Nate Houge

1July2008

I’ve got boots like Matt Marohl

Posted by nate under: family; friendship; music; travel.

So the other weekend we were in the Quad Cities visiting our friends the Marohls.  Highlights included, but are not limited too, touring a fire station, watching our daughters play, and of course talking rock and roll with Matt.

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!

1July2008

john, deere

Posted by nate under: family; transportation; travel.

Here’s a shot of my daughter driving me around Moline IL two weekends ago.  She’s a pretty good driver all things considered.

22June2008

snap and memory

Posted by nate under: family.

Lydia (4 3/4) is learning/has learned how to snap.  It’s not loud, but it’s definitely a snap.  She talked to grandma on the phone the other day – and she snapped for her.  She makes a proud statement and adds an emphatic snap at the end.  She walks in the porch from playing outside and both hands are snapping, because they can. 

We’re in the Moline IL right now visiting some friends for the weekend.  We came down some of the same roads Lydia and I drove a year and a half ago when we went down to St. Louis.  Since that trip we’ve talked about the trip a number of times, but the conversation is always about the destination - St. Louis.  But as we were driving through Cedar Falls/Waterloo I saw the hotel we had stayed at after our first night of travel.  I pointed it out and said, “Look Lydia there’s where we stayed on our trip to St. Louis!  Remember?  We went swimming and ordered pizza and walked to the gas station and bought lemonade to drink?”  And Lydia replied immediately and factually, “But first we had a cookie.”  What is she talking about? I thought to myself.  And then I too remembered that there was a jar of cookies at the front desk and when we checked in we each had a cookie, then we swam, pizza’d and drank our lemonade.  So in October of 2006 3 year old Lydia had a cookie on a trip to St. Louis and in June 2008 as we drove by the hotel in the middle of IA she was able to clear up my foggy account of the trip with, “But first we had a cookie.”  I can’t even tell you what we had for dinner last night.  Snap.