Brand New 4-Song EP for the Holidays!

As is the yearly tradition, the segueing from one year to another brings an offering of homespun singsonging from The Mustard Room. This year, we offer up a four song EP of new material all recorded on an 8-track digital recorder.

DOWNLOAD HERE.

Happy days of holly!

Before we crack

I've decided to press the proverbial pause button at this time. The holidays are all upons and we've recently found ourselves caught up in a swirling eddy of emotion.

First, let me say that the ride taken down a particular road has been like driving an eighteen-wheeler up a coarse mountainside on wheels with no tires. Actually, I'm being kind. My wife and I are milling over the proper response while visiting her family for a few days. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that her father has just had his right foot removed.

It all happened quite suddenly. One minute, Dad's in the hospital for an issue seemingly unrelated and the next thing we know, we're hearing about a possible toe amputation. No, wait... a partial foot amputation. No, wait... You get the idea. We all waited around for the better part of Monday to hear the diagnosis and to learn how much of the lower extremity would be lost. When Dad had us all around his bed he informed us that they would be cutting somewhere between the knee and the ankle. You could say it was a sigh of relief for those of us anticipating a worst case scenario. But how do you say goodbye to a foot?

Indieana Handicraft Exchange Mini

The Mustard Room will be sharing space with our pal the Vintage Songbird once again to sell our wares and wears at the Indieana Handicraft Exchange 2009 Holiday Hoopla "mini." We hope you'll come out to support local artisans and crafters such as ourselves.

THE SCOOP:

Date:
Friday, December 4

Time:
5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Admission:
Free!

Location:
Chatham Center
901 North East Street {map}
Indianapolis, IN 46202

Parking:
free lot behind venue &
on neighborhood streets

Give the gift of abduction

Recently, one of our screen printed thrift tees was featured at...

View their GIFTS FOR HIM post here.

Thanks Creepy Queen Magazine for finding our ABDUCTION tee one of the best gifts on Etsy to give one's man during the holidays. Cheers!

To be famous

Find the movie "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" and watch it right now. Then, listen to the WFMU broadcast of "The Live Music Faucet" found in the special features.

Homefront haiku

Feed baby chili
Watch baby make more chili
Don't pull her finger

Technically in colour

Brutally aged polaroid film produces wonderful mementos for a toddler.

Blech

Enjoy your turkey.

Hyperbolic brushes

As I began my season of facilitating the youth ministries of a particular church, I felt as though I was stepping into a good-looking pair of shoes, tidy yet rugged, perhaps like a lived-in pair of white cross-trainers. The shoes which seemed to fit me best, however, tended to be of the more haggard, less rugged ilk. A pair of Chucks appearing to have lost a battle with an angry bear before being plowed by an eighteen-wheeler have always fit me quite snug with plenty of wiggle room in the toes. Anyhow, I was familiar with the young man whose place I would be taking in the role of Youth Ministry Equipper. After all, it was he who was chosen when I had first applied for the position only a year earlier. That's right, I was called up to replace the guy who was picked first for the team as he was being called up to the bigs. I'm actually painting the situation with an obviously ridiculous brush. This is certainly not how I saw it then nor do I see it that way today. Hyperbole is fun.

Abyss in motion

Thinkin' 'bout writin'

Writin' 'bout thinkin'

Just another tonto

We are at the threshold of a new season. It was four years ago at a youth ministry convention that my wife and I began having serious discussions regarding our future involvement in the church we'd been a part of for the past several years. For over three years, I had been paid to fulfill the role of Youth Ministry Equipper which was the title given to my position. However, as I will soon reveal, there were problems with that particular title. Actually, the problems did not lie within the title so much as they did within the expectations of a stubborn child known as the church. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After a few years of working menial jobs, I came into the role of Youth Ministry Equipper as a wide-eyed hopeful who was ecstatic about finally being paid to do something which I was incredibly passionate about. The title "Equipper" was co-opted from the Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians which reads, "He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-12 NASB). Even back then, all wet behind the ears, the title seemed to align with my own early drafts of a philosophy of ministry. The fact that this particular church seemed to buy into the idea that one flawed human should not bear the entire load of God's call to his people was refreshing. I mean it's one thing for a church to say it, but to actually believe in it enough to say, "this is the title we're giving to the folks on our staff because we want everyone to know that there are no Lone Rangers in church ministry!" That's right, we're all a bunch of Tontos.

Where do we go from here?

For weeks we have been waiting. I’ve got to be perfectly honest, i’m not so good at waiting. Take it on faith. take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part.

Don't look at me like that tom.

I suppose the waiting wouldn’t be nearly as difficult if i didn’t feel as though we were just being plain ignored.

Things will be just as they are to be…

Until then, they’ll be as they are.

Better late than dead

So, we returned from our weeklong residence along the gulf coast in fifteen and a half hours. Most of that was in the driving rain with low visibility. But by golly we made it. We slept in and the next afternoon being all hallows eve we began sticking sharp objects into large gourds.

