It Might Get Loud

I love Netflix. Netflix + PS3 = streaming a lot of random things any hour of the day. Including "It Might Get Loud", a documentary starring The Edge of U2, Jimmy Page and Jack White. Just awesome.

Of course, being a worship leader, I'm intimately familiar with The Edge, so there wasn't much new I learned about him. But I'm ashamed to say I didn't know much about Jimmy Page, who apparently spent a lot of time in England as a session guitarist before Led Zeppelin happened. And then there's Jack White who I knew absolutely nothing about and was 100% surprised by how amazing he is as an artist. So real and completely focused on music as expression. Amazing.

What's coolest about the documentary is that it brought together three artists who have very different styles and outlooks on how to make music, but they're all successful in being musical artists. Jimmy Page was easily the most technically skilled of the three, Jack White is a big fan of rawness and purity of tone, and The Edge uses tons of effects to completely define his sound. They talked about everything from how they got into music, struggles in their careers, writing, influences, their favorite guitars, all that. And at the end, they all jam out and you can definitely hear them coming through their playing. Amazing.

See it. It's great. It made me re-evaluate Jack White and want his sweet Kay guitar.

New Mass Parts

It's been a little while since I've posted anything even remotely musical, but a few years back I wrote some Mass parts for Lent. This was back in school, when I actually knew what terms like "Dorian Mode" meant, so they're, of course, a bit funky and I think I did a good job of capturing where I was at that particular Lent. Well, they've also been my go-to Mass parts during Lent for the last few years, so now that I'm leading more places than ever (and have had some other people ask to do them all over the place), I went ahead and YouTubed (which is totally a word, Firefox spell-checker!) some sketches of them so people could at least hear what they sound like.

So check them out! I'll probably start posting a lot of stuff up there just because it was way easier than I ever thought. And it's pretty surprisingly good quality, considering it's just my iPhone4's video app. Just think, even ten years ago, shooting a video and putting it on the internet took thousands of dollars of equipment and hours of editing and uploading, and now you can do it with a $200 iPhone and a few touch-screen touches. Technology is a b.

Ryan Adams

Yes, I know, not exactly a new artist. I think he's already got 5+ albums out. But I just discovered him a few months ago, and I can't stop listening. He's so raw and so poetic. A rare combination, even rarer to do it well. Check him out.

Favorite lyric so far: "Oh the empty bottle, it misses you, and I'm the one it's talking to."



I feel like I must also say that I don't like "country music", whatever that means, but I really can't get enough of this guy. He doesn't really categorize neatly, which also appeals to me.

Audrey Assad

Okay, I figured I should put something music-related up here so that you don't think I've been doing nothing but drowning in booze for the last week. This probably would have been a lot more cutting-edge and "it's okay, I knew about her when she was indie" if I'd come out with this before she started making it to the main-stream of Christian music, but I did see her very recently. Kind of.

She came to one of my churches (I have so many...but this one was the one where I actually figured out that God likes me, specifically, rather than God likes me, in general. It's where I went to youth group, and I've still got so many ties and friends in that place.) and played a show with some chick named...Kerrie Roberts. Who has some pipes. But I digress. I Saw like four seconds of Audrey, and she still blew me away.

If you've figured anything about me, it's probably that I like artists who can be real with me. When they're singing or playing or leading worship, I know that they're actually worshiping. Karl had a really good post on this just recently. Point is, that's the vibe I got from Audrey. And I know how hard it is to worship, night in and night out, with an ever-changing group of people, on the road. And that's why I was so impressed. Here's her big song, called Restless.

DC*B - SMS [Shine]

Epic.

Bits and Pieces and Guster

Played my ASAT at Mass this last weekend. Haven't played that guitar in a while. It was the tone I was going for all along, particularly on the closing song "Your Grace is Enough". Neck pickup, tone rolled off about 95%, Fulldrive 2 on light mid-humped drive and with the extra boost engaged during the solo, with some untimed analog delay going to make it sound huge. Perfect. I love playing electric. Can't believe I've been neglecting my fancy Tele for so long!

Which sucks because my constant opportunities to play electric may be numbered. Not sure yet, but I may be picking up another Mass to lead on Sunday morning, meaning I won't be able to volunteer anymore. I'll be lucky to play electric (without being the worship leader, that is) once a month!

