NF -- A Brief Overview

Been a while since we talked about music here. Something about having a day job and a husband cuts back a LOT on the music-listening time. It also doesn't help that said husband and I have VERY different musical tastes. While we've both introduced each other to a handful of new favourites, our music libraries as a whole remain 'his music' and 'my music.'

The one exception is the rapper NF.

NF has been on my radar for a long time, ever since How Could You Leave Us dropped. I saw it on social media, then the same year my college brought him in for a conference. As he was the only act at the conference who was NOT singing hipster worship, I attended purely on principle. I figured if there were more butts in seats at the not-hipster concerts, maybe they'd quit bringing in hipster acts.

The auditorium he performed to had a capacity of about a thousand people. It was not even half full.

I remember sitting in the pew, analysing every bar he gave us. With my mind steeped as it was in oceans of grief and the 'nothing is EVER good enough' rhetoric that my instructors poured into me like hot lead every single day, I simply thought his rhythm was a bit off... but I also remember thinking that I loved the lyrical concepts.

'I'll check back in five years. He's got potential to go somewhere, but he's not there yet,' I told myself.

Our paths crossed every so often. I remember seeing the Clouds video when it first came out (was thoroughly confused by it but noted the cleaner, sharper rhythms), and I was really impressed by his technical and storytelling skills on Story.

This past Friday we attended one of his stops on the Hope tour -- this time in an NHL arena that was definitely over half capacity with people very hyped to be there.

It was nothing at all like the show that gangly kid five years ago gave us.

Oh sure, the show was sophisticated and even I, a fairly seasoned (and jaded) performing artist with decades of experience, was truly wowed by some of the special effects, entrances, quick changes, and props. I actually feel as if I need to say 'spoiler alert' whenever I talk about this concert online because there was just so much sleight of hand and lovely surprises.

But over the past five years NF leaned into that lyrical strength he always had and leveled his rhythm game up alongside it. This show hits hard, both lyrically and musically, and that is exactly what I love in music -- all music. Hope (the song) alone is worth the price of admission to that show, and it was even before I saw all the live special effects. We bought Hope (the album) when it first dropped back in April, and that is the album that has truly made me a fan. I had bought Clouds shortly after it released, but that was more as a gift for my husband than for me. Hope, however, may just be NF's Darn Floor. In fact, I would go as far to say that NF is to rap was Terry Scott Taylor is to... almost every other genre of music. The lyrical incisiveness and the clear love for and dedication to their craft is very similar (though NF doesn't quote quite as much William Blake).

If, like me, you are thirsty for good music, NF needs to be in your collection.

Stop Press: Album Release!

Music fans, rejoice!

If, like me, you missed the Kickstarter project (in 2019!) and were too poor to afford the astronomical shipping ($75???) for the CD pre-order, Terry Scott Taylor’s This Beautiful Mystery is now FINALLY available to order from his Bandcamp page!

I have deliberately avoided listening to this album. I have not bought or streamed the digital versions of any of the songs (though they have been available for a while). I want my first listen to be alone in the dark with a hard copy, with nothing to disturb or interrupt the art. I have no idea what it will be like, but I saw the email and dropped everything to order it because I am that confident it will be worth it. I have never done that ever with any purchase in my entire life. But I will not let this one get away from me again.

Terry Scott Taylor is arguably one of the greatest songwriters to walk the earth. Full stop. He has had nearly 50 years of professional songwriting experience, and it shows. His craftsmanship is unsurpassed. If you have never heard the work of Terry Scott Taylor, do yourself a favour and get this album. Your life will be the richer for it.

It is FINALLY NOW AVAILABLE ON CD on Bandcamp here. But hurry -- it's a limited run. Once these are gone, there will be no more.

Enjoy.

Music Day - Ten Thousand Lightyears

After the disco/dance/pop reign of Boney M., they took a page from ABBA's book and did some rather more serious and introspective work, and in fact they stuck to it longer than ABBA did. What you hear on the typical 'greatest hits of Boney M. album' is NOT the whole story, in fact, those albums only cover the first (and more frivolous) half of their career.

Perhaps their greatest (and most unrecognised) work is the first half of the album Ten Thousand Lightyears, a song cycle about escaping planet Earth for a better world in a plot that foreshadows Halo (assuming I understand Halo correctly, which I probably don't). This song cycle culminates in the epic title track, a slow burner of an anthem that so perfectly captures the sehnsucht for a better world that only Terry Scott Taylor/Daniel Amos can match that level of intense emotional longing.

The song starts with what sounds like a real live string bass, immediately followed by a slow sparking synth melody, then some gentle, airy percussion. This builds slowly for well over a minute before Liz Mitchell's warm voice soars out over the canopy of stars that the synths have laid out before her, painting a picture of a utopian world ten thousand lightyears somewhere out in space... they practice love and they know what it takes... lightyears away, far from pain... came to a place full of grace and of peace...

And it somehow keeps building. Some lovely harmonies follow, then some soft brass in the chorus. For all the mellowness and heart-wrenching lyrics, this is still very clearly Boney M. -- the percussion still somehow recalls hits like Rasputin.

In the second verse, the dreamer is awakened back into a rude and very not-utopian reality.

Suddenly it's ringing in my ears

Why is it now; I don't want to be here

...how I wish that this dream could go on.

By the second chorus, the voices have doubled into what sounds like a small choir, and the music continues to grow richer and fuller, sprinkled with some pizzicato strings and given added richness and polish with the brooding brass section.

Liz Mitchell is capable of incredible vocal depth and emotion, and by and large Boney M. underexploited this ability (probably the only thing they didn't exploit). One sees it on the infamous Christmas album a little bit, but this song was the best opportunity she had to do it with Boney M. proper and boy, does she ever seize it.

Title: Ten Thousand Lightyears

Artist: Boney M.

