Thanks to everyone who came out for the CD release on Sat., 11/20—it was a great night, with tasty food/drink (Commonplace coffee, East End root beer, Franktuary food…), and even tastier music (from Pearl & the Beard, Judith Avers, and my fine band.)
Here’s some press “Excellent Trouble” has gotten so far:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — “..an album filled with beautifully recorded acoustic-based songs, united by (Yoder’s) honesty and vivid way with words.” (Scott Mervis)
Pitt News — “Pittsburgh native Brad Yoder is a songwriting virtuoso.” (Larissa Gula)
AcousticLive! in NYC — “This is a heavyweight album from a major talent.” (Richard Cuccaro)
Big Mama’s Blog—CD review interview — “..lyrics convey emotions in a really powerful manner.”
Pgh Tribune-Review — “Excellent Trouble.. exhibits a childlike zest for narrative and storytelling.” (Rege Behe)
And a quote, from Grammy-winning country icon Kathy Mattea:
“Brad Yoder is my favorite new ‘discovery’ of the year. His CD stopped me in my tracks, especially the song Leave Like This—I was weeping sweet tears by the end of it.”

Richard Cuccaro was kind enough to do a review of "Excellent Trouble" in the Dec. (2010) issue of Acoustic Live!. That issue will eventually be posted online as a PDF; here's the text of the review in the meantime:

Brad Yoder - Excellent Trouble
Multi-instrumentalist Brad Yoder might have produced the album that puts him on a plateau with some of the heavier hitters in the singer-songwriter arena...

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Last month I played at the terrific new Midtown Scholar Bookstore space in Harrisburg, PA. Karyn Albano of Discovering the Area’s Music & Entertainment or DAMES, came out to the show, and wrote a really nice review.

I recorded a podcast yesterday (Tuesday, 3/24/09) with fellow local musician Peter King of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as a part of their ongoing “Believe your Ears” podcast series (I’m episode #25).
I played my newest song, “two left feet,” as well as “Lite Brite,” and “love is all I have for you,” plus just a little soprano saxophone.
You can download or listen to the interview, or also download it from iTunes. Thanks to Peter King, for the invitation!

There was a Post-Gazette article (in the South edition) about my residency April 14-18 at Bethel Park High School. I worked with 3 different groups of students, and they wrote songs and poems, which they performed on Friday during an all-day coffee house-type event at which each student performed their original work 4 or 5 times for different groups of their peers.
As last year (when I set the e.e. cummings poem to music which I still perform), I wrote a new song during the week, the lyrics to which came out of a writing exercise that I did with the students, who really did some great work and came up with very creative things.
Thanks to:   Julia, Andy, Andrew, Laruen, Robert, Zach, Zach, Joe, Sarah, Ashley, Jordan, Max, Brennan, Jess, Emma, Ashley, Blair, Vickie, Valerie, Jayna, Florence, Laurel, Andrea, Alyssa, Kerry, Cameron (apologies for misspelling any names), and also to Mr. Youngs for making it happen!