KPL's Monthly Ramblings

Made it back safely from Africa! It was an AMAZING trip. I've always heard about people taking trips to third world countries, and how it affects them, but seeing it for myself really put things into perspective. I think the biggest impression I got is how much we take for granted, and yet so many want so much more. Yet these people have little or nothing, but they have so much contentment and happiness. There is so much more to tell than can fit in this space, so I invite you to visit the travel blog I created that has stories, pictures & video from the trip. The address is: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/cooknkpl/1/tpod.html

Thanks again to everyone who contributed financially to make this trip possible!

I'm also excited to report that I have been invited to do a TV interview with the organization "Pray North State", which will be aired on Fox TV. They are very interested in what we do, and also want to meet one of my "ministry kids" to learn about how the ministry has impacted their life. More details to come.

The month of May kicks off the festival season and we look forward to Stand & Be Counted and Spirit West Coast-Del Mar in May. The festivals are important because we have finally achieved having a stage at each one which allows us GREAT opportunities for the kids to perform on REAL stages in front of many people! That's it for now....Thanks for your continued support!

As I sit here writing this I think about the trip I am about to embark upon in one week, and the new experiences and challenges that I face. They say you don't really gain a true appreciation of the "riches" we experience daily, and mostly take for granted until you visit a third world country and see the happiness they have, yet with so little. I could not have made this trip had it not been for the kindness and generosity of many of you! I am truly blessed to have so many awesome supporters that believe in what I am doing, and help me in trying to make a difference in others lives. Since the core of my ministry is about helping young musicians, I plan to seek out any youth bands I can find and record them and make them a CD. Please pray for our safe travels within this dangerous and tumultuous country, and that we might touch many lives while we are there! Thank you for your continued support!

February was fairly slow in the studio, but the ministry stayed pretty busy! The most exciting part of the month was participating in the dedication service for a new church in Sacramento, Victory Life Fellowship.

This church was planted by the organization in Africa that has invited us to their big crusade in Nigeria in April. I have never experienced a service like this before, but it was AMAZING!!! Talk about uninhibited worship! Check out the picture below, (notice the tambourine!)

By now you should have received a letter telling you about my upcoming mission trip to Nigeria, and asking for your support. I am EXTREMELY grateful for the support received so far, but I with lest than a month away, I am still short $1,500. I initially thought I only needed $2,000, but there are expenses that I didn't account for, pushing my need closer to $2,500. Any contributions are appreciated; large or small. If you haven't already done so, please consider helping me on this incredible ministry opportunity!

Thank you for your continued support!

January started off slowly with just a handful of sessions in the studio. We had the opportunity to work with an incredibly talented young band from El Dorado Hills. I look forward to seeing them on stage a lot this year! We also had the privilege of helping a worship leader from the area finally record her music she's had written for years! What an amazing talent she has!

Recently, we were approached by a pastor who is planting a new church in the area. Knowing of our connection to many Christian musicians in the area, he asked if we could help him put a Worship Team together for his new church. We were humbled by his request and immediately went to work! The end result was that we were successful in rallying a number of young musicians that had been a part of our ministry back when they were young teenagers, and now all attending Chico State.

The end result is that not only did this new church get an awesome young and talented Worship Team, but in turn, the musicians finally got connected to a local church while here in Chico! We are so happy that our ministry was able to help another through our resources of young talent!

That's it for now! Watch your mailbox for a separate letter coming telling you about an upcoming mission's trip to Nigeria we are taking in April!

Thank you for your continued support!

Well...Christmas has come and gone, and by the time you receive this we will have entered a new year!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you that have faithfully and generously supported our ministry. Without you, we couldn't provide the opportunities and help to the young musicians that we have.

We are hoping to make an even greater impact in 2010 and look forward to some awesome opportunities to further our mission!

I hope you had a great Christmas and New Years, and that you receive many blessings in the upcoming year! God bless you!

