New Song - Lyrics and such...

So I wrote a new song last week, and wanted to share it with you as best I can over a blog.  They lyrics aren't the deepest I've ever written, and I'm a little hesitant about them as they are more risque than those I usually write (and I know my family reads this blog), but I really like the feel.  Its a shame I can't transmit that feel over a blog, but you will just have to come out to a show sometime soon and hear it live!  It doesn't have a name yet, but for my own purposes and amusement, I am temporarily labeling "The Booty Call Song".  

Phone rings, every other week,
You've had a few, and say I'm what you need.
Some day, I swear I'll say no.
But you had me persuaded at hello.

Chorus:

And you take your dress off fast,
and you take your dress off fast,
and I'll always be your last,
Yes, you'll always call me last.

Leave you, when you fall asleep,
And walk home through the empty late night streets.
Leave you, by yourself,
That's the way you like it, just you and no one else.

(chorus)

When you, when you call again,
I'll come over back into your bed.
When you, when you fall asleep,
I'll say goodnight and kiss you on your cheek.  

(chorus)

The feel of the song is in 6/8 time, and it switches between the measure being broken up into two groups of 3 beats and three groups of 2 beats.  I hope to record the song in Budapest in January, but until then, you can catch it live!  Check my website for tourdates.

Work Started on the New Album, Euro Tour Update, and Midwest Shows

Wanted to keep you updated on a few things:

Recording has finally started for the upcoming, full band album! I recorded most of the acoustic demos for the album last night with my friend and cohort, Jeremiah Nelson. He and Andy Hartman will be engineering the album. We only have one demo left to record, and they are then being passed on to the drummer for the album, with drum tracking happening at the end of this month in Madison. I'm really excited to begin work on this new disc, and hopefully we can have a Spring 2010 release!

Also, I've been continuing work on the Europe Tour this coming January, 2010, and have several gigs booked already. Here are the dates scheduled so far:

9th - Tovarna Rog, Ljubljana, Slovenia
13th - iF Kavezo, Budapest, Hungary
15th - Subterrarium, Vienna, Austria
19th - Subway to Peter, Chemnitz, Germany
21st - Sptaz Und Wal, Unna, Germany
24th - Mobile Blues Club, Hamburg, Germany
25th - Pony bar, Hamburg, Germany

I'm currently getting help from a booking agency in Belgium and working on some gigs there, and hope to add Prague and Paris dates soon as well. I'll keep you posted.

Lastly, Until I leave for Europe, I have lots of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois dates coming up. I'm playing this Thursday at the Brink Lounge in Madison at 9pm, with another prominent Madison date being November 18th at the High Noon Saloon with Cait Shanahan and her band. Two Milwaukee shows this month as well (Nov. 7 and 20), and some Minnesota dates in December with Josh Harty and Blake Thomas: December 10th at the 331 Club in Minneapolis and the 11th at Beaner's in Duluth. Lastly, I am doing a residency at Uncommon Ground in Chicago in December, and will be playing there every Wednesday that month with special guests.

Redwoods Pt. 2

At the bottom of the valley, we stopped by this stream to eat some trail mix and relax a bit.  A while later as we hiked back through this area on our way out of the valley, a herd of elk had just emerged from the woods


Some crazy moss growing on this tree.  Crazy.


Driving through a forest of giant trees kind of makes you feel like you were riding on a speeder bike on Endor.  Kinda.  Sorta.


At the end of the day, we took one last hike down to overlook where this river meets the ocean.  Where we camped that night was just on the other side of the river, up on the cliffs above the ocean.

The Pacific Ocean and me.

Redwood National Park

On Wednesday, my brother and I traveled up to Redwood National Park and the surrounding state parks, just about as far north as you can go in California before you get to Oregon.  We camped that night up on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean.  It was a free walk-in campsite, which we were especially grateful for as for some reason all California state parks charge an outrageous $35 just to pitch a tent for the night.  Below is the first round of pictures from the park(s), and I intend to post more.



Just after entering the national park, we pulled over in the morning fog to walk on the beach a bit.  Both of us dared the waves to wash far enough ashore to get us wet.  I won, Cody lost.  He waited a bit too long when one was coming right at us and got his feet and pant bottoms wet.  I ran, and got away.


We drove down into this valley and hiked a few more miles into the bottom of it to walk amongst some of the most ancient and largest trees the park has to offer.  Some are as old as 1,500 years!  To put that into perspective, the oldest would have been saplings when the Franks and Visigoths were fighting for the control of France after the collapse of the Roman Empire.


You could live in this tree.  Something big and mean (like a bear or mountain lion) probably does.


Looking up.


Thats me standing in the middle of the "Tall Trees Grove".  Perspective.

The California Coast (Stuck In LAX)

So today ends my California vacation.  I've been out here for the last week or so visiting my brother (who lives in Los Angeles) and taking in the sights of southern and northern Cali.  I've had a great time, and am bracing for the cold of Wisconsin that awaits me back home.  

