It’s been a challenging week for me from a creative standpoint.

I’ve got a deadline for a magazine piece due today that I’ve been trying to work on, but I came down with a nasty cold on Tuesday that I’m only now starting to shake. Plus I’ve been trying to keep up with the blog and keep things moving with the Fresh Squeezed Podcast. Not complaining, just…um…venting. Yeah, venting.

Anyway, I need to finish up this magazine piece (I’ll tell you about it once it’s officially accepted), so here’s some quick headlines for your Friday reading pleasure.

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Totally forgot this video existed until yesterday.

It’s from 2006, and it’s me playing a rather uninspired cowbell on stage with my favorite band of all time, Caedmon’s Call.

(I make an appearance at the :07 and the 1:07 mark wearing my red sox sweatshirt)

It was always a dream of mine to play on stage with Caedmon’s, still makes me smile to watch it.

Got me thinking, if you could play cowbell on stage with any band in the world, who would it be?

Bonus points if your answer rhymes with Pickleback.

Here’s a video with 3 firsts for me.

1. First time I’ve ever seen a friend eat goat brains.
2. First time I’ve ever received a shout-out from a member of one of my favorite bands while in India.
3. First time I’ve ever been glad I wasn’t eating with Cliff.

Like I told Cliff the other day, I would have had his back and ate the brains with him had I been there. (but yeah, kinda glad I wasn’t.)

btw, the shout out was a reference to my trip to Ecuador with Caedmon’s Call.

Was listening to some Caedmon’s Call last night while cutting the grass and got the thought that maybe somebody reading this blog needed to hear this song today. Don’t think I’d call it a divine premonition or anything…maybe just a hunch.

The first video is the album recording of the song with lyrics and some background images that someone put together.

The second video is one that I shot of the band performing the song live at the Rivers Ranch in Texas when I was traveling with Caedmon’s during the release week of Overdressed 2 years ago. (Jon and Sherri Rivers host a morning show that can be heard on KLove I believe.)

(by the way, that smirk on Derek’s face at the beginning of the following video is because Cliff couldn’t remember the words so he was reading them off the computer. oh and check out the cameo from Erica, Kylie, and Parker on my computer screen.)

Hope the song and the truth behind it gives you hope where you’re at today.

In the past 10 years I’ve done some pretty cool things with Caedmon’s Call.

In April 2004 I went along on a trip to Ecuador.

In August 2007 I spent 4 days in Texas with the band for the release of Overdressed (btw, I liveblogged the whole thing at Caedmonscall.net. Click here and you can read all 50 entries in reverse chronological order.)

in fact, here’s one of my favorite videos from the Overdressed Release Week trip, from the Rivers Ranch in North Texas:

People sometimes ask me how it ended up that I was afforded these opportunities. I always tell them I was the right fan to come along with the right ideas at the right time. And I had some good help from Megan, Nicole, Geof, and a bunch of other folks as well.

Of course, it also helped that I was a psycho fanboy of the band for quite awhile. In fact, I was going through an old cigar box recently and found a bunch of CC ticket stubs from the past decade.

Six ticket stubs in six different states. I’ve probably seen them in concert 25-30 times in 6 or 7 different states. So if you’d like to travel with your favorite band and get to know them better, my first piece of advice is to start stalking them. At some point, they won’t be able to ignore you any more.

Which got me thinking, what band/musician have you seen live more than any other? Are they you’re favorite, or just the one you’ve seen the most?