Cool babies

So we spent quite a bit of time yesterday avoiding the weather that was apparently crappy. Working on a tee shirt design, drinking a pot of coffee... you know, the usual. Venturing out around 4:30 in the pm to take advantage of half price books' 50% off coupon day, we received a phone call of monstrous celebratory worth from a dear friend.

Also a couple good finds after thumbing through the lps at halvsies':
-david crosby's star-studded first solo album for $3
-guided by voices' 'earthquake glue' for $5.

When you're on a role, why stop?

A particular baby surplus store which is not babies 'r' us took a few bucks from us as well:
-big girl cup (pictured below)

Don't be fooled, it's all for the baby.

She digs early 70's psychedelic folk and lo-fi psychedelic rock.

Cool babies.

Strange but not a stranger.

Shooting 45s into the ether

In conjunction with joelrockey(dot)com, Flying J & The Pilots (featuring myself and a rotating cast of shady characters not limited to ryan, andrew, jason, eddie and john) will be releasing into cyberspace a series of digital 45 rpm records. They are free and they have been written & recorded in no particular order over the past six years. The first release includes 'through & through' on side A and 'home' on side B.

Side A: Through & Through

Written by Joel Rockey © 2008 The Mustard Room

This particular tune draws its inspiration from the analogy of God as a rock – changing yet unchanging, immovable, stable, maintaining integrity, strong, faithful – essentially all that the author is not.

The lyrical content had been bouncing around from journal to journal under the moniker ‘faithful’ for a while before finally settling down in the simple bluesy melody which they now inhabit.

Soon after, in the winter of 2006, the two were quickly married. The song was recorded, uploaded to web pages and performed during just about every live appearance.

The original two track recording was submitted for inclusion on a demo disc compiled and mastered by Evan Harris in the spring of 2008.

Side B: Home

Written by Joel Rockey © 2008 The Mustard Room

Whilst preparing for a study in the gospel of John one Sunday evening circa 2004, I picked up the ole fiddle and strummed a simple tune. Pulling lines from the text of Jesus’ teachings into a whimsical mantra, the composition’s completion came quite quickly. After playing through the tune a couple of times for the folks in our high school youth group, we all joined together in a spirit of peace and harmony. Immediately, we bought the world a Coke and segued effortlessly into chapter 15 of John’s gospel.

It didn’t take long after that for me to begin the recording process in hopes of submitting the track to the Coca-Cola Company for use in a television ad or to the parties responsible for compiling multi-disc collections with titles such as ‘Today’s Ultimate Worship Party Platinum: The Very Best of Modern Worship.’

There were talks of hiring a gospel choir and horn section to punch listeners in the gut, but all that fell through and I got no further than roping in my buddy Ryan Helvie to add some nuanced guitar picking. I finally crossed all the tees and dotted all the eyes in November of 2008.

Download the 45 HERE.

Also, don't forget about this...

Swimsuit issue

Took a short day trip to the county of brown
Jumped in the water and look what i found
Two grey blue eyeballs staring at me
Beneath a tinfoil liquid alchemy

Just a fine and fancy ramble

I can probably count the number of times i've been to the indianapolis zoo in the past twenty years on one hand and half of those times were my brother's wedding. I plan to crush that personal non-accomplishment over the next year with my family holding my hand all the way.

After olivia's visit to the pediatrician where holes were poked in her thighs, she was treated to her very first visit to the zoo thanks to the yearlong membership from her grandparents.

Here's what we saw:

-meerkat wrestling
-lemur rave
-gazelle money shot
-giraffe paparazzi dodging
-rhino lounging
-baboon love
-zebra (not giraffe as a misinformed woman pointed out to her unassuming child)
-walrus opera
-penguin poop
-polar bear phoning it in

We'll be back soon and often after crashing awhile.

Peekin' out from under a stairway

Well, well, well... It certainly has been quite a while since we've been in touch. It has been an equally refreshing and exhausting month. We had the joy of spending four nights in a cabin at brown county state park with our good friends chris, amy and bella. Lots of guitar playing, reading, wiiing and polished-off bags of m&ms. Oh yeah, lots of good coffee made with awful water as well so... lots of mediocre coffee.

Fresh off our little family vacation, the mustard room knocked out a limited addition of 50 handprinted sleeves for the new collection of recordings titled 'kiss it all goodbye' as well as some fine quality tee shirts. With the new record complete, my friend eddie and i performed some songs for an intimate audience at southminster presbyterian church. A week later, we gave another performance at the bean cup. Stay tuned... more to follow.

In case y'all didn't know, olivia is now officially a giant. She's sitting up by herself, eating avocados (sort of), helping mama with the family budget and speaking gibberish in complete sentences. I sure things are about to get quite a bit more interesting before the year's done.

As we close this, our 200th entry of a rockey home companion with olivia giving you the stink-eye, we want to say gracias to everyone who reads this thing and to wendy for keepin' us on our toes.