As usual, it’s been ages since my last “news-y” type of update, so here’s the scoop from the land of Prince and Honey(dogs).

Sessions: lots of them sprinkled around, including a fun couple of days at the Pearl with Jason Shannon; two days in Duluth with Caitlin Robertson at the beautiful Sacred Heart Music Center, which is a church with a recording studio inside; and a fun, fast day at Brent Sigmeth’s studio in Cannon Falls with Brent’s two awesome dogs and the Minor Planets.

Gigs: after being gone for most of last summer with the Alternate Routes it’s been a nice change of pace to stick close to home. One of the highlights of the last month or so has been being introduced to Wits, which I guess is sort of the younger, hipster version of Prairie Home Companion. I’ve gotten to play a few shows there as a guest drummer, backing Aimee Mann (!) and Ted Leo. The show is a lot of fun to watch and the house band — John Munson, Steve Roehm, Janey Winterbauer, and Joe Savage — is crazy awesome, so hopefully there’ll be a little more of that.

This is probably also a good time to mention my friend Dave Olson…his new album No October was released last month and has been getting great reviews. I can’t say enough good things about the cast and crew on this record, and there were some pretty incredible moments working on it. I had fairly good intentions of writing a lot more about it, but I think it’s just best if you check out his website and listen for yourself.