Album: Ten Thousand Lightyears

Year: 1984

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Obviously this song resonates a lot with me, as I often feel the exact same way. There is a place beyond the stars where Brittney and M and my cousin all live, and I so desperately want to go, to get away from the pain and abuse of this world. I'm not even thirty yet, but I am so, so world-weary. I understand what old people mean when they say they're 'ready to go.' I get it. I am too. I want to go beyond the stars and rest for the first time in my life -- rest from the constant terror that I'm going to breathe wrong and offend somebody or that I'm going to have someone at my throat because I did the literal exact thing they had asked me to do the day before and rest from knowing every single second of my life that I will literally always be a failure and a disappointment. I want to go there so badly it often brings tears to my eyes.

I'd give all I've got if that's where I could stay...

And I would. I really, really would.

Lightning In A Bottle

Lately my choreographic motivation has begun to awaken from its long slumber (of course it's when I don't have access to a studio to work stuff out in, but I'm not going to complain too much -- I'll take the ideas, please). To give it something to do, I've been notating the ballets that I sketched out but never notated, going back to 2017. (Don't worry, it's only like five pieces... I haven't choreographed much ballet since I started college.)

This included my solo for Terry Scott Taylor's heart-wrenching One More Time, choregraphed in two days in the immediate aftermath of M's death. I found my notes for the piece, but the ending seemed incomplete. I knew I had finished choreographing it, as I remembered performing it live on Instagram (to resounding silence, as nearly everybody at college either didn't give one crap about dance or didn't think I was talented enough to bother doing it) and filming the performance on my video camera at the same time. So tonight, I dug out that memory card and found the video.

And I was stunned.

It was filmed 2 October 2018, and I found two rehearsal takes from the day before. In 2018, I was starting my fourth year of college, having been told by my program director at the beginning of the school year that I had exactly one (1) chance to 'prove myself' (whatever that meant, and no, he did not deign to tell me) or he would be, and I quote, "done with you." I would routinely beat myself up -- mentally and physically -- in the studio and at home because I was so deeply, profoundly angry at myself for continually failing to measure up to his expectations -- whatever the hell they even were. I had yet to decode them after four years, but I felt no end stupid for not having done so, despite the fact that he was the one not communicating clearly. My self-confidence waned steadily throughout my time at college, as a direct result of the way he and the instructors under him treated me. Because of how much they hated me and my work, I began to hate the way I danced, and by extension, I hated myself. In a way, I was jealous of M for escaping this terrible world and all the pressure of perfection before I did. Now I had -- and still have -- to face all that belittling and pressure alone. After I performed/filmed this solo, I never watched it, knowing I would just hate myself more for not being a good enough dancer to justify doing that dance.

Today when I watched it, I saw this young woman with a grace and tenderness that I could only dream of even now. There's an absolutely luscious back bend in there -- I thought if I lived to be a hundred I could never be flexible enough to do something so beautiful. Even in the rehearsal videos she looked like a professional dancer. The courus were perfect. Her arms just floated, absolutely effortlessly. The lines were perfect -- I made a goal at the beginning of this year to work on my lines, but after seeing this video, I'm wondering if I really ever needed to work on them at all. There was a section in the 'performance' that did feel a bit more staccato than it was in rehearsal, but the pure artistry overshadowed that. I think it may have been the most beautiful ballet I have ever watched.

Did I just capture lightning in a bottle? Was it all just a fluke? Or was I really that good all along and nobody was decent enough to actually tell me? I choreographed, learned, and performed this piece in literally two days. This was before I learned an entire staging of Oklahoma! and the second acts of Jesus Christ Superstar and Chicago in essentially a week (side note, do all theatre companies literally spend five months on Act I and then stage/choreograph ALL of Act II in one three-hour rehearsal or is this just the companies I end up working with?).

I'm still deciding what to do with this footage. It is incredible -- to my eyes, anyway. But it's also rehearsal footage, and I don't like posting full rehearsals of pieces I do want to make into an official video someday -- spoilers, you know. I would love to film this properly, but I don't have access to any studio or even a space large enough to do it. So do I just sit on this footage and wait, possibly several more years, before I can properly film it? Then comes the question 'what if it's not as good?' I'm not getting any younger (or more flexible)...

Either way, it encouraged me so much. At least I can watch and enjoy this video. It touched my heart, it truly did. If I do decide to post it somewhere, I'll link it here.

Day 23: National Choreography Month

Finished the Queen song and now I'm getting back to my choreographic roots with a large-group White Heart number -- specifically Heaven Of My Heart (1993).

I think this one comes out of some of the emotional background of Who Wants To Live Forever -- that weight of nostalgia, that longing for another world. I'm still so tired of being here. I'm not suicidal, most of the time, just weary... this breathtaking, soul-scarring, heartbreaking, physically heavy weariness, this bone-crushing, mind-melting nostalgia for something I can hardly remember or perhaps never experienced. I feel like I don't belong here, and I want to go somewhere where I do... home -- wherever that even is anymore.

Locked in a sky so blue

Is a land made for me and you

And we're going there, but until the dream comes true

There's a secret place

So full of love and grace

When the world spins and breaks apart

I'm going to the other heaven of my heart...

I've been realising lately that the theme of a lot of my work (not just choreography) is the theme of escape. Not extreme, altered-reality escape -- not detaching oneself from one's emotions; more like escaping into a better reality. I spent so much time in my head because that was where my better worlds were -- the worlds in my head that I unlocked and sculpted with my fingers on the keyboard and my feet on a creaking wood floor. Maybe this song best describes what I've been doing with my artistic output all along. The themes were about escaping because that's what I have always wanted, more than anything -- to be able to reach the goodness that exists only just beyond the curtain of the physical, time-bound world. I can feel it, I sometimes see glimpses of it, but it can't come here, and, until my time comes, I can't go there either. I guess this is why songs like Terry Scott Taylor's Beyond The Wall Of Sleep (among others) resonate with me SO strongly -- at least there is one other person on the planet who sees it too. It's not just me.

