On a recent Saturday, Adrian and I played a benefit show for Gracehaven House, a local organization that is hoping to open the first house in America entirely devoted to housing underage victims of sex trafficking. Please give them money, even if you don’t have disposable income (but especially if you do). Below is a transcript of the speech I gave in the middle of the show. Modern slavery seems like an obvious choice for a charity, but shit.

And a huge thanks to Ben for taking this video, and all his support (and book-sharing, and couch-lending, and everything else).

once you learn about human trafficking you have to know you’re doing something. what i’ve learned so far about the problem is that it’s enormous but not insurmountable. true, a thousand things need to happen between now and the successful global abolition of modern slavery, and yes, we all understand that we’re in for the long haul. but once you learn that these things happen in your backyard, that the youngest survivor of sex trafficking in central ohio was three, you have to know that you are part of the solution.

adrian and i are playing here tonight because you can listen all day to this problem, you can “raise awareness” to the high hills, but faith without actions is dead. and gracehaven house, along with a handful of other fantastic local organizations, is actually turning to action.

when your two options as a twelve year old girl are being beaten at home or beaten on the streets, you need a third option. this city doesn’t need a gracehaven, it needs a hundred gracehavens. girls shouldn’t be able to walk three blocks without a safe place to go.

right now, everyone in this room is at least curious about how to provide exactly that. the goal of gracehaven house is to open by this summer, and they are still thousands of dollars away from that goal. we don’t need five bucks from everybody at the door, we need five bucks from the parents of everybody at the door, we need everybody here tonight to be planning their own event exactly like this one. we need all hands on deck, we need everybody deciding, once and for all, that they’re either going to rest in the comfort of ignoring this problem, or they are, quite simply, an abolitionist. if gracehaven fails to open their doors to victims of sex trafficking by this summer, than it is not them who have failed but us.

the first of many steps we abolitionists are taking over the coming years towards eliminating human trafficking in all of its forms in central ohio is providing the teenage victims of sex trafficking a safe place to go. and i know if i have anything to say about it, that’s going to be gracehaven.

A brief explanation of this whole “Trains Across the Sea” endeavor:

In case you didn’t know, the title of this musical project is taken from the song of the same name by a band called Silver Jews. If you haven’t listened to them, stop reading right now and find their albums. No question, David Berman (the main force behind Silver Jews) is the reason I started writing and singing my own songs. All my favorite singers couldn’t sing either.

Three weeks before I took this full-time plunge into music, David Berman poetically announced the “Joos” were finished. As an additional twist, Berman revealed to the public that his father is Richard Berman, a D.C. based consultant and lobbyist whose company develops numerous media campaigns for multinational corporations to downplay the dangers of obesity, smoking, mad cow disease, and drunk driving, among others. David Berman states in his open letter:

“This winter I decided that the SJs were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm he has caused.”

And that’s exactly why I started this band: it’s not that music is powerless to undo the crimes of the Richard Bermans of this country, but that music is essential to developing the good and right foundation in those who will inevitably replace them. That even if music can’t change laws, it can sure as hell change minds (which are infinitely more powerful anyway). That once music and politics are again inseparable both will be the better for it. That all Music ever was at its best was a morsel of COMMON TRUTH which rang true over the din of chords and melodies and the dancing and stomping and sweating of MOVEMENT and the simple joy of true communion between strangers. That we can argue about what SHOULD be until we’re blue in the face, but the only real answer to this mess is an educated populous who knows the right thing to do and DOES IT. And if the music of Silver Jews or Trains Across the Sea or anybody else can help eliminate the gap between what you’re currently doing and what you know you should be doing, then music won’t be pining to undo one millionth of anything; it will simply provide the soundtrack to all of us building our better future.

“But what happens, and why I think the world doesn’t fall apart, is that when there are irrational old people in charge, there is a countervailing group of young, cooperative straight arrows who are great at teamwork and are not seeking to nihilistically shut down the system. They have an investment in repair…” (David Berman)

Fulfilling a longtime goal of mine, you can find us in the library system. What better local distribution than the perennial winner of “America’s Greatest Library System?”

The other fun part is anybody can do this. And everybody should. A fantastic way to simultaneously support the local arts AND the local library. Both of which could always use plenty of love. E-mail me if you don’t know how.

Greetings From The Peach District was named “most fun album” in Columbus Alive’s yearly roundup of local music. The phrase “wonderful whimsy” was used. Intentionally. Though, to be fair, the copy we sent to Columbus Alive came with a puppy. His name is Roger and yes, he is a lot of fun.

Also, in the random world of “press” for this here musical outfit, Songs From The Road, a blog with otherwise great taste stumbled on the Monster House album (no idea how) and actually talked about it highly. Read all about it!

Various Artists – The Year In Chorus

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This one goes out to everyone at the Taj Tuesdays open mic. I take fantastically little credit for it, but together everyone achieves more, right? Bookending the story with the first verse of Animal Collective’s My Girls, this “song” takes the best of the choruses (applicable to the “relationship” theme we’re working with) that came out of that room this year and ends up telling a story. I highly recommend you listen to all the songs individually (here would be a good place to start), as there’s plenty more going on here than just the choruses, but suffice it to say I’m honored to be surrounded by such talent every Tuesday. Cheers you beautiful Taj Tuesdays people, and here’s to another year of writing great songs.

