we played in times square nyc the other night. absolutely amazing. my second favorite stop thus far on this tour. austin texas was tops but to help the new yorkers cope i must admit that being only an hour and half south of my home helped immensely. and to all the other stops i must say this, i love clubs. there’s just so much energy when people are crammed into a dingy space and start singing to god.

we’ve had three days off since then and chose to stay in the city. ny is one of a kind. i love it because there are so many good places to eat. i ate at the original palm restaurant yesterday which was a big highlight. i love the palm and to be sitting at 837 2nd ave with a big plate of mashed potatoes and filet was just perfect.

the rest of my time has been spent in the hotel writing. haven’t left much. just ordering room service and typing. quite nice…

nashville was a whirlwind. we were there for gma week – which is an industry get together. everyone from radio and retail, all the record labels and distributors, bands who have been around forever and bands who are just hoping someone, anyone, will give them a listen. this year my schedule wasn’t too bad. here it is:

David Crowder Band
GMA Week 2006
Nashville, TN
April 1-5

Saturday, April 1

TBD CHECK INTO HILTON – Conf#s xxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxx

4:30-4:40PM Total Axxess (Jayar) – backstage
Point Person: Brian Thiele

7:00PM DAVID CROWDER BAND/THIRD DAY CONCERT
David Lipscomb University

Sunday, April 2
Escort: Missy Zahn 615.xxx.xxxx

2:00PM Call Time for Reception – find Katie for wristbands at the entrance by the convention center

2:30-4:00PM ARTIST/DJ WELCOMING RECEPTION- Renaissance Ballroom
Point Person: Brian Dishon

5:00-7:00PM SOUNDCHECK FOR SUNDAY EVENING AT THE RYMAN

7:00-9:00-PM SUNDAY EVENING WORSHIP SERVICE- Ryman Auditorium
Louie Giglio, David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall
Point Person:

10:00PM SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE – Renaissance Ballroom
Attending only Point Person: Bryan Ward

Monday, April 3
Escort: Denise George 615.xxx.xxxx

8:00AM Meet Missy in the Hilton Lobby

8:15AM Call Time for Breakfast

8:30-10:30am PRESS BREAKFAST – WildHorse Saloon
Point Person: Shawn Blackney

10:30-12:00 BREAK

12:00-2:00PM Relevant Lunch (Denise, Shelley, David, Cameron Strang, Kyle Chowning, Cara Davis) – Merchants

2:30-3:30PM HearItFirst.com Taping – Renaissance 2114
Point Person: Bethany Marvin

3:45PM Alive Festival Liners – Renaissance 2514
Contact: Joan Dyer – xxx.xxxx (Salem)

4:30PM Call Time for Radio Dinner

5:30-7:00pm RADIO DINNER- Nashville City Club
Performing “Wholly Yours”
Point Person: Brian Dishon

7:00pm ASCAP DINNER – Richland Country Club
Point Person: Grant Hubbard/Eddie DeGarmo

Tuesday, April 4
Escort: Denise George 615.xxx.xxxx

4:30 AM Meet Brian Dishon in Hilton Lobby (Chris, David, Louie, Shelley)

4:45AM CALL TIME FOR RADIO INTERVIEWS- Renaissance Lobby (meet Denise)

5:00-9:20AM MORNING RADIO INTERVIEWS
BRING GUITAR – “Wholly Yours”
Point Person: Brian Dishon
WLFJ 5:00-5:20
WISG 5:30-6:00
KLTY 6:00-6:20
KSBJ 6:20-6:40
WAWZ 6:40-7:00
KTIS 7:00-7:20
WRBS 7:20-7:40
K-LOVE 7:40-8:10
KXOJ (6th fl) 8:20-8:40
SALEM 8:40-9:00
WONU 9:00-9:20

9:30-9:45AM Rick and Bubba Interview – need phone number
Point Persons: Mike McCloskey

10:00-11:00AM New Song Café Taping – Renaissance 2114

11:30-12:30PM CALDWELL/CROWDER Lunch – meet in Hilton Lobby

1:00-5:00PM BREAK

7:10PM LOAD IN AND SOUNDCHECK FOR GMA AWARDS

Wednesday, April 5

1:00PM Dress Rehearsal FOR GMA AWARDS

5:30PM PRESHOW GMA AWARDS- Grand Ole Opry

8:00PM GMA AWARDS- Grand Ole Opry
Point Persons: Leigh Ann Hardie and Shawn Blackney

the highlights were:

the concert on april fool’s day. our friend marty stuart (legend-of-a-mandolin player) came out and played with us on our bluegrass number – ‘i saw the light’. mac (lead singer for third day, the band we’re currently on tour with) was kind enough to join us in our set as well so it made for a romping good time. afterwards we headed to the grand ole opry with marty to hear his wife connie sing. it was amazing. she sang a couple of songs ending with one she introduced as, “a song about my best friend.” she then went into her signature rendition of ‘how great thou art’. you have not lived deeply until you hear connie smith sing that hymn. my eyes flooded over. we met roy clark. (reference xanga entry: . fated i say. fated.) as we were making our exit, all hugs and smiles, marty announced, “boys i have the quote of the night for you. i was talking to merle on the way over and he asked where i was coming from. i said ‘i’m coming from the david crowder band show.’ to which merle responds, ‘well, whoever they are, tell them i say hello.’” so in summary, we played with marty stuart, listened to one of the greatest hymns sung by one of the greatest singers to ever live, and got both a “hello” and a “whoever they are” from THE merle haggard. things were off to a pretty good start.

