So, you’ve gone to TheRingingBell.com and done your pre-ordering. You’ve got the tunes. You … just aren’t sure what the lyrics are. Maybe Derek’s spitting them out too fast … maybe the guy in the cube next to yours has the Alanis Morissette “My Humps” spoof/slam music video on YouTube up too loud. [Again.] Whatever. You need the lyrics, don’t you?

Well, thanks to Derek’s management, we have the lyrics for you. It’s all on our page about The Ringing Bell. Sorry that it took me a while to get it up … I’ve had the data and have been alternately too busy and lazy to post it. But now you have it.

[While we're on the subject of "too busy/too lazy", you may feel free to pingflood me in the comments with requests for the interview I did with Derek back in February that talks about the album. I was saving the lyrics work and polishing on this interview until the end of April, and then TheRingingBell.com preleases kinda came up on me fast and I didn't get it done. I suck. You can berate me for it until I post the MP3 if you like. I won't complain. :)]

As you can see, we’ve made some progress with our remodeling of [derekwebb.net]. We’d love your feedback, especially on the pages. [And yes, we know that the song vault isn't done yet. Not that the old one was well-kept, anyway.] Drop us a comment, would ya?

For those wondering, the “Derek Webb” in the header image is from the artwork of The Ringing Bell.

This is only a test. Were this an actual emergency, you shouldn’t be on the Internet now, eh?

Anyhow, we’re doing some long-overdue upgrades to [derekwebb.net] this weekend. Admittedly, Bryan and I have neglected [derekwebb.net] in the last year in favor of our work on squarepegalliance.net. We’re gonna make up for that—promise.

While you’re waiting for us to make good on these promises, check out two new songs from Derek’s upcoming album, The Ringing Bell that were originally posted on squarepegalliance.net. I can promise you, this is a rockin’ little album.

“This Too Shall Be Made Right”:

“I Don’t Wanna Fight”:

We here at [derekwebb.net] are excited and pleased to announce IndieRiver.net, our BitTorrent-based bootleg trading service! Simply put, we’re using BitTorrent to help us share bootlegs across the Internet. If you need a tutorial on how to do all that, check out Mark Smiley’s HOWTO on downloading bootlegs with BitTorrent and processing them into MP3s and what-not over on squarepegalliance.net.

I will be sharing all the Derek shows that I’ve taped and received in trade over the next few days; I already have a show I taped back in 2003 [in the old house show days ;)] up on IndieRiver. If you ever grabbed the MP3 I posted of Sandra singing “The High Countries” up on Ragamuffin, this is from that show … so you know that the sound is really good.

So take a moment and sign up for IndieRiver: keeping you downstream.

Howdy, all. I’m reticent to plug myself on here, but there’s a DW tie-in, so … here goes.

Thanks to Derek’s generosity, I’ll be giving away five free, signed copies of How to Kill and Be Killed, Derek’s live concert DVD, at random to all people who sponsor my Blogathon 2005 campaign in support of Blood:Water Mission:

What’s Blood:Water Mission?

If you’ve been to any of Derek’s recent shows, you know that he’s been out campaigning for Blood:Water Mission and the 1000 Wells project. Simply put, our neighbors in Africa, some of whom are Christian brothers and sisters, are dying because they don’t have basic things that we take for granted, like clean, HIV-free blood and readily-available, clean drinking water. The folks at Blood:Water have worked the numbers: if we pool our dollars together, we can provide one African with clean drinking water for one year with just $1. One dollar!

What’s the Blogathon?

The concept behind the Blogathon is pretty simple: people sign up to post every half-hour for an entire 24-hour period on their Weblogs. People sponsor them, like you do for 10K charity runs, 5K walks, or any other event. I’m going to give this a whirl with my own personal Weblog, The Indiana Jones School of Management, and I’m asking for your support.

How can I sponsor and pledge support to Blood:Water?

It’s pretty simple: register with Blogathon, read the how-to on sponsoring a campaign, and pledge your support to Blood:Water. When the Blogathon’s over, you’ll get an email from Blogathon.org with instructions on how to send in your donations.

It’s just that easy.

What if I’m broke and can’t sponsor?

You could always point people at the campaign from your Weblog, on a forum you frequent, or whatever. You’d have my gratitude.

Thanks in advance for your consideration and support!

We here at [derekwebb.net] are excited to tell you that Derek Webb will be entering the world of podcasting, and that we’re going to be a part of it.

With Apple’s announcement that iTunes 4.9 will be supporting podcasting and making it extremely simple, Derek and the folks at Dryve feel that now is the right time for Derek to start podcasting, and for the interview portions of podcasting, they’ve asked me to come and do the sit-downs in Nashville.

Dryve and [derekwebb.net] want your input! Please, feel free to submit questions or topics that you want to see discussed. Be as general or as specific as you like, and don’t feel like you have to constrain your questions to theology, politics, and music. We’ll take all the input, sit down, mash it all together, and come up with what we hope will be interesting and insightful interviews that will be released over the coming months.

Thanks in advance for your input and for listening.

Things may be a little wonky with the way [derekwebb.net] looks and feels for the next few days as we adjust to the newest version of the software that powers this site. The end result, however, will be better for everyone, we feel.

There will be some minor downtime as [derekwebb.net] is moved to our new server. The downtime will last anywhere from six to 24 hours, but likely far closer to the former.

Update: If you see this message, the downtime is over.

Howdy, all … though we’d let you know that we’ve given the final scrub to the transcript of our chat on Thursday with Derek Webb. If you missed some or all of the chat, you’ll really want to catch up on what Derek had to say.

As always, we hope you had as much fun participating in the chat as we did running it.

(more…)

Hope everyone enjoyed all the insanity we pulled today.

Besides, we all know that DaveJac is one cool dude.

WAR DAVEJAC!