Saves the Day (am I old?)

Jo and I went to see one of my favorite bands, Saves the Day, last night.  They played right her in Chapel Hill (Carrboro actually, but the Cat's Cradle is just barely in Carrboro).  Throughout the evening, I had several thoughts that make be realize that I must be getting older:

Its too late - Its Friday night, I just worked all week.  Its already dark outside and its cold.  I would love to fall asleep here on the floor.  If it wasn't one my favorite bands and if the show was more than just a few minutes away, I might stay home.
Its too loud - Wow, it's loud.  Is it just me, or is it loud?  I think it would sound better if it weren't so stinking loud.  I mean, the vocals would be much better if it weren't so loud.  Who's running sound here?  Is it loud?
Its too crazy - I hope the mosh pit stays where it is.  I don't want to get kicked in the head.  I'm not 18 anymore.  18 year olds think its cool to get kicked in the head at a show, because they can brag to their buddies.  If I get kicked in the head, I might have to go the ER.

The show was killer.  And it was good to get out and see some live music, something I don't do nearly as much as I want to.  I don't really think I'm old, but I'm definitely not young as I used to be, and never will be.  Before I know it I'll be hitting to the 4:30 Shoney's buffet and going to bed after Jeopardy.

Sometime (live) by King's X

Songs get in stuck my head, on repeat and I can't get them out.  The only way to get them out is to hear them.  This is what has been repeating in my brain for the past few days.



Sometime, I want to give
Sometime, I want to take
Sometime, I want to run
Sometime, I want to stay.
Sometime, sometime, sometime, sometime.

Sometime, I want to love
Sometime, I want to hate
Sometime, I want to build
Sometime, I want to break
Sometime, sometime, sometime, sometime.

Sometime, I want to live
Sometime, I want to die
Sometime, I want to believe
Sometime, I want to get high and fly

Ozomalti - Dos cosas ciertas (live!!!)

If I could be in any band...

Artsitic Double Standards?

I watched a documentary last night on Danielson, one of the most unique musicians/ groups ever.  It made me think again about double standards in the artistic community.

In the film, Daniel was being interviewed and said something like  this:
'I don't like it when critics say things like "I don't agree with this but..." ' (then the interviewer asks what he means and Daniel explains). 'Its like they have to let people know they don't believe in Jesus, but they're still going to review my music.  You don't hear them say things like "I don't agree with Rastafarian beliefs, but here's my review of this reggae album." '

In the artistic community it seems you can be Buddhist (Beastie Boys), Jewish (Matisyahu), or Muslim (Jurassic 5 and lots of other rappers), yet not be judged solely by one of those labels.   But if you are a Christian who makes music, films, paintings, whatever, people want to always attach the label of 'Christian' to you.  That in itself is fine.  But it seems that 'Christian' can't be reconciled with 'artistic' in many people's minds.

This stems from several sources.  One source is a hard one for Christians to accept: a lot of current 'Christian' art (books, visual arts, music, films, etc.) are substandard and low quality.  I don't mean production quality or anything like that.  The art itself often isn't very good and doesn't stand up against art made by non-Christians.  Christian films for example are notoriously bad.  And Christian music has tended to be cheesy and overly preachy.

Why have Christians accepted substandard artistic creations?  Possibly due to lack of funding.  Or maybe due to a lack of support by the Christian community.  But I think those are lame excuses.  In general it seems that Christians in the modern era have not been challenged to think of music, books and films in regards to their artistic quality.  To most Christians, if the Good News is shared (which I am all in favor of), that makes it 'good' regardless of quality.  So whether the actors are robotic or the songs repeat the same three chords or the books read like pulp fiction novels seems to not matter.  I actually shy away from most 'Christian' media for this reason.

Seeing this attitude among many Christians and knowing that they may not expect high quality artistic output from other Christians, is it any surprise then that all Christian artists get lumped in with all the other substandard art made by well meaning Christians?

Music reviewers are surprised when a Christian makes something interesting, thoughtful or good.  So Christians have a double hurdle to jump - first making their art and making it good, and secondly having their work judged more harshly because they are Christians. But of all people in the world, shouldn't we, professed children of the Creator, be creative people?  And shouldn't we strive for creative excellence that we might have people look at our creations and say, "It is good!"

Thankfully there are Christian artists that have gained respect for their art and for the realistic portrayal of their beliefs.  Danielson, Sufjan Stevens, Scott Derrickson, Stephen R. Lawhhead and others.  And thankfully, many critics have realized that 'Christian' need not always be synonymous with 'substandard artistic expression.'