Oh yeah, and I picked up a Boss CE-2 that looks like it's lived a hard life but sounds spot-on. Not that I use chorus all that much, but it really is a great, iconic pedal so I couldn't pass on it! So far I'm mostly using it to add some depth to my delay when I'm playing pad work, and using it on a heavier setting on occasion when doing some lead work. I really need to listen to more music that uses chorus, because it's not something I've got a natural affinity for, a lot like my tremolo. Though I did recognize some nice light chorus on an acoustic rhythm guitar that was being picked on a song that was huge in the 90's (and naturally I can't remember what song it was, but think of all those great bands from the late 90's).

And last point, I recently re-discovered Guster, after having listened to them almost nonstop in High School. I love that they don't take themselves too seriously, and their sound is so diverse and unexpected from song to song. A great band.

I'll leave you with one of my favorites:



Typewriter. Classic.

I hate Christian rock.

First, so that everyone's on the same page, I love Christianity. I love God. I love worship music. I am a music minister who loves to pray with music and connect to God through music. In no way is anything that I'm about to write going to undermine my beliefs in the use of electric guitar to worship God. Keep all that in mind.

Ok. So the back story is this. St. Louis has had a classical music station (Classic 99) for better than 60 years, but recently they sold their station (99.1) to Joy FM, a local Christian music station. There are literally novels that could be written as to how much of a tragedy it is to lose a free source of classical music, but that's another story. Because I now have access to an entire radio station that previously was very static-filled and otherwise not valid, I've gotten to listen to some Christian rock that I'd previously only heard tell of. And let me tell you, I'm not impressed.

What's spurred this recent post is that I just heard a song where the lyrics were "the beauty of Your majesty, the wonder of Your glory". What? Could you possibly pick a set of words that are any less cliche or made any less sense? I mean, I liked that song way better when it was called "Beautiful One" by Jeremy Camp (who is another serious offender...). But seriously though, what do those lyrics even mean? You can't just go "the (adjective) of your (adjective)" and call it a day. It's lazy, and complete nonsense.

I also hate that "Christian Rock" is called thusly because of the presence of electric guitars, but those guitars are being played...boringly? There's no aggression, no edge, no distortion of any kind. Just a generic, inoffensive wall of sound set way back in the mix. How is that rock? Soft rock, maybe, but soft rock sucks. I mean, when I'm real before God, it's pretty damn offensive. I'm a sinful dude. I don't like it, but hey, I am what I am, and by the grace of God, I'm trying to make myself more presentable to God, but no matter how well-dressed I get, He knows me, knows my faults, knows my ways, and knows my heart. I hate that "Christian Rock" is "family friendly". It's just too squeaky clean to be real. And I hate fakes.

And that's why I hate popular Christian music. You're writing music that is, frankly, bad, bland and uninteresting, and it's being sold solely based upon the merits of being "Christian". It's got all of the lyrical depth of a Ke$ha song, but because you're singing about God, it's legitimate music that sells records. That wouldn't fly in literally any other industry, but apparently it's okay for Christian music, because the average Christian likes bad music. And the average Christian feels better about themselves because they're not listening to "that crap on the radio". Come on.

(Pictured: That Crap On The Radio)

I'm with Michael Gungor on this one. If you're making good music, no matter what you're singing about, you're glorifying God. If you're making bad music, no matter what you're singing about, you're not glorifying anything. You might as well be singing about brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack, for all that God cares. Harsh? Music is music, and it's either good, or it's bad. No label or name of a genre will convince me otherwise.

Some light recording

I've been in Toronto for a whole week, but I thought I'd throw this up real quick.

The pastor of the parish where I've been LifeTeen Director for the last few months has been reassigned, and tonight we celebrated his last Mass. It was a really emotional night, and we had a lot of bittersweet worship time, and said goodbye. Literally the day that my flight left last week, I did a quick recording of a Catholic classic, Here I Am, Lord to be used in a video for him, since it's been a really powerful and important song in his life. And, because the teens are awesome, the video is up on YouTube. It's Redman's You Never Let Go, then my recording, complete with a few pictures of me rocking it mid-Mass, along with a whole lot of pictures of Fr. Tom being awesome. Enjoy!



