Rockin' it (as much as an unhip mom can)

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Trent Monk perform a "house concert" at a woman's house whose blog I've read for over a year ... but had never met until last night! And, BONUS, I believe I've also singlehandedly discovered a method to reduce our country's dependence on the Middle East for oil: from now on, we can just siphon it off of my face (see Exhibit 1, below).


The lovely, less-shiny woman in the picture with me is BooMama, and if you're not already a follower of her blog, get right on it! She was so kind to open her home to a bunch of bloggers she'd never met before, and she's just as funny and self-effacing in person as she is online. A beautiful Southern woman with a beautiful Southern home.

We all gathered to hear Trent sing, just him with an amp and his guitar (seemingly held together by clear packing tape ... I'm sure there's a story there somewhere), and he was simply amazing. You know how when you see someone like Shawn Colvin, Bruce Hornsby or Alison Krauss (or insert your own, hipper band here) in concert, you just marvel at how incredible they sound live? Trent is the same way ... to me, he sounded even better without all of the accompanying "production values" that get added to albums these days, which makes his talent all the more impressive to me.


Aside: That white glare on his guitar, that's my flash glinting off of the clear packing tape.

Until recently, Trent was one half of the duo Monk & Neagle, but Michael Neagle recently became a dad and decided that he needed to stay home with his wife and child ... so Trent's going it solo now. Below is a picture of Trent and the World's Solution to the Oil Crisis on the steps in BooMama's living room:


[Note to self: Clinique's Tranparency 3 Loose Powder won't hold up through nine hours at work and an hour at soccer practice followed by two hours in the company of people who've never met you before and don't know your face doesn't always look like that.]

If you listen to contemporary Christian music at all, you've heard Trent and may not even know it. And you can find Monk & Neagle on iTunes, but Trent's solo stuff won't be on iTunes for a while. Super-nice guy, super-sized talent, all-around-super night last night in Inverness ... support him if you can.

Thanks again, Trent and BooMama!