This past week, we stepped outside of our normal routine of rehearsing new material and we recorded a live video for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. It’s the first time we’ve entered this contest or anything like it.

I forgot all about it and we almost missed the deadline. If it wasn’t for our friends, Wailing Loons, posting an entry video, we would have.  So last Thursday, I asked if anyone in the band had a ‘tiny’ desk and Shane came through.  The desk is a big deal.  I was planning on shooting the video on a GoPro, but I couldn’t find the cord to charge the darn thing.  So it started to look like we’d have a classy cellphone video.  Turned out Corey had the cord I needed and we shot the video with the GoPro after all.  I set up the camera on a tripod and we crowded behind our desk.  We took four takes and used the live audio from the GoPro.  If we would have planned ahead a little better and known the contest was creeping up on us, we could have used a mixed Tascam track for the audio.   It also would have been nice to see Corey in the video and maybe even have Liz a little more front and center.  But hey, we entered a contest.

The song we entered into NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest is called, “1,2,3,4” and will be on the album we are in the process of hashing out. The video is of the third take.  Take a moment and check it out. Thanks, friends.

“You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.”     – Epictetus

Hey everybody, Happy St. Patrick’s Day and happy first day of spring. It may not have felt like spring today and I heard a local weather forecaster say something about a “snizzle” on the first day of “sprinter,” but I’m hardly deterred.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, check out the Unicorn Song by the Irish Rovers.

This past Saturday, Beau and I started tracking “official” demos for our next recording. The afternoon wasn’t without an initial setback when my acoustic guitar pickup wasn’t working.  It forced me to use my electric to record the tracks.  So we laid down a click track, rhythm guitar, scratch vocals and a drum track for “After the Last Parade” and “I Never Got to Say Goodbye.”  I’ll have to come back and record acoustic on the tracks and in the next couple weeks we’ll get Shane to lay down bass, Dave to lay down electric guitar, Corey to lay down keyboards and, last but definitely not least, we’ll get Liz to sing her vocal parts.  Then we’ll repeat the process on ten more songs.

In other Bunker news, the Ten Year Bunker Reunion show is coming up quickly. I’ll be making a facebook event soon and I can’t wait to see all of you and share a decade worth of Bunker stories.

It was great to meet up with my friend Mark at the Bunker last night, but man, did I stay out too late and pay for it today.  Stay tuned for a collaboration.

“Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us.  Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy it will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.”     – Henri Nouwen

I started a new job two weeks ago. I’m in a shop at a place that installs windows into storefronts.  I have to remember to wear my gloves or I’ll cut my hands up.  I got a nice blood blister today…from a measuring tape.  Last week, my second week, I drove into work as the sun was rising.  There were some pretty great blues and oranges in the sky.  This week, it’s been dark when I walk into the shop.  I’m trying really hard not to be completely exhausted at the end of a shift.  Eventually I’ll get used to it.  Right?

The new job has rearranged my schedule.  I’m trying to use my time more wisely. I go to bed much earlier.  Wow!  When we meet up at the Bunker to work on new King Fish Crow material, we’re doing the work I really want to be doing, work I can pour myself into.

For the last couple weeks, we’ve been continuing to plug away at new tracks. We’re moving towards official demos of songs projected to be on our next album.  It’s a process and the songs progress at their own rates.  We’re in a spot that we cannot rush.

This past Thursday was the last rehearsal that we all arrived at the Bunker in the dark.  I can almost smell the spring.  But this isn’t my first March.

“Just follow your dreams and be patient.”     – Angelique Kerber

A year ago this past Sunday, King Fish Crow bundled up and shot a music video for our song Sweet Desperation at Lake Nokomis.   We had hoped for snow, even expected it.  It was February in Minnesota after all.  But on that February 25^th, we were bestowed with only the cold.  If we would have shot the video this year, on the same day, we would have been trudging through ten plus inches of snow.  Alas, to know that we cannot control everything and trudging has many connotations.

Check out the video we made last year for Sweet Desperation. It’s an anniversary!

Here’s to making it through another winter. Here’s to spring.  I’m definitely looking forward to t-shirt weather.

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do.  I stare out the window and wait for spring.”     – Rogers Hornsby