or the hanging out before and after the event, could be the group singing, or… Oh here’s a good one.  Sunday night walking out of target we heard a weird sound.  Looking up in the air at a distant trail of smoke Chad pointed out that we had just heard the space shuttle launch.  Sure enough there was a little light zooming out into space.  We saw the space shuttle.  Sweet.

 Finally, this Friday Micah and I will be at the bean factory here in St. Paul up on Randolph.  7-9.  if you want to sing a few songs bring an instrument.  we’d love to have you.

You’re Welcome.

 On Sunday night I returned from a 5 day tour with Jonathan Rundman.  I was going to write all about it but I knew Jonathan would do a better job, and sure enough he did.  So click on the recap up there and check it out.

I will note that I came back a better musician.  Not just because I bought a Peavey Classic 30 in Minot, but because Jonathan, Justin, and Graham are three of the finest musicians I have ever played with.  I’ve played with all of them in different line ups before but never as the four of us supporting Jonathan.  Wow!  What a blast.  It’s so fun to be in a band where you know everyone is competent enough to catch if you take a few risks and as a result you get some amazing results.  So thanks to them and thanks to all the folks that came out to hear us!

The fire station was great.  We went under the guise of our daughters wanting to see the fire truck, but really it was a Dad tour.  I got to shoot the fire hose.  Sweet.  Lydia was holding on to it too, but obviously I was providing all the man power.  At least that’s what I thought until I turned around and saw that our firefighting friend was actually doing all the supporting and stabilizing of the hose as Lydia and I unloaded water at a rate of 300 gallons a minute.  Matt was pretty bummed that he didn’t get to shoot the hose, but he cheered up once he got to put on the total fire fighter outfit complete with oxygen tank and face mask.  It looked pretty tough, and with the mask on he sounded like darth vader.  We were all in awe of his manliness.  That is until he started singing, ‘wake me up before you go go!’ 

Matt’s a good friend and a smarty pants theologian and on top of all that a huge music fan.  We listened to alot of music and at one point put on the Hoodoo Gurus ‘Mars Needs Guitars’ I hadn’t heard this album from 1985 and got a kick out of reading this in the liner notes: If you enjoyed this album, please help the band: get your friends to buy a copy and not tape yours.   So I guess that discussion is older than I thought. 

When I put out my CD Folkstar in 2001 I wrote something in the liner notes along the lines of ‘Make copies for your friends’ The idea being to get the music out and grow the fan base.  I don’t feel that way anymore.  I wouldn’t photocopy a fine art print so why should I burn music?  I’m amazed at how cheapened music has become.  As I prepare to release my next CD I can’t help but wonder how sales will go.  Everybody wants to get something for nothing but you get what you pay for.  If you really want to promote art, pay for it. 

Cameron Townsend of Wycliffe Bible Translators fame first went to South America in 1917 to share the Gospel.  He gave away bibles.  Nobody cared.  Then he started selling Bibles.  What he found was that people valued the Bible’s exponentially more when they had payed for it.  Then he learned the importance of translating the Bible into people’s mother tongue.

My music isn’t exactly the Bible but I think we can all learn a thing or too from Mr. Townsend.  If you don’t care enough about my music to pay for it then I don’t really need you as a fan. 

Now to figure out the mother tongue of my listeners…

Now go buy some local music!