Today, me and the crew (otherwise known as the TWB) will head to First Baptist Church, Lake Jackson to lead worship for their Disciple Now weekend.

Posted an update over on Facebook and had planned to put it here, too, but who likes media saturation, right?

I feel pretty confident we'll be able to do some sort of streaming broadcast Friday and Saturday night. (You never know, though...just ask @justinromack.) If not, we'll still try to shoot some video and post it when we can grab some internet.

Playing events like this is a blast - I love multiple day gigs. Playing a one night thing is always so hard...hard to connect with the crowd...lots of pressure to be super awesome very quickly in a short amount of time. Those events have their place, they're just really hard to do.

Events like this DNOW are great because not only do I get three full sets to lead the students, I also get to hang out with the guys for three days. This weekend's lineup looks to be pretty interesting. Here's who I'm taking.

• Justin Romack. While it's true that Forrest Layton is the senior member of TWB, Romack is an undoubtable second. (However, if you're judging frequency of gigs, Romack has a serious leg up on Forrest. Just saying.) I don't need to spend much time on Romack. He's awesome. He's an amazing musician, but also one of the most humble amazing musicians I've ever met.
  
  
• Adam Fischer. I get excited everytime I can bring Adam in for a gig. Yeah, Adam's gonna' learn his stuff, but you can guarantee that at numerous points during the week something unplanned and stunning will coming from his amp. I won't even try to make a comparison here, but let's say it like this - think of a really creative electric guitar player.
  Yeah. Adam's JUST like that guy.
  
  
• Philip Melton. I've done a couple of things with Philip, but this will be my first road gig with him. Philip plays guitar, bass, piano and drums. He sings. He writes songs. His hair is the color of a lovely golden sunset. Should be fun having him with us.
  
  
• Austin Hodges. I've never played with Austin. But here's what I know. He plays guitar great. And he's got big muscles. So, when we show up, people will think he's my bodyguard at first. I'm also terrified that I've screwed up and somehow combined his name with someone else and I'll keep referring to him with the wrong name. Which would be awkward.

That's the crew. Wish I could be more eloquent, but I'm busy packing up, trying to use Handbrake to rip some live U2 stuff down to mp3 for the drive down and kissing my family goodbye.

Stay tuned the blog for either broadcasting or a recap video.

Or both.

Who knows?

Todd Blog is party, kids.

Immerse Recap

First off, thanks so much for all of those who have asked how the kick-off for Immerse went on Monday. I apologize that I couldn't blog it up Monday night, but I had a retreat Tues-Wed and I just ran out of time.

I'm trying to edit some video of the worship, but that may have to wait until I can steal some time from something else!

Immerse went great. First off, the band did a wonderful job. Romack and Paul James held down drums and bass and Andrew Pulley, an Immerse guy, did piano. Andrew is very good and I'm looking forward to playing with him more. Romack and Paul were, of course, spot-on.

Not counting band and other volunteers, we had around 40 kids there. It felt great - laid back, casual, and the students were both respectful and passionate during the song set. For our first one of 2009, we were trying a couple of things...

1. New sound system. We opted for a smaller, more portable setup. I think it allowed for the crowd to hear themselves better during worship. I brought a couple of powered monitors and they worked great.
2. New stage. As you'll see below, we're on a small stage. The building we rent for this has a bigger, theater-style stage, but once of Immerse's founders built a great stage that was about half-as-tall as the normal staging. Made the service feel a lot more normal and cool that way, in my opinion.

We'll see what next week holds. I've got to put a setlist together as soon as possible and I'm hoping that I'll get the chance to get to know some of those kids better next week. For the rest of the week, I'll be posting a few video clips of the worship set...in case you enjoy watching such things. You might have to crank volume a little to hear Paul and Andrew...they both did good, but I'll probably have to bump them in the house a bit next week.

This afternoon, some pals and I will be headed to Teague, TX to lead worship for a "Saw You At The Pole" Rally for 8th Avenue Baptist Church.

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even know SYATP was still a thing these days, but I'm glad to help my buddy Shaun out with some worship.

