Gearing up for Sympo 09

Thursday begins the three-day marathon that is Calvin Symposium on Worship and I’m quite busy this year. On Thursday I will welcome about 150 high school students, teachers and principals from all over North America to spend much of the day talking about Christian High School chapel – a topic that is not often given this sort of intense attention. I’m pretty excited about it and, fortunately, I have my friends and colleagues helping me out. Ron Rienstra will talk about Worship Basics, Sharon Veltema and Jack Postma from Unity Christian High School in Hudsonville, MI, will talk about their program. Cindy DeJong and Paul Ryan from the Calvin Chapel program will talk about what they’ve learned leading chapel with college students, the Calvin Worship Apprentices (including my daughter Meredith) will lead the high school kids in workshops around some of the nuts and bolts of leading worship – using the arts, music and speaking. Finally, I’ll talk about Faith Nurture and how chapel relates to that and we’ll have some time to hear from some of the other participants.

Before the workshop begins I’ll play guitar for worship in a band lead by Greg Scheer. Then on Friday and Saturday I’ll lead a seminar on why and how we can use Psalms with kids. Whew. But even with all this I hope to attend a bunch of seminars by other folks and I always leave excited to have been present and to have been able to participate.

Album of the moment

Usually there is one album that speaks to me in a special way - this will last for a week or even longer. I am thinking about tracking this album here on this blog for a while just to see what it's like. I don't expect to write long reviews of them (although I might) but rather I'll just mention them and encourage my regular reader(s) to post their own AoM and to refresh them whenever the album changes. Right now there are two Albums of the Moment:

1) Under the Waterfall by Cindy Morgan - this CCM album from the early 90's is just delightful. Yes, there are a few moments when I'm not exactly enamored of what's going on but overall songs like "Stand" and "I Know You" almost always lift my spirit and make me sing along.

2)This album is possibly being replaced by Apple Tree by Katie Herzig. Herzig's album is a wonderful mix of delicate vocals matched with creative and tuneful songwriting. I like the way she writes and I like the way she sings. I also like the way the image of the Apple Tree pops up in, I think, three of the songs. I find Apple Tree practically irresistible right now.

Who is the best Beatle?

As part of a facebook wall exchange on the best bands in the world Andy Boyer asked me “who was the best Beatle?” This came after I pointed out to him the ridiculous notion of his that placed Nirvana in the top three bands of all time and missed the Beatles completely. [EDIT: Andy reminds me that he did mention the Beatles in his "bands I also like" section so saying that he missed them completely is unfair. I agree.]

His question, though, needs a response that is longer than a facebook wall can easily contain so I thought I’d respond here.

First of all, this is the sort of question that you shouldn’t have to answer. One is capable of enjoying the Beatles music without picking favorites or trying to sort out who brought what to the band. Not only that but there was something special in the collaboration of the four people involved. I know from playing with a variety of people that, if you let it, changing even one player in a band will change everyone. I play differently with a different piano player or drummer. When I played with the Lazy Blue Tunas I was able to play a lot differently because there were two other guitars occupying the same aural space and I needed to back off on some things and I was able to add other things. So, it’s hard to sort out what was going on with the Beatles as well.

All four Beatles brought something special to the band and that changed over the ten years or so that they were together. Paul’s bass playing, for example, is one of the high points of the best Beatles music. Have you listened to the bass on Sgt Pepper or in George’s beautiful song “Something?” Paul doesn’t get enough credit for that. John’s playing, while not virtuosic like Paul and George’s still carried the day on more than one occasion – his piano in “Ob La Di Ob La Da,” for example is what made the track work (even though it’s not one of Paul’s best songs.) George’s guitar is often just the thing that made a track work. His 12-string playing on A Hard Days Night made the album. Ringo’s drums were always on target – listen to the drums on “Come Together” – they’re brilliant. You can’t pull the pieces of the Beatles apart easily.

