12January2007
Posted by nate under: Uncategorized.
My friend Jonathan mentioned in his blog the other day that he had been listening to a CD of mine, so in honor of my friend I’ve title my blog with the opening line of his ‘The Glasses Song’ (track 20 of Sound Theology disc 2) I have a scrapped together drum set in the corner of my studio and what little time I spend trying to develop a sense of rhythm is usually to the beat of Jonathan’s Sound Theology discs.
But today I was thinking about the glasses song for a very practical reason. I used to wear glasses. While working at Woodbury Baptist Church and Woodbury United Methodist Church I spent a ton of time making lead sheets and reading hymnals and scrolling through praise and worship websites. This was in 2000-2001. I was new to the role of being a band leader and so everything took me a long time and I started to get pretty severe headaches. So I went to Pearl Vision and they said hey, your eyesight isn’t horrible but you should get glasses for when your reading and driving. So I did and the headaches went away. I wore my glasses as often as I could remember and they were pretty cool glasses too. And well they should be, they cost more than my first guitar. Anyways. About a year and a half ago, my daughter, who I love and would never sell, broke my glasses. Well sure that sucked, but I taped ‘em together and made it through the last few months at Shepherd of the Valley, a job that again involved my eyes being assaulted by a computer monitor. When I quit that job over a year ago, I switched over to a more relaxed free lance lifestyle, which I maintain gratefully to this day. The pay isn’t as good, but the benefits are killer, including the benefit of not spending a lot of time on the computer, and so as a result I haven’t been wearing my broken glasses, or replacing them for that matter. Which is good because my guitar choices have gotten a lot pricier and I couldn’t afford glasses using the previously set standard.
Well, one of my great freelancing joys is writing for Augsburg Fortress Publishing which is a great gig and suits me well as a creative type. Currently I’m in the middle of a sizeable writing assignment. In fact I’ve been typing for about 6 hours today. (why i’m topping it off with a blog is beyond me) And today for the first time in a year I got the computer screen headache again. Oh it stinks. It’s part stress headache, feels almost a little sinusy and your eyes feel jittery like after a lock in. When it started coming on I took a break and did a little recording for next weeks song – which I’m really excited about. Then I took a few pictures, starting with a shot of my secret weapon given to me by the rock and roll god, Bill Singsaas,
and if you’ve ever wondered what’s it like to be the foot of a guitar player it might look like this:
and what’s a microphone look at all day?
well there you have it a little photo tour of nate’s headache induced recording break.
i’ll try and get the shot of the ice cleats too, they still amaze even after all these days…
9January2007
Posted by nate under: Uncategorized.
Ah shoot. I was going to write an entire blog on a purchase I made at Fleet Farm today and now I can’t remember what the things I bought are called. I’ll keep writing in hopes that it comes back to me.
My daughter Lydia and I had a pretty manly trip to my new favorite box store, Fleet Farm. Are shopping list included an axe handle (the one I was using split – due to either my brute strength or its antiquity – you decide), air filters for the furnace, new snow pants for my wee shredder (the fact that they were pink only slightly deters from the manly factor – Lydia wouldn’t even try on the intimidating black ones i picked out for her), and lastly, in the words I used with the kind lady in the sporting goods section, ’something to put on my shoes for when i’m on ice so that i don’t slip’ sometimes the words escape me. She kind of laughed in her sporty orange vest and said, ‘oh you mean…’ and then used the words that for the life of me I can’t remember now.
Yes!!! I remember! Ice Cleats. See, I knew if I just kept at it it would come back to me. Not unlike playing a song.
So, I got these amazing things called ice cleats. If I had remembered to buy batteries I would actually have posted a picture of them. But hey, once the ice cleats are in the cart, you’ve only got one thing on your mind and starts with check and ends with out.
Ice cleats are a wierd little rubber web that you stretch over the soul of your shoe. They’ve got 6 (you’ll never believe what they’re called) CLEATS (were I not in the know I’d refer to them as pokey things or spikes) that allow you to walk on (frozen) water without slipping. It’s so simple and so freakin’ cool.
So, as soon as Jodi got home, I put on my running shoes and all kinds of long underwear, and went for a run on Ottertail lake. It was surreal. I just ran around the lake. This big massive threat to my tail bone had become my playground.
The ‘man vs. nature’ thing is really prevalent around here. You really got to wonder how many of the outdoorsman around here give a rat’s behind about the outdoors. I regularly see – and when my conscience succeeds pick up – all kinds of trash when I’m out running or biking and it makes me sick. Even now on the frozen lake I wander across beer cans and empty cases of Premium.
I ran out and back with my ultra cool Ice Cleats and on the return I could see my footprints and I had too epiphanies (liturgical calendar appropriate)
1) Okay, I admit it, I only had one epiphany and it’s lame, so skip down to number two to read epiphany number one, which this isn’t and it is.
2) The sentimental sap that wrote the ‘Footprints’ poem probably didn’t live in the midwest or he/she would’ve had it take place on a frozen lake with the marks left by ice cleats replacing the footprints on the sand. Which would’ve been way cooler and not nearly as ‘I like to ride horses, give to the children, and take moonlit walks on the beach with my personal lord and savior’-esque.
So please, get yourself some ice grippy thingees for your souls before they slip into sin and ass jarring pain.
Keep it on the straight narrow, Nate.
8January2007
Posted by nate under: song.
This was first recorded about 3 years ago when my brother was visiting from Shanghai. I recorded a guitar and vocal and then he sang the harmony. I found the file a few weeks ago and re-recorded my guitar and vocal (changed some lyrics while I was at it) and added a mandolin and drums. Luckily the original was to a click track so I was able to sync it all up with my brothers harmonies, which I recall he wasn’t totally happy with, but he’s in China now so what’s he gonna do about it? Actually his harmony is probably what saves the song for me. D is my favorite key, but songs I wrote awhile back are now getting a little low for me – which is sometimes kind of a cool way to sing cause you can’t really power through it and you have to relax your voice a bit and generally that means i’m singing with more air in my lungs which takes a bit of the grating quality away. Which I doubt anyone would miss.
Show Me The Way
Show me the way, I wanna go home,
But I don€™t know, which way to go
Show me the way, I wanna go home,
But I don€™t know which way, which way to go
Stars in the country shine so bright
Shine all you want, still the dead of night
Stars in the country shine so bright
Shine for me which way, which way to go
Gas in the tank and dust in the air
Driving there fast, but I€™m not sure where
Gas in the tank and dust in the air
Driving me which way, which way to go
Memory of a blond girl, memory of those eyes
Reminds of our love, holds me to the ties
Memory of a blond girl, memory of those eyes
Reminds me which way, which way to go