And since we're talking about Danielson, here's the video for "Did I Step on Your Trumpet"

Song Lyric of the Day

This song was going through my head last night:

"the devoted were wearing bracelets
to remind them why they came
some concrete motivation
when the abstract could not do the same
but if all that's left is duty
I'm falling on my sword
at least then I would not serve
an unseen distant Lord"

Secret of the Easy Yoke by Pedro the Lion

Song Lyric of the Day

Sometimes when I wake up I have a song going through my head.  This morning some lyrics were playing on repeat:

"O hound of heaven hear my cry
Remorse for things that I have justified
My life a book whose pages are well read
Of actions good and evil
And thoughts inside my head"
Consequence by Circle of Dust

When I woke up, I couldn't remember all the right words or even the band.  But I managed to find the lyrics and the band.  Google is an amazing thing; what did we ever do without it?  You can hear the song here.

Metal

I've been on a metal kick recently. Real, metal not hair bands (although I love them too). I love heavy metal music (good metal anyways). I love the the technical skills of the musicians, the vocal range of the singers, the theatrics, the image, basically everything. So in light of my metal kick, here's a classic metal song, Season in the Abyss by Slayer:

the haps

So what's happening these days? Lots and lots and then some more. I've been at my new job for about 1 month (maybe its time to stop calling it "my new job" and just call it "my job") and it's going pretty well. Apart from work, a lot has been going on - a move into our own place in Chapel Hill (finally), settling in, life in general, etc. I haven't blogged in a few weeks because I've not had much free time, but since we're a bit more settled now so we can breathe for a bit and I can do things like blog.

Other than all that, life goes on. Its nice for things to be 'normal' again. For the first time in about 8 months, Jo and the girls and I are all in the same house without anyone one else. We get to all see each other every day and the girls are so happy. Life was always good even when we didn't know what was going to happen, but things are easier to deal with when life has a bit of predictability.

Random things:
What I'm listening to - Sufjan Stevens, Blonde Redhead, The Raconteurs, and a bunch of old CDs that had been packed away.

What I've been reading - ever since I finished VLI in June, I've been cranking through this fantasy series called The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. Its an 11 book series. I'm on book 8 now. This has to be the best book series I have ever read. It rivals The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter! I've also read a number of graphic novels/ comic book collections in the past couple of months. Worth mentioning are Nexus and Elfquest.

downloading and some kids

Buying music
I recently bought my first music online. That's not to say that this is my first music download; I'm an avid downloader and have been for years. It was however my first paid download. So you could infer that for years I have borrowed a lot of free music from friends on the web. Oh, and my purchase was Two Tongues, which I blogged about last time.

Blast from the past
My childhood next-door neighbor, who I hadn't heard from or thought of in at least 15 years (but probably longer than that) found me on facebook. Then he posted this photo and I'm in it. I find it really hard for me to believe that I was the kid in this photo. I also have a hard time believing that I am 34 years old, a good 25 years older than I was in this photo. Dang! 25 years is a long time!!

2 movies and a band

Movie 1 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Last week, Jo and I got to go to the movies again for the second time in two weeks thanks to free babysitting from my parents. And amazingly, this was another movie that we both wanted to see that Jo and I both loved. It really is a fantastic story. The film was gorgeous in every way. The effects were great, the visuals were great, everything was great. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in this film based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. I am a Brad Pitt fan and have been for years. He's been in some of my favorite films - 12 Monkeys, Snatch, Oceans 11 and others. And Cate Blanchett is a great actress as well. I highly recommend this one.

Movie 2 - 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
Set in late 1980s communist Romania, this Romanian film tells a very gritty, unflinching story about a young girl who wants and abortion, something which was illegal under Romania's communist regime. In general I love foreign films and this one makes me realize why. I love American films, but they are a different kind of animal than films made by the rest of the world. Foreign directors have a different sensibility than American directors have.

In this film, the director lets the story takes center stage. He is not afraid to let the actors act and let the dialogue, emotions and the gravity of the circumstances sink in. Some of the takes are 8 or 10 minutes long where the camera rolls without an edit. It takes great actors to pull off scenes like that. The New York Times calls it a "a ferocious, unsentimental, often brilliantly directed film." Its a great film which stands in contrast to Hollywood movies. This one won't be for everyone.

