7 Days…

A few days ago I asked if you’d be up for a challenge, no matter what it was… and you
said
YES!

I’m super pumped that you’re willing to do this with me…
So here it is!

I want you to be in my next video!!!

It’s gonna be super fun, and super easy…

All you need is a video camera of some sort (even an iPhone, iPad - anything that starts with ‘i’ will probably work - or any other video camera for that matter) and a copy of my song ‘7 Days’.

Once you have the supplies, you need to get your friends/family/pets/enemies together and brainstorm some super creative ways of lip synching the song…

Think Mexican Theme… lots of colors, lots of fun… maybe a beach, maybe some fun summer outfits… anything that screams ‘7 Days’.

Feel free to airband it, use props, dress up, and find fun locations… it’s totally up to you!!! Just get creative!!!

Then… SEND ME THOSE VIDEOS!!!

We’re gonna choose the best ones and make one AMAZING video with all of you in it!!!

Here’s the finer details:
You have 7 Days to create it - all of ‘em gotta be in by no later than Friday, August 5th at Midnight
Please Be Safe
Don’t get naked, we won’t post it

Send ‘em to andrewallenvideos@gmail.com
In the Subject Line, say ‘7 Days’ and in the email say you’re cool with being on YouTube:)

Sometimes I laugh to myself.

Yesterday was a good day for that.

I was in Topeka, Kansas.

Not sure where that is? Look it up on a map ‘cause I’m real bad at geography…

Toto might have been from there… no promises.

Anyways, I was there to play a show with Andy Grammar.

We decided to hang out during the day since neither of us are from there or have friends there.

First decision, go to the gym. Actually, first we went to wal mart and Andy bought a zucchini and a bottle of water for breakfast.

I laughed to myself.

Then we went to the gym.

My hotel didn’t have one, but they said we could use the gym at the next hotel over.

So we went, got to the front desk, asked to use the gym, and they laughed and said sure.

Never a good sign.

We got into the ‘gym’ and saw 2 treadmills, an elliptical, and 4 free weights, only 2 of which actually weighed the same thing.

I laughed to myself.

We both jumped on separate treadmills and cranked ‘em up… for about 5 minutes.

We could have lasted longer, but after 5 minutes, all the lights went out, the fan shut off, the TV died and both treadmills lurched to a stop.

Apparently we blew the breaker.

I went to the front desk, and said, ‘I think we blew the breaker’… to which the front desk man said… ‘you didn’t use both the treadmills at the same time did you?’… to which I replied, ‘no, we were watching each other use one at a time…of course we were using them at the same time!’

So… we abandoned the gym.

I laughed to myself.

Next stop… the show…

The radio station promoting it sent a limo for us… this was super sweet of them, and we were picturing a normal limo.

Turns out they wanted to go bigger than normal.

Andy and I rode in a pimped out mini bus with 2 TV’s and a disco ball.

Just the two of us.

And a disco ball.

Hilarious and awesome.

And yes I turned on the disco ball.

I laughed to myself.

If only the venue wasn’t just 5 blocks away, I think we would have had a dance party.

All in all… a great day, great hangs with Andy and a great show for a great group of people in Topeka…

And all day long I got the chance to laugh to myself… not a bad way to spend a day:)

Every tour needs a recap.

Here’s mine.

He is We tour - June 22nd - July 13th.

We started in Seattle Washington…

It’s weird for me now to think that we started this trip just 3 weeks ago!

I remember it clearly though.

We took a flight from Vancouver to Seattle… landed… picked up the rental van, picked up Nate, drove to Whole Foods, realized by the ringing cellphone in the centre console that we had some random AVIS ladies cell phone…

Nate ended up speaking with her, complimented the picture of her child that was her wallpaper, and then left it with the Whole Foods customer service lady. 

Hope the AVIS lady got her phone back. 

At least she didn’t leave her baby in the van.

Though we probably would have noticed sooner, and not left it with the Whole Foods customer service lady.

