Tangled Blue News - November 2010

Hello friends,

A foot of heavy snow fell yesterday. It snapped more than a few tree branches, transformed our neighborhood into a beautiful, white mess and left my shoulders in knots after shoveling our walkways and driveway. All in all I’d say the snow’s an improvement. After all of the bright maple leaves fall and there are only a few brown stragglers clinging to the oaks, it’s nice to get this blanket of white. Aimee and I have been taking turns being sick for most of the fall, and it’s put a real crimp in our recording time. It has left us both feeling very tired. Restful sleep has been hard to find but last night brought my second full night of sleep in a row! It feels like we are both finally getting healthy, and it’s just in time. We leave for three weeks of travel through Colorado and South Dakota on Wednesday. We are looking forward to our second trip through the Rockies in 2010 and the work ahead of us.

Since my voice has been A.W.O.L. I’ve been taking a bit of time on a project I’ve wanted to tackle for years. I’ve been putting every CD we have into iTunes with a goal of listening to every piece of recorded music that we own. As the songs are copying onto the hard drive, I’ve put iTunes on shuffle and listened to the random playlist of my music folder (4,840 songs currently). I have a few rules I’ve set up for myself as I do this listening. 1- I will listen through the entirety of every song... no fast forwarding. 2- I will rate every song I listen to. 3- All songs receiving the lowest possible rating will be removed from my hard drive. Here’s what the random playlist brought to my ears yesterday morning:

Pierce Pettis - “Love Will Find You Again” from “Great Big World”
Bruce Cockburn - “Peggy’s Kitchen Wall” from “Stealing Fire”
Rich Mullins - “The Other Side of the World” from “Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth”
Jonathan Rundman - “Imperfection” from “Insomniaccomplishments”
Peter Gabriel - “In Your Eyes” from “Secret World Live”
The Innocence Mission - “Keeping Awake” from “Glow”
Bruce Rundman - “Quiet Sound” from “True North”
Keith Green - “Cut the Devil Down” from “The Ministry Years”
Collective Soul - “Full Circle” from “Disciplined Breakdown”
Sufjan Stevens - “Black Hawk War...” from “Illinoise”
Iona - “Reels (Live Version)” from “Heaven’s Bright Sun”
Arcade Fire - “Black Wave / Bad Vibrations” from “Neon Bible”
Wilco - “Monday” from “Being There”
Steve Sandfort - “Make Me A Vessel” from “Too Wonderful to Know”
Death To Our Enemies - “Karate Bike” from “2008 Compilation”
Fleming & John - “A Place Called Love” from “Delusions of Grandeur”
Nadia Tarnawsky - “Mavka and Lukash Reprise” from “Forest Song”
Layton Howerton - “Kirby Man” from “Boxing God”
Julie Miller - “I Know Why The River Runs” from “Broken Things”
Steve Hindalong - “Seven Colors” from “Skinny”
Galactic Cowboys - “I Do What I Do” from “Space In Your Face”
Cloud Cult - “The Girl Underground” from “The Meaning of 8”
Tangled Blue - “All Your Heart” from “Tangled Blue Live 2006-2008”
Kate Hurley - “When You Carry” from “You Are Not Alone EP”

The melody that's still ringing through my head 24 hours later is the chorus of “Peggy’s Kitchen Wall”. Yeah, “tell me who put that bullet hole in Peggy’s kitchen wall?” What have you been listening to lately? Any cool, new discoveries I should consider adding to my digital music collection?

Aimee and I have a few cool, new additions you might be interested in adding to your closet or cabinet. We are producing our first long-sleeve T-shirt. We are also producing a coffee mug. Both will be ready for shipping next week, and we are really happy with the way they’re turning out... I admit that I’ve already decided to keep a few of the mugs for our cabinet at home. To get a look at the new designs go to http://tangledblue.com or http://facebook.com/tangledbluemusic. The design on the new shirts was created by our friend Chris Roth and features an outline of Aimee’s djembe drum and my guitar filled in with the words “Tangled Blue - caffeinated folk and roll”. The mugs are hand thrown by our friend Jody Wirth and stamped with our logo. We are doing small batches of both the new shirts and the mugs to keep our costs low as we move into 2011, so if you know you want to pick these items up for yourself or as a Christmas present I’ve set up PayPal ordering buttons in the tangledblue.com store. With only 20 mugs and 50 shirts available, I expect to sell out before Christmas and reprint these designs in the spring of 2011.

Thanks for being part of our community and for your support this year. I hope we see you soon!

Under the Mercy,
Joel
joel@tangledblue.com