Greetings from the land of longhorns. I snapped this one yesterday beside the highway. For a mountain boy, I sure do enjoy my visits out here. I just got in about twenty-four hours ago from the Kerrville Wine & Music Festival, a Reader's Digest condensed version of the Kerrville Folk Festival, which happens each May. It was delightful, if a little on the soggy side for the first couple of days. Mighty nourishing place, though, full of nourishing people and music. I feel... well, nourished. :)

I stuck around to help my buddy Chris break down the sound system on the main stage and got to climb around on the scaffolding unplugging speakers, which was great fun and leaves me pleasantly sore today. All except my fourth toe on my left foot. But perhaps I should back up a little.

Dad turned seventy almost three weeks ago, and my folks decided to celebrate by renting a beach house in Florida for a week and inviting me and my siblings and their families down. I was really looking forward to some walking on the beach, and the sun didn't let me down. Much of the family got in on Saturday, but I was playing at the Six String Cafe in NC Friday night and at a private event in New Mexico on Saturday, so I didn't get to Florida until Sunday afternoon. I threw my stuff down, pulled on some cutoffs and walked out the back door to the beach, where my nephew Nate and niece Hanna were playing in the surf. The water was warm and the children laughing and a big wave knocked me and Hanna over. I reached to try to catch her and in the tangled falling managed to break my toe.

Bummer. So I didn't do much walking on the beach, and tonight the only part of my body that is UNpleasantly sore is the unfortunate toe.

I did, however, do plenty of sitting on the beach, and had a great week, flew to Missouri on Saturday for one more show, then home, a show at the Grey Eagle, one in Atlanta, then here. This weekend I've got a showcase at a music conference here in TX, then two more shows (FL and SC) early in the week, then I'm off to Europe to play there for a month. The toe's healing up pretty well, and I think it will be in good shape by the time I hop the big puddle.

Oh, and did I mention I'm putting together the live record in the meantime? OK, so there are a couple of things going on. Great fun, though. It's exciting to see all the motion.

And I haven't even told you the most exciting stuff yet...

I'll start with Europe. A couple of weeks ago the most recent edition of Soundcheck Magazine hit the stands in Germany. It features a full page article on me and Corners, and five photos. It's a full-color magazine that includes a CD with each issue, and Deadline is the second track on this one. It's apparently quite well-known in Germany, so maybe soon I'll be able to say "I'm big in Germany." :) After Germany, I'll be playing in Northern Ireland, then London and Fredericia, Denmark. If you have any friends in those parts, the pertinent details are on the tourdates page. Oh, and the show from London on October fourth will be broadcast live on the web, so be sure to tune in for that. We'll have all the details for that on the tourdates page, too.

OK, so that's pretty exciting, huh? But wait, there's more...

Back to the new record... I'll be making the final decisions today as to what's going on there, then meeting on Tuesday with Pepi, whose company, Oatmeal Design, did the graphics for Corners and will be doing this one as well. On Thursday I'll be mixing with Chris Rosser, then leaving for Europe on Friday. All that so that we can get it out by Thanksgiving, when I'll have CD release parties at the Grey Eagle and Six String Cafe. We think the days following Thanksgiving will be a great time to do those shows, as they might be good events to bring the family along to. Hope to see you there. We'll also be debuting a six CD box set that night.

And that's really exciting. But I have two more things to share with you, and it just gets better. One is that there is a whole new David LaMotte web site up. Barb Ruehl, who lives in Chicago, has put a bunch of work into putting it together, and it looks great. It's just gone up in the last few days, so no one even knows it's there yet. Feel free to go check it out, though. It's got neat pages on each record, a chat room, and a listing of favorite lines (which you can add to - presumably for use in e-stationery). Right now she's got a poll on there to vote for your favorite record. I voted. :) Barb's site is called www.davidlamottefan.com. Way cool.

OK, and here's the really big one... We've got a new full-time Business Manager at Lower Dryad Music. Meet Rachel Huehls (rhymes with pulse), who's just been working for a couple of weeks now, and already seems to have things down.

She's friendly and intelligent and compulsively organized, and I'm trhilled to have her on board.

Of course, the down side is that after three years of putting tons of energy and life into my career, my sister Kathy is getting married and moving away to New Jersey. It's a good thing that Eric's such a great guy, or I'd be really mad. :) It's hard to overestimate how much Kathy's done for the business side of my music, and I'm tremendously grateful. She'll still be handling the booking from NJ for a couple of months, then handing that over to Rachel, too. Pretty exciting all the way around, I guess. If you want to send her congratulations, you can still reach her at booking@davidlamotte.com for the next few weeks.

Well, that's about all the excitement I can handle for now. I hope all is well with you, and I look forward to the next time our paths cross.