Buckhead Music Project

I was on staff as music director for Buckhead Church from June 2002 until this past Christmas. I left my job there to start ONE Atlanta Music (with my partners, of course). You’re thinking, “He left a full time job to start a blog?” Believe me, there are much bigger things being developed behind the scenes, which will be announced before much longer. We’ve also added an Artist Agency to our arsenal recently, and hope to add more artists to that side of things.

 

I have to hand it to Buckhead Church. This new thing they’re doing, the Buckhead Music Project, looks pretty cool. It’s basically a concert series using talented artists who are believers, but it happens in Buckhead clubs instead of churches. It features many of the artists you can read about on this site. It’s very similar to what 12Stone Church has been doing with their amazing bevy of singers/songwriters (called Playchase Music) at venue’s like Eddie’s Attic and Picasso.

 

The Buckhead Music Project will include concerts by: Meghan Coffee, Jamie Portee, James David Carter, Chrystina Lloree Fincher, Clarissa Rivera Gibson, Eddie Kirkland, Erica Ambrose, and Moxie Davis Worship (next Thursday 9/4 at The Vinyl with me on keys; oh yeah!) A complete listing of artists and details can be found here.  Check out this video as well.

 

Still powerful.

I came across this today and had almost forgotten how amazing it is.  It’s from the late 2007 Northpoint series It’s Personal.  Meghan Coffee is a dear friend who has posted here before.  She’s also a newlywed.  Meghan is an amazing singer/songwriter.  Please check out her site.  The video below gives you some insight into who she is, what she’s been through, and from Whom she draws her strength.  The video is  brilliantly put together; Meg’s gift with words and her beautiful heart take this piece from brilliant to powerful.

 

 

 

 

More congrats! Wow!

I knew this was going to happen, but - wow- didn’t realize it would happen so fast!  Meghan Coffee is an amazing Atlanta artist and Zack Arias is one of the go-to music photographers in this town.  They are dear people.  Congrats on their tying the knot earlier this week!  Read all about it and see pics here.  

 

And how funny is this picture?  Thanks to my brother Rich for bringing it to my attention.  

4 Things You Could Do This Weekend

Friday: Evan McHugh’s Show at Eddie’s Attic

 

Saturday: Tats for Tots party at my house to raise money for our trip to East Asia next month.  (Our team will be doing volunteer work in orphanages and children’s camps over there.)  Professional tattoo artist Jamie Pierce will be doing the honors and will give half his fees toward the trip.  There are only a few slots left; please contact us here to get a slot and directions.  Also, anyone is welcome just to come and hang out.  We’ll be going from noon to 11pm and will have refreshments.  Want to sign up for a tat?  

 

Saturday: Meghan Coffee opening for Edwin McCain at Chastain Park.  If Meghan brings it like she did last week at her album release concert (and she will), then this show will be amazing; great venue, too!  

 

Sunday: Browns Bridge Community Church in Cumming.  My Summer Vacation is the name of the new series beginning at BBCC.  I’ll be tinkling the ivories, so come see me.

Pasted.

48 hours til Meghan Coffee’s album release at Smith’s.  Yes, I’ve blogged about it already.  But, hey, I’m a fan.  Scroll down 2 entries for info ad nauseam.  Also, you can click here for her new site.

Meanwhile, today she shared a few songs with the staff at Paste Magazine.  If you read Paste, let us hear from you.  Tell us why.

Another season, another reason for Meghan Coffee.

Apologies to those who don’t “get” that title.  Anyway, Meghan’s CD release show is a week from tonight at Smith’s.  Says Meg, “ I can’t wait.  It’s going to be great.  Really.  I really, really can’t wait. Please click this link to watch a little video I made announcing a free mp3 download deal I am offering as an incentive to buy your tickets now instead of at the door.” (You must be logged into Facebook).  Click here for tickets.

 

Another cool thing is that Meghan has been doing house concerts, her most recent one being at her friends’ the Siebers this past Saturday.   To host one yourself, make an inquiry here which we will pass along to her manager Melissa.  

 

Finally, here’s a sneak peek at one of the background videos that were created for the upcoming show.  This is very cool.  It was created by my new friend Joe Wiggleston.  He’s for real.

 

Holla here if you’re going to the show.

 

 

Meghan Muses Memorably…

Meghan Coffee’s new album, Songs To Sail By, will be available June 19th, the day of her album release concert at Smith’s Old Bar in Atlanta.  You can buy your tickets here.

