As some of you know, I have been part of a congenial group of songwriters here in Nashville called the Square Peg Alliance for the past three years. We most recently asked our good friend, tasteful producer (I’m honored that he’s producing my new album), pianist/keys player, musical castle of finesse, and exceptional songwriter, Ben Shive, to join our little merry band of men & women. Ben has been working on his first ever solo album for a couple of years now, of which we SPA folks collectively have agreed that once this album is released, we will all bow in humble deference to its beautiful promise and mastery. Ahoy, at last, I am personally thrilled to announce the upcoming arrival of his long-awaited record, The Ill-Tempered Klavier, on Tuesday June 17.

Ben is a very hard-working musician (and gentleman) with a family to support, so I would encourage each of you to support this “budding” (I put that in quotes because his own writing puts mine to shame) young songwriter in his entry into the world by purchasing his album.$10 pre-orders are being taken now in the Rabbit Room, and if you purchase before June 17, Ben is also including two bonus tracks and a digital booklet. I encourage each of you to check out Ben’s wonderful music here and invest in music that will be worthy of all our time and palettes. I am doing that now….

This is an interview I did on 12/7/06 while on Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb” tour. It took place in an upstairs loft at a wonderful youth facility at a church in Huntsville, AL. Here it is for your viewing pleasure/displeasure:

So your album, Scarce, was just recently released on iTunes, right?

Yes, finally.

So my question is, how does iTunes affect the indie artist?

How does iTunes affect the indie artist? Well I guess that the obvious answer is that it’s an avenue of music distribution that didn’t even exist when I started playing music about ten or so years ago. So the whole idea of online distribution didn’t exist when I started, much less the internet. And there’s a generation of folks who are coming up that live by that. And that’s not necessarily my generation, and I’m slow to change, so that’s kind of a new world to me. I’m old school in that I love artwork and packaging and I want to have the whole thing to hold in my hands and read liner notes and lyrics and such, so I would much rather buy a CD than download an album off of iTunes.

I’ve bought a few songs, but it would be hard for me to buy an entire record if it’s something I really wanted. I want to read to the notes and who played what. I don’t know if that’s old school or just an old way of thinking.

I think it’s just a musician thing.

Yeah. Maybe the normal fan just wants the music and doesn’t care for all the paper and plastic.

How it affects me, numbers wise, I have no idea. It won’t mean anything on the grand scheme of the charts on iTunes or number of downloads and all that stuff. Obviously it’s another way of getting my music out to people, and I have no other distribution. So the only way to get my CDs up until this point has only been off my website and at shows, just out of the back of the van kind of story. And so this is another way to get songs out there, and I think it’s cool that people who like one particular song may not want the whole record and may just download one song, and that’s fine.

So you started you playing in college?

Yeah, I was late. I was late on the boat.

What made you decide to start playing one day?

It was jealousy, really, which is hardly a noble reason for playing guitar. My brother and my dad were learning how to play guitar together. It would have been early college, and they were learning how to play guitar together. Finally, I just kind of was like “Man, forget this, I want to learn how to play”. They started showing me a few chords, and my dad bought me my first guitar and then I just got addicted and hooked and kind of stuck with it. I had a really good guitar mentor, especially early on. He was really good, and I looked up to him a lot. I could ask him questions like, “How are your fingers making that chord?” and “Show me that lick” and he was more than willing to show me and was a very patient guy and basically my tutor.

What records were you listening to at the time that influenced and shaped the way you played?

Wow. I’m trying to think. Back then, I got hooked on The Who in high school, and so I was probably listening to a lot of The Who. My dad’s old records and basically my dad’s old music that he grew up with is stuff that I really got hooked on in high school and college. Mama’s and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, The Who, The Turtles, and all this stuff. It was hardly contemporary, but it’s still some great music and great songwriting. And I was listening to a lot of that.

I went through my skater phase where I was listening to Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Milkmen, The Smiths, which is kind of funny. If you’re familiar with my music, you would probably be shocked at that. REM, early REM is beautiful, and I’m blanking on pretty much everything else.

When did you decide to move to Nashville? And why Nashville?

I met and married my wife in Baton Rouge. That was ’97. In ’99 we moved to Birmingham, Alabama. We lived there for six years, and we moved to Birmingham because we knew we didn’t want to be in Nashville, but we didn’t want to be in Baton Rouge either, so it was a spreading our wings kind of thing. We just wanted to be a little more centrally located for me to travel and do music. Finally, I toured with a guy named Andrew Peterson. He invited me to tour with him in 2002, and he and his buddy, Ben Shive, kind of started planting the seeds of moving to Nashville telling me and encouraging me that it would be good for me and that it was not what I thought it was, and my preconceived notions which, some of them are true, but a lot of them are not true. And so they started planting the seeds about four years ago. Finally, we grew out of Birmingham, and it was just time to move. And we felt like I needed to keep doing music and Danielle was all for it, and mainly she felt like it was time to go to Nashville. I had to think about it for a long time.

