Happy Halloween!  No blog tonight; we're out trick-or-treating with kids. See you next Monday. -Willie (& Dolly)

I've fallen back in love with songwriting these past few months.   

Don't get me wrong: I've always liked it.  But I haven't wanted it this much in years.  I crave the piano bench lately.  I crave the creak of the…

What drives me to write music--besides enjoying the practice of it--is understanding how short life is, and wanting to leave something behind.  It's morbid.  And maybe even a little compulsive. But what I know is: I'm almost done writing my…

I'm hot on the trail of a song, so I'm not going to write much tonight. 

But I've gotta say: this was a good week.  I've been writing a lot of songs these past few weeks.  And they're the kind…

A songwriter can learn a lot from running a restaurant 

My restaurant changes its night menu every week.  Every. Single. Week.  We've cooked more than 150 different menus.  So for 150 weeks, we've had to create an entirely new round…

When I first started my journey with music, I wanted to write songs for other people to sing.  Specifically, old country dudes. I wanted to live in Nashville on music row.  I wanted to create in quiet rooms and pitch…

No blog; I’m spending the night cleaning up the Rock River with my restaurant staff. See you next Monday. - Em

Now that the weekend is over, I can laugh at it. 

My restaurant provided all the food for an event at a local forest preserve on Saturday night.  It sounded easy enough.  Then we showed up, and we found out…

A few years back, I made a decision about my clothes: anything that I didn't love, I would give away.  It was a cathartic process to clean out my wardrobe. Even though I only had a few shirts and a…

Tonight, my friend Gregg and I were supposed to play a show.  Then we thought we'd be rained out, so we canceled it.  Then the weather became gorgeous, and now I'm regretting the cancelation. 

Such is life. It was actually…

All I wanted to do tonight is get a little time at the piano. I had some rage to get off my chest. 

But someone smaller took my place. 

I waited relatively patiently for my 5 year-old to finish playing…

The universe continues to amaze me, even while I shake my fist at it. 

Financial pressure builds at my restaurant.  My first instinct is still to run away from it all, but I've been staying true to my decision to…