So let’s take a look at their post-Beatles work. This is also tough because John’s was so much shorter than the others and, for about half the time John was alive after the Beatles he wasn’t actively recording. George, too, took a lot of time off. Ringo had an on-again off-again recording career, even at times losing his recording contract. Paul, on the other hand, kept working. So how do you compare them? John’s songwriting has been recently highlighted on the wonderful “Instant Karma” collection where other artists covered his music and that reinforced the notion that he had a lot of good songs on his own. But, frankly, how many of John’s solo songs can people list? Even Imagine, his most popular album has only one song that people know - the title track. He also had minor hits with “Instant Karma” and “Give Peace a Chance.” In the same period McCartney had a large number of hits – “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Another Day,” “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey,” “My Love,” “Band on the Run,” “Jet,” “Listen to the What the Man Said,” “Silly Love Songs,” “Let ‘Em In,” and“With A Little Luck” (to name the ones that I can off the top of my head.) And that’s just in his first decade after the Beatles. There have been nearly three more decades since then. In that same first decade George had “My Sweet Lord” and “Give Me Love.” So Paul is the clear winner in this category.

But it’s not just about hits. What about quality? Paul made a couple of lousy albums along the way. Wild Life has long been seen as one of his weaker albums and, indeed, it is not very good. And Paul has been tagged with writing a bunch of silly love songs – a charge that sticks to a certain extent. John’s work though is at least as uneven. Some Time in New York City was pretty poor. Side two of Live Peace in Toronto is unlistenable. Even his brilliant work on Double Fantasy really only amounts to half an album with Yoko’s music making up the other half – I’m quite content having on the John songs from that album and it’s posthumous follow up, Milk and Honey. George also had his stinkers – Extra Texture and Dark Horse haven’t even been released on CD yet. Ringo had one great album, Ringo. He did have a number of cool songs but, frankly, if you buy his Photograph anthology you’ve got just about all the Ringo you really need on one CD. So how do you compare Paul’s massive output with the relatively meager output from the others? It’s tough but on balance I think Paul had at least as high a batting average as the others and he came to the plate much more often. This, I think, gives him the edge.

So, Andy, with no disrespect to the other three, I think my answer is Paul McCartney.

How does iTunes Genius work?

I've been using iTunes Genius lately to make playlists and I've been really happy with the results but this morning something amazing happened - I chose a Postal Service song to start the playlist and iTunes picked the only two covers of Postal Service songs I have on my computer to put in the playlist - "Such Great Heights" by Iron and Wine and "We Will Become Sillouettes" by the Shins.

So, how did it know to pick those? This isn't just genre matching - there is more going on that that. When I start with a solo Beatle it gives me other solo Beatles. When I give it Stevie Wonder it gives me other artists that match quite well. I'd love to know the algorithm it uses to come up with the lists.

Any ideas?

Revisiting old CCM albums

Almost every year we go on a bit of a cleaning binge involving our basement. As we need more room to put new stuff and, as kids come home for Christmas break we need more space. We also realize that we accumulate a lot and a good purge is helpful. This leads to deciding what stuff we can toss and what stuff we need to find a better way to store. This year as I was realigning my CD collection and as I was going through some of my old stuff I came across a number of old CCM albums which I’m not ready to get rid of yet and I grabbed five of them because I remember them as being among my favorites and I thought it would be good to hear them again. They are:

PFR – Great Lengths (1995)
Considering Lily (1996)
Cindy Morgan – Listen (1996) and Under the Waterfall (1995)
Margaret Becker – Falling Forward (1998)

I loaded them in my itunes, put them on my ipod and they (along with some recently rediscovered Stevie Wonder) have been popping up every so often in my listening over the last week or so and it’s been great to revisit these. So, after listening again after a number of years, how are they?

PFR’s album, Great Lengths is full of Beatlesque tunes with solid arrangements, playing and singing. The two lead voices blend nicely and the power trio’s sound is nicely augmented with other instruments. A few of the songs reek of mid-nineties CCM sensibilities – like they were counting the number of Jesus references to make sure they were ok to play on the radio – but enough of them avoid this that the album still holds up well. This one will likely stay in my itunes.

Considering Lily, the band, is one of my guilty pleasures from the 90s and also one of my great disappointments. This pair of sisters made a folky album as Serene and Pearl and, when that didn’t work out commercially for them, they rocked it up a bit and formed the band Considering Lily. Their self-titled album is dorky and obvious with mundane images and lightweight tunes. But I liked it and there was something about its quirkiness that caught me back then. The reason that this band was such a disappointment for me is that, for their second album, one of the sisters quit and the newly reformed Considering Lily released an album that was not really at all like their first one. They got more normal and lost their charm. After that they never released another album.While this first one was a lot of fun my patience for the pedestrian writing and playing on this album isn't what it used to be. After two listens it ended up getting deleted from my itunes.

