Coming Up

September is shaping up to be the busiest musical month since moving to Nashville. I'm very excited to be hosting two Tuesdays in September at the 5 Spot. Local songwriter, and friend, Derek Hoke started a weekly series at the 5 Spot called "$2 Tuesdays", where he brings together 3 or 4 bands to play short sets, introduces them to the crowd sometimes collaborating with the bands, and then plays a short set of his own. It's a big undertaking to book a new show every week, trying to keep the bills exclusively "Nashville", so he's handed over a couple weeks to me. At this point, it looks like I'll be hosting every other week, alternating with Derek.

In addition to the 5 Spot hosting, on Sept 1st we're playing a show at FooBAR.too which is put on by Blood on the Bluegrass, featuring Hoots & Hellmouth (from Philadelphia), Barnstormers (Alabama), and local Nashvillians Wess Floyd & the Daisycutters.


In late September, my whole family (mom, dad, brother, and sister) are coming out to Nashville for the first time! My brother, Brandon, was with me the first time I came out here in June of 2008 for a Southern tour with the Traveling Mercies, but no one else in the family has ever been here before. I'm looking forward to showing them around a bit, and hopefully squeezing in a day or two in Memphis.

They should be here in time to see me playing at Douglas Corner on Sept 22nd, with Derek Hoke and the Clones sharing the bill.


Finally, in recording news. On Saturday I layed down vocals for When You Found Me, So Hard to Make an Easy Getaway, and Southern Pines. Being that I had already recorded I Know I Should Know Better (since I did the guitar and vocals live), that leaves only What is this Love? left. Starting with When You Found Me might have been a bad idea, as I sing that song very gravely, and it left my voice a little raw for the others - but I trust that Nathan Thomas can either make something good out of it, or that he'll be honest and tell me I need to re-record them. Hopefully, we can find some time in the next week to get What is this Love? finished then we can start mixing. When we first started these sessions, our goal was merely to have polished demos to pass off to labels, producers, managers, etc... but with how everything is turning out, it's gonna be a real challenge to not release this stuff in some form. I'm looking into various ways of getting this music out there, whether its in video form, vinyl, or a limited-time download. Let me know if you have any ideas, OK?

Until next time, stay classy.

A Brief Intermission

It's been a while since I've written on here. And not for a lack of things to talk about. There's been a lot going on. Let me give you some of the highlights of the last month or so.

Nathan Thomas, my bassist and main go-to-guy, and I have started pre-production on what will eventually turn into the next album. Since moving to Nashville (and a little before) I started demoing ideas on GarageBand. From simple acoustic sketches, to full-blown homemade productions, I've gathered around 20 songs now. Nathan and I have choosen 5 to focus our attention on.

* So Hard to Find an Easy Getaway - the oldest song of the bunch. I originally wrote this song in the Spring of 2008 while visiting my cousin David in Texas. We briefly played it during the last days of the Traveling Mercies. It didn't seem to fit the mood of "Shouting At A Silent Sky", but I kept the song around. Recently, I've revised the lyrics a bit, and we've brought it back into the last few shows. The song has a Chuck Berry style narrative about a troubled flight from Seattle to Texas, and has a Stones-eque loose rock feel. "Well, Austin might as well have been Boston / San Marcos might as well have been Spain / I left the clouds hoping for sunshine / but the dust bowl was flooded with rain / Yeah, the world is so strange it's so hard to make an easy getaway."

* Southern Pines - I started writing this song in the Fall of 2009, and it's gone thru quite an metamorphosis over the last few months. There's a time-change on the chorus, which I kept going back and forth on, but I think it'll be an interesting record when it's done. Like, "Easy Getaway", this song has a storyline narrative, but there are more layers to the lyrics. I originally wrote it as a sort of jazzy tin pan alley tune, then it became more like an Irish Folk song, and now it's going more riff rock. So we'll see where this one ends up. "You took me in under your spell / You clipped my wings and I could tell / Your ivory tower was now my prison cell / I plead my case and I rebelled / Your love letters were all misspelled / And I escaped without a word of farewell."