November kicked off with the annual Pastor's Retreat for the Sacramento District of the Nazarene Church at Lake Tahoe. This was our third year producing this event for them, and as always, we had a great time hanging out with old friends, and meeting new friends! The Nazarene Church has always been generous in their financial support of our organization and for that we are truly grateful!

On a sadder note...on November 14th a crew of 3 EMS Responders died in a helicopter crash on their way home to Susanville, shortly after delivering their patient to a hospital in Reno. We were asked to provide the production for the memorial service held in Mountain Life Flight's hangar at Susanville airport. Over 1,000 people were there - many of the attendees EMS people from around the state. It was a beautiful service, and a privilege for us to be a part of.

One of our youth bands, "Armor Under Fire" had the opportunity to play for the grand opening at a new Christian Book Store in Hayfork. The next day they were invited to lead Sunday morning Worship Service. This has not happened before, but they did a GREAT job and the pastor was very pleased.

Right now I am preparing for our annual Thanksgiving trip to my grandma's in Smith River, so I guess I better get to work! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and as always, thanks for your continued support!

October signaled the end of the festival season with our last festival of the summer - "Rock of Ages" in Calistoga. It was our 3rd year producing the Indie Artist Stage at this event, and we were excited to not only see many old friends, but also the opportunity to introduce a couple new bands to the festival this year. Over all, it was the best one yet, and a great way to finish the end of the season.

Not much else happened during October, so this is going to be a pretty short newsletter. With the kids getting back into school things have been pretty slow at the studio. But we do look forward to things picking up again in November. One of our young bands have been invited to play for the grand opening of a new Christian Bookstore in November, and then lead worship the next morning at one of the local churches. So we are looking forward to that!

That's it for now! As always, thanks for your continued support

Joshua Fest was our first event of the month. It went great, and we had the chance to meet a lot of great bands, and make many new friends. It's good to see JF back in action after a break last year. We look forward to JF-2010!

The following weekend, we produced a 9-11 Remembrance Service at Ft. Gillum in Atlanta and then 2 days later, our 5th and last concert event at Ft. Jackson, SC. Bethany Dillon was our artist for both events and she did a GREAT job! At Ft. Gillum 2-Star General Sieko presented her a flag that had flown over the Pentagon. An amazing honor.

At Ft. Jackson, there were over 4,000 soldiers in attendance, and it made for an amazing worship service. I'm sad that is our last military event for awhile. But stay tuned, because we have a couple surprises in the wings!

The rest of the month we spent in session, except for the last Sunday of the month, when we took one of our youth bands, "Armor Under Fire" to Richvale for a back to school youth outreach event. This was our second year doing this, and as always, we had a great time with the kids!

Now we are gearing up for our last festival of the summer - "Rock of Ages" in Calistoga. This will be our 3rd year producing the Indie Artist Stage at this event, and it is one of our favorites! We look forward to the opportunity of meeting more new youth bands at this event! That's it for now! As always, thanks for your continued support!

Comparatively speaking, August was a fairly calm month. We did go back to Ft. Jackson for another concert for the troops. This time we brought the Daniel Circle Choir, a gospel group from a church right on the base. And as always, the soldiers really appreciated the music and the ministry we brought to them! I actually got the chance to sit down with a couple of the young ladies there and hear their stories about being in boot camp. It was really eye opening to say the least.

We were also excited to sponsor the first youth concert at Matthew's Cafe in August. For those of you unfamiliar, Matthew's Cafe is a local church that styles itself like a coffee house, and has always opened it's doors to the local teen music scene, providing a badly needed all ages music venue for kids in Chico.

Unfortunately, they had a big fire almost 2 years ago, and have since relocated, but had not resurrected their "music scene". Recently they contacted me and told me they were read to start again, and asked our help in bringing youth bands to the venue. So, we had our first concert of many, and it was a great success! It's great because their ministry provides the opportunity for kids from our ministry to play on a stage in front of their peers in a "safe" environment.

Coming up in September...Joshua Fest, and our last 2 military events for awhile! That's it for now! As always, thanks for your continued support!

July is about over with and what a CRAZY month it has been!

