Brotherly Wisdom

"All performance is interpretation. All interpretation is highlighting." - Hans-Georg Gadamer Truth and Method p. 401

I vividly remember the class. The course was entitled "Issues in Theological Method." Dr. Kreider showed us this video:

[Scrapped it because I couldn't make it stop auto-playing...figure both of my readers have already seen it anyway. Otherwise, Youtube it: "NIN-Hurt"]

then he showed us this video:




He then leaned back in his chair slowly stroking his goatee and asked, "Was that the same song?" Silence ensued. You could tell by the smirk he was hiding behind his bearded grimace that there was a right answer and that he fully expected us to get it wrong. I decided whatever the first person said, I'd say the opposite. Don't remember what the right answer was, but I know what Gadamer would say. He'd say "Es ist das gleiche Lied." Which is German for "It's the same song." (Thank you, Babelfish) But he would go on (in German) to show how this is a perfect example of how each performance is another interpretation. Granted, Trent Resnor's interpretation at the Town Theatre in Kansas City may be very similar to his interpretation at the Paramount in Cedar Rapids, but they are different. (This was never more apparent than when James Taylor sang "Fire and Rain" on the 9/11 memorial special.) So, now allow me to sit back and stroke my baby's bottom chin and ask: What did Johnny highlight? What did Resnor highlight?

Why the Name?

Some of you may be wondering what's with the name of my blog. It is from a song. Here it is:

In your manger cold
Fingers feel like stone
Mama wraps her shawl around your skin

Finally find your rest
On your mother’s breast
Mother of God Mother of Man

So sleep now my friend
Warm with the love of your kin
The love of your new found kin

Adam’s day is done
The two in the One
Father wraps the Son around our skin

So sing now my friends
Warm with the love of your kin
The love of your new found kin

The song is about the Incarnation. The beautiful truth that God unites humanity to himself by uniting His nature and human nature in the person of His Son. Suddenly God is not far off, but "with us." The Son, eternally existing with the Father and the Spirit, suddenly finds Himself in a new family. "Remaining what He was (divine), He became what He was not (human)." On the flip side, humanity suddenly has a new kin. But this relationship is not automatic. Now there is an "old man" and a "new man." To be "in Christ" is to be a part of this "new humanity." We are "included in Christ" when we hear the word of truth, the gospel, and believe it. Just makes you wanna sing, don't it?

Thanksgiving...Puritan Style

I've recently been asked to lead worship at my church for the Sundays before and after Thanksgiving. Naturally I was asked to select songs about giving thanks. I consulted the topical index in the back of my collection of Isaac Watts hymns, and it had only one hymn listed.

How can I sink with such a prop
As my eternal God
Who bears the earth's huge pillars up
And spreads the heavens abroad?
How can I die while Jesus lives
Who rose and left the dead?
Pardon and grace my soul receives
From mine exalted Head.
All that I am and all I have
Shall be for ever thine
Whate'er my duty bids me give
My cheerful hands resign
Yet if I might make some reserve
And duty did not call
I love my God with zeal so great
That I should give him all

It seems Isaac simply had very little to say about the things God had given him. That is, Watts sees in God Himself more than his meager soul could ever begin to thank. And until God is duly thanked, His gifts must wait.

On Promenade

As I've pondered throughout the months returning to my neglected, starving, dying blog I resolved to make my grand return a review of On Promenade. Now it should be stated that I planned my return much closer to the release date in October of 2007. The factors that have prevented this review have been fear--fear of the responsibility of maintaining regular posting habits--and shame--embarrassment that my last post still has me writing my thesis. (For those curious, I finished.) Perhaps a third deterrent is the daunting task of putting into words the rushing current of emotion and thought that overwhelm the album's unsuspecting listener. But here goes.

