Well it ended up being too cold to camp, which means too cold to record any new songs while camping! I guess I’ll have to try out the State Shirt back country mobile recording studio some other day.

Today I made it all the way out to Massachusetts. Traveled along some windy back roads and came across a couple beautiful family farms and took some more photos. Will be working on some new music next week, and working to getting This is Old released!

Ok, so I’m not exactly on tour, but I am driving across the US, taking some photos and recording some music along the way. Today I drove for a while along Route 66 in California, and spent some quality time with a few dilapidated houses and buildings. The setting sun was providing some perfect lighting, so it seemed like a good opportunity to shoot some new photos, some of which for my bio.

Tonight I’m keeping it classy, spending a night in the lovely roadway inn in flagstaff, arizona. I’m currently accompanied by the sounds of trains raging by every half hour. A bit too tired to work on any songs today. If I hit a campground tomorrow evening, I’ll see if I can start (and finish) a SongFight song. Here are some photos, more tomorrow.

So this year has started off to a bit of a mess musically. New album is still not quite finished! The guy I was hoping would mix the album needed to back out. And I’ve been trying to work with an indie label over the last couple years and we just never seemed to get anything going. But I really have no one to blame but myself. It’s just taken me forever to finish writing and recording. I should have pushed myself harder to get it finished sooner but it’s a real pain for me to rush anything creative.

So how do I go about getting everything finished up? Take a 3 week road trip! Hmm, ok so maybe not the best way to finish the album, but at least the time away has started to give me a few ideas on how to get it finished up and released by late summer. I’m going to get back into SongFight a bit more and should have a few songs popping up here and there. Also the details are sketchy but there may be a couple remix releases coming out this summer. I’ll keep you posted.

After spending the last two days in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, I’m not sure I will want to return to L.A. I think I’m just bring my laptop, a guitar and a microphone and record here.

We went to Zuma beach early yesterday morning with the hopes of seeing a California gray whale make their way back up the coast to Alaska from Baja. The weather was perfect, no wind, the ocean was calm and glassy and the sky was overcast, perfect conditions to spot wildlife in the sea. Hung around the beach for a couple hours and saw several sea lions romp around and catch fish while dodging greedy sea gulls. We were actually about to leave when we spotted a gray whale flipper just over the breakers, maybe only 100 feet away! Apparently the gray whales come incredibly close to shore right in this area. The whale hung around for 20 minutes, feeding off the ocean floor, rolling around, spy hopping and generally putting on a great show. Then he was off up the coast, we followed him for a few more minutes but then he was gone. Pretty damn amazing… Photos below by Angela Heine.

Had a great time playing with the SongFight.org regulars down at the Spot Cafe and Lounge this past Friday. Got to see a bunch of fighters that I haven’t seen in a while as well as meet a few new shiny happy faces. Got to hear a bunch of classics and some new songs by The Seamus Collective, Merisan, Ross Durand, Minty Handy, Ken’s Super Duper Band ‘n Stuff, and Evil E. I played a few newer unreleased songs, ‘Computer’, ‘This is Old’ and an yet-to-be-titled song, which I currently call ‘Edison hates this song’ because my dog Edison howls like crazy when I play it. Below are some photos courtesy of Ross Durand. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things and play more shows and get this album finished, and SongFight always seems to help me get going again.