07.12.05 From The Road: Street Week - Franklin, TN

JULY 12: NASHVILLE, TN
While Brian and I were in Florida our band and crew were setting up in Franklin, TN ( a suburb of Nashville) at The People’s Church (my home church) for the first full band show of the week.  Max Technologies of Franklin gave us a huge sound system for the Street Week shows and an even larger one for this first band night only.  That system, coupled with the skilled lighting guys at our church and our three huge screens, made for a show much better looking and sounding than I deserve or am used to.

Many media were invited but I saw none.  That’s a small blow, not to the ego, but to the record itself – or so one would be tempted to think.  But without much radio play of new material for the last two years and limited touring as a result, the lack of media coverage is understandable.  I haven’t done anything in a while worth covering.  Even with great reviews of White Flag coming out daily, the overall attitude from media seems to be “we’ll see”.  Of course it’s hard to see what this record is all about if media isn’t willing to come out and see what this record is all about.  So many journalists and dignitaries stayed home, which made for a lively night free of journalists with notepads and stoic stares but rich in friends, family and cheerleaders of all kinds who seemed to enjoy what they heard.  And that matters most.

They liked it enough to set a sales record for us in Nashville in fact, buying more CDs in one night at The People’s Church than I’ve sold in an entire year city-wide in the past.  Wow.  Thank you.

Got thoughts?  Discuss this SHLOG on my message-board
-----

07.12.05 White Flag In Stores Today

We played for a packed house last night and sold out of White Flag.  The people off Florida, only after 5PM, were the first to be able to buy it - and they did - big time.  Thanks.

Wish I had time to post more this morning.  We’re leaving Boca Raton for Nashville in five minutes.  Once there we’ll rush to The People’s Church in Franklin, TN to make last minute sound adjustments and rehearse a little more for tonight’s CD Release Concert there at 7PM.  It’s free.  Come out and see us if you’re in the area.

I’ll retro post later this week and do a little show and tell about my time in the Mouth Of The Rat in Florida.

-SG

07.11.05 From The Road: Street Week - Boca Raton, FL

The week a CD is released to the public is called Street Week.  Every CD sold that week counts towards the first week’s SoundScan total, reflected on the albums sales chart.  A CD’s first week chart position is key to getting the attention of the media, retail and radio branches of the Christian music business, promoters and hopefully key to getting more help from all of them in the weeks ahead.  He with the most “scans” is number one for that week, called Street Week.

Street Week always begins on a Tuesday and goes to the following Monday.  However, there is a loophole, some small print, we took advantage of this time around.  Street Week sales actually begin being tabulated at 5:01 PM Monday.  Everything sold after 5 Monday is tallied as Tuesday sales.  Don’t know why.  But I like it.

In light of that we played our first Street Week show in Boca Raton (Mouth of the Rat) on Monday the 11th and sold CDs beginning at exactly 5:01.  It was a solo show which made it difficult to pull off the new band oriented CD but the people of Boca Raton and the West Palm Beach area didn’t seem to mind.  The great thing about playing new music is no one knows when it doesn’t sound like the CD – and no one knows when I flub a lyric – especially if I make a decent one up on the spot, or just anything that rhymes.

Thanks in huge part to West Palm Beach’s WAY-FM, the folks of Florida know my music and come to my shows even on Monday nights.  And I don’t take that for granted.  So the least I can do is stop by the studio and allow Brandt and Donna, the most attractive people in radio today, to mock me publicly for a couple hours…as long as they provide me with a chicken biscuit from Chic-fil-A and a Dr.Pepper. (notice the shiny aluminum wrapped goodness resting between Donna and me.)

Thanks WAY-FM for being truly entertaining great radio by any standard, Christian or not.  And thanks to Donna, Brandt, everyone at Spanish River Church and the folks of Florida for making the first show of White Flag’s Street Week a success. Lots of concert-goers left with CDs in hand and more than 30 children were sponsored through Compassion International.

07.09.05 Blog In The Backseat

SHLOG.COM may get a little boring over the next few days but stick with it.  If I run you off please give it another chance in couple weeks or so.

The artist life is very cyclical and mine is ramping up for the release of WHITE FLAG on July 12.  So all this past week I’ve been editing video for the live shows the week of the release and today the band and I practiced intensely.  I’ll go to bed early tonight so I can be on the radio first thing Sunday morning.  Then Monday the concerts begin.  I’ll be in Boca Raton, then Nashville and then....

You get the idea.  So I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to say or how much I’ll want to say after saying more than I’ve ever wanted to say to one member of the media after another.  I’ll be said out I think after a week of non-stop shows, interviews, meet and greets with “fans”, meetings with radio and retail powers that be and little else.

I’ll do my best to check in but consider yourself warned that SHLOG.COM may become quite the cyber ghost-town for the next several days.

Until the blitz ends…

SG

07.09.05 Faith Of Our Fathers

I have two Greek Orthodox friends who’ve injected into my faith parts of their own.  They challenge me with their knowledge of the bible and church history and their commitment to their beliefs regardless of how boring or conspicuous it makes them seem to everyone else.

My brief time with these two men has piqued my interest in the earliest records of the Christian Church, in the teachings of the earliest followers of the Way, as they called it.

This morning I bumped into one of them again and one of the many things we talked about was how different a church service is today in America from a church service in the Middle East during the first three centuries.  It got me thinking about what exactly Christianity is, where it comes from.  Christianity, it turns out, is a Jewish Middle Eastern religion that originally embraced paradox (God is both wrath and love, life with God is easy and hard) and mystery (the book of Ephesians contradicts itself confusingly).  Early Christians used Middle Eastern methods of communing with God as well, like the time Peter meditated while fasting and wound up hallucinating about a blanket.

I feel like something’s missing from my faith, from the theology or methodology.  I don’t know what but I’m thinking this new interest of mine in the ancient origins of Christianity, how primitive believers thought, prayed and lived together holds part of the answer - or maybe just more questions we moderns haven’t thought to ask.

I’ll let you know what I discover.