And escape is not just the theme of my work, it's often the reason I create. I can go forward to heaven, or back to times I had with people who I will never see again until I can move forward to heaven -- and in the past few years, creating art has often done both at the same time. Choreographing this song specifically takes me back to the time when I still had viable dreams of choreographing and performing, and the friendship of people like M and Brittney. If I could lock myself in any year forever, it would be 2012. There was so much potential and hope in my life then. Now I'm just old and washed up. Doing this piece has really made me realise just how critical M's very existence was to my creative process. There's a duet section in this piece, and I still see her beside me in my mind's eye, doing the beats and turns as I write them down -- her endless energy and bright dramatic eyes. She wanted to escape too, and she was lucky enough to get it. I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. I've already choreographed a piece in her memory, but I think this one is in her memory too. No doubt everything I choreograph from now on will be.

I'm about a third of the way through the song now. It's a light, airy allegro piece, very ethereal, lots of arms and heads and a few floating turns... a lot like the music itself, energetic yet dream-like. I am LOVING choreographing the duet part (I still have a little bit of it to go), especially making them intertwine with each other and with White Heart's glorious harmonies. I can't put into words how much I wish M could dance this with me for real. I wish the curtain of time didn't seperate us.

There I go, trying to escape again.

Music Day - Treasure Of The Broken Land

Four years ago today, dear Brittney left this world, flew beyond the stars without the rest of us and our leaden souls still tethered to time.

I discovered this song probably about a year and a half after her death. It was Mark Heard's (recorded) swan song before his sudden death in August 1992 (Brittney would only have been a month old at the time). It so perfectly captures the tension of being alive on earth and missing those no longer on earth just a phone call or a text away. The song is rich with longing and even a touch of regret, but it's up-tempo enough to keep it from being unlistenable.

My words are weak in the face of such lyrical dexterity, so I'll let the lyrics speak for themselves...

I see you now and then in dreams
Your voice sounds just like it used to...

I thought our days were commonplace
Thought they'd number in the millions
Now there's only the aftertaste
Of circumstance that can't pass this way again...

You were relieved of a life-long thirst
I was dry at the fountain...

I often still wonder why she got to die and I didn't. I attempted suicide just over two years after she died, and yet I lived. Why then didn't she? She had so much more to offer than I ever have. Why did I have to stay while she went on without me?

I awoke when you called my name
I felt the curtain tearing...

Remind you of anything? Like Terry Scott Taylor's gut-wrenching One More Time? 'I thought that I heard / Your voice call my name / But that couldn't be 'cause you walk beyond the stars... Here inside a dream / I see you standing on a hill / You smile, then turn away / Now I must go...'

I could melt the clock hands down
But only in my memory
Nobody gets a second chance
To be the friend that they meant to be...

If this line doesn't force you to re-evaluate your entire life, I'm willing to bet a lot of money that you don't have a pulse. In just a few words, Heard throws the unforgiving march of time and the fragility of human life into razor-sharp focus.

Title: Treasure Of The Broken Land
Artist: Mark Heard
Album: Satellite Sky
Year: 1992
iTunes here; YouTube here.

We live in a broken land -- I think we'll all agree on that, at least to some extent. But she was a treasure in this wasteland of false fronts and manufactured love. She was the real deal. And I miss her every day.

Music Day - Only One

I accidentally stumbled on this one in my iTunes yesterday and MY GOSH I am melting.

Within the first verse, Uncle Terry's incisive writing slices the heart with the line You've broken so many hearts, darling / That you're not untouched... (Is this true or is this true?)
Beautiful lyrics spin out across a lush early-'60s-style arrangement and can we talk about the harmonies? Mid-century rock harmony is what early DA did best and they may very well be at their peak here.

I've been listening to a lot of late '50s music lately for my novel this year, and this fits right in, but with lyrics that aren't cheesy, mushy, sappy sentiments. I could not ask for more. (I love the '50s sound, I'm just bored with the 'love' theme, in all eras of music.)

Title: Only One
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Shirley, Goodness And Misery
Year: (song) 1981 (album) 1992
Label: Alternative/Stunt Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

The song has a complex history. Originally recorded during the ¡Alarma! album sessions (which was in itself a saga for the ages), the original version of the song languished on the shelves for eleven years before it appeared on a compilation of demos and unreleased songs on the Alternative/Stunt label (though a rewritten version with more synth strings showed up on the side-splitting Best Of album, The Miracle Faith Prickly Heat Telethon Of Love in 1990 -- the same album that first introduced us all to the hilarious if somewhat heretical Dr. Edward Daniel Taylor). The original has since found a wider audience as part of the bonus disc on the recently released ¡Alarma! two-disc deluxe reissue (which was my first encounter with it).

Acting in Writing - The Difficulty of Being an Artist

I think one thing fiction writers sometimes underestimate is how much acting ability you need to write well. You need to be able to put yourself in the heads of your entire cast and write the scenes from their emotional/logical perspective in order to do a story justice. You need to BE the character, no less than an actor on a stage or in front of a camera needs to BE the character.

Today I wrote a scene for my novel that occurs a few days after an important character's death. I write this two days shy of the anniversary of my cousin's death, and even three years removed, I can still remember the weight and vastness of the shock and the grief in the days that followed. A person who has not gone through this cannot do justice to it in writing or acting, but I can come close because I've been there. In some ways I'm still there. I know this grief. And that background makes the stories I tell more believable.

In the art I take in, that's what I look for -- I look for the person who can describe/express what I'm experiencing even when I can't. The only way you get to the point where you can describe it with intimate accuracy is to go through it. This scares me -- how much experience (heartbreak) am I going to be entrusted with as I continue to develop and pursue this calling to be an artist?