Unfortunately, my arrival back in Madison is being delayed until tomorrow morning due to flight complications.  I was supposed to fly out of LAX at 2:20 today, connect in Denver, and then arrive back in Madison at 10:30 tonight.  When I arrived at the airport I learned that the flight to Denver had been delayed long enough so that I would miss my connecting flight to Madison.  The best that United Airlines could do was put me on a red eye flight from Los Angeles to Chicago, which wont leave until 11 tonight, will arrive in Chicago around 5:30 tomorrow morning, and I will then take a flight to Madison, arriving home tomorrow morning around 8:30.  While my flight plans do not necessarily make for interesting reading, let me just take this moment to publicly whine.  I will be in this airport for the next seven hours, and I've already been here for a couple.  

The one good thing about this situation is that it gives me plenty of Internet time to post pictures from the vacation.  I had to pay $8 for the Internet at LAX, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it go to waste.  I actually tried to get United to get me a free password for the wireless system here since they inconvenienced me, but no dice.  I wish this airport had free wireless like Denver, where you just have to watch a short ad from a sponsor before logging on.  I wish I were going through Denver.  Ok, enough whining, here are some pictures from the California coast, north of San Francisco.



When we first made it to the Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy. 1) after leaving San Francisco early that morning, it was pretty damn foggy.  This was a vista point right where we entered the highway, eager to see the coast.


The day soon began to brighten up, and here you can see Cody standing above the mighty Pacific Ocean, just a little further on up the coast.


We stopped for lunch in some little coastal town.  The restaurant was up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, and they were nice enough to let us take our food down to their garden on trays so that we could dine with a view.  Oh, and their clam chowder was pretty spot on as well.


A little further north, just south of Fort Bragg, we stopped at Russian Gulch State Park and went on a hike.  This was our first (of many) sighting of the gigantic banana slug.  Huge, cool slugs, pretty rad.


Russian Gulch also provided our first encounter with the gigantic Redwood trees.  Here is Cody standing next to an old Redwood stump, with a newer tree growing on top of it.  I believe the forests here were logged fairly heavily, but we got to see some ancient, humongous trees the next day in Redwood National Park...

San Francisco

My brother Cody and I left Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon (after watching the Packers beat the pulp out of the Lions) and headed north to San Francisco.  The plan was to spend two nights and a day exploring that city before heading further north in California to do some camping and hiking along the coast.  We also had a gig at the Bazaar Cafe with my old college friend Branden Kolarik.  Below are some pictures from our San Francisco adventures.

Cody at the southern (San Francisco) end of the Golden Gate Bridge, before we walked across it and back.  Construction started on the bridge back in 1933 and it was finished in 1937.  Imagine how many people the construction employed during the Great Depression?  Maybe we should be building more bridges?  I'm sure the bay could use another bridge.  Lets build a bridge across Lake Mendota back in Madison while we're at it.  Bridges for jobs!

Looking back at the bridge from the north end after walking across it.  Someone told me that the bridge is three quarters of a mile long, and so walking it both ways is a mile and a half.



The Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco's signature skyscraper.  It was built in 1972 and used to be the tallest building west of the Mississippi before one in Los Angeles surpassed it in 1974.



A view of downtown San Fran while walking up to the Coit Tower.



This house is where the Grateful Dead lived in the 60's, on a block or so from the corner of Haight and Ashbury.  While the area was a hippy haven slum during that time, it is now a trendy shopping area.  

In Santa Monica, in the winter time...

...the coldest place is on the Promenade. Yes, for those of you that know your bad 90's music, those are lyrics from a Savage Garden song. I had their album when I was in middle school, and couldn't get that awful song out of my head while bumming around Santa Monica with my brother, Cody. Naturally, I had to share the song with him every time he said "Santa Monica." And now I had to share it with you.

Though it is not quite winter time, it was beginning to feel like it back in Wisconsin, getting far too cold far too early. So it was a nice change of pace to arrive into sunny, 80-something Los Angeles in mid-October. My brother picked me up at the airport and we drove straight to Santa Monica to enjoy the seaside weather.

I have it on good authority (Cody) that palm trees are not native, but were brought to California from Hawaii. In exchange, Hawaii got sand for its' beaches from California. Apparently Hawaii does not have naturally sandy beaches, rather rocky, sharp, volcanic ones.

Beach. With a background of smog.

Sunset. Cody. Santa Monica Pier.

Cody's new pad in Van Nuys. It looks nice on the outside, but its kind of a dump. The living room is my favorite part, and Cody says it best, "its meant for nobody to use." His new roommates seriously have it set up with two couches, neither of which have the cushions on them and so are unusable, and there are random arcade games around, as its somebody's hobby to fix them. Weird. Either way, its a place to rest your head.

*Maybe you were confused about this post and didn't even know I was in California or headed that way as I didn't mention it in an earlier post? Just to fill you in, I am spending 9 days or so visiting my brother, who lives in Los Angeles. We are spending a couple days in San Francisco (where I am currently) and playing a gig there, and then heading further north to do some camping, play a gig in Fort Bragg, and then head back down to Los Angeles next weekend for a gig in Hollywood and a visit from our friend Tony, who lives in Vegas. Thats the intinerary, don't stalk us, we are armed with instruments. And in case you didn't realize that I also have a songwriter-inclined brother, check out his rad tunes right here: Cody Statz