Cindy Morgan started out doing what was then called “urban” music and I wasn’t such a big fan. But then at the time of her third album she changed her style a bit and released a fine album called Under the Waterfall which, to my ears at least, almost sounds at home sitting next to today’s pop albums by American Idol alum. It’s a good album with some nice grooves on it and a killer track, “Stand,” which is just wonderful. She followed that up with an even better album, Listen, which spent a lot of time in our players back 12 years ago and still sounds good to me today – these two albums are the ones that I’ve played most since digging them up last week.

Finally, I also dug up what I consider to be Margaret Becker’s best album, Falling Forward. This album really shows her acoustic side but yet it has cool Falling Forward wasn’t nearly as good either. This one I haven’t heard too much yet since the great rescue from the basement but what I’ve heard I’ve liked a lot – so this one will also stay in my itunes for a while at least.

Overall, this experiment has worked out well. When push comes to shove I tend to revert back to certain bands – the Beatles, U2, Grateful Dead, Phil Keaggy, Elvis Costello – and it’s good for me to branch out. I’ve tried to do that with contemporary bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Ingrid Michaelson and I’ve enjoyed a lot of recent music but many of them don’t hold much interest for me in the long run. It was good to see that some of these old albums from artists not in my top tier still work for me.

Top albums of the year

Best of lists are inherently idiosyncratic and mine are especially so. These albums are not the best of the year because I have only listened to a small percentage of the albums that have come out this year. This list represents the albums that stayed in my player the longest over the course of the year - the ones that I like a lot and that kept getting played. So here they are, in no particular order, my top 8 of 2008.

1. The Fireman - Electric Arguments
I am a big fan of Paul McCartney, as even a cursory glance of this blog will show, and it’s nice when he makes a good album. I am of the opinion that he’s done that a lot lately and Electric Arguments is another fine example. It is creative, melodic and interesting. I wrote more in my recent blog post here.

2. In the Name of Love - Africa Celebrates U2
I found out about this album by reading a review in Paste Magazine so I got it and I love it. I can be a sucker for African music and mixing that sound with the music of one of my favorite bands, U2, is a no-brainer for me. This album is by a variety of artists, none of whom I had ever heard of before. Some tracks, of course, are stronger than others but even the tracks I thought were not great at first have grown on me. This is a fun album that shows that U2’s music translates into other genres very well. (This is far superior to the similarly titled album that CCM artists did a few years ago.)

3. The Allens
This album is probably my favorite Noisetrade find of the year (along with Katie Herzig’s album which almost made the list - get that one here.) This husband-wife duo from Texas sings and plays in a way that speaks to me. I like their sound and I like their songs. And the album is free. Go get it.

4. Elvis Costello – Momofuku
I’ve been an Elvis fan for quite a while and he released a good one this year just before I saw him in concert for the first time. The songs are well written and the album was banged out in a hurry so it sounds fresh and exciting. That's why it is named after the inventor of instant noodles. Here is my review.

5. Big Blue Ball
Peter Gabriel assembled a group of people from all over the world to record in his studio over a period of something like 15 years. The tracks cover a wide range of styles and Gabriel himself only appears occasionally but the album is varied and interesting and has some really cool tracks.

6. Ingrid Michaelson - Girls and Boys
This album is actually a 2007 album but I didn’t even know who Ingrid was until this past summer so I'm cheating and putting her on this year's list because her CD spent a lot of time in my player this year. Her songs are wonderful in their simplicity and her guitar and piano compliment her fragile voice perfectly. Her recent album, Be OK, is more of a collection of b-sides and live tracks than a real album and Girls and Boys is superior.

7. Jon Foreman – Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer
Jon Foreman, the driving force behind Switchfoot, shows that there is a lot more to him than just a rock guy with this set of 4 EPs that deliver acoustic settings of songs that don’t fit the Switchfoot mode. Foreman continues to write about his faith in a way that doesn’t settle for easy answers or trite sloganeering. For acoustic albums there is great variety in both the songwriting and the arrangements with Foreman bringing in brass, strings and even his sister-in-law Sarah Masen on vocals on one song. The compilation, Limbs and Branches, gives 10 of the songs from the 24 song, 4 EP collection and adds two new songs to it as well. An earlier review that I wrote is here.

