Maryland tour takes us on HIstory Field Trip!

It's not a secret that we really stink at keeping our blog updated. By rights this post could even be broken up into several smaller posts but for the sake of getting content up on our blog we're going to post it all. We promise we will try to keep it short and sweet :)

So the party begins in an awesome wine cellar in Laurel, MD where we play our first of 3 concerts:


From Laurel we head to an outdoor concert in Rockville, MD where we are spoiled rotten in this pool:


And when we are done in the pool we get to watch a little TV in their private theater!


Next morning we drove to Gettysburg to see the battlefield:


Then up to Hershey, PA for a visit to Chocolate World!!!


While at the Hershey Factory we put the kids to work:


Then off for one LONG day in Philly...wowsers!


At the Liberty Bell the older girls were flirting with some old dude:


Once we got the girls away from the old dude we actually got to see the Liberty Bell:


Ella (aka - Tater) was consulting the map in Washington Square but Philly isn't that tough of a town to navigate:


After Philly we went down to Sharpsburg, MD to see the Antietam Battlefield...over 20,000 dead from one bloody day of battle!


The "Burnside Bridge" was a major part of the Battle of Antietam (or the Battle of Sharpsburg as the Southerners called it):


Then off to Severn, MD for another show...wouldn't you know it we got to rock another pool :)


The next day we took the Metro to DC for one LONG day!!!


First stop: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History!


Second stop...Washington Monument:


Third stop...Lincoln Memorial:


Then we went to the South Lawn of the White House, the National Archives, and the Air and Space Museum before calling it a day!

At our show in Rockville, MD we met a couple who said, "Don't go into DC to watch the fireworks on the 4th cause it's a hassle! Come to our place and we will watch them from our patio..." So we went to their place and here's the view:


We took all our photos with our iPhone so it doesn't do the fireworks justice...it was simply amazing!


Tater was a little tired by this point in our trip:


One more stop before we blaze back to Nashville. Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, in Charlottesville, VA:


Then it was back home for us. Yeah I could have broke this up into several different posts but then you wouldn't have experienced how crazy this trip was :) You can see that when we have breaks between shows our girls get some of the most fantastic "home school field trips" ever!!!!

Thanks for helping make the dreams of two small town kids come true...without you guys we wouldn't be able to do this!

Jeremy & Kaci

Nashville Rockstar Episode 3 is up on YouTube

Life on the road took it's toll on us and it was harder than anticipated for us to release episodes of Nashville Rockstar in a timely fashion. So we do apologize for the amount of time that lapsed between Episode 2 and Episode 3. Who knows maybe we will release another Episode here soon to make up for it!

Episode 3 is about Songwriting. I (Jeremy) had a songwriting session with Adam Wood, staff writer at Rukkus Room Studios, in Nashville, TN. During the video Adam Wood explains how a songwriter gets paid and the breakdown of the major income streams in song writing. Now please understand this is the simplified version. The realm of publishing gets fairly complicated quickly but if one can grasp it, it can be a very good income source.

A highlight that did not get put in this Episode was me getting to meet Josh Kear who co-wrote "Before He Cheats" performed by Carrie Underwood, "Need You Now" performed by Lady Antebellum as well as a slug of other songs performed by tons of big named artists such as Miranda Lambert.

At the end of the video I struggle through the first part of the country song Adam and I wrote together called, "Kiss My Grits".

Here's a link to Nashville Rockstar Episode 3...enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp-jlpR5p9M&feature=related

Jeremy NEELY

The winner of the autographed acoustic guitar is....

Kevin Collings of Bel Air, KS! Congratulations to Kevin for winning the autographed acoustic guitar. Stay tuned for more give-a-ways in the future. Thus far we've given away a brand new, 4th Gen, iPod Touch and the autographed guitar but we plan on giving away more in the future!

As soon as the dust settles we will post some pictures and memories from our Spring Tour. Until then...

Jeremy & Kaci
NEELY

Win an autographed acoustic Guitar!

I know we said "for more information check our blog" but our contests are so dang easy I don't know what other information we could possibly share.

