Appendix E-J

It’s here!

Your digital Santa Claus has arrived. The third installment of our annual compilation CD – Love, Everyday Joe’s - is now available for FREE DOWNLOAD. Not for a limited time, mind you, but for always. Our gift to you for being the community and family that we love to bits.

Volume 3 – entitled Wake Up, Oh Sleeper – is made up of 18 tracks donated by 18 artists that we love very much who donated tunes to this project just for you. Would you like to know who they are? Here you go:

You & Yourn, You Me & Apollo, Aaron Strumpel, Shadows On A River, Candy Claws, The Changing Colors, The Blackthorn Project, Danielle Ate The Sandwich, Paper Bird, Katie Herzig, Cody Crump, Midwest Dilemma, Paean, ABoyandHisKite, John Common & Blinding Flashes Of Light, Karli Fairbanks, Sara Swenson, and Oh Starling (Dan Craig and Jessica Sonner).

That’s a dandy, eh? A free dandy. Of course, you can always donate to the cause if you see fit. All donations will go to paying our music licensing fees that make it possible to have musicians play at Everyday Joe’s. This is all explained at the download page, which you can get to by clicking here or on the cover art below. Happy listening!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Our longtime friend Aaron Strumpel is headlining our annual 90/10 Benefit this coming Saturday. Were you aware of that or have you not been listening to the good things your uncle has been trying to teach you? If you are not aware and want to be, read about the benefit here and then listen to Aaron’s critically-acclaimed Elephants, which he will be performing it’s entirety as part of his set.

The companion album to Elephants – Birds – is getting the finishing touches put on it in Aaron’s mountain laboratory. Out of those finishing touches has come and alternate version of a new song titled “Grandma.” Aaron’s words shall take it from here:

Friends!

Well, just a note. I’m hard at work at the new album, almost. Since you’re in the inside loop, thought i’d jot downn a bit more about this song then what i’ve written elsewhere…

I wrote it a few years back after visiting my grandmother. She always loved to give me gifts when I came, and this time she had a chocolate bar or some snack for me…she lives in a nursing home! Anyway, she said she wished she could give me more and was really actually sad about it. I told her I didn’t want anything more than to see her smile and be with her. It’s a crazy thing this life is…we’re born and everything is brand new for 25 years or so, then things get normal and I feel like a lot of us experience a dead zone of plateau if we’re not careful…then we get older and can’t quite do the things we do…but all through it, love from and to family can just immerse and give meaning and beauty to our times and seasons. Anyway, i wrote the song as an inner conversation with myself about being ok with the passing of time and life here.

I’ve never shared it with grandma and now she’s getting a bit older…gonna turn 98 in a couple of weeks! She doesn’t remember me when I visit, but loves it that I come and seems to know what it means when I tell her I’m her grandson. She wears a rosary i gave her a few years ago everyday and I tell her I gave it to here every time I see her. This last time, my dad visited her the night before, saying she was going to have a special visitor the next day and asked her if she knew who it was gonna be…she answered in her 98 yr old voice, ‘is it our dear Lord?’ She was excited to see me and my folks and said, ‘Will you come everyday, can it always be like this?’ and gave me a bag of chips to have on my drive home. She’s so lovely and I hope I get to see her again.

I hope you enjoy this song. It’s a different version from what will be released.

love,
aaron

Oh that Aaron Strumpel. When he opens his heart it can move one two sizes two small. He is a good man.

Listen to “Grandma (Crazy Version)” below and download the track here to hold with you until the Birds can fly home to you and nest next to the Elephant tracks on your heart.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

FURTHER:

• Buy tickets to the 90/10 Benefit
• Buy Elephants

Popularity: 1% [?]

I would like to present to you three scenarios, and then give you the proper tool needed to enter into each of these scenarios:

1. …a pleasant way to end the work week
2. …a pleasant way to start the weekend
3. …a pleasant way to prepare for the Everyday Joe’s 90/10 Benefit on December 5

Now for the tool.