There I sat in the small music venue in Deep Ellum, Dallas, TX. The crowd was small but loyal. Of the seven in the crowd, two faces were familiar--regulars at this venue. This particular show is a "songwriters-in-the-round,"--a song-swap between three artists. The second in the trio, Doug Burr, is my reason for attendance. He sits in a chair heaving a jumbo-body Larrivee onto his knee. The cedar top on this enormous guitar delivers a boomy, bassy sound as the songwriter begins a slow country strum accenting the bass note. The lyrics tell of a girl watching trains roll through town wishing she could hop one and leave town. One particular night a "black train" picks up speed and barrels toward a town of sleeping citizens. The lyrics move to a refrain of warning--"Wake up baby a train is coming..." We in the audience can feel it picking up steam as Dougs strumming picks up speed and intensity. Just when Burr is screaming and guitar strings teeter on the verge of snapping the beat quickly dies...(as do the citizens of Graniteville?) The ending is left open and the audience left speechless. Prior to that moment I had been a fan, but that song made me a believer. From that point I hounded Doug after shows, "When is a new album coming out?" "Will it have Graniteville on it?"
A career change and a move meant I caught fewer Doug Burr performances but the anticipation grew for an album wherein Graniteville would be showcased. When Doug pre-released four songs on his myspace page I knew this album would be more than just Graniteville + other songs. Still that fear that you get when you sit to watch a comedy and you fear the only five funny scenes were already shown in the over-played preview began to set in. A year later when the album came out all fears ceased. This time I found myself in another small venue, this time packed with eager fans--the CD release show. I bought my copy early in the night. Clutching it and toying with it throughout the show. If Graniteville was stirring in a solo act it quaked with a full band. "Whippoorwill" was haunting but hopeful. "In the Garden" was driving and despondent. When the night was over I maintained a quick pace to my car, parked on a dark backstreet off Lower Greenville, my fingernails finding the seams in the cellophane and peeling it off impatiently. I popped it in the player in my car and, as it is my habit to listen to an album start to finish at least 5 times before I skip to songs I like, I started at the beginning.
Slow Southern Home is an ideal opener. Doug's vocals invite the listener into the story. The drone of the organ beckoning the same. This 11 song story begins with the story-tellers dream of an "ancient house," his "slow southern home." The idyllic language allows the listener to insert his/her own idea of home into this "dream." From here Doug moves into a droned-bass fingerpicking slightly more optimistic in its tone, but as soon as we find "gold in the hills" we are assured that "there is a darkness hanging o'er the West here in the land of progress." Whether the West is Gold Rush California or the New World America's, the optimism is misplaced. Nevertheless the song ends with a playful chorus of shakers and Doug's alyrical crooning. The third track is none other than Graniteville. Burr's version of fire-and-brimstone, this song is an allegory for sin and it's consequences. Whippoorwill at the same time praises the Whippoorwill for her song and bemoans her audiences ability to sing a song in every language. He covets the bird's "song and it's reason to sing." He wishes he could "call to you/You? from the tops of these trees, and when the winter comes we'd flap our wings and leave." The end of the song finds the singer asking his companions to lay aside their voices and instruments presumably due to the relative inadequacy of their songs to do what the Whippoorwill does. The next two songs are linked musically and thematically. The first is a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo wherein he speaks of "love even unreturned." The hum of the electric guitar and Wurlitzer bridge the seam between "How Can the Lark" and "Should've Known"--an "I told you so" to the grandson of Theo Van Gogh, killed for his film exposing Muslim abuses of women, who should've learned the bloody lessons of his great-uncle. You may get the sense from my description and from the above artwork of the ominous character holding a guitar in a darkened wood, that this is a dark album. On the whole your senses are not failing you, but music can do strange things to the senses. Burr can drag you through the slough because he is ever keeping before you the golden meadow on the other side. "In the Garden" is a perfect example. One might suspect Doug is following up his gospel concept album, "The Sickle and the Sheaves" with his own arrangement of the 20th Century hymn. On the contrary the slightly distorted, bassy intro is consummated with the opening line, "Devils thorns and gears, Been that way for years." One's mind quickly shifts from the garden where "He walks with me and He talks with me" to something cold, harsh, and industrial. In the background, Burr suggests, you can "hear somebody laughing." Burr is less than comforting when he confesses, "I have a sinking feeling it gets worse, worse before better better." However, as he finishes the last chorus which is meant to build into the bridge, the instruments are backed out slightly and the lyrics take center stage as Burr observes, "I hear somebody weeping in the garden." The biblical imagery has moved from Eden to Gethsemane. The laughing serpent is replaced by a weeping Savior. This theme is repeated in "Thing About Trouble." Hear the listener is placed in a river gorge. The beauty around her is deceiving and she is encouraged instead to keep moving ahead, waiting for "the day." Despair and hope sway and spin as one, but ruin gives way to resurrection as the listener is assure that a flood is coming, but that "everything that sinks one day it will rise, eyes, tooth, and tongue." "Last Promenade" is one of the most beautifully arranged songs on the album, opening with pert and airy fingerpicking which quickly falls among the steady hums of the organ and accordion. The imagery is thick and elusive, and whatever the details may signify, what begins as a party is crashed and left to the dogs and the singer is left standing on a promenade with no ticket as a train barrels by. "Always Travel Light" is the proverbial "you can't take it with you" warning delivered, as promised, with the lightest touch. The last song of the album moves in slow with steel guitar and organ gently lulling. Burr's vocal sound downcast as he sings of a figure "dressed in white moving through the dark." As bleak as the song may feel the message remains hopeful as the closing line claims, "I have cut you, I have kissed you, Blood runs down, runs downhill."
Without the prospect of a Slow Southern Home, I wonder if anyone would bear with Burr the wallows of tragedy, love lost, and gardens overrun with thorns. Would you wade the slough with no portension of golden meadows? And yet, Burr does not leave us in thorny Eden, or deceptively beautiful gorges. He takes us to Gethsemane, he tells us of the coming flood. He brings us to Golgotha where we lay dead or dying at the foot of a hill, blood flowing from the crags of the rocks over our wounded flesh. There sunken eyes, broken teeth, crooked tongues find the promise, the hope, of resurrection. There everything that sinks is to one day rise.

