NEWS UPDATE

So we're getting closer and closer to announcing an official release date for the new album "Light Up The Road."  It's been a long time coming but i couldn't be more happy with it and hope that you enjoy it enough to pass it along to your friends.

The download for "One More Mistake" is still going strong so thanks for that. You can still get it here:


02 One More Mistake.mp3


Thanks everyone! More to come.


JH

Every Calm Comes With A Storm, Every Storm Comes With A Calm

The way we deal with hardships and times of trouble is nothing more than tradition...and a good one.  Similar to death, we get mad then sad then grateful.  Though there is much more to it than that, but you know what I mean.

With the Nashville flood bringing chaos and destruction it's so amazing to see that people are keeping the tradition alive.  Everyone is really stepping it up by lending a hand.  I know I've had some good friends and even complete strangers come and help us out.

I think I skipped the sad part and went straight from mad to grateful.  We were so freakin' lucky to have to as little damage as we did.  Besides, these things are only inconveniences.

Moving on.  No dwelling.  Feeling good.

Let's remember this and remind people of how we pulled together....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjaQoOdJvI

Half Way There

So I'm still digging through War & Peace.  Believe me when I tell you that though it's taking a long time, I can't put it down.  Here is the latest passage(s) that absolutely kill me.

"Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul
Thou, without whom happiness would be for me impossible,
Tender melancholy, ah, come to console me,
Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat,
And mingle a secret sweetness
With these tears that I feel to be flowing."

"One is afraid of the unknown [...] whatever we say about the soul going to the sky...we know there is no sky but only an atmosphere."

Doesn't get much better than that.

I just watched a documentary called Paperback Dreams.  It was pretty good. Like something you would see on PBS. Definitely not The Cove, but nonetheless good.  Really made me realize how quickly the times are changing.  The fact is that everything is changing so fast we don't even notice it.  We are always scrambling to keep up.  Bookstores (local ones) used to be places of refuge.  Places to go to randomly discover the works of authors that could change the way we think...our whole lives even.  Now at the touch of a button we can order, from the fat-ass-of-a-lazy-boy-recliner-chair, anything we want.  No more self discovery.  Just click.  The idea that these places will soon be extinct breaks my heart.  Record stores are the same thing.  Soon we will no longer be able to run our fingers across the tops of 30 year old vinyl records searching for that random gem, won't be able to smell that old cardboard or cut ourselves on those crispy paper sleeves.  Another example (though a poor one I must admit) are video stores.  I remember when I was young going to the movie store to pick out the latest release or oldie-but-goodie.  I haven't jumped on the Netflix bandwagon yet, but it looks like I will be soon since another video store shut down.  This I am not heartbroken over, in fact I don't really care. But it is just another sign of the ever-changing times we live in.

I want to slow down.  I want to walk to work.  I want to sit and watch my coffee brew.  I want to walk to a friends house to ask them a question or to simply say hello.  I want more face time.  I want to roll my own cigarettes. I want to use a typewriter.  I want to do long division (no i don't), I want to send a letter in the mail and be okay with not hearing back from someone for weeks on end.  I want to slow down.

Prince Andrew

"No, life is not over at thirty-one!" Prince Andrew suddenly decided finally and decisively.  "It is not enough for me to know what I have in me - everyone must know it: ...everyone must know me, so that my life may not be lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that it may be reflected in them all, and that they and I may live in harmony."

-Prince Andrew (Tolstoy's War and Peace)

Saturday

Woke from an interesting dream this morning.  I think I was about to uncover the meaning of life and in doing so would have banished from the earth everyone that drives a Hummer and those who never use their turn signals.  But I awoke to a talking cat.  More like a yelling cat.  Oh well.

Last night I got the chance to hang out with some of my favorite people in the world.  There is always a cloud of seriousness that seems to hang over my head and possibly the entire city...at least in my mind.  But there are those rare people that make it impossible not to smile.  I'm not talking about a joke around every corner, just good company.  Good stuff.  So if you're not a fan of Deadstring Brothers, then you should be.  Jeff handed me their latest disc Sao Paulo and it's fantastic.  They've got some shows coming up and they might just be in your town.

Had the chance to do one of my favorite things in the world today...buy books.  I've been obsessed with putting together my own personal library for a couple years but am just now getting it going.  One day I'd like to have walls of bookshelves with ladders and the whole shebang.  It's little things like that that make me smile.  There's something to being able to hold and read somebody's thoughts and ideas, and in some cases their life work.  Pretty amazing.  It's the same thing as going to a store and buying CDs or vinyl.  I heard that CDs are going to stop being made fairly soon...just digital and maybe vinyl.  Nobody gets off their ass to do anything anymore.  If you want something, anything, it's all at your fingertips.  Which means things are much more recyclable and forgettable.  People no longer have the time, patience, or attention span to listen to a full album...just a single.  So when you see that someone sold 500,000 records in its first week, that's only a single song, not a whole album.  Ten years ago you would see that number all the time when it came to album sales.  This is just depressing me.  Next.

Actually there is no more.  Gonna have a smoke.  Read.  Go to bed.  Night.

A Letter To My Niece On Her 1st Birthday...

