Staying Alive (So Far)

I was hoping to post something, anything noteworthy to reassure (?) you all that I haven't died yet, however, nothing much has happened. We are both still sick. I have missed church two weeks in a row and today was my first attempt at going back to work since the Saturday before Easter... and I am paying for the effort dearly. I have not had to go back to the hospital, but this past Friday was the first day I didn't need my rescue inhaler at least once. We are both still coughing quite a bit.

 

The only thing that has really happened is on Saturday a friend and I drove to the nearest city to wait in line for Record Store Day -- my first ever. I wasn't really interested in any of the official RSD releases, but I'm always down for the opportunity to go to a record store. We had planned this months in advance, and it turned out to be my first real excursion since my asthma attack on the 7th.

 

I left with four vinyl albums and nine CDs (plus a tenth CD that my brother wanted). None of it was stuff I had been looking for for decades or anything, but I knocked a couple of songs off my iTunes wishlist and got some 'starter' albums for the Beach Boys and the Supremes (both artists I have long been interested in learning more about but never pursued). I also added to my late '90s/early 2000s dancepop collection.

 

Also on the music front, I've also lately discovered the wonders of the Internet Archive and been using it to find new music to love. I found some '80s/'90s Japanese jazz fusion and a treasure trove of Christian alternative and rock albums that have been on my wish list for DECADES but remain elusive even on Discogs.

 

I've been going through the to-listen pile as well. Even though my music habit slowed a LOT during the years I worked in fast food, apparently I managed to accumulate a few titles from the local thrift store that went straight into the box with the other records and never actually got played (some of them were still in the original shopping bags with the receipts). So far I've imported heavy hitters like Servant's Light Maneuvers (can't believe I've been sleeping on this album for five years -- this one was an immediate favourite), Paul Clark's Aim For The Heart (which is perfect for my recent love of early '90s jazz and weather channel vapourwave), Leon Patillo's Dance Children Dance, and David Edward's Get The Picture from this 'source.'

 

I haven't 'synced up' my computers yet with all the new music, but my guess is I'm closing in on the 6800-song mark.

What I mean by 'synced up:' I import CDs and vinyl directly onto the MacBook Pro, which has a CD drive and Audacity but is too old for internet; and I download new iTunes Store/Bandcamp purchases onto the MacBook Air, then use an external drive to manually shuttle music and album artwork between the two.

 

I have a Smart Playlist on each computer called 'Updates,' and it's set to include all songs added after a certain date. Whenever I want to 'sync up' my music library, I start by going through that playlist on one of the computers and adding those tracks to the external drive. Then I go to the other computer and copy over the tracks from the first computer, then copy new tracks from the second computer onto the external drive using the playlist. Then I go back to the first computer and add the new tracks from the second one, referencing the Update playlists on each computer to ensure I've got all the tracks. Once I've got all the new tracks on both computers, I change the date on both Update playlists to that date, so all new music added after that goes on the playlists until I start the process over again.

 

It's a bit complicated and time-consuming, but to me it is absolutely worth it to keep things organized and to ensure that all my music is readily available on both my main devices. Mirroring my music library in this way also ensures that 1. I have downloaded copies of all my music, they're not just on some cloud somewhere where they could be deleted at any moment, and 2. I have a full, up-to-date backup of my music library in three places: the Pro, the Air, and the external drive itself. I have heard far too many horror stories of people losing decades of rare music to drive failure.

 

I've also been reading quite a bit, since my lungs are too easily exhausted to do much else. I dug back through my childhood and read some old obscure mysteries that I used to borrow from the library all the time as a kid. It's been a very enjoyable experience so far.

 

I don't know how to wrap up this post. My ear is killing me and so is my throat. No amount of tea is helping. I'm just so tired of being sick. But so far I am breathing okay.

Music Day - A Song In The Night

I'm surprised I haven't featured this one.