then it was to the grind. to be honest it wasn’t too bad. except it seems i have a talent for being unable to talk in a proper way as to not fatigue my voice. i’m told by speech therapy friends that i have a “hard glottal attack” which evidently wreaks havoc on chords of the vocal variety. so, if you’ll reference the above gma schedule, my voice was gone by the time we were done with “artist/dj welcoming reception”. (this reception takes place in a very large ballroom and it consists of artists standing in their respected record label areas [all the record labels have an area designated by a vinyl sign and various chest high tables arranged sporadically, in an ‘unordered-order’ in hopes to invite approach] while folks from the radio side of things walk around and say howdy, or make introduction of themselves, or catch up with artists whom they wish to have interaction with. so it is basically a large room full of noise that you must attempt communication in and to do this you must essentially scream at one another.) so by 4pm on sunday my voice was shot. perfect.
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it didn’t matter. it made it sound all whiskied out. put a little gravel in it. so things went ok even though i had to baby the vocal chords along. lots of rest, food and water. which meant i couldn’t play around much or hang out with friends and such which is really what makes gma week more than unobjectionable. there’s a lot of stress surrounding this week because every moment you have the potential to show everyone that you in fact have no idea what you are doing. everyone always suspects this to be the case but gma gives you opportunity after opportunity to demonstrate that. the fact that the week also provides an excuse for all of us to be in one place and hang makes the stress element tolerable. i got very little of that this year. i went to no showcases, i heard no bands i’d have hoped to hear, i simply followed the schedule and when i wasn’t on task either slept, ate, or drank water. at one point i asked a friend who is a veterinarian if it was possible to drink too much water. she said, “no. well, yes, but it would have to be like 15 gallons.” then went into something about sodium and the fact that i was eating stuff with salt and that i’d be fine. i was still nervous while i continued to consume what i believed to be dangerously large quantities of the h 2 o.

then the dove awards came. we won three. ‘a collision’, our album, won for rock/contemporary album of the year which was just insane. there was not a molecule in my body that thought this to be a possibility. in our category were some great bands including third day and switchfoot. you can see why this was so unexpected. these two bands alone are monolithic. we are tiny. here’s how the voting works…members of the gma (gospel music association) receive a ballot and they vote. now i know, i know, there are certain questions and issues that arise when addressing awards specified for specific pieces of art. i’m with you, really i am. but i’ve had a lot that has transpired in my brief journey as a recording artist. such as autographs. you know it’s pretty odd to have someone walk up and wish for you to write your name on something so they can retain it. i used to have a diminutive number issues with this and i would proceed to take each encounter as an opportunity to communicate these issues and provoke an alteration to that particular individual’s view of celebrity. i would change the world one person at a time. it would be a revolution. but at some point in one of these exchanges it dawned on me that this act really is an exemplar of the reality that we merely don’t know how to love properly. these folks were merely expressing their appreciation in a manner that has been modeled to them over and over, their actions showing in a broken way, that something as simple as the music that we have composed and assembled has had some effect and meant a bit to them. maybe one day we’ll be able to love properly. until then i will gladly sign anything you’d wish for me to sign. i will smile and say thank you and wonder how in the world simple songs can come to mean so much to us. i view award shows in a similar light. simple affirmation. and besides there’s not an industry out there that doesn’t have a big get together that attempts to some how acknowledge a number of items or individuals who have done a good thing. of course just like every single other thing we humans attempt it comes out all broken and busted up. so when they called our names and all my molecules jumped, i just thought, “oh my gosh, i get to meet pele” yes. THE PELE. THE world’s greatest football (soccer) player was the presenter of our award category. THE MOST FAMOUS ATHLETE ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET. i had an instruction book of his when i was younger that contained tons of pictures with dotted line indicators of leg swings and foot placements and contact points and ball flight trajectories, including his fundamentals and trick shots and such. he hugged me. pele hugged me. i have no idea what i said after that into the microphone accepting our award but i met freakin’ pele! (do you see our damaged, depraved condition here? there is no higher ground…)

but in all seriousness. we wound up being awarded 3 doves. one for our ablum. one for a song from the album. and one for another song that’s not on our album but appears on a compilation cd. we are trying to figure out how this happened and what it all means exactly. probably nothing. or perhaps just that we’ll have to be even more careful about not letting people know that we indeed have no idea what we’re doing.