Dear ----

Your first birthday is a big one.  Soon you will grow and begin to really take wonder at the world around you.  There's a lot to see.  More important than what you see are the questions you'll ask yourself about the happenings around you.  You'll wonder how and why.  Some things won't make sense and may never, but don't stop asking questions.  Asking is never foolish.  Only fools walk this earth going along with the motion and chaos because it seems easier.  Asking is how you become an individual.  As you get older you'll get used to your surroundings and that's okay.  You have to let your mind rest sometimes.  That's one thing I'm still trying to learn myself.  But I never stop asking how and why.

You'll find that I'm a big fan of giving books as gifts.  You may even get really tired of it.  But believe me, books are the best expression of human behavior.  Books will always be written because men and women will always have the need to be heard.  Always make yourself heard!

This book by Rudyard Kipling is one I hope you are read and will read over and over again throughout your life.  Your children will love it too.  Unfortunately I discovered it later in my life.  The reason it's unfortunate I will tell you.  The questions how and why are answered on these very pages.  You see, you are lucky for the simple fact that you are a child and can stay a child forever with the knowledge and lessons in "Just So Stories."  Seeing things through a child's eyes is what you'll do for a few years, but if you can hang onto that beautiful vision forever then you have beat us all.  For to see things through a child's eyes is to see Eden.  This world would be a much better place if we all had the eyes of a child.  You may get word one day that we are all born guilty.  That is wrong.  We are born innocent.  That is right.  We become guilty with such attributes as ignorance, arrogance and being too afraid to ask questions.

As I write this to you I am 28.  Young.  I feel old but 28 is still very young.  I'm sitting on my porch in Nashville, TN at ------ Ave listening to Doves new album Kingdom of Rust.  It's a good record.  But we will speak plenty of music later.  That I am sure of.  I'm also drinking PBR, though I prefer Guinness, and indulging in other things that I shouldn't, but I do.  I tell you these things to let you know a little bit about me.  Now that I think of my age and time, I am reminded of what Kurt Vonnegut says about dates in his book Jailbird.  He says he has to think of years as characters in his life, not just pages of a calendar.  You'll have good years and you'll have bad years.  But if you think of them as simply characters you may not feel as old as I do at such a young age.  But I digress.

So.  As I write this to you, it is your first birthday and I am 28 sitting on my porch asking how and why.


(written in April of 2009)

Looking Back...

When I was 15 I wanted to play the guitar.  When I was 16 I wanted to write songs.  I can remember my first guitar lesson so vividly.  I learned my first four chords, went home and wrote a song.  Being a "lead" guitarist never appealed to me.  I only cared about writing.  And let me say now that I couldn't sing worth a damn.  My sister's bedroom was right next to mine at the house I grew up in, and I can only imagine what she was thinking to herself as this kid, albeit her younger brother who at times did things only to get on her nerves, was singing his heart out...well, there was heart but I wouldn't call it singing.  Anyway, she's alive and well so it must not have been too bad (that's optimism you'll never hear from me again).  Nonetheless I found my "thing."

To go back just a little bit I think it's important to mention a few facts.  I was the kid that loved music more than anything.  I would make mix tapes (yes, actual cassettes) every night so that in the morning I would have my walk-to-the-bus-stop tunes to listen to.  I was also the kid that managed to put the wire, connecting the cassette player to the headphones, up through my shirt so that it appeared I was just resting my head on the palm of my hand...little did anyone know.  And to think my cross-eyed history teacher could tell when someone was chewing gum (we could never tell which eye she was using...harsh I know, but the truth stings) and didn't know that I was listening to Soundgarden.  Yes, I was a suburban, grunge wannabe kid and I loved every minute of it.

Now let's go back again, pre-grunge wannabe era.  I grew up on Jackson Browne.  Lucky enough to have parents that loved music, I was exposed to some really great stuff at a young age.  As a 12 year old, I can remember having all the lyrics to Jackson's "I'm Alive" record down pat.  I don't know what it was back then that caught my attention, but I wanted more.  It may be hard to imagine a kid that young relating to songs about love, despair, and just this overwhelmingly beautiful sadness.  But I was a very sensitive kid.  I knew I had a heart and that this "love" was a dire need to make it real.  So maybe I learned from Jackson what love is.  Maybe a little sentimental of me but screw my college poetry professor (more on that at another time).

So.  Where were we.  Yes.  Writing.  I learned in my early years the strength of words.  I had to have that.  I wanted to say what couldn't be spoken but what could be believed in melody.

The reason this is on my mind today is because I spent a good eight straight hours listening to, well, Mr. Browne.  I am still amazed at his words.  They still pierce right through me.  "In my early years I hid my tears and passed my days alone/Adrift on an ocean of loneliness my dreams like nets were thrown/To catch the love that I'd heard of in books and films and songs/Now there's a world of illusion and fantasy in the place where the real world belongs/Still I look for the beauty in songs" (from Farther On).  That verse just about sums me up.  That alone could be my biography.  For Christ's sake put it on my gravestone.

There isn't a better feeling than welling up listening to music.  And that was my day today.  Beautiful.

I must add also that there's something to be said about music that makes you feel justified.  Everyday I doubt what I do (I say "do" because no matter the state of my success, whatever that means, I do write.  I do sing.  My dream has become real and now I have aspirations).  It's the bond between fellow artists that makes "this" make sense.  And in the state that music as a creative outlet is in these days, it's that bond that will carry us through to the other side, wherever that may be, where we will look back with wiser grins and a more beautiful sadness.


Later.