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The semester is almost over! Thank God. It really has been brutal. I sure have learned a ton, though. One of the big things is that I love teaching and don’t love accompanying so much. I’m coming to the realization that I’m more of a concert person and like working one-on-one with people to really establish a connection and produce a great product/concert. So I guess in that sense I love accompanying. But I’m not into the whole mass-accompany-for-everyone bit. I like to perfect things and when I’m accompanying for tons of different people each week plus choirs and teaching full time on top of that, I don’t have the time I really want to practice and perfect things. Anyway, I’m sure that’s not terribly interesting, but I’m learning that about myself.

Lori Dunn and I did a duo piano concert on Sunday at Wesleyan and it went pretty well. It was our first concert together and we threw it together over the course of a couple months. She did an AMAZING job. Perhaps if Andrew is willing, he can post a couple of the pieces we did (the Dello Joio, Copland, and Prokofiev, maybe?). I definitely hope we can do more together soon.

Next week is juries for Wesleyan and then the week after for the TCU kiddos. I’m trying very hard to be encouraging while at the same time trying to instill the fear of God in them…..we’ll see how it turns out:) I have to say again that I truly do love teaching and I love working with the students at both schools very much. They work hard!

Well, I know all I write about is music and work, but that’s truly all I do between the months of August and May (and I still do a bit of teaching for June and July, but not nearly as much as during the school year). I’m very excited about getting a life back in a couple of weeks! I can taste the freedom of my summer schedule and that’s probably not a good thing at this point.

I’m looking forward to seeing Rachael and her baby bump in a few weeks! Also looking forward to spending some time with Helen before she heads off to Morocco (have to learn how to spell that….hmm). Had some nice visits this spring from Dad, Charles, and Helen. Looking forward to Brian and Molly and Simon’s visit this summer!!

Well, I’ve been random enough now. That’s my little update!

Yes, I know. I’ve been neglecting the blog.

Okay. This one is pretty self explanatory. This is a song about a guy who has a mullet and recounts the history of how his hair style became what it is today. I was a little self conscious when I sang and should have turned up the twang to 11.

Favorite lines:

• “So it’s business in the front and a party in the back”
• “Front looks like a man, back looks like a girl”

Enjoy.

As Matt reminded me, I haven’t posted the next Wannabilly in a while. Sorry about that.

All right. Next up is a song I’m calling “Fishin’” (I’m not sure that we ever came up with a name for this one). This one is about a guy heading to his fishing pond/lake and needs to buy a new fishing pole. He runs in to Mable and an argument ensues.

I was just listening to this one and is it just me or does that interlude in the middle sound a lot like some Johny Cash?

Enjoy.

In this song, a man tells the story of finding his “House of Wheels” after going through many other trucks and large vehicles. Though it needs to be said for our Texas friends who may be unfamiliar with the slogans, “Chevy, Like a Rock” and “Built Ford Tough”. These are the slogans for the rest of the country.

Those outside of Texas may not know it, but everything is Texas branded down here. The slogans are rewritten “Chevy, Driving Texas” and “Ford is the Best in Texas” (used to be “Ford and Texas go Hand-in-Hand”… not very manly). And on a side note, Dodge is “Bigger in Texas, Better in a Dodge”. Plus there are larger “Texas Edition” trucks down here to with the Texas flag somehow incorporated in to the manufacturer logo.

Anyway. This is a much slower song that the rest. The harmonies aren’t as good as the others, but still a good song.

Best line: “I may be leaving my place of birth, but I’ve never left home”

Enjoy.

Before I even start this post I have to give a disclaimer:

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental… and kinda sad.

Ok now that that’s out of the way. This is probably my favorite song we did. The chorus is my lyrical contribution in this one. It’s about a persistant woman of unfortunate look and smell who has fallen in love with a man (the singer) who wants nothing to do with her. Its kinda got that “O Brother” feel to the backing vocals.

Enjoy.

KU has a number of fine museums. Many KU students have become very famous art critics due to this fact, including some of our friends. Here is a live critique of a piece of art by one of our friends.

Our next selection from the Wannabilly album is a track entitled “Betty”. I’m not going to give too many details about this one. It’s got a punch line. Matt definitely gets credit for the sound effect near the end. And I have no idea what I was trying to do with that mandolin strum pattern.
Enjoy.

Back at KU, while warming up for a worship event for a church group in KC, we started playing some of the songs country-style just for fun (unfortunately many worship songs lend themselves very well to Country music). That spurred on a challenge to write and record a mock Country album in 24 hours.

Matt and Kevin and I did just that. We reserved a weekend and wrote most of the songs on Saturday. Then finished writing and recorded all of them on Sunday. The ironic part is that it took over a year (I think) to actually mix and master the album. Matt can confirm that. Some songs are more Country than others, and there is at least one song we felt was actually good.

We originally want to call ourselves “Country for a Day”, but I believe it was Jason who gave us the name “Wannabilly”.

So I’ll be posting selected tracks once a week. So sit back and enjoy.

Our first selection will be our train song, I believe we titled it “Don’t Run Me Over”. It’s a Sprechgesang (hat tip to Jessica, I hope I’m using that right) about a bank robbery gone bad. Enjoy.

A few of our friends down here in Texas have asked about our college experience back in Kansas. Well, obviously a midwest education is far superior to any other kind, but we’ve had a little trouble convincing them. So in an effort to show them just how educated we are, here’s a little audio clip a friend of ours made. It demonstrates best, I think, the skills we learned in writing poetry in foreign languages. Enjoy!