Here's the crew:

JUSTIN ROMACK - Drums, percussion, other sundry sounds. Playing with Justin is like having a warm blanket...no matter what happens on stage, he's gonna' be loyal, sturdy and get the job done.

BEN LOVE - Bass guitar, vocals. I know it might seem like I made this guy up...I mean, come on...a bass player named 'Love?' That's just too easy, right? But trust me, he's real. He's a member of the band Clairmont and one of Ross King's go-to bass players. Can't go wrong with that, huh?

SPENCE PEPPARD - Electric guitar. To say that Spence Peppard 'plays' electric guitar isn't really correct. He doesn't play it...he brings it under submission and wields it like a mighty sword of electrons and wattage and...I'm so bad at metaphor.

MARK KUYKENDALL - Mark is the Pastor of Student Ministries at Bethel. He's a gifted communicator, a sharp theological mind and he can do anything. Like, anything. Like...he may repair a car or something at the church when we're done. Mark will be preaching/teaching/'bringing the Word' for the event. I'm excited to serve alongside him.

ANGELA ROMACK - Anytime Angela can come on a gig, I'm happy. I love this girl. Not only is she a great help to Justin (and often the rest of us,) she also just a really fun person to be around. She's sincere and a servant and it's always fun to hang out. Now, it's rumored that Angela will be video taping some of the night. If that happens, you can count on a video recap on Thursday!

If we have time after setting up, sound checking, rehearsing, inputting projection, eating a snack and praying...we'll aslo check for wifi. A little Mogulus broadcast of the TWB would be fun, right?

Stay tuned! We're gonna' have a blast!

Flat Joey...

You're probably familiar with the Flat Stanley movement.
Well, LifePoint Church has taken that to a whole new level.

Meet Flat Joey. The one-dimensional incarnation of LifePoint's Senior Pastor Joe Duke.

And Flat Joey came to camp. Here are kids worshipping and celebrating and, of course, there's Flat Joey mugging for the camera.

Here, you see that photographer was trying to capture Kyle in full on ROCK-FACE VEST-MODE, but alas, Flat Joey was having none of that.

We weren't too happy with Flat Joey interrupting our rocking and we decide to go all Matthew 18 on him.But darn it if the little fellow didn't charm us back into his good graces! Here's to Flat Joey, the newest honorary member of the TWB!

This Man Has No Heart...

This is Clay Walker.

Last week, he was featured on this blog as both a part of our camp experience and the owner of a fascinating beard.

I devoted a significant amount of time and energy to this man. Because I care about him.

But he does not care about me.

Why would I say such a thing?

Here's why....

Kyle Grimes and I flew into Baltimore late last Sunday night. We waited for our other bandmates to arrive, then headed to our homes for the night. Forrest and Justin stayed with the Fullens, while Kyle and I crashed in the basement of Lance and Amy Burch. Clay, who arrived on Saturday, was also staying at Lance's house.

Upon arrival, we talked for a bit, then all went to bed.

The next morning, we all packed our gear to head out for camp.

At some point during this load-up, Clay asked Lance if we would be coming back to the Burch's house before heading to the airport once camp was over.

Now, there are a few problems with the whole exchange. They are not critical to the point of Clay's heartlessness, but they certainly deserve retelling. In this matter, Clay made a few faulty assumptions....

#1. That Lance already knew all of our flight times on Friday afternoon and knew who would be delivering us to the airport.

#2. That Friday's closing service and load-out times were a given.

Lance reportedly answers, "Sure, we can come back," and Clay decides to leave two t-shirts, a pair of shorts and a belt at the house. (I'm not exactly sure why - surely they would have fit in his suitcase?)

We go to camp. Camp is good. And on Thursday night, I talk to Jason about load-out. As he starts hearing our different flight times, he starts to get that we'll-never-make-that look. I am not a fan of this look.

On Friday, we load as fast as possible and begin structuring the vehicles in such a way so that Kyle and I get to our flight (which was first in the order...)

The problem was then revealed...rather than driving straight back to the church, we had to go significantly out of our way to pick up four articles of clothing from Lance's home.

