f.m.i.m.v.5 song #2 = “hark! the herald angels sing”

Every Monday I will be posting a little write-up about the song released that week from festive.mood.inducing.music.vol.5

This week, song #2 = “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”

I guess I have a thing for Christmas songs about Angels, or perhaps there’s just a lot of songs about Angels? Either way – I was happy to add this gem to this year’s Christmas EP.

When I’m working through potential song ideas every year, I probably play through at least 10-15 songs before I settle on which ones to record. Sometimes, arranging the song can be a major pain and take me many different sessions to figure out a direction. Luckily, “Hark!” was an immediate connection for me.

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f.m.i.m.v.5 song #1 = “deck the halls”

Every Monday I will be posting a little write-up about the song released that week from festive.mood.inducing.music.vol.5

This week, song #1 = “Deck the Halls”

I’ll be honest, this is not my favorite Christmas song ever. Actually, it’s probably near the bottom of the list.

However, for whatever reason, I really wanted to record this song.  (..It sure wasn’t the poll results, because this song came in dead-last. Sorry! Sometimes I just do what I want.)

I was shooting for a way to make the song less annoying. I wanted to make it more mellow, less joyful (yeah, i went there), and mess with the melody a bit.

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all about festive.mood.inducing.music

Over five years ago I decided last minute that I wanted to record some Christmas music and give it away for free on the web. This was a relatively novel concept at the time. So the last five days before Christmas, each day I released a simple acoustic recording of myself performing a Christmas tune.

And there started the tradition of releasing a new volume every year of the “festive.mood.inducing.music” Christmas music EP. Each year’s volume has gotten a little better than the year before (if I do say so myself…), with more involved arrangements and more production.

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write-up on CoverLayDown.com

One of the best blogs focused on Cover songs online, Cover Lay Down, recently posted a little write-up about my upcoming 5th Volume Christmas EP. Over the years, Josh (who runs the blog) has been a really strong advocate of my music and I really appreciate it! Anyway, below you can see the portion of the post about my music.

Meanwhile, with Christmas just around the corner, it’s great news indeed to find our favorite Sufjan-meets-Denison Witmer singer-songwriter Joel Rakes gearing up for another festive.mood.inducing.music holiday coverage sampler. This time, however, he’s looking for our input, letting fans vote to influence his yearly selection. And I’m thrilled to have a chance to advocate for both songwriter and song selection in one fell swoop.

We’ve featured the Philly-bred artist for several years running, thanks to his fun yearly takes on the classic hymns of the season; he’s sure to revisit some oldies this time around, too, but I’m gunning for some stripped-down coverage of more modern songs, like Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmas Time and Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You. Won’t you help this coverblogger’s Christmas dreams come true? Head over to Joel’s blog to vote now, and pick up his newest full-band EP The Philadelphia Sessions, recorded just before his move to Nashville late last year, while you’re there.

(Source: CoverLayDown.com)

vote for the 2010 christmas EP songs

As you may, or may not know, every year for the past four years, I’ve recorded and released a five song Christmas EP entitled “festive.mood.inducing.music.” Over the next few weeks I’m starting to put together Volume 5 and I want your help narrowing down the list of potential songs.

Below you will see a poll with 15 potential song ideas, please select your top 5 and i’ll take the crowd’s vote into consideration for the final track list! Feel free to write your own song ideas in as well.

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1st round winner of battle on 3rd!

I recently competed in the first round of Battle on 3rd last week with my band and beat out three other bands to win our night’s competition! It was a great night, and I had a blast playing music with my bro’s (Ryan on drums, Kyle on guitar, and Hitoshi on Cello). Since we won our night we’ll be heading to the semi-finals on October 18th.

The Battle on 3rd competition is taking place over the next few months, every Monday night at one of my favorite Nashville venues, 3rd and Lindsley. There are a lot of great prizes at stake so here’s to hoping I can continue to progress in the competition.

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music city unsigned

I just wanted to let you know that I was recently added to the roster of one the finest music sites in all of Nashville, Music City Unsigned.

If you haven’t checked out the site before, I highly encourage you to do so. The organization is run by good people who really care about the local Nashville indie music scene, and also have knack for finding good talent (…I may be biased).

MCU is also always putting on great shows as well. I had the pleasure of playing in a MCU hosted show just a few weeks ago at Ugly Mugs in East Nashville with Anthony Snape and Jenny and Tyler.

So yeah, check it out already!

i have new website… again

Hi there… as you can gather, I have a new website… again. Long story.

I’m still working out a few bugs here and there, but feel free to take a look around… enjoy!