Silverwind was, vocally, the 'Christian' equivalent of ABBA, and I loved both equally. There's not a lot of call for soprano voices in CCM, and from the day I first heard this album I was enraptured by Betsy Hernandez's pure, clear voice (come to think of it, those are also the same vocal qualities Rick Florian has). My short-lived desire to be a singer was born then, listening to my dad's vinyl copy of the album I'm about to feature.

For me, this was a slow burner of a song. It was pretty, of course, and I could appreciate the lyrics even then, but I liked Forgiven better (ironically the one song on the album that didn't heavily feature Hernandez's fairy-like soprano voice). It was around 2016 when this song sprang into my mind out of nowhere and I spent the next eight hours choreographing the entire thing start-to-finish from scratch. I had never even thought about choreographing it (there were too many Daniel Amos songs ahead of it in the queue), but suddenly I saw the entire thing in my head, fully formed, and it was all I could do to write it all down before it was gone. It was one of maybe two dances I've made that I would suspect were divinely inspired. There were seventeen dancers, angels flooding the stage. I'm not normally one for angels, but that was what the piece demanded so that was what I wrote. This is probably one of the ones I would most like to see on stage before I die.

The song itself is written as a lullaby -- a rather more lush and fleshed-out lullaby (the song clocks in at nearly four a and half minutes long). It includes not only Silverwind's signature harmonies, but also a child choir. If you can tune out the oom-pah-pah-like bass line (I promise, it is literally the only kitschy part of the song), you will find a beautiful bed of piano work (I wish I knew who played piano on this so I can buy everything they ever played on), accentuated by some light synth touches.

There are several highlight moments here. The first is the second chorus. The first chorus features only the children singing the melody in unison on la la la, accompanied only by a gentle rhythm section. The first and second verses are lovely and touching but not overly arresting -- painting a picture of a frightened child singing a simple song to beat back the terrors of the night -- but after the second verse there's a short but hard stop and Betsy's voice, nearly a cappella, puts words to the melody that the children sang earlier.

Take me soon, O morning star

To the heavens where you are

Sailing on a silver wind

Take me where my dreams begin...

In recent years, I've begun to imagine singing this to any future children I might have. It's the only time I have ever really pictured having a child of my (our) own. But the angel theme that I suddenly associated with the song in 2016 is a hard one to break. It does make sense -- in 2016, I was still very much grieving the losses (read: deaths) that happened in 2015, including the death of my cousin at nine years old. And in the past year or two especially, I have developed a very intense longing for 'home' -- the heavens, beyond the stars, beyond the wall of sleep. It's much deeper than the suicidal urges I've fought off and on through the years. This is a pervasive longing -- not to die, necessarily, but to go to the place where things are Good. The words take me, morning star / To the heavens where you are (as it is sung later in the song) sometimes fill me with so much longing to go there that it brings me to tears. This song is a lullaby, but a very emotionally intense one, one with the aura of death.

The second major highlight moment is where is seems the song comes to an end. At this point, it's been a lovely but mellow lullaby. It slows to an ending with a repeated line and a cadence... then the piano surges into the space and a triumphant trumpet kicks off a repeat of the chorus...

The third highlight is after this repeat. The chorus is repeated again, but with the children singing a counterpoint line -- which is something you literally NEVER, EVER hear in CCM (yes, DA did it in Horrendous Disc, the song, a couple years earlier, but by then they were in the process of being relegated to the 'probably heresy' section in Christian music stores). It is absolutely otherworldly.

Title: A Song In The Night

Artist: Silverwind

Album: A Song In The Night

Year: 1982

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Shadows fade and then disappear

When voices rise up sweet and clear...

Music Day - Tourist Trap

I recently acquired this album on vinyl. I already have it on CD/my iTunes, but this is one of my top five favourite albums of all time and I wanted it on vinyl.

For context, this is a space-age concept album, born out of the 'not of this world' school of thought that you find in the Bible (referring to the people of God whose home is not on earth, but in the kingdom of God). This is a theme also used by Larry Norman in his Only Visiting This Planet album (1972) and Petra's 1983 song Not Of This World, although in my completely biased opinion Crumbächer gave it the most thorough and relatable treatment.

