A Christmas medley composed on 3 strings!
This cigar box guitar, built by Triple J Music, was a Christmas gift to me from David (AHT Band’s guitarist), so I had some fun arranging this short Christmas medley with it!
Enjoy, or paddle faster, lol
My Unreal Wedding Expo
Getting married soon? Know someone who is getting married soon?
Adam will be participating in the My Unreal Wedding Expo at the Columbia County Exhibition Center in Grovetown, GA on Sunday, March 18th, from 1-4pm.
There will be bakers, photographers, videographers, DJs, stylists, florists, designers, etc… Basically, if it pertains to weddings, there will most likely be a vendor for it.
Also, with 75+ door prizes, there’s even more added incentive to check it out!
Tickets are only $10 and you can get yours by heading over to MyUnrealWedding.com/Events
Come on out and stop by Adam’s booth!!
Bye Tonsils
After a long few years on the gig circuit, where I had cases of either tonsillitis or strep throat 5-8 times (and sang through it in most cases), our beloved/terrible American health insurance system finally saw fit to let me use my insurance to have the obstacles removed.
I will miss the month of February while recovering, then hopefully be back, strong as ever (and perhaps with improved range) in March.
Cheers to not eating and hugging this humidifier for the next 2-3 weeks
Drummer Passes Certification Exam, Lands New Career Start!
We are very proud of Rachel Lee for passing her aviation mechanic’s certification exam in November of 2017, and subsequently gaining full employment in Savannah, GA with PSA (subsidiary of American Airlines) in January of 2018!
This is the culmination of many years of hard work, studying, and dreaming for Rachel, and we are very excited to see those lofty goals being achieved!
Rachel has been the drummer for the Adam Harris Thompson Band since 2012. She is one of the core group of 4 (Adam, Rachel, Caleb Wilkerson, & David Rae Perry) who travels to perform the most!
This move and career change are not “goodbye” for Rachel. As it has been the case from the beginning of the journey together as bandmates, Adam’s solo career has always accounted for the majority of his time and travels, while the rest of the band all have other careers and enjoy performing together as much as they are able (typically 1-3 times per month). We are enthusiastic and hopeful that Rachel will still be able to perform on this occasional basis đ
Pictured above: Adam gave Rachel a custom drum head for Christmas 2017, with a plane to commemorate her achievement and depict her love of aviation- as a prominent characteristic of her personality -to all who see her perform. Adam’s AHT logo was worked into the crop circles in the painting, which was a commissioned artwork by April King of Augusta, GA. In the painting, the vantage point of the viewer seems to suggest the plane is flying up at a nearly 90 degree angle, which is symbolic of not only Rachel’s drive to achieve greatness in her field of study/occupation, but also the subject matter of Adam’s upcoming album “Hunger”, which explores a number of different aspects of eagerness, the relentless pursuit of fulfillment and happiness, and the internal, categorical process defining wants versus need.
Bassist gets Engaged
Congratulations to Caleb Wilkerson and now fiancé Chrissy Elms on the pending nuptials!!
Caleb has been playing bass guitar with the Adam Harris Thompson Band, as one of the 4 core members, since 2015. He also recorded some of the keys and organ parts in the studio for Adam’s upcoming full-length release “Hunger”.
The core group of 4 consists of Adam, Rachel Lee (drums), David Rae Perry (electric guitar), and Caleb. These 4 remain friends, apart from performing on stage, so this step in Caleb’s life is one we have known that he’s wanted and waited patiently for.
We celebrate the deserved joy that Chrissy has brought to Celeb’s life and wish them all the happiness together, as we look forward to continuing to write and perform music together đ
Refreshing Words
It was the calm before the storm preceding my first show at a very iconic venue with an internationally recognized brand: The Hard Rock Cafe. I had allowed myself to cut loose and have fun with my sound check (as much as my reserved personality is capable of), then retreated to the green room to relax and spend a few moments gathering my thoughts and calming my nerves before people started to arrive. Then, as I sat there, deliberately setting aside the notion that this show was any different than any other show, the talent buyer walked in and confirmed to me that in fact it was different … but not in the way you might expect.
