new website updates!!!
Posted By admin on March 5, 2010
I have done a massive retooling of my website! I now have a full-functioning CD store and a web store front for SMG
http://cdstore.ryansheeler.com
http://smg.ryansheeler.com
Prayers and Promises – ryansheeler.com
music, gigs, updates, life, relationships, and stories
CD Pre-release notice: Polk County Line
Posted By admin on March 1, 2010
I would like to announce the eminent release of my new CD. The project is called “Polk County Line” and is nearing completion. This album is very different than my previous efforts. This album is a folk-based, all acoustic album in the great tradition of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen.
Basically “Polk County Line” is me sitting in front of a couple of microphones with just a guitar, singing and sharing stories with you about love, death, life, happiness, loss, crime and desperate people in desperate times.
The CD will be out in another 10-14 days. Its some of the best songwriting I’ve ever done, stories from the heart, brutally telling, and yet lovingly honest. I can’t wait to share this with y’all!!!!!
Polk County Line – Ryan Sheeler
Polk County Line
Witness
6AM To Nowhere
Johnny Fire
It’s All Just A Game
Pictures
Just Beginning
North on Highway 141
Redemption Blues
Blood On Lilies
Leave a Light On
RIP Nick Gowdy
Posted By admin on February 23, 2010
I just found out an old friend of mine, Nick Gowdy, passed away. We knew each other from years ago at Meeker Elementary School and on into Ames High. He was a friend of mine from way back at Meeker Elementary in Ames. Nick had serious disabilities but was always a special soul. As I understand it… he had a valve repair for his heart early this month. They disconnected him from the breathing tube and he was doing well. A few days later his kidneys began to shut down and his liver numbers were high, he was medicated until his passing after removing his life support & passed on a few days later.
Rest in peace, brother.
finding pictures
-for Nick
I’m looking through some pictures
and the memories laying there
wondering if I’ve got any words
or extra thoughts to share
I could go on about all
the times we had at school
or how your presence would
always light up the room
you were no different than us
in fact we’re all the same
we were just little kids back then
playing the same games
they say someone’s legacy
is the people that they touch
my brother, I hope you see
we loved you so very much
now I’ll close the photo album
that lies open inside my mind
and say another prayer for you
and the peace I hope you find
-RDS 2/23/10
new CD teaser #2 – Polk County Line
Posted By admin on February 17, 2010
Hey all! Here is another little teaser. I’m hoping to complete my next CD in the new few weeks, God willing (hopefully time and money don’t run out – esp. money!) It is a low-fi, all acoustic album just me and my guitar. It will be folk/blues in style and the songs will be narratives about characters and struggles, morality, love, sin, death, and redemption. I’m getting as deep as I’ve ever gotten with my music on this project. Here are the working song titles — these are NOT set in stone yet. 
1. Polk County Line
2. Witness
3. 6AM To Nowhere
4. Johnny Fire
5. It’s All Just A Game
6. Just Beginning
7. Pictures
8. North on Highway 141
9. Redemption Blues
10. Blood On Lilies
11. Leave a Light On
Valentines Day 2010 – Leave A Light On
Posted By admin on February 17, 2010
Valentines Day 2010 – Leave a Light On
A year has passed since Valentines Day 2009, and my life has immeasurably changed (mostly for the worse, but not completely) since then. If had many occasions to think and write about this, and since we’ve all been snow-bound in Central Iowa, its given me a lot of time to reflect.
A year ago this weekend, I was spending Valentines Day with someone I loved and in some ways still do (as the saying goes “You don’t just stop loving someone, either you never did or you always will.”) …. Anyway it was a very special occasion; one that I will remember very fondly for the rest of my life. Unfortunately 4 months after that, the relationship ended in a situation that I would have to say is one of the worst emotional defeats in my life. Through major misunderstandings and Satan’s influence, what was once a pure and loving relationship between two partners, combusted into a terrible nightmare. Each day passes, and I remember a date or a time that we shared together. Try as I might, its nigh-on impossible to get that time out of my mind.
