During my time in Los Angeles I did find time too hook up with ol' pal Brian Healy and attend a Michael Knott / Strung Guru showcase at the famous Viper Room in Hollywood.

We have a title for the new Choir record. It will follow the trend of our previous three releases and is called "Flap Your Wings". We have asked our ol' pal Michael Knott to create an original painting for the cover and he has graciously agreed. In fact, Knott faxed over some sketches of cover ideas the other day. For a glimpse of what direction the Choir cover my go click HERE for a view of the sketches.

Four of the new Choir songs are complete and final mixes. Top dog music city engineer Julian Kindred did the honors at Darkhorse Studios in Franklin, TN. Songs mixed are: Shiny Floor, Flap Your Wings, Only A Moment and Mercy Lives Here. Turning out to be a real Choir record!

Derri and Steve have been focusing on the new Choir record for the past few days. Got at least four lead vocals recorded and some more guitars. Sounding cool - pretty alternative and experimental. Click HERE for a hand written list of working song titles for the record.

Ahhh...the magic that is The Choir. No keyboard patches for us! Here you see Skinny recording some cool sounds for the song Shiny Floor on The Choir record with wine glass and water tuned to B flat - or is it A sharp?

Dale Baker from Sixpence None The Richer (standing - left) was in the studio with Steve and Derri listening to a mix on the Sixpence song that Leah Nash wrote for the City On A Hill worship project. Dale has been hanging out a lot taking some cool pictures to accompany the accompaniment book for the CD.

Well. I can back my bags and move back to Akron. I've completed my mission in Christian music. I got to meet, talk to and obviously have my picture taken with the Car Man himself! Actually, he was very nice and offered me some of his best tanning secrets. Pix was taken at the Gospel Music Assoc. Conference in downtown Nashville.

Steve Hindalong is on the road. He has been traveling this week with a band called Sonic Flood. This band is participating on Steve's City On A Hill project. Hindalong is out with them on their bus while on their tour with the Newsboys to produce the song they wrote for the album. Seems Sonic Flood has a full blown studio on their bus and they are recording the track somewhere on Interstate 80!

Dan Michaels starts a new job today! I'm working with a new record label called RedHill Records doing artist development and marketing. Right now there are four artists on the label - The Echoing Green, Ash Mundae, Katy Hudson and Aurora. No records have released yet - it's looking like August before the first one comes out. I'll be working on the website pretty soon at www.redhillrecords.com. More details to come!

Ol' pal Gene Eugene (Lost Dogs, Adam Again) was flown out East to Nashville so that he could participate on the City On A Hill worship record. Looks like an Adam Again song is being covered for this project and Gene played the piano on the track. Mac Powell from Third Day performed the vocal - stunning! Pictured (L-R) Gene, Steve H., Derri, Marc Byrd.

Hey! You gotta believe us - there really is a new Choir record coming down the pike. We're about 5 tracks into it, but other production work is going to make this take a while - and we want to do it right. To be sure, expect the new record out before July 4th weekend of 2000. Check in here from time to time for updates on the progress.

The worship record (tentatively titled "City On A Hill") that Steve Hindalong is producing is going great. Steve reports that he's recorded some great tracks with Third day down in Atlanta, GA and Leigh Nash of Sixpence has contributed a wonderful song and delivered some beautiful vocal performances on their songs. It's looking like there will be some duets too such as Dan Haseltine from Jars and Leigh Nash on one song.

Steve Hindalong has started production on a new worship recording for Essential Records. Derri has been at the engineering helm. Artists Steve has been recording and writing with so far include Leah from Sixpence, Third Day and FFH. Details and pictures forthcoming.

The Choir has been asked to participate in a couple of compilations this year. One is from Pamplin called Quarters featuring some of Christian music's leading unsigned talent like Phil Maderia, Dave Perkins, Common Children and much more.

The other project is coming out on BEC Recordings and will feature 2 new tracks from us along with two new songs from Adam Again, Daniel Amos, The 77s and Lost Dogs. Should be a winner! Both look like they will release this summer. Sure is nice to be invited to the dance!

The Choir is pleased to announce that we have been invited to perform at Cornerstone 2000. We couldn't imagine a better place to play for our only show in the new millennium.

We are scheduled to play Saturday - late night July 1st at Encore One. Come on out and pay a visit. Click HERE to check out the Cornerstone website.

Just got back from a week vacation in sunny California. My, we had fun. Disneyland, a mall, Venice Beach, mall, Melrose, mall, Hollywood, mall and lots of shopping.

Pictured L-R: My mom, Me, Lisa at the Magic Kingdom.
--- guilty pleasure...Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Just got some film developed that had some pictures from when Mike Knott came to Nashville to play an unplugged gig at local coffee house Jamin' Java. Extremely fun show for me as it reminded me that I still really do love rock and roll. Steve got to play percussion with Mike that evening.

This Thursday - dec. 2nd Dan (me!) is heading back to his sweet California homeland to take a little vacation with his wife Lisa. Plans include visiting my mom and helping out with her new computer, Disneyland, Hollywood and some Christmas shopping. The website will be a little quiet on the updates for a few days. I'll post some pictures of the trip.

This isn't up to the minute news, but Steve has been playing percussion on a lot of interesting projects lately. Billy Smilely (WhiteHeart) has had Steve on a number of his productions including The Normals and Human. While Terry Taylor was in Nashville last week working on his solo record with Phil Madeira, Steve got to play some percussion. And even The Newsboys invited Steve over to shake some bells and play xylophone on their new record that just came out. Here's a cool one - both Derri and Steve got to meet and rehearse with the great Emylou Harris. They recorded some songs with Emylou and one of them ended up in the movie Happy Texas -- so if you see that film, at some point you'll hear some cool percussion played by your favorite Skinny drummer.

A good time was had by all at Steve's big forty birthday party in downtown Nashville. Attendees included friends from Steve and Nancy's church and musician pals. Quite a few people made it out to offer a tip of the hat to the boy of the hour. Steve would like to thank all you kind souls that emailed him a happy birthday. It certainly was a wonderful evening and your well wishing notes brought him even more good cheer - Thanks!

Sheila Walsh has covered the Steve & Derri's song Beautiful Scandalous Night from At The Foot Of The Cross vol. 1. Sheila Walsh has a new record coming out on Integrity Records. Details to come!

Oh, my — Steve (you can call him Skinny) is turning 40 on November 29th! My how the time does fly. In honor of this occasion, Nancy Hindalong is throwing him a huge birthday bash somewhere downtown in Nashville on the Saturday before. There should be plenty of good friends on hand like Derri, Tim, Tom and Dori Howard and people from Steve and Nancy's church. I'll be sure to take a bunch of pictures and post 'em here then next day. In the meanwhile, why don't you send Steve a birthday email at steve@thechoir.net and give him some good cheer! - dm