...I need to buy/make a pop filter.

Setup

So my beloved acoustic is currently in the shop. In the two or so years that I've had it, I never had it set up, aside from my own clumsy attempts to adjust the truss rod to keep it from buzzing. But it's in the extremely capable hands of a guy named Skip Goez, who is the best tech in St. Louis, and has reportedly worked on the guitars of all of the biggest names to come through (Clapton is a name that stands out), and, oddly enough, my dad and his brothers were friends in high school. St. Louis really is the biggest little city in the world...

Anyway, not much else to talk about just yet. My loopmaster stuff is awaiting shipping, and I've been working more and more on piano. Maybe leave you with a cool new song? It's a band that John Mark McMillan has been digging and gigging with, and they're pretty sweet. This acoustic version is INSANE!

Is anyone else using this song?

How He Loves. It certainly seems to be the next new thing, what with DC*B having covered it on Church Music (and playing it live at a lot of shows, which is just awesome), but like a lot of people who have any inclination to read this, I'd heard it years ago. I talked to a worship leader that I respect, and he said that he had to hear how Crowder did it live before he'd play it, and that struck me as kind of odd, but again, I really respect his opinions. Now that he has started playing it, he's in love with it (as is everyone), and he can't believe he'd never done it before.

Long story short, this weekend I played it for the meditation song for both of my Masses, and it was incredible. The line that blows me away, even years later, is "if His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking". I don't do the little Kim Walker giggle, but usually there's some kind of crack or vocal break in there. I can't help it. I also tend towards the "emotional" side when I lead worship...

I also love the DC*B music video. I can't embed it, but you can find it here. It's messy and it's real, and it's so faithful, musically, to the band's style, both in the way that they play it there, and the way it's shot. Just wonderful. But I will leave you with the original, because it's also messy and real and beautiful.

New Music Tuesday: Awakening: Passion 2010

Going to be a few more days until I get to review my next bit of gear, so here's a teaser post!

1)


It's a little fuzzy. I mean, it's "artsy". Booyah.

As of 10:00 this morning, I didn't have a piano. Now I do. For free. That's right, I have an entire other instrument to play now. Isn't Craigslist just the best?

It needs a tuning, and it's certainly not the most beautiful instrument ever created (it seems to have lived a hard life, or as hard as life can be as a piano), but it's a start. I'm really excited to learn my theory all over again (practice makes perfect) and to see all of the different things that the piano is going to bring to my music and composition. And, come on. It's a piano. AWESOME!!!

2) Because I have a sickness, a Strymon OB.1 is on the way. It will probably be getting here right about the time that I'm leaving town for Kansas City for the weekend, but once I put it through it's paces, you'll hear about it. Karl has already raved about it, so it comes highly recommended.

3) The unseasonable warmth has left me little choice but to drive with the windows down, sun-roof open, blasting the new Passion 2010 CD Awakening. Proof that God loves us. See also, Seasonal Affective Disorder. Anyway, consider this a mini review of Awakening:

Favorite new song: Our God (Tomlin)
Songs destined for worship: Our God (Tomlin), You Alone Can Rescue (Redman), Where the Spirit of the Lord is (Tomlin and Nockels)
Brought-me-to-tears-beautiful (both during the weekend and while listening recently): Healing is in Your Hands (Nockels)
Great version of recently released song: How He Loves (Crowder)
Taking Me Back-song: With Everything (Hillsong United)

A note on that last one; Hillsong had two concerts for the late-night sessions, and we were in the second one. This recording is from that second one. This is the last song they played. There's a break where the crowd starts up with the war cry. They start off kind of weak, but then it solidifies like the third time through. That's the moment when I started singing. You can hear me on the CD. That's how intense of a moment it was. Hundreds of feet from the crowd mics. Just an absolutely incredible moment in time, and now it's captured forever so I can listen to it whenever I want and remember how I felt. Just incredible.