This is what makes the arts so difficult -- you have to go through so much in order to do justice to what you're talking about. This is what separates the posers and the wannabes from the true artists. The posers are in it for the prestige, for the elitist rush of complaining no-one understands them, so they can feel more intellectual. But the ones who truly are artists know, as the great Terry Scott Taylor once said, 'There's not a holy man who doesn't know grief well / Or think the road to heaven doesn't pass through hell...' (Jesus Wept, 2013).

Music Day - Beautiful Mystery

Here's a song I can almost guarantee you've never heard before. You hipster types, remember you heard it here first. You're welcome.

This man is one of the greatest songwriters (if not the greatest songwriter) ever to walk the face of the earth. He has forty-one years of professional experience -- this includes writing, playing, singing, touring, producing... the whole gamut. This is a guy who's been around the block a few times and lets his experience inform and deepen his songwriting. And we, the listeners, are richer for it.

Title: Beautiful Mystery
Artist: Terry Scott Taylor
Album: Bedroom Demos #3
Year: 2017
Label: Independently published on Patreon.
Only available on his Patreon page here.
If you like what you hear, please consider supporting his endeavours to make more music like this, right on his Patreon page. As a supporter myself, I can tell you that every penny you put to this is worth it.

Unfortunately, due to the rampant ageism (and the need to be 'safe and fun for the whole family' -- that is, 'no sarcasm or deep thought allowed') in the Christian music industry, Mr. Taylor and his work have been largely ignored. This is, at best, a crime against humanity. His observations and acknowledgement of the tension between art and society, faith and reason, the now and the not-yet are some of the most acute I have ever seen (and given my upbringing, church background, and post-secondary education, I've been exposed to more than your average number of theological tomes).

In this song, he explores this tension directly (cf. also his album (with his band Daniel Amos) Darn Floor - Big Bite). More specifically, he observes how people tend to try to fit Jesus into their own image of what they think He should be, how we tend to put God in a box far too small, how we try to tame the almighty God, the lion like Aslan.

When we could not grasp love this profound
We subdued it with a thorny crown
Whipped it into shape and nailed it down
Sealed the exit from the burial ground...

One last note: this song is actually a demo, recorded in his bedroom with nothing but an acoustic guitar, a MacBook, and a microphone. Yet it's deeper and more powerful than any of the tripe they're playing on hipster Spotify playlists. Its very simplicity allows the lyric to penetrate deeper.

Go take a listen. You might just enjoy it.

Music Day - A Briefing For The Ascent

Two years ago today my cousin stopped breathing. And she never started again.

A lot of bitterness and anger has marked the past two years. The death of a child, even if it's not your own, changes you -- permanently. And when that child's death is at the end of four hard months of intense academics and other assorted family issues AND the death of a very close friend, it can break you. I am only just beginning to actually process what happened to my cousin. I've spent the past two years working on the backlog of all the crap that happened before her final asthma attack.

But in recent weeks, I have finally begun to approach that date -- 28 April 2015. Thinking about this is one of the hardest things I have ever experienced. Even as I type this, that date and what it means threaten -- in a very real way -- to destroy me.

For two years I have screamed at the empty blue sky, screaming for God to answer me -- where were You that night? Why didn't You hear us? Doesn't our love for her mean anything to You? And if You couldn't keep her here with us, couldn't You at least comfort us in her absence? I have heard largely nothing -- not from God.

But He has created and sent us an artist, a man by the name of Terry Scott Taylor, a man who himself endured loss -- but who was also given peace in the midst of the loss and a talent for songwriting to express the intensity of the emotions.

This man, this artist, wrote a beautiful song of release in 1987, and it appeared on his second solo album -- the second solo album born out of terrible loss. The first song, the title track, began with the journey between the two worlds:

Take a burning spear and the Saviour's promise
Ride a horse of air through the burning forest
With our Father's faith and a child's wonder
Down the halls of grace -- by His mercy go under
It will seem so sudden
Yes, but through God's will
The season will dream and time will stand still...

And it was so sudden -- how suddenly one missed breath can become two, three, four... and eventually beyond the hope of starting again. The horse may be made of air, and so was her life -- take the air away and it's gone. To say death is a mercy -- well, that's a matter of perspective. I am still too bitter about this to comment on it, although I suppose for her at the moment, it probably was. But time does stand still -- on both sides of eternity. In many ways I am still -- two years later and in another province -- sitting stunned in a chair at the kitchen table, feeling my heart shatter into a thousand cold pieces without a sound.

Close your eyes and rest secure
Your soul is safe, your body sure...

'Your body sure' -- even as it turns against you, even as it starves you of the oxygen it needs. Christianity teaches that the body will rise again at the last day, and this is what Taylor is referencing here, but it still sends a twinge of something through me -- irony, perhaps.

But the part that broke me the other day was the next line:

He that loves you is He that keeps
The One that guards you never slumbers, never sleeps...

When I last listened to this song, once again begging God for peace, if not answers, Where were You? Did You ignore us? this line hit me: He was not sleeping. He was carrying her -- carrying her beyond the wall of sleep, beyond the stars. Away from us.

I don't know how I feel about that. Yes, she is safe in His arms. But she is not here.

It will seem so sudden, but you will laugh as you run
You will wash in the river, you will shine in the Son...

And yes, she is laughing, and running, breathing freely. But what of the rest of us, whose every breath is shot through with pain from the sharp shards of a shattered heart? What of us, the broken hearts in waiting?

I don't know. The song doesn't address that. Rather, it takes a posture of yearning but contentment -- waiting for the reunion.

Title: A Briefing For The Ascent
Artist: Terry Scott Taylor
Album: A Briefing For The Ascent
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Artist Patreon page here.

Even the instrumentation is light and airy, floating up, up, beyond our reach, with her and her Guard -- gentle acoustic guitar, mellow steel guitar, open drums, and the lightest of keyboard touches. It's heart-wrenching and soothing. One of the greatest songs Terry Scott Taylor has written to date.

