For those who were planning on attending the 3/31/06 show in Cleveland, TN at Lee University and the 4/2/06 show in Rome, GA @ Berry College, these have been cancelled.

The Square Peg Alliance show on 4/1/06 (April Fools Day) in Chattanooga, TN is still on the books so don’t lose hope my little TN & GA & AL buckaroos. It promises to be a fun evening of music and merry mayhem with my friends and fellow Peggers, Andrew Peterson, Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn.
EP

It is Sunday and PGA golf is on television. I returned home this afternoon after 3 shows in Pennsylvania over the weekend. This present day began at 4am EST (hence, one of the reasons I’m currently watching golf: it’s a pleasing napping medium. Golf on television being a close second to watching Bob Ross paint his “happy trees”). I came to the conclusion this weekend that I’m not a very good business traveler. I am a control hound so I easily get rattled amid tickets, connectors, luggage and scurrying antlike through America’s concrete tarmac. It didn’t help that my day on Tuesday (getting to Philadelphia) was a page taken straight out of Planes, Trains & Automobiles (John Candy, Steve Martin). Minus the “those aren’t pillows” moments.

The first show on Wednesday night was at Westminster Theological Seminary. Speaking of golf….the crowd was a lot like a golf crowd: very polite and eerily quiet. It startled me but they were a gracious group. Great to see The Foolish Sage again.

Friday was a very enjoyable show at The Mad Donkey Coffeehouse w/ AustinEcho (John Austin and Erin Echo). John and Erin were a pair of folks I’d like to spend more time with. Thank you guys for continuing to write, record and tour. I’ll hope to visit you in Hershey one day.

Saturday night was in Quarryville, PA at The Coffee Bean. A gracious crowd showed up and I played until my splitting headache refused more. Bob, the promoter, and his family were kind enough to have me as their guest yet again. Justin, thanks for giving up your bed to a musician-stranger.

All told on this trip, cheesesteaks were eaten, NCAA basketball and Batman Begins viewed, world history absorbed, reformed theology discussed and Dieter & Colleen were devoutly generous hosts throughout. I’m glad I’m back home, albeit for less than 24 hours. I have to leave again this time to rural Jasper, GA for 5 days but at least Danielle will be part of this jaunt. For me, returning home after a string of shows is what rest - the good and ultimate Rest - should be: rewarding in its sheer, peculiar joy.
EP

As I sit in our painted-brown office/guest room/sewing room/gear room/room-that-fills-so- many-other-purposes, the window looking out on the backyard is impressionistically beaded full of water from the rains that this early spring has brought. The wooden fence is polished wet while the weeds that have begun to urge upwards along the edge of the boards are loving the fact that the rain is feeding their shallow roots, even if only for a few short weeks; you see, I’ve got it in my mind to fertilize the yard with a healthy dose of weed-n-feed. Boo to snakes and weeds.

It is Monday afternoon. I returned yesterday afternoon from a short stint of shows (and a long bit of driving) in Missouri and Kansas. Cape Girardeau, along the banks of our nation’s famous big muddy, was a return trip within the span of 5 months. The small and intimate audience of 30 or so were gracious as my attempts at playing through the available sound system was suddenly spurned for the lure of a purely acoustic concert. I hope no one minded such informality.

Lenexa, KS, out on the tail end of Kansas City, beckoned me with the possibility of seeing old friends. That possibility proved true. It was good to see each and every one of you. A pleasure to make new acquaintances. Before Friday night’s show, I forced my hosts to take me to BD’s Mongolian BBQ, one of my favorite restaurants. I know of only 2 cities with a BD’s: KC and Grand Rapids, MI. The meal, as expected, was a smashing success. The concert that followed was pleasant and low-key with a crowd of 50-ish who seemed to enjoy helping me sing the “oh oh oh’s” of The Storm. I relished the moment. Grammys to each of you.

