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Recommended Listening: Matthew Perryman Jones

There are things happening out there in that Nashville area of the country. They include but are not limited to:

  • An alright housing market
  • The old guard at the Opry being upset because “the performers these days go on stage wearing clothes that should be worn to mow the lawn.”
  • The Extended Everyday Joe’s Family

A member of that extended family, Mr. Matthew Perryman Jones, has a new album coming out in March. He has been nice enough to put the entire album up for you to stream from the internets to your ears and heart. You’ll have to register for the site, but I have given it a listen and the registration was worth it.

Listen to Swallow The Sea, in its entirety, here.

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This Building Is Alive #7: Diana Sitzman

As part of celebrating our 5th anniversary, someone who is part of Everyday Joe’s will write something about it each month. Anything from essays to sonnets to interpretive dance. How interpretive dance would translate to this blog, I’m not sure…but it’d be interesting.

Whatever is written, it will come from the life that is in this building. 144 S. Mason seems to be alive and breathing…and it is something you can’t ignore when you walk in. Lucky no. 7 comes from the heart of Diana Sitzman- long-time EJ’s volunteer, coffee goddess, avid reader, world traveler, and a fantastic cook. We love her very much.

There’s some social theory about the importance of third places, I think the main point being that our contemporary society tends to lack somewhere to go other than work and home (first and second place).  We should all have a place where our social needs are met and we can be involved in our community.

Everyday Joe’s is my third place.

I remember on my very first day there, one of the other volunteers said I’d love it because it’s just like “Cheers,” and every day since then I’ve seen how much truth lies in that claim.  I do love it, that’s undeniable.  Why?  Because sometimes, I really do just want to go where everybody knows my name and is genuinely glad I came.

I’m a good example of how God knows us better than we know ourselves and will provide accordingly.  I’ve never been too socially needy and quite content being by myself, but I can’t deny that it’s nice to be known as a distinct person, not just another customer or co-worker.  It’s so encouraging for me to look back at the past 3 ½ years and realize that in one way or another, Everyday Joe’s has served as the answer to almost every prayer I’ve ever prayed, and I’d wager that approximately 90% of all the really great things in my life are as a result of my involvement there.

This building is alive because God is alive and moving in it.  It brings people together and fosters community in a way that no other church or coffee house in town does.  But it’s also an instrument of change within individuals, and has a pretty profound impact on who many people are becoming, not just myself.  It’s, a place to be challenged but also supported; a place of joy, of play, of rest; a place to love and be loved.

Every time I walk into the building (or even just think about it) I know God likes me, because I’m allowed to be a part of this phenomenon.

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Audio Treat: Rob Drabkin

This coming Friday, four of the best songwriters in Colorado will collectively gather on the Everyday Joe’s stage for what they have dubbed the Colorado Singer-Songwriter Circle. It will feature Rob Drabkin (Westword’s 2008 Songwriter of the Year), Gregory Alan Isakov (our friend Cameron’s favorite songwriter), Reed Foehl (Josh Dillard saw him open for Ray LaMontagne), and Kevin Mileski (is awesome). The pieces they compose will no doubt tickle your ear drums with delight.

The show starts at 7 pm and is $8 in advance or $10 the day of. Buy advance tickets here.

As a nice little preview, Mr. Rob Drabkin has graciously let us borrow a song for you all to hear. Please enjoy “Stay Here With You.” See you Friday.

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Coffee Grinders, The TSA, Edelweiss, Coffee

Sorry it’s been a few days. I do hope you will forgive me. But, as a result of it being a few days, there is a bit of catching up to do. With this in mind, Appendix E-J would like you to buckle down and really focus, because there are things for you to know. Mainly things concerning the roaster of the beans brewed at Everyday Joe’s, Intelligentsia Coffee out of Chicago (and now L.A.!).

Rock and Roll.

1st Things: Coffee Grinders + TSA = Kyle Glanville Takes 8th Place At The World Barista Championships

Back in May, Kyle Glanville of Intelligentsia was named the United States Barista Champion (read more about that here). This honor earned him a trip to Denmark to compete for the world title. It appears all preparations were going well…then Mr. Glanville had a run-in with airport security. I’ll let Intelligentsia’s VP of Coffee, Geoff Watts, take it from here:

“This year marks the second time in three years that an Intelligentsia Barista represented the United States in the world championship, which is an incredible accomplishment, I must say. The US competition is probably the most competitive of all the national events, with a very large number of qualified competitors who could all do well at the WBC.

