Home - Black Mountain, NC
May 10, 2006
Dan the Tan Van Mileage: 261,864

(warning: this is a long one... it's been a while)

Just outside my bedroom window, where I'm sitting now, the bright green leaves are bursting from the centers of the mountain laurel branches, surrounded and supported by last year's darker mentors, with brown spots on them like chipped plaster. The class of 2006 has arrived on all the trees and bushes - and weeds - in the yard. There's even a new Robin's nest in the little trellis between the yard and the driveway.

Having grown up in Florida, where there aren't really seasons, I think I'm even more grateful for them. I love how they mark time and allow us to grow past our history. And for the most part, I'm enjoying getting older. Time is the only currency you can trade to have old friends, for one thing, and there's nothing like an old friend.

...Whew, I guess it's obvious who had a birthday recently, huh? There are quite a few cool new beginnings around me, though, so maybe you'll forgive me for waxing romantic about time. That, and the fact that I haven't written a Notes From the Road in almost four months! That's pretty rotten, and maybe I need to philosophize in order to justify it... or maybe just tell you what I've been up to, at which point perhaps you'll forgive me.

So check this out: In the last six months, I've released and promoted a new children's book/CD, a new live concert DVD, a retrospective Peace and Justice CD, and recorded and almost finished mixing my new CD that's coming out this summer, Change. That on top of taxes and building the deck and daily life, not to mention touring hard the whole time with shows and workshops (Florida, Georgia, SC, NC, Virginia, Maryland, Germany, Guatemala, TX, Ohio, NY, Illinois, etc.). Wow, I hadn't really realized it was quite that dense myself until I just wrote it down...

seagull on a frozen bay of Lake Ontario in March

And while I'm celebrating new births, I should fill you in on the new DVD and the new CD that both came out in the last few weeks. The DVD release party was at the Grey Eagle last weekend, and was a blast. This was a special show, of course, not only because it was a release event, but because I had recently marked fifteen years of playing music full time and I had celebrated the aforementioned birthday. To mark the occasion (or occasions) I brought all the stringed instruments I own, and one I don't, and lined them up and played them each - that included my two Taylor guitars (a K14 cedar top and a 912-c), the Takamine I bought when I first went full-time, Deanna's classical (since mine is on a long-term loan), a banjo guitar I borrowed from my friend Joe Carlson, my mandolin and the old Yamaha my folks gave me on my fifteenth birthday, which has since accompanied me all over the world, but has never been on stage that I can remember. I played Song For You on that one at the end of the night, being the guitar I wrote the song on some 23 years ago.

The DVD itself has been great fun to finally put out, after a year of working on it. The centerpiece is an hour and twenty minute concert at the Grey Eagle, made up of sixteen songs and several stories. My sister Margaret said that watching Shadows on the DVD is almost better than seeing it in concert because you can really see what's going on. It was a four-camera shoot in 5.1 surround sound, so the technical quality is great. There are a few songs from the unreleased CD on there as well as a bunch of older ones. We put Water on there as a poem, which folks have asked about over the last couple of years since I started performing it that way, and one song, Destiny Blues, that isn't on any record, including the new one. The most fun part of the DVD, though, may be the bonus features. There's a ten-minute video about our non-profit, PEG, which works with Guatemalan schools, a music video for my song Your Smile that features Special Olympics athletes in competition, a seven-minute indie film that features Shadows as the soundtrack, some interview footage, and even a commentary track. I know, I know... that must be the most self-absorbed thing on the planet, huh? A songwriter doing a commentary track on his own concert! It was fun, though, to come up with some behind-the-scenes stories about the songs and the making of the video. But wait! ...as they say in the old Ginsu knives commercials... there's more!

The latest CD release, This Is My Song, is a ten-song retrospective sampler of songs on the themes of peace, justice and hope from all of my other records. I re-recorded a few older songs that I wanted better versions of, including We Are Each Other's Angels, Whites of Their Eyes and Song for Peace, and even included simple versions of a couple of songs from the new record to be released in July: Power of Pride and a cover of the eighties Police song Walking In Your Footsteps. This record came out just in time for the Berlin peace rally I played a few weeks ago, and we produced it in a cardboard sleeve so it's easier to pack overseas, and so that we could sell it cheaper ($10).

I've been thinking about politics a lot lately, not just because I'm a concerned citizen, but because I got a long email last week from a man who said he liked my music, but that I really needed to lay off the politics. In fact, he suggested that I either just stick to playing music that makes people happy or go into politics full-time. Ouch.