 

…or something like that. It might not be memorable, this could turn out to be incredibly dull. I’m a sucker for alliteration, however, thus the title.

 

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Meghan Coffee and I am fond of almond joys, red lipstick, laughing loudly (preferably at appropriate times) and the smell of old books. I am a lucky girl in that Dan Hannon and Danny Stephens like me and my music. I’ve got a picture up there somewhere, a pale freckle-faced girl with flowers in my hair.

 

Let’s see…now that I’ve been let into this OneAtlanta Music blog what shall I write about?

 

I am in the mood to put together a puzzle. I am in the mood to go roller-skating. I am in the mood to unabashedly roll down a hill. I am in a mood. I want to run fast and faster and catch up to my 8 year old self.

 

Ah, and now writing that has brought to mind a memory…

 

The summer I was eight years old was the summer I ran away pretty much every night. Well…It might’ve been just one week that I tried to run away, but to my eight year old self it felt like the whole summer. During the day I would sneak food (yogurt, granola bars, hot dogs, bread) and then after I went to “bed” I would grab my little pathetic pile of bedsheets, matches, books and secreted food and carefully make my way down the outside staircase of my house.

 

The house we lived in (in Decatur) used to be 2 apartments, a top floor and a bottom floor. So, we had an outside staircase leading up to the old entrance of what used to be an apartment. That upstairs of our house was where my sister, Erin, and I had our domain. The laundry room was there and a big play area and a cool closet that began in my sister’s room and ran the whole length of the upstairs.

 

Anyway, I digress.

 

I would sneak down said stairs and take off for the park which was just down the street, cross over the baseball field and down into a culvert or drainage ditch of sorts. It was shaped like the bottom half of a stop sign (the actual name of the shape escapes me now, that’s sad…) and it was completely concrete. At one point in this culvert a tree had fallen over and had been made magical with undergrowth and vines of which formed a glorious canopy, a fairy world. To this little piece of twilight perfection I would run.

 

I’d set up camp. Out would spread my sheets, blazing would be my tiny fire, devoured would be my “rations” (always were they called rations, never food. Sometimes they were “grub” if I was feeling particularly saucy) and I would just be settling into my book of choice when I’d hear my father’s step and his voice from the baseball field. Everytime. And everytime I would be so exasperated! Why wouldn’t they just this once let me spend the night!

 

One time in my father’s demands to “hurry up!” I lost my book, Little Women, in the leaves and in the darkness and all my flustering about. It was gone. I cried because I had just arrived at the point where Beth was dying and I had to wait for 2 days until I could get a copy from the library. Sheer torture.

 

My nightly escapades all ended when my parents told me the next time I ran away they were going to call the police and have them take me to the juvenile jail. (They most likely wouldn’t have but they were TRYING to knock some sense into me…) That almost wasn’t sufficient warning, but Erin, my sensible younger sister convinced me that my bed was better than any old bed that kids might’ve peed on and that I might get beaten up. This caused me to resign my grandiose ideas of a fairy filled sleepover in an old, but lovely, drainage culvert.

 

I still fondly remember the fire-lightning-fly-bugs and the smell of my fire and my sense of being in my own space in the world. It was my place. My own piece of just rightness.

 

I went back there today. The park people probably long ago cut the tree and the fairy vines down, cleared away the pieces. I wonder if they might have happened upon traces of a fire, a granola bar wrapper or two, maybe my book, weathered and worn. They cleared away my past, my place, my piece. I sat where it would have been, pondered my aging, pondered my little girl personhood.

 

I was probably pretty annoying. But cute. I still get called cute.

 

Grrrr.

 

I’m off to tuck my soon to be eight year old boy into bed.

 

“What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.” ~Cynthia Ozick

Coffee in the Attic.

So, last night I went to see Meghan Coffee at Eddie’s Attic.  She didn’t have her band; it was just her and a keyboard, with occasional help from Flo (her Mac).  She was amazing, but I expected that.  Zack Arias snapped this photo and was gracious enough to send it to me.  Many thanks, friend.  After Meghan’s set, I ran into Clay Cook who was there to play guitar/keys for Aslyn later in the night.  Clay is a musical freak in his own right, and one time had a band with writing partner John Mayer called LoFi Masters.

 

I love Eddie’s.  Great venue.  Who’s with me?  What cool local artists have you guys seen there?