The Songs:

My Girls – Animal Collective
I Just Want to Get Paid – Trains Across the Sea
Run Away With Me – Trains Across the Sea
The Cutest Drinking Song Ever – Cody Johnston (see more of him here)
Love Is Something That You Do – Trains Across the Sea
Musket Sea Family – Cody Johnston
Tree In The Woods – Colors for the War (specifically Phil Kim; see more of him here and here)
A Mile Northeast – Trains Across the Sea
My Girls – Animal Collective
Rapture – Colors for the War (specifically Jason Dutton; see more of him here)

Honestly, I probably won’t beat this weekend in a long time.

Chronologically: A meeting with writers from The Lantern and 614 Magazine about the upcoming Greatest Show (more on that later), 8th Floor Improv’s December Show (another reminder of how TERRIBLE I would be at improv), Bernie’s, endless drinkalong/singalong/DuckHuntalong party back at our place, get a 1:35am text from Bobby Miller that I’m in the Rock Potluck (how did that happen?), woke up hungover to get to Central City Recording for practice, had an hour break to eat, played a Salvation Army food drive show at Tobacco International for probably the greatest audience we’ve ever played for (honestly, thank you guys so much; the recording is here, feel free to send me an e-mail for the password), got my face melted at the Rock Potluck (portion of proceeds benefit the Columbus Music Co-Op), and then completely lost control of myself when our single-serving band (Pussy Control) got on stage and played something, I think. Then on Sunday I read The Road.

All without the assistance of an automobile. I love this town.

Honestly, thank you everybody on this album and everybody on past albums and future albums and anybody who’s ever seen us and everybody I’ve ever met and all that sorta love.

Feel free to ignore the plug for the website at the end. It seems you’re aware of it…

Ah, dear Pat Leonard, staple of the Columbus music scene…

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If you’re not aware, Pat has been running a radio show for years, and normally he has pretty good taste in music. That’s not the case this week, when he weakened from my incessant bothering to allow us into Electraplay Studios to record. It’s a good mix of Trains tunes – one off the first album, one cover, one off the last album, and one new one. The LifeScouts have three songs on the show as well! So check out patradio.org to listen to the show and then check out his new website (to further confuse his listeners) for video and other excitement.

And of course, keep listening to WCRS.

Yesterday was most likely my last “official” day of retirement, and it was a classic. I should be starting a job on Monday (I’ll let you all know all about it as soon as it’s finalized – I don’t want to jinx myself), consequently moving into a new phase of this project; the main focus of which is to keep writing as many new songs as I can. Looking back, it’s honestly an unreal trip having essentially zero obligations for nine and a half months, and I highly recommend it to anybody who can afford to. There are few greater gifts to give oneself than their own life back. And what do you do when you’ve been given your life back? For me, lots of strange things, but I think a brief rundown of my last completely free weekday acts as a pretty fair cross section of how I’d prefer to spend my days.

I woke up with a pot of coffee and bright morning sun and plowed more through my well-thumbed Hunter S. Thompson (Gonzo Papers Vol. 1), journaled a little, worked on a new song for a few hours, had a thick slice of sourbread toast, mixed up some new dough to rise while I’m out, packed the bag (ukelele, iPod, hammock, books, journal, camera, etc) and hit the road (don’t stop doing things just because you don’t have anybody to do them with). The bicycle took me leisurely all over the city; through downtown, to the west side where I climbed a tree and took the picture above, to those benches on the other side of the river downtown, where I took the picture below, and then casually up that consistently gorgeous bike trail to a coffee shop where Patrick was waiting, and it’s reading and laughing and drinking beer at three in the afternoon and MAKING A NEW FRIEND (this becomes a sweet, rare commodity the older you get) and back home for that Andy-sized bowl of pasta and watching a movie with a six pack of beer and just dumbly smiling at the supreme relaxation of having biked all over this grand town and honestly not wanting to be anywhere else.

Songs Start Here

Because we could give a damn about myspace hits.
Because we’d rather make something that lasts than something that becomes popular.
Because art is like anything else on this planet – you gotta work your ass off before you get anywhere.
Because sometimes we were so drunk it was terrible, and sometimes we were so drunk it was amazing.
Because the only way any of us will get there is if we go together.
Because sometimes you pee at the wrong time and miss something.
Because I don’t want to forget the stuff I can’t remember.

Rules:
Each attendee of open mic is allowed one (1) song per week to be recorded. Having a single song/project (cover, original, spoken word, whatever) to work on each week is a manageable chunk of time to really get a good product. Each song is uploaded whenever Andy gets around to it. No ranking system, no preference to any song above any other. All available for free stream/download. The marketing is done elsewhere. This is a simple database for anybody that might ask “what are those open mics like, anyway?” Click randomly around and find out for yourself.

Or, quite obviously, come to open mic. It’s amazing.