Your Music News Bulletin

Some notes from the bands I follow (and you should too).

The Choir is re-releasing their 1989 album Wide-Eyed Wonder on CD and vinyl AND they're recording a new album called Bloodshot... IF their PledgeMusic campaign is successful. There's only five days left and they're still 8% short of their goal. There are some pretty cool rewards for backers (including the entire Shadow Weaver album download for free), and it's also worth noting that Wide-Eyed Wonder is not on the iTunes Store -- meaning this re-release is the only way you will be able to acquire a copy. If this isn't funded, that doesn't happen. And that would be very sad.
Pledge here.
If you're not familiar with their work, you can listen to tracks from their 2014 album Shadow Weaver right on the PledgeMusic page.

After many, many years of rumours, false starts, speculation and general impatience from fans, Daniel Amos is finally in the process of issuing their seminal album Horrendous Disc on CD. The project is already fully funded (in fact, they just made their second stretch goal earlier today), but if you want in on some of the rewards (or to propel them toward their third stretch goal), go pledge here. But hurry -- the campaign ends on 31 March.
This is going to be a four-disc box set with photos and stickers and other goodies. And depending which tier you pledge to, there may be vinyl copies and/or t-shirts involved.

On a related note, the phenomenal Terry Scott Taylor now has a Patreon account, where we the fans can finally eliminate the middleman and fund TST's creative endeavours directly by way of a monthly donation. In return, we get access to the new stuff he's writing -- and there's a lot of it. If your life has been touched by the music of Daniel Amos, the Swirling Eddies, the Lost Dogs, or Terry's solo output, you should very seriously consider pledging at least a few dollars to this (if you're really broke, you can commit to an amount as low as $1 a month. It doesn't feel like much, but as an artist myself, I can tell you every little bit helps).
Pledge here.

Finally, for you vinyl aficionados -- the first-ever Christian vinyl subscription service launched last month. Right now they're only shipping within the US, but it sounds like they intend to expand the service as soon as they can. Basically you select a plan and for a monthly fee, you will get two (or three, depending on the plan you select) vinyl records per month. You can customise your preferences -- they have anything from eighties rock to modern rock to hip-hop to worship/hipster music -- and give them an idea of what you already have to cut down on the potential of duplicates. I don't have personal experience with this service yet because 1. I'm not in the States, and 2. I'm a broke college student, but you better believe once they open it up to Canada and once I have a steady job, I am SO signing up for this.
You can sign up here.

Music Day - Crushing Hand

"God is in the business of throwing us curve balls, because His aim is to form the image of Christ in us.  He will do it by whatever means it takes. When I fear this process, it is because I don't really believe that He loves me. After some thirty-two years of being a Christian, I am only beginning to see just how much He does. His hand can crush, yet He chooses to lay it gently upon us."
        ~ Terry Scott Taylor, 2002 (Full interview here.)

Over the past year I have written and not posted more than I have written and actually published. There are many posts in my drafts folder full of frustration and anger and pain -- my personal writings even more so. I've begun to forget how much you readers actually know of the past two years and how much was written but never published here.

Suffice to say the last two years were horrendous. Death on every side, divorce on every side, woundedness, broken-heartedness, and just plain old life. By April 2015, I had completely given up on God, although the aforementioned things would continue well into the year 2016. I believed God existed, but I absolutely did not believe He gave one single crap about me or my breaking heart. And I believed this -- doggedly, relentlessly -- for two years (although I believed it in some milder form or another much longer than that).

At the very end of last semester I had a conversation with the director of my program -- ostensibly about singing, but very quickly it turned into the spiritual, and how frustrated I was with God. How I felt He hated me or at the very least had turned His back on me.

"Why do you think He doesn't care about you?" he asked.

Suddenly the answer I kept giving to that question -- 'just look at the past two years, do you think it matters to God if my heart lives or dies?' -- seemed inadequate. Lacking an alternative answer, I spread my hands and shrugged.

"He wouldn't care about everyone else and not you," he said. "You're not that special." (Possibly the strangest word of encouragement I've ever received.) He continued, "Kate, I guarantee He cares about you." He went on to talk about how he's seen God's hand in his own life, despite his own difficult circumstances at times. I hung on to every word. Maybe something here would connect. Maybe this thing I so badly wanted to believe and couldn't would finally make sense.

It didn't -- not immediately. I don't know that it ever will completely. But the conversation as a whole -- and my own inability to satisfactorily answer his gentle questions about my position -- percolated in my mind over Christmas break. What if I was holding onto an unnecessary amount of bitterness? What if -- maybe -- God still did notice I existed?

The thought chipped away at me. I opened my angry mind a tiny crack to a possibility that I hadn't allowed myself to entertain in a very long time. What if -- maybe -- God didn't hate me?

This is where I am now. There's still a ways to go -- I'm still not entirely convinced He loves me, but the fact that I'm questioning the idea that He hates me is much closer to the idea that He cares about me than I have been at any point since December 2014.

To trust this silent God still seems like insanity. He is so unpredictable and He is so withdrawn and He is so, so quiet. But people, artists even, who have gone before me into this blind trust of the same Being -- people like Terry Taylor or like my program director -- continue to commit their fragile human hearts to Him decade after decade. Is it enough for me to trust their long-term experience of Him as ultimately good and loving and follow their example?

I do not yet have the courage to sing every line of this song and mean it. But I appreciate the sentiment -- and I can identify with the struggle in it.

Title: Crushing Hand
Artist: Lost Dogs
Album: Nazarene Crying Towel
Year: 2003
iTunes here; YouTube here.

You know my name, wound me
You know my frame, heal me
You lay Your crushing hand
Your mighty hand
On me gently

Do what You must and save me
I'm in the dust, now raise me
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief...

Acoustic guitar with heartfelt poetry and the harmonies of Terry Scott Taylor and Derri Daugherty (of The Choir). What's not to like?