Until I listened to the vinyl and read the enclosed lyric sheet, most of the lyrics of this song had eluded me. I had gotten the general idea of it -- that this was a song about how alluring fallen-earth society can be and how easy it is to get comfortable and to lose sight of the fact that this is not our home. But on the day I listened to this vinyl, lyric sheet in hand, I was not in a great headspace and I was starting to ruminate on suicide again (I say this casually only because it's such a common occurrence).

This song had never been a favourite of mine (that was an honour given to tracks like Royal Command Performance, Interstellar Satellite, and Solo Flight) -- until that day when nearly every single line leapt through the stylus and struck me, particularly this one:

When the pressure drives I want to stall

It would be so easy after all...

It would be so easy. At the time I was exhausted -- physically, mentally, emotionally. The thought of waking up every single morning for the next sixty years and fighting literally non-stop with the demon in my head when I was already so deeply depleted at such a (relatively) young age was more than I could stand. All I wanted was to stop fighting. I just wanted a break. I just wanted to breathe without something telling me I couldn't or that I wasn't working hard enough or that I wasn't good enough. The song's opening lines capture it so perfectly: [W]hen every day's a constant uphill climb / They say the joy of living can get lost within the bittersweet of time...

In spite of that, the chorus continues:
So I sally forth, try, try again
Passing up a 'last chance' now and then...

I couldn't feel the same determination that Stephen and Co. feel in this song within myself, but I caught enough of theirs that it inspired me to keep going, just one more day.

Title: Tourist Trap

Artist: Crumbächer

Album: Escape From The Fallen Planet

Year: 1986

Label: Frontline Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Musically, I think my favourite moment is the key change after the guitar solo (I'm always a sucker for a key change). Other highlights include Crumbächer's trademark harmonies and of course plenty of space-age keyboards. There's a nice little guitar solo in here too (a rarity in early Crumbächer, but I think it gives the song added weight and substance).

What is Good?

The last two days have been full of despair and fear. I have exactly $20 cash to my name. One of my most promising opportunities for the summer may not even happen -- leaving me very much in the lurch and forcing me to make long-term decisions sooner than I anticipated. And overall I've been feeling very alone. I just want to spend time with someone, but it seems everyone's busy. And this makes me frustrated because I feel guilty for needing so much people-time.

I was reading over the last few posts on this blog the other day and I realised that it's been pretty depressing here as of late. I want to do a 'good' post, a sort of hopeful post, but I didn't know how or what about. So I'm just going to bullet-point it.

- This past week I've finally started work on Kyrie again. I'm truly loving writing this story right now. I'm trying not to think too much about how many plot holes and loose ends there still are and how many characters are severely underdeveloped.

- Peanut butter banana smoothies. Some days this is literally the only thing that makes me happy.

- I recently obtained a copy of Crumbächer's incredible album Escape From The Fallen Planet on vinyl. This is one of my top five favourite albums of all time, and I've wanted it on vinyl for several years. I finally got a chance to listen to it today, while reading the lyric sheet.
I've known and loved this album (on CD) for years now. It was one of only three albums that I could stand to hear for about six months following my cousin's sudden death, so I played it a LOT. But there were always a few lyrics that eluded me, and now, reading them in full, soaking in the rich, full sound of the vinyl, I discovered (as I had rather hoped) another layer of conceptual and sonic depth to this album. This is what I love in good music. This is what I look for -- I look for the music that will give me new things for years and years to come, no matter how many times I play it.

- My mom and my brother came to visit for a few days. It was nice to walk around campus actually talking to someone rather than wandering about all by myself.

- On Friday one of my friends came up and gave me a hug.

- Michael W. Smith's '80s output. (i 2 (EYE) and The Big Picture.) Also the Imperials' ...This Year's Model.

