drew kennedy,

So here we are, on the eve of a great adventure.

The west has called many a young man’s name… and while we don’t really fall into that category anymore, Rodney Hayden and I have decided to answer its call. And like any number of young men in search of fortune and adventure in the 1950’s, we will wait by the tracks in our fair hamlet of New Braunfels for a train to saunter past… we shall toss our guitars into an empty box car, hop aboard, and ride the rails along the Santa Fe line to a destiny that is yet unknown.

OK, so we’re packing our shit up in a van and hitting the road. Not quite as poetic, dramatic, or Kerouacian, but still, we’re hitting the road.

I’m really excited about this.

Sure, I was excited when we went to Europe to play last summer– the sights, sounds, and experiences were life-altering– but this time we’re off to find the same soul-moving things within the boundaries of our own land. That’s even more exciting… to be intimately familiar with a culture, a country, a way of life, and yet be so unfamiliar with the countryside that we are about to traverse. I fully expect victories in small measure, failures in even smaller measure (fingers crossed), and a few moments of unexpected joy which will alter my view on this world entirely. It’s usually the little things that I hold onto for the longest, and so, if I happen to find a few of those little things along the way, I will consider this entire jaunt to be a success of the highest order.

New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona: we are bound for your state lines, your city limits, your time zones, dance halls, smokey clubs, wide open spaces, streams, mountain peaks, roadside haunts, and nooks yet undiscovered by this one small speck of a man adrift somewhere in the middle of your massive territories.

Run on sentences be damned, I shall find poetry in your plains and valor in your valleys.

Or, maybe I’ll just play a bunch of shows and burn a megaton of fossil fuel.

But really, if that’s all I was expecting to do, why would I even be packing my things?

If you’d like to hear from me whilst I am out there wandering the hills and vales, I direct you to this little donate button below, and to the tour dates to your right. The tour dates are your open invitation to join us at one of these shows, should you be close by. The donate button represents The Postcard Project– an undertaking that allows you to place your own value on two unreleased versions of my megahits Baytown and Goodbye that were performed during the recording of my live album Alone, But Not Lonely. They will be emailed to you, from me, when internet connectivity should present itself. Included upon receipt of your benevolent donation will be a handwritten postcard, which will be mailed to you from places yet unknown on this tour. Here it is:

Stay tuned for further updates, watch the twitter feed for pictures from the road, and if you can, come out to a show. I’d love to buy you a beer and listen to you tell stories about what makes the place in which we are about to meet special to you… and why it will remain to be special to me.

Gotta go– I think I hear a train whistle in the distance.

dk

Greetings From Somewhere Else!

OK, here’s the deal. I know that most of you can’t travel as much as you’d like to. Life gets in the way of being able to drop everything and head out for destinations unknown. I completely understand, and I definitely know that I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to travel for his job.

I brainstormed up this little idea while heading out to Mississippi this weekend– an idea hatched by the road, created for the road, and constituting of the road. Here’s the deal (and I’ll only leave this up for the next week or so): I’ll send you a postcard from me, to you, personally selected whilst out galavanting around in the western region of these United States. I’ll write a note on the back of the post card… I’ll buy the stamp…. I’ll even drop it into the mailbox. The whole Postcard Experience, 100%!

But that’s not all. Remember Alone, But Not Lonely? We recorded more than the 12 songs we put on the album, you know. So where have those extra bonus songs gone?

Actually, a better way to put that would be where are those extra bonus songs going?

Straight to your inbox, of course.
I’ll email you the direct from the board, unmastered versions of Goodbye, and Baytown in all of their digital MP3 glory.

So that’s a personal postcard from somewhere out west, and two unreleased bonus songs.

How much will this super amazing deal set you back? Well, that’s up to you. We’re going to use the tip jar model for this one– if you think this is worth $5, cool. $10? Even cooler? $10,000? Well, I’d say you were crazy, but I’d only say that after I made sure your check cleared.

Make sure you include your email address as well as your mailing address when you throw your invisible money into my invisible hat (via paypal). I’ll email you the MP3’s (one at a time, so if you donate, and you don’t get the email instantly, and I happen to be on a stage somewhere playing, you’ll know why), and I’ll write you a nice little note from the road.

Just another quirky little way of saying I hope you dig what I do– because I really appreciate each and every one of you.

click here to get started:

Oh, and one more thing– remember that video we said we were shooting for Room # 27? Well, here’s a little behind the scenes video of our, uh, video featuring the fantastic cast and crew that made the whole thing possible. We’ll have the finished product for you soon, but in the meantime, we have this! Let me know what you think!