So last time I lied. In the title. It’s not actually Indianapolis, it’s Noblesville, which is a bit north of the actual city of Indianapolis. But I’m pretty sure everyone there still calls it Indianapolis when talking to non-natives. Which most of you are, no doubt.

If you are like most people, you’re probably wondering why I stayed in Noblesville for like 5 days. The answer is because there were tons of select musicians from all over the country gathered in one building for those days, before they launched roughly seven bands on tours. Every night two of the bands would give a concert (a “dress rehearsal”) before leaving the next day to start their tour.

“What were they gathered for?”

Dude… are you Bad Grammar Girl?

“Hey man — note the quotation marks. This is spoken English, and therefore ending sentences with prepositions is A.O.K.”

Oh OK, you’re still attractive then. Glad to see you’re feeling better. To answer your question, all those musicians are part of Keynote, which is an organization that assembles bands from talented college students and sends them out on summer tours, where they perform mainly covers, and share a bit of good news about salvation through Jesus and such. They also seem to have a ton of fun.

There was an acoustic rock group, a hiphop group, a pop group, a punk group, a gospel group, a Latin group… lots of great musicians just hanging out in this building. And I had an opening because the aforementioned Sam is part of this organization.

“So did you record them all?”

No, because they were all super busy preparing to tour. Trust me, I know how that goes.

“Did you at least record some of them?”

If by “some” you mean “three,” then yes.

I first recorded Seth Irby, who is a talented songwriter and a great guitarist.

He and his awesome wife Laura were also my hosts for most of my stay there. They were incredibly kind and even hooked me up with some delicious food on more than one occasion. (Definitely a boon.) Also, check this action:

I normally dislike air mattresses because I inevitably end up in a little valley and can’t turn over without rolling uphill. This mattress, however, was awesome. It made me wonder why anyone even makes those other air mattresses that everyone seems to buy. I think I slept better on this than I do on my own bed, it was that awesome.

Seth has a cool fingerstyle approach to guitar not unlike my own, but he’s picked up a different bag of tracks along the way than I have, so it was really fun having kind of a “guitar exchange” with him while I was there.

He also showed me some of his own stuff, which is definitely worth a listen. We recorded one of his tunes too, which even has some “Edward Gerhard moments” on the guitar. Very nice.

Several days later after lots of failed but enjoyable networking, I recorded a girl named Arwen. Her last name is a mystery which I intend to solve. She did some very fun tracks for me (she nailed a spoken word part with kind of the “customer service girl that they use for the commercials” voice, sometimes known as the “Starcraft medic” voice). We also recorded one of her own tunes.

I almost recorded a group vocal with the gospel group Soul Seed, which would have been awesome. Sadly, that didn’t pan out, but I did manage to get their drummer Deron to play some bass for me. Turns out bass is his primary instrument, and he’s going to Berklee. Sweet.

All in all, the stay in Noblesville was a bit frustrating, because there were many good players all hanging out, but next to none with free time. However, I did meet lots of great musicians, get to see lots of free concerts, and get free snacks (at the concerts). Anyone want to say anything about the high value of treats? Anyone? (Laura Dittmer, I’m looking at you.)