Hear me now - I wasn't that mad at Clay for leaving his stuff. Kyle and I weren't stressing the departure or anything. I wasn't mad at Lance for answering Clay's question in the affirmative.

But I was mad nonetheless.

You know what Clay said when all of this confusion erupted? When it was realized that his shorts and shirts and belt might actually cause us to miss our flight?

Nothing.

No apologies. No "oh-gosh-guys-I-never-thought-about-that." As a matter of fact, when I said, "Clay, don't you even feel a little bit bad about this?" He said this:

"No! I mean, if you miss your flight, I might feel bad about it, but no. I'm not sorry. Lance told me we could come back."

Lance-told-me-we-could-come-back was pretty much his only defense, as evidenced by the 53 times he said it to us.

It was an unfortunate, but manageable, set of circumstances. That, we could deal with.

But one of my best friends so blatantly disregarding my concern and so flippantly speaking to me?

That was a huge hurt to me, and because of that, for the next five days this blog will be running a series that will seek to smear and castigate and ridicule one Mr. Clay Walker.

And maybe, he'll learn the lesson we all need to learn.

You do not mess with Todd Blog.

Clay has been notified of this week's blogging theme and is free to defend his actions here on the blog or via any other suitable online forum. But hopefully not his own blog, because it is totally lame.

Camp Pics...

Marisa Garman is one of the many hidden heroes of LifePoint Churchs student ministry.
She's tireless in her efforts to aid and support Lance and Jason, to mobilize students for ministry and to make worship happen in a way that's engaging and safe.

Marisa took these camp pictures and I love them - she's got an eye for capturing moments like this and I'm so glad she did!

Camp Confessional #4

YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE...

I've thought about this for some time. I've done research. I've asked the hard questions. I've watched those closest to me.

And I'm convinced.

It is impossible for anyone (man or woman) not to love this man.

Adam Fischer, ladies and gentlemen.

If you know him, how 'bout showing him some love down in the comment box?

GIG RECAP - NO CONFESSIONAL TODAY

Played last night at FBC Lufkin for Revolve, the Wednesday service for old pal Clayton. Wow, was it fun!

First of all - props to Romack, Jinx and guest bassist Doug Hedstrom. They did an amazing job with the set. I was especially pleased with all of the tonal goodness that Mr. Jinkins brought to the party. I also want to say that Blake, although sick, really made the difference with his sound expertise. I hate showing up to places without a sound person, so I threw a few bucks at Blake and had him mix us. It sounded terrific. Blake had to leave right after we finished playing. I believe it had something to do with vomit.

Second of all - the set was a blast. This has been a very busy and crazy week at FUMC because we've been getting ready for our big DNOW (called "STORM Weekend here.) Last night's set was like a B-12 shot or something - the perfect pick-me-up and a nice little break from all my editing duties. It was work, sure, but it was FUN work.

Here's what we played:
1. Our God Saves (Balcohe) - Jinx dropped tune, nailed the lead, Romack and Doug held that groove down.
2. Because Of Your Love (Baloche) - I hear worship leaders that have mixed feelings on this one, but last night's version was the absolute grooviest, tight version I've ever played it.
3. Sing to The King (Foote) - This is a good song. Sure, it's been played a lot, but FBC ate it up.
4. O Praise Him (Crowder) - Moved this to the key of F to work with "Sing to the King," which pitched it down a good bit. Also straightened out the arrangement to a LESS-CROWDER-CRAZINESS-MORE-CONGREGATIONAL-FLOW style. It was good, we played it maybe a bit more mellow that most do, but it worked.
5. Glorify (Wright) - Band did good. Sometimes that song goes over like gangbusters. Sometimes it just sits there. Last night was somewhere in between.

I'll be in North Texas this weekend, but two of my bandmates are bringing Macs, so surely we can shoot, edit and post confessionals that are super-slick, cool, awesome, pretty and so much better than anything that can be done on a PC.

Will Todd Ever Stop With The Web Trends?

Was checking Terry Storch the other day and saw he was bragging on a new, very simple blog site.

I decided to give it a try and setup a very simple TWB blog site. It's way different from any other blog feature I've seen. (Much easier to upload, w/ lots of smooth options for posting.)