She seems supportive.

She’s more than supportive. Overly so. In fact, she’s kept me from quitting many times. For good or bad, so that’s the story.

I’m trying to remember my next question.

Man, it’s burning up in here.

It really is.

For the record, it’s like 80 degrees up here. (upstairs loft at the church venue)

Well, how do you think fatherhood will affect your songwriting?

<laughs>

Or do you think it will?

Yes, I think it will, and I hope it will. I thought about this question a bunch actually, and my songwriting friends have said “Just wait for the songs you’re gonna write when the kid comes”, and so I look forward to that, for sure.

How it’s going to affect my writing, I don’t know. I think I’ll probably have a better understanding of love, and a lot of times I think I do and probably really don’t have a clue about loving people. So I have a feeling my son is gonna be a great challenge to that in good ways. I don’t know how it’s going to affect my writing. For one thing, part of me wants to figure out how I’m going to write. It seems like a baby is very, especially the first few months, they need a bunch of attention. So I don’t know, and finding a quiet space to write and think, I imagine that will be a big challenge. Usually I have to be reading in order to write. That’s just kind of the in and process that usually affects what I’m writing at the moment, so I don’t know how that’s gonna work when there will be no quiet moments, so I don’t know. We’ll see how it works.

You play churches, and you play regular venues, and you play coffeehouses. I want to know, do you change as a performer? How do you transition from place to place?

That’s a great question.

Because you can’t say curse words in church.……… Unless you’re Derek.

Yeah, maybe he can get away with it.

Man, that’s a great question. I definitely don’t change necessarily what I say; I change how I say it. I don’t ever know what people think of my music. But I suspect that if they hear song and read the lyrical content, they know where I’m coming from. And my big thing as a writer is to never be obnoxious about what I’m talking about. My thing is just to tell my story and to lay it out there with no strings attached and just to let it be and for people to hear it and do what they will with it.

It’s funny because I don’t really feel comfortable in any setting. If I’m in a club, which is not often, but when I play a club, I don’t feel cool enough to be there.

That’s a great quote.

I don’t know. When I’m in the church, it’s difficult on a different level in that I feel like there are things I’m supposed to say as opposed to when I’m in a club, I feel like things I’m not supposed to say. People are the same, but their expectations are different.

Exactly.

So when I’m in a church, I feel like people expect me to say certain things that will make me acceptable that they can put their stamp of approval on. “Okay, this is Christian music” or whatever they want to call it. And maybe I’m a bit harsh in thinking that way, and it’s probably very judgmental, but that’s just the way it processes. And then when I’m in the club or a non-church venue, I just don’t ever want to be a bore. In other words, I don’t want to be obnoxious about what I believe because I recognize that people have been burned by the church, so they associate Christ with BS. And they associate it with being walked over, and, obviously not that’s at all what the gospel is about. And that’s okay, we’re believers and we’ve all got our faults and all that stuff, and we’re not good at loving people. And the world will hopefully one day know us because we love people. But we fail every day, so my thing is I just want to write the best songs that I can and I want to hopefully communicate on some artistic level that draws people in melodically, but that’s what draws people in and hopefully to have some kind of content that’s not preaching a message, per say, but that’s telling a story, and the stories that I’m most often telling are my own.

And occasionally I delve into third person kind of stuff, but mostly it’s just me sharing my deal in all of its good and bad and ugly. So yeah, coming back, I find that I speak less when I’m in a club setting and I’m less direct in setting songs up.

I read this Tom Petty quote one day, Tom Petty’s one of my favorite songwriters, who said “Good music will be heard”, and hopefully good music can stand on its own and good songwriting will eventually get heard by people, and so I’ve just kind of gone by that mantra.

What are your goals musically and how do you know when you’ve met those goals? Or have you met those goals?

Early on, I wanted to be famous.

I think everybody does.

