After being away from the Gypsy Den for a few months, I thoroughly enjoyed being back and seeing the regulars again...there's something about that place...

The highlight for me was having Mike Gomez add some cool sax to Sunset Roses and Just When I'm Safe. The second song took me past my time and I had to drop the last verse. Oh well.

Here is the video of Sunset Roses...with sax!

Just When I'm Safe from the last post reveals some of what has been going on in my world. If you know me, you know that my mantra of late has been, "I am happy to be alone with God, I don't want anyone else, I am finally comfortable in my own skin, etc, etc."  Well, I guess sometimes God waits till we arrive at that place to introduce someone special. Hence the line, "Just when I'm safe, alone in you, foundations I laid you lovingly shake."

That shaking of foundations refers to the fact that I have been enjoying the company of a special lady named Sandra. You may have noticed some photo's here credited to her over the past couple months. We met a few months ago at church and gradually began spending more time talking and hanging out. A few weeks ago we realized that there may be something more going on here....we'll leave it at that for now. The story so far is in the songs.

We took a trip to Arizona to see her friends Rick and Terri for a couple days right after Christmas. What a blessed time. The 4 of us had some great worship and prayer times together and Rick and I really mixed well musically. It was truly a special couple of days. I have dubbed it The Painted Visit and you can see more of the pics in the photo pages.

Naturally, I recorded hours of our playing, so here are a couple highlights: 

This one is a song I started writing to process the scrambled eggs in my brain regarding entering in to a new relationship and all the questions that arise. The thoughts conveyed in the song are mutual thoughts that Sandra and I have been pondering both seriously and laughingly. It still needs some tweaking lyrically and this is a pretty rough run but it's one of those captured moments. The synergy between Rick and myself is rockin...at least I think so. It is a rather special recording with Rick being a big brother of sorts to Sandra and this being the first time either one of them heard the song.

I Don't Wanna Bleed (with Rick Hughes)

Here's a version of Sunset Roses from the first night with the 4 of us just kickin it in the living room. At this point Rick and I had only been playing together about an hour. I love what he adds to this song which is one of my favs from my new batch.

Sunset Roses (with Rick Hughes) 

We played Painted Room a few different times in 2 different tunings but this was from the first night (I think) out in Rick's studio where most of the other jamming and recording took place. What a great room...a Painted Room. We did church in that room!

Painted Room (Rob Sandra Rick Terri) 

 Seriously, we did have church in that room. Before we headed home we went back out for a final session. Rick played some of his songs and we moved into worship with some Chris Falson songs. The union of 4 people worshipping Jesus in spirit and truth was beautiful. God's presence was such that none of us had experienced in a while. We moved into prayer and thanks to our Father as he loved on us like the best Daddy in the whole world. From there we moved into this song that I wrote a few weeks back. I hope these recordings transport the listener to that room with us. Be blessed.

The Master's Flow (with Rick Hughes)

 ...And here is the video for Sunset Roses. This is from a turn off on the way to Rick and Terri's.

Photo by Sandra Huston As 2009 winds down, I am blown away looking back at this year. God is good. While I am a financial nightmare on paper and some may look at some external circumstances I am still dealing with and think things aren't so good, I can say that 2009 has been the best year of my life. Not without deep pain but the growth spiritually and musically has been my greatest blessing. I am deeply thankful.

This last month in itself has been...wow, where do I start...lets just say God is full of surprises.

I'll stick to the music for now.

I have been writing a lot. I have also been working with some new recording equipment and getting the feel for adding tracks and mixing. It's been years since I have done multi-tracking with a cassette 4 track and everything is different now in the digital world.

There is one song that I have mixed and remixed a couple times that I will post here. It's called "Just When I'm Safe". I recorded the main track of my singing and playing together live with the Olympus as I usually do. Then I loaded that track to an SD card and loaded the SD into the VS 100 and added a pseudo-bass track using an acoustic guitar and then tweaking the EQ to make it sound like a bass! That was fun stuff. Then I added a lead/accent track with the same acoustic (Baden, my pal). I used an odd sounding chorus effect from Adobe Audition on that track.

That's the song I have done the most with at this point. So Here it is:

Just When I'm Safe

OK, How about a cover tune? Yes, it happens rarely around here. So I figured I'd do one by someone you all know, Kemper Crabb. WHO?? Look him up. This song is from his underground classic album "The Vigil" released in 1982. The song is called "Doulos" and it is a deeply special song to me. I'll close this post with an explanation from Kemper.

Doulos

Of course I have an instrumental too. It is recorded with the Olympus with my door open so you can enjoy the birds. I added a lead track.

Segue

And last but hopefully not least, I wrote this last night:

Sunset Roses

Oh Yeah, and here is something for Christmas:

Silent Night

So peace to you all. God bless you and Merry Christmas. See you in 2010.

doulos is a Greek word that means bondservant. In the New Testament times, it was not uncommon for a freed slave to voluntarily re-enter servitude to a master whom he loved. This servitude was called bondservice. Only a freed slave could be a bondservant and once he had chosen to become one, he could never be freed again. Neither could he be bought or sold, and he served his chosen master until death. When a man chose bondservice, he was taken to the front entrance of the house, and his right ear was laid against the doorpost. A nail was driven through his ear and a golden earring was placed in it. This golden earring was a symbol to all, of the servants choice and of his immunity to being made merchandise. Paul and Peter spoke of themselves as being bondservants to Christ. There is a service whose true name is freedom. (read I Peter 2:15-17; Luke 12:37). taken from Kemper Crabb's, The Vigil