Hi MySpace friends,

My shoes squeak. As we walk around our neighborhood on our afternoon strolls cats hide, small children cover their ears, and dogs howl in reply. Well, maybe it's not that bad, but it is pretty annoying. I can't sneak up on anything. That squeak has been reminding me of all the changes we have coming (the least of which will be a new pair of shoes). I want to be ready. Awake with my eyes open. Ready for the experience, and listening for the "squeak" of what's coming. I don't want these changes to sneak up on me, but I still want to be surprised every once and awhile too. Spring has finally come to our beautiful corner of Minneapolis. As we drove back from performances in Iowa this weekend we could see the greening happen before our eyes. The weekend rains brought tree buds on our maple that weren't there on Friday. 

It's been far too long since I last wrote. A lot has happened and it seems as though the world has turned more times than it aught. We traded in our beloved VW van! It's odometer was just past the range of trinitarian perfection (333,333+)… plus it needed new brakes, tires, and struts on top of the recently added ball joints and tie rods. We are now the proud owners of a completely forgettable Honda Odyssey. At least the name of the minivan is cool… yikes! I own a minivan! Our friend Dani had to remind us, "you are not your vehicle" as we drove together to our first performances in South Dakota with the new van in February. Yes, I know she's right, but I do miss that big box on wheels… we grew a lot in that big box. I admit, there are a few nice features in the Honda. The road noise is so much less than in the Eurovan that I find my voice rarely gets tired. Aimee and I read out loud a lot while the other person is driving. We often switch drivers not because one of us is tired of driving but because one of us is tired of reading out loud and we need to conserve our voices for the show that evening. 

We have a lot of reading ahead of us. I've estimated that we will put at least 14,000 miles onto our new van between June and the end of August. That's around 155 miles a day! Once again this summer we will be hitting all of the coasts. We will be in New Orleans (the Gulf coast… twice!), North Dakota (the Canadian coast), Oregon, California, and New York. I will add our tour schedule to the end of this newsletter. We still have a number of openings this spring in the midwest, and we are looking for folks to host us on the west coast in August. Let me know if you would like to host a Tangled Blue concert in your community.

One of the other changes for us this spring has been a re-thinking of how we do our live performance. In the last month we sold four of our six speaker cabinets and our power amps. The Honda is significantly smaller than the VW, so our huge 77 pound Mackie speakers (which sounded awesome) needed to go. After a lot of research and listening we finally settled on some powered Cerwin-Vega speakers that are one third of the size and half of the weight of our old speakers, and unlike a lot of small cabinet speakers still sound warm and powerful. This weekend's performances were the first with the new gear, and we can once again see out of the rear view mirror while driving!

To say that this past month has been quiet would be true (and good) though it can be a little nerve racking for someone who makes a living out of movement. We are realizing that being performers and song writers in this economy is going to look different than it did over the last five years. As we've been talking with some of our long-time hosts about the costs they incur while putting on an event we realized that many of our hosts rent lights and sometimes spend thousands of dollars in rental fees. I started looking into the prices and realized that we could purchase a lighting system, offer an additional service to our hosts, add some additional revenue on our end and reduce some expenses for our hosts who would normally rent these lighting systems from someone else at a much greater rate. Win-Win! In the coming month we are looking to invest in a lighting system before our summer tour kicks into full swing. Any thoughts? Do you have experience with this stuff? I need your help. It's all new to me… a lot has changed since my days in college theater. I've been looking into running a set of light-weight, efficient LED lights via software like Qlab (http://figure53.com/qlab/) or a Show Controller from a company called Alien Apparatus (http://www.alienapparatus.com/)… no joke, that's the name. Just a quick survey… If you host concerts in your church or plan events for your community, do you usually rent a lighting system? If not, would you be interested in paying a little more to have a lighting system? How much would you be willing to pay for a well lit concert (versus a concert under florescent lights or whatever)? I'm wondering because I have no idea what an acceptable rate is for providing this service and my goal is to make it a win-win, not just a reason for us to charge more to the folks who have supported us all these years by hosting us in their communities. More research is needed...

Speaking of new ventures, we have a couple more in our near future. In the next month we will be making a recording of camp songs for the camp I attended as a kid in northern Wisconsin (http://campluther.com/). It really feels like a path that's come full circle. Group singing around a camp fire was a huge influence on my childhood, and I'm really looking forward to creating a recording of songs that are sung around those same fires these days! We hope to have the recording finished by late May and available for purchase in June.

The on-going house concert series that we run in our living room is going really well. We call it the Victory Muse; more information is athttp://victorymuse.com/. We've hosted three concerts so far with 20 to 35 folks at each show. Our next concert is on May 9th and will feature the music of Caroline and Chris Wigmore. In June Aimee and I will be the performers for the first time. We are going to do this June installment of the Victory Muse a bit differently. We are going to record these concerts for an upcoming Tangled Blue Live recording. Want to sit in on a live concert recording? The dates are Friday, June 5th and Saturday, June 6th. We can only comfortable fit about 25 folks in our living room, so an RSVP will be required. You can send your RSVP to rsvp@victorymuse.com.

