Hey folks:
I know it’s been awhile since my last post. I finally updated the tour dates page, and as you’ll see, I’m trying to fill in some fall gaps and would readily welcome your input on finding a show or two in those empty spots. If you see I’m going to be in your area and are interested in booking (or helping to book) a show, however small or intimate, please let us know. No show is insignificant.
Contact: booking@ericpeters.net
Recently, I staged a coup d’etat and successfully ousted democratic leader and Under The Radar show host, Dave Trout. When will people learn that, sometimes, democracy simply does not work. He never saw it coming, poor guy. In the current Under The Radar episode (#86), I take over the reins and pick the entire show’s playlist and discuss why I like the songs and/or that artist, many of whom you might recognize.
Also, hear me perform a live version of my new, unrecorded song titled “The Old Year (of Denial)”. Under The Radar Exclusives.
Lastly, if you hurry your bones, there’s a chance to win an autographed copy of Chrome and an autographed, limited edition Eric Peters t-shirt.
Just added to the concert page: another SPA house show in Nashville, TN.
Monday 6/14/10
Featuring members of the Square Peg Alliance & special guests
7pm
Potluck
RSVP required: squarepegalliance@gmail.com
My 1925 Craftsman cottage in east Nashville has spiders. Apparently, lots of them, and of many varieties. My favorite, of which I already secretly knew lived in these walls, but denied their presence inside my own brain — as if that would make them go away like a bad bedtime monster — is the brown recluse. Yes, the very same species that is one of North America’s most poisonous. That’s saying nothing of the black widows I’ve seen hanging around outdoors near the house. Neat.
My 1925 Craftsman cottage also has two boys (three, and one) scampering around in it. Occasionally, in the worst portions of my day, I deny them of myself. How? By checking out mentally, daydreaming, wishing I could be anywhere else but having to be responsible for two needy small humans. I’d rather walk down the block to the municipal golf course to get in a quick 9 holes than watch the boys for the same amount of time I could be sinking 8-footers. I am that selfish, that self-centered, that needy, that fraudulent and, yes, poisonous, too. Denying my own children — or anyone else close, for that matter — of myself possesses no health. Not neat.
Honestly, I don’t know the point of this post. I haven’t written anything in weeks, and it’s mainly just an exercise to get me off my mental duff seeking out a few quickly thrown-together words. The mental duff is a terrible thing to waste, just like a good metaphor. Not that this post is an attempt to equate eight-legged bugs with two-legged children. That’s neither the point, nor the metaphor. I would hope that aging gets easier, but it is slowly dawning on me that that, too, is denial. Just like the spiders. Eight legs or no legs, denial is an awful hollow place to reside. And a fearful one. And we all know what Jesus himself said repeatedly about fear. “Don’t do it”, or something to that extent. Lord, grant me courage and desire to leave the sinking ground, to face life head-on, to love and LIKE those who require more of me than I am able to humanly give. And give me courage to slip on my shoes each day, but only after checking them for indwelling arachnids. And for toys.
Quite a few years ago, sitting outside on a deck overlooking the collegiate peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountains near Buena Vista, CO, I wrote a song and titled it “Epic.” The year was 1993, and soon thereafter the fledgling duet/band I was half of, Ridgely, began playing it live. Eventually, we recorded it in Atlanta, GA (with producer Don McCollister) for our second, and final, album, The Only Thing.
The kind folks at Deltree recently requested to use “Epic” for a commercial they produced for the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week 2010 ad campaign.
Early this morning, I watched a squirrel jump from a low-hanging hackberry branch on to the gutter of my roof, all through the reflection in our neighbors’ kitchen window. Maybe 15 feet separates their Victorian from our Craftsman bungalow. We often wave at them from our wash-guest-office-laundry room whenever we see them through the panes. Our neighbors humor us, and wave back when we make fools of ourselves in this way.
There is fresh green on the trees, too early to be robust or provide ample shade to anything below, but the mere sight of new life on the boughs makes something inside us rise up the way daffodils come towering above the soil ruining, at long last, winter. Rise up, go, and sin no more, said Jesus to the woman caught in the act of adultery. His words – more than just words – offered rising hope and freedom to this woman who surely walked away changed in more than a temporal way. Where death, legally and religiously, should have occurred, life rose in her, she went, and she sinned no more. And we do the same.
We wave at the nearness of folly and embrace it in so neighborly a fashion as if peering through one another’s windows. Thanks be to God for his indescribable Gift on this day, a day soaked in all the richest meaning of rising, both metaphorically, and, somehow, someway, physically.
Happy Easter.
Recently added to the Goods Store:
Chrome CD + Umbrella T-shirt combo
$20.00
(Purchased individually = $27.00)
I am not often made aware of too many concert reviews (of my own shows), but this is a very kindly worded synopsis that a promoter/host in Racine, MO recently wrote about a show I played on 2/18/10. Many thanks to Breann and the children’s group for asking me to play the worst song I’ve ever written (which I kindly refused. Maybe next time?).
Read the review here.
Here’s a look at what my recently completed Under the Radar tour looked like from the perspective of a handheld, pedestrian autobot video camera. You’ll need an HD Blu-Ray player, 101.1xf digital Dolby surround, 3 MPGs of DOS-RAM, and a pair of Barbie 3-D glasses to see it. Mostly consisting of non-performance activities, you will quickly notice that show host, Dave Trout, and I spent a lot of time eating food of the edible and tasty variety, something we Louisianians and Chicagoans surely have in common. Enjoy.
Now get Chrome for your upper torso. The latest, and most swell, EP t-shirt is now available. Umbrella design on cardinal red, 100% cotton shirt. Purchase yours in the Goods Webstore.
