I just arrived back home to my parent’s house for Christmas after a whirlwind December. The last time I wrote on here, it was Thanksgiving and I was about to leave NYC for Baton Rouge to kick off the Ten out of Tenn Christmas Tour (with Erin McCarley, Trent Dabbs, Matthew Perryman Jones, Tyler James, Butterfly Boucher, Katie Herzig, Andy Davis, K.S. Rhoads, and Jeremy Lister). About 3 weeks and 7,000 miles later, I’m sitting in a lounge chair – watching the ‘George Lopez Show’ on TBS and wondering what just happened to me. This tour was magical and easily one of the best times in my life thus far. I will always look back on it with fond memories and with a warm place in my heart. After looking back at all my footage, I realized that maybe I should have blogged here and there along the way, because to try to recap and tell it all now would be a disaster in text form. Instead, I think I will just post my top 3 favorite moments of tour and then a bunch of random tour photos after that…Ok, here we go:

3. SEATTLE, WA – Erin McCarley and I were having a nice little afternoon in Seattle when we decided to have a quick lunch at a local noodle shop. As I was returning from the men’s room, I caught eyes with the guy behind me and was shocked to see it was my childhood icon, Dave Matthews (Or ‘David’ as he introduced himself to me a few minutes later) of the Dave Matthews Band. Erin eventually wandered over to chat with him about a mutual acquaintance they shared and so I tagged along for the story. Besides my legs and stomach being jello for those 5 minutes, it was pretty great meeting Mr. Matthews. He was extremely nice and recommended a few delicious menu items, which I enjoyed soon afterward. Despite the rainy weather, it was a really great day. oh, and the show that night ended up selling out!

2. LOS ANGELES, CA – Our 4th date of the tour was a stop at the world famous ‘Troubadour’ in L.A. Besides the weather and mexican food, I don’t typically care for southern California that much, but this night was certainly the exception. Playing that sold out show was an amazing experience and afterward we all when out on the town with some of the Hotel Cafe fellas. East met West in a very good way that night.

1. EL PASO, TX – We didn’t even play a show here, haha – we just had the day off but it ended up being one of my favorite days of the tour. We all went out for a movie and then dinner/margaritas afterward, before coming back to our hotel room and finding ways to amuse ourselves via youtube and Tyler’s webcam. Somehow, K.S. got the idea to put on one of Erin’s bikini tops and film himself singing her single ‘Love, save the empty’, karaoke style into the little laptop camera while we all watched with great joy. This was hands down my favorite moment of the tour – or at least when I laughed so hard, i fell off the bed.

Here are some other random, but great, memories…

i’m sitting in a small brooklyn apartment, waiting for my girlfriend to finish studying her knife skills (she just started culinary school here in nyc) so we can catch up on ‘top chef’ and ‘mad men’ – so, i thought i’d write a little bit; chronicling the past few weeks since i wrote last…

last weekend i was excited to be asked to come up to my hometown of chicago to open a show for one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Greg Laswell. sam and i drove up the day of and played at one my new favorite venues, SPACE in evanston, IL. the show went really well and then greg invited us to help him out with some recording for his new record the next day. of course we accepted and spent the following afternoon tracking guitars, vocals, etc for some acoustic b-sides due out this spring. one of my favorite weekends of 2009, by far.

the next day, we headed back to nashville so that i could meet up the rest of the Ten out of Tenn gang for christmas tour rehearsals. we had 2 really solid days of practice and it made me really excited to hit the road with this group next week. i’m the new guy this time and the youngest as well, so i am very much looking forward to learning a lot from every one and am extremely flattered to have been offered the spot. please check out www.10outoftenn.com and come out to one of the shows if you can!!

2 days later my roomates, lorien, and i gathered twenty of our closest friends and held a nashville ‘friendsgiving’ a good week before the actual holiday. i guess i just love thanksgiving and literally jump at the opportunity to stuff a turkey any time of the year. so, i got on foodnetwork.com and found the best looking recipe to tackle and went to work. 3 days and 23 lbs of turkey later, we had a feast for the ages. i am fairly certain that when i return home from tour next month there will most likely still be left overs in the fridge…

the next morning – sam, eleonore, and i drove back up to chicago for another gig at uncommon ground. it was a free show in a small room so it filled to capacity very quicky and i felt terrible that there were many people who were unable to attend. but it was a very fun show, featuring very stripped down (and even a few acapella) versions of our songs. thank you to all who came.

