19August2009
Posted by nate under: music; travel.
On line off line no line clothes line, I walk ‘em all.
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.
26July2009
Posted by nate under: Uncategorized.
Well a lot of my peers are returning from the ELCA National Youth Gathering this week. One such pal being Jonathan Rundman who did daily concerts/workshops/forums on contemporary liturgists. I myself get to wear that title and in the next two weeks will be releasing a new liturgy CD – Becoming Liturgy. Though it was not available at the gathering Jonathan did take along a copy of the CD master and song book as well as a pile of promo cards to hand out. And in my absence shared my songs with a slough of folks. So if you’re one of those folks and you picked up one of those cards shoot me an e-mail and tell me, How was the gathering?
7July2009
Posted by nate under: family; music; travel.
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.