• AO in Huntsville, AL on Wed 3 Mar 2010. Age 21+.
• AP and the Captains Courageous in Xenia, OH on Sun 21 Mar 2010

There are 2-3 holes left to fill in the schedule, so if you’re interested in bringing the AP Christmas tour to your town, now is the time to be doing it.

Here’s the band lineup for 2009:

• Andrew Peterson
• Ben Shive
• Jill Phillips
• Andrew Gullahorn
• Brandon Heath
• Matt Slocum
• Todd Bragg
• Cason Cooley
• Gabe Scott
• Andy Osenga

• The whole SPA in St. Peters, MO on Tue 30 Jun. They play Cornerstone the next day, but we won’t list that separately as you’re either already going to C-stone or not.
• EP and BS in O’Fallon, MO on Fri 31 Jul.

Couple new dates for EP:

• EP in Gardendale, AL on Sat 28 Mar 2009. I’ll be at that one. I’m on vacation.
• EP and Ben Shive in Canton, GA on Sat 6 Jun 2009. I’m thinking about that one, but it’s also my folks’ 40th wedding anniversary.

I’m re-thinking how I do the tour updates. Saving it up for once a week is … a bit much. So I’m doing them daily… maybe. We’ll see.

• AO with a full band, Ben Shive, and Lindsey Jones at The Rutledge in Nashville on Mon 23 Mar 2009.
• AO with a full band, MikesChair, and Lindsey Jones at 12th and Porter in Nashville on Mon 27 Apr 2009.

The Square Peg Alliance have been confirmed for Cornerstone Festival this summer in Bushnell, Illinois, according to the Festival website.

Details forthcoming about when each of the artists will perform and on what stages.

Ben recently wrote the first part of a multi-part series about helping Eric write his next record. I’m not a musician, and I’ve never recorded anything but a concert, so I found this fascinating, honestly. Especially:

When I listen to a song I’m mostly trying to gauge what it’s attempting to communicate and whether it communicates that thing well. If I had to name the quality I’m looking for, I’d call it “focus.” Is the song littered with throwaway lines? Is the lyric overly poetic or overly plain? Is there an economy of well-developed ideas and metaphors? Or are words and images thrown around carelessly? Is the listener going to feel the emotion or understand the idea at the core of this song?

Focus is also a quality I look for in the music. Are there moments that distract from the lyric, seem out of character, stagnate, or belabor some musical theme? Or does the music support the lyric well, propel it forward, give it a comfortable place to sit?

Worth a read … and remember, please help support Eric’s Next Record.

Congrats to Ben Shive, whose release from earlier this year – “The Ill-Tempered Klavier” – was listed by Christianity Today in their “Best of 2008″ reviews.

I’ll agree with CT on this one. Ben’s CD is one of the most lyrically and sonically brilliant works of art I’ve heard in a long time.

Track listing:

1. A Name A Name A Name
2. Out of Tune
3. Rise Up
4. Do You Remember
5. She is the Rising Sun
6. 4th of July
7. ’97
8. New Year
9. The Old Man
10. Nothing for the Ache
11. Binary Star
12. Wear Your Wedding Dress

You can get yours at The Rabbit Room store. You’ll love it.