The Shape of Maryland
Maryland has a lot of waterfront. You realize this if – like me – you decide to try to draw the outline of the state. Next weekend, I am playing two shows in Maryland at Delmarvalous Americana House Concerts and Macum Creek Concerts. You are welcome to join us. I drew two guitars on the […]
Sam’s Burger Joint
New Year’s Resolution: I hereby resolve to play songs at Sam’s Burger Joint with my friends on Thursday, January 4, 2024. You can get tickets here.
Fork in the Road
https://youtu.be/TAS9DXHAI18 On Saturday mornings when I was a kid, I would watch cartoons for hours. My parents said if you watch too much of those, you’ll turn into one. They were right- I did turn into a cartoon character. This short film was made by the creative folks at Collection Agency Films, and that’s me […]
Beautiful Accidents
https://youtu.be/PIWPfkzuUK0 I’d like to propose a toast to the people who made this day and every other day possible for us — cheers to our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The 8 adorable people I sketched above are your cousins (we’re all cousins) and my great-grandparents. Somehow they got together long enough to make this conversation […]
Dosey Doe
I love seeing the neon sign of a welcoming place in the night. In my experience, all the people at Dosey Doe, from the sound engineers to the waitstaff to the owners, go out of their way to make sure folks have a great time any night you’re with them. We’ll be playing an album release […]
The Saxon Pub – Album Release Show on November 7
The Saxon Pub holds a special place in my heart. Here’s two drawings I made of it – the front porch of the entrance and the neon sign on South Lamar. I first saw Rusty Weir play here on a Thursday night in 1995. I talked to him after the show and told him I […]
The Post in Fort Worth on Sunday October 15
This Sunday, October 15, Mike Graham and I will be swapping songs at a great listening room in Fort Worth called The Post at River East. The show starts at 6pm. Mike and I have played a songswap together at this venue once before – last summer – and it was a pleasure. The folks […]
Color Songwriting Challenge
Escalating songwriting challenge idea: write a song for every Crayola color in the box. (That is, the song lyrics should include the color name. This should be good for writing 120 songs.) Level 1: Blue, black, brown, green, orange, red, violet, yellow. (Move up to bigger boxes) Level 4: cadet blue, chestnut, melon, peach, sky […]
Rings on a Tree
8 songwriters, 10 musicians, 15 songs. The new album – Rings on a Tree – is released. You can hear it here. If you trace the branches of any family tree back far enough, you can see we’re all connected. Rings on a Tree is a concept album looking at our shared family histories and the way […]
25 Years in the Life of a Record Label
This week, we’re celebrating 25 years of releasing recordings through El Paisano Records. I started this record label as a sophomore at UT after spending a week at the (very rundown, pre-renovation) Hotel Paisano in Marfa. Our first products were cassette tapes(!) and CDs, and this week, our 15th and most recent release this week […]