We’ve since driven thousands of miles, and hit millions of bugs. 

And probably have a few stories. Plus, I even got some gifts… 

I’ll start with the gifts:)

Thank you for the chocolates in Seattle, for the bracelet in Cambridge and the cookies too!

In Spokane we went out for Thai food that was so hot I was sweating out of my elbows. Didn’t think you could sweat out of your elbows did you?

In Salt Lake City we were all just plain sweating ‘cause it was so unbelievably hot! This however won the prize for fave show on the tour… it was undeniably amazing… the crowd was super interactive, super loud, and super fun… so thank  you Salt Lake City for showing us a great time:)

I did however get lost going to Whole Foods again… but whatever:)

Halfway through the tour, Nate and I flew to San Francisco to play a show with Matt Nathanson, Parachute, One Republic and Michelle Branch… we flew out super early in the morning from Denver, landed in in SF, and were picked up with Michelle Branch in a big van (she wasn’t driving the van, just in it with us)… we ripped to the show, which was challenging since many of the streets were blocked off for the Pride parade… jumped on the stage, played a set to an estimated 15,000 people, and then went to try and meet them all!

I don’t think I met all of them. Some of them though:)

Next morning I flew to Minneapolis to connect with the rest of the tour… definitely a whirlwind!

It was super nice to hit a Canadian city on this tour too… playing Toronto was awesome… however, I don’t quite understand why the border people had a bigger issue with us coming into the country than the other two US bands… we’re Canadian for crying out loud… let me in! 

Obviously the border guy never worked at McDonalds.

Smiles are free.

We were back in Columbus again… I’m definitely a fan of this city… the venue we played is called the Basement… I want to be a fan of it, but there’s so many penises drawn on the back wall that it’s hard to love the room:)

Paint is cheap.

Indianapolis was a trip… there were 2 other opening bands on the bill, one of which brought an octagon lighting rig that stood 10 feet high.

I debated bringing my octagon lighting rig on this tour, but decided it wouldn’t fit in my carry on.

Instead, I went across the street to a thrift store and bought a creepy baby doll. 

We thought he’d help sell our new merch.

I think he just creeped people out.

In fact, we got to Cambridge, MA and the baby made an appearance at the bar after the show… there was actually a gentleman there that tried to adopt this baby, he cradled it in a napkin and cuddled with it for most of the evening. 

He then asked me when the last time I did acid was.

I told him never.

He said good answer.

I didn’t ask him back.

I did take the creepy baby away from the creepy man though.

On a beautiful note, we had the chance to visit West Chester on this trip… one of the most beautiful cities I think we’ve played in…

It’s got an adorable british charm to it, and a cool venue… suitably called, ‘The Note’.

They had a bike race going on the same day as our show… we all wanted to finish the show so we could watch.

Mainly ‘cause the venue was on a corner.

The corner where everyone crashes.

So I guess we all just wanted to see a crash… not really, but kind of.

You get it.

BTW: Ryan Dunn was from West Chester. Just a little fact for you.

I sat on a porch in Nashville during dusk and watched fireflies dance while drinking a beer. 

I think humidity was like 99%… 1 more % and we’d be under water. 

We drove in around 6pm and our van said it was 101 degrees outside. 

It was right.

I was sweating at 9pm in the evening, and it was awesome.

The next day consisted of going for breakfast to Noshville where they have giant pickles sitting in vinegar on the table waiting for you to eat them… then to La Paleta, a famous gourmet popsicle place that was featured on the food network… where I had a blueberry yogurt popsicle, and my agent Jeffrey had a corn popsicle… which is funny ‘cause I was video taping us eating them, without realizing that I also caught Keith Urban trying to parallel park his Porsche SUV… which he didn’t do a very good job of… either times he tried ha ha ha!

Unfortunately I didn’t keep my camera out when Nicole Kidman and him stepped out and went into the popsicle place.

Dang.

TMZ would have loved me!

But it’s Nashville, not LA, so you don’t bug people that are famous, for them it’s just home right?