A lot of folks have gotten crazy with their templates, but since I don't know much (or anything) about HTML, I opted for something pretty simple.

Check it:

Also, while waiting on getting the actual Todd Wright site up, we've thrown up a picture of me playing a really cool guitar:
http://www.toddwrightband.com/

For a long time I've been telling folks how truly talented David Runnels is in the ministry of graphic design. However, there seems to be some disconnect between his print work and other forms of design. Unfortunately, I assumed that all graphic designers could design all things and asked David to design our brand new Todd Wright Band hoodies for 2008.

The Website That Wasn't (But Kinda' Still Is)

Back in July, I bought a website. I went to the place my pal recommended. Bought the hosting and the domain.

My pal gets to work on the website. Truth be told, he's not the fastest designer in the world, but he's really good. So I was patient. He looked over all my receipts from the hosting company and said it all looked okay.

Fast forward to last week, when I mailed off the master and art files so that the duplication company could get to work. 5-7 days they say...

Two nights ago, I'm thinking about the CD and decide that I ought to check the site, just to see what's there. You know what's there? This:

That's right...the site I bought is now showing a site by a musician named Todd Wright from Virginia. He a great writer. (Tons of videos on YouTube. His stuff is pretty good.)

I then spent the next hour and a half emailing and texting my pal to see what was going on. We eventually, bought another domain (which shall remain nameless until ready) and got word to the duplicator to change the artwork before going to print...crisis averted, but what the heck happened in July?

Today, I finally found two receipt emails from the hosting company that verified that I had, in fact, purchased http://www.toddwrightmusic.com/ back in July.

My pal is currently going into detective mode to try to figure out what happened. Stay tuned...this could get interesting.

January 12th

Had TWB practice the other night for STORM weekend coming up next Friday (1/12/07.) We got off to a slow start, but I left the rehearsal feeling really good about the set.

I want to take a second to brag on the guys I'm playing with. (Watch - I'm going to say nice things about them and then they'll post sarcastic comments because my love makes them uncomfortable.)

Romack - Been with the TWB the longest. (Except for the TW.) I am constantly impressed by Justin, though not only because of his playing. His playing IS fantastic, but I am also so encouraged to him talk about drums. It's very rare to find drummers who actually consider themselves worship leaders. Justin in constantly assessing and adjusting his playing, not to produce the most impressive performance, but to make sure that the worship experience is free of distraction and as focused as possible.

Jinx - Is there anything this dude can't do? Guitar?Check. Vocals?Check. Synth?Why not? I absolutely love playing with this guy standing beside me. Primarily because it enhances my own cool factor just to be near him, but secondly because he's a phenomenal talent who is always striving to create soundscapes that will take our songs to uncharted places. Plus he has rap on his iPod.

Brad - Bass players are tricky folks, and often it's hard to find bass players that are...well...normal. Brad Anderson is the most normal dude I know, and I love it. Brad is so consistent on stage and off. Musically, the guy just doesn't miss and he's always willing to follow me into the unknown during my spontaneous setlist changes. I also love the fact that this guy is faithful to his God, his church and his friends with a dedication that I don't see very often. Brad has also been so patient as I've utilized other bass players in the past. Some dudes would get mad, but Brad's servant heart continues to gain big brownie points in my book.

Ryan - I'm not gonna' lie. There are people who said I couldn't do two electrics. Well, they were wrong. STORM will be Ryan's second gig with the 4-man TWB and I can't wait. I've been so impressed that Ryan has be willing to focus on making the electric rhythm as solid as can be. Some guys just can't wait to show off their stuff, but Ryan so perfectly understands his role in the band and brings such focus to it. I should also say that to see Jinx and Ryan work together has been really impressive. It's like they're communicating mentally or something w/ regard to riffs and leads, etc.

For those of you in the Lufkin area, I would love for you to come out on Friday, January 12th at First Methodist and see what these guys can do. I don't want to be that guy who constantly begs people to come to "his" show...really, I don't. But I'm just so proud of these guys that I want as many people as possible to hear what they're doing and to see how much they enjoy it.