Someone got on my case about not blogging for awhile. Yeah, it's been six months woo hoo.

Well, yesterday, the band played at the "Confirmation Spectacular" at the Shrine or Our Lady of the Snows. Vince Mims was the keynoter, and I like way he "vincified" certain songs, like Happy Song, in particular.

There were some J-high kids from Pinckneyville really into music, and I met some folks from Bloomington/Normal IL, and got re-aquainted with the St. Joachim people from Old Miines MO.

But the most memorable part of the day was lunch. After the band all ate this huge lunch at this bbq place, the waitress asked, "did you save room for a bag of donuts?" Did she really say that? Maybe you had to be there, but that's a question we'll be asking for years to come.

It is a pretty unique time for me -- besides having fun doing music and youth ministry these days, we just celebrated two graduations in my family -- my two daughters Paula and Amy. Paula just graduated high school, now headed to the University of Illinois and Amy, 8th grade, is off to Cor Jesu Academy.

So the last few days and weeks have been filled with Senior send-off's, goodbyes, and more than a few tears and hugs, not just with my daughters, but all of the awesome teens and young adults who are moving into the next chapter of their lives.

I remember a few years ago when I met Danielle Rose. She is an awesome, gifted, and holy Catholic singer. We were both performing at the Crossroads Music Festival in Steelville MO and I had a big brother moment, and I asked her, with all of her travels, how does she stay grounded in her life? She responded simply, with a smile, Karl, she said, I find a chapel and go to Mass or just sit before the Eucharist everywhere I go. Because I know when I am with Jesus, I am home.

To my kids, and to everyone going back to college or moving into another part of their lives: know that no matter how you are feeling -- homesick or giddy, stressed or lonely, happy or sad, strong or weak, lost or found --

My prayer for you is you will always know you are loved, you are being prayed for, and that you will seek and find Jesus every day. For when you with the Lord, you will be truly home.

Greetings again!
I am a little bit in awe of the great XLT we had last night in St. Louis at St. Catherine Laboure Church. Adam Bitter and I led the music and we had 200+ teens in the house. Leah Darrow, a fashion model turned youth minister gave her testimony on how God changed her life and we prayed over all the college people. Mostly though, it was just a great night in the Lord!

And now for some news.....
LOVE WILL LEAD US HOME is now on I-tunes! Just go to the Apple I-Tunes Music Store and search for Karl Zimmerman, and there it is, pretty nice!

Updated schedule:
XLTs at St. Catherine's in St. Louis: August 23, September 27

September 7 St. Joe's Parish Festival, Freeburg IL
September 12 XLT at Holy Spirit Church, St. Louis MO
September 14 Holy Trinity Parish Festival, St. Louis MO
September 29 Crossroads Music Festival, Steelville MO
October 20 Youth For Life Rally, Paris TN
December 15 REAP Benefit Concert, St. Louis MO

We are also talking to folks in Kansas City, Lincoln NE, and San Antonio TX about some future events. Let us know if you are interested in having the AND Band do some music in your 'hood.

My prayers are with you, may God bless you all!

Your friend in Christ,
karl

Greetings party people in the place to be!

I hope you're all having a blessed day. If you are receiving this, you signed to be on my e-mail list OR I thought you might like to hear this kind of stuff haha (let me know if i was wrong :-O) -- But I do try to pray specifically for everybody I send this to every day, may God pour His love in your life!

First of all, the CDs are now available online at cdbaby.com (link through www.karlzmusic.com) or the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows Gift Shop in Belleville IL. Soon to be on I-tunes (approx one month), and at some other location TBD. So THAT's nice huh!

