James and the Drifters

For most of us it was our first time to Nashville, the home of country music and President Andrew Jackson. We had two shows lined up for the weekend and no expectations or plans besides playing those. Friday around noon we took off in a mini van and a big green truck and about 6 hours later we arrived in a cloudy but warm Nashville.

Rocketown was our first event. It is a cool little ministry founded by Michael W. Smith that features a skate park and concert stage. We loaded in, grabbed some Mexican food, and watched the skaters for a bit.

We even worked in some karaoke after the event. We have the live recording of Derek singing “Come Sail Away” if you would like that little gem! I’ll just say that when the hair got let down the crowd went wild.

A big THANK YOU to our house hosts David and Rhonda Kattau (or, Charleston Chew and Jolley Rancher), Katie Aeschliman, and Kaitlyn Golden. The following day we all went downtown Nashville to Broadway and 2nd Street, and it felt like a theme park. Every bar had the aroma of barbeque while the gritty twang of country music filled the air; as tourists bellied up the streets with their 10 gallon hats and cut off plaid shirts. Some of us got coffee…

And some of us got ice cream and salt water taffy. Great Success!

Our show Saturday night was at an outdoors venue called Drifters BBQ in East Nashville. A beautiful Spring evening and our Nashville friends blessed us with their presence as the sun settled behind the stage. Without introduction, Kyle began strumming “The Bigtime”, a song he just recently wrote and will open the new album. Locals looking for a drink and something to do stopped by to listen to a couple songs and of course watch as folks danced to “Wild Women”.

Thanks to Rocketown and Drifters BBQ for letting us play.

Thanks to Kansas Bible Company- it was great to hangout with you guys again!

Thanks to Kaitlyn Golden, Dave and Rhonda Kattau, and Katie Aeschliman for hosting us.

Thank you to everyone who traveled with us to Nashville and our friends there for a wonderful weekend.

Cheers

J&theD

Greetings!

With all the preperation of Kickstarter happening next month and the album recording process in July, we will be taking most of the summer off from live shows. However, we have already begun booking for the Fall season and hope to have some dates posted for you soon. As mentioned on facebook, we will be playing at a venue that rhymes with the Smort Smayne Smzoo… (find the answer here: https://www.facebook.com/#!/kidszoo?fref=ts).

Album Progress, has been going so well. We were able to reinvent May 21st so that it fits with the new set of to-be-recorded songs. We will continue to perform the new songs for our upcoming album at our next shows. Songs to look out for are: The Bigtime, May 21st, All that Gold, & Travelin On.

We’ll see you soon!

J&theD

Here we Go! For the last couple months each member of the band has spent countless hours researching and collecting data on marketing a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise funds for our upcoming album. We want to give you an update on this process and hopefully allow you to enter in to our excitement.

Not familiar with Kickstarter…? Kickstarter allows artists a platform in which to raise the funds to support the financial burden that comes with releasing a creative piece of art. The artist creates a page that details what they are creating and how much it will cost, and then the audience can donate money to the project if they desire it to be completed. Donors receive various gifts for their donation sizes, moving them from mere fans to philanthropists. You can read more about it at kickstarter.com.

The Catch… We have to raise all the funds needed for the project or we don’t get any of it. Therefore, we want to offer a good product that entices our donors to support our project while remaining true to our creative freedom in recording an album. Sounds easy right?! As the photo of Derek and Ethan reveals, laptops have been lit, coffee has been drank, and search engines have been run. Just last night we finalized the amount of funds that need to be raised for our project, right around $10,000 for the production, promotion, and admin costs for the album. We also finalized the donor gifts for the kickstarter as well (I don’t want to give too much away here, but besides the vinyl being offered, a cigar box full of goodies is on the list as well!).

What’s next? We are building and constructing, printing and exhausting the resources we need for this project. While May is booked solid with shows in Indianapolis, Nashville, and Syracuse, June has been left pretty open for this event. All through the month of June we will be promoting this Kickstarter and sending support letters out to our big donors. Then come mid-July, if we raise the amount, we will head to Grand Rapids to lay down the new album (title to be announced later) with Peter Fox at Stone House Recording!
We hope you will consider donating to our project and spreading the word about this event. We appreciate the support of our family (that’s you) so far on this journey and hope to make you proud with this next step.

Be Well,

J&theD

Dear friends and family,

Thank you so much for your support of James and the Drifters. I speak on behalf of the band in saying that we are so appreciative of your support of us personally and collectively. There really is something special about this group and I hope you will continue to journey with us as we move forward to greater creative heights.

James and the Drifters will be pulling back on the amount of shows we will be performing in the upcoming months for several reasons; we want to continue to bring new-exciting material to our listeners and make each event you join us at something special. We also want to stay healthy with our time and allow this band the slow, beautiful, organic growth that has formed us thus far and will continue to lead us on in sustained and wonderful growth as a band. Please continue to journey with us, there are exciting days ahead.

