It’s just me and the dude for two weeks while papa goes on an exciting adventure playing bass with Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers. It’s a great gig for him.
I get to have solo snuggles with my favorite snuggler. We will miss papa, though.
Hey hey folks!
My name is Andrew. I am the papa in this family who spends much of our time on the road.
I play bass. My main focus is playing bass with Raina and helping our band grow and develop. I also I spend a pretty sizable portion of my time on the road with different songwriters and bands.
Here are just a few of bands I play with in addition to Raina Rose:
Carrie Elkin
Sam Baker
Steve Poltz
Nancy & Beth
Anthony da Costa
The Bluegrass Outfit
Danny Malone
Rebecca Loebe
Elliott, Rose, da Costa
As well as many others.
I am on the road a lot. I love it. I see all kinds of beautiful places and meet tons of people. I play a lot of interesting gigs.
Expect to see posts from my travels and insights about how Raina, Emmett and I continue to figure out how to have a normal, close and supportive family while we’re out on the road together and apart.
Dig it!
We had oatmeal for breakfast. Cooked in our kitchen with food from our fridge. These are some of my small joys, after living in a car for the lion’s share of 5 years, even our tiny house is heavenly ours. We can leave the bed unmade. Leave the toys in the tub. Leave the dishes in the sink. It’s an incredible blessing to have a small part of the world in which to nest.
Emmett has my curly locks and my coloring. Other than that he’s a small replica of his daddy. It’s the sweetest thing to see them asleep next to eachother.
This morning we gave Emmett his first haircut. His little ringlets easily intertwine and form dreadlocks. I believe that to be or to not be a hippie is every person’s personal choice. He’s yet too young to be well informed enough to choose a life of Phish parking lots and bong hits. We will let him figure that our in his teens.
So trim his 14 month-old hair I did. In our front yard. Its almost spring in the hill country, gloriously closer to the equator than where i grew up.
Here’s a picture of pre haircut.
We drove for about four hours to the Northeast of Austin today. Andrew and I are a part of Carrie Elkin’s Greats. Carrie Elkin is a firecracker songwriter who is a pillar of the folk nation community. She and her partner, Danny Schmidt, host a slew of traveling folksingers in their home in east Austin. They are amazing.
Here’s a picture of the men’s at the Firehouse in Edom, tx.
Today we had breakfast with the original rust-belt vagabond, Greg Klyma. I met Greg at my first Kerrville Folk Festival in 2005. He was one of the people who inspired me to leave my comfy home in Portland, OR, find a minivan and get on the road. Greg has been independently touring for over 10 years. He and Andrew are talking crowd-sourcing, the new model for the small entrepreneur.
We ran a successful kickstarter campaign in October, through 644 backers we raised just over $20k. It was a wonderful/stressful time. We felt deeply humbled and grateful to have such community support for our art. Andrew has a lot of ideas on how to make kickstarter an easier thing for musicians who may feel overwhelmed by the idea of asking their fanbase for money. Truly you are just pre-selling your amazing music. You can do it. Also, this is not our kitchen, we are house siting 😉
In December i did a photoshoot for my new album, Caldera, with the amazing Jen Hellow. Many photographers take 500 photos and you get 30 good ones. Jen takes 50 shots and you get 30 good ones. She has a great success record. We took a few with Emmett, why not? here are some of the cutest ones:
I love how well documented his life is already. He’s a firecracker with a goofy smile. I sure love that boy.
nap time is the best time. this quilt was hand sewn by my cousin.