Archive for the ‘are we there yet?’ Category

Where were you last night?

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Well, last night my first show back in town after a considerable time out on the road.  Actually it was my second. Well, I don’t know if the first counts.  Crap I’m so confused. I think it’s the cold.

So this past weekend I was supposed to be up in the DC area doing a reunion show with my friends Paul Roub and Marshal Wilner but because of the weather up in the DC area we had to reschedule for June.  So I was able to sit home Friday night and actually get some laundry done. I have to say that I was a little besides myself that Friday as it had been a long time since I had been home. I didn’t really know what to do.   I would have watched television, but my TV is broken so that was out. In the end, I just did laundry and started to read a book.    On Saturday I filled in for a friend at a show in Ft. Lauderdale Beach.  Unknown to me, of course, that this was Superbowl weekend and on this particular Saturday the NFL decided to “rent out” Ft Lauderdale Beach for a big kick off party and concert.  It took me almost 2 hours to get there because of the traffic on the beach.   All worth it though.

I don’t mind playing ‘cover’ gigs, but I just don’t like to do 4 hour time slots on my own.   So luckily, my friend Jeff Durham (learn that name!) was playing just down the street and he came by to join me after a few hours.  We had a blast (as always is when playing with Jeff).  Quick side note:  Jeff has a song called ‘sand and water’ which is a super amazing song.  With a line like ‘paradise just ain’t paradise with out her, it’s just sand & water’, that song blows me away.  So Jeff came and we spread much love between the Saints and the Colts fans.  After the show, it was off for burritos and to Jeff’s house for a little song writing workshop. I had this idea for a song that I ran by him and we were able to write a second verse.  I have made him responsible for the kick ass bridge that it’s going to have… moving on…

Sunday was a lazy day. I wanted to get out of the house and headed up to GA by 10am.  It didn’t work out that way.  We ended up on the road at around oh…. 3pm!!!  I love this drive.  I can rant and rant about how I love the travel part of this job.  I do.  As I alluded to earlier, if I’m not out on the road, I’m not sure what to do with myself.   The drive into GA off 75 is cool.  My favorite is when you just get into GA. The giant double billboards with adverts with sayings like “strippers. need we say more?”  The sign for ‘Adcock Pecans” make me laugh EVERY time!

gotta go now, but more coming later…

30A Songwriters Festival – Video

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

So, here is some new video from the 30A Songwriters Festival I attended in January in Santa Rosa Beach.   If you didn’t catch my notes from that day you can view them here.  This video is from the last day of the festival and is my last performance.  This round included musicians Bob Corley, Effron White and Blake Guthrie  and MC’d by Kevin Boyle.  Good Times.  Just before I started, someone whispered to me that we had 3 minutes left, so I sped things up just a little as Blake still had to perform.  Since we had a merch table to our rate, I said what everyone always says I forget to say. Pretty much it’s “please support me by buying my stuff” only I summarized for the given time.  If you missed the first video from the festival, you can view that one here when you’re done.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlgk1miVe6M

Related Links:

Notes from this day of the festival

Another video from day 2

30Asongwritersfestival.com

Not My Life

-Alex Nelson-

This is not how I imagined
how everything would feel
never thought, It could happen
seems I’ve gone too far to make this real
but in the end I know
that we’re just passing time

I’m a wreck, on the inside
you see through my disguise
and you see right through me
feel the pain that lies behind my eyes
but I don’t know what you
see in me

No I don’t believe it’s over
I take back all the lies I told you
and I make a wish
to turn back all the time

No I don’t believe it’s over
all the times I thought
it would be just fine
but I know that this is not my life

No this is not my life

Can you stay forever?
is it the pain you want to feel?
Could we stay together
seems I’ve pushed to hard to make this real
but you say it’s ok
it’s ok

and you know the feeling
when everything’s just right
when it feels so perfect
when I have you right here by my side
but I know it’s going to fade
it’s going to fade

No I don’t believe it’s over
I take back all the lies I told you
and I make a wish
to turn back all the time

No I don’t believe it’s over
all the times I thought
it would be just fine
but I know that this is not my life

No this is not my life

I think it's time to euthanize my myspace

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Here lies myspace

Everytime I start to send out an email to you guys I just start typing and typing.  Next thing I know it’s super long and I start thinking “who is going to read all this?”  I can’t help it.  In my head, you guys are talking back to me so sending out emails is like having a conversation with you.  I promise though, I’m going to work on keeping those short.

Luckily, those rules don’t apply to me here. phew!  So I’ll begin my ramble now…

First off… myspace.  It’s dead.  let’s admit to that. I’m tired of updating it and looking at it. Like many people I have more than one.  One I started some time ago before I actually headed in the direction I’m in now and then a new one for the album.  I’ve noticed that things have been dying off over there for some time. In fact, for the last few months I haven’t gotten anything from you guys there.  Just about everything now is through facebook.  So I’m thinking of just deleting those account entirely or just putting a RIP image up.

Next…

The Wallflower Gallery

Some ‘are we there yet?’ videos are almost done.  I have three pieces that are going to go up first.  They are informational pieces on The Wallflower Gallery in Miami, Central Square Records in Seaside and DaVinci in Deland.

These are three places I played in January that the owners were very much into supporting music and pushing independent artists. I want to put these up as a thank you to them and to also allow them to introduce themselves in their own words to any other musicians/artists.  So if you’re a musician and looking for a place to play, I totally recommend looking up these three places.

