My wife is sofa king awesome. Rinse, wash, repeat…ad nauseam.

Explanation.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a little drum machine program I’ve been playing around with. I put together a loop that I think is kinda cool. Here’s a clip if you’re interested.

Dino sent me this picture of his son Marco last night. That kid is so cute I want to eat his head. If he’s anything like his dad he’ll be losing sleep over which hi-hats to use in no time.

Well I guess the word is out. Our bass player Steve has left the band. That is why the blog has been so quiet for the last week. This is an extremely unfortunate and unexpected event. Steve is one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever known. It was an honor to play in a band with him for the seven years that I did. His skill and creativity will be sorely missed.

Happy Birthday Riley!

Today is my son’s 3rd birthday. It seems like only yesterday he was…I’ll spare you the rest.

I launched my own website today. I can now also be found at www.drewjohnsononline.com. The reason I did this is because of my enormous ego and the fact that one website with me on it just doesn’t seem to be enough. The world needs more me and I intend to deliver just that. Actually, I just need a place to promote the solo acoustic shows that I’m going to be doing a lot more of in the near future. It is an effort to take money from your pocket and put it in mine. No, I’m not going solo. No, this is not my first step out the door. No, I’m not quitting the band. No, you haven’t heard the versions of the two songs that are there now. Yes, the site is simple and boring. No, I don’t intend to do anything about it.

At practice today we worked on a song called The Admiration Day Parade. We’ve had this song in our catalog for quite a long time. It’s one of those songs that has always sounded a lot better in my head than it does out loud. We’ve played it live a few times and it just kinda sucked. I could see the crowd’s eyes glaze over by half way through the first verse. But today we had some kind of breakthrough. It seems like it’s finally starting to kick the ass it was intended to kick. We think it sounds like an album closer where before it sounded like an album reject.

If all goes according to plan, we’ll start recording the new album next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

Yesterday I had to take my son Riley to the doctor. He had tubes put in his ears a couple of weeks ago so this was just a follow up appointment. While we were in the waiting room I saw my buddy Joe’s mom. I hadn’t seen her in years so I wasn’t sure that she would recognize me. She did. She came over and said hi and asked how I had been. She had never seen Riley so I introduced them. “Riley, this is Jo Ann. Can you say hi”? In classic two-year-old fashion, his first words to her were “I gotta crap. I gotta crap I gotta crap”. Strangely enough, as soon as he said that, I actually crapped. Everyone in the waiting room (who were until then incredibly silent) seemed to get a kick out of his honesty.

Happy fifth of July. I sat down today to learn Billy Joel’s “Allentown”. It’s one of my all-time favorite songs. It’s just about as close as you can get to pop songwriting perfection. The lyrics are especially meaningful to me too since I grew up (and still live) in Illinois’ version of Allentown. Anyway, if you’re a guitar player I challenge you to learn “Allentown” and come up with a convincing interpretation of his piano part. If you do it, write it out and send it to me ’cause I don’t want to mess with it…I’ll send you a cookie. I spent an hour or so working on it today and my version sucks. Playing the chord changes is not the hard part…making it sound like the piano is. So get to work there Jimi and send it on over. I need it by Aug. 19th…my gig at The Billy Goat.