Musical Baton

And so today the musical baton was passed to me by Jeff Holland. It seems like a fun idea, but it will be agonizing to have to make some of these choices…

Amount of music on your computer?

OK, this one is easy, thanks to iTunes. 4123 songs, 12.8 days, 15.03 GB. That’s basically my entire collection - now how much of it I regularly listen to is an entirely separate question - it would be a much shorter list. The total list is bloated by a bunch of classical stuff and then my wife’s albums (things like the entire collected works of Jim Brickman, Best of Air Supply, other stuff to scary to admit is on there…)

Currently listening to?

Hurry, Sleeping at Last, Ghosts

Five songs that mean a lot to you?

Wedding Dress, Derek Webb This springs to mind almost instantly; to me it embodies that spirit of brokenness and repentance that I constantly need to have before God.

Somewhere North of Here, Caedmon’s Call (Derek Webb :-)) One of my favorite CC songs, one of the early ones that hooked me.

There aren’t many others that come to mind, so let’s see what iTunes says I’ve been listening to…

Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Bob Dylan I was introduced to this song by a guy I know who sings in my favorite coffeeshop. It’s good, simple, early Dylan.

Say, Sleeping At Last Not necessarily even my favorite Sleeping At Last song (that probably goes to Currents, but it’s the first one on the album, and so it gets played the most.

I Get A Kick Out Of You, Jamie Cullum The young Brit sensation covers an old Cole Porter song. A fun big-band-type arrangement with some good piano work thrown in. I have a huge appreciation for guys like Jamie who have gone back and revived the old big band and jazz.

Top five albums?

Oh gosh, this is a tough one.

Long Line of Leavers, Caedmon’s Call This was my first taste of Caedmon’s, and still, I think, my favorite overall album. If only they could have left off Valleys Fill First…

The House Show, Derek Webb OK, this is a cop-out - it’s not either of his actual studio albums, but it’s live, which kicks it up a notch in my book, it has the best of She Must and Shall Go Free, and it includes Derek’s cover of Bob Dylan’s Every Grain of Sand, which is one of my favorites (of Derek’s, not of Dylan’s).

Ghosts, Sleeping at Last This one has grown on me a ton since I first listened to it. It’s the direction that I like rock music to go, and I reserve it for either times when I need to tune out at work (which must be often, seeing how many times I’ve played the album) or while I’m driving with the windows down in the car.

When Harry Met Sally Soundtrack, Harry Connick, Jr. Here’s my nod to the jazz and big band that I love so much. To think that Harry was early 20’s and recording this album just blows me away. I fell in love with the mellow saxophone solo on Love is Here to Stay way back in high school and it’s still one of my favorite songs. And the piano solo version of Winter Wonderland just makes me shake my head in wonder. Good stuff.

Photographs, Andrew Osenga I always skip Kankakee and start the album off with Kara. From there on, it’s solid all the way through New Mexico at the end.

A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay OK, so I’m listing six albums. I couldn’t decide between Andy O and Coldplay, so you get both. This one gets a lot of playtime, too.

Last album bought?

It’s hard to remember. I think it was Eric Clapton’s Unplugged, which is a very fine album. I just had somebody give me a copy of Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, and it’s top-notch as well.

Recent discoveries?

Jamie Cullum, Andy Osenga, and Sleeping at Last all appeared on my radar about 2 years ago. Sandra McCracken was a nice discovery earlier this year. (Don’t know why I neglected to buy her stuff for so long…)

Passing on the musical baton. Let’s see… Silly Joe Amber Richard Danielle Chris from L.C.

Music, family style... for real.

Well, the long-awaited Sunday finally got here and I got to play keyboards in the worship team at my family’s church with my brother Andrew leading. It was awesome. It was his first time leading a worship band but he did a very good job. The set list was something like this:

  • Blessed Be Your Name
  • Be Glorified In Me
  • Unfailing Love (a new Chris Tomlin song… very good, very singable)
  • Draw Me Close
  • Knowing You
  • I Will Praise Him Still

Somewhere in there Andrew and Ryan (another of my brothers) and I did a special number, the old Steve Camp song Love That Will Not Let Me Go. It was fantastic.

I really enjoyed getting to play keys and sing backup on the team; I’ve been leading my own team for so long, it was fun to play second-fiddle. It was also really neat to see my brother pursue a dream of his, to lead the team. I’m sure he’ll be doing it again… and maybe one of these days I’ll get him to come down here and play on my team. :-)

I've been replaced by a machine!

At least for Sunday, that is… I was unable to wrangle up a musician for the Sunday service, so my next option is to record my piano-playing on the electronic keyboard, so they can just play it back on Sunday. How lame is that? (I am humongously opposed to using recorded music in a church service, pretty much just because it can cause so much trouble for anyone who loses their place, it seems artificial, etc. Live accompaniment is always better.) Anyhow, it’s a nice Roland keyboard with a disk drive built in, so I’ll be recording the tracks and then they can play them back live… it’s at least better than recording on audio tape and playing it back. :-)

I’m sure it’ll end up uncoordinated and kind of lame on Sunday, but unfortunately I can’t really help that. We need more musicians!

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.