* What is this Love? - This song burst forth over the Summer of '09, and I've hardly changed a thing since. It's got an almost Latin groove to it, and it feels really fresh to me. Songs about love can be the most challenging since there have been so many great songs (and plenty of crappy ones) written about the subject over the years, but this one comes at it from a unique angle. It's more about the mystery of love, with contrasting sensual and spiritual themes. "What is this love that is spreading / What is this love like a virus / My heart pumps it to my brain and I keep waking up everyday / Just when I think I've had enough / What is this love?"

* When You Found Me - This was the first song I wrote as I settled into Nashville. Again, it's always nice when a love song presents itself and it's not a complete throwaway. The song revolves around a repeating blues riff, with a hypnotic groove, during the bridge it switches between minor and major in a way that hopefully wakes the listener from their trance. instead of focusing on how great life is with this new lover, it focuses more on how bad life was before. "When you found me I didn't believe in love / I'd been burned and I'd been bluffed / Wasn't a woman I could trust / I was blind I could not see / When you found me."

* I Know I Should Know Better - It's ironic that this is the title of the first song I'm re-recording. I originally wrote and recorded the song for the Mercies' first album back in 2007. But over the last couple years, I've felt like I could re-approach this song and breathe new life into it. It's always been an important song to me, and where we are taking it now should be a whole new experience for the listener.

So these are the first batch of songs Nathan and I will be focusing on once he gets back from his Honeymoon.

Honeymoon? On Saturday, June 26th, Nathan married his long-time sweetheart Leslie at a beautiful ceremony in Dickson, TN. They are now off to Mexico for the week. And the rest of the band has been busy as well - over the last month Aaron Tosti has been sharing his drum talents with Run Kid Run, The Almost, and will soon be on the road as a drum-tech for Underoath. Eric Newcomer has been on the road playing bass with House of Heroes, and our most recent addition to the band, the amazingly telented keyboardist Travis Terrell has been driving a bus for Peter Frampton. Yes, Peter Frampton!

So all that to say, progress is gonna be a little slower than I'd like, but hopefully we can find a day or two when each of these great players can add their magic to these tracks. The goal from there is to get these pre-production demos into the hands of people that might be able to take the project to the NEXT level. Whether it's a producer, a label, or whatever - we should have some good tracks to pass around.

So what have I been doing with my downtime? Well, I'm still working three days a week at the best honky tonk on Lower Broadway - Robert's Western World. And lately I've re-discovered my love of painting. I've started a series of "Heroes", and I've almost completed my first two - Hank Williams and Elvis Presley. For Nathan's wedding gift I painted him a portrait of Prince (who is his favorite artist).

As always there is more to talk about, but I've said enough already.

But you'll be hearing from me soon, I promise.

Basement Tapes

Everything seemed to fall into place at last Monday's Basement performance. No longer does this feel like "Shane with his Nashville pick-up band" - we ARE a band. After the show a few people asked me if we all moved out here from Seattle, assuming we'd played together for years. Aaron Tosti, Nathan Thomas and latest addition, Eric Newcomer have really taken these songs to new places. They are not doing note-for-note recreations of the recordings, I wouldn't want them to anyways, they are making these songs their own - and we're forging a new sound.

Super-fan, Meagan Mays captured the energy and electricity of the night with these video clips...


"So Hard to Make an Easy Getaway", which I've been kicking around for a couple years, made it's full band debut, and it's fast becoming the "feel good" pinnacle of the set.


After our impromptu cover of The Beatles' White Album rocker at last month's 64-Ten show - we've refined it and now it's one of our favorites to play.


"Ain't No Grave" is one of those songs that relies almost completely on the groove, and Aaron (drums) and Nathan (bass) reached a new level with this performance. It's also liberating to have Eric (guitar) filling in some licks so I can focus on my preacher-man delivery. I can't wait to get this band together again.

Next up... May 26th at the Family Wash...

Everyone Knows Nobody Knows...

