Nate Houge

Things I’ve learned/known/come to accept about blogs/blogging

Pictures are helpful.  When a blog has a picture I’m drawn in.  When it doesn’t I say to myself, “What is this, my blog?”

In an effort to draw you in visually, here’s a photo.

That’s Russel Munson.  Micah Taylor took that shot.  That’s where I spent many mondays, drank way too much (or not enough) coffee, and recorded Becoming Liturgy.

Here’s another thing I’ve learned.  A regular well written blog is way better than an irregular blog, well written or not.  My wife has a once a week blog for her church.  It’s short, well written, and is updated once a week.  Perfect.  See for yourself http://humblewalkchurch.org/blog/

And I’ve learned this.  Reading people’s apologies/excuses for not blogging is annoying.  It’s like people calling to say they’re running late.  If you’re supposed to be at my house at 6 and it’s 6:05 chances are I’ve already put two and two together. I’m not a total idiot.  (note to self: disable comments).  Likewise, if I go to Nate Houge dot com and it’s a lame blog about being busy and not having a chance to blog my response is likely going to be, “Stop wasting your time blogging this drivel, go get your stuff done, and then give me decent blog to read.”

What else have I learned?  Well I believe Jeremy Myers said it along these lines ‘Never has so much been written with such lofty aspirations for so little a readership.’ What does this mean?  Well, I should fear, love, and trust that my readership is more like a house concert and less like first ave.  Moving into a living room is a good thing.  It’s cleaner.  Drinks are cheaper.  Parking’s better.  I don’t have to pee in a trough.

I know I’ve learned other things too.  But like much of my education it just didn’t stick. 

Who knows?  Maybe I’ll have a great blog next monday.  Or just another picture of Russel.  It got you this far didn’t it?

The second session of music and movement began today at the Family Center.  It was a fun time with an abrupt and incredibly loud fire drill ending!  Click on Kid’s Music to see and download the songs we’re singing, and by all means come join us – Tuesday mornings at 10:30.  The Family Center is hosted at Monroe public school in St. Paul a block east of Victoria on Palace.

moving moving moving

over the last two months we bought a house, did way more to it than we expected, last night we moved in.

hence the lack of blogging.

stick with me and mark next summer’s calendar for concerts on the deck – it’s a big deck, deserving of live music and live music fans.

if i were to write a song to commemorate this event it would be ‘i know an old house that swallowed a nate’

also – my phone died (it was assisted, but not premeditated)(i was having a bad day)(human) so if you’re my friend (and if you’re reading this blog chances are you are) give me a call – numbers the same – and i’ll get you back into my phone book. 

best to all and thanks to the tons of help so many of you have provided in extreme houge makeover… move the scion!  move the scion!

Actually I was referring to the new tab, Kid’s Music.  Along the top of the page.  Yeah, that one.  The Music and Movement classes I lead here in St. Paul start up tomorrow so I got all over achiever and posted mp3’s of the songs and a copy of the songsheet as well.  I think Willabee Wallabee turned out the funniest due to a certain 2 year old on my lap.

So if you’re in St. Paul and have a kid that’s not yet in school (we’ve got 0-5 year olds in the class – the average age is probably around 2) come on over to Music and Movement!  We meet at 10:30 at Monroe School, located at 810 Palace Avenue St. Paul, MN 55102.  The school entrance is on Palace.  When you come in the big white doors the room on your left is where we meet.  If you continue left down the hall you’ll find the Family Center Play Room at the very end.  This is a staffed play room for parents/caregivers and their children to come and hang out m-f 9-Noon.  The playroom and the music classes are sponsored through Partner for Violence Prevention.  So come on down!  It’ll be fun.  Probably.

Rachel Kurtz is working on a new album and asked me to play on it so yesterday I made my way down to the Library and tracked guitar for a couple hours with Matt Patrick at the helm.  Working with Matt Patrick was great – our last gig was as the Monsters of Folk in March of 2005.  Since then more famous bands have taken that monicker, and in an interesting side note had to buy the domain name from Micah.  It’s not everyday Conner Oberst’s manager calls you up…

So Matt’s Studio was great, Rachel liked what I played and after I packed up my guitar I helped co-write the second half of a song she was about to record. 

That, my friends, is a good day at the office.

Tomorrow I have a gig with Rachel in Cokato MN.  We’re opening for Robin Mark (best known for his P&W hit, Days of Elijah) and then we’re his backing band.  I wasn’t familiar with much of his work but have really enjoyed figuring out mandolin and steel parts for his stuff.  I’ll get to play my tele, my electric and acoustic lap steels, and my mandolin.  I’m looking forward to it!  If you’re in the area come check it out.

It’s delightful, it’s delovely, it’s deliturgy!

Becoming Liturgy, the new acoustic album featuring myself, Erin and Jason Deboer Moran, Micah Taylor, Justin Rimbo, Jonathan Rundman, Rachel Kurtz, Erik Hummel, Russel Munson and Mari Carlson is now available to you, the general public.  The liturgists. 

For more information on the album and to download the leadsheets click here.

To order your copy e-mail me – nate@natehouge.com 

To everyone that pre-ordered the album, thank you!

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.

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? 

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.

I did not surf tonight, but I did play the Turf Club for the first time with Floating Bridge.  I’ve seen some of my all time favorite shows at the Turf Club.  National acts like Ryan Adams (Lucinda Williams stood behind me at that show), Richard Buckner w/ Eric Heywood on steel and mando guitar.  And a billion great local acts – the highlight being Accident Clearinghouse with my buddy Matt Marohl on steel. 

So I’m proud and pleased to say now that I’ve played the Turf Club.  The only spot left in St. Paul that I want to play and haven’t is First Avenue.  I’m holding out for that gig till I can open for some incarnation of Jay Farrar.  But for now I’m a happy man having played the Turf Club.  And it didn’t hurt my ego to have a stranger go out of his way to compliment my tele playing.  And he was sober too!  To Rock and Roll!  To bed.  Thanks Erik, Chris, and Casey!