Saturday started as a bright and clear day but by the time I pulled into the driveway of my friend’s house in Columbia, MO, clarity had been muddled by hail-dropping clouds of such heaping dark robustness that they, honestly, shivered me. TJ, my host, was an old friend from 2 summers ago where we first met in Minnesota. He said he loves this time of year when you can open your doors and windows and listen to the sky repeat its name over and over again. He says he likes it when the sky makes the earth and his house tremble. It crossed my mind that his living in midwestern America was a good place for him to be, especially this time of year. TJ had made some of Olga’s homemade salsa prior to my arrival and was watching a basketball game on TV when I knocked on his screen door. After salutations, he immediately put a cold Wheat beer in my hand, opened a bag of tortilla chips and I proceeded to gorge on some of the most incredible salsa I have ever put in my mouth. Olga apparently was his or his wife’s relative. He was generous (and sly) enough to share the recipe with me. I can’t wait to be home for a stint so I can forge my attempt. We headed over to the venue to load in and soundcheck for the show’s 8pm beginning acts, Bryan and Brady. I was the first one there so I went ahead and set up and concluded a 15 minute sound check. I was headed to the backdoor to set up the merch table when TJ approached me saying he had a bold idea that he wanted to run by me: jet back to his house, grab a kick drum, a ride cymbal, snare and a tom and sit in with me during my set filling the percussive void that he so desperately wanted to hear on my songs. Knowing TJ’s taste in music and having heard him play drums before, I wholeheartedly agreed and we did just that. No rehearsal (unless you count his barely hearing brief sound clips of Scarce in the 5-minute car ride to/fro his house), no practice. Just a wing and a prayer. It made me excited to play music this night, to throw caution and formality, like young leaves in the storms’ passing, to the wind. We hooted and we hollered and we were giddy like schoolchildren as I attempted to rehearse him in the hallway prior to our first set. It was standing-room-only at the Artisan as we took the stage. I tried my best, but largely failed, to belt out above the chatter. The faithful few stuck around throughout the night as we assailed the romping final chord of May Your Tenderness around 11:15pm. Another truly delightful evening of seeing yet another gaggle of old friends and getting to play live music. Slept like a beaten rock that night and woke up to the aroma of outdoor’s clearing, finely pressed coffee and homemade cinnamon scones. TJ and I discussed the benefits of landscaping, vinyl record players and winterberry holly. We watched chickadees, titmice, cardinals feeding on the sunflower feeder just outside his dining room window and, together, concocted ways to rid our nation of sparrows and European starlings, both non-native and highly invasive bird species. Note: for those who have been following my interactions with snakes in my own yard, don’t fret, no action was taken against the birds.

The Sunday drive home was further full of warm, humid weather, rolling black cloudbanks, a foggied Ohio River, the peeking out of nubile green tree growth and a home that was as sweet to the senses as the mercy that begat it. I fell asleep that night watching an old W.C. Fields routine on VHS that I haven’t watched since high school. Good times. Tomorrow brings a plane ride to Philadelphia for another string of 3 shows. Good things come in trinity form.
EP

Where in the world do I start?

To say that the inaugural SPA show was enjoyable (at least from my small vantage point) is a bloated understatement. The festivities began - after a morning’s work @ The Gap, battling an all-day-long headache, and snake annihilation (see previous posts) - with a pleasant, although nervous, soundcheck with The Good Eggs.

These musicians are Good Eggs in my humble estimation:
Brent Milligan (”Scarce” producer)- bass, singing, all-around hipness
Paul Eckberg - drums, gentleness, kindness
Cason Cooley - keys, easy-goingness
Andrew Osenga - electric, singing, toelessness

Wrapping that up, we dashed across the street to Judge Bean’s BBQ where we joined the entire SPA cast along with wives/husbands. This was a restaurant that Andy Gullahorn (a native Texan) highly recommended. Note: If a Texan ever recommends a BBQ joint, then it’s probably worth your dineros. I ordered a brisket quesadilla that was bigger than a hubcap on my Volkswagen. It tasted better than a hubcap though. I ate a whopping 3 bites and retired from the table. Not wanting to waste food (or money) I got a to-go box and set said meal inside my car during the show. The minivan smelled delicious like meat later that evening while loading out. I’ve always been a nervous performer, meaning that I can’t stand to eat a full meal just before I sing, hence my inability to partake of any more of the quesadilla. We scurried back over to 12th & Porter to catch the beginning of Matthew Perryman Jones’ song. You’ll forgive me for not remembering the order of performers, but suffice it to say that everyone was glorious and graceful. As the night wore on, it dawned on me that that this was not merely a folk-pop concert; it was far more Biblical than that. My feet were, in the few fleeting decibels of the evening’s events, being washed by 11 of my peers along with 100 or so paying audience members. I get choked up even now thinking about it…. They made themselves servants. And I knew full well this moment was completely undeserved.

Botched lyrics, my typically awkward nervous stage demeanor, a broken string and a warming comfort as the jitters eventually wore off, the margarita kicked in (thanks mom) and “May Your Tenderness” came to a rousing cajun finale, I became hopeful for the first time in a long time. Hopeful, not only regarding career stuff, but in the hazy recollection that I deserve absolutely nothing good….. but when Good comes roaring forth from the lion’s den - which it inevitably does amid all our sordidness - it sweeps me out of pathetic fright into gratefulness, a place I haven’t visited in many moons.

If you’re a Square Pegger and you’re reading this, thank you for welcoming me into the fold. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. If you were in paid attendance last night, thank you for letting me & The Good Eggs sing an armful of epistles. You were a balm and a tonic….