The first week of July we spent at the N. California District Church of the Nazarene Jr. High & Sr. High camp. There were 2 stages there and they asked us to manage one of them. It was the first youth camp I had ever attended and it was a great time! I look forward to helping them again next year!

The following weekend I was back at Ft. Jackson , SC for another event. This time there was over 4,000 soldiers there! It was AMAZING! If you want to see a cool slide show of the event, go to: www.operationworship.com and look for the video section on the left. We have 2 more events left, an event at Ft. Gillum , GA , and then we're done until February when we have events on the table in Guam & Hawaii!

Finally, at the end of the month we are at Spirit West Coast-Monterey, where we are once again hosting the Operation Worship Stage. We are excited that one of our Good Shepherd's Studio youth bands has been invited to play the Air-1 Stage! HUGE honor usually reserved for "major label" Alternative Bands. This will be our 4th "ministry" band playing at SWC. It's exciting when we get to see the ministry 'bear fruit"! That's it for now! And, as always, thanks for your continued support!

GREAT news!!! Our "Rockin Worship Stage" at Spirit West Coast-Del Mar was such a success, we were invited to present it again at Spirit West Coast-Monterey!

They are giving us prime time at the #3 venue (and largest tent) to present 15 bands that will provide at AWESOME Worship experience for the festival. And again...as we did in Del Mar, we will be partnering with Operation Worship and showing our support for our men and women in uniform. As of this writing, Operation Worship has sent close to 200,000 bibles to troops all around the world!

Additionally, we had the privilege of producing another Operation Worship event at Ft. Jackson, SC with Christian artist, Josh Wilson. As always, it was an AMAZING event with over 3,000 soldiers in attendance! (see below).

Our next event will be July 12th with former Beach Boy-turned Worship Leader Philip Bardowell. We look forward to a rocking good time!

On a ministry note, we had the opportunity to add another state to our list of states we have seen clients come from! Last weekend we welcomed 14 yr. old Nicole from Twin Falls. Idaho. She was an amazing young lady to work with and I see great things on the horizon from her!

That's it for now! And, as always, thanks for your continued support

What an awesome month May was! Festival season is in full swing, and May was the kick off month. The first one was Stand & Be Counted in Vacaville. We produced "The Good Shepherd Studio Indie Stage" for the 3rd year in a row. This is a great opportunity to give many of the talented youth we've had a chance to work with, a chance to play on a big stage in front of many people! They all did a great job!

The following weekend was Spirit West Coast - Del Mar, (San Diego). In the past, we had produced stages for other organizations, but this year we were given the privilege of producing our very own stage! As I shared in previous newsletters, we elected to invite our ministry partners, "Operation Worship" to be represented by this stage. The stage was a HUGE success, and a number of people have already emailed Spirit West Coast asking them to have our stage again next year! In the midst of all that was going on, we like to think that our Worship Stage offered people a "Spiritual Oasis".

First weekend in June it's back to Ft. Jackson, SC to do another concert for the troops there! Last time there were 2,200 soldiers there. This concert we expect 700-1,00 more! All carrying M-16's & rock’n for Jesus!

I apologize for being late this month. It's been a rough end of the month.

On 3/27, we drove up to my grandparent's house in Smith River, CA (north of Crescent City 20 miles). They had not met their new great-granddaughter yet. We got there, got checked into the motel, and then headed over to the house. We had dinner, spent a couple hours socializing and then we went back to our room.

In the morning, I tried calling my Grandma, and couldn't get through because her phone was non-stop busy. When I finally reached her, she told me that about an hour or so after we left, Grandpa died in bed. While we were saddened, we weren't surprised. Grandpa had been very sick, and we knew his time was short. We were sad to see him go, but glad he was no longer suffering.

When we went to leave to meet Grandma at the funeral home to help her, as a result of my lack of concentration, I managed to back into a metal pole and shattered the real window and dented the lift gate on our minivan. And of course, shortly after that, it began to rain and became near impossible to get plastic taped over it. Then we ran up to Woodburn. Oregon to visit my aunt, (Grandma's sister), and spent a day with her.