Music Day - Morningstar

One of my favourite Terry Scott Taylor lyrics EVER is Daniel Amos' song When Worlds Collide. It's a beautiful lyric, from the perspective of God to those He loves. This is a notoriously difficult angle to write from -- so rife with potential pitfalls that most songwriters rarely attempt it and those who do usually make it so contrived it's unlistenable. Terry Taylor, however, is 1. not out to write a Number One hit, and 2. a thinking man -- which in this case translates into 'fantastic songwriter' -- and as a result his take on it is probably the closest one out there to how it actually is.

Not long after that song appeared on DA's Vox Humana album in 1984, Terry Taylor produced an album for a little band called D.O.X. that made two albums and disappeared. Even though he only wrote two of the songs on it (the band took care of the rest), his influence is ALL OVER that album. I keep thinking it's a lost DA record (compare with DA's Fearful Symmetry album from the same year). You can even hear Terry Taylor, Rob Watson (DA keyboardist), and Tim Chandler (DA bassist) in the background vocals in some of the songs. This influence extends to the songwriting of Mark de la Bretonne (D.O.X. frontman), and nowhere is this more evident than in the album closer, Morningstar.

Title: Morningstar
Artist: D.O.X.
Album: D.O.X. (Defenders Of The Cross)
Year: 1986
iTunes here; YouTube here.

The song opens with a brief but crisp description of loneliness and twisted love in the big city, enough to paint a picture of a heart's desolation. And then it segues into what is clearly the voice of God, pining over an unrequited love (hint: that's all humans), much in the style of the aforementioned When Worlds Collide (though admittedly, Morningstar is not as tender -- I mean, it has rock guitars).

The real payoff here is in the final minute of the song, when some genius (who, I suspect, bears the initials T.S.T. but I could be wrong) decided to layer bits of the first verse with the chorus and the result is heart-wrenching. It stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it.

Sit down. Close your eyes. Breathe. Listen.

I walk the streets alone
I call your name...

Music Day - Father's Arms

Monday night/Tuesday morning I was working and was listening to Daniel Amos to keep me awake. I was just picking songs at random and hit on this one that I'd apparently played exactly twice before. (Just for comparison, the entire Vox Humana album sits at about 48 on the iTunes play count -- and that doesn't include playing the CD approximately four thousand times during the summer of 2013.) I didn't know this song well and I wasn't really listening at first, but then the lyrics began to sound familiar...

'And the darkness comes whispering down the halls
And you're a scared little child who dreams he falls...'

How many times have I daydreamed of falling -- falling off the overpass, off a bridge -- over the past two months?

I was listening more closely now, and the song got even more autobiographical:

'You assure them while composure is breaking
And they watch as you run and you hit the wall
Slump to the ground and begin to crawl
To the edge of the cliff where you start your fall...'

Parenthetical paragraph: These lyrics also call to mind another song that would come from Terry Taylor's pen ten years later: Safety Net, from Darn Floor, Big Bite. Specifically this part:
'Down to the black bridge of sighs
She drains her head by the river
Bowed to the father of lies
And hangs on the ledge of forever...'
(End parenthetical paragraph.)

The invitation issued in the chorus, though, still gives me pause -- 'Come fall in your Father's arms...'

Do I trust God even that much anymore? Do I trust Him to catch me as I fall apart, as I fall off the edge of faith, of joy, of everything that was good in my life? The call is so gentle, but still I stiffen and pull away. It's a nice thought, but is it really true? I wish it was, but I honestly don't know. The last couple times I trusted God, He just went ahead and wrecked everything anyway. This invitation here is so sweet and gentle though -- it makes me miss that assurance that He would catch me if I fell.

Now for the arrangement.

First -- those harmonies. DA has always been noted for their harmonies, especially in their early days. They're lovely here in the chorus. That third line where someone (Terry?) takes a higher harmony -- that's my favourite part.

Second, the melody is both beautiful and unique -- classic TST. I love the leap upward it makes at the end of the second line of each verse. I don't think anybody but Terry Taylor would write a melody like that. And I like the slightly-offset rhythm of the 'All right, okay, oh yeah...' line -- gives the song a little bit of verve.

Plus, the strings and piano add a bit of drama and almost-symphonic beauty to the song (particularly in the interlude), while the electric guitar keeps it in rock territory. This song is darn near perfection.

Title: Father's Arms
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Shotgun Angel
Year: 1977
Label: Maranatha! Music
Buy the (deluxe two-disc remastered) album directly from the band here.
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Lyrics here.

Power To The Young

Have you ever noticed that in all those Buzzfeed articles and other assorted Facebook-clogging 'news services' posts, they always emphasize it when someone is young?

'Amazing Six-Year-Old Sings Adele Better Than Adele.'

'Worldwide Ocean Cleanup Project Headed Up By Twenty-One-Year Old.'

'This Kid's Eminem Cover Is The Most Inspiring Thing Ever.'

Why? Why are you only good at something if you're young, if you're a prodigy?

This has been eating away at me for some time now.

See, the thing is: I'm not that old. I'm still in my early twenties. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I have another sixty or so years to go on this planet. So why do I already feel so much like a has-been that I actually have flashes of suicidal thoughts? What in the world would possess an intelligent and fairly skilled college-educated twentysomething with a close family and a good group of friends to even have the passing thought of suicide?

I feel irrelevant. Like I'm too old to be of any use to anybody anymore. I don't want my name on Buzzfeed or any of those other crappy 'news' sites (then there would definitely be some suicidal thoughts going on), but I want to be needed. I want to be able to touch people's lives. But I'm already too old. I expected to feel this way when I'm in my sixties, not my twenties. I literally just got out of school and already I'm useless. I haven't even had a chance to prove myself yet. I have nothing to grow into. My life is already over and I never got the chance to live.