And to prove to you that this inaugural SPA event actually took place in authentic, American time, here are a few pics of the show:
(all photos courtesy of Norman Chin)
http://squarepeg01.shutterfly.com/action

All my best to you-
EP

This is incredible. As of 20 minutes ago, at the exact same spot where Danielle first saw the tubular culprits:
Eric - 4
Snakes - 0
(all within the span of 10 minutes!)
Weapons of crass destruction include: broom (x2) & shovel (x2).
I’m in for a long spring….
EP

Greetings all. Happy belated Mardi Gras. This constitutes my first blog on the new website. Many, many thanks to Ron Davis for his tireless efforts in getting me/you a new website. Go ahead, snoop around. Certain sections are still under construction and need tweaking, so please bear with us as we seek an angle of repose…

I should’ve posted this yesterday but things got too crazy… early A.M. job, (re)learning my songs for band rehearsal last night, a surprise visit by my friend Randall Goodgame, the foul odors of the cat’s (Gurdy is her name) litter box (new “enviro” litter that “reduces tracking litter and smell” — a total shammockery, by the way), and far too much stress for my little 130 lb. frame. The stress is all self-induced. I alone am to blame for succumbing to it just like I do every time a new CD rolls around. As eager as I am for tonight’s CD release show with a full band (more on that in a minute) and being amidst the Square Peg Alliance, I will be glad when today is over and the headache that I woke up with ultimately disappears. I’m easily riled, what can I say….

So, you may be wondering what a day in the life of an aspiring songwriter looks like on his/her CD Release Day (yesterday, Mardi Gras, in fact; an utterly unintentioned, lucky and perfect choice for an album release day if you ask the south Louisianian in me)… I awoke at 6am to go to work at my part-time day job: unpacking clothes out of cardboard boxes, breaking said boxes down into more manageable form, and taking the horde of bounteous stiff paper outdoors to the recycle bin. During all that time I was getting nasty cardboard paper cuts (MUCH worse than a regular paper cut) I kept thinking, “I wonder what folks like David Mead, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna do on the day of their album release?”. Do they treat themselves to a nice meal? Perhaps buy a new shirt or pair of socks? Drink a Dr. Pepper? After work, on my way home, I stopped off at Mac Authority (and to get a cold DP, wink wink). They’re located on the east side of northbound I-65 just before reaching downtown. They’ve had banners flapping around out on the side of their building for a few weeks now tempting me (and probably many others) with refurbished 12″ iBooks for $349. $350 for a practically new mac laptop is incredible, people! I’ve been wanting to buy Danielle one of her own so we don’t have to keep sharing our current iBook. So, assuming sales of “Scarce” continue heatedly and unabatedly, that may very well be our soon-to-be purchase. That way, I can take the laptop on the road with me and not feel guilty for leaving Danielle at home with no way of getting on Al Gore’s internet to check her email and such. So, after my visit to Mac Authority, I was homeward bound where I had some CD orders to fill (thank you guys!) and songs to learn, to which I’ve already alluded, and lunch to eat. What glorious meal partook I on yon 2/28/06 day, ask ye? A grilled cheese sandwich with tortilla chips along with an episode of The Simpsons (Season 7). Oh boy, a rock-n-roll life, to be sure….

Speaking of band…. here’s the lineup for tonight’s 12th & Porter show: Brent Milligan (producer of “Scarce”)- bass, singing; Andrew Osenga - electric, singing; Paul Eckberg - drums, perc; Cason Cooley - keys; me - admiring & singing. These guys are terrific and are very enjoyable people. I rarely play shows with a band but when I do - especially with this level of talent - it gives me warm, radical fuzzies like a gift out of nowhere. I suppose I’ve always written songs hearing a band of some sort in my head. It would seem natural, therefore, to perform them live with a supporting crew.

My parents are driving up from Baton Rouge today for the show and to visit for a few days. Hopefully the weather will continue its amazing run of upper-60s and warm sunshine so dad and I can get in a round of golf, one of our favorite pastimes together. Mom and Danielle are sure to shop. And we are all destined to eat well. The Peters LOVE good food.

Danielle, this morning, opened the back door and heard some rustling of leaves immediately to the right of the concrete steps leading up to the house. At first, she signed it off to nearby birds, but upon closer inspection noticed that it instead was snakes; 3 of them. Dammit. I hate snakes. Our neighborhood is basically tucked away in the watershed (or very nearby) of the Cumberland River. Watershed = snake habitat. And it’s the time of year where hibernating animals are beginning to awake, or slither as may be the case. We moved into this house nearly 1 year ago - March 4 to be exact and I was unpleasantly surprised at the number of snakes I came across in our yard. At last count, before winter kicked in and death temporarily trumped life, I had successfully killed 11 garter snakes (yes, I know they’re harmless) with either a shovel or my lawnmower (my favorite). I have no love for snakes and will not hesitate to rid my yard - or worse, my house! - of them. They’ve found a little hole on the side of our stairs leading up to the back door, which I can only assume leads to a dry, comfy space beneath the floor of our kitchen. Echh. Moth balls (it burns their reptilian skin) are now out in full force, so the area around our back door smells like old lady (in case you ever visit our home and the odor overwhelms you). Maybe I could keep a running tally again -Snake Kill: 2006. What say ye? Care to place your bets on 20 snakes? (Am I scaring everyone away now?).

Thanks again, everybody, for supporting The Square Peg Alliance and myself. Early, initial feedback on “Scarce” has been overwhelmingly positive. My hopes are that these little songs would breathe deep and lasting grace into your lives. Here’s to the blessings of life’s permanent trumping of death… Cheers!
EP