THEN...On the way back to Grandma's our car broke down about 20 miles north of Brookings., OR & Triple-A had to bring us home. Luckily it was only a fuel filter, (still $200), but they were able to fix it quickly, and we made it back for the funeral. After that, we FINALLY made it home, 2 days late & ALOT poorer. In spite of all our trials & tribulations, we're grateful things (besides G'pa) weren't worse, and we're happy he got to meet Melody before he passed on. So, in that respect, I would consider the trip a success!

That's it for this month. Back on track next month with allot of EXCITING news! And, as always, thanks for your continued support!

February was a pretty slow month - which I guess is to be expected since we just had out baby the end of January. Only 11 sessions, but LOTS of diaper changes!!!

I've set up an office at home so I can be close by to help & be able to spend some quality "bonding-time" together. I am so lucky to be able to do this. Most dads would be stuck at work away from home & not be so blessed with the opportunity I have, to be able to spend this time together. And, since I live less than 2 miles from the studio, it makes it easy to run out there whenever I need to.

Concert and Festival season will be upon us soon. I'll hate to be away from home, but outside of the few paying sessions, it's one of the few opportunities during the year to generate additional revenue for the ministry, so it's important.

I am excited to report that in addition to our usual Indie Stages we will be producing at a number of festivals, we have been given the opportunity to produce our very own stage at Spirit West Coast-Del Mar, (San Diego) this summer! We are very excited about this opportunity to have our very own presence at one of the largest festivals on the West Coast.

After careful consideration, we have elected to use our stage to raise awareness, (and hopefully lots of money) for Operation Worship; the ministry that we serve, providing Christian Music Concerts at military bases.

Although their Bible Ministry has successfully "deployed" over 300,000 bibles to our armed forces throughout the world, they are severely lacking funding for their concert events and we hope we can help! Be sure to visit them at www.operationworship.com. Watch for more details!

Well...It's OFFICIAL!!!

Melody JoAnn Looker
Born January 19th @7:26pm
7# 15oz., 21 inches

There are many more pictures posted on my Facebook page, (Kevin Looker).

What a life changing experience this has been. At this stage in my life, "procreating" wasn't exactly on my radar screen. But now I am SO glad that I decided to go for it! The moment I first held my little girl and saw her face made me wish I had done this a whole lot sooner! Something that was so scary to me for so long now seems so incredibly natural to me. I can't wait to take this journey with her through the years to come!

We stayed pretty close to home during January, but some OTHER exciting news! We have been contacted by The Boys & Girls Club of Chico to assist them with their music program & to work with some of their aspiring musicians that hang out there. Right now, we are laying the groundwork for a "Battle of The Bands" in May to benefit the center and will be featuring bands & performers 18 & under only! More to come!

That's it for now. And, as always, thanks for your continued support!

I hope you and your families had a wonderful Christmas! Since Sara is due in less than 3 weeks, we stayed home and just had our own Christmas. We did have the pleasure of having Pastor Dave, aka "Pokey the Clown" come over for Christmas dinner. Besides being a faithful supporter of the ministry, and an awesome man of God, he is the most amazing maker of balloon animals I know! If you ever need a professional clown he's your guy! He's even performed at Spirit West Coast a number of years!

Things were pretty slow as expected. We only had four sessions. We did get to go to Susanville with Trent Smith where he and his band performed for a church Christmas party. As always, he did a great job, and a good time was had by all!

We were excited to welcome back one of our first young ladies! Brittany, who first started with us at the age of 16, is now married and almost finished with college. She has retuned to us to pursue her dream of performing, and we look forward to seeing her accomplish great things!

Wow...December 29th, I turned 50, and in just a few short weeks, I'll be a first time father! Definitely going to be a CRAZY new year for us! Many blessings to you and your families in the upcoming New Year!