This year our man, the inimitable Mr. Kyle Glanville, did his thing on the world stage. Despite some hitches (his grinder was torn apart and rendered completely inoperable by the TSA staff at the airport, so Kyle spent what should have been his practice time scrambling around trying to fix it) the performance was great and good enough for 8th Place overall. I do think (and yeah, I’m biased, I adore the guy) that his chops are among the best in the field, and he always manages to come across relaxed and at ease, fully in command of his craft. It is that charisma and confidence (on top of the hundreds of hours of practice refining technique) that I think gives him a tangible edge. And of course the coffee itself is exceptional, a Panamanian pulped natural micro-lot from Finca Santa Teresa. Look for him to again make some noise next year!”

2nd Things: Edelweiss- The Song and The Coffee, Not The German Flower

When my wife was little, her mom would sing the song “Edelweiss” to help her fall asleep. As a result, the song holds a special place in my wife’s heart and now a place in my heart…particularly as performed by The Innocence Mission from their album of lullabies, Now The Day Is Over. You can stream that song below.

This morning when I went to make a press of coffee at Everyday Joe’s, I was pleased to see that we are carrying Intelligentsia’s latest offering, Edelweiss Finagro Estate, Tanzania. Right now, I am listening to the song and drinking the coffee and enjoying both quite a little bit. You can read the full story and tasting notes for this mighty fine bean here.

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Audio Treat SPECIAL EDITION: NoiseTrade = Free Music For You

Holy cow holy cow holy cow.

For some time now, I’ve heard whisperings and rumblings about a musician in Nashville who wanted to start a music-sharing service based on the idea of relationships and community. Art and community and relationships colliding…yes please.

Ladies and gentleman, please welcome to the information cloud: NoiseTrade.Com (celebratory trumpets).

“What happens when the generous, forward-thinking artist meets the generous, forward-thinking fan? They live happily ever after.”

Those are the words of NoiseTrade’s co-founder and Nashville musician, Derek Webb. In September of 2006, Webb decided to give away his album “Mockingbird.” As a result, he watched his fan base grow exponentially (were you watching, Radiohead?). This then birthed an idea in his mind, and that idea grew into the beautiful child that is NoiseTrade- where you download entire albums(!) and as a trade you either spread the word to 3 friends or pay a minimum of $1. That sounds alright by me.

So far, the choices are limited to a small handful of Webb’s musical friends (his musical friends, however are quite talented). But give the site a break. As of when this is being written, NoiseTrade is just about 35 hours old. When you were 35 hours old you were sleeping 18 hours a day. Artists up for download include several Everyday Joe’s alum (Matthew Perryman Jones, Katie Herzig, Sandra McCracken) and several others who we wouldn’t mind being Everyday Joe’s alum.

If you want to know even more about where NoiseTrade came from and how you can get your music on there, you can download the info sheet here. If you want to get to downloading so you have the proper amount of time to tweek that Fourth Of July BBQ Playlist, click on the banner below.

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Tickle Me Pink is…

Update, 7/1/08, 3:15 pm: The following post was composed and posted this morning in order to congratualte our friends in Tickle Me Pink on the release of their debut album on Wind-Up records. Just a little bit ago, we were informed that the band’s bassist, Johnny Schou, was found this morning, dead at his home. Our prayers and hearts are with everyone in the TMP family…because they are our family. We love you very, very much.

…a MySpace banner ad.

Those guys from Fort Collins that signed to the label started by those guys from Creed are starting to pop up places. For example, Everyday Joe’s friend Jon Alonzo heard them on the satellite radio while serving ice cream to sugar-addicted five-year-olds at Ben & Jerry’s.

From time to time, I like to peruse the MySpace pages of some of my favorite muscal artists to see when they might be in Colorado and if it would be possible to have them play at Everyday Joe’s. Last night I was checking on the dear Marla Hansen when I saw this:

There they are, at the top of the page in all their black & white photoshopped glory. It’s a fun time to see bands from Fort Collins succeed. I wonder where that picture was taken. Perhaps in front of The Blasting Room?

Either way, good luck to you fellows of Tickle Me Pink on this, the day your debut album “Madeline” is to be released. Everyday Joe’s loves you very much. Last time you played here, you left a guitar rack. Pick it up if you like, or we’ll hold on to it and possibly sell it one day.