Schedule --
Upcoming dates:, not including the usual Noon and 6 PM Masses and youth night type stuff:

July 26, August 9, 23: XLT at St. Catherine's in St. Louis

September 7 Freeburg IL, St. Joe's Parish Festival time TBD, Concert
Sept 8 Hillsboro MO, Good Shepherd Church 5 PM Mass
Sept 14 St. Louis MO, Holy Trinity Church, Parish Festival, 8 PM Concert
Sept 29: Steelville MO, Crossroads Music Festival

Oct 20: (tentative) Paris TN, Youth for Life Rally

Dec 15: REAP Benefit Concert at DeSmet HS, St. Louis MO

I am missing some, but those are mostly pretty solid.

The CD --
Some notes about the new Love Will Lead Us Home CD that you may not know:

*The engineer who mastered the CD is Richard Dodd from Nashville TN. Richard is a true professional and actually won a Grammy Award for his mixing work on Tom Petty's “Wildflowers” CD. He also mastered the last two David Crowder Band CDs (A Collision and B Collision -- including "You Are My Joy"). He did an awesome job making the cymbals sizzle and the low end pound. Aside from his professional achievements though, the reason I asked him to master the CD is I read some quotes from him, that basically said, not every voice is great, some voices are interesting. Fits me pretty well haha.

*There are three “hidden” tracks on the CD. If you have the disk, you probably already found them. A little background: we played a silly game at an Our Lady of the Pillar Youth Ministry event last year where we wrapped some teens up with packing tape and then people threw Q-Tips at them. They wanted a song and me, Greg Hulub, and Matthew Baute basically made it up on the spot. It's what I like to refer to as “quality youth ministry”. Another track, “Swamp” is the name of a fictitious product we created at St. Clement Life Teen. It's like a liquid or aerosol that does everything. It's a symbol for what the world offers. What's in it? We don't know, it's SWAMP. But it doesn't compare to the living water offered to us by Jesus, the true thirst quencher.

* Oh, and that broadcasters voice you hear is co-producer Chris Miller. He has worked for radio stations all over the place, and still does voice-overs on media outlets, including the Missouri Lotto Numbers on Channel 5 in St. Louis every Wednesday night (yep, that's him)

That's all for now - e-mail me any time, I would love to hear from you guys. Many blessings to you! Pray for us too!

Your brother in Christ,
Karl

hi everybody:
Just a quick update! The KZ CD Release is ON for June 30! A couple things I wanted to tell you.

First, for those who would like to come to the concert and not buy the CD (why in the world they would do that i don't know haha) -- they can just show up and pay $5 at the door. Regular tickets are $12 or $15 for a family and includes a CD. You can get all tickets at the door OR you can purchase them in advance starting this weekend. We'll have them at Masses, the Parish

Second, Wired Coffee, a local espresso and gelato meeting place, has agreed to host a coffee bar at the party, that ought to be good quality fun.

Finally, thanks to all of you who come to Noon Mass at SCL, 6 PM at Clement's, or points beyond The CD is being produced as we speak by discmakers and well, it is pretty cool!

Hope to see you and your friends on the 30th!

The Luke 18 Phenomena continues next weekend for me at Seven Holy Founders in Affton. Which raises a question.. just who ARE the seven holy founders?

But I digress. Luke 18 has become a major success here in the St. Louis -- I'm not sure of all the reasons, but here's how it works: 7th and/or 8th graders are the Lukers, the retreatants. High school teens lead the small groups, give most of the talks, and basically lead the weekend. They attend several planning meetings where we creatively and prayerfully prepare for the retreat.

Some young adult team members help lead the weekend. We have music, families host the teens in the sleep houses, volunteers help prepare meals, I can't describe it, but everybody wants to be involved.

Yeah, and we'll play lots of tunes, have lots of fun, and I get to play with Ron Roskowske. :)

Getting close. Tomorrow morning we really try to finish some mixes and get the new CD done done.

Last night, a bunch of teens stayed late and recorded a little crowd response stuff with us on You Make All Things New. I listended to the rough, it's pretty good.

Then we have to add some "Oh yeah"s to Rivers Flow. And of course, Swamp, which could be a registered trademark of St. Clement Life Teen.

Thanks for helping out, everybody!