Evan Agee: Live from Richmond Indiana

My brother Mitchell came over last night and we recorded a couple of songs. Most of them are some of his original, Christian songs, but two of them were John Mayer songs that we re-arranged and recorded. I’ve posted MP3 files below for your downloading … uh, pleasure… I guess. Remember, this are very low-quality recordings. They were done on my computer at home with a cheap Radio Shack microphone… Really…

• No Such Thing (John Mayer | Me Guitar, Mitchell vocals)
• Your Body is a Wonderland (John Mayer | Me Guitar, Mitchell vocals)
• Saved by His Blood (Mitchell Agee | Mitchell vocals & guitar)
• Bother (Stone Sour| Mitchell vocals & guitar)
• Trust (Mitchell Agee | Mitchell vocals & guitar, Me lead guitar)
• Understand (Mitchell Agee | Mitchell vocals & guitar)
• Will I Believe (Mitchell Agee | Mitchell vocals & guitar)

We recorded every one of those songs in a matter of 4 or so hours. It was good fun. Feel free to send me an email and let me know what you think about the songs!

The quality of the guitar tone has somewhat inspired me to record some of my music on the computer so I’ll actually have it stored somewhere. I’ve been playing guitar much more frequently lately and I’ve been surprised at how easily I’ve picked up on some of my old songs.

I’ve got a whole slew of music I’ve created saved on the computer, I might have to render some of it to MP3 so I can put it here for you all to listen to.

Well, I guess that’s it for now, I’m going to do something productive.

Something a little different today…

Here are lyrics from a song I’m really enjoying right now:

Suppose I said
I am on my best behavior
And there are times
I lose my worried mind
 
Would you want me when I’m not myself?
Wait it out while I am someone else?
 
Suppose I said
Colors change for no good reason
And words will go
From poetry to prose
 
Would you want me when I’m not myself?
Wait it out while I am someone else?
 
And I, in time, will come around
I always do for you
 
Suppose I said
You’re my saving grace?

Not Myself
- John Mayer (Room for Squares)

Good stuff… good stuff…

Kristen and I are working on planning an all-night sleepover at our church for the youth group next month and I have to say that I’m very excited. There’s going to be TONS of food, including a Subway party sub, pizzas and hopefully buffalo wings in bulk. There are going to be games like hide-and-seek in a dark church (ooh spooky), human battleship, freezetag, etc. It’s going to rock!

I’ve been playing this little game in the office lately. I have a large, plastic bottle like what fruit juice comes in. I’ve been filling that up with water and then seeing how fast I can drink the whole thing. Sometimes it’s easy to finish the whole thing if I’m real thirsty, but otherwise it’s just an attempt to try and drink more water. I tried drinking water ONLY for a while back in the day, but that just gets too boring.

We had a picnic at Kristen’s aunt and uncles house on Monday for Memorial Day and it was fun. We played Croquet most of the time (which I had never played before that day) it was SO fun! There was lots of food, and it was a good time.

Well, I can’t think of anything else to write about right now, so I’m going to get off of here.

Well, let’s see… What’s new…

I don’t think much has changed recently. I’ve been working and lifting and spending the evenings relaxing…

I guess one thing worth mentioning is my thoughts about discontinuing my involvment with Living-Dead.com. I’ve been running that website since October of 2000, and I’ve done everything with it that I had originally planned on doing and then some… I’m currently working with one of the other owners to get him ready to take over my webmaster responsabilities. I’m sure he’ll be a natural at it.

I got a new computer at work, an Apple Power Mac G4 1Ghz. It’s really nice and it’s much faster than my old Mac, which was a G3 350Mghz Power Mac. I am constantly impressed by the quality in design of Apple computers, not to mention that they work better AND are easier to use than PC’s and Windows EVER thought about being. Microsoft is just now building things into Windows that Mac OS has been doing for 10 years. It’s sad that everyone thinks PCs are so great. Why would you want a PC when you can have a computer?

Well, I guess that’s it for now. The weekend is here so maybe I’ll have something new to write about Monday.

It has only been a couple of days since my last post, but I thought I’d write anyway about some recent happenings.

Kristen and I went to the movies on Wednesday night and saw The Matrix: Reloaded. It was pretty awesome. I’ve since then been doing some looking online and I’ve found some pretty interesting ideas about The Matrix’s future and the symbolism behind the movies. I’m not that big if a Matrix fan, but I do find the ideas interesting.

As you may, or may not know I’m a big fan of Thursday night television on CBS. I’ve been watching Survivor, CSI and Without a Trace for most of the season. Last night I watched the final episodes (of the season) for CSI and Without a Trace. They were both really good. There was a very interesting story about the amount of value husbands have for their wives. The story revolved around two men, one who had lost his wife in the 9/11 attacks, and another man that had fallen out of love with his wife. Very interesting with a happy ending.