Aaron Strumpel is headlining this year’s 90/10. What’s more, he’ll be playing his critically-acclaimed album Elephants front to back, with the help of his dear friends who helped him create it.

“La-di-di-doo-da,” I can hear you thinking. “I’ve never heard that album.”

Well, that is no longer an excuse (and in this case, I’m not sure there are any excuses…just bad reasons for missing something great). You see, Aaron has a very kind heart. An example of that kind heart is displayed below, in the form of the entire album streaming for your listening ears. Enjoy it multiple times. Have breakfast with it. Listen to it with your eyes closed or a paint brush in your hand.

Then, buy tickets to this year’s Everyday Joe’s Benefit. They are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, and can be purchased at the shop or online here.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

FURTHER:

• …in which we announce the 2009 Everyday Joe’s 90/10 Benefit
• Buy Elephants
• Buy Tickets
  

Popularity: 1% [?]

It is that time of year again, folks. A good time of year. An exciting time of year. A lovely time of year.

Once every 12 months, Everyday Joe’s throws a party for itself. A party to celebrate community & relationships & how much we love you. This party is in the form of a benefit concert for your favorite non-profit coffee house, and the musicians playing this year have me all kinds of excited and I have goosebumps.

Back in April, our longtime friend Aaron Strumpel released an album called Elephants. To record it, he enlisted the help of people he loves from Portland, the mountains of Woodland Park, and Boulder. These people stretched him and told him to throw away what he knew as songwriting and create something from the ashes. The result is an award-winning album that has received critical acclaim from places all around:

If you would have told me six months ago that one of my favorite albums of the year would be based on the Psalms, I would have told you that you don’t know me very well. Long the purview of schlockmeisters and saccharine hacks, Aaron Strumpel has stolen the hymnbook of ancient Israel back for the regular folks, including folks like David (the original blues harp player) who bitch and moan and cry out in pain. This album wails. Add the tribal chanting and the horn section cribbed from avant-garde jazzbos The Art Ensemble of Chicago and you’ve got something very rare and special indeed. - Paste Magazine

Here’s a fresh reminder of the literary and musical beauty of the Bible — no matter what, or whether, you believe. - USA Today

While nothing can replace a live performance, Elephants is by no means any less exciting or musically inferior. Thanks to the layers on each of the tracks, the concert experience translates nicely into the album. The album title is fitting as most tracks are interlaced with deep drum stomps, rough-skinned backing loops and Aaron’s own trumpet. The sound is experimental, but with purpose, folk rock based but uniquely integrated with a variety of instrumentation; it carries an element of abstraction to it with soul that bleeds through the vocals. - Relevant Magazine

That last review speaks of live performance, comparing it to the album. What good is this to you? Allow yourself to now be informed.

On December 5, Aaron Strumpel will perform Elephants in its entirety with the help of those who helped make the album: The Blackthorn Project, Aboyandhiskite, and Agents Of Future. The performance will headline this year’s Everyday Joe’s 90/10 benefit, with short opening sets from each of Aaron’s friends. The creation of the album is one that came out of community & relationships, so we only saw it as fitting to have Aaron perform it from the Everyday Joe’s stage on the very evening we celebrate such things. The 90/10 Benefit has always been an evening to portray the heart of what happens at 144 S. Mason, and if that heart was a person it would be Aaron Strumpel.

Tickets for the show are for sale online here and will be available at the shop soon. Show time is 6:30 pm, and all proceeds from the evening will go to benefit Everyday Joe’s.

FURTHER:

• Aaron Strumpel Official Site
• Listen to some Elephants
• Buy Elephants
• Buy Tickets

Why 90/10?

Whenever an artist plays at Everyday Joe’s and charges a cover, they get to keep 90% of the ticket sales. This is a generous cut, and we do it because we believe in supporting the arts. One night each year, the musicians split the 10% and allow Everyday Joe’s to take the 90% so we can make improvements and serve you better.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I told you this was going to happen.