Yeah, I mean everybody picks up a guitar and wants to write a song. It may be immature, but everybody thinks it. I thought it and still fight it and struggle with it, and for me, I remember that one of the earliest thoughts were “How cool would it be to do this for a living?” In most measures, that’s what I’m doing right now. My wife currently works, and she’s worked on and off, and so here in the next couple of months, I’ll be the breadwinner of the family. And we have a mortgage now, and all that stuff, and insurance. I mean we’ve got all the bills that everyone else has, and so none of that is different. I’m self-employed is what it basically comes down to. So, for me, it was always how neat it would be to do this for a living. And so that’s what I’m doing, and I suppose that was the goal, and we’re not getting rich like people think just because you write and play music for a living, that equates with making a lot of money. And some people have made a lot of money as musicians. When I play the comparison game with a lot of these folks, I compare myself with most of the folks on this tour or the artists at least, and it can get depressing pretty quick. [Editor’s note: at this time, Eric was on the Andrew Peterson “Behold the Lamb” Tour in late 2006 with artists such as Sandra McCracken, Derek Webb, Andrew Peterson, Jill Phillips, etc.]

But I’m learning basically to be thankful. And as weird as that may sound, it’s hard for me to process that and to accept and just to grapple with being grateful and content in my place. And sure, I want to sell a bunch more records than I do, and I don’t want every month in and out to be a making ends meet kind of thing and stressing about all that stuff, and that’s the way it is. God has given us our little plot of land so to speak, so I’m just supposed to tend it and fertilize it as best I can and till it and make it home. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I guess the goal, I don’t really know… I tend to lack goals in my life. <laughs>

That’s the most honest statement I think I’ve ever gotten from a musician.

That’s probably ignorant and naïve to be that way with the famous five-year, ten-year, twenty-year goals in life. I mean, honestly the future scares me a lot, and I’m afraid of growing old and thinking about doing this. The human body can only take so much touring, and that’s how I make my living. I have to be playing shows ‘cause if I’m not playing, I’m not selling CDs. So it’s a double-edged sword. That’s just where I’m at in life and career. I can’t be doing this when I’m sixty years old. To think that far down the road scares the crap out of me, but I just trust that God’s intentions and noble and that I won’t just drop off the face of the earth.

I am back at home after a long, exhausting, exhilarating and very worthwhile run of shows in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois. So far in the month of April I have slept in my own bed a total of 3 nights. I’m cautiously glad for a brief pause in the action before heading to Colorado and Minnesota for more shows. This allows me a chance to catch my breath, if only for a moment, and for a time to venture into the yard to witness the green life straining to reach for daylight in the flower beds we recently tilled, composted, mulched and planted with all manner of perennials, hydrangeas, maples, and various shrubs and liriope. It has been nice to come home after a time away and to see greenery, once a mere root or rhizome buried beneath the earth, breaking the surface, invigorated, and growing out of its winter isolation. Life and growth continues.

Danielle and Ellis flew to Louisiana this afternoon for her aunt’s funeral. I am at home alone, a situation that is fun for a total of about five minutes. I have plans that involve anything BUT watching television (an admitted weakness of mine): finish reading Andrew Peterson’s new book, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Vol. 1, and to write a new song or two in anticipation of beginning the recording process for the new album. Ben Shive is producing, and, as I am a big fan of his, am eager to hear what his creative mind brews up. I also need to hang the new ceiling fan/light fixture in our den; a project that I’m sure would please my lady. And, if all goes well, try to get in a few holes of golf in the interim. Long list, short time.

I played on St. Charles Avenue on a Thursday night in New Orleans in front of a wonderfully respectful audience (whose church steeple had caved in during Hurricane Katrina), and afterwards strolled down to Cafe du Monde for late night beignets and cafe au lait. The moon was out and shining, the river was overheard lapping at the pier, and my wife and I walked along the levee for a stretch holding hands and acting like we were young lovers. Since my parents had met us earlier in the day in Manchac, LA at Middendorf’s and drove Ellis to Baton Rouge, we enjoyed our brief Crescent City date, but found ourselves missing our boy immensely. The Ridgely pseudo-reunion show the following night in Baton Rouge was quite enjoyable. Nearly a hundred folks showed up as we did a writers-in-the-round: me, Kevin (Smith), Ridgely. We somehow managed to pull off old Ridgely tunes that I didn’t think we would be able to conjure anymore since it had been nearly 10 years since the last time we played them together. It was good to remember and to sing those songs again, especially since they are impossible for me to pull off in a solo setting. Singing, I recalled just how well and naturally our voices blended and the richness of those guitar parts. Our brothers, Brian “Bubba Fong” and BB joined us on drums and percussion. The evening was recorded and videoed. There’s talk of releasing this concert on DVD. Stay tuned for that. Good memories of the salad days.