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This Building Is Alive SPECIAL EDITION: Refrigerators & Ole Slew Foot

So, here’s the deal.

The usual Monday post did not make it up yesterday. This was mainly due to the fact that the large refrigerator…the primary purpose of which is to keep the soda pop and milk cool and drinkable…was warm when I came down to open. Warmness is not conducive to dairy products.

Sounds like something that would take place on a  Monday…a major organ in the coffee house body taking a dive (if the espresso machine is the heart, I’d say the refrigerator is at least one of the kidneys). This Monday was the Monday after our 5th birthday party, which was a nice time. A nice time on Saturday and back to the art of maintenance on Monday. A very nice fellow we know recently spoke about maintenance. Listen to that below if you like.

Back to the refrigerator. A good guy came yesterday and battled with the machine for near 8 hours, only to have the machine claim victory with its foot on his chest. He told us what the fix would be and that it would cost $800. We told him we’d let him know.

Now, we’ll leave the story to Daryle Dickens, the executive director of Everyday Joe’s:

Let’s see, how many lessons can we learn from what happened over the past 24 hours with the large cooler?

First, I’ll bottom line it. It is working thanks to Greg spending about 15 minutes with it. Right now as I type this it is getting up to temperature. How did this happen?
Larry - who I know most of you know - came in this morning as usual to get his coffee. He saw that the fridge was not working so he got on the case. He walked over to Stone House and talked to Dan - the kitchen manager, long time friend of Joe’s, and all around super nice guy. Super Nice. Dan called his friend Greg Schmidt who fixes things for a living. From looking at Greg, you can tell he has been fixing things for a long time. I would venture a guess and say fixing things is all Greg knows.
Greg spent about 15 minutes taking readings and turning screws. Then he started to pack up, and the cooler was making the hum we all take for granted. He even ordered a part that the cooler should have but is missing. Some little thing that helps insure the compressor does not overheat and catch on fire. He is looking out for us in a way he does not need to. I asked how much we owe him and he said that is settled between him and Dan. Darren asks, “What does that mean?” To which Greg replies, “It means I won’t be leaving a bill with you today,” as he walked out the door.
The angel has left the building.
It is a story of community. It is a story of how Ole Slew Foot would not win the day. It is a story of 144 S. Mason. It is a story with many chapters.
Last night when the kid who just spent all day here working on the fridge was leaving he told me that he never works at places as nice as Everyday Joe’s. He ‘is not used to being treated so great.’ That is a story of our volunteers’ hospitality.

That is all.

Random Bits: Music In A Basement In The NYC

I recently made a discovery. A discovery that sung directly to my heart and as a result that muscle in my chest began beaming forth the light of a choir of angels…just like in Care Bears.

There is an Argentine-American. His name is Juan. He lives in Brooklyn. He has a basement. Through some sort of sweet talking or mind tricks or plain passion, he has convinced several great indie bands to perform in his basement. The performances are filmed and broadcast on Plum TV. I imagine his days go something like this:

“Hello Juan, what are you doing today,” friend asks.

“Oh,” says Juan. “I’m going to run and get some coffee and then Josh Ritter is coming over at 11:15 to play some music in my basement. How about you?”

Friend looks a bit confused and dazed and replies:

“I see. I was gonna’ ask if you wanted to come over and see my new IKEA furniture I just finished assembling, but you sound too busy for the Swedish innovations in home decor. I’ll talk to you later.”

House concerts are making a small ressurgance in this day and age, and are something I have dreamed of doing for a long time. Everyday Joe’s can often feel like a home. Everyone who comes in here is part of the family.

Methinks Juan’s Basement and Everyday Joe’s are distant relatives of some sort. How distant? Not sure. Regardless, get through your friday by following the links to videos from Juan’s Basement below. I’ve posted my favorite for you to view.

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This Building Is Alive #6: Darren Fred

As part of celebrating our 5th anniversary, someone who is part of Everyday Joe’s will write something about it each month. Anything from essays to sonnets to interpretive dance. How interpretive dance would translate to this blog, I’m not sure…but it’d be interesting.

Whatever is written, it will come from the life that is in this building. 144 S. Mason seems to be alive and breathing…and it is something you can’t ignore when you walk in. Number six is penned by Darren Fred, the pastor of TImberline Oldtown - the church that meets at 144 S. Mason and started Everyday Joe’s 5 years ago this month. Wow.

