Blogtoberfest!!

Have you ever had that friend that you wanted to call on the phone, but you knew that if you did you would end up being on the phone a really long time? You have so much cool stuff you want to talk about with them but you're kinda busy right now, there's a lot going on, and you know that if you call now it's going to be a long conversation. So you decide to wait until later when you can give your friend the proper amount of time they deserve! And basically you just end up not calling them at all. My friends, consider this blog the call I should have placed to you a long time ago! Or just consider me an absolute failure when it comes to my communication skills.

So much cool stuff has happened since my last "web log" I'm not quite sure how to include it all. Ya know, stuff like summer, and autumn!! Ok you get it; it's been a long time. But seriously, these past few months have been packed with some really cool developments. My long time percussionist Josh and I have been all over the country sharing our music and making new friends. We have even started performing with a full rock band, which is something that came about in a very interesting way.

Basically I had a couple bigger shows lined up for the summer including the Big Ticket Festival in Gaylord, MI, and I thought it would be really cool to put together a full band to try to recreate the sound on the CD. So I asked my buddy Derek Turcsanyi if his new group would be interested in backing me up just for this show….no long term commitment, no strings attached. One thing I didn't know until just before the show is that the "Indie Stage" at Big Ticket Festival is basically a big battle of the bands, where one winner is selected each day to perform on one of the main stages at next year's festival. Now, if you know me at all you will know that I am not a big fan of battle of the bands. It's just not my style. I get kinda competitive about stuff and I let it rob some of the fun of playing music from me. So we decided that we didn't care about the competition, we just wanted to play for a bunch of people at a rad festival and do our thing. Besides, this was going to be the very first show this band had ever played together, so we really had no big expectations for the event. Well much to my surprise we ended up actually winning the indie stage and got invited back to perform on one of the main stages at Big Ticket Festival 2011! It's pretty awesome how God opens doors!! There was no intention of this group being a full time band, but since we figured we had something good going here, and since I'm pretty sure the guys want to play at next year's festival, we decided to book some more shows together. So it is my great pleasure to introduce to you the new members of the band. Swing over to their Facebook pages and say hi!!

Derek Turcsanyi – Bass and Vocals (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=729978941)
Caleb Gates – Lead Guitar (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1278414652)
Josh Minor – Drums (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1197000752)

These guys are some absolutely amazing musicians, and it has been some of the most fun ever making music with them. If you get a chance to see a full band show sometime you gotta check it out!! But that's just a couple of the fun things from this past summer. Here are a few quick highlights off the top of my head to give you an idea of some of the musical adventures Josh and I have had these past few months.

*Performed at and won the indie stage at Big Ticket Festival 2010.
*Lead worship on a mountain top in South Dakota. (how awesome is that?!?!?)
*Invented several new games after riding in the car too long on tour, most of them incredibly stupid.
*Performed at Carpenter's Way Church in Lufkin, TX with my good friend Steve Glass.
*Reached #1 on the Reverbnation.com "hot" charts for rock artists.
*Performed at the first Christian Comedy Blast in Milwaukee, WI with our good friends Fish Sticks Comedy.
*Had coffee and cookies with Dave Ramsey in Nashville, TN.
*Shared the stage with some AMAZING artists!! (Paupers Field, Nevercast, At the Onset, The Legend of Xero, Nate Fueurstein, Take the City, Sound of Reign, etc…)
*Went rock climbing with the Peak Experience crew in South Dakota. (some of my new favorite people)
*Performed right next to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
*Went canoeing with the Impact crew from Coleman Wesleyan Church (amazing youth group!!)
*Stayed in some of the seediest hotels/motels in the entire country!! (stories………so many stories!!)

Way too much stuff to actually list in one blog, which I guess is what happens when you wait half a year to write a new one. Plus there is a lot of cool new stuff in the works (ie, new shows, new website, new street team, new songs, maybe even a new album in the works??). So I will work a lot harder to try and make this blog a more consistent thing, that way I can actually get into the details of some of these great stories. Although, technically once every six months would could still be considered consistent. Something to think about!

Matt