Behold the damage done!

Then what happened was that we drilled holes in pumpkins and ate their roasted seeds right in front of them while listening to tom wait's 'bone machine'.

These things happened next...

The end.

My mom and dad went to Destin and all they got me was this lousy sunset

As we gather our things and prepare to head north, let us take a moment to enjoy a captured memory courtesy of our new friend herb.

Aahhh.

Thanks herb.

One mile

"When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised at how much pleasure you get in material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God."

-Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

Sitings

mister zippy?

The Aquatic Boogaloo

First Blood: Baby Gap

Pictured above is the unsuspecting fourteen-month-old after she was nursed back to serenity with a few ounces of milk, a cookie and two squeaking rubber sea mammals. Just moments earlier, while exploring the lower altitudes of a Gap retail outlet during a torrential downpour, the young lass had her left-hand index finger sliced wide by the jagged base of a blue jean rack.

Boo!

The olde freak-out daddy instincts took over and at the first sight of blood and her teeny tiny finger was in my mouth as i carried out the door. Cool, collected mommy followed close behind to bring us all back down to planet earth to address the wound practically and properly.

Yeah, mommy!

We live to fight another day. You will not take my family from me The Gap!

Aaaayyyy! Okay?

It's friday morning sometime between 7 and 8 o'clock. I'm steaming three different types of milk and pulling shots of espresso for five drinks at a time while cars continue stacking up in a line that seems to spill out onto emerson avenue. The whirring of blenders and griping over the freshness of day-old pastries threatens to break my concentration. Yet i am a rock. I delicately dance with a merciless beast which growls, screams and spews boiling hot liquids in my general direction. She does not tame easily. In fact, i'm quite certain that the tiniest careless move could rile the beast and the legions of barbarians who line up to taste of her torrid teet into an appocolyptic frenzy.

Suddenly, it was as if everything had turned soft-focus and a razor-sharp thread stiched with one haunting question had pulled right between my eyes. My stomach turned and i heard the words as i shouted them to anyone who would answer, "Did Henry Winkler die or was that just something i dreamed?"

"I don't know," was the only response i would receive.

"I don't know?"

"I... don't... know."

Sisters doin it for themselves

Olivia so generously shares Claire's goldfish and cheerio medley during their tuesday morning pajama playtime.

Sweet sweet Candy

While stretched out across my sofa due to unforeseen illness, the brilliance of john hughes kept me warm.

Pondering pumpkins

As of late, the weather has been less than agreeable in our attempts to visit the pumpkin patch. Last week, we got as far as breakfast at chick-fil-a before surrendering to the rain. As we watched the forecast for this week, it appeared rain would befall us again. However, nothing was gonna stop us from braving the weather this time around. We would beat the rain. When dark clouds threatened, we would retaliate with thunderous persistence in our pursuit for the perfect pumpkin.

Then daddy got sick.

We never counted on chilled bones and a fever of one hundred degrees to sideline one of us from our impending conquests, but that's exactly what happened. So while the jane gals headed south to apple works with the hyman clan, daddy drifted in and out of consciousness between episodes of 'good times' and 'matlock'. Thankfully, mommy took some lovely shots of the little one so that daddy could imagine he was part of the excursion. Olivia seemed to enjoy her romp through the pumpkin patch much more than last year.

Fork solo!

Cyber 45 #1

In the grande olde tradition of the double-sided 45 rpm record, The Mustard Room will be making available unreleased songs from the joel rockey songbook via digital download. Each zip file will include two sonic nuggets in the mp3 format along with a full color digital label and information about each song.

THROUGH & THROUGH b/w HOME - Now available

EXCLAMATION OF THE WEEK!

Good Night!

Oranje Moon

Recently, the misses has picked up a few gigs subbing for some old friends. This has left miss olivia and myself home alone to embark on various creative endeavors together. One of those projects of which i am most proud is a video we created for a new song recording. The song is titled, 'orange moon'.

Role film.

Story telling 101

"Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo."

-Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

Next stop: oven mitts

Golly, it was already like a week ago. However, i thought it would be prudent to mention the rad time we had at the Harrison Center over the weekend. Along with plenty of old friends and a few new ones, vintage songbird and the mustard room set up shoppe at the autumn INDIEana handicraft exchange.

If you came out… thanks!

If you bought stuff… thanks a bunch!

If you traded with us… mmm… tasty!

If you missed it, keep your eyes on the prize. It’ll be back around come spring time. In the meantime, there’s plenty of screen printed goodness left for you to get your grubby mitts on.

Peace.

Future artifacts

Miranda, nelson, chris, amy and joy had the opportunity of serving as volunteers at the dave ramsey total money makeover live event tonight.

While home watching olivia, nelson sent me these photos taken with his state-of-the-art blackberry camera.