This Spring brings with it some exciting events in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee; this summer we will hit the studio with Peter Fox at Stone House Recording to work on our fourth album and first with our current line up that includes Colin Whitehurst on drums and Ethan Kattau on guitar. This album is going to pick up where Before the Dawn left off and step further into the sound that ‘is’ James and the Drifters.

Thank you again so much for your support. You can find us and our upcoming shows on facebook, twitter, and our website.

Brent from J & the D

The most recent piece I’ve just completed was started back in January when I stumbled on Brett Jenkins poems “With Arms Outstretched” & “Thesaurus” which were published in A-Minor Magazine. (Read these here: http://aminormagazine.com/2013/01/28/with-arms-outstretched-thesaurus/).

Brett is one of my favorite writers and a dear friend and after asking her permission to use some of the same images I began writing a poem to express my fear and excited about entering a new relationship, one that I am most ambitious about. So here it is completed.

As if to begin
by Brent Chamberlin

She shifts. like current strong
the waves. lagoons so long
February fumbles numb and unthawed fingers
like frozen streams all covered
laying covers under your bed

And dark. perfect night
her dream. forms paradise
Sea birds and the sirens
sounding just like every morning
Sea birds and the sirens
sounding just like every morning.

she is waking alone

Draped. in slopes of snow
the sun. the walnut bow
we roam the lone chateau and
there’s vines where walls are closed

Wait. the robin comes
and sings. like cherry shawl
overhead the war rolls in
songs like smoke can fill our breasts
overhead the war rings in
its time for us to begin again

“It’s wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.”
– Dan Quayle
”
It’s no surprise to us that our brother Dan, also from Huntington, Indiana, may have been a bit misunderstood in regards to his love for Chicago. I once wrote a song about the town while circling about on the El Train. The lyrics were simple and haunting “it’s cold as hell out here in chicago, this train is so damn long in leaving”. Though very emotive I still feel this resonates with my feelings about Chicago. It’s cold, it’s hard to get where you’re going (at least more so than it is in the always vacant streets of Huntington), and it can often feel lonely…but god I love that place.

Our first full-band gig in Chicago is this evening and to be honest we are all very excited and nervous. It’s a tough town, but in the words of Frank Sinatra you can… “Bet your bottom dollar, you’ll lose the blues in Chicago.”

We are super excited to spend this evening creating music with our friends and family in Chicago! Here is to more Togethering and many more good times in Chicago!

It has been an exciting Winter so far and we want to say thank you to all our friends and family who have supported us through these past couple months of shows. There is something stirring and sifting the soil. We have been blessed with the oppurtunity to perform in Indianapolis and Chicago and hope that these new relationships continue to grow.

We also want to say thank you to Taylor Zeman for being a part of this group for the last two years. When Kyle, Tyler, and Brent began playing together Taylor graciously said yes to our request to drum. He fit in so perfectly that it has been hard to let him go on to better and more important things, but so it goes. Let us raise our glasses to Taylor, our brother, and always a Drifter.

Colin Whitehurst will be our new percussionist extraordinaire. We look forward to creating music together for years to come.

If you are interested in seeing J & the D in Chicago or Indianapolis but do not have sufficient transportation for the event, please let us know and we can create a caravan to get you there!

Be Well
J & the D

Our good friend Joe Hinson has graciously offered us his home for a practice space. This is a huge blessing for our community house and the band in many ways. We hope to find much creativity in our new space. Last night Perry and Brent moved most of the equipment to the new location, it is located between the Huntington Hospital and University. It is much larger than our last space but in need of some TLC…is that how they say it?

If anyone is interested in helping the band clean up the new practice space and making it look “creatively interesting”, please let us know! We will buy you lunch/dinner. We hope to begin fixing it up this weekend.

The winners of the Free J & the D Tee Contest are: Mathew Kendig and Jonathan Brenneman. We performed their song requests, “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley and “A Kiss Before I Go” by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, at the Dash In this past friday. Congrats to them both!

Stay tuned for more contests to win the following things:
1. Books on the shelf
2. Vinyls from the crate
3. Tees from the tote

Thank you all for your suggestions! Be well and do good.

J & the D

If you happened upon our bandcamp page over the weekend, you may have stumbled and slid unto a new album posted beneath Before the Dawn. The Ascension Soundtrack…what’s that? You may have asked your bewildered self. Well, please allow me to tell you about it.

Ascension is a film by Huntington University senior Anthony Frederick, director extraordinaire. He had asked me, Brent, to record some music for the film to which I, with excited tears, said yes. I had songs in mind before he even asked me that would work really well for a film score. We got to work. I had the help of some other great musicians- J&theD’s own Derek DeRoo tickled the keys, Allie Dozet flared her violin, Chris Kauffman flicked his bass, and Anthony tapped his keypad. There ya have it.

I will keep you posted on the film and hopefully link it when it is finished. For now you can download the soundtrack for free on our bandcamp page. It’s great for reading to, drinking tea to, or sleeping to.

http://jamesandthedrifters.bandcamp.com/album/ascension-soundtrack

J&theD