I’m not sure if this weekend was a dream or reality. Last Wednesday, after playing a show in Chicago, I got in the car to head to Memphis, Tennessee. The next thing I knew I was walking into a hotel lobby full of gig-starving musicians ranging from ages eighteen to eighty. Welcome to: The Folk Alliance.
Folk Alliance is a yearly “Folk Music” convention held in downtown Memphis. What is folk music? You may ask. (more…)
Wow, I started off strong with my tour “blogging”, but that lasted only two days. What’s happened in the past three weeks? Let’s see… The only thing that comes to mind is food. Ah, the true sign of a fat kid at heart.
We’ve had some great shows, but I don’t think any surpass the Haiti benefit at York College. We pulled into town as struggling musicians, but left as rock stars. In a town of eight thousand, and a student body of five hundred, we were expecting a small turnout. And ten minutes before the show, we looked to be right. Pretty much right on the hour, a couple hundred students oozed through the doors and sat in their seats with anticipation. I greeted the audience and said some joke. They laughed like it was the funniest thing they had ever heard… I can’t remember what I said, but I’m sure it wasn’t worthy of that kind of response. Whatever. I’ll take it. (more…)
I believe I had the dumbest day of my life on Wednesday. And it happened to be in the company of one of the smartest persons I have ever met. My lack of common sense sure made for a great deal of humiliation.
We were in Knoxville, Tennessee – three or so hours from our next show in Atlanta. I decided to turn my car on a few hours before my left to charge some stuff… first mistake. It was time to hit the road, so we jumped in the car and turned the ignition. It gave a couple of “chug-chugs” but the battery was dead. (more…)
We’re on day two of a six-week string of shows, and it’s been great thus far. I can already tell that the theme of this tour will be “strange coincidences”. In Philly, I met one of my musical heroes in the World Café bathroom. In most situations, I’m too intimidated to say hi to people I have incredible respect for. There’s just no way to avoid it though, when you’re at side-by-side urinals. Thank you public bathrooms!
In Lancaster I played a show with my twin. His name is Alex Brubaker (more…)
Back in November, I was given an opportunity to co-write some songs with a few high school classes up in Harlem. I was a bit intimidated, and had even co-written with my peers, so I wasn’t sure how this would go. Three months later we’ve written five songs together, and are in the process of recording them. Here’s a two-minute clip of the first one, “Everyday Struggle”.