Through that situation, I came face to face with myself. I have Borderline Personality Disorder – and it negatively affects relationships that I am in. BPD causes me to become very sad very easily, and to lash out in anger when I’m frustrated or feel rejected. Worst of all it causes me to hide myself from other people. On the plus side, it gives me super-abundant creative fuel, so I do praise God for who I am in that respect. I just have the fact that it burns people who get too close to it, and there’s not much I can do to stop it sometimes.
But this year was the first where I saw my problems hurt and burn someone that I loved. So know I think back to Valentines Day a year ago, and I cry. I miss those times, and my logical side knows that there’s absolutely nothing I can do to bring them back. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love and this year I’ve got an empty heart. And its not at all that I’m mad at God — I’m just hurt and confused by it all. I’ve driven hundreds of miles around the highways of Central Iowa trying to clear my head. I’ve written dozens of songs, and logged hundreds of hours of prayer. And the pain is still there – it is easier to manage – but its still there. I’m sure this storm, in some sense, will never completely pass. And that’s ok..sometimes hurts never really leave, they just get easier to manage.
Anyhow…time marches on. I know I won’t ever know love like that again. But I believe God led me through that for a reason. There are times (that I can’t mention here) that I shudder to think about what happened, what I could have done differently. Forgiveness.
On the plus side…through the pain that I suffered in the summer of 2009. God has seen fit to open wide the gates of my mind, and blessed me with songs. I released “Light In The Rain” which has went on to be my most successful CD ever. And I (hopefully) will soon release “Polk County Line” a folk-based all-acoustic album that is about pain and suffering and what drives people to do what they do.
Anyhow…I’ve never grown so much in my life as I have in my 8 months. Part of me wishes I could do it over, because there are things I’d definitely change. But it also has taught me more about who Jesus is, what He’s done, and what He means to me. I am also so grateful for family and friends…they all could have turned their back on me (and rightly should have) last year, but none of them did. I remember having a meeting with my best friends in my mom’s backyard in late June of 2009, where we just hung out and talked about happenings. I’m so deeply grateful for my friends.
Life is a growing experience, and 2009 was just that for me. My hope and prayer for you is that you tell people you love them, and live it out. You never know who might need to hear that.
Go Ask
Posted By admin on February 4, 2010
a prayer that is on my heart tonight…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFO2pzShLbE
Don’t ask me to explain to you how one could start again or hardened hearts could soften like a child
Don’t ask me how to reason out the mysteries of life or how to face it’s problems with a smile
Go ask the man who’s found a way to take a rose to stay when all communications were destroyed.
Go ask the child who’s walking now who once was crippled and then somehow her useless legs were made to jump for joy
Go ask the one who’s burned out mind has been restored I think you’ll find the questions not as important as before
Don’t ask me if He’s good or bad I only know the guilt I had is gone and I can’t tell you any more
and don’t ask me how to prove to you why I know God is there or how I know that He would care for you
And don’t ask me why someone so great would chose to walk with me and trade my broken life for one that’s new
Go ask the child whose got a dad to love away the hurt he had before this man called Jesus touched their lives
Go ask the one whose fears have fled whose churning heart was quieted when someone whispered peace to all her strive
Go ask the man to tell you more whose life was just a raging war in spite of self until the savior came
I don’t pretend to be so wise, I only know He touched my eyes and nothing else will ever be the same.
I don’t pretend to be so wise, I only know He touched my eyes and nothing else will ever be the same.
and nothing else will ever be the same.
new CD teaser #2
Posted By admin on February 3, 2010
Hey gang,
Working on the new album. None of the titles are for sure yet but I think the album will be called “Polk County Line”. Some working song titles are “Witness”, “North on Highway 141″, “Blood Over Lilies”, “Redemption Blues”, “Just Beginning”, and “Leave A Light On”. This will be a roots-oriented, all-acoustic, storytellers album. Just really intimate, me, the guitar, and the microphone.
GIGS!
Posted By admin on February 3, 2010
Finally started booking out some gigs. Stay tuned to my website for more details! Including a big GIG announcement for March 2010!
interviewed on WHOTV today
Posted By admin on February 3, 2010
Hey all,
I was interviewed for WHOTV in Des Moines – as they did a spot about the Central Iowa job market. Watch for the link soon!
web page glitch FIXED: 106.3FM interview
Posted By admin on January 31, 2010
Just double checking some code with my web page. NOW — the interview should be good. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t working….