Please... stop perpetuating this culture of 'only the young can be good at anything' and 'only the young are worth our time.' The young haven't had time to develop and perfect their craft and/or skills. The old have been toiling for years and know exactly how to get the results they want -- but they've already been silenced. We as a culture don't give them that chance. They have one shot of shallow brilliance at age seven and then we cast them aside before they get the chance to really grow into their promise. Look at... yes, I'm bringing him into this... Terry Scott Taylor. This man has been a professional songwriter for forty years. That's twice as long as I've even been alive. And while, yes, his early output with Daniel Amos (Horrendous Disc; ¡Alarma! Chronicles) was pretty freaking good (unlike most people's early output), you listen to later albums such as Dig Here Said The Angel (2013), the Swirling Eddies' The Midget, The Speck, And The Molecule (2007), or even MotorCycle (1993), and you can't help but notice a rich maturity pervading the entire project -- in the choice of words, in the choice of topic, in the approach to the arrangements, the musicianship, the vocal development, the crafting of the mood... everything.

Are we really so embroiled in hipster culture that we all want to be the first to discover the next Mozart and therefore are trying to promote younger and younger people in an attempt to say 'I knew of them first'? What does it do to the kids whose skill you're exploiting before it's ripe? What does it do to the older and truly accomplished who are consistently ignored? What does it do to normal twentysomethings like me who already feel like there's nothing left for us to give and so we might as well just give up everything?

Everybody loses.

And maybe this is why art is, in general, in such a deplorable state. There's no maturity, only tricks and explosions. And when art suffers, so does society.

Everybody loses.

Hold On - Courage As A Perfectionist

I'm sitting here stressing out -- again. About my family, about my friends, about my job. Last year was notoriously difficult and while things have leveled out some (the death rate has slowed down if nothing else), there's still plenty to freak out about -- my future. My family's future. The paths my friends are taking. All of those choices that I have to make and that the people around me are making. Now more than ever I understand the sentiment behind Randy Stonehill's classic Stop The World ("stop the world, I want to get off...").

Three years ago -- it seems like this was a completely different person then -- I had a dream and though I knew it would be difficult and I may not succeed, I went after it. The other day I was going through some papers and I found an article I had printed off of the Daniel Amos website because it was so inspiring. Terry Taylor was talking about the high road of artistry, how great art inspires and ennobles... that's who I wanted to be. That's still who I want to be. But now, having faced some of the very worst that the world has to offer (relationally), I despair if I can be that encouragement that I wanted to be. I can't even get myself out of this rut, how in the world can I possibly help anybody else? It's to the point where I'm too afraid to start anything creative. This has stymied all of my artistic output for more or less a year now. And it's the fear of everything -- fear that I won't be able to touch anybody, or be competent in my art, or even be able to pay for my own food and lodging. Probably the only fear that isn't a huge deal is the fear of people not taking me seriously -- I'm used to that, and I've had a while to acquaint myself with the idea that nobody likes an artist as a person.

I can't fix the world. I can't fix the world around me that's falling apart and I hate myself for it.

I'm a perfectionist. I always have been. For years I actually thought it was a good thing -- it was always trumped up as a virtue by the people around me. I nurtured it until I realised it was killing me and then I began to realise (slowly) that there were times I could (and should) loosen my hold on it. And I did -- rather successfully, in fact. Until everybody started dying.

And now it's back. Everything's back. All that self-blame, all the 'what if I had been here instead of there?' 'what if I had done things differently?' 'maybe it's my fault.' They say the greatest art comes from artists who battle the strongest demons of the heart, the mind, and the soul -- I touched on this in Kyrie -- but at what cost? Even the artist in Kyrie committed suicide. I knew the life of an artist was hard, but thought that somehow my love of creating art would pull me through it and help me to process it. Instead, I've become so scared of ruining this life that's already falling apart that I'm avoiding the very thing that, by all accounts, should help me. Isn't this where the greatest art comes from? ...from the depths of despair and anger and fear? Am I missing out on a huge treasure trove of art just beneath the surface?

What courage it must take for the artist to continue to wake up every single morning and commit to creating something even if he feels it will go absolutely nowhere. I know the failed projects are still learning opportunities -- I've experienced this myself. If it wasn't for the gong show that was my tenth NaNoWriMo novel, I wouldn't know what not to do nearly as well as I do now. The novels that came after that novel showed a marked jump up in quality, even for rough drafts. But for the artist to look at the families falling apart around him, to feel the pressure of a life of poverty that isn't always escapable, to see all the darkness consuming those he loves more than his own life, and to still try to capture the glimmer of light that he cannot see but hopes to heaven still exists is perhaps one of the greatest and most Herculean acts of courage a human being can attempt. And right now, I seriously doubt that I have that kind of courage -- the courage that whispers, hold on.

It's not about success. Or even about touching people's souls (yet). It's the courage to wake up every single morning and face a day in which somebody may die. Or leave their spouse. Or get cancer. And still try to create art to encourage people when your own soul despairs of ever being happy again.

Music Day - Tears In Your Eyes

Hold on to your hats, people.

Title: Tears In Your Eyes
Artist: Undercover
Album: Branded
Year: 1986
Label: Broken Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

When I first heard this song, I didn't breathe for the entire duration of the song. It grabs you by the throat, figuratively and almost literally. It's partly because it's just so fast musically, but it's also partly because the vocal is so raw and angry. I didn't want to miss a single word. It's a manic burst of speed metal that barely makes the two-minute mark but doesn't feel that short because it's so full of sheer passion... full of love and the passion of a broken heart.

In terms of vocal delivery, the inflections remind me of ¡Alarma!-era Terry Scott Taylor of Daniel Amos (specifically this song's 'Don't say you never knew / You knew exactly what to do' with 'Dead the innocent / Gone the hour / He needs you now...' from DA's Youth With A Machine or 'Please sit up straight at the table / And eat your words' from DA's Memory Lane).

How many times will you shut the door?
How many times must I be ignored?
How many times? again I try
How many times will I get no reply?