After spending Monday night in a pop-out camper next door to our semi-nomadic friends, the Garrigans, who also live in a camper in the parking lot of our former church in Birmingham, we drove back to Nashville the following afternoon, whereupon I got in the car on Wednesday for two college shows just outside of St. Louis. The Thursday show was at 11am, and after playing for an hour and loading the car in the pouring rain, I drove back to Nashville, where, after spending not quite two hours with my family, I got back in the car with friends Andrew Osenga and Jeremy Casella to make the drive up to Chicago for a Friday night show. So much fun. So much weariness. I’m getting old for this sort of thing. The Union show with those guys was good, clean, humbling fun. Their songs (and albums) are tremendous, and there were several times while onstage I asked myself just what business I thought I had being up there alongside these gents, these genuine musicians. I am a lucky dude, and a fraudulent one, to be sure. To call this my “job” becomes more and more an amazing realization as the years go by. I am not worthy of such good things. Many thanks to all of you who showed up, in some measure, for one of these recent shows. You do my heart good. May this tax season bring you cheer (and a refund).

Easter is breathing in the east.

After downing victuals of mildly grease-soaked Mississippi country sausage bathed in Creole mustard aboard a two-week old onion roll, the remainder of a sweet tea from today’s lunch, and a pair of chocolate peanut butter eggs, I can feel my mind slowing to a stock standstill, eager for the pillow. College basketball is hovering on the muted television, today’s newspaper – a less than stellar daily – is scattered across the couch ad hoc to my right, my son is fast asleep in his cradle, and the family cat, Gurdy, as obese as a pumpkin, flopped down from the foot-high perch on the rocker she’s been curled up in for the better part of the evening. At this point, I can hear only the whirring of my computer’s internal organs and the occasional high-pitched timbre of the analog tube inside the television set. And yet, outside our cottage walls, a freight train crowds the night as it lumbers across the Cumberland River atop Shelby Bottoms, bellows its deep fragrance and leaps northward out of the city. I could live no nearer train tracks than I do now; all that sound, all that steel, the grease, and the smell of oiled and burnt railroad ties, lying there in support of momentary passage, heightened commerce and resurrecting such lumbering vessels.

Tomorrow begins. Today ceases. The darkness defies the antihero.

He suffers in the garden sweating as if with blood. A scrub jay finally ceases its daylong ruckus and roosts on a lower olive bough nearby allowing Jesus a night of fitful prayer to himself. He absorbs the scourge of every man. Another man, in a different town, awakens from a dream in which he has passed through the eye of a No. 8 Schmetz sewing needle. He feels blow after fisted blow. A woman defeatedly hails a cab in the early dawn after a night with her married lover. He carries felled timbers to his own demise. You curse the day you were born into this world. He receives humiliation with abandon. I mock life by hording it for myself. He kneels and rakes the dust of the ground with his fingers, telling with no words a story we ache to hear and take part in with as much as fullness as an orchard pregnant with vigor and life. We long for it because we need the commonality of that gentle and forever grace. The proud and the religious and the meek and the sore and the ill and the fallen shall inherit the Good Grace of every fervent second chance, with its undoubtable intentions. But seeing, in the rippled dust of the storyline, a little or large part of ourselves, all shuttered and shackled in anguish and desperation, utterly fallible as lumbering vessels, we find ourselves ultimately delivered; delivered as pilgrims unto a New and Free World, Adam unto Eden, Moses unto Promised Land, Endurance unto safe harbor, Jesus unto his Father’s house.

May the risen crowd the dawn with their shouts of blessing and exultation, for all are blessed, but not all are risen.

I have a problem. Not that it is inherently harmful or detrimental or that it shall become your problem. It is certainly not a problem in the “please help me fix this” sense of the word, if you follow. It is more like a benign obsession. For books. Specifically, used books. I am newly addicted to used book stores. OK, I know exactly what you’re thinking: Boring. [Flip goes the channel].

I am currently sitting in the sunroom, of which there is plenty of sunshine this fine morning, of the McDaniels family, the kind and gracious folks who are hosting myself and eventually Randall Goodgame for our thus far tumultuous tour in eastern Nebraska, of which we have yet to play a single concert. Things already got off to a rocky start before either of us have played a single note (one last-minute show cancellation, one lost guitar). I’ll spare you the details. All I know is that I fell asleep last night to starlight clear skies, and I awoke this morning to iris-blue skies. But somewhere in the middle of dream’s proceedings it snowed. A lot. I can no longer make out the pavement of the street or any of the lawns in this quiet Lincoln neighborhood, occasionally littered with the cawing of crows or the blare of snowblowers. Atop the deck balcony, all piled in white shoulders, sits a good 2-3 inches of snow. It is a strange thing to wake up to, if you’re like me, an unaccustomed soul to the downpours of winter. It passed through the night, this visible ghost, unleashed its bravery, and ebbed away to some other unsuspecting land. I digress, snow does that to me. Now, back to my problem.