As you can see, there's no way I can be objective with it, but to me, the CD sounds perfectly mixed, and is so close to what I remember experiencing during the weekend that it's as if they were standing next to me with a microphone all weekend long. I'm always amazed by what a live sound engineer can do, and way, way more impressed when that engineer manages to capture the sound and feel of a live performance onto a recording without losing anything, and to me, it feels like that's what Awakening is. Again, I can't hear any of these songs without having flashbacks, so perhaps I'm just way too close to it, but I highly, highly recommend you go iTunes it. At the very least, get the ones that I said are destined to be used by the church corporate, because you're probably going to be hearing them soon anyway.

New Gear: Studio Projects B1

Having already found an interesting little mic that colors acoustic guitar in a really flattering way (MXL 991), I was searching for a nice, even microphone for vocals so that I could use ProTools to scratch out some demos and eventually get myself out into the world, just like the hundreds of other artists on the internets. Admittedly, this is a bit like using a flamethrower to clear the snow off of your driveway, but I wanted scalability, and dagnabit, I got it! After some good advice, I started looking really seriously at the Studio Projects B1.

In my mind, the first thing I needed to decide was whether I wanted a good dynamic microphone, which could easily come with me on gigs or fill other live-sound needs (and would subsequently maintain some kind of constant between recordings and live sound), or a good condenser or ribbon (or tube, or any other variant) mic that was more fragile but better suited to controlled, studio use. To this day, I'm not sure that the choice I made is the same one I would make again, because for someone who is going to be playing out a lot more, that consistency would be really nice. But either way, I settled upon the B1, which is a Large Diaphram Condenser.

The differences in technology between condensers and dynamics is a topic in and of itself, but in an extremely simplified explanation, dynamic microphones are less sensitive, can take higher sound levels without distorting (where distortion, unlike in a tube amp, is a bad thing) and can also generally handle a lot more physical abuse; getting dropped, stepped on, not explode under Phantom power, etc. A condenser mic is more sensitive, which leads to more accurate sound (but can also lead to more background noise in a noisy environment) and is what Phantom power was designed for. Hence, while a good studio will have every kind of microphone you could imagine, you tend to see really nice condensers in a studio setting, whereas you would almost never use one live, or at least, not in a vocal application. But as with anything else in music, rules were made to be broken! (which can sometimes lead to broken microphones!)

As with everything I've bought while still being in making-some-money-but-primarily-paying-down-student-loans mode, I got a pretty good deal on this one, though even at the standard street price of about $100, this mic (supposedly) holds it's own against other similar microphones priced 10 times higher. I can't really comment on that myself, having only this and two other microphones in my microphone closet, but I will say that I got way more than I thought in terms of accessories. I think that this must be one of the newest versions. Some features include two different pads (-10 and -20 dB), two high-pass filters (75 hz and 150 hz), a shock-mount, a sweet wooden box to house the microphone, and a windscreen for when I'm recording, umm, bird-calls in the wild. I think virtually all of these were absent in v1, so I definitely profited from waiting a bit.

As for the sound? I need to play with it a lot more, but it seems pretty even, frequency wise. I did do a bit of recording on a tune I wrote a while ago called "Fair Warning", which I put up on my very own MySpace. Yay! The acoustic is done with the MXL 991 (12th fret, 45 degrees towards the soundhole), the vocals with the B1. And I don't have a pop filter, so I was being a bit...cautious, vocally. But I threw it into ProTools, jammed the obligatory reverb and eq on there (and a bit of compression on the vocals), and there you have it. And ignore the lyrics. They're quasi-temporary. Unless you love them. Then they're super-permanent!

My overall rating? Definitely worth the price, if you need something that can jam on vocals and acoustic (though I haven't tried it yet, but a lot of people have claimed to like it). And honestly, for $100, you'd be hard-pressed to find something better.

Glen Hansard

That's right. Glen stepped away from the mic, unplugged his guitar, and just went with it.

So I was at a Swell Season concert last night. And, by at, I mean I was standing in the front row, piano side, the entire night. These videos were shot by a friend I was with who was standing right next to me, so that should give you some idea. For those of you who don't know the Swell Season, rent Once. If the above video (of my favorite song) didn't already, that movie, or at least the soundtrack, will change the way you think about passion in music.

I almost never bought the ticket. But then, I was at the show for three and a half hours, so I guess it was worth it... These guys are incredible, and if they ever come to your town, go.

A few more clips (unfortunately not the whole songs....):

Who says?

