Of the four stages: indie, main, worship, and rock, I will admit to not spending much time at this stage, but I link so that should I need or want to listen to something it will be easily found.

• http://www.myspace.com/heathmcnease
• http://www.joywhitlock.com/
• http://www.esterlyn.com/
• http://www.myspace.com/worthdyingformusic
• http://www.disciplerocks.com/
• http://www.stellarkart.com/
• http://www.hawknelson.com/
• http://www.nailpointmusic.com/
• http://www.agsilver.com/
• http://www.wavorly.com/
• http://www.krystalmeyers.com/
• http://www.fireflightrock.com/ Iamunbreakable.com
• http://www.needtobreathe.net/
• http://www.redmusiconline.com/

Of the four stages: indie, main, worship, and rock,the Worship Stage had several well known artists as well as a few new-to-me ones with a focus more on worship than entertaining. I spent a lot of time in this venue.

• http://www.jeremyhornmusic.com/ & http://www.bigticketfestival.com/artists.cfm?artistid=135
• http://www.meredithandrews.com/
• Warren Barfield ~ only songs on big ticket http://www.bigticketfestival.com/artists.cfm?artistid=86
• http://www.brandonheath.net/
• http://www.markharrisonline.com/
• http://www.myspace.com/alisaturner ~ not so much-nope
• http://www.myspace.com/markwhiteband
• http://www.33milesonline.com/
• http://www.ayieshawoods.com/
• http://www.aaronshust.com/

Of the four stages: indie, main, worship, and rock,the Big Ticket main stage is home to more widely known artists and winners of the previous year’s indie recognition. Again, this is a bookmark of all the artists from this summer with a short critique of my thoughts. I am not linking them yet, I don’t know how much return traffic to this site I want as a result of a random visit back.

• http://www.myspace.com/everlife ~ good music, talked too much between songs
• http://www.mikefarrismusic.net/ ~ gospel, jazz sound
• http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=7996847
• http://www.leelandonline.com/
• http://www.matthewwest.com/
• http://www.davidcrowderband.com/
• http://www.newsboys.com/
• http://www.myspace.com/andystefanicband
• http://www.redumbrella.net/
• http://www.sevenglory.com/
• http://www.newsongonline.com/
• http://www.barlowgirl.com/
• http://www.kutless.com/
• http://www.tobymac.com/

So, this year was my first year at Big Ticket and I will admit to not doing my homework before hand. To do over again, I would have spent several days browsing the Big Ticket website and stalking the bands because spur of the moment choosing among the four four stages: indie, main, worship, and rock, proved to be difficult at times, so I wandered back and forth. The big names I know-I’ve heard a fair amount of the ones that were on Main Stage and Worship, but not the other two. Right now it’s a bookmark and critique based on one or more songs from their website. I have a total of four posts, one for each stage. I’ll update them as I listen to more music.

• http://www.myspace.com/breakingthesilenceonline
• http://www.myspace.com/ohioavenue
• http://www.myspace.com/jettyraemusic ~ wishing I hadn’t missed this one
• http://www.myspace.com/alivedownriver ~ actually heard them in person and they have a better studio presence than stage
• http://www.myspace.com/jonathancordero
• http://www.myspace.com/briansmithwebmusic ~ mellow, soft, nice
• http://www.myspace.com/candlefuse ~ each song is so different, but definitely a must
• http://www.thechoirvisible.com/ ~ can’t really tell, only short clips of songs on site
• http://www.myspace.com/redrunsdeep ~ I’d call it rock, not really listening to the lyrics closely, but the beat is catchy
• http://www.myspace.com/reillytheband ~ interesting
• http://www.myspace.com/hailyourhighness ~ varies from song to song-heavy metal no decipherable lyrics to softer

start here with listening:

• http://www.myspace.com/only9am
• http://www.myspace.com/theeffort
• http://www.myspace.com/seabird
• http://www.myspace.com/staynlis
• bird on a wire

My mom, dad and stepsister came for a visit last week. Everyone had a good time, until stepsister got sick. She’s better now. Dad P found a pontoon for us to borrow and we spent time on what I thought was a lake. It turns out it’s the river. It was so calm and fairly empty during the day. I need to kayak on it. We had Granny over the other night for waffles and cribbage.

I’ve been working on the slipper sock for Granny’s friend. It’s slow going because I am not happy and rip out my work. I made a lot of progress two weekends ago at Big Ticket Festival in Gaylord, MI. I need to write about that, but I’m not sure what to say other than I enjoyed a flexible weekend of wonderful praise and worship music. Next year I am going to spend some time researching all the bands so I know what I want to hear. I had only heard of 10 of the 40-50 bands.

The garden is doing well, lots of green and flowering things. I’m fighting with bugs and caterpillars eating stuff. This morning I woke to find 50 or 60 birds on the roof stalking the garden. After they left the roof, they raided the garden, but I think they were eating the bugs.