At some point near about when the calendar conspired to 2008 I somehow morphed into a used bookstore hound. I am borderline obsessive about it. I suppose I should have seen it coming. My dear wife laughs at my preposterousness, but not fellow songwriter and friend, Andrew Peterson, who very nearly shares the same degree of passion and obsession and is quick to join me on used bookstore jaunts. It is good to have friends in your life who share and understand one’s own similar quirks and foibles. It has gotten to the point now where when I travel to far off cities, instead of searching for movie-plexes or malls I scour the yellow pages and internet for local used bookshops. I suppose this might be considered a good thing. I don’t know if it’s a newly-obtained old man tendency (of which I have quite a few) or if I have simply turned into someone worth ridiculing. All I know is that I am hooked to the point of obsessive-compulsion. I dream of, and wake up thinking about, used book stores. Like I said, I have a problem.

It is the elusive hunt for those rare, personally treasured authors’ works which gets the blood flowing and the heart palpitating much akin to the eager anticipation of seeing a loved one after a time apart. The thought of stumbling upon any work - specifically, first editions - by Frederick Buechner (always my first priority), Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Kathleen Norris, J.B. Phillips along with a few others is enough to get the adrenaline pulsing and the heart rate up a notch or two. The outlandish beauty of such a search is that I never, ever know what I’m going to find in these papered stores, and that is exactly what I love about it, the impeccable unpredictability, and is what draws me in time and time again in city after city past shelf after ever-blessed shelf.

I am coming to the not-so-well-defined conclusion that a truly great city should not necessarily be defined exclusively by its housing market, economy, mass transit system or other mind-numbingly boring sterile data, but also by the number and quality of used book stores which inhabit its incorporated borders. This may be a tad far-fetched for many of you, I realize, but, still, I can’t help but think there’s an inherently good quality to which a city, however large or small, affords the value of literature, to the written word, to the rare, collectible and unwanted. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Flea markets, antique stores, dumpsters and used book stores all have this in common. A quality used bookstore is a window into the heart and soul of a city. Just look on the shelves and you’ll see what people read (and discard), what is taken in, what is tossed out, and is very nearly a quiet and pensive pulse of its civilians. How can you NOT want to enter shops with alluring names like The Yellowed Pages, or BookMan BookWoman, or A Novel Idea, or my favorite in Nashville, the obvious, unglamorous and simply named Books?

Yesterday at a great shop in downtown Lincoln, for example, I bought a first edition of Frederick Buechner’s Brendan. It is a book I never imagined I would ever happen upon, and yet there it was, its clean spine staring me in the face. An audible “oh my goodness” escaped my lips when I saw the book sitting on the ground-level shelf, apparently - obviously - awaiting my arrival. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting, my love. I am here now to rescue you from these dusty shelves and ces autre livres. Come and find peace, rest and admiration in the temple of my home.” Seeing this book on the shelf, I was beside myself in a near out-of-body experience; such is the degree of nerddom I have attained. There are far more dangerous obsessions in life, to be sure.

I have a dream to build a Buechner collection of first editions of his entire authorial work. On the shelves they shall long rest, be read and perused, perhaps eventually one day to become my son’s treasured possessions as well. To pass on a love for the written word is my hope for him.

Two final things worthy of mention: the generous McDaniel family loaned Randall and I one of their cars for the entire weekend. On the back windshield they created one of those stencil stickers that you see on car windows as advertisements. The one on this Honda reads, “Eric Peters Tour Vehicle. March 6-9, 2008. www.ericpeters.net”. Essentially, I am driving a car with my own name on it. I don’t know how I feel, or how I should feel, about that, but I figure if someone asks, I’ll just talk about myself in the third person: “Oh, he’s great if you like folk singer-songwriters.” To wield such power. Yes, I will post a photo as soon as I’m able.

Last but not least, one of the McDaniel’s sons, whom I met years ago in my touring travels, is a professional mortician. Ironically, his name is the same as that of the aforementioned book I purchased. Brendan, the mortician. Brendan, the saint. Brendan, the McDaniel. To say that one is friends with a mortician - with no intended disrespect to either the living or the dead - is a mighty unique declaration.

I am unsettled today. Between the pauses in snowfall, briskly three-dimensional and aloof, I sense a strange and perilous lag inside my own skin. Just now, I feel foreign to my space in the world. I am weary of winter and the gray concoctions that inhabit seemingly every second. I find myself longing for more than just the temporal warmth and spring and rebirth of earth and its mavens. The snow is blowing parallel to the ground, north to south, and is as dense as I’ve ever seen in these southern United States. The only green color within my vantage point is the small cluster of longleaf pines across the avenue, now hosting small pockets of cold.