Sufjan's a Stinkin' Genius

Sufjan Stevens is a creative genius. His latest venture is a Christmas song contest. Here's the scoop: His fans write and record a Christmas song, send it to him, and the one he likes the most wins. The grand prize is a song swap. He gets the rights to your song, but he then writes a Christmas song just for you, and you get the rights to it. Granted, he's going to get more money for your song than you will for his, but art isn't about money, it's about saying, "Sufjan picked my song, chumps!!"
I just entered a song I wrote last year about this time. Needless to say, we needn't expect to see "Sleep Now" on any upcoming Sufjan Stevens projects.

tom waits (cont'd)

in the words of my friend and waits-mentor "tom waits deserves more than one comment." well, he just may deserve more than one post, too. therefore i dedicate this post to his early stuff. waits' early stuff is quite possibly the most enjoyable music i listen to. the island years are like musical vegetables. one has to acquire the taste before the nutritional benefits can be fully enjoyed. the early years, while not quite musical candy, are rather enjoyable. it is the cereal of the musical world. rare is the moment when i wouldn't enjoy a bowl of cereal--and not the fruit loops or cocoa pebbles junk--i thoroughly enjoy a good bowl of wheaties, quaker toasted oatmeal, or crunchy corn bran. so, the greatness of tom waits early stuff is it takes no getting used to, no learning curve. it's pleasant to the ears and yet offers substance and excites development and growth in its hearer. it was a time when...
life was full of roses
poetry and prose and
[tom waits], all i had was you and all you had was me
there was no tomorrow
we packed away our sorrow
and we saved it for a rainy day

tom waits

this is tom waits. what a weird guy, but man what an artist. i really hadn't heard much of him until one jon kever recommended his debut album "closing time." after buying it, it soon became one of my favorites. then i got "beautiful maladies." what an apt title. his voice is horrible, i was like, "he's not even trying to sound good." but i knew he was an artistic force to be reckoned with, so i listened. it only took two times through the album to see the beauty in the maladies.