We continued on to a great little sushi fusion place, and then back to the popsicle place since I regretted getting a boring blueberry popsicle and wanted the avocado one instead.

I also secretly hoped that Keith and Nicole were still there.

They weren’t.

But the avocado popsicle was delicious!

We played 12th and Porter that night… cool, and famous room…

My friend from Vancouver randomly stopped by, not knowing I was playing there, as he was on a writing trip.

Weirdly small world.

To be honest, I hated Nashville the first time I went there… now, I love it.

Maybe one day I’ll be Keith’s neighbour. 

We could go for popsicles together.

Now I’m on a plane… 35,000 feet in the air, after logging 7000 miles in a van… we departed from Fayetteville Arkansas… the last stop on the tour for us… 

Sadly.

Some tours end and you’re thankful that rest is coming,

that you don’t have to lug gear for a few days, 

and that you don’t have to be in a van for 9 hours a day.

This wasn’t one of those tours.

This was a tour that had a lot of great people on it, that we all looked forward to seeing even if we’d been in a van for 9 hours.

To the guys in Ocean Grove… thanks for being inspiring and awesome, and for melting my face with your guitar riffs… I look forward to the next time we cross paths… and I’m glad to be your friend…

And to the folks in He is We… your flipping songs are still stuck in my head, but I’m okay with it ‘cause it reminds me all about you:) Thanks for loving life and becoming friends! We’ll miss you till the next time.

To the people that came out to see any of the shows, thanks for being so gracious, and for loving music enough to support the live shows, buy the CD’s and shirts, and apologize for wanting a picture (hilarious since it’s a pleasure to know you want one:) Thank you.

See you on the next one!

Andrew

I read a blog post by Derek Sivers once.

Okay, I actually read them whenever he sends them.

He’s the guy that created CD Baby… kinda cool right?

Well he invented it, and then sold it for a lot of money I think.

Even cooler.

Anyways, I was thinking about his blog post again the other day, it’s one of those recurring thoughts that jumps into my brain.

He was talking about a term called illusory superiority. It’s the idea that you’re better than average.

He talks stats… 90% of students think they’re more intelligent than other students, 92% of say they’re less bias than others… it goes on… 

And it’s funny ‘cause 90% of people can’t be above average, unless 10% is the average… which it’s not…

Anyways… he goes on to say that he’s now assuming that he’s below average… putting himself into the ‘student’ frame of mind, and trying to learn from everyone…

I honestly think about this all the time… whenever I’m frustrated by someone else’s actions, or if I think ‘I could have done that better’… I think… what if they’re above average, and I need to learn from them…

Or maybe it doesn’t matter who’s above average… everyone has something to teach, and we should always strive to learn… 

It makes life a whole lot more fun.

And a lot less average.

Check out the full blog from Derek Sivers here: http://sivers.org/below-average

I read a blog post by Derek Sivers once.

Okay, I actually read them whenever he sends them.

He’s the guy that created CD Baby… kinda cool right?

Well he invented it, and then sold it for a lot of money I think.

Even cooler.

Anyways, I was thinking about his blog post again the other day, it’s one of those recurring thoughts that jumps into my brain.

He was talking about a term called illusory superiority. It’s the idea that you’re better than average.

He talks stats… 90% of students think they’re more intelligent than other students, 92% of say they’re less bias than others… it goes on… 

And it’s funny ‘cause 90% of people can’t be above average, unless 10% is the average… which it’s not…

Anyways… he goes on to say that he’s now assuming that he’s below average… putting himself into the ‘student’ frame of mind, and trying to learn from everyone…

I honestly think about this all the time… whenever I’m frustrated by someone else’s actions, or if I think ‘I could have done that better’… I think… what if they’re above average, and I need to learn from them…

Or maybe it doesn’t matter who’s above average… everyone has something to teach, and we should always strive to learn… 

It makes life a whole lot more fun.

And a lot less average.

Check out the full blog from Derek Sivers here: http://sivers.org/below-average