Nate Houge » Uncategorized

See New Site

nate — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:29:02 +0000

The new site is up at natehouge.com. Update your stuff that needs to be updated and enjoy the new digs!

back to the music

nate — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:00:41 +0000

The Houge family is at a very happy place when it comes to productivity. After more than a little bit of work our basement is finished which brings the move we started back in October (after buying our house in July and working on it up the move in date) to a close. Jodi and I both work from home and now we both have desks to call our own. It’s been a few years. Actually with the exception of our year out on Jodi’s internship, it’s been about 5 years. I finally got my little studio rig set up and tried it out recording and doing overdubs on yet another Erik Ritland EP. I can’t tell you how great it is to be able to leave all these guitars in the stand at the end of a session and not worry about how to stack the cases in the corner of the bedroom so that I can still get to my side of the bed, which is where my instruments have been for the last couple of years. There are more exciting music things coming up in the next few months, from playing in Jonathan Rundman’s band to leading some of my own music at the St. Paul Synod Assembly. I’ll keep you posted from the comfort of my own desk.

Walhalla ND The Other Windy City

nate — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 21:50:19 +0000

On Thursday I biked from Grafton ND to Walhalla ND. It was a more demanding ride than expected but I averaged about 15 mph which surprised and pleased me. It was a little windy but for the most part the wind was in my favor. The downside was that the wind kept me dry and I totally underestimated how dehydrated I was. I drank half a gallon of orange juice and water before going to bed and still barely had to pee the next morning… (Too much info?)So I took a day off the bike and drank a lot of fluids and went out for what was supposed to be a short 7 mile loop. But I missed my turn. Not a big deal ’cause I was cruising! I felt great, my legs felt great my butt felt great (Yes, Nate, too much info.) After a while I thought I’d try and find a new way back to Walhalla and made a right on a gravel road. Instantly I realized why up to this point I had felt so great. I had 20 miles an hour of wind pushing me along. Not anymore. Now it was pushing me off the road. Eventually I hit Highway 1 and made a second right turn. Directly into the wind and 3 miles of climbing in my future. I was in my lowest gear, pedaling hard and though I have no speedometer on my bike I’m guessing I was barely going 3mph. Some of the big gusts pushed me off the road. It became a very long ride. My legs hurt, my butt hurt and I think I spent the last hour never once riding perpendicular to the road. But hey, I got to ride my bike so no complaints.

brotherhood of the banjo

nate — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:00:07 +0000

I’m guessing nobody is reading this because a) I already posted once today so you needn’t check back for a month or b)upon reading my earlier post you said, “shucks! it’s nate’s birthday! forget work i’m going to ride my bike and play my banjo!” Which is exactly what I did. I guess it is important to read my blog. So with a fat wad of birthday cash and a heck of a wind I went out for a 20 miler with a stop at one of my all time favorite bike shops, the Hiawatha Cyclery. http://hiawathacyclery.com I love this shop and I love their blog http://hiawathacyclery.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-trip-to-nahbs-or-hobo-life.html but I rarely get over there because it’s not so fun to look at nice frames while wondering where your 2 year old has wandered off to. But today I took the afternoon off from my usual plague of shoulds and hit the bike paths and roads. Hiawatha has a wonderful approach to biking – similar to the folks at rivendell rivbike.com but with more humility and minnesota nice.
I took the long way which involves
oh – blog over – Jason just showed up!
to sum up – i got a banjo brothers bag and I love it and it easily fits a vine park brewery growler. happy birthday me!

33 On 330

nate — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:39:19 +0000

Happy Birthday Nate

why’s this bread all up in my grill?

nate — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:15:39 +0000

Humble Walk had it’s very first bake sale on Sunday. Four loaves of bread turned into $80. Not bad. Now the kids can go on an urban immersion retreat. Rock on.
As one of the contributing bakers I had planned on bringing a loaf of sourdough but since sourdough takes a bit of time and can be a little unpredictable with how it uses that time I also made some simple sandwich bread and a garlic baguette. Those are the ones that made it to the bake sale. I stuck the sour dough in the fridge to slow it down for the night and returned to it on Monday.
Here’s what I came up with.
Step 1. Make dough.

Step 2. Grill Steaks. This step is optional, but why would you fire up the grill just to bake bread? Why’ll we’re at it, why would stand next to those fine slabs of beef at the end of a long day without a beverage in hand? Again, you don’t have to, but why wouldn’t you? Oh and you’ll note there’s an iron griddle preheating on the top rack – that’s where the bread will be living in a bit.

Step 3. Set down your optional beverage and remove the steaks from the grill. At this point I slid the coals over to the left and placed my griddle on the main rack to the right. I thought this might give a more indirect heat and lower the risk of scorching the bottom of the bread.

Step 4. Go eat your steak. Check back in a bit. I actually forgot this step. I meant to check it at 45 minutes but got distracted with some basement remodeling details. Luck for me an hour and 15 minutes worked just fine.

Step 5. Cut it. Adorn it. Eat it.

I think as spring progresses I’ll try this a few more times – it’s always nice to keep the head outside and I hate wasting all that heat after you’re done grilling.
Go buy some steaks, go bake some bread.

3 things to be happy about

nate — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:35:41 +0000

1. banjo lessons
2. good beer with good friend
3. biking home through downtown st. paul as the wild game cars turn the streets into parking lots. best comment from drunk woman as i passed, “what the (bleep) has he got on his back?” Drunk woman (that totally narrows my readership by half), that would be my banjo.

get a bell

nate — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:11:33 +0000

get a bell for your bike. ring it. pedestrians will thank you. no really, they will.

I tune and New Tune

nate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:45:14 +0000

Hey – Becoming Liturgy, that hit acoustic liturgical sensation that’s sweeping the nation is now available on I Tunes. Just go to the I Tunes store and search for Houge and there it is, along with my kids cd, my brother’s power pop ep with the hit single Love On TV and Don’s quintet. You know Don… the guy with those other four guys?

Also I had a chance to record some acoustic lap steel with Joel and Aimee Pakan back in January and the song is up for a free download on their website, www.tangledblue.com with the story of how the song came to be. My acoustic lap steel also appears on Becoming Liturgy, and yes the steven’s steel I played with used to belong to Ben Harper. Kind of. Or at least he stole it from his grandpa and handed it to the guy I bought my lap steel from. But it was in his posession allright? So get off my back and listen to some music already.

calm

nate — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:24:55 +0000

Twice today, in two different locations I saw this billboard:
Life Moves Fast. Don’t Miss A Thing. Palm.

For a number of reasons my reply is
Lives Moves Fast. That’s okay. Calm.

Because the folks I want to be most like tend to miss all kinds of things in life, just not the important things like hugging their wife, being patient with their kids, and being their for their friends. If I could do those things and miss the rest I’d be just fine. Say no to Palm. Say yes to Calm.