free christmas music is BACK!

Hello dearest internet beings, I bring news… some good, some less than good.

The Good:

• All four of my past volumes of “festive.mood.inducing.music” are back and ready for your downloading or streaming consumption now!
• I put together a special Christmas album called “the best-ish of… festive.mood.inducing.music.” This features my favorite 12 songs from all of my Christmas EP’s. The album is a great place to start if you’re new to my Christmas tunes and not sure which EP to get first. You can download it on my site, or at Noisetrade.com
• I got married back on October 15th to the most beautiful and literally most wonderful person I know on earth, Mary. YEAH!

The Bad:

• It’s been a crazy busy year for me personally, so honestly there hasn’t been much time for music. Especially no time to  record 5 new Christmas songs… so I have to break the news that there will not be a new Christmas EP this year.
• I know the lack of a new EP after 5 years of putting one out every year is a bummer, but I am really enjoying being a newlywed and there just aren’t the hours to be stuck in my studio all winter. I wish I could be a good new husband and spend hundreds of hours in the studio at the same time, but I’m pretty sure that is impossible.

The Promising:

• DON’T WORRY, I will be back in years to come… this is just a bit of a “Christmas music sabatical” for me. So enjoy the old tunes and share them with your friends who haven’t heard them before. And stay tuned for new non-Christmas music from me in 2012 too!
• Now don’t quote me on this… but there may be a Christmas single and/or Christmas remix in the works so check back later on in December.

The Part Where I Bribe You With A Wedding Photo In Hopes Of Making Up For Not Releasing A New Christmas EP This Year:

• Ta-da.

Thanks for understanding, I hope you still enjoy the Christmas music and keep hanging around. Peace

new song = the dictionary version

Hello there… I am still alive believe it or not, and have actually even been writing a few new songs.
I performed a brand new song called “The Dictionary Version” a few nights ago at 3rd and Lindsley during a special Music City Unsigned 4th Anniversary show.

It’s always a bit nerve-wracking for me to unveil a new song, especially one like this where I’m still fine-tuning it. However, this show had a great and welcoming crowd so I’m glad they got to hear it first!

Here’s a video clip with a little bit about the story behind the song, and me performing it. Let me know what you think!

free EP download + bonus track

So for the next month or so, I’m going to be giving away my first EP, “A Sudden Change in the Atmosphere” and a special acoustic bonus track.

This album was made back in 2008 in Nashville with up & coming producer, Mike Odmark. It was a really fun record to make, and I still play a few of these songs live.

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so i am an uncle and my song was true!

A quick update…

For those who were following along with my Christmas tunes this year, you probably remember the last song I released, “Nobody Wants to Be Born on Christmas Day” was an original song about my future nephew.

My nephew was due on December 23rd, which was alarmingly close to Christmas day. So I wrote this song from his perspective and how “he hoped” he was born any day other than Christmas! (more details about the song here.)

Well good news…

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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!