Analog Media

Anyone who knows me (or has had the greater misfortune of actually living with me), knows I take in and use a LOT of analog media. Vinyl, cassettes, 35mm film cameras (and prints), physical books, pen and paper, journals, old PCs... entering my room is like entering a time warp (the lava lamp next to the high-end laptop doesn't help). (We should all count our blessings that I haven't yet fulfilled my dream of owning a Sega Genesis or a Pac-Man arcade console.)

On a recent trip to the city (during which I picked up my film prints from the lab, looked through some vinyl, bought a book -- it would have been two if I'd had the funds; and shot a bunch of film), I began to realise that the reason I purchase/collect/use SO MUCH physical analog media is because it will always be there for me, in ways people never are. You can pull out your favourite photograph at 3am and look at it and escape into the better world, however briefly. You can spin your favourite album at 11pm and as long as you wear headphones nobody gets upset and the poetry will still understand what your own soul struggles to comprehend. If you're alone for the tenth straight day you can sit and read your favourite book and have a companion in Lord Peter Wimsey. Analog media is there when people refuse to be or at the very least cannot be.

Yes, you can accomplish all that on an iPad (books, music, photography, writing, games) and it does take up FAR less space than a vinyl collection and eight camera lenses, but it's not real. You can't touch it, hold it, interact with it on a personal level. It's like playing a synthesizer violin versus playing a real violin. It's the same as texting someone rather than going for dinner with them. Technically, you're talking, but you're not really connecting. Connecting with someone or something is a much more full experience than I think we sometimes want to believe. We have five senses, but most of the time we try to reduce ourselves to one or two.

It's the little physical, in-person things that make analog media a companion on the lonely evenings. It's the feel of dropping the needle in the groove and hearing the soft crackle, watching the cartridge bob up and down. It's feeling the glossy edge of a photo print. It's hearing the spring as the shutter opens and feeling the tug of the film in the sprockets as you throw the advance lever. It's feeling the roughness of the pages as you turn them. It's hearing the soft scrape of the ballpoint on a fresh page in a hardcover notebook and running your fingers over the grooves of the writing on previous pages, watching how your own writing changes from day to day. It's pushing that huge 'Play' button on the cassette player, feeling the resistance of it as you push the entire playhead mechanism into motion. I haven't even talked about the smell of vinyl, and books (new and old), and the cassette booklet, and fresh ink on paper.

One of my favourite roles I've played is the Man in Chair from The Drowsy Chaperone, and that character helps me make my point here. The character is divorced, socially awkward, has some health problems, is a bit of a shut-in. He makes no reference to any friends or acquaintances or even workmates. All he has to console and intellectually stimulate himself is his vinyl collection. This is his escape and his comfort and his window into the world. He doesn't have people around him, so he turns to the next best thing -- vinyl. Vinyl is there for him when nobody in the real world knows he even exists.

How many times do you hear of people with depression or in hard times turning to music, in some form or another, in those times? How many people do you know who binge-watch Netflix? How many people with mental illnesses turn to things like painting or writing, especially during flare-ups? In all fairness I can only speak for myself, but when my depression hits the point (and it has at times) when literally everybody in my entire life gives up on me and outright refuses to interact with me because I'm 'so negative,' you know what? My Electric Eye vinyl still plays. My camera shutter still fires. The book's pages still open. None of these give me crap for not feeling the 'right' emotion at any given moment. They're just there.

I know these deep dark times will recur throughout my life. And I know that 99.9% of the people who say they're going to be there will not be. So I surround myself with analog media as a barricade against my own self-imposed demise.

Media Marathoning

Why are music marathons not a thing? We have Star Wars marathons, Lord Of The Rings marathons, Disney marathons, and heaven knows you can marathon any TV show you can think of (as long as the Netflix gods have deemed it worthy of their endorsement). These are seen as perfectly legitimate ways to either get away from it all (*cough* procrastinate) and recharge by oneself, or to have a party with friends and food and group selfies.