Also, I’ve got Day1 of the 30A songwriters Festival all edited and just waiting on some other minor post editing shtuff to happen.   This project is taking a little more time than I thought it would but it’s worth it.  Definitely learning a lot of things about video production.

road trip (again)…

I’m getting ready for the trip up to DC. This should be interesting. I think I’ll document my travel into the cold part of the world for “are we there yet?”  In my opinion, there is a lot of stuff in the Element. It’s packed.  I even took a seat out.  I always try to leave space in case sleeping in the car is necessary.  It’s been awhile since I’ve driven in snow.  But this is going to be cool.  Hoping to ride up through the night and make it there by tomorrow.  Did something similar last year when I went up to North Carolina. I know know, this is further!

The main reason for going up is to play a show as Crash Basket.  A band I was formerly in with Paul Roub and Marhall Wilner.  We’ve been talking about getting together for years but things haven’t worked out until now.    On friday night, Paul and I will play individual sets and then on saturday we’ll rock it as Crash Basket.

I’m super stoked that I’ll also see Gordon Withers.  He’s my buddy that recorded the cello on my album.  Gonna try to rock out with him as well.

On the way back, I’ll make a stop over to Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, GA and see how things go.  I’m nervous and excited all at the same time.  it’s tingly.

So that’s all I got so far.  Time to go finish packing and getting everything ready. I’ll be in touch.  Next up I’ll do a follow up to killing the myspace.  The next will be killing the pictures musicians take with train tracks. No more train track pictures guys! ok?

talk to you soon.

30A Songwriters Festival – Day 4

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

So on this day, I woke up a little late.  The night before we were out watching some really amazing people and then during the night I was working on some video editing.  So that made for a really

hotel courtyard

late bed time.  I believe it was 4:30am when I finally laid down to try to get some sleep.

It was a overcast day and finally rolled out of the room around 11am.  Some friends that had come up from Gainesville to attend the festival (who are obsessed with the Indigo Girls) were already in line at that show.  I had gotten a txt from them around 8am that they were in the line already.  I was hoping that I would be able to make it to the show but having woke up late, I had some things I wanted to get done.  As a result of the Indigo Girls show, some of the events were postponed and this ended up working in my favor.

Central Square Records

One of the things that I wanted to do was to get to Central Square Records and have the guys film an intro to their store for my ‘are we there yet?’ project.   So we headed over the store, hoping that there wouldn’t be too many people there so that they would have the time to do it.  And… they did!  There were people there however as Louise Mosrie was just finishing up her in-store there, but the guys still made some time.  I’m hoping to post what they did soon.

After that, it was a walk around the town and trying to decide what to eat.  While we were getting some outside shots of the Central Square building we ran into the sound guy from Bud & Aly’s from the previous day.  Since everything was pushed back for the Indigo Girls show, he was waiting in Seaside for things to get back on schedule.  He couldn’t make it down to the IG show because he was driving a large shipping truck so we just told him to hang with us.

We ended up at a nice restaurant right next to the record/book shop.  I can’t recall the name.  Mostly because my tooth, which had started to bother me the night before, was really killing me.  Needless to say, I worked through the pain and ate my lunch.  The highlight?  The sound guy telling our waiter that he was serving a ‘platinum selling recording artist.’

After lunch it was back to the room for some string changing and warm ups.  I had no idea where the time went, but it seemed to me like the day was flying by.  Well, waking up late couldn’t have helped.  I thought I was going to have to rush, but we received word that the IG show was being delayed a little bit.  From what I understood the show was being held at a stage on the beach.  I was just imagining it being super cold and perhaps windy and wet.

So then, with new strings on it was time to head to the venue.  Packed the guitars into the car and headed out.  The venue was Caliza at Aly’s Beach which was where we saw Matthew, Susanna, Amy and Shawn the night before.  This venue was also right across the street from where the Indigo Girls were playing.  The parking situation was crazy.  Lines and lines of parked cars.  Luckily, we were able to park near the venue entrance.

Once there, we were able to listen to the last few songs of the IG show while we let the sound engineer for this show to warm up and setup some additional equipment.  This show was with Bob

Alex Nelson at Caliza

Corley, Effron White, and Blake Guthrie.  Once the Indigo Girl’s show was over, people started pouring in over to our venue.  It filled up rather nicely. The host for the night was Kevin Boyle whom I had met at my show on Friday night.  All in all, this was a great show. It was a little cold and I think you will see in the video that I’m rubbing my hands together a lot.  But it was great.

After the show I stood around the merch table and met some of the people that came out. It was great to see people who had seen me from some of the previous appearances I had done.  It meant a lot that they took the time to come back out to see me.  I’m super appreciative of this.  I think this is a little better than selling things because it reaffirms for me that the feeling that I am doing what I think, what I feel,  I should be doing with my life.  Performing. Playing music. Is right.  I’m making a connection.  (don’t get me wrong, I like to pay my bills too!)

Once things settled down at the merch table I started to pack things up. This was my last performance for the festival (this was the last night) and I wanted to head over to see Carmel Mikol and Cody Copeland play.  I got distracted on the way out because the guy who wrote “people are crazy” was up on stage.  So I watched a little bit of that before heading out.

Carmel and Cody were at the Rosemary Beach Town Hall.  We were lucky enough that on our way in we ran into Mr. Troy Evans.  On the phone, of course. This is how I remember him for most of the weekend.  HA!  Kidding.

The Town Hall was an amazing indoor venue.  Cody and Carmel blew my mind.  They were performing alongside Ryan Parker and Michelle Luchese.  An amazing round of performances.  As with a lot of the performances at the festival, I wish it could have gone longer.  Troy, Christy and  myself had a great time.

Matthew Sweet

After that we left Cody and Carmel to deal with the swarm of new fans and headed over to see Matthew Sweet.  That would be our last show to attend for the night.

went back to room. packed and watched psych. got ready for leaving next day.  bummed it’s over.