As we wind down into the holiday season, things are starting to slow down a bit. November kicked off with our own Philip Bardowell opening for Todd Agnew at "Love 360", an awesome event in downtown San Francisco. Since it was my wife and I's wedding anniversary that weekend, we didn't make it, but we hear that it was a great success! What an awesome opportunity to bring a little "light" to the darkness of the area.

The following week, we had the privilege of serving the annual Sacramento District Nazarene Pastors Conference in Lake Tahoe. Besides providing all the necessary production for the event, one of our awesome Worship Leaders, Trent Smith, and his band provided all the music for all 3 days. This was out second year doing this event, and it's one our favorites during the year! It was great to see old friends, and make new ones!

On November 15th, it was time to "marry off" two more of our "studio kids"!

It was exciting to attend the wedding of Kyle Williams & Carrie Ollenburger. Kyle & his band first came to see us waaay back in 2003, and Carrie, an incredibly gifted songwriter and vocalist, became a studio "frequent flyer" not long after that. They met when Carrie made her concert debut at Mathew's Cafe at age 16, and were together ever since then! Great kids, and both great musicians and will have a wonderful life together!

Other than those events, we managed to get five studio sessions completed before shutting down for Thanksgiving. But December is starting to pick up already, so we'll see what exciting things await us then!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and an even better Christmas!

p.s., "Baby Day" - Six weeks and COUNTING!!!

Things are starting to slow down as we head into the end of the year holiday madness! We only had 17 sessions in October. One of those sessions we had the privilege of recording a group of 7th grade girls from the Notre Dame Girls Choir. As always we had a great time! If you know someone from the school, be sure to get a copy of the CD when it comes out!

On October 4th, we participated in what is considered to be the last Christian Music Festival of the season - "Rock of Ages" in Calistoga, CA. For the third year we were given the opportunity to produce the Alternative Stage, which gives us a great opportunity to showcase some of our young talent! The downer was that as soon as we were ready to start the first band, the Heavens opened up and poured down upon us! Luckily it didn't last long and we went on for the rest of the day without further incident.

Something new!...We now have interns from Chico States Recording Arts Program coming in to the studio to "hone their skills" for their program. Coincidentally, our first intern happens to be a young man that was in a band that came to us for their free recording 4-5 years ago when he was in high school! Now he's "all grown up" and coming back to serve! It feels good to see tangible success of our program!

Lastly, as I have mentioned previously...we are expecting a little girl in January! Subsequently, I have made the decision to work from home as much as possible the first three months of the year to be able to assist my wife and help her eventually transition back to work, (thankfully, her company allows her to work from home). This means that I will have to reduce the number of paid recording sessions during that period - which in addition to our monthly supporters is the only other way we generate revenue.

So...please consider supporting us financially if you don't already! For more info, call 530/893-4901.

What a GREAT month! Besides 15 sessions, we one concert event, 2 out reach events, and all kinds of great things happening. To start things off, we had an AWESOME Worship Pastor from Springfield, MO fly out to visit us. Brent arrived Monday afternoon, and from then until 4AM Saturday morning, we spent over 60 hours recording his debut CD.

Then...2 hours later, we are up and off to Red Bluff where we had the privilege of producing a regional out reach event for the Northern Chapter of the Christian Motorcycle Assoc. There were 6 bands, and our own Brittany Fortune opened the event with the national anthem, and then sang a rousing set of country favorites. We were also treated to the awesome music of Trent Smith, and even Brent, after a very short nap, came out to share his music with us. The last band to play was our good friend, Bryan Johnson, who flew his whole band, (at his OWN expenses), out from Sierra Vista, AZ to lend their support to the CMA. What an awesome heart Bryan & the gang have! By the way, Bryan's CD should be releasing very soon!

The following Friday, we assisted with the production of the Veggie Tales Tour when it came to Roseville. Man...I have NEVER seen so many "ankle biters" saturated in one location like I did there!

Saturday & Sunday, Philip Bardowell, (our former Beach Boy-turned Worship Pastor), flew up from LA to perform at a Bay area church Saturday nite and then lead worship Sunday morning. It's always great to spend time with Philip, and that weekend was no exception for sure!

