I’ll work through that title backwards. How do you know when you have some musical kinship with someone else? How about when they pull out that obscure song that they really like and want you to hear… and it’s a song you’ve been playing on repeat on your iPod for weeks?

That very thing happened last night at Nick and Allie’s house. After the Iowa Songwriter’s Guild house show I hung out for a while to hear some of Allie’s new hymntunes and to generally talk music with Nick, and he pulled out The Khrusty Brothers' Sympathy for Jesus. What a great song. That provoked a discussion on Don Chaffer and Waterdeep, and ended up with Nick lending me all of his Waterdeep CDs so I can take a listen. So far, so good.

Earlier in the evening Nick & Allie hosted the Iowa Songwriters' Guild monthly meeting, which this month was a special house show. Each of the writers played a couple of songs, and I quite enjoyed hearing folks share their talent. I was motivated to try to dust off my long-neglected songwriting chops; what remains to be seen is if that motivation will last long enough to actually write anything. Nick did send a book on songwriting home with me, though, so I’ll have to take a look at it. We’ll just have to see how it goes.