See, weeks prior, I had read and signed a rider contract full of very corporate sounding legal jargon, which in my experience is typically accompanied by detailed expectations about what type of music I must play and how I must interact. And everything about the brand recognition and the reputation of the company suggested that this was the type of gig where I should take care to make a good first impression. So imagine my surprise when he says “Play whatever you want!”.
What happened next is I completely relaxed, I went out and greeted people who had been seated at the bar and in the dining room, followed by one of the most confident performances I’ve had in a long time.
I’ve learned to handle pressure fairly well in this business, but it’s still very nice and refreshing to have complete control over the artistic statement I wish to make from time to time.
Forging New Territory
Last weekend marked a few new firsts for me: My first shows in the Raleigh, NC area. My first time performing for my godparents and first cousins from Smithfield, NC. My first time being cancelled due to a problem with paperwork. That last one aside, it’s always a rush of good vibes anytime I’m able to forge new territory and expand my show circuit to include another city. Even more so when I get to visit with relatives I don’t see often enough.
It was truly a blessing to spend three days with my godparents, catching up on all of the goings-on of my relatives there. My first cousin Allen and his wife Nicki even took some photos for me at one of the shows (including the featured image of this blog).
Anyway, on to the double entendre of this blog’s title, because you knew I wouldn’t be satisfied to write something without trying to make it sound witty or profound …
It seems it always happens at shows: there’s that one person who’s going ask “what kind of music do you play?”. A harmless and simple question, though it seems, these are the kind of questions that can work my brain too hard. “Alternative”, I usually say, assuming it’s probably the safest guess when my genre is a little bit of a lot of things. I can hear part folk rock, part soul, part singer-songwriter, part blues, part Americana … “forging new territory”, I guess you could say (there it is, the overhyped second title reference, in all of its plain glory). This, of course, is usually uttered after a considerable pause, wherein I internally reject a barrage of other possible (sarcastic) answers that occur to me sooner in the succession of appropriate answers to the question: “you’ll find out soon enough”, or perhaps “the best kind”. Still, no matter what answer I give, this question is almost always later accompanied by time spent soul-searching over exactly what the Adam Harris Thompson brand is or should be.
The longer I stick with this career, by way of a process of elimination, informed by my experiences, I seem to be gaining clarity about what my brand is and whom my audience is (or mostly who it is not). While I take great pleasure in doing my part to try and bring joy to every room I play, no matter how diverse or far from my identity the audience may be, here are some conclusions I’ve made …
1) My greatest influence is worship music. For anyone who knows me well, this should not come as a shock. I was raised in church. The first songs I ever learned were worship songs. It’s been my life. As such, it is traceable through every song I sing, regardless of what venue that given song may have been written for.
2) With authenticity, comes a narrower appeal, but a more loyal version of support.
3) Some gigs help me fund the future of my brand, others help me form the future of my brand. As I continue on this journey, the goal is to eventually pass from the first, through latter, to another “new territory” (triple entendre? whatever I’m lame) where both happen consistently.
In a lot of ways, this is scary for me, because it’s never my intention to be unappealing to anyone, but if I’m true to myself, inevitably, that will happen.
That said, in a move that feels most right for my identity and brand, here’s a “new territory” of song-writing you can expect a lot of from the Adam Harris Thompson brand (whether I’m able to share them in the venues I perform or not): honest worship songs, that address God directly from the place where my heart is at the time of writing them, rather than some future-cast, ideal version of myself that hasn’t yet gotten a handle on total surrender.
Exhibit A:
The Resurgence of Psalter Café
Tomorrow, Psalter CafĂ© (sponsored by Ekklesia Faith Community) will host it’s first event of 2017 at 4:30pm at That Place Coffee on Pleasant Home Rd. in Augusta, GA!!
So what is Psalter CafĂ©?? …
In 2012, I had the idea to start a ministry that was dedicated to providing Christian songwriters a platform to share original songs of faith. After several weeks of thought and reflection about what to call it, the name came to me, and Psalter Café was born.
