Aaawww yeah... it's AUTUMN! Rain, clouds, cold air, no more rattling and dehydrating air conditioners, ahh I LOVE it! Can you tell I'm not a summer person? Oh boy...

I am looking forward to getting back in the Mazda and heading to my favorite Midwest spots (check the website for updates as we are still adding more) as well as some great New England shows in October. It's been a fun summer, cruising around on the two wheels and chillin' with the new hubby, but it's time for action again!

Along with the action, we're gearing up to release 'Eldorado' as the next single off the new album and this is why I found myself on an airplane this weekend headed to Atlanta to record some more vocals for the radio remix. It felt very rock and roll to be grabbing an overnight bag and hopping a plane to meet Shawn Mullins at the studio for a day or two I must say. (Ignoring the fact of course that the airline was AirTran and my seat was in coach. And that I was met not by a limo at the other end, but by the woman in the token booth at the MARTA train station where I bought my two tokens like a good little rock star...)

But then it was straight to the studio and a little tea and steam for the old vocal cords and then a few hours of "Elllll-dorado-o-o-o whoa-o-o..." and so on. MANY thanks to engineer extraordinaire James Salter for his indispensable help with this project!

So now we've got it spiffed up and ready to go to the airwaves and we'll see what happens - and many thanks to those of you who always WHOOP when I start the song at shows - now that is a rock star feeling. Almost as rock star as the feeling I got when I had my first lighter. Your what, Sam? Oh yeah, my first lighter. I remember it well. A dark, breezy night in Salida, Colorado at good old Bongo Billy's. A red plastic lighter went up in the back. I stopped momentarily to make sure I wasn't being mocked but then, realizing the sentiment was in earnest and now there was one less thing separating me from Bon Jovi, I forged ahead with the song. The one lighter was soon joined by others and we had a veritable solar system in our midst! (I still have the lighter by the way - thank you!) It's the little moments that carry one forth in this crazy job, you know.

August brought some great moments as well, thanks to the crews in Charlottesville, Danville, and Norfolk, Virginia! I didn't love driving 4.5 hours through the middle of the night in thunderstorms on small roads with apparently anal cops out to getcha for going over the 25-mile small town speed limits, but I DID enjoy playing on The Coast radio station the following morning! Thank you Hunter Hughes for being a great radio host!

I do have to tell you about the one great roadside find I've had recently: Watt's Family Restaurant off Route 80 in Pennsylvania. Sorry I don't have a more exact exit number for you but if you pay attention, you'll see the sign from the highway, although actually, I was so hungry by then I wasn't totally paying attention. So watt's so great about Watt's? you ask with a great pun, which I can appreciate. (Ok because I wrote it but anyway...) Well, not only do they have a great grilled cheese sandwich WITH homemade potato chips for only like $2.75, but while you're waiting for said meal to arrive, you might just happen to glance around the place and look down at the table you're leaning on and then you would notice the placemats at Watt's Family Restaurant which are, in fact, covered in WORD PUZZLES! Like I said, it's the little moments that make this job great for me sometimes. And an eyeful of willing, unmarked, ready-to-be-solved word puzzles is just one of those things. I admit it - I'm a word puzzle junkie.

As if the clumsy slide down a Washington State mountain in bell-bottomed corduroys wasn't enough to convince you that you are dealing with a true geek here...Yes, I'm one of those people you didn't think really existed who cruises WH Smith's and Hudson News kiosks in airports and train stations, selecting the best word puzzle magazine and actually buying it. This means I spend as much on cryptograms as most people spend on People magazine. I would rather look at a word scramble than Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. I mean WHERE are my priorities? But there's just something about looking at SDSWG on a page and knowing it's going to decipher into the word EVERY that is so satisfying. And even better is when you see JK JH KFD XUUV TDUTVD KFSK J LBSA KU and you realize it means IT IS THE COOL PEOPLE THAT I PLAY TO! OK so that was pretty lame but I've never made a cryptogram before - I'm usually too busy solving them. The great thing is that you learn so much from solving cryptograms, like "One should be either sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers" (Eugene O'Neill) and "Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives" (Dr. William Dement) See? Aren't these great? Of course when you get them they look like "EXUFQJKR CUXQJAT UFHW FKE UMUXL ZKU ZS BT AZ VU PBJUANL FKE TFSUNL JKTFKU UMUXL KJRWA ZS ZBX NJMUT." (EX. DJNNJFQ EUQUKA) But then you can see why I get so excited...

So the point is, Watt's Family Restaurant has got it going on and I highly recommend a visit. It was hard to tear myself away once said grilled cheese was ready! And now that you are thoroughly convinced that I do truly need help, I will leave you. Have a wonderful September - sorry SeptSamber - and hope to see you out there!

Be well,
-Sam

www.samshaber.com
www.smgrecords.com