Kenny came to Nashville about two weeks ago and we had ourselves a concentrated Blue Sky Rider experience that damn near exhausted us. We had a simple, modest agenda. Kenny was going to sing on the CMAs, we were going to play the Bluebird, have a rehearsal for and then play a benefit at the Ryman, sing all the vocals for the five songs we recorded in California back in August, write two more songs, find a cure for at least two chronic diseases and one “24 hour” disease, paint our house and neuter the dog.

A lot of people would look at that list and see pressure. We looked at it and saw opportunity. Opportunity to have minor strokes and/or drop completely dead from dehydration. Nevertheless we put on our big boy pants (Georgia looks fantastic in big boy pants, by the way), rolled up our sleeves (a lot of clothing references…sorry) and got to it.

The Ryman show was incredible. Despite having a great bill of performers they let us close the show. We sang four songs with the house band. We lucked out in that the band was all friends we play with often and they sounded fantastic. All of them played the bass, which I thought was a bold but odd choice for the Musical Director to make and it made the sound a little “bottom heavy” but I thought we pulled the songs off nonetheless. In this blog so far I have used the word Nonetheless and Nevertheless. I would appreciate extra credit.

The CMA’s… well Kenny remembered how the song goes so that was one of them. He looked great and the crowd seemed to embrace him as an old friend with the exception of several actual old friends that embraced him as if they had never met him before. Strange. We wanted to go to the show but tickets were $325,000 apiece so we watched the show from John Rich’s house. John has a stage in his house where a bed was set up and two Victoria Secret models were having a pillow fight in their underwear. Or as John likes to call it…Tuesday.

Three days before Kenny was scheduled to go home we realized that we had not written any new songs or sung all the vocals. We were hoping to do them in our studio here at the house because, much like Victoria Secret models, I also like to work in my underwear. As time was running out we decided to take a drastic step. We would find a studio and all sing the songs at the same time on three different mics watching each other’s lips just like at a gig. We weren’t sure it would work because I have trouble singing live with Kenny because if I get lost in those eyes it is ALL over. But I stared mostly at Georgia and I did all right. The vocals came out great although one song had me singing so high that I heard something pop in my pants. I thought it was my waist button but it turned out to be a small hernia turning into a large hernia.

Two days left and no new songs. We turned off the cell phones, brought the dog to the shelter, ordered in Italian and went to work. I am by nature a modest man… dare I say I might indeed be the most modest man this universe has ever seen… but we wrote two songs and they kick ass!!! The first one is called “I Like Spaghetti” and the second one is called “They Forgot The Garlic Bread.” Both uptempo. I know you are gonna love them.

I kid. We wrote two new songs that in one form or another will be up on the website soon so you can see what a little clock ticking did for our creative juices.

So that was our adventure. By the end we had bonded as a band even stronger than when we started. The next time we get together will surely be easier than this stretch was. We now have all the songs we need for the CD. What WILL we do with ourselves between now and our next trip to the studio. I may take up macramé. Macrame is French for heroin, isn’t it?