pilotdrift

i was in a staff meeting at my church the other day and i'd mentioned my love of music. one of our staff members told me about his future son-in-law from texarkana who is in a band called "pilotdrift." he gave me their website and i checked it out. it sounded great--radiohead, the arcade fire, queen--at least those are the closest equivelents in my musical library (i don't actually own any queen). then i picked up the latest copy of paste magazine and on a page called "4 bands to watch" there they are, pilotdrift. i felt so on the cutting edge. because i heard of them one whole day before reading about them in paste i feel like i can say, "you need to watch these guys, they're gonna be big."

more new music

i should also mention the following new music i obtained over the christmas break:
johnny cash- american iv: the man comes around
-it was about time. obviuosly good stuff.
the arcade fire- funeral
-the album art is worth the price of the album, granted i got it used on amazon.
havalina rail co.- space, love, and bullfighting
-a havalina classic
danielson famile- tridanielson (alpha)
-number one in a two-part series. some seriously weird stuff, but entertaining.
the royal blue- where only love has gone (ep)
-this is a good year for me and female vocals. we'd had a falling out somewhere along the way, and between karin berquist, emmylou harris, and kristin leigh they've been redeemed.*
*please note this is in no way an attack on the female gender or their vocal cords. any statements made about their redemption reflect niether an over-realized eschatology nor an inherent sinfulness of female vocals en toto.

new music

i got a few cd's for christmas most of which i highly recommend, and a few that are growing on me:
1.damien jurado- where shall you take me?
-quickly becoming one of my favorite cds. excellent, excellent, excellent! a dark inclusio with plenty of indy-folksie relief between.
2.over the rhine- drunkard's prayer
-loving the laid-back alt-pop sound--somewhat more country than their past stuff.
3.ben lee- something to remember me by
-his debut album. acoustic british indy pop. i'd heard it back in 97 when it was released and have considered buying it ever since. so glad i finally got it.
4.emmylou harris- wrecking ball
-falls under the category of growing on me, but is doing so quickly. contains her priceless cover of dylan's "every grain of sand."
5.tom waits- beautiful maladies the island years
-i had "mule variations" in my hands and the guy at cd world said they'd just got a used copy of this one in. (apparently the island years are a significant period in waits' career...so now i can sound artsy with such phrases as, "hey this stuff kind of sounds like waits' island years" or "yeah, waits' early stuff was good, but man, those island years...") i've only yet listened to the first few songs, so more to come on this one.

album update

i finished and handed in my album. 13 songs. 6 instruments (3 of which are different kinds of shakers). i plan on revisiting it here and there throughout the year to clean up vocals, add various instruments, etc. the album had a title, but it was extremely lame, and i lack the self confidence to ever use it again, so i scrapped it.

music

i just realized i don't have a link to havalina. this ought not be so. they are a great band. i really only have one album, and that's because it's free on their website, but i saw them at cornerstone a few years back and have been a fan ever since.
in their words: "havalina, not unlike most of our influences, is about change and various forms of wrecking pop music." gotta love that.

update on the album

today i wrote the fourth song for my class project, so all the writing's done and the album's ready to compile, i have 14 songs total already rough-recorded, and a couple more that could work on the album, but that i didn't like as much.

how to work the system

between school and youth ministry i find little time to sit down with my guitar and write these days. thus i find myself jumping at every chance to write songs for "creative projects" in classes. so far i've written three songs for credit and added two verses to existing songs for class. but this semester i've outdone myself. i'm taking a class from dr. kreider (theological studies prof.) called issues in theological method. its a class on cultural exegesis (obtaining general revelation about God through His image born in the culture--that is in those members of the culture who bear His image). one of the assignments is an album review. you listen to an album and write a paper on how it demonstrates the metanarrative--creation, fall, re-creation. well, instead of reviewing an album, i'll be writing one. i have to write at least 4 new songs for it, but i can compile from songs written in the past. the compilation must be done in community, which i'm actually looking forward to. that way all the songs i wrote with a pre-opined position on the album may perhaps be given a better--really, a more spiritual--placement.