One last bit of news and a request… our 2003 self titled Tangled Blue recording is finally available on iTunes. The link to both of our recordings on iTunes is obnoxiously long but functional; it is http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=295182890&uo=6

Over the past six months as our Advent recording has been for sale on iTunes I've noticed an interesting little pattern of folks downloading our recording of "Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending" from the U.K. iTunes store. We don't know anyone in the U.K. but somewhere along the way someone found our music and recommended it to their friends. iTunes makes sharing our music easy with the "tell a friend" link on each page within the store. We'd really appreciate your help in promoting our recordings online. 

Thanks for your support of us and our music, and walking with us through these days. We hope to see you soon!

Under the Mercy,

Joel

joel@tangledblue.com

Upcoming Events and Open Dates in 2009

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Open in the midwest April 29th through May 20th 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in the midwest from April 29th through May 20th. Contact us for more information on scheduling a concert in your area!

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Open in the midwest on May 15th through 17th
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in the midwest on the weekend of May 15th through 17th. Contact us for more information on scheduling a concert in your community!

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Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Private Performance in Minneapolis 
Augsburg College

Minneapolis, MN

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Sunday, May 24th, 2009
Worship in Robbinsdale, MN - 10:30am
Peace Lutheran Church

We will be leading songs in the morning worship service. We hope to see you there!

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Friday, May 29th, 2009
Concert in Topeka, KS - 7:00pm
Details will be posted soon!

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Saturday, May 30th, 2009
Concert in Nortonville, KS - 7:00pm
St. Matthew Lutheran Church

312 Elm St.

Free Admission! An offering will be received. We hope to see you there!

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Friday, June 5th, 2009
Recording @ The Victory Muse - 7:00pm
The Victory Muse

Minneapolis, MN

We will be recording songs for our upcoming Live recording at our Victory Muse house concert series. Free Admission (donations accepted)! RSVP is required.

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Saturday, June 6th, 2009
Recording @ The Victory Muse - 7:00pm
The Victory Muse

Minneapolis, MN

We will be recording songs for our upcoming Live recording at our Victory Muse house concert series. Free Admission (donations accepted)! RSVP is required.

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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
OPEN in the gulf coast 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule a performance in the gulf coast area on June 9th. Contact us for more information on scheduling a concert in your area!

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Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

OPEN in the New Orleans area 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule a performance in the New Orleans area on June 10th. Contact us for more information.

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Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Youth Gathering in New Orleans, LA
Camp Restore

New Orleans, LA

We will be performing for the southern district LCMS youth gathering at Camp Restore from June 11th through June 14th.

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OPEN in the midwest from June 17th through 21st
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in the midwest from June 17th through 21st in the midwest. Contact us for information on hosting a concert in your community!

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Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Leading music at Crystal Springs - June 22-27
Crystal Springs Baptist Camp

We will be leading music at Crystal Springs most of this week (June 22-27)... with one little trip into MN for a concert.

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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Concert in Cloquet - 7:00pm
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church

515 Skyline Blvd.

Free Admission! An offering will be received. We hope to see you there!

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Sunday, June 28th, 2009

OPEN in North Dakota and Minnesota 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule a performance in North Dakota or Minnesota on Sunday, June 28th. Contact us for more information.

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Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Performances in Syracuse, NY 
We have multiple performances scheduled in the Syracuse area from July 5th through July 12th. More details will be posted soon!

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Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
OPEN in NY, PA, and OH 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in NY, PA, and OH from July 13th through 16th. Contact us for more information on hosting a concert in your community.

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Friday, July 17th, 2009
Concert in Latrobe, PA 
Details will be posted soon. Please check back!

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Sunday, July 19th, 2009

OPEN in NY, PA, and OH 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in NY, PA, and OH on July 18th and 19th. Contact us for more information!

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Sunday, July 26th, 2009
Youth Gathering in New Orleans, LA
Jesus, Justice, Jazz

New Orleans, LA

We will be performing for the ELCA National Youth Gathering from July 22nd. through July 26th.

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Sunday, July 26th, 2009

OPEN in the New Orleans area 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule a performance in the New Orleans area on Sunday, July 26th. Contact us for more information!

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Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Concert in Cheshire, OR 
Camp Lutherwood

22960 Hwy 36 

More details will be posted soon!

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Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
OPEN in the Portland, OR area 
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule a performance in the Portland area. Contact us if you would like more information on hosting us in your community.

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OPEN on the west coast from August 3rd through 19th!
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in WA, OR, and CA from August 3rd through August 19th. Contact us for more information on scheduling a concert in your community!

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OPEN in California  from August 19th through 26th!
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances in California from August 19th through August 26th. Contact us for more information on scheduling a concert in your community!

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OPEN on the west coast and mt. states from September 1st through 8th!
mailto: info@tangledblue.com
We are available to schedule performances on the west coast and rocky mt. states from September 1st. through 8th. Contact us for more information.