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My grandfather had families all over the state of Iowa. Of course, none of us knew this until his funeral. I was sixteen-years-old. It was one of those scorching, midwestern summer days. The wind was steady and hot like a convection oven. I was standing over his casket at Mt. Holyoake Cemetery in Waterloo thinking,…

Kevin and I began playing country songs together in the final days of recording “Almost Home.” He was teaching himself to play fiddle, and, well, I appreciated the diversion from the mind-numbing mixing process. Late one night a few weeks later, I was behind the mixing board, Kevin was in the iso booth tracking his…

When I walked in from an hour-long MTV Overdrive programming meeting, everything was lit up like a Christmas tree: my office phone, my cell phone, my email inbox, my Blackberry, my AIM. Something was awry. Wes got to me first via AIM. “Your show with Casey is cancelled.” I checked my email. Deena had written…

I can almost see it in the half-light of the crescent moon: my garden. It’s not much, really: some ivy, a spider plant, some marigolds. But I planted them myself. I buried my hands in the cool, wet soil. I watered them. And I will watch them grow. Saturday began way too early. My alarm…

The back booth at Hi Life was dark. The bar was crowded and frenetic. I was tired, but wound like a top. I was talking a lot, but not saying anything. We were discussing plans for our new records (The Nadas “Listen Through The Static” is due in September, my as-of-yet untitled CD is due…

Any Tuesday night that begins with Brooklyn Lager and Excedrin is bound for ruin. And yet, somehow, I found some sort of small triumph in the end. The world famous Nadas were in town. (In fact, I can hear them snoring downstairs as I type.) If you don’t know them, you should. They’re a terrifc…