Thats awesome, how in the world did you get to do that?
i actually bought the "Starfish" album earlier this year. Very cool
I first started talking to Steve in 2003 in, of all places, a chatroom set up for Church fans. The Church was releasing a new album, Steve had some solo and side projects in the works, and he was also just beginning to sell some of the paintings he was creating, so he would pop into the chatroom to find out what people were saying about all the stuff. While everyone wanted to talk about the music, I was often the only one who would talk to him about his art. We kept up a correspondence (moved to email after a while) and I eventually asked if he would mind if I set up a small exhibit of his work so other fans could see (and buy, if they so desired) some of his art. The show did ok -- people came out, sold some things, Steve got some inquiries. A month after it closed I got a phone call -- I thought it was a telemarketer and just about hung up
-- it was Steve, who didn't know what to do with those inquiries, so he asked me if I'd like to be his art manager. I said ok, and I've been handling most of his art business since 2005.
Through this we've become friends and I take off several days when the band tours here to visit and see them play. This time they reserved rooms for me at the same hotels they were using, so we were all checking out at the same time one morning. They were figuring out who had to be where when that day, and Steve asked me "You're staying at the same hotel we are tonight, right?" I said yeah, so he said "I'm riding with her!" And so he did.
And he did the next day too.
Speaking of
Starfish -- they are considering playing
Starfish and one other album (the current front runner is
Untitled #23 their most recent -- and the best reviewed of their career -- album) all the way through on their next US tour. That could be interesting.
(and that was all probably waaaaay more than you really wanted to know, wasn't it?
)