I wrote him a long letter back, and it started with sincere gratitude for taking the time to write. That's the harder thing to do, of course, and the more worthwhile thing. It's a lot easier to just throw away the CDs and ask to be removed from the mailing list. But he took the time to write and try to point out to me where he thinks I'm going wrong. That's an inherently respectful thing to do. And, of course, it's what I'm trying to do by speaking out about some things I believe we could be doing better as a nation. I try to do that respectfully, with a painfully clear understanding that I don't have all the answers, but here in the U.S. it's our job to run our country - all of us. If we're not involved, then it might as well be a dictatorship. It has been said that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. So I encouraged him to keep speaking out about what he believes, and promised him I'd keep listening if he wanted to write to me, even though some of what he wrote was pretty painful to me. Actually, talking about politics isn't much fun, either, but I think politics is like dentistry in the sense that it's really not supposed to be fun - it's just that the consequences of not doing are even worse. Also true that both are expensive and painful, come to think of it. One significant difference that a friend pointed out recently, though: when you ignore the dentist it's usually just you that suffers. With politics, the damage can be much more widespread. So I can't promise to stop. I don't particularly enjoy it, but I think it's my responsibility. That's part of why I made this CD, to try to inspire and challenge folks to think about some of these questions and their responses. Although I have to say that making the CD was fun, and I hope listening to it will be too. I hope it's as nourishing as it is challenging.

That's also why I went to Berlin in March to play at a peace rally there. It was a great experience, and I practiced my remarks for days beforehand so I could address the crowd in German. They seemed to understand me fine, though they told me afterwards that I speak German with a French accent. Go figure. The funny and slightly embarassing part of the trip was that before I went I told people what I believed to be true - that I was going to play for a huge peace rally in Berlin. As it turned out, there was a big rally in Berlin that weekend with 70,000+ people at it, but through a miscommunication of details lost in translation it turned out that I wasn't actually playing at that event, but another event that had, instead of thousands, more like hundreds - OK, maybe not quite plural. Maybe a hundred and fifty. They were a hundred and fifty cool people, though, and I'm glad I went. Christopher Williams went with me, too, playing percussion and singing harmonies with me. It was his first time in Europe, and it was fun to get him there. He was amazed at how hard it is for Germans to clap on the back beat, but other than that had a completely wonderful time.

Christopher, me, and our security entourage

In other international news, PEG Partners, the Guatemalan schools project I founded with my wife almost two years ago, has now received its official 501c3 non-profit status from the government. That's wonderfully exciting. I had been hoping to get back down in June, but have decided to postpone the trip a bit. There's such good stuff happening there, though. Many thanks to those of you who have been a part of it by contributing, and those of you who have cheered us on.

In web site news, we had to do a major fix on the guest book due to automated spam ads, and ended up losing years of good and interesting notes in the process. Now the guestbook is looking rather lonely with only three entries, so if you're so inclined you can go post a note for all the world to see here.

I've been teaching a lot of workshops lately and really enjoying that. I have to say the four-day intensive class I taught just a couple of weeks ago in Montreat was particularly special, though, given that my parents decided to take the class. What a treat to have that time with them and get to show them more about what I'm trying to do with my music, not to mention to get to enjoy the extraordinary poetry they each wrote. Good stuff.

Dad working hard on a poetry exercise (I'm a tough teacher)

After playing at the LEAF festival this weekend I'll be heading out for shows in Colorado, Wyoming and Texas over the next few weeks, which is always fun, then back home for the summer. I'm going to be taking it easier over the summer and getting things ready to launch the new CD in the Fall. I'll be touring hard then and through the Spring, but this summer I'm going to enjoy a little time in the mountains with Deanna.

And speaking of the new record, tomorrow may be the last day of mixing. I just can't wait to put it out there for you. In fact, I'm not actually waiting - there's a sneak preview track on my page on MySpace, kindly created by my publicist, Angela Cooke. The song Crawl Inside is up there, featuring Beth Wood on harmony vocals. I've also started a blog on that site, so check it out if you're so inclined. And if you're ready to commit to getting the new CD, we've added the CD for pre-order on this website. If you order it before July 1, there's free shipping. If you want to read more about the record, click here for the whole page about it.

Believe it or not, I actually could write more, but I'll let you go for now and try to get back to this a little sooner next time. Thanks for making this all worthwhile. See you out there,

David