But why don't we do this with music? Why don't we ever invite the gang over to listen to the complete works of Steve Taylor? Why not spend a weekend listening to all of David Meece's albums in chronological order? Why not throw the entire Prodigal box set into the CD player and sit down with a beverage of choice or maybe some popcorn and listen to the whole thing straight through? Why not time travel through DeGarmo & Key's entire career? Why not listen to the complete ¡Alarma! Chronicles or Larry Norman's Trilogy on vinyl, for the heck of it?

Granted, for bands like Petra or Newsboys or the Imperials, this could get a bit long. But it's an idea worth considering.

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.

Record Collector Problems

So for my birthday, my grandmother took me shopping. Most females my age would probably buy clothes and shoes in such a situation, but to me, 'shopping' means 'music.' So on the Monday (freaking holiday Monday -- me and the August long weekend have a hate-hate relationship. Actually, me and long weekends in general have a hate-hate relationship), I hit the vinyl shops (all two of them) and came away with a pretty good haul if I do say so myself.

Some points I would like to make about the excursion:

Do you have any idea how much willpower it takes to leave the second copy of DA's ¡Alarma! at the store? I was seriously tempted to get both copies. Even though they were exactly the same. And I had already bought the first one. And I have the deluxe CD reissue they put out last year (buy it here. It is just as awesome as they say it is).

Found an After The Fire album that I only bought because I vaguely remembered reading about it on the 500 Greatest Albums blog. In fact, I found three copies of this album. Of course I bought the one with the skip in the middle of the best song.

Bought the 1977 Pantano/Salsbury album (entitled Hit The Switch) purely because of the ravings of those over at the Jesus Music forum on Facebook. Completely worth the money. Imagine mixing the songwriting of Prodigal with the playing of early DeGarmo and Key. And a talking guitar that puts the then-future Bon Jovi to shame.

Found the one Margaret Becker album we don't have... for $24.95. This at the shop where I snagged a pristine copy of DA's Horrendous Disc (which is, to my understanding, the most sought-after and hard-to-find DA record) a month ago for ten bucks.

Also saw Stryper's To Hell With The Devil not once, not twice, but three times... in the same store. In three different places.

Was hoping to find some Randy Stonehill -- nothing.

Why do they make the crate units at the shops so darn high? I had to stand on my very tiptoes and lean forward onto the tableau to flip through the records at the very back of each crate. I'm not very heavy, but those things were wobbling.

I realised today, while importing the ATF record and trying to classify the genre of it, that I really only need two genre tags for my iTunes library: Rock and Not Rock.



Also, two big pieces of music news!

1. White Heart is touring... and we have cities! Columbus, Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago -- go buy your tickets now and bring these guys out of retirement! If these shows go well, we may just get another tour in 2015... and maybe they'll venture up to Canada for that one. Also, they've been dropping hints on a new album. They haven't actually come out and said, 'we're making a new album,' but they keep talking about new music coming soon, which is basically (hopefully) the same thing.

2. One of my favourite albums of all time, Daniel Amos' Doppelgänger, is being reissued in a deluxe CD package. This is cause for extreme excitement. No timeline on that yet, but I assume it'll be by the end of the year.

Music Day - Broken Wings

Another album I discovered on the 500 Greatest Albums blog. I had initially bought only one song from iTunes, then found the vinyl in a record shop this summer. But in all the depression and preparation surrounding my then-imminent move to Saskatchewan, I never got to actually listen to it.

About a month ago, I randomly thought of the album again and found the video for this song on YouTube. I had seen it once before, and it had seemed unimpressive to me then. I don't know what changed, but when I watched it this time, it seemed somehow different. Perhaps, because of my restless mental wanderings since starting college, I was better able to understand the melancholy-yet-hopeful thinking, brooding mood the video was trying to convey.

When I came home for Christmas, listening to this album and adding it to my iPod was high on my to-do list. It turns out that the song's music video is not the whole sonic picture. Oh no. They edited out both the musical interlude before the third verse and the soaring melancholy hopeful ending.

I wish I could put words to the ending. There are no words. The words I used at the end of that last paragraph do not convey what it is, it's not even close. But there's nothing closer. You just have to hear it. It's so beautiful... soothing, peaceful. Close your eyes. Fly.