“It’s not about the building.” This is what they always told me. You know. Them. The thems were professors in Bible College and pastors speaking at conferences. “It’s not about the building,” they would say. “The church isn’t a building.” True. That. So, I went along for eight, nine years believing that statement and repeating it. It’s not about the building. Then I came to 144 S. Mason in April, 2006. It’s not about the building, except sometimes it is kind of about the building. What is it about this place? How did all these people that aren’t normally in a room together end up in the room together? There’s a homeless guy on the couch reading a book. There’s a lawyer sitting eating a breakfast burrito (they’re good by the way), while he waits for a jury to finish deliberating. There are three moms on the floor with their babies climbing on them and around them while they talk about life. There’s a group of mentally disabled people eating lunch. There’s a transvestite (oh yeah, we can tell) enjoying a cup of something delicious while he/she visits and laughs and catches up with a friend. And, there’s a pastor (me) who holds credentials with a traditional, conservative denomination sitting in a room which has become his office looking around trying to figure it out.

When Jesus showed up, people who weren’t normally together—people who were suspicious of each other—showed up. Go ahead; read the stories. Prostitutes, church leaders, beggars, rich people, kids, old fogeys. They had one thing in common. They liked Jesus. They showed up to see him and they bumped into each other. That’s what happened when this building opened its doors and started calling itself Everyday Joe’s five years ago. And that’s what I began to understand as I sat in the room…day after day. People who weren’t normally together showed up because they had this in common—they liked the building. Or was it the coffee? Or the music? Or the people? Or some elusive and delicate vibe which exists where the love of God is. We’re Jesus. It’s about the building. This building is alive.

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Lessons From Coffee: Do It Even If You Sound Crazy

Ladies & gentlemen- the Nod. A weekly note from Intelligentsia Coffee’s VP of Coffee, Geoff Watts. It is e-mailed to Everyday Joe’s (because we use the beans roasted by our friends in Chicago), and then we post it here for you, because we love you. Enjoy.

A Nod or two ago I started reflecting on how my relationship with traveling has changed over the years and especially how some things that never before had seemed burdensome were now beginning to feel a bit wearying. That’s to be expected, I suppose…most things are more exciting when they are new, and it is easy to disregard small drawbacks when one is so entertained and occupied with assimilating fresh experience. It strikes me that somehow this condition must sit at the epicenter of the Happiness equation—the ability to continuously experience the world and its sensory delights with fresh eyes, the ability to soak it all up and never get saturated. Wasn’t there a film about that? “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” I think it was. It might be interesting to watch that in a double-feature with “Groundhog Day” and juxtapose those two scenarios.

Regardless of the fact that some things in life seem destined to become mildly less stimulating after much routine and repetition, there are, fortunately, always surprises. And every year there are trips that end up being particularly inspiring, stretches of days or weeks that leave me feeling renewed with the kind of silly but invigorating and intoxicating optimism that you can almost bathe in.

This last trip was that way. I spent the weekend in Cali, Colombia doing some roasting and cupping at Café Palo Alto, a small coffee company that I help run there. Often when I’m working there, I feel as though I’ve stepped into the way-back machine, remembering the days when Intelligentsia was just a tiny retail outfit with a 12-kg roaster in the store. It’s a lot of fun. The challenges that come with operating a start-up business are of course all too real, and I suspect relatively similar for all new business owners regardless of location, but I enjoy the simplicity of dealing with a compact and immediate universe where most decisions feel comfortably free of weight.

After a couple of days I was joined by Mary and Neil Smith, two Chicagoans who had bid on and won a “coffee origin trip” that we had sponsored in a charity fundraiser last summer. Before the trip started, I must admit that I was a little less than enthused about the prospect of chaperoning a trip with two complete strangers. People are strange, that we all know very well. Some nice, some not so nice, some happy-go-lucky, some just plain unhappy, some frivolous, some cynical and some defeated. But this was a blast. These two new friends, one of them a professional in the high-quality fresh fish industry and the other a now full-time musician, went with me to Cajibio (about two hours from Cali, close to the old colonial city Popayan) to visit a farm called Santuario. You’ll be hearing a lot about this farm in the coming months and years—it is a breathtaking example of what can be done with resources and intention, and I hope that it may serve as a model for future generations of coffee farmers.