Finally, at the end of the month, we did a youth outreach event in Folsom at The Gathering Place, one of our favorite youth group! It was a great nite with many new kids.

That's it for now...As always, thanks for your continued support!

August was a busy month for us. The first weekend we had Spirit West Coast in Monterey. Two of our youth bands were extended the privilege of playing on the Air-1 Stage, which is the "Alternative Music" Main Stage. My Second Chance played their last show there before disbanding. Sad to see them go. They came to us for their "free recording" back in 2004, and we've had the pleasure of watching them mature from raucous high school kids to (still raucous), young adults. They've accomplished alot and we are very proud of them!

The other band, Chasing Truth, is in their second year with us, and their lead guitar player is only 13 yrs. old! Most of the band is under 16. Yet, they played the Main Stage at Joshua Fest last year, Creation Fest, Tom Fest, and many other "fests". This was their second year appearing at SWC, BUT their first playing Air-1. HUGE honor for them. So, expect to see more great things from these guys! Oh yeah, and they just released their SECOND CD!

The following weekend we went back on the road with Benjiman to do outreach events in Dixon, Santa Rosa, and Paradise. Then back home where we welcomed back to the studio Bryan & Randy from Sierra Vista, AZ, returning to finish Bryan's CD. We really enjoy their visits & are even contemplating "losing" some of their files, JUST so they have to keep coming back! (JUST KIDDING Bryan!)

We wrapped up the month with Chasing Truth opening for Christian Rock superstars, Hawk Nelson at Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga. An awesome opportunity for them!

Through all this we still managed to squeeze in 14 recording sessions! WHEW! That's it for now...As always, thanks for your continued support!

I'm sitting in my office trying to get this in the mail before I leave town to start another crazy week on the road! We've got Spirit West Coast next week, and then the last Sunday of the month, one of our long time favorite bands, Chasing Truth, get the opportunity to open for one of the top bands in the country - Hawk Nelson. After we get home we leave again 3 days later to go on the road with Benjiman & iNNATE. Lot's to get done before we leave!

July was a busy with 13 sessions & one concert event. One of the ways we generate revenue for the organization is by doing concert production and we had the opportunity to work with country music stars, Montgomery Gentry. Not a big country music fan, but these guys put on quite a show!

We are excited to report that we will have 2 bands & comedian Gary King representing us at Spirit West Coast this year! This festival averages almost 25,000 people a day attending, so hopefully they will get some good exposure!

Next month, we are excited to have Bryan Johnson from Sierra Vista, AZ coming back to record with us. This is his 3rd trip to Chico and he is the second artist we've worked with from Arizona. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago he broke both his wrists from what they say was a freak accident. (Personally, I think there may have been a mechanical bull involved or something much more macho!)

That's it for now...As always, thanks for your continued support!

"There's no place like home..."

After June I can certainly appreciate that phrase! But first things first... WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!! Due next January. So be looking for the newsletters to be interspersed with "family updates"!

June was a month of driving, and driving, and driving. By the third week I had already driven over 4,000 miles! THEN to Mexico and back, and then 5 days later drove to south Los Angeles and back. I'll do the math later. The Jiffy Lube guys can't believe they've already seen me twice this month!

So, we finished up Haley Montgomery's tour by the 4th of June. Then we connected up with Casting Crowns for their California tour visit. The following week we left for a mission's trip to Mexico where we built a house for a single mother of two. What an AWESOME experience! (Except the part where the van broke down JUST before crossing the border home - but that's a WHOLE nuther story! Next stop - back down to LA for 3 days with Philip Bardowell, Haley and comedian Gary King as we do some shows in the area. Then it's FINALLY back home!

Fortunately July we get to stay home awhile - at least until Spirit West Coast at the end of the month and since we were closed most of June, we'll be seeing alot of recording sessions!

That's it for now...As always, thanks for your continued support! And now...I'm leaving to go to the doctor for our first "baby appointment". This is when we get to hear it's heartbeat for the 1st time! Whoo Hoo!