Recapitated

Last night was a break-through. Not that our first weekend show in Nashville was an overwhelming success. Given the last-minuteness of the show, and GhostFinger cancelling, there was not a large turn-out, but it might have been my favorite show so far. Having a stripped-down power trio last night - with Nathan Thomas on bass, and Aaron Tosti on drums - I felt more free to crank up the guitar and get a bit rowdy. At rehearsal before the show, Tosti reminded me of how wild those Traveling Mercies shows were back in the Spring of '08 when I first came to Nashville. It spurned me on to get a little sweatier. While my songs are my pride and joy, I feel a renewed commitment to putting on a real show.

It was also great getting a chance to talk with local songwriter Derek Hoke. After Jacob Jones finished his set (which was great, by the way), Derek and I chatted til the bar closed. We've already made plans to get together soon to write a tune together. How Nashville!




Although we didn't get any video last night, you can really feel the energy in these photos Meagan took.

After we played, I snapped a few photos. Here's Jacob Jones soaking in the spotlight, and we have Aaron Tosti and Nathan Thomas looking at something really cool on Nathan's phone.




I'm gonna try to make this blog more than just show reviews in the future, but I've been lucky enough to be pretty busy lately. I promise to make more quality time with you, girl.

Home Away from Home

Tuesday was the best show I've had in Nashville thus far. We played to the fullest room yet, and the band sounded great. It was the first show with Ethan as utility man, switching between guitar, baritone guitar and lap steel. Here's a few clips from the night. My buddy Lonnie from Seattle was in town for a business trip and made it out, so it was great to play for someone from back home.


"Across the River" from I'm Gonna Live The Life I Sing About In My Song


"Idle Hands" from Shouting At A Silent Sky


"Ain't No Grave" from Hey Lazarus!

So it turns out the 5 Spot is my latest "home away from home." After playing our second show at the 5 spot in less than a month, l was pleasantly surprised to find an email waiting for me at home asking us to play the 5 Spot again this Friday (tomorrow)! We are opening up for Jacob Jones (who really impressed me when I saw him at Dino's a couple weeks ago) and GhostFinger. It's a sort of "East Nashville Neighborhood Party" so it's great to be included, and with our first Friday night show, it should help establish us a bit more around town.

Joey Sanchez won't be able to do this last minute gig, but we are lucky enough to be joined by our good friend Aaron Tosti on drums. Aaron, or as he's more frequently known as Skwid, played my first show in Nashville with me back in June 2008 before my brother joined me for our Traveling Mercies southern tour. Looking forward to playing with him again. I'll let you know how it goes (or if you're in town, join us)!

My Life In Pictures

Just before leaving Seattle, I got a new cell phone. It's no iPhone or anything, but it takes color photos! Here's a few highlights from the last couple weeks...


As we were setting up on stage at the 5 Spot, a couple weeks ago, I took a pic of everyone in the band. Here's Nathan's letting out some steam before the show.


And here's the famous Joey, who played drums with me during the Suburbiac and New Old Friends days of Dolour. He moved to Nashville three years ago, and was my only friend out here the first time I came, almost two years ago now.


Here's Josiah. Although he is a new friend, we have a bit of back-story. Around the time I was working with Aaron Sprinkle on Suburbiac (2001-2002), Josiah was simultaneously working with Sprinkle on the first Holland album. We met briefly in the studio at the time. I can almost picture the LOST-style flashback.


I took this photo of Stephen Sebastian and Co at his acoustic show last week at Ugly Mugs. If you look closely at this low-res phone capture you will notice that the-hardest-working-man-in-Nashville, Nathan Thomas, is on the upright bass.


I've had a lot of quality time with Boris since Meagan started her new job. Yesterday afternoon I tried to get a good pic of us on our front lawn during this recent sunshine. I couldn't hold the phone and get Boris to pose, so I ended up with this. But you can see the cool veiny trees from our front yard.


Yesterday Meagan's manager sent steaks home with everyone, and he gave her an extra one for me! Life is good.


On our third day of consecutive sunshine, Meagan had the day off so we took Boris on a big long walk. He's still recouping from more exersize than he's had in months, but I captured this moment as he took one of his many breaks this afternoon.