Title: Broken Wings
Artist: Mr. Mister
Album: Welcome To The Real World
Year: 1985
Label: RCA
iTunes here; LP version of the song on YouTube here, official video on YouTube here.

Disconnected

A belated welcome to all the DA fans! (Now that they've probably all read the post, left, and forgotten this blog exists...) Nothing like a little diehard-fan scrutiny to freak me out a bit... seriously though, welcome.
And now for our regularly scheduled post (I heard that snicker)...


The other day, while looking at the window at the rain falling outside, it randomly struck me that I'm almost always filtering my experiences through Facebook.

I don't post every little tiny detail of my life on Facebook ('going to work,' 'eating [insert food here] then going to bed,' etc.), but I do spend a rather disproportionate amount of time thinking about it. In actuality I only post a status three or four times a week (depending what's going on in my life and how much music awesomeness is coming from the DA and White Heart pages), but I tend to look at every experience I have, no matter how mundane or ridiculous or simply beautiful through the lens of 'how would I write this on Facebook?'

Being a writer, a bit of a loner, a perfectionist, and a master of the cynical one-liner (just ask my relatives -- not that regular readers of this blog really need proof), my Facebook posts are very carefully crafted. I have literally spent forty-five minutes reading over and tweaking a single Facebook status at times, replacing one word, then checking for clarity, rhythm, and 'comedic' timing, and making subtle adjustments accordingly. If I spent a quarter of that kind of effort on revising my novels, I would be a bestselling author by now.

I'm not proud of that.

It scared me a little, this realisation that I couldn't remember the last time I experienced anything without starting to plan in my head how I would word the Facebook post about it.

So when I put the advance download of Dig Here Said The Angel on my iPod, I decided to wait before listening to it... it was two o'clock in the morning by then, and I had to be up early the next day. But I was determined to wait. Last time DA released an album I was under ten years old and my only knowledge of Daniel Amos was the image in my memory of the cover art of their self-titled debut. And with a White Heart album still not announced, this was my next best chance to get to hear a record from a band I love for the first time -- at the same time as everybody else. I've always wondered what it would have been like to have heard Doppelgänger for the first time in 1983, when everyone else was also hearing it (and being shocked) for the first time. So too with ¡Alarma! in 1981, and with White Heart's Freedom or Powerhouse in 1989 and 1990.

So I waited until I had a chunk of time where I knew I would be undisturbed.

Since I don't get to listen to amazing albums for the first time often, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. I'm sure many people who were around in the seventies and eighties had a special sort of 'ritual' -- taking the record home from the store, opening it, setting the vinyl on the player for the first time, dropping the needle, and then examining every square centimetre of the artwork or reading the lyrics on the sleeve as they got to hear fantastic music from a pristine yet warm and inviting record.

A download wouldn't have the same visual and tactile experience, but at least I knew the music would be good. So I sat on my bedroom floor (where I always imagine people listening to records for the first time), put in my earbuds, adjusted the volume, and touched the title of the first song.

Within a few seconds, a now-familiar voice envelops me and begins to lead me away, into the world where everything is questioned and yet answered, where melancholy and humour collide.

I found a haystack in a needle
I caught an angel in a lie...

As the album played on, I consciously pushed the thought of reviewing it out of my mind. The blog, Facebook, even future choreography I might get out of this was not important right now. I was to listen to it as a fan, not a critic. I was to listen with the wonder of Lucy first seeing the lamp-post. It would be unfair to try to boil it down in my mind to a crass inadequate review while the album was still trying to show me all the beauty and texture it had to offer. And even though I fully expect to wind up choreographing at least a few of the songs at some point, this was not the time... it was not the time to be microanalysing the movements of the dancers in my head when I was supposed to be letting the music and the songwriting show me what treasures it had to offer even by itself. Imagining dance at this point wouldn't strengthen it, it would only deafen my ears to the music.

It took some conscious effort, but