You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2007.
Sorry for missing my post yesterday. I was busy working with students in the small town of Spring Green, Wisconsin, Wednesday night with my brother, who, like myself, is in youth ministry. I stayed up way too late and was in a much-too-zombified state Thursday to attempt to define Christian Music. Next week, I’ll get back into it.
On the topic of Spring Green, if you live anywhere near it, you need to check out The General Store for the best breakfast in the universe. The quiche, granola, yogurt, and five-grain oatmeal was amazing. And everyone working there was insanely friendly. There’s a ton of other stuff to do around there, too (like Bobfest, an annual festival devoted to all things Bob Dylan), but enough with the chit-chat.
Today’s band is a band you’ve probably never heard of from a town you’ve probably never been to and can probably not pronounce. The Cold Comfort Band comes (mostly) from a town in Wisconsin called Oconomowoc (pronounced Oh-kon-oh-moe-wok, to set the record straight), located equal distances from Madison (the state capital) and Milwaukee (the biggest, baddest city in the state). Oconomowoc is famous for a few things, but the most important in my mind is that it has 5 O’s in its name, so many O’s in fact that, back in the day, letters addressed to “The City with Five O’s, Wisconsin” would come to Oconomowoc.
You might be wondering to yourself, “Why is Jake so intimately familiar with this strangely named town?” The answer is simple yet profound - I live here.
The Cold Comfort Band is a band that I’m excited to review today. I’ve known most of the band members for years, one for almost a decade. I know many of their families and friends. Some were (or still are) members of the high school and college group I lead at church. So it’s hard to be totally unbiased, but I’ll do my best.
I found Dave Thompson a little while ago at The Corner Church (thanks, guys!), and when I played him for my wife, she said, “Isn’t Dave Thompson the guy who founded Wendy’s?”
I ran to the nearest computer and, thanks to Google, found out that the perpetually jovial founder of Wendy’s was actually Dave Thomas (see him here), not Dave Thompson. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or sad about that. I think sad mostly.
Anyway, you might be asking yourself which one of the fine young men in the above picture is Dave Thompson. They both could be, honestly, but the one on the left is who I’m posting about today. I have no clue who the one on the right is.
My alarm clock didn’t go off this morning, so instead of timely information, you get something that I should have posted months ago but was too busy to put up.
I figured I needed to mention it now since it’s only going to get older, so check out David Crowder Band’s new album Remedy if you haven’t already. It’s not as ground-breaking as A Collision, but it follows a similar vein. The upbeat songs are pretty amazing, but the slower songs are somewhat more forgetable, in my opinion.
Like A Collision, David Crowder continues to use more crazy sounds and thought-provoking lyrics that you wouldn’t expect in a worship album. He whips out more and more electronic and 80’s influences, which I think is great. As far as worship bands out there, he’s my favorite, because he really is challenging the normal way things are done in CCM.
Mudpuppy did an excellent review of the album here that you should check out. Not only is it a comprehensive look at the album, but it also just so happens to be delivered in a timely manner, over two months ago.
If you like what you hear, you can buy the album from these fine merchants:
iTunes
Amazon
The Blah Blah is back after a short break! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, but let’s get on with the music!
Die-hard country fans would probably stone me for saying that Doug Burr is country, but I’m not usually a country fan, so I think I can get away with it.
I shouldn’t say I’m not usually a country fan. More what it is is I’m very particular about the country music I like. I love Johnny Cash. I love old Hank Williams Sr. I love William Elliott Whitmore. I even like some Willie Nelson and Hank Williams Jr. if you catch me on the right day.
And I love Doug Burr’s music. Call it country, folk, indie, americana… I don’t care, cuz I’m too busy enjoying it to wonder what genre it falls under. Doug Burr is one of those artists that I liked as soon as I heard (which is rare) and that I’ll probably like for the rest of my life.
A few weeks ago, I featured Don Peris’ wife Karen in the Girls of Christian Indie series. You can read about her here. Today, in case you haven’t read the title of the post, I’m featuring Don Peris himself.
When I first heard The Innocence Mission, I instantly fell in love with Karen’s voice and everything else about the band sort of fell into the background. I figured the reason she sang and fronted the band was probably because no one else in the group had as much to offer.
So when I found out that Don Peris, who provides guitar for The Innocence Mission, had three of his own solo CDs out, I figured I’d like it, but I didn’t know how much. I thought I’d surely never like his solo stuff as much as the band’s stuff. I was wrong.
I found this Christian indie podcast the other day called The Corner Church. In their own words, this podcast is, “in protest of the music industry and tries to give the ‘up and coming’ Christian artists a voice.” I can’t say I’m a fan of all the music they have there, but some of it is really great. Just check it out for yourselves.
Sorry about the dead links to the MP3s of This Beautiful Mess. They’re fixed now, so you can either go to my original post or get the songs right here:
My two favorite bands right now are from The Netherlands. I’ve never been there. I don’t personally know anybody from there. And I really didn’t even know where it was located until I heard about Ponoka and figured if they were gonna be one of my favorite bands I’d better know where they live.