I find myself longing for more than these slow, sublime, occasionally frustrating days I lead, longing toward peace and rest, longing away from here and now, away from encumbered toil and aimless labors. Just outside the coffee shop window, a man is digging at the ground, shoveling away mud and dirt from a trench. The paved concrete has been ripped away, surely the result of a busted water pipe, revealing long-hidden soil and a slow trickle of water. All the while snow floats about, coating the worker and his tools in a baptism of sorts. The pines collect it in their tendrils. It stockpiles atop cars. The earth tends to take such reckless actions. The world is, after all, subject to heaven from whence originates its own christening. Occasionally, I take notice of such occurrences of blessing being bestowed upon the most unlikely subjects. To see it inside a religious sanctuary is one thing altogether expected, but to witness it on the urban concrete of the city is quite another, rather unexpected and most welcome. Sun shimmering through the parted clouds, humanity wheeling and whirling about, the wet painting of falling snow and rain: all the Good and Remembering grace.

I would wish to be settled, to be at peace with this skin I am given, to pause and recognize that my being foreign to this world is not necessarily all that terrible a thing. For however long I yearn for tomorrow, however deeply I long for rebirth, however fearful or comfortable I am with myself is, in some small measure, an entrenched and guttural hope that God continues to prepare a place at his festival table for the slow and peculiar creatures we are, and the blessings we both unknowingly bestow and undeservedly receive, amid all our faith and lack thereof.

The years were 1993-1998. I, and a friend, Kevin Smith (neither the DC Talk guy nor the film director), were in a budding young acoustic folk-rock duet back when folk-rock duets were limited to The Indigo Girls (people sometimes called us The Indigo Boys), Simon & Garfunkel (a mighty nice pair to be compared with) and, more than likely a group you’ve never heard of, Big Bam Boo (my secret favorite ear-candy group of all time). In a move that opened many doors for us, we were invited to tour as Caedmons Call’s opening act throughout the year 1996. We took our 6-song, self-titled EP out on that tour and sold out of them fairly quickly. We then recorded our first and only full-length album in 1997, The Only Thing (produced by Don McCollister). That album, too, eventually sold out.

Fast-forward to 2005. Kevin and I, in a fit of for-old-time’s-sake nostalgia, decided to reprint that album because we wanted it to live on in the world a little longer since we’d had several requests for it over the intervening non-Ridgely years.

Fast-forward to this very day. We haven’t exactly sold out of them since that reorder. Dilemma: I have way too many of them currently taking up valuable space in my attic (AKA, workspace/office) and I want to clear some out so I can carve out an area to set up an easel, lay out some brushes, paint tubes, linseed oil and finally teach myself how to oil paint. So, I’m going to have an attic sale (I love sales, if you haven’t noticed) for the next however many days. Each copy of The Only Thing is $2 (+ S&H). Also available will be boxes of 5, 10 for those who want to spread some new-old music to your new-old friends. “But wait there’s more…. ” To further sweeten the pot, whenever you purchase any 2 of my solo records, I’ll throw in a free copy of the Ridgely CD. That, my friends, in Louisiana, is what we call “lagniappe” (pronounced, “lon-yap”) — a little something extra. Happy Mardi Gras, everybody.

For the first time in well over two years, I am thinking, and, dare I say, am enthused about making another album. This new year I have been working to attain some semblance of writing discipline so as to plough forth with the grand idea. Songs : album.

As you may have already deduced, I have not exactly been a cauldron of creativity since Scarce reared its lint-breathing head on that late February day of aught six. I have several songs laying about here and there, some finished, some incomplete, some written a time ago, some brand new ones I am polishing off even now, most of them having never been heard by anyone, not even Lady Danielle. Honestly, I am afraid to play them for her, because she is my filter, the one whose opinion I trust most, even though she has little to no musical pedigree and can’t detect a major chord from a minor. She knows me well and, armed with such knowledge, she tends to listen with her soul and guts. It is a good way to listen to music, in my opinion. I cornered her a few nights ago and played her one of the new songs, one that I was quite proud of and eager for her to hear (and bestow praise upon me, afterwards). It bored her. It was, in her words, “not Eric”. Brutal. Ego-wrecking. But honest. And good and necessary. Back to the drawing board. Since I have not written much in the Days of Ellis, I am fairly out of shape in the overall exercise, a proverbial fat kid in brand new Sauconys standing on a treadmill having yet pressed the start button. I sweat it without ever doing the work. Hopefully, songwriting is a little like riding a bicycle (ironically, one of the new songs is from the perspective of a 10-speed), especially since I’ve just been sitting, watching all the other kids from the curb. During the writing and preproduction phases, I never really have much of a clue if the songs I write for an album’s inclusion are any good, or even if they’re worth pursuing — alas, that’s where a talented producer is worth his/her weight in gold. (Oddly, this makes for some strange imagery: “Mr. Subway Jared, you used to be worth 250 karats, now you’re only worth 135 karats. We’re sorry for the news, but you’ll have to leave now.”) Critical discernment has never been a talent of mine.

