GREETINGS EVERYONE.

i suppose i'll begin things here with a bit of biographical information. my name is dustin edge. i was born in louisville, kentucky. i am married to a lovely woman named brooke. we have a dog named sunny. here she is in a box. at the moment, we live in a bright yellow house in charlotte, north carolina. i do not own many clothes. i consider myself fairly organized. i like old movies. i was part of a band named cast iron filter. before that i worked in a library. my mother is a librarian. my father is a professor. sometimes i'm bad at keeping in touch. sometimes i'm selfish. i volunteer at the urban ministry center. i enjoy playing disc golf. i usually do not enjoy running. i should probably exercise more. i like animals. sometimes i also enjoy how they taste. that is something i struggle with occasionally. i raked half my lawn last fall and wondered what i had accomplished. since 1996 i have driven a gas-guzzling, polluting, roll-over friendly, enormous 1994 toyota 4-runner. i don't feel good about it. my next car will probably be a hybrid. probably. i need some source of white noise to fall asleep. i sometimes enjoy cheese after midnight. i also enjoy painting sometimes. most of my paintings turn out green. i have a strong desire to travel to other planets and experience alien civilizations. i fear losing a limb. i fear getting hit by a car. i fear being shot or stabbed. sometimes i think about death and wonder how much it will hurt. i enjoy traveling by train. i enjoy exploring other countries. i enjoy reading. and apparently, i also enjoy typing. so, there are some of my particulars. blah blah blah. let's move on.

at the beginning of last year i started working on a collection of songs for a new record, my first solo independent do-it-yourself sort of thing. i'd usually develop a beat on a drum machine and then layer bass, guitar, and so on with some scratch vocals at the end. i suppose i was attempting to stretch myself into new writing methods, whatever that means, but in retrospect i don't really know what i was trying to do. over the past five years or so i had only written on guitar, so this process was a little different. i had written a few songs on a drum machine years ago in a band with my friends victor jory and caleb copeland. i remember we were listening to a lot of big black at the time. plus a local band named sunspring was playing some live shows with a drum machine while they searched for a new drummer. i've never played drums in a band, but i knew i could figure out some type of rhythm, albeit on a rather remedial level. some ideas still came on guitar, but most just began with a beat and matured from there. i never intended to have any of it on the actual record. i simply thought of it as a way to get some thoughts down into a fixed state. and i guess most of it will still assume that role, but i don't know yet. it was fulfilling to have control of everything. but the more time passed, the more i felt the need to return to some sort of collaborative effort. so now i am about to start recording soon at orphan studio in atlanta. and i plan to describe everything here for you in this 'journal' or whatever you want to call it. i'll update it frequently with more news, clips, photos, and whatever else i feel like saying i guess. please keep in mind that this is my first attempt at keeping a journal of any kind. well, except for that dream journal i attempted last year. anyway, i ask for your patience. but enough of all that for the moment.

here is a story...i drove around america for a while last year and one day found myself in branson, missouri. i arrived at the tourist office around 7:45 in the evening, where i learned most of the local revues started at the top of the hour. after a quick call to let brooke know where i was, i decided to take in the 8 o'clock show at legends (www.legendsinconcert.com). i probably could have made a better decision, but i was in a rush. i arrived about five minutes late and was given a freshly vacated front row seat between two nice ladies in their sixties. there must have been more than 700 people in the theatre, on a tuesday night no less, sitting completely silent, watching these 'legends' roll through a few numbers. the whole situation was rather overwhelming. out first was alan jackson telling me where he comes from or some nonsense. up next was b.b. king. then shania twain came out in some sort of leopard jumpsuit. after her second song, my curiosity to discover what other acts were on the bill got the better of me, so i looked down to the brochure i'd been given at the front door. after reading it over for a few seconds and learning it had absolutely no useful information, i suddenly felt a strange presence looming over me. i looked up to find 'shania' standing at the edge of the stage, glaring at me, wagging her finger in clear reprimand of my lack of attention. embarrassed, i smiled awkwardly at the two ladies on either side of me and returned my eyes to the stage. two songs later, she jumped down off the stage to dance with some members of the audience, but most of them weren't willing or able to shake things too much. then all of a sudden she shouts: 'i know who i’m going to dance with!', makes her way over to my seat and pulls me up on stage. i don’t remember everything, but i do recall being circled by backup dancers as i attempted my best running man. obviously, i have no proof of any of this, so i guess you'll just have to trust me. but that's probably not the best idea. i do have proof that a similar situation occurred in paris during my honeymoon. but that's another story. anyway, the first act ends and i return to my seat where the ladies next to me ask "are you part of the show or something?" i said no and we chat for a while about branson where they tell me they've driven down from illinois to vacation there every summer for the last twenty years (something nearly as implausible as what had just occurred moments earlier). anyway, after intermission, the second act continued with the ever-capable britney spears, followed by the handsomely charming patsy cline (an odd juxtaposition), culminating with jake and elwood blues. so no elvis for me. but a memorable evening nonetheless. and for some reason, i went to bed that night with a strange sense of accomplishment. but what actually took place in that shadowy theatre amidst all those elderly souls? i honestly don't know. i did awake the next morning to a helicopter taking off right outside my hotel room. i do have proof of that. and here it is. so that's something i guess.

by the way, i should inform you that this site was designed by schmakt. none of this would be here without his assistance. so thanks schmakt. alright then, i think i'll stop right here. i'll leave you with a short video from beale street and the magnificent renelvis. more to come soon. thanks for reading.