For a while, it seemed like Appendix E-J had turned into a place for all things concerning Aaron Strumpel. His album Elephants just excited us to no end and we knew it was going to make its way to other ears and other places and both those ears and places would pass Elephants on to other ears and places far beyond the reach of a Everyday Joe’s.

It is starting.

How about a full review by noted writer Andy Whitman in Christianity Today?

“…in the hands of many contemporary musicians, the Psalms have been neutered, transformed into wispy, ethereal sighs and coos. The powerful drama so evident on the page—the tug of war between intense pain and fleeting hope, the wrestling with injustice and senseless death, the crying out for mercy and forgiveness—has largely been absent. Aaron Strumpel’s new album, Elephants (Thirsty Dirt), intends to restore the blood and desperation.”

MmmmmmHmmmmmmm. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Read the rest of that review here.

Then you can go ahead and wash down that little word snack with some verbage from the small start-up publication USA TODAY:

“Here’s a fresh reminder of the literary and musical beauty of the Bible — no matter what, or whether, you believe…a new, surprising album of psalms set to music.”

In 5th grade, USA Today was my go-to source for articles to complete my current events reports…mainly because they reported on things like space toilets. Now they are reporting on Aaron Strumpel and people who love his music. Read the rest here.

FURTHER:

• Christianity Today review
• USA Today Mention
• Andy Whitman’s Blog: Razing The Bar

Popularity: 98% [?]

Elephants by Aaron Strumpel is in my Top 3 albums of the year so far. It tramples my heart into the shape it should be.

Originally, Elephants was supposed be be a double disc release…with disc 2 being titled Birds. But, with Aaron’s success at the Festival Of Faith and music, Birds was put on hold to be released separately but still as a companion album to Elephants.

Well, dear ones, the time is drawing nigh.

Yesterday, Mr. Strumpel posted a video of some driving footaged, soundtracked by a rough mix of the Birds finale. If the beginning & middle are half as good as the end, we are in to have our minds blown. Watch and then watch again:

FURTHER:

• Elephants Chord Charts
• Order Elephants

Popularity: 75% [?]

People continue to say nice things about Elephants, the new album from our old friend Aaron Strumpel. This time, it’s the folks over at RELEVANT.

“The album title is fitting as most tracks are interlaced with deep drum stomps, rough-skinned backing loops and Aaron’s own trumpet. The sound is experimental, but with purpose, folk rock based but uniquely integrated with a variety of instrumentation; it carries an element of abstraction to it with soul that bleeds through the vocals.”

You can do yourself a favor and read the rest of that review here, then buy Elephants here. I find it to be the best album of the year so far. It’s what I listen to when I need something wrenched out of me and when I need something poured into me. Delightful.

Popularity: 62% [?]

It has been mentioned here a few times over the past month that our friend Aaron Strumpel won Calvin College’s Bandspotting contest and that his new album Elephants is superb and that because the album is superb and because he won Bandspotting he got to perform at the 2009 Festival of Faith and Music, opening up for Over The Rhine.

Said festival took place this past weekend. I have been wondering how things went for Mr. Strumpel. Luckily, Bandspotting judge Andy Whitman maintains a wonderful blog – Razing The Bar – and took time this morning to recant the festivities. He has this to say in regards to Aaron’s set:

“We hung out with Aaron Strumpel, from Colorado, and Todd and Angie Fadel, from Portland, Oregon, who somehow got together to lay down the most outstanding musical set of the conference, a raw, punk-like, discordant, and often strikingly beautiful take on The Psalms. Or, the Wail.”

The rest of the post that brackets this statement says some good things regarding pain & love & God. Read the rest here.

Further:

• Razing The Bar

Popularity: 60% [?]