A band - Blonde Redhead
When we did our move from PA to VA, I was driving the moving truck loaded with all our stuff. I'd blogged about our move about a month ago telling how slow the truck was. One thing I don't think I mentioned was that the truck didn't have a CD player. So I was left with two options silence or the radio. I'm not a radio person and can't tell you the last time I listened to the radio. But faced wtih total silence for my entire trip, I turned on the radio. My choice was generally either country or classic rock. But for one stretch I found a college stationg which played a song by a band called Blonde Redhead. I made a mental note to look them up later. I did look them up and have been listening to them ever since. Check them out!

reading and listening to...

Before I switched from Xanga to Blogspot about a year ago, I used the 'Currently reading' and 'Currently listening to' tools all the time. Does Blogspot have something like that? If so I'm ignorant of it. In lieu of that here are just a couple plain old lists. Who needs fancy blogging tools anyways?

Books I'm currently reading
Duma Key by Stephen King - King continues to show that he's a master storyteller. His recent books have all been good, especially Lisey's Story. I've also been trying to read some of his older books that I've never read like The Dead Zone and The Shining. Along with Salem's Lot, The Shining is one of the 2 King books that I couldn't read parts of at night because they were so creepy/ scary.

How to Read the Bible for All its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart - the subject is evidenced by the title, but the book goes deeper into Bible reading and talk about things that help the reader understand the Bible as it was understood by its original authors and audience.

Power Healing by John Wimber - for anyone who's interested in healing in any form. The first few chapters are autobiographical. The rest (that I've read so far) is about specific types of healing and how to address them. Has lots of stories, many of which are firsthand events from Wimber's life and ministry.

Airframe by Michael Crichton - This book is not all that great so I'm reading it really slowly and might not finish it. It certainly doesn't compare to Jurassic Park, Sphere, or my favorite Crichton book, Timeline. I only learned today (or may be it was yesterday) that he died. He was a great American author.

Books I'm recently read
Neuromancer by William Gibson - Gibson originated the idea of the matrix which the Wachowski brothers used in making The Matrix films. He also coined the term cyberspace. A must read for sci-fi fans.

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind - this book was amazing. I may have blogged about it but if I did, I forget. If you like fantasy or sci-fi, I highly recommend this first book in the Sword of Truth series. There's actually a TV series called The Legend of the Seeker that will begin airing soon which is based on these books. It looks like a quality show.

Music
The newest songs by Norma Jean and mewithoutYou. 2 great bands who continue to put out great music. Not for everyone, but great just the same.

Marimba Ponies

My supervisor Dennis shared this with me. This video starts out all cute, then goes into straight up amazing. This group of Japanese kids aged 4 - 12 are awesome!

I'm not really a hater - music

After the last post post about the Olympics, I decided to write something positive. One of my favorite things in the whole wide world is music, so this post is about music I like. First here are just a few 'classic' songs that I can hear over and over again and without ever getting tired of them:
Maggie May - Rod Stewart
Let's Groove - Earth, Wind and Fire
For Once in My Life - Stevie Wonder (it was really hard to pick one Stevie song since they are all so good - except "I Just Called to Say I love You")
I Love Rock and Roll – Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Kiss – Prince
Mayonnaise – Smashing Pumpkins

Also, here is a very incomplete list of some of my favorite all time albums. And for me favorite means an album I can listen to a million times and love it more each time I hear it:
Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys (I might know every word to this album)
Nevermind – Nirvana
Ten – Pearl Jam
Electric Ladyland – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
American Thighs – Veruca Salt
Parachutes – Coldplay
The Swiss Army Romance – Dashboard Confessional
Rock For Light – Bad Brains
Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins
Led Zeppelin III
Brown - P.O.D.
Street Signs – Ozomatli
Facelift – Alice in Chains
Dirt – Alice in Chains

And lastly, here are the bands, artists and albums I have listened to most over the past 4 or 5 years:
Saves the Day - everything, but especially "Stay What You Are" and "Through Being Cool"
Taking Back Sunday - "Tell All Your Friends" and "Where You Want to Be"
Ozomatli - everything, but especially "Street Signs"
Jack Johnson - everything he's done
Daphne Loves Derby - "Good Night Witness Light" and "On the Strength of All Convinced"
Deftones - everything, but especially "Adrenaline"
Demon Hunter - Summer of Darkness
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Corine Bailey Rae
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

So what are your musical faves?