As the dust settles...

Hello, everyone!

  Wow, it's been just over a month since the tour ended, and ...what a trip!  

  So many trains, so many faces, and so much good found in the world.  From the 15th floor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, to the pitch black outside the window on the southbound night train through rural Virginia (the train conductor remembered me from the last tour!), there was good, music, new friends, lessons, and a rockin' fun time all around.  Check out this recording from a hospital in Raleigh, NC.  I got to talking to a teenage patient after the show, and turns out he's a fantastic guitar player.  He's playing the acoustic guitar, and I'm on the cigar box guitar here, live from the hospital lobby, recorded right on my cell phone.

  I'd like to thank each and every one of you for being part of this worldwide, interactive Search for Good, and I can't wait to do it again.  Thanks for looking out for the bright things in the world, and posting it back online.  It was really very cool, and quite inspiring.  Thank you.

                                         A pint-sized audience enjoyed the concert assembly,
                                      and the 5th grade chorus singing along to a blues song!

Bowling with the Vliet family - they treated me like royalty
on the Raleigh tour stop!

  Another good thing:  The media!  You know, they're always getting slammed in the news (the irony of this is  just dawning on me), which is a bummer.  The reporters, editors, writers, radio show hosts, and TV folks that I had the privilege of working with were consummate professionals, a joy to work with, and very glad to share the news of good in the world with their audience. Thank you, everyone!

 

With Mariana N. of ReverbNation outside of
Wakemed Children's Hospital, Raleigh, NC

 
  And speaking of media, I'm honored to announce that I've been invited to write a guest blog for Positive Impact Magazine!  I'm currently writing a series about the tour, and I think you might enjoy it.  I'm outlining the tour in detail, and sharing the stories and lessons I learned while spending time searching for Good. Here's the series so far.  There's also other guest blogs happening, too!  ReverNation, Dotted Music.com, and JTV Digital all have been way cool to host some of my writings!

  The good news keeps rolling in, too.  On Thursday, the 4th of July, I released Onward on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and all the other major stores with distribution from my new friends in France, JTV Digital.  If you missed the tour version of the album, check it out here!  

             

  So, what's next?  Well, I'm still getting caught up, but stay tuned for a Flickr gallery of the tour shots, a brand new podcast, with the first few episodes featuring audio from my tour journal I kept in mp3 format on the rails, and a radio campaign for the new album.  Let's get this thing charting, baby!

  But most of that is shop talk.  I'll be doing something interactive again soon. See, I was walking up the sidewalk to my house the other night, and through the hushed summer forest, I thought I heard the lonely whistle of the night train making it's way up the opposite shore along the Potomac river.

  And I knew it was almost time to start planning the next adventure with you.

See you soon!

- Josh