Because we administer the contest through a Facebook Event you have to have a Facebook account and simply click "I'm Attending" to be entered. If you click "Maybe" or "Not Attending" you are not entered. Pretty easy stuff :)

The contest runs from April 30th to May 30th, 2011. Here's how the give-a-way works:

1.) Head out to http://www.neelymusic.com/ and sign up for our email newsletter (for those not already on the list) and receive a free download of "Falling Down".

2.) "Like" us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/neelymusic) or "follow" us on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/neelymusic)

3.) Join or attend the "Win an autographed Guitar with NEELY" event on Facebook and invite all your friends to attend. The winner will be chosen from the list of attendees on this event.

If you'd like to help us out further (out of the kindness of your heart) post something about NEELY and a link to our Facebook Page or Website on your Facebook or Twitter pages.

Outside of that...good luck, may the force be with you, or whatever other clever little tag you can think of inserting here :)

Thanks y'all!

Jeremy & Kaci NEELY

Unnamed Wedding Song lyrics

Good news! We are going into the studio June 3rd & 4th to record "the unnamed wedding song". That means we still need help naming it...we are going to post the lyrics below to give you the tools to help us with this effort. Post ideas on our Facebook Page at: http://www.facebook.com/neelymusic

Everything I hoped for
It all comes down to this
Not an act of love
that could tell you
More than this

All that I have, all I am.
I saved it for you, only you

Before I knew there was the thought of you
Spent all my days dreaming about you
A million miles to see your face
I'm in this place
Now I'm complete

Always thought about tomorrow
Always dreamed about your hand in mine
Waiting for the day
When it would be
You and Me

All that I have, all I am.
I saved it for you, only you

Before I knew there was the thought of you
Spent all my days dreaming about you
A million miles to see your face
I'm in this place
Now I'm complete

When I closed my eyes (when I closed my eyes)
I still saw you by my side

Before I knew there was the thought of you
Spent all my days dreaming about you
A million miles to see your face
I'm in this place
Now I'm complete

win an iPod Touch (4th Gen) with NEELY

We're excited to be able to give out an iPod Touch to one lucky person this month! The rules are pretty simple and straightforward...here's the details:

The contest run from Friday, February 25th to Friday, March 25.
1.) Head out to http://www.neelymusic.com and sign up for our email newsletter (for those not already on the list) and receive a free download of "Falling Down".
2.) "Like" us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/neelymusic) or "Follow" us on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/neelymusic)
3.) Join or attend the "win an iPod Touch with NEELY" event on Facebook and invite all your friends to attend.
4.) Post "Check out @NEELY - the voice of Daughtry, the heart of Evanescence, and the guitars of 3 Doors Down" on Facebook or Twitter a minimum of 4 times over the next month. (Note - only one post per day! Twitter users will need to use the @NEELYmusic tag instead of @NEELY)

Thanks so much for all you do to make the dreams of two small town kids come true!

Jeremy & Kaci
NEELY

Nashville Rockstar - Episode 1 released today

After a year of talking about it Kenny Schneider and I finally took the plunge. We had been gathering, story boarding, and bouncing ideas off one another for...well a year...and somewhere in December of 2010 we finally lit a fire under each others rear ends and began working towards getting this webisode off the ground.

What is Nashville Rockstar? Episode 1 will kind of sum that up. Now we understand that it's kind of dry with a lot of talking...but we kind of needed that to figure out how to use the cameras to our liking (still a huge learning curve there) and how to work Final Cut Express to make the episodes come off as smoothly and professionally as possible. Check out Episode 1 below but please NOTE we're having issues trying to figure out how to get the Blog to post it in a size that will display the whole video so you'll probably prefer to go directly to the video by clicking this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90k6IF6mFy0



What would you like to see in an Episode of Nashville Rockstar? We would love to get your feedback and try to make it work! Leave us a comment on our YouTube page at: http://www.youtube.com/neelymusic or on our Facebook Page at: http://www.facebook.com/neelymusic

Have fun with it and dream big...who knows your idea might be an Episode :)

Jeremy