First thing's first

The best first post, I would think, would be about me and what it is you'll find here.

I live in West Texas, I'm 24, and I play harmonica for The Cody Hughes Davidson Band. We are an up and coming Texas Music band that has tones of rock, country, and blues. The lead singer Cody Davidson is an excellent songwriter and of course i would say our CD is worth a listen. You can buy it on itunes, cdbaby.com, and other online music stores. I'm not featured in the CD because i came along just after its production, but it is a fine album just the same. I started playing with the band a year ago and have really enjoyed the journey so far. I have met a myriad of great musicians, some famous, some still waiting, and have experienced enough to one day decide maybe i should share some of this on a blog. We travel fairly often to shows, but play the majority of our shows in the Midland/Odessa area opening up for larger names or headlining at bars and events.

I've been playing blues harp for roughly ten years. I play with mostly Lee Oskars harmonicas along with a few other types that I've found here and there when i needed a key and they didn't have my favorite brand in stock. I just switched microphones from a Shaker Madcat (a small almost lavaliere type mic with a volume pot) to a vintage Shure 545s series 2 unidyne III with the pistol grip. (Sorry to everyone who just read that and completely lost me. This paragraph is for the handful of harp players who may be reading along. So if you have no interest in the harmonica stuff just skip to the next paragraph.) I play through a Hohner amp that has held up nicely. I have two effect pedals. I use a Boss harmonist pedal to make my harp sound like an organ on some songs where i just want to sit in the background. I used to use a Boss blues driver but have phased it out with the introduction of my new mic since it breaks up quite nicely when heavily cupped. I am trying to figure a way to still keep it in rotation as maybe a solo volume pedal. My problem right now is it's packed on the band trailer while my mic and harps are at my home. Hard to experiment when you don't have the test subjects.

Other than playing harp for the band I live with my wonderful girlfriend in an apartment in Odessa, and work full time as an assistant manager for a national pharmacy chain. It's a strange dichotomy being up on stage during the weekends entertaining and then on a sales floor getting screamed at by an old woman who wants her Loritab filled a week too soon. I have a great deal of time to think when I'm at my day job. I feel this blog will have a good amount of waxing philosophies from me observing and thinking too much at work. The other half of course will be what my weekends bring.

I graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in English and a minor in Philosophy. I have published a few short stories and self published a novel which i will not steer you to from here. Long story short I got too excited put it to print and then realized where the text needed some help. The story was good, but it could have used some polishing. I am not going to claim to be some great writer. I think it is clear on this blog that my technical skills could use some refreshing.


The blog sometimes seems like it was an invention for people to shout on their soapbox about their opinions. Hopefully I won't get too preachy with my posts, but let me know if I head that way. This blog should be more of a fun window into my life and interests, that being either rants about people and situations from work, or some interesting experiences from my life as a musician and beyond. It will be fun to follow either way. I have done and seen a lot of things. I've lived in foreign countries, had many odd hobbies, and had the luck to experience some unique stuff. In the simplest explanation this blog will pull from everything I have done and currently take part in. I hope that it is worth reading about to someone else.