Hope you enjoyed this photo journey of my last couple weeks. As ever, there is more coming soon...

About Last Night (at The 5 Spot)

Despite the fact that we were the only band scheduled last night (due to an emailing mix up) we had a great crowd (quality not necessarily quantity) and a full night of music. Our friend Stephen Sebastian was there and so we had him play a few songs to get the night rolling. I love his voice, and he's one of the rare performers who doesn't need a band behind him to get people tapping their toes and feeling the groove. After his short and sweet set, we took the stage. Our band has expanded since the Family Wash show, we now have Josiah Holland playing keys with us. He's most recently been seen playing bass with The Lonely Hearts and keys with his brother Will Morgan Holland. At our first show, last week at the Family Wash we introduced ourselves as Shane Tutmarc & the Oceanic 2 (since it was the night of the big LOST final season premiere) but last night we were Shane Tutmarc & The Enablers. I kinda like the sound of that, might use that one again. Here's a photo Meagan got on her phone's camera:



Our friend, local photograher, Emjae was also on hand to capture the night. Here's her gallery.

We played a 10 song set, pulling songs mainly from Hey Lazarus! and Shouting At A Silent Sky. After laying off of the Mercies stuff in Seattle for the last year, its been fun pulling out those songs again. There is a freshness to them that is undiminished. Here's the set-list (with a couple random video links):

1 Fair Warning
2 Honey I Choose You
3 Idle Hands
4 Across the River
5 Next Best Thing
6 Never Turnin' Back
7 Lost Myself Again
8 Mortality Blues
9 Death & Texas
10 Ain't No Grave

Next up, I have another solo gig at Drifters on the 18th. We'll keep ya posted with more going on here as we get settled in Music City!

The BIG Catch-up

Alright, the day finally arrived. Internet at home!

So let me catch you up on some of the highlights of the week.

First of all here's our house...



Loving our house. I recently wrote a song called "Double Paned Windows", somewhat inspired by our Home Sweet Home.

So Tuesday was the big day of the week. Our internet guy came and set us up, then we headed out to the Municipal Auditorium to be extra's in the Gwyneth Paltrow/Tim McGraw movie, Love Don't Let Me Down. Not nearly enough people were there to fill out the seats, so they put dummys in most of the seats. But Meagan and I were on the ground floor only 15 feet (or less) from the stage, so there is a good chance we'll be seen as Gwyneth is strutting down the catwalk of the stage singing the movies closing song. It was so much fun I almost hated to leave, but I had a rock show to play!

That night, instead of huddling around my TV or computer watching the season premier of LOST, I was playing my first show as a local with a full band. It was at The Family Wash for their "short sets" night. We played 6 songs, had a great time, and got a good reaction from our friends, the club and its patrons. I had Joey Sanchez and Nathan Thomas backing me up, so what could go wrong?

Here's the setlist (w/ live & studio clips from various sources):

1. Lost Myself Again
2. Honey I Choose You
3. Idle Hands
4. Across the River
5. Death & Texas
6. Ain't No Grave

Meagan filmed most of the show, and once we figure out how to get the video and sound synced up on iMovie, we will post a clip. But for now here's a picture that Joey's wife Brynn took.



Next Tuesday (will I ever get to see LOST when it's new) Joey, Nathan, and I will be joined by Josiah Holland on keys to round out the band's sound when we play The 5 Spot. We will be playing a full set, so be prepared for more video clip threats, and rock shots by the wives and girlfriends :)

The Family Wash

Getting internet installed next Tuesday.

AND... that night I have my 2nd show in town, and my first with a full band!

Nathan Thomas (who played with me on my first trip out to Nashville in Spring '08) on bass.

Joey Sanchez (who played drums with me in Dolour, until he moved to Nashville and became my lone connection to the town) on drums.

We are playing "Short Sets" on Tuesday, February 2nd at The Family Wash 8:30pm.

Got some more gigs in the works. I'll keep ya posted.

XO