8. Phil Keaggy – Phantasmagorical
This past year Keaggy toured to support the 30th Anniversary of his landmark album the Master and the Musician. He recorded Phantasmagorical with some of those songs ringing in his ears and continues his string of strong albums. The playing is, of course, fabulous but the writing continues to be very good and Phil’s talent as an arranger continues to grow. This album stands up to some of his best. See my earlier review here.

25 days of free Christmas songs

Amazon is giving a song away for free every day in December - click here.

Electric Arguments – Paul McCartney as the Fireman

Electric Arguments is the new album by the Fireman - Paul McCartney and Youth (the bassist for Killing Joke – whoever that is.) I did not buy the first two Fireman albums. They were strange ambient music – at least the part I can hear on samples from itunes – and, while I can appreciate ambient music I’m not sure I want to invest in it. But this new one is different. This has Paul singing. He and Youth went into the studio with no song in mind and no plan and, by the end of the day had a recording. He did this 13 times over the year. The result is an album that is part McCartney being his tuneful self, part McCartney being his experimental self and part Youth being his, well, youthful self.

So, what do I think? Well, on the one hand, I’m not sure yet. It is a bit of a strange album. On the other hand in the week since I’ve picked it up I find myself playing it over and over again. I haven't done this with any other album since Memory Almost Full, McCartney’s last album. I find myself entranced by the moodiness of the songs, by the interesting arrangements and by the sheer variety. There are also some really cool moments on the album.

Many reviewers are saying that this is the best McCartney album in decades – some say since Ram. Now I don’t remember people going all crazy over Ram or saying that that was one of McCartney’s best albums but, OK, Ram was a cool album and I can see why they say that Electric Arguments reminds them of it. But it also sometimes reminds me of Magical Mystery Tour and of McCartney II and also of Press to Play – did anyone else buy that one??? But to say that it’s McCartney’s best in decades is to minimize the cool stuff that McCartney has done lately. He’s done a lot of really outstanding albums lately – Flaming Pie, Chaos and Creation and Memory Almost Full have all gotten strong reviews and they’ve all been called the best in years from McCartney. (Reviewers seem to have short memories.) But because Electric Arguments is a collaboration with a producer it has a different flavor than his other albums, much like Chaos and Creation did.

So Electric Arguments is not “McCartney’s best”, nor is it a “return to form” or any of those things that some reviewers are saying. But it is a very good experimental album from an artist who, to a greater or lesser extent, does this a lot more often than he gets credit for. And I just can't seem to take it out of my CD player.

Joel Osteen on the economy

"If we can stay positive and hopeful, God will bring us through to a better day."

This quote, from the latest issue of Christianity Today, shows that Joel Osteen flunked Grace 101.

He also apparently blames the great depression on people who were, well, depressed. While I do think that a fair amount of the economy is a head game and that if we keep in mind that the economy is fundamentally sound (where have I heard that before?) things will go better for us, I also think that if God was giving us what we deserved then I wouldn't have a computer at all - I certainly wouldn't have a mac. :) This isn't about what we deserve. God has a plan for us - just as he had a plan for Joseph - and I hope that it doesn't involve me sleeping in a homeless shelter but, even if it does, God will still be with me.

So, Rev Osteen, I disagree with your assessment. I think that God has already seen us through to a better day - it's called Easter. The rest is just gravy.

40 Years Ago - the Beatles' White Album

Tomorrow, Nov 22, marks the 40th Anniversary of the release of the White Album. I reserved a copy of that album at my local record store in Ridgewood NJ before it came out and when I went to get it the proprietor reached under the counter and pulled it out and gave it to me. It was white. It had the words "The Bealtes" embossed on the cover along with a number stamped on the front - I forget what the number was but it wasn't a particularly low one - I think somewhere in the 100,000 range.