Some time ago the idea began brewing around in my head to record a collection of third-person stories/songs, several of which have missed the cut on my previous albums, perhaps some which have yet to be written, and the rest pertaining to onions and bicycles. Writing from the third-person perspective is a challenging and enjoyable exercise for me. Empathy, understanding and listening to both sides to a story seems to me to serve not only that person (or object), but humanity on the whole as well, especially in this age of mistrust and fear of what is misunderstood. Mistrust comes with a price. We’re living in it now. Time will tell whether or not this album, A) ever comes to fruition, or B) retains the earmarks of a homemade quilt, with its narrative, tale-driven mojo. Then again, this “album concept” (why does this make me think of Pink Floyd?) may sound as boring as winter trees. You, of course, will be the judge of that.

My friend, Geof Morris (all-around dot net guru), has a really interesting idea on how to garner support for my next (independent, yet again) record since money isn’t exactly forcing its way into the ol’ bank account these days. Without divulging the details, I will say that the idea involves you, the devoted. More on all this as we figure out a game plan and draw up X’s and O’s (there I go spouting off with sports-speak again). Until then, avoid financial debt and eat lots of warm soup during these bitter cold days.

WARNING: This post contains graphic, superfluous and melodramatic sports-oriented language. If you have no interest in athletics — specifically college football — you may want to venture out to the rest of the world-wide-web. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Consider yourself warned.

I just took a mancation. Yes, I combined the words “man” and “vacation” — probably not a cool thing to do. A week ago, I spent five hours inside the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans watching my alma mater, LSU, play Ohio State in the national collegiate football championship, AKA, the BCS Championship (Bowl Championship Series). The ticket to the game was a gift to me from the father of my best friend in high-school and, probably life, John Neswadi (the same guy who supplied the stone on which my song Squeeze is based.) Me, my dad, John, his dad, John’s brother-in-law, his dad and brother - eight of us, all told - all were given tickets to the event by Mr. Neswadi. This was not an inexpensive offering. We sat in the nosebleed section 15 or so rows from the top of the dome at about the 10-yard line. We needed binoculars to make out players’ numbers, and it was hard to find the football at times amid all the action, but the view was clear and unobstructed and afforded us a bird’s-eye view of a swath of purple & gold-, crimson & grey-clad humanity. And it was glorious. A venue filled to capacity with 79,000+ screaming people, full bright lights, a freshly painted field and national media attention emits a certain electricity, an air of eager anticipation and excitement that was nearly as hard to digest then as it is for me to explain now. No one in our group - four LSU fans, three Ohio State fans - were able to believe the fact that we were there. The Tiger Band took the field during pre-game and blasted the first four very well-known south Louisiana staccato notes, I got choked up. They played the national anthem and I knew tears at “o’er the land of the free and home of the brave”. I cheered throughout the game, I yelled myself hoarse, I nearly lost my voice. I hugged and high-fived my dad and friends after every big play, and we relished every moment. Four quarters flew by, LSU won the game, I got teary. I easily get teary. I am teary now even thinking about being teary.

You see, I am a sucker for sports drama and underdogs. Honestly, I’d rather watch “Rudy” than most any sub-titled foreign film. This does not exactly make me Renaissance-man material. I doubt anyone will ever accuse me of being a cinephile or critical observer of culture, art and film. I have fought this for many years, but I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that I am a simpleton in many ways, but especially when it comes to understanding and conveying the arts. I could be wrong; that’s why there are critics in this world — that’s their job. Myself, I enjoy sports. I don’t live and die by them, but I certainly enjoy the energy and competition. I can throw a decent spiral, I know how to catch a pass, how to dribble a soccer ball with some deftness, I can shoot a 3-pointer (I make for a short, scrappy point guard), and I can hit my driver 300 yards on a good, dry downhill day. I am not bragging, so don’t misinterpret me. I am getting at a point, however obscure or feeble. Many in my close circle of friends are artists and are far less interested in football - nay, sports, in general - than they would be in watching paint dry on a basement wall with only a bowl of cold gruel to keep them company. I usually feel like a grand poseur when I’m around them, especially when they get to talking about music, music theory, or, especially, when I hear them play their songs. Me, I like hitting the little white ball here and there and chasing it around for 18 holes. My pipe and putter; not exactly a complex arrangement. My wife says all this makes me a more well-rounded person. I’m not sure I agree, but I appreciate her grace.