So Ponoka was reigning as my favorite band until I looked into This Beautiful Mess. Now the two co-reign together in a blissful harmony, because it’s impossible to choose a favorite between the easy-going pop of Ponoka and the soaring intensity of This Beautiful Mess.
I found Destroy Nate Allen one day a while back while looking for new bands at the website for Tomfest, that Christian indie festival out in Washington. If you’re in the area of Camas, check out their 2008 festival next August. It’s sure to be awesome.
Anyway, so I found Destroy Nate Allen and when I went to his website I saw this notice: “Welcome to my new and improved website. I spent the last 6 months on the road. I am finally home and ready to relax. To celebrate the return to a day job for the winter, and the three year anniversary of playing solo, I have decided to put up most of my recorded history for your downloading pleasure.”
You heard that right. All of his 10 solo albums and 2 punk band albums are there for your downloading pleasure. Nobody does that.
I hate the internet. I just spent over an hour typing out my post and then it just disappeared. I just want to slap Al Gore for even inventing it.
Well, here it goes again…
Last week, I discussed the idea of Christian music and proposed that perhaps the whole thing didn’t even matter. Maybe the faith of the artists is irrelevent. I came to the conclusion that, for myself, I want to know what the musicians believe, partly out of curiosity and partly so I know how to interpret the songs. I’ll still listen to you if you’re not a Christian, but I like to know that.
Since I’ve decided it’s important to me to know the beliefs of people who create music, now I want to discuss the term “Christian music” itself. There was a time when I understood what those two little words meant when put next to each other, but now that I’ve entered the world of indie music and Sufjan Stevens has shocked everybody with his overtly Christian songs, I don’t know a thing. Indie fans are inherently skeptical of Christianity and many Christian indie artists don’t want their beliefs critiqued by the world, so they shy away from identification with the Christian music scene. Read a little about it here in an interview with Sufjan Stevens. [Note: I just realized I gave you the wrong link. This link is to a review of Seven Swans. I can't find the original interview I had in mind to post here, but this review has some good information about the topic at hand anyway.]
I found Ben + Vesper a while ago searching for new music. I decided to check out Sounds Familyre Records, the recording label run by Daniel Smith of The Danielson Famile, and there they were. He was dressed in a fuzzy leopard print bathrobe and she was dressed like some sort of diva, so I said to myself, “I’ll download their music but I probably won’t like it. This looks even too weird for me.” To see the picture yourself, click here. So I downloaded it, and I didn’t like it at first. I just kept seeing the two of them singing in their odd, art school outfits. But after time, the music’s grown on me and I can see beyond the leopard print bath robe.
Sounds like a good modern proverb, doesn’t it? Let me tell you, son, in life, you’ve got to see beyond the leopard print bath robe if you really want to make it. Moving on…
With Radiohead releasing In Rainbows without the help of a record label, will we see the end of the recording industry as we know it?
I for one sure hope so. It’s about time the recording industry either adapt to our changing world or be overrun by the competition. Read more about it here, in an article that’s a month old now but still interesting nonetheless.
Here is a list of ten things I think could be very different without big record labels around:
1. More diversity in music
2. Cheaper music
3. More free music
4. More accessibility to the music and the artists who create it (less rock star idolatry)
5. Some bands will not survive without the help of a big label
6. Bands may not have all the fancy websites, T-shirts, and road crews they have now
7. Possibly more smaller shows
8. Increased disintegration and diversification of music (ie. no more Top 40)
9. Less dependance on “who you know” to make it big
10. Probably less artists “making it big”
What do you think would change if the record labels really did become a thing of the past?
With a group name longer than most and a band membership smaller than most, Skylines and Archives’s very indie, very emo music is coming out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to enter the world. (That was a lame close to a potentially incredibly awesome sentence, wasn’t it?)
Skylines and Archives is Nathan Walker and himself. Currently, the group consists only of Nathan, on guitar and vocals, but I’m sure he’ll probably get a full band one of these days. Not that he needs it, but everyone seems to do that.
If you’ve been a reader for a while, you’ll notice that I’ve changed the tagline from “A Christian Music MP3 Blog” to “An MP3 Blog in Search of a Tagline.” This is because I’m in the middle of trying to figure out the whole “Christian Music” thing and I don’t know that this blog really is a Christian music MP3 blog.
Before you yell, “Heretic!” you can read some of my thoughts here, and read a comment by Damien Jurado here touching on it. Basically though, I’m not sure that most of the artists I cover here create music in the category of ”Christian Music.” To my knowledge, most of the artists are Christians who create music, but they aren’t Christians who create “Christian Music.”
What is “Christian Music?” I’m not sure really, but I know most artists here wouldn’t want to be labelled as such, and I don’t think it’s all for bad reasons. “Christian Music” is a loaded term. It carries a lot of baggage.
So until I figure out what I’m doing with The Blah Blah and how to best word it, I will be in search of a tagline. If you have any good suggestions, let me know.
Today marks the first appearance of a techno / trance group on The Blah Blah. Here at The Blah Blah we’re always branching out into new territory and covering music that others fear to even consider. It’s hard work, but somebody’s gotta do it.