Music Day - Darn Floor, Big Bite

Originally written January 2014.


I got Darn Floor - Big Bite for Christmas [2013]. I'm falling in love with this band all over again.

I've wanted this album for a while. As soon as you begin to integrate yourself into the DA fanbase, you hear nothing except how good this album is. Even the gorgeous Dig Here Said The Angel couldn't top it for a good cross-section of the fans.

The CD is available on their website, but due to the fact that I bought Dig Here three times (digital, CD, and vinyl) (the vinyl arrived the day before New Year's and HOLY DEUCE it is beautiful), plus the ¡Alarma! reissue, I had no money left for DFBB. I was okay with waiting, but until I did get the CD, I took a vow of Darn Floor celibacy.

See, when I first ordered the Vox Humana CD, I totally overdosed on Travelog, William Blake, and (It's The Eighties, So Where's Our) Rocket Packs on YouTube while waiting for it to arrive. When it finally did arrive, listening to it was sort of anticlimactic. Not because it's not a good album (I think I actually listen to Vox Humana the most, overall), but because I already knew what was coming. So I didn't want to ruin the album that so many called DA's masterpiece before I could actually listen to it all at once at my leisure (the same way I first got to experience the masterpiece that is Dig Here). So I didn't listen to any of the songs on YouTube, I didn't preview them on iTunes, I didn't read the lyrics on the Daniel Amos website. I wanted to know nothing about the album until I had it in my hands... whenever that might be.

Naturally, DFBB was at the top of my Christmas wish list (literally), and since I'm basically impossible to buy for, my family sticks pretty darn closely to that list. It wasn't too much of a surprise to unwrap that one. And there was much rejoicing (and answering of the question, "Darn Floor, Big Bite? What the heck kind of album title is that?").

I will restrain myself from fangirling over the entire album here (oh, but am I ever tempted...). Today I'll stick to one song -- the title track.

I have a question about this song: how was this not a monster hit? It is infectious, catchy, fun to listen to, catchy, deep, poetic, catchy, intense, and heck, it would even be a great karaoke song. Did I mention it's catchy? You can't not bop your head to this. Seriously, I'll listen to this once in the morning after breakfast and I'll be dancing to the darn thing all day long. It's great.

It starts out with an irresistible bass/drum rhythm. Baptists, turn away, for the beat menace has come to vex your soul. You will dance to this, whether you like it or not. (This is church-ese for 'This song grooves like a boss.') I love the swagger in Terry Taylor's vocal here, especially how it later gives way to questioning -- without losing the swagger.

I also like the lyrical structure of the song, especially that doubtful repetition of every third line of the verses: Do I know You now? Do I know You now?... Will You save me now? Will You save me now?... Could have been a dream; Could have been a dream...

The musical structure is amazing too. It starts with the bass groove and the drums, then for the pre-chorus, the rhythm changes into a rolling, warbling guitar line before stripping the sound back to drums and bass for the chorus. At the end, after the final chorus when Terry's repeating No I can't get it right... they start into a good old classic rock thing (complete with cymbals), then it concludes with a deep graceful bow.

Fantastic stuff. If you don't listen to anything else I feature on Music Day, listen to this one.

Title: Darn Floor - Big Bite
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Darn Floor - Big Bite
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Buy the deluxe two-disc edition of the album directly from the band here. (You won't regret it, I promise.)

Also, for those not familiar with Daniel Amos lore: The 'darn floor - big bite' theme of both this song and the album came from the story of Koko the gorilla, who, when asked to describe an earthquake, signed 'Darn floor. Big bite.' Inspired by this story, Daniel Amos/Terry Scott Taylor spent the entire DFBB album exploring the analogy of humans in Koko's place, trying to describe God with mere [sign] language. The results are quite stunning. The poetic value (of the lyrics) alone is breath-taking.

You touch my hair and cheek sometimes
Feel in yourself this flesh and blood
My poor flesh and blood...
I think I met an angel once
But I can't really know for sure
Do I know you now
Do I know you now?

Music Day - One More Time

Three deaths in three months. I don't even know what to think anymore.

Title: One More Time
Artist: Terry Scott Taylor
Album: Knowledge & Innocence
Year: 1986
iTunes here; YouTube here.
(Typical iTunes: the song is mislabeled. The song labeled A Briefing For An Ascent is actually this one. The song labeled One More Time is actually A Briefing... Both are good though.)

Music Day - Writer's Block

Before the triumphant Kickstarter project...

Before the long-awaited reunion of the band that wouldn't go away...

Before Dig Here Said The Angel...

...there was Writer's Block.

Even when Dig Here was first released, many (myself included) noted similarities between that project's sweeping, moody title track and this piece of brooding atmospheric goodness tucked away on Daniel Amos frontman Terry Scott Taylor's 1998 solo project.

The most striking similarity is the bass intro. Thick and moody. String arrangements lend a stately grace to both songs. Booming drums lend some solid ground even among the swirling low-end instrumentation.

Personally I like the lyrical theme in Writer's Block. The song seems to ruminate on a general feeling of helplessness in the background of day-to-day living despite having learnt how to 'work the system' a little (I've made an art of clever demonstrations... But can't exchange it for my occupation as a fallen cleric, chief of sinners, poor in spirit...). It's a general cry for grace. And, like most of Terry Taylor's output, I like the imagery in the lyrics: I paint a thousand pictures here... On the inside of my skull... Sometimes I crack it open... Though my instruments are dull... In the bridge you get a sense for just how skilled a vocalist Terry is, when he goes from near-guttural screaming to nailing a decently high note without so much as a breath between. Not bad for a guy who was in his mid-to-late forties at the time.

Title: Writer's Block
Artist: Terry Scott Taylor
Album: John Wayne
Year: 1998
Label: KMG Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Sweeping, rich, deep, and of course, honest. It's everything you could really ask for in a song.