I’ve been listening to John Mayer a lot lately. Initially, when he had his big hit, I thought he was just another useless, no-telent, pop-star. But, as I’ve started to really listen to his lyrics and analyze his playing style, I’ve come to think that he is one of the few truly talented pop-stars out there. I knew that he had gone to Berklee college of music, so I knew he had to be a good guitar player just to get into that school. So, I gave him a listen.

Odly enought, his best songs/versions aren’t even found on his major label debut, Room for Squares. A friend of mine gave me a CD of rare club recordings that consisted of John and his guitar in front of a crowed in a small club. The intimacy of the music and the naked style of his playing (just him and his guitar) was enough to win me over. I’ve since became increasingly interested in learning to sing while playing guitar. Interestingly enought, three of his songs are the first one’s I’ve figured out. I found it very difficult at first to have two different things going on at once. Your brain gets used to focusing on one thing, so when you try to do two different melodies at once, it’s hard.

I’m getting better, and hopefully I’ll be able to write my own lyrics and music to go with them soon. Then confidence will have to come quickly after or no one will ever witness these skills.
Kristen and I are taking the youth group to do a mission this weekend for an older man in our church. I believe that we’re mostly just going to pickup sticks in his yard so he can mow his yard. We’ll probably go ahead and mow his yard too though. It sounds fun.
Well, I’ll write again if I think of anything else, but for now I’m going to go.

Well, Kristen and I just returned from our trip to Arizona with my Grandmother and brother. It was wonderful…

It was wonderful to spend time with my brother Mitchell again. I don’t get to see him much and it was really nice to be able to spend an entire week with him. We spent most of the week outside in the 90-degree weather. Their pool was only about 67 degrees at it’s warmest point, but we enjoyed it all the same.

Recently I mentioned that I was applying to an art school and that I hadn’t been accepted. Well, I found out the day before we left for our trip that I HAVE been accepted!!! So, you probably want to know what the school is right? Well, it’s the The Art Institute of Phoenix in northern Phoenix Arizona. Kristen and I visited the school last Monday and it was wonderful. The Art Institute of Phoenix (AIPX) is part of the prestigious Art Institutes which is a collection of schools with campuses across the US and parts of Canada. It’s a private school, so it’s a little more pricey than a university, but I’ve talked with a couple of students that attended AIPX and they have had nothing but great things to say about their experiences there. I can’t wait… I start in October of 2004.

We’ll be moving to Arizona (not sure on the area yet) about this time next year. So, it’s a while off, but it’s coming.

Kristen and I are trying to get back in the swing of our normal routines and it’s a little tough right now after being without a schedule for the last week.

Oh yeah, I just thought, my brother Mitchell is planning on moving out to Arizona the beginning of next month! He’ll like it so much out there. Indiana has some beautiful country, but it doesn’t even compare to Arizona (at least the parts I’ve seen). I think I’m just more of a desert kinda guy than I am a trees and grass kinda guy.

We had an interesting experience yesterday when we went out for mother’s day dinner with my Mom and some other family last night. We made a trip to Dayton, Ohio with plans to go to the Olive Garden, but upon arrival discovered that it’s gone out of business since the last time we visited. We made our way back towards another part of town and ended up going to Lone Star Steak House.

We were expecting the place to be pretty busy with the holiday and all, but we were pretty upset when we found out that the wait was going to be 45 or so minutes… One hour of windy weather later (we were sitting outside because the inside was full of others already waiting) our small pager-like device finally went off. We could now enter the restaurant.

We walk in and finally get to our table where our overly-excited waiter starts taking drink orders. He was nice, but he seemed a little too excited to get me my grenadine cherry Coke (they didn’t have normal Cherry Coke…). So, he comes back out, we order and we wait… and wait… and wait. Finally over an hour goes by and our food still isn’t out to us. We asked several times VERY nicely where our food was and after coming out to tell us twice that our food would be out in 6 or 7 minutes, the manager comes out a third time and tells us that Lone Star is going to pay for all of our meals. This was pretty cool considering the overly-expensive price tag on my small bowl of chicken pasta. I was happy.

A few minutes after they tell us that they are paying for our meal, our food comes out. It looks great! However upon tasting several us that didn’t get steak found that our meals were somewhat lackluster… My meal was tasteless and I assume the other people that ordered pasta had a somewhat similar experience.

Joe’s Crab Shack was right next door to Lone Star and I would have been MUCH happier to have gone there.

Oh well. It was free.