I took it home and put in on the stereo in my bedroom. I was 14 years old and this was one of the first album releases I had ever looked forward to. Wow - what a mix of sounds and songs - what a LOT of songs! This album was in marked contrast to the Sgt Pepper / Magical Mystery Beatles that I had been listening to - especially after coming fairly quickly on the heals of the Yellow Submarine Soundtrack which just reinforced the psychedelic image of the Beatles. It struck me asa wonderful collection of songs. I remember one reviewer saying that this album made it clear that Lennon and McCartney were the best songwriters since Shubert. Yeah - it's that good.

I must admit that I had more patience for "Revolution 9" back then than I do now but I have more patience for "Good Night" now than I did then so I guess it all evens out. But any album that has "Back in the USSR," "Dear Prudence," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "I Will," "Revolution 1," and "Martha My Dear" is clearly a classic. And my list of songs here just scratches the surface. This is an amazing album.

I've written about this album before here, here and here.

This is very cool - you should watch it

Beth over at U2 Sermons pointed me to this outtake from the Rattle and Hum film by U2. It is the performance of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm looking For" with the New Voices of Freedom. Much fun to watch.

Not misused quotes but still pretty funny

This picture is from the BBC website today of a sign posted in Wales - wonderful. In case you can't read it the caption says "The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

Top 10 Spiritual Songs by U2

This article from the @U2 website is an interesting look at the spiritual nature of U2's music and lyrics. A few of my top choices are left off ("Where the Streets Have No Name," "All Because of You," "Until the End of the World") but it is an interesting list with some nice commentary. I have to find a copy of the song "Mercy" somewhere - anyone have it that they can send me?

What if the Beatles were Irish?

The singer here is satirist Roy Zimmerman. Thanks to Abbey Road for the link.

From the Department of Redundancy Department

This was the headline in the on-line version of my local paper this afternoon. It was on the first page 1.

Red Alert!

I'm trying to be calm about this but ....

Pictures from the new Star Trek movie are posted here!!!

More cool free music

This offer expires on Nov 15 so don't miss your chance.

More on U2 remasters

I have had a chance to spend more time with all four of the U2 remasters that have come out in the past year (and I’m anxiously waiting for the fifth to arrive this week) and I realize that these are pretty much everything I’d like to have in a remaster series. Here is why.

1. Don’t mess with the album. Good albums have a flow to them that, while it could theoretically be improved on, generally I get used to the album the way it is and I want to experience the original. By all means, improve the sound, but don’t add tracks. That just messes up the end.
2. Add tracks to a second CD. What I really want is a second CD full of cool stuff like EVERY non-album single and b-side that connects to the album and unreleased live tracks from the era. I am a completist and I expect a good remaster to help me complete. I’m not looking for demos (although they can be fun,) I’m looking for something that I actually will want to listen to, not just have for historical purposes.
3. Make the art count. I want to have the original album art but also let me see the covers of all the singles and what else was on them. Basically I want the complete story of this album and this era in the band’s life.
4. Add cool liner notes. Include a critical essay, complete credits and a description, preferably by a key member of the band, of the b-sides. Lyrics are a nice touch too.
   

The U2 remasters delivers on all counts. And here’s what else they did to make it cool. The Joshua Tree has an extra deluxe edition that includes a video of a concert from that era. Since Under a Blood Red Sky is already a live album – and a really really good one – more live tracks aren’t really called for so they leave the album just as it is but added tracks to the live concert video, which has never been released on DVD. Yeah, U2 got it right with The Joshua Tree, Boy, October, War and Under A Blood Red Sky.

Jill Phillips - Nobody's Got It All Together

I have mentioned NoiseTrade.com before but I recently listened again to one of the first albums I downloaded there, Jill Phillips' Nobody's Got It All Together. It's a really fine album and well worth the FREE download.

U2 and word play

This morning I was listening to the Joshua Tree by U2 in the car on the drive in to work and looked out at the eastern sky as the sun was starting to make it purple and orange. I could see the horizon which, as a any good former math teacher knows, is the root of the word "horizontal."

That lead me to put the word "horizon" together with U2 and think about the rumored title of their forthcoming album "No Line On the Horizon." I thought more about the relationship between the words "horizontal" and "horizon" and wondered if there was a word which relates to "vertical" the same way.

Then the U2 connection came full circle and I realized the word I was looking for was "Vertigo."

Hello, Hello, I thought - I wonder if they were thinking of Vertigo and vertical when they decided to write a song about horizontal. hmmmm.