i shared a 2nd pre-thanksgiving w/ my family and friends the next evening, caught a bears/eagles game on sunday and then arrived safely in new york city this afternoon – where i currently am. i plan to literally do nothing this week but spend time w/ loved ones and eat more turkey than 3 people should. happy holidays to you all and i hope you’re safe, well fed, and always reminded of why we celebrate such days – ab

I’m sitting on my couch watching sportscenter on this beautiful wednesday afternoon – reflecting on my trip out west/east last week. San Fran was wonderful; Portland was brief and rainy, but successful and a lot of fun. I found a great little thai restaurant (i’m blanking on the name right now) and then snuck into some sort of awards banquet and watched a terrible beatles cover band while I ate free mini quesadillas. The next morning I left at 5am for Boston. I was supposed to perform at Bentley College, opening for a well known and incredible musician from Nashville (I’m probably not supposed to say who it was) however, the show was cancelled at the last moment. Perfect. The good news was I was still able to play a show at the school by myself in the student union for a bunch of kids and it went very well. Not exactly the 2,000 seat auditorium I was expecting, but hey, I got a free buffalo chicken panini out of it, so…

I hung out the rest of the weekend with my manager and his two brothers, as well as my girlfriend, her roommate, and her british boyfriend. We stayed in a friend of a friend’s home – complete with an original andy warhol painting in the hallway and a heated pool in the backyard. It was amazing to say the least…

I left on sunday evening to return home to Nashville for a few days and was pleasantly surprised to run into Food Network Star, Paula Deen, on my layover in Washington D.C. She was walking out of the bathroom when I approached her for a photo so she was probably completely freaked out and caught off guard when i threw my arm around her and smiled, ha.

We leave in the morning for a little Chicago trip – playing with Greg Laswell tomorrow night and then coming back sunday for Ten out of Tenn rehearsals; we leave in 2 weeks for the west coast Christmas tour!!

til next time.

ab

So, tomorrow I’m supposed to be in Portland to take part in this giant college showcase conference called NACA. Basically, i get up in front of 700-1000 kids from various universities in the region and perform for 15 minutes and hope to book a bunch of shows for next year, etc…it’s actually kind of a funny process – there are literally hundreds of people like me there hoping to accomplish the same thing; you stand on this giant stage with these 2 spot lights practically blinding you while you sing, and the only thing you can see is this giant red blinking clock counting down from your 15 minute allotted time. I’m not sure what happens if you go over – probably a big cane or something comes out and yanks ya right off the stage…hm, maybe ill try to go over and see what happens…more on that later…

Since, I was heading out west, my manager thought it might be a good idea to stop in San Francisco for a few days – play a few shows, take a few meetings, etc…so i got in yesterday afternoon, lugging 2 suitcases (my booking agent sent me across county lugging a 50lb suitcase for them – i swear there’s a very small person in this bag, its ridiculously heavy) and my guitar to the train taking me into the city. I met up with some friends and we had dinner at a new little mexican restaurant before running over to do my set at ‘Hotel Utah’ w/ Rachael Cantu. The show went really well (minus the 2 min sudden power outage while i was in the middle of some marginally witty mid show banter) – thank you to all who came and listened!

Today I dragged my host, Claire, to take me see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, etc. You know, cheesy touristy type stuff. I loved it.

Soon after these photos were taken, I swung by Fisherman’s Wharf – grabbed a crab cake, a cup of clam chowder, and watched a strange polish man berate a group of foreign tourists for not tipping the street musician singing elton john covers. Good day for certain.

I’m typing this as I am about to run out the door to play my 2nd show in as many nights in San Fran, at the Delores Park Cafe. I fly out to Portland in the morning….hopefully more then…

ab

Happy Halloween everybody! I’m sitting here on Nashville, TN – watching the Yankees beat up on the phillies and making some sausage jambalaya on my stovetop (it’s from a box; don’t get too excited).

Well, welcome to my new blog/official website! My new record is coming very soon and so we wanted to create a new fancy website to get everybody excited…so, are you excited?? Good. Me too. Just about 1 year ago I came to Nashville and started work on this record and we are all very proud of the album that was ultimately created. To start things off we’ve posted a few new songs on my myspace and in the coming months, expect more new songs to be released, many more videos and blogs, and a Christmas tour with ‘Ten out of Tenn’ (10outoftenn.com)! Thanks so much for listening and I really hope I’ll be seeing you real soon!

-ab

ps – check out these pics of my halloween costume this year…i’m the evil alter ego of my buddy Trent Dabbs – Trent Stabbs!!