I need a musician...

…any musician. One of the downsides of being the music leader at a small church is that it’s hard to find a replacement when you’re going to be gone. I have a couple people who are on the usual list to back me up… one guitarist and one pianist. Usually at least one of them will be available. Well, I’m out of town this weekend for my sister’s graduation. The guitarist is also out of town this weekend. The pianist is watching 4 of her grandkids all weekend and doesn’t have the time she needs to practice. Our bass player who might be able to fill in on guitar in a pinch is also out of town. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do… they may be singing a capella on Sunday.

There’s one other possibility that someone mentioned - a recent attender who is rumored to be a piano teacher. However, I’ve never talked to her about playing for a service, and I’m not sure of her skill level, (or even if she’s actually a piano teacher). So, I’m fairly uncomfortable making a phone call that will go something like this: “Hi, I’m Chris from Noelridge, remember me? I know you haven’t been to church in a couple weeks, but I heard a rumor you might be a piano teacher and so I’m wondering if you’d like to play the piano for church this week and by the way practice is tomorrow night…” Not a real good option in my book. Well, it’ll work out somehow. I will get out of town this weekend.

Old music... great memories

So I got an iPod for Christmas… and of course the next task is ripping all of my CDs to mp3s so I can put them on the iPod. That was a task in itself. I’m almost done… (done with all the popular music, about halfway through the classical.) So then I got curious and started wondering about converting all the cassette tapes that I’ve got… (there’s not as many as the CDs, only probably a dozen that I’d care about converting, but still…)

So I researched it a bit online and figured out that by running a cable from the headphone jack of my tape deck into the line in input of my PC, I can record those old tapes. And the free dBPowerAmp software is really slick for recording them; it will automagically sense dead time between songs and split it out into separate mp3 files… too cool. So, now that the geek in me was satisfied with my use of technology, I could get on to recording all of my high school tapes. And that was the scary part.

I was a big Michael W. Smith fan in high school. So of course some of the first tapes to get converted were his albums The Big Picture, Go West Young Man, Change Your World, and The Live Set. (To be fair, a couple of those were done when I was middle-school-aged… and I just picked them up in high school. :-)) And then there were a couple old Amy Grant albums, and Michael English’s two good albums that he released before his confession-of-an-affair-and-returning-all-his-Dove-awards debacle. And an old Steven Curtis Chapman album or two.

If you’re reading this and recognize all these names, then you’ll also recognize that my musical scope was a bit limited in high school; my folks were pretty adamant that Christian music was the only choice (although jazz and classical were also OK), and I was remarkably content with that. The downside is that now as an adult I feel like I missed a few things… but that also makes for neat discoveries. I got the 2-CD set The Essential Bob Dylan this weekend and I’m enjoying it immensely. Probably wouldn’t have appreciated it when I was 17.

What a difference a decade makes.

another week, another concert...

After thinking things couldn’t get better from last week’s Caedmon’s Call concert, last Friay I took my wife to see Derek Webb at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. The venue was terrific; Wallenberg Hall there at Augustana is small enough that the seats only went back about 10 rows deep; I got a seat on the center aisle in the third row, and was only 6 or 8 feet from the stage (which was only about a foot high). It was awesome. The crowd was warm and receptive, and by the time Derek came out, they were very ready to hear some good tunes. They were not disappointed.

Derek was presenting lots of songs from his new album, I See Things Upside Down. The sound is a departure from his old, Caedmon’s sound (also found on his first album, She Must and Shall Go Free) – none of the acoustic simplicity that was the trademark of the earlier days; this new sound is a much more modern sound, inspired by artists like WILCO and Ryan Adams. It is different, but the excellent songwriting still shines through the wall of sound. They played for nearly 90 minutes, not talking very much in between (a departure of sorts from other Webb concerts). The musical highlight of the night was when things slowed down and Derek performed Nothing Is Ever Enough as a solo with only his electric guitar; an incredible sound on a beautiful song.

Didn’t get to meet Derek afterwards; the band hustled off to somewhere, and we had to head home; the babysitter was waiting. :-) Didn’t get home ’til midnight, and had a great time.

an excellent concert...

Went with my brother Ryan to a Caedmon’s Call concert Friday night at Judson College in Elgin, IL. It was my first time seeing Caedmon’s in person; they’ve been a favorite of mine via CD for 5 or so years now. They totally met (if did not exceed) expectations. The band rocked, they played a lot of good songs, they came off as much more real than most performers do. You get the feeling they’re just a group of folks that like to play and sing music, and they’re letting us in on a jam session.

I really only had two wishes unfulfilled at the end of the night; the first was that I didn’t get to meet Andy Osenga, the new lead guitar player (and sometime lead singer) for the band. I think he was visiting with his family after the show, didn’t participate in the meet and greet. The second wish really only developed during the show: I wish I would’ve had a chance to see them when Derek Webb was still a member of the band. His songs are such an integral part of their repertoire, and his voice and presence such a crucial part of their sound… and that’s not a knock on Andy O., that’s just the way it is. Oh well, it was still a great concert. They stay at the top of my favorite groups list.