Earlier during the day of the game, I spent with these seven other men (also on their mancations) walking the historic brick streets of the Vieux Carre. We parked the car late that morning and walked several blocks east down Poydras, turned left on St. Charles, made room for a couple of passing street trolleys, and entered the French Quarter via Royal Street where I, once again, marveled at this rich and unique city. You have no doubt heard this before, but I can assure you there is no place across the wide expanse of this exceptional country like Nouvelle Orleans. No American city matches it for its uniqueness, architecture, complex history and convoluted present, for better or worse. It possesses an identity all its own. And that is to say nothing of the food, oh my, the food. It is a city that knows itself. I appreciate that. We stood at the elevated position of Washington Artillery Park overlooking the Great River directly behind it, St. Louis cathedral and Jackson Square to the west, and absorbed what was so authentic about that setting at that very moment: life. Street performers cajoled and lived out their animation and antics in the eyes of all the onlooking slack-jaws, myself included. They brought smiles to faces. Painters sold their paintings along the iron fence of the Square. Dixie band notes hurrah’d over General Jackson’s statue from the direction of the cathedral. Cafe du Monde churned out chicory, cafe au lait and hot beignets. Life exists here. Life exists. This is a good thing to know. It is good to have and know friends, to have people in your life who value you because you are, because you exist. Nothing you do can change or repeal it. To be loved is the best of all.

Ah, so my wife just told me she’s sick and tired of looking at the “Tonight’s Concert Cancelled” blog from two weeks ago and that I should write something new, and quick. In a fit of agreement, I went ahead and deleted that post (even though I can’t quite seem to shake the lingering sniffles) and thought I’d spend a few moments commenting on the world - my world - as I know it.

Ellis is nearly one year-old now (Dec. 21) and is in a mighty good state. He must be growing something fierce because he sleeps a lot these days. 14-15 hours a day. Oh, what I would have given for him to sleep that kind of sleep those first few months of his life. Oh, what I would give to be able to sleep that much every day. How times change. He weighs nearly 20 pounds - a regular bantam featherweight boxer - and crawls around like the ground were his and his dominion alone. I suppose that is the way God intended it. Ellis adores the hand-me-down Fisher Price multi-colored rings (reminds me of a ring toss game) and has a peculiar habit of crawling here and there throughout the house with one in each hand, creating the effect of horse hooves, occasionally pausing to knock them together or to drop them to the ground, all the while watching as they twirl, sway and roll to a standstill. What can I say, the dude likes gravity. Amusement gratis, food, beverage, and burying his drooly face in our long-haired obese cat’s fur; Ellis finds joy in it all and, as a result, all of joy seems to find him. Everything is repeated ad nauseum. I am sure this repetitive nature only gets more drastic and dramatic as the months pass and my dear boy grows older. Another great thing about Ellis is the depth of laughter he has infused into this house, our cozy cottage on sleepy Russell Street. What he finds humorous, we of course are effected to confront with laughter as well. His high, free laugh is no weak medicine. The contagion of laughter has done me well, especially since it has been in short supply these days. We kneel and praise all small, forgotten miracles.

Over a cup of coffee yesterday with Matthew Perryman Jones, he and I began sharing with one another our outlooks on life, career perplexities and successes, fatherhood, worries and joys. A wise man, this Mr. Jones. He spoke many great things to me, but one thought in particular gripped me, or rather had the effect of unlocking corroded, self-inflicted shackles. As we commented on our world, both macro and micro, and on the American culture we are so helplessly immersed in with all its greed, self-service, community-less-ness and overt and subtle materialism he alluded to songwriting and the pursuit of making it big, pursuing the horizon. The only problem, as he put it, is that we can pursue the horizon forever and a day, but we will never reach it. It is infinite. It is sightless. And it is ruin. We do what we do in life, we write songs for that which is in front of us, who and what is a part of our lives, who and what we can see, care for, nurture and for whom we can give our absolute best. We know what we write, therefore we write what we know. The Truth comes to us from those we know and love, and who love us for who we are. Their voices are light in our lives, laughter for the disheartened, they are grace and hope at the time when it is needed most. This, dear friends, is God alive in the world - our world - and as I can see it, this Emancipation is the way God, THE God, intends it for his Kingdom. Reveille.