Playing

It's been a while - I've had some new things happen since the last time I posted. My wife and I are now coming into our fourth month of marriage and it's amazing. God has blessed us in so many ways it's very humbling - or at least that's the way I feel when I recognize how he's working in our lives. I was recently let go from my old job at The Woodlands United Methodist Church. They went through some "downsizing" if you will. (the office) It kind of came at a good time for me - The end of August and September have been my two busiest months this year. I was just starting to get to work quite a bit in the Church's studio before they gave me the axe. But, that's life I guess.

Some good things have happened lately as well. I recently played with Sparrow recording artist Robbie Seay at his home church. His band - The "Robbie Seay Band" recently released their second album called "Give Yourself Away". His drummer Dan has recently moved to Dallas. Dan is still a full time member of the band, but Robbie has asked me to start playing at his home church, Ecclessia, on Sunday nights when he is in town. I'm not sure how much I will actually get to play, but either way it has been a great experience and opportunity for me to play with someone like Robbie. If you haven't heard his music - you should go and buy it - he is incredibly talented - a true - artist.


Robbie contacted me about filling in for Dan on their next leg of the tour - Dan caught pneumonia and is going to be out for possibly two weeks. I cleared my schedule and was excited about flying out to catch up with the band this coming tuesday, only to find out that they ended up calling another drummer - who happens to be a friend of mine in the area. I was bummed - but who wouldn't be? That's an experience of a life time - besides - the guy they hired is a killer drummer - his name is Michael Lisenbe.

During the past couple of years - I've gone through some rough periods where I doubted playing music, and I think the only thing that has gotten me through those slow times has been my close friends who have always encouraged me to follow my dream and to be patient.

My wife's sister Kathryn has been dating a musician from Nashville named Jared Johnson. Jared is a great guy to say the least and is also a songwriter under a publishing contract with Craig Wiseman's (Tim MgGraw: Live like you were dying - Everywhere and tons of other hits) company "Big Loud Shirt". Jared is an up and coming writer and is bound to hit the bigtime very very soon. It's been great getting to know Jared - he has some amazing songs and it's only a matter of time for him. I'm also going to be playing with Jared soon in Belton, TX - his home town on November the 3rd.

And last but not least - I've been playing with a band for almost the last two years. The band is called The 71's. Consisting of Micahel Coffman, Ryan Cecil, Jacob Lisenbe and myself - we have been working hard. Recently we were invited to perform and compete in a showcase for Word record label. Word is the christian label owned by Warner Brothers. We traveled to Nashville - picking up a friend to play bass along the way since our bassist Jacob was out playing with matt redmon. We played in nashville but didn't get chosen. Thus is life - eventhough we were way better than all of the other crap bands there.

Anyways - thats whats going on in my world.

Jay