What makes it so inspiring? Part of it has to do with providence. I can’t shake this feeling that for some reason I’ve met this farmer at precisely the right moment in time, the right point of convergence in the coffee world, a time when both of us are ready to take the tools we’ve developed and map out what the future of coffee can look like. Coffee 2000. The new deal. You see, this farm is the farm of dreamers. It was started in 2001 at a time when investing in growing coffee seemed like a patently ludicrous proposition. The market was in the gutter, the planet was oversupplied with poor quality coffees, and the immediate future seemed pretty bleak for most growers around the world. Farms were going out of business left and right, and would continue to do so for the next four years. Many economists probably would have recommended gambling on NBA games or selling typewriters as more promising career moves. Milk-based drinks were dominating the landscape in the US and overseas retail markets, new “energy drinks” were capturing the attention of the sugar-addicted youth population, and coffee beans themselves had somehow become the least expensive part of most “coffee” beverages.

Still, Camilo Merizalde decided he wanted to grow coffee. Wow. I’m quite certain more than a few trusted friends were suspicious that someone must have slipped something into Camilo’s aguardiente. Coffee? The same crop that has bankrupted thousands of farmers and held millions more in a state of perpetual uncertainty and debt? Where production costs are rising at a pace that far exceeds rising values? Where small changes in world climate could throw the whole formula out of whack? Yes, that one. A fool’s pursuit.

I’m sure he heard a lot of that, but he was driven. He apparently caught what I myself am afflicted with, and what many a friend has experienced in the past—coffee has a seductive power. It gets in your system and won’t leave. It offers incredible intrigue, much like wine but far more complex. More fascinating than a yellow submarine and with more potential to impact human lives in a positive way than perhaps any crop in existence. But it can be an unpredictable and capricious companion, elusive and frustratingly impermanent.

So Camilo planted coffee. He took what was at the time nothing but pasture land, nearly barren, and created a farm. And he did it as dreamer and a perfectionist would, taking nearly two years to consult with farmers, agronomists, environmental engineers, coffee roasters and exporters before getting it up and running. The result is a coffee lover’s fantasy, a perfect marriage of exceptional environmental advantages and an engineer’s sense of orchestrated harmony. Most of the farm sits at close to 2000 meters, a glorious altitude for the best types of coffee tree. It is partitioned in a sensible fashion, divided into lots of Typica, Bourbon, and other heirloom varieties of coffee that are revered for the cup characteristics of their seeds. Each section was planned out meticulously based on advice from field-leading agronomists, with a big variety of different shade tree species and other plants spaced appropriately to promote the symbiotic ecosystem interactivity and minimize the need for additional inputs to keep the coffee healthy.

Having the farm organized as such will allow Camilo to identify specific niches on the farm that produce unusual quality and provides for the harvesting of coffees by variety—something many farms lack since varieties tend to be interspersed in such a way as to make them impossible to isolate. Currently, Camilo has nearly 20 additional varieties growing in a test garden, soldiers preparing even now for a time in the distant future. Over the next several years we will work together to classify the quality traits and potential of all of these experimental coffee types, looking to identify some treasures. And knowing Camilo, we’ll be experimenting together every single year as we try to fine-tune the processing methodologies in order to get maximum sensory expression in the coffees.

It’s a little paradise there, and I’m extremely excited to be working with a farmer who shares our vision and is just crazy enough to be willing to take necessary risks that would cause most others to balk. That’s how progress is made, and while it is surely premature to make any grand proclamations about how together we will redefine the model for both coffee grower and coffee roaster, there is nothing wrong with dreaming.

I’ll share more about Santuario and the rest of the trip to Colombia in next week’s Nod. For now, get yourselves ready for an impending onslaught of new crop coffees from Central America and East Africa. Port strikes and unexpected rains have collaborated to delay shipment of many of the coffees we normally expect to have ready for sale in June, but the tide is about to come in. Over the next weeks expect to see new Direct Trade coffees from Kenya, Tanzania, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala showing up on the offering sheet. In the meantime, we are proud to launch the 2008 edition of Los Delirios our Organic Direct Trade offering from Nicaragua. Enjoy!

As always, find our Nods at:
http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/origin/offerings.

Onward,

Geoff Watts
VP of Coffee
Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea

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