Sum­mer is draw­ing to a close, I’ve worn a sweater for two days in a row, the leaves are pil­ing up and the ques­tion of whether I rake them or mow them looms — all the signs of autumn are show­ing up and this means it’s time I type some­thing into my lit­tle website.

There are a few great albums mak­ing their way into the world. My good friend Carl Broemel has just released All Birds Say, an album which is very spe­cial to me, not only for the music — which is spir­i­tu­al and mel­low, reflec­tive and excit­ing — but for peo­ple involved and the way the record was made. I met Carl about five years ago while liv­ing in Nashville; he, pro­duc­er (and equal­ly good friend) Ted­dy Mor­gan, and I start­ed work­ing on his record short­ly there­after and only fin­ished it up a few months ago. Not to say that I’ve been work­ing on it for five years, or that anyone’s been in the stu­dio for that long, but between everyone’s sched­ules and the gen­er­al intru­sions of life…well, some­times things take five years. I’m pret­ty proud of this one and excit­ed that these songs are final­ly see­ing the light of day.

On the oppo­site side of this sto­ry there’s Late­ly, a new record com­ing out soon from The Alter­nate Routes. A few months ago I did some record­ing with singer Tim War­ren, we hit it off, the chem­istry was great — the next thing you know we are back in Nashville work­ing on a record with the band. Tim and his co-con­spir­a­tor Eric Don­nel­ly locked them­selves upstairs writ­ing some­thing like 100 songs (give or take); we tracked drums and basic tracks over three days; six weeks lat­er the album was mixed, mas­tered, and going to print. I guess some­times things can also take six weeks. I had a lot of fun mak­ing this record and there might be a thing or two in the future…

In local news, I’ve spent most of my sum­mer tour­ing with the New Orleans-inspired, genre-redefin­ing Davina and the Vagabonds. I’ve had a real­ly good time play­ing with them — they (Zack Lozi­er, Dar­ren Sterud, Michael Car­avale, and Davina Sow­ers) are all crazy-tal­ent­ed and fun to be around — but like sum­mer clos­ing it’s time to move on. I wish them all the best, lord knows they’ve earned it.

The Min­neso­ta snow hits in a few months…time to get my drum igloo happening!