You may have heard rumblings about a big change in my life coming soon, either from me personally or a blog entry, or perhaps you've recently perused my updated biography. I wanted to wait to officially tell everyone until I was good and ready. And I'm good and ready, so here it is.

Saturday, August 30 I will play my last show as a Dallas resident. The day after I'm packing my few remaining material possessions and hitting the road on my latest tour: Texodus. As the name implies, I am leaving. For good? I can't say. For a while? Definitely. I'm headed east, to the town of Hartsville, South Carolina.

As I've begun to relay the news to friends and family, I've been met with several understandable questions. In an attempt to circumvent some of the inevitable 'splainin' to do, I've compiled my very own Texodus FAQ list.

1. Why?
Such a tiny little word that so often yields such huge answers. The first few times I was asked this, I responded with a prefab reason from a list I had been subconsciously compiling for some time: I've toured mostly in the Southeast. It's easier to tour on the East Coast. I've got an affordable living situation lined up. People seem to like me out there. It's purdy.

Truth is, I don't know exactly why I'm making this move. It feels good to say this to people, even if my answer is met with quizzical looks. I recently read that sometimes it's wise to take a risk simply for risk's sake, so perhaps that's what I'm doing. There are lots of places I could go, but this is where I've chosen to go, and I needed to choose something. I needed to make a change.

2. Hartsville?
Hartsville is a town of a little less than 8,000. It's home to Coker College, and about an hour and a half away from Columbia, South Carolina's capital. You can read up on the town here. I found it with the help of Sleepy Horses, a band from Athens, GA. I mentioned I was touring the Southeast, and Nic, their lead singer, jotted down a list of cool venues. One was the Midnight Rooster, located in the "Hart" of downtown Hartsville. I instantly fell in love with this venue, and have returned 3 times in the past couple years. Here is where I met one of the friends I will be living with, and many other friends that I will hopefully see regularly.

3. Will you keep playing music?
Absolutely. Perhaps even more so. Since I won't be in a big metro area, I'm not anticipating many local opportunities for paying gigs like I've got in DFW. This means I'll either have to get an additional job or tour more. Which do you think I'm gonna choose? Expect to see me touring even more frequently than I have been these past two years. I've already got some dates in October, and I continue to book every day.

4. Any goals?
I'd love to have a booking agent, or manager, or both. And soon. I'm not sure about a record label. I'm usually able to make these tours work for me financially, which has been nice, so I may actually want to stay independent for a while. I'm learning more about this business all the time, so these goals are subject to change. Right now my main focus is playing more shows.

5. What about your last Dallas show?
I'm throwing a going away party of sorts with several of my fellow DFW area songwriters. Texodus: A Farewell Performance will happen Saturday, August 30 at the new location of Opening Bell Coffee in the Mosaic building in downtown Dallas, TX. This promises to be a cool new venue for singer songwriter shows, and I'm very glad to make this my last stop. With sets from Doug Burr, Ryan Thomas Becker, Eaton Lake Tonics, Becky Middleton, Taylor Davis, Lalagray, Jacob Metcalf, Pherigo, and The Beaten Sea, this is sure to be one of the coolest nights for Dallas music in recent memory. And just when you think it can't get any better, Jeff Rogers, my long-time friend, drummer, and musical collaborator, will be flying down from his new home in NYC to play on my set! Doors open at 4pm and music will go till midnight. And just to be extra dramatic, I'm leaving the next day.

If you want to help promote this show, post the flyer below on your blog, website, social networking profile, etc.



Here's the code:
<a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmR5bGFuc25lZWQuY29t" href_cetemp="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmR5bGFuc25lZWQuY29t"><img src="http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p230/dsneed79/DS_texSM.jpg" src_cetemp="http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p230/dsneed79/DS_texSM.jpg" /></a><p>

Please feel free to post any questions to me in the comments on this blog entry, or throw me a line on Myspace or something. I'm very busy, so if you don't hear back from me soon (or ever), it's nothing personal.

I can't thank all my friends, family, and colleagues in DFW enough for all your encouragement and support over the years. I hope to see you when I tour back through.

I really mean it when I say thanks for supporting independent music,

Dylan

I am what you might call a late bloomer when it comes to grief. In other words, things take a while to hit me. I tend to take loss well, I guess. But this usually translates into a random bawling fit months down the road, like an LSD flashback, minus the chemicals.