The future is now kids.

I'm pretty convinced that this one's a cardboard cutout.

I and love and you

Epic song from an entire collection of epic songs by the Avetts & Co.

Demo Vault - These Four Walls

MP3 > THESE FOUR WALLS (DEMO)

Way back in say 2004-2005ish i was working on this little tune under the working title “these four walls.” I enjoyed composing and recording this guy, but something about it just didn’t work. Bits and pieces of the lyrical content rolled around in my head and regurgitated upon paper several times in an attempt to salvage something from the wreckage. Often they were forced against completely different chord progressions and melodies and such. I finally threw in the towel until the scattered remains of a speck of an idea which initially inspired the song rose like a phoenix eventually becoming “freedom has a new name.” It all started here. I removed the lead vocal track from this version of “these four walls,” but some of the backing vocals along with a few delightful oohs and ahhs slipped through the cracks.

New places?

To all of you who take time out of your days to check in and see what we're up to around the rockey home, we invite you to join us at our new locale... themustardroom.tumblr.com

I've been dropping some oddities and such over the past week and for the time being, we're gonna be updating from there. We will leave blogger with this film of around-the-house shenanigans.

Love and lollipops.

Craftie hands

The autumn is all upons and with her comes the fall indieana handicraft exchange. I am absolutely thrilled to have been chosen to be one the vendors this year. I will be sharing a booth with my fellow artisan and longtime buddy, Rachel Hill Moorman of vintage songbird fame. Hop on over to her blog for some sample imagery. We will be vending my screen-printed apparel along with her vintage fabric assemblages. We have even collaborated on a few pieces together. We hope to see you there.

Here's the lowdown:

Indieana Handicraft Exchange

Friday, october 2, 6pm-9pm

Saturday, october 3 10am-6pm

Harrison Center for the Arts

1505 N. Delaware Street

Indianapolis, IN

*featuring: 70+ vendors

*contemporary handmade clothing, jewelry, homewares, bath and body goodies, toys and more

*raffle prizes

*live music and the Naptown Roller Girls!

for more information, slide on over to the IHE website

Out of retirement

Some of the barista-sistas talked me into sharing some songs on the patio again.

They’re very excited about it.

Monsters of folk

I made the mistake of watching a performance of ‘say please’ on conan and now my face has melted…

Forever changes

Wes A: Have you met Arthur Lee and Love?

Joel: I don't believe that I've had the pleasure. Could you introduce us?

Wes A: You're hearing them right now.

Joel: Holy crap.

Space invader

Demo Vault - East of Eden

MP3 > EAST OF EDEN (WRITING DEMO)

Back in the early winter of 2007 i wrote and recorded a set of songs on glorious analog tape running reel to reel through a tascam four-track recorder. One of those songs became known as ‘east of eden’. It began as this impromptu strummage.

Pipe dreams

We've been trying to wrap up production for the handicraft exchange which arrives october 2nd and 3rd at the harrison center for the arts. Go here for the whole story and essential details. Apparently, the little one took seven steps tonight while i was making coffee for insomniacs. I don't even know i can fall asleep this morning knowing that.

Also:
-beatle mania '09
-supporting local
-losing neighbors
-licensed to grill
-dreaming of scarfs

This is ridiculous. I'm supposed to be sleeping not blogging unconsciously while casually viewing 'married: with children.'

Good night.

Grand daddies

Grandpa spends a little time with the wee one during a brief visit to Olivet. More on that later.

Everyone thinks this dude's weird. That's why i think i like him.

Act now while supplies last

Besides being noisy, they're just straight-up creepy. Therefore, due to the recent high-volume cricket activity inside the Rockey home, we've had to invent a humane/clean way of eliminating these unwanted guests. Behold, The Incredible Cricket Catching Contraption (patent pending)! Now available exclusively from A Rockey Home Companion for the introductory price of $5.99 (+ Shipping & Handling). Price not available to orders outside of the continental US.

Works every time.

Style on the fly

One-year-olds got mad skillz in improvisation.

Unicornicopacetic

Coming soon to a coffee emporium near some.

Available now

Fresh locally grown carrots, squash, cucumbers, peppers, green beans, potatoes

and mustaches.

All this and more grown by the folks at southminster presbyterian church and available every saturday morning from 9 am to 1 pm at 9950 southeastern avenue, indianapolis, indiana 46239.

Cakes and cake

The jane gals and i spent three days traveling to toledo and back through fort wayne. Two days with our extended family, the furrows to share in the grand celebration that was the blessed union of mr and mrs celizic...

Sinking in the extended stay.

Saturday morning, we up-and-at-em'd with the hyman crew and bounced over to the mighty fort for nephew kyle's number 3 and wedding numero deuce (that being of the newly pronounced mr and mrs tatlock).

A mighty long time for the wee one to be away from home and on the road.

Thanks for all the cake.