Psalter’s are elaborately decorative books that celebrate the devotional and liturgical applications of art and song (mostly the Psalms). Being as the purpose of this ministry was to enable people to connect with songs of faith and first person accounts of why they were written, the name seemed to fit like a glove.
And so the ministry began, as an extension of Covenant United Methodist Church in Evans, GA. We hosted monthly gatherings, featuring 5-6 regional artists, sharing 2-3 songs and the testimonies behind them. Our following steadily grew from 20 people at the first gathering in June of 2012, to upwards of 80 people at the last gathering at Covenant UMC in October of 2013.
In November of 2013, the North Georgia United Methodist Conference made the decision to dissolve Covenant UMC. A core group of people from Covenant UMC made the decision to remain together, rather than look to join other churches. They asked me to continue as their worship leader, and they asked Randy Monk to continue as our pastor. Randy and I both agreed to continue with them, forming a new, independent church called Ekklesia Faith Community.
Being as Ekklesia Faith Community does not have its own facility as Covenant UMC did, the ministry of Psalter Café was put on hold until such a time as a permanent location could be determined for it.
Over the course of the following 3 years, thanks to the support of John Stoney Cannon at M.A.D. Studios (2014-2015) and John Brejda of That Place Coffee (2016), Psalter Café was able to host several sporadic songwriter showcases to keep the ministry on the map. These few and far between gatherings served their purpose well! While they did not boast the same numbers as the final gatherings of the ministry as an extension of Covenant UMC, they were very heartfelt and served to keep the dream and the vision alive. Much in the same way my parents used to nag me about chores I was putting off as an adolescent, I have really sensed in my spirit that Psalter Café is a vision for my life, about which God has never had any intention of leaving me alone.
So, after 3 years of nomadic searching, 2017 has brought a structured schedule back to Psalter Café, altogether with a slightly new format. We will meet monthly at That Place Coffee in Augusta, GA. Most of the meetings will follow the format of a Bible study, taking a single song, and using the lyric and supporting scriptures as the launching point for theological discussion. Every 4th month (3 times per year), Psalter Café will be a songwriter showcase, as it was in previous years.
There’s a much, much more starry-eyed, dreamy vision cast for this ministry that would eventually involve it having it’s own 4 walls, a menu, a permanent stage for Christian songwriters (somewhere between those who won the youth group talent show and those on national airwaves) to grow and share their songs, and a social gathering place for families and Christian singles to meet outside of their own church homes. Perhaps eventually a national chain of such places? The sky is the limit with this dream, and only time will tell what God has in store for it.
Your prayers, attendance, and support are greatly appreciated as I endeavor to follow God’s leading in this area of my ministry!
Adam
C.S.R.A. Soul Podcast
Check out my recent interview with Judge S. Wood (Happy Bones) and Dylan Mckerchie (Dylan Pickups) on the C.S.R.A. Soul Podcast:
Sabbatical of Sorts
In ministry, it is a common practice for pastors to set aside days, weeks, or even months for the sole purpose of resting and rejuvenating their vision. It’s a very meaningful and valuable practice that can revitalize and bring fresh fire where spirits had once become dry or perhaps even hardened.
After traveling to the Rocky Mountains with my dad this past weekend, this is the type of experience I feel I’ve had. I think sometimes you need to get on a plane and go somewhere vast and beautiful, and take a step away from the rote long enough to remind yourself why you do it.
In this business (as well as many others), it’s easy to grow complacent and become fettered, simply because everything is going fine and you stop working toward your greatest potential, but there’s nothing like stepping foot in the number one venue on your bucket list of places to perform when you’ve “made it” to bring those dreams back into focus.
I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the cover gigs that put bread on my table, but I hope to expand the number of “original” gigs on my calendar and put more finished recorded work in the hands of my friends.
Like the city I visited with dad, my dreams are a mile high, but I believe they are achievable with the continued help and tremendous support of people who care. I probably don’t express my gratitude enough, but I truly feel blessed to do what I do everyday, while making so many friends along the way!