To the left, you see a photo of the McNamara Terminal of Detroit Metro Airport. As you walk the terminal, colored lights pulse and shimmer to the beat of ambient electronic music. Watch a really long video of it here.
The reason you’re seeing Detroit Metro Airport is because I was unable to find any photos of Tek^tonik on-line. In fact, I could find very little about them on-line, but what I could find I’ll let you in on.
For the past six months or so, I’ve been strugging with the concept of defining what “Christian Music” is. Is Christian Music everything that CCM tells me is Christian Music? Is it anything I’d hear on a Christian radio station? Is it any music that mentions Jesus, God, or the devil? Is it music that proclaims a Christian worldview, however subtle? What is it?
This issue of defining Christian Music didn’t really become important until I started The Blah Blah. When you’ve got a blog with a tagline - “A Christian Music MP3 Blog,” it’s kind of important to know what is meant by the term “Christian Music.”
For the next few Thursdays, I’ll be posting various opposing views on Christian Music, with the goal of bringing something of an idea of what is meant by the whole thing. Since I don’t know what I believe yet, most of the opposing views will come from myself, but I hope to have some guest posters give their input as well.
Damien Jurado comes from Seattle, Washington, with a repertoire of mostly sad songs of sad people in sad places you never want to be stuck in. With a soft folk voice reminiscent of Sam Beam of Iron and Wine and a knack for story-telling like Bob Dylan, the characters of his songs come to life in front of your eyes in a way that makes you feel their pain and see the light at the end of the tunnel that they see.
Not all his songs are depressing. Amidst these sad songs, Jurado has a few simple folk songs that remind you that it’s good to be alive.
Jurado began his solo career in the 1990s, but he was making music in bands before that. He played with the hardcore band Coolidge, alongside David Bazan of Pedro the Lion and Eben Haase of Blenderhead.
If you enjoy Sufjan Stevens and Half-Handed Cloud, who I’ve posted about here, then check out their record label, Asthmatic Kitty. You’ll find all sorts of great bands there, and they all have free downloads of a few songs, so you can get a feel for them before buying their CDs.
Asthmatic Kitty is an indie record label whose claim to fame (thus far anyway) is Sufjan Stevens, but they’ve got a load of great artists who are doing things that might surpass Sufjan in popularity one day. They’re not a “Christian label” but a lot of the artists they support are Christian or at least have a Judeo-Christian worldview. You can read about this and more in an interview with Lowell Brams, the owner, here.
I don’t know which of all their musicians are Christian. Sufjan Stevens and Half-Handed Cloud seem obvious. I’m pretty sure Emily Joyce and Rafter Roberts of Bunky are Christians. But the rest I haven’t looked into yet.
Unfortunately, the tattoo-your-denominational-affiliation-on-your-forehead law hasn’t been passed yet, so you gotta do some work to figure out what everybody believes. Arrgh! (picture The Incredible Hulk) I just wish artists would let us in on their spiritual beliefs more freely. I don’t think I’m the only one who really does want to know whether they’re listening to a Buddhist, a Secularist, a Muslim, or a Christian making music. I’ll still listen to your music if you’re not a Christian, but I’d like to know that you’re not a Christian.
That’s all I have to say about that (picture Forrest Gump).
Ester Drang is an indie psychadelic rock group coming from Oklahoma with a sound ranging from the shoegaze of bands like Starflyer 59 to more traditional pop sounds to 70s jazz (sort of) to the post-rock instrumentalism of bands like Unwed Sailor. They’re really hard to describe. I just found them a few days ago and have downloaded a bunch of songs since, thanks to a referral signing on with emusic.com and getting me 50 free downloads. (Whoever you are, thanks!)
Short sidenote: I recommend everyone sign up for the 50 free downloads for trying emusic out. Not only do you get 50 MP3 downloads for free, but if you choose to keep a subscription going, I’ll get 50 free downloads too. The plan I’m on gives me 15 downloads for $6 a month, but they’ve got better plans out there, and if you don’t like any of them, just cancel after your 50 downloads and you won’t owe a thing. Click here to sign up or here to learn more about it.
But you’re here to learn about the band Ester Drang, not to learn about one of the coolest MP3-downloading services ever conceived…
You’ve probably noticed that this post is not a girl of Christian indie. I had a couple women I wanted to post about here, but when it came right down to it, I realized I didn’t really know what I was talking about, and I didn’t care to learn either, so I’m ending the whole thing today with Tyler James, a guy of Christian indie.
Not that I know what I’m talking about any better with Tyler James.
I just found him yesterday at drivebymedia, so I haven’t really had a chance to listen to him that thoroughly, but I thought he was good enough to warrant a post.
Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s guest post. Today I’ve got a bit of music news for everyone.
Paste Magazine is offering annual subscriptions for a limited time only for as little as $1. You can pay a lot more than that, too, and get your name in print if you’d like, but basically the idea is that you pay what you think it’s worth.
Paste is an independent entertainment magazine that comes out once a month with a CD of music. I’ve never actually read the magazine, but I’ve downloaded some sweet music from their website, so I’m sure the magazine and CD are pretty awesome. And, shoot, for so cheap, I’ll give it a shot.
Click here to sign up for yourself.