Sunday, June 29 marked my last Alphabet Soup performance as a Dallas resident. Partly because I've been so busy booking the Texodus tour and partly because I am late bloomer with grief, I haven't really given the event that much thought. But every once in a while I'll hear a song that I performed as part of the series, and I'll be taken back to my bedroom, where I rehearsed the bulk of this material. I see myself pacing the floor barefoot, eyes turned upward so as not to cheat off of the sheet of lyrics I'm attempting to memorize. These memories are bittersweet for me, and with nearly 150 songs learned for this project, I have a deep well to draw from.

I decided I wanted to reflect on this part of the Alphabet Soup series (I plan to continue it on the East Coast) and thank some folks who helped make it happen.

For those not familiar with the concept, Alphabet Soup was a weekly--at first, then later a monthly--show that consisted of 10 songs (usually covers) that all went with a common theme. The audience came up with a list of words that began with a randomly-drawn letter. At the end of every show, we'd use this list to pick the next week's word. So one week you might have "K" is for "Kermit," and you'd somehow have to build a set list of 10 songs that went with this word. Additionally, there was an unwritten rule that each song had to be new to me. So basically I was learning 10 new songs every week and trying to make them my own. Kind of heroic, don't you think?

So what did I learn from this crazy, masochistic exercise? A long list of things, but I'll try to pick out just a few here.

Dream Big. I had no idea how much work this project would be, so I have my ignorance to thank in part for this experience. It's great to see how far you can stretch yourself, but with this lesson, I also learned you need to try to

Be Prepared. As well as you can, at least. The first week of Soup was great, because I had plenty of time to get ready. The second week was awful. I thought I was good enough to pull it together at the last second, but by the end of the tenth song that night I wanted to dig a hole and crawl in it. I'm glad I didn't. I just realized that this was going to be a lot of work, so I got started earlier on the next's week set, and things went better from then on. It was also important for me to

Ask Friends For Help. If I have any regrets about the Soup, it's that I waited until the final two shows to get several friends to play with me. These two shows were great, and they brought out the real spirit of the Soup for me: creative community. Everyone put their own stamp on the concept and performed beautifully, which reminded me that

Creativity Is Good For You. Anything you can do to make that spark flare up into a flame is great. We're all creative beings, whether we feel it or not. Sometimes you get stuck creatively, so I also learned

When You Don't Know What To Do, You May Just Need To Do Something. I began the whole Soup experiment as just that: an experiment. I wasn't writing much and just didn't feel that creative in general. I also was bogged down with all the tasks of promotion and marketing and everything else that goes along with being a DIY full time musician. I wanted a regular gig that was about nothing more than the creativity inherent in music. I had no idea how to execute the idea, but I felt the need to get something going. And I can't tell you how glad I am that I did.

So I guess that about sums it up. I'd like to thank Bob and Nancy at White Rock Coffee for giving me free reign on these Sunday nights. I'd like to thank Kate Mackley for pitching the idea to them. Thanks to all the artists who donated their time and talents for a night that celebrated creativity. And of course, thanks to all the audience members for showing up and participating. This concept does not work if you don't have a creative audience.

It was a pleasure participating in this with you.

Dylan

Ps. I plan to post a comprehensive list of all the songs performed so far at Alphabet Soup. For now, you can click on the Alphabet Soup category and see some of the most recent set lists. There's also some on my Myspace blog.

There's a first time for everything, right? Well, Wednesday was my first time to record in the middle of a vineyard. Bullard, TX, just a few miles south of Tyler, is home to Kiepersol Estates, a vast expanse of land sprinkled with nice houses, grapevines, and to my surprise, a pretty nice recording studio. I came in and with the help of my new friends Matt, Kyle, and Andrei, laid down 4 tunes and a bit of promo jibber jabber. After Matt edits it all down, the piece will air on The Breeze 95.3FM and 102.3FM on Sunday, July 6 some time between 6 and 9pm. You can listen on the radio if you live in the Tyler, TX area or online at www.ibreezefm.com.

Thanks to Matt, Kyle, and Andrei for all your help. Find out more about their studio here.

As soon as I get the tracks back from the studio I'll post them here. Stay tuned.

Dylan