This is about a week late, but it's taken a little bit of reflection time.

Last weekend was our Fall retreat, called "Unstoppable" and based upon the life of St. Paul. I was, of course, music minister, and it was really awesome to be able to get back to that. It's been since the last MACCS retreat (I think) sometime last November that I've been a full-blown music minister on a retreat, though there's not much that would compare with THAT weekend. I played a lot less frequently this weekend, because we were trying to hit a bit more on silence and reflection, though I did learn "Party in the USA" and break that one out for the teens. Yeah, I know. My only saving grace is that I didn't completely memorize it. At least not the words. I couldn't help the chords.

We talked a lot about loneliness in terms of a God-shaped hole (which I'm sure you've heard of before, but it seemed to be news to all of the teens. Note to self...) and it was really very therapeutic. I think loneliness is something that everyone's felt and that everyone can relate to. We also talked about the dark night of the soul, which may be something a bit less well-known, but basically it's feeling separated from God and not being able to get back to Him. Mother Teresa is (now) well known for having had a stretch that lasted for the majority of her ministry which is absolutely incredible to think about, but virtually every Saint has struggled with it for varying amounts of time. It really hit home for me last night when I went to Mass at the church I grew up in and saw a teen there who was on the retreat, and he described himself as currently going through it, which really broke my heart. Then I started to think about it, and it's been a while since I've been able to really feel close to God, but I've been using it as an excuse to not give everything I have to try and get back there. I don't want to go around comparing myself to the Saints, but it seems to be pretty much universal that everyone feels lonely for God sometimes.

I think that for the people who serve the church, it gets really, really hard to take a break and take some time for ourselves. I've brushed this off for so long, sacrificing a real personal connection in order to "better" minister to everyone else, but it's really been taking a toll lately. I'm not sure I could ever know how it's affecting the teens or the core team that I work with, but I'm sure it's not a positive change.

Maybe some music will come out of it?

Side note, I'm trying to keep this thing from getting really whiny or bitchy, because come on, you didn't come here to read me whine and bitch. I need to track down a few different mics, and then I'll figure out a way to get some demos up here, and maybe some original stuff. It just seems like it's been a long week and a half, and also, Call of Duty 6 came out last week, so on Saturday I had a rocking LAN party that lasted until 2am. So yes, I have been "busy".

Also, John Mayer's new stuff is out. I haven't heard much, and I absolutely hated "Who Says" when I first heard it like a month ago, but something about the chorus has grown on me, to the point where the progression and melody is expressing something to me that I can't put into words. The best musicians write music that speaks to everyone in a way that's just so personal that you can't even stand it, and I think that the more I hear, the more his stuff does that for me. I've certainly taken a lot of crap from my friends for liking John Mayer, but I think he's a completely different person now than the guy who wrote "Your Body is a Wonderland". At the very least, he's a very different artist. I still don't think I'd be able to stand him as a person, but he's got a gift.

A little light recording...

I've always been fascinated with recording equipment. It all started when I got to my Newman center in college. I wanted to get into music (this was before I played guitar and way before I even thought I could lead worship), and we had a soundboard that no one else could tame. So I took some time to learn it, and inside of six months, I knew the sound system inside and out. And it was a pretty good little sound system, but then our building burned down and we had to scramble to get by. So who got the call?

So I had a lot of on-the-job training as a sound guy, and now I need some stuff for my very own. I guess I'm getting recording equipment so that I can record my own stuff, but who knows how far it will go or how much work Ill be putting into it. As of right now, I got a small interface and a copy of ProTools to put on my computer, and I'm working on learning the in's and out's, but my first goal is to pick up a few microphones. Specifically, I need something to put in front of my electric, and something for vocals. Any suggestions?

This is another journey, more different from the guitar one, so you can follow me as I slowly build a sweet recording studio out of nothing!

Alive Again - Matt Maher

I'm not sure how many of the people reading here are aware of Matt Maher, aside from him being "the guy who wrote 'Your Grace is Enough'", but he's been writing for a while now. You may have already heard this, as it has gotten some air-time lately, but I wanted to post this here in case it's completely new to you. And the radio version is really rocking. But I love this one since it shows how much drive the song has even when you take away drums, bass, all that.