This past Friday night, I decided to check my e-mail one last time before shutting down the CPU for the day. I had basketball to watch and sleep to get. My inbox held a pleasant treat for me.

I had a message from good friend/good man Aaron Strumpel…and it involved a download of his forthcoming album Elephants. Immediate giddiness came over me causing my wife to tell me to calm down. This is the album that recently won him the Bandspotting contest. This is the album I have been hearing him talk about since September…maybe longer. This is the album where I’ve been told he pushes himself. This is the album that other musicians I listen to almost obsessively have gone ga-ga over.

Ga- ga.

Excited as I was, I was also tired and wanting sleep. I decided to listen to a couple of songs and save the rest for the next day. Eighty-six minutes later I had listened to the album twice. The elephants were in my mind and spirit. They were charging through my body gently holding my heart with their trunks. I went to bed, falling asleep in true peace. Elephants has things to say & you need to hear it & your heart needs to hear it. I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t believe it.

There is not much more I can say here…mainly because I can’t seem to find the words. My wife describes Elephants as tribal. This is a good word for it. It has heavy beats at parts and mandolins and strings and voices of other friends all over it. Elephants run together. They are a parade. This album is a parade…the songs walking together tail-in-trunk like that scene in The Jungle Book. They belong together.

You will be able to order Elephants online here. Aaron Strumpel will be celebrating the release of the album with a show at Everyday Joe’s on May 1.

Further:

• Listen to 2 songs from Elephants
• Order Elephants
  

Popularity: 49% [?]

I’m not quite sure where to start here, as we at Everyday Joe’s are beaming with joy over news just received.

I’ve long recognized our dear friend and brother Aaron Strumpel as one of the hardest working musicians to ever enter the profession. I can remember almost 3 years ago when he was releasing his first album and he worked so hard to promote his release shows and his music…all on his own. No agents. No managers. No paid promoters. Just Aaaron Strumpel and his arsenal of gumption. Well, now we can officially say that hard work pays off.

Mr. Strumpel has been selected as the winner of the 2009 Calvin College BandSpotting competition, part of the Festival of Faith & Music. Not sure what most of the things in that last sentence are? Here are rundowns:

The Festival of Faith & Music at Calvin College is a biennial conference that brings together musicians, critics, journalists, musicians, artists, and listeners for three days of discussing and celebrating insightful music that explores, in some significant way, issues of faith. Please read our mission statement for more information.

Don’t worry, got you covered there:

Mission Statement

The Festival of Faith and Music is the gathering of a community of pilgrims who are on a journey to hear, promote and create the music of epiphany—music that catches our breath with its discovery of delight in the ordinary, eternity in the exceptional. We seek to revel in the mystery of the art form, comprehending it better through shared stories and experiences, allowing it to surround and teach us. We seek to discern the ways grace, love, compassion and the Christian faith are expressed in the world of popular music. We seek to be conscientious listeners, agents of renewal and prophets of the Light.

Now about the whole Bandspotting dealy:

In an effort to support newer bands and musicians, the Festival of Faith & Music is sponsoring bandspotting, a new music spotlight. Bandspotting is an opportunity for selected artists to receive feedback from respected critics, gain exposure to festival participants, and even perform at the festival itself.

The winner of the 2007 competition was Ryan Lott aka Son Lux who I would say I am absolutely ga-ga over. He had the opportunity to play a show at that year’s festy with the mighty Sufjan Stevens. This year, Strumps will have the opportunity to rub elbows with and blow the musical minds of David Bazan, Over The Rhine, Lupe Fiasco, The Hold Steady, and Vic Chesnutt to name a few.

In closing, here is a good looking picture of our newest hero:

If that isn’t a closing argument, I’m not sure what is. Way to be Aaron. We love you.

Further:

• Official Bandspotting Page claiming Aaron the victor (includes a couple tunes to listen to)
• Official FFM09 Page
• Aaron Strumpel Official Website
• Free Song from Son Lux

Popularity: 39% [?]