genre nazi's

it seems like the younger part of my generation (gen y as the generation nazi's would call them) have a fascination with assigning musical genres. i noticed this in talking about music with some of them, but it never bothered me until i was playing my brit pop/rock playlist from my ipod and was criticized that it was really more of a stadium rock playlist. (please note that the title of my playlist does not exclude stadium rock) he then began to assign each artist in the playlist their own genre. this phenomenon is no surprise to me. despite what people say-everyone wants a label. they want to be seen as preppy or alternative or country. however, all the alternative kids don't want to be lumped together, so there's emo, screamo, hardcore, punk, alt-punk, pre-punk, post-punk, mid-punk and pre-wrath-punk. i particularly like the prefix "alt" see that way i can listen to artists like kasey chambers and buddy miller and yet avoid the whole cowboy boots/big belt buckle image, cause i'm not country--no, no--i'm "alt-country." i wondered why the visual arts have escaped this trend. why is there not alt-cubism? or post-dali-brit-surrealism?

Vote or Die

my blog is as much about the readers as it is about me. thus, in an effort to maintain an air of democracy i'm once again asking your input.
say you suddenly had no cd's at all. what 10 cd's would you go out and buy immediately?

New Music

i just got two cd's this week. first i found the newest norah jones cd, so i got that for my wife--it's great. way better than come away with me in my opinion. then as i was browsing i found pedro the lion's album control. this may be pedro's best album. (it's hard to find a friend may be better. it's definitely a better pedro the lion primer if you're looking to get into them) control is not a collection of songs, the album itself tells the story of an over-worked, unfaithful husband who loses his job. eventually the wife kills the husband. the second to last song is about his funeral where the priest delivers a less than hopeful message. the first nine songs leave you disgusted with life in general, then comes the last song, sung unbearably slowly here are the lyrics:
Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless
But everything is so meaningful
And most everything turns to shit
Rejoice
i had a copy a few years ago and , in my weak conscience, i had edited three songs off of it. two that depicted sexual infidelity and this last song. having listened to the cd now unabridged all the way through, i realize that in my attempt to sanctify the album i had actually corrupted it--i had removed the gospel. granted it was never explicit, but this last song takes the vivid portrait of hopeless humanity which says "this is all there is" (actually a quote from another artist) and pans out showing that the saddest part of the story is that it is meaningful, very meaningful, but for those for whom that world has become "shit" (i think he's aluding to phil 3:8 and the third line is a double entendre transitioning from the hopeless of the story to the basis for rejoicing) there remains rejoicing. it's a beautiful story and, whether you agree with the delivery or not, a beautiful message.

This is me with derek webb. i look like i'm 15, but i think i was 19 in that pic. if i look nervous its cause i was man-crushin' on derek.

Doug Burr

every time i see doug perform i become a bigger fan. the first time i saw him he was just the unfamiliar name below bill mallonee's at poor david's. i saw him and said to myself "i need to catch some of his solo acts." since then i've bought his album ( www.pastemusic.com/product/790) and plan to buy the one he's recording now the minute it comes off the line. you can see him tomorrow night (thursday) at the highlands cafe.

A Good Show

For those in the Dallas area with nothing to do on Tuesday nights, may I make a suggestion? Kristy Kruger hosts a Song-writers in the Round show at Club DaDa every Tuesday night. Three artists sit on stage and swap songs and stories all night. Kristy's got a good sound, but the company she keeps makes the show worth attending. So far I've seen her with Doug Burr, Salim Nourallah, Chris Holt, Rahim Quasi, and Trey Johnson (of Sorta). There is not one of these artists whose solo show I wouldn't pay to see, oh but that's the best part--there's no cover for the Round, just a suggested donation of $5. In April they had $2 drafts and burgers and hotdogs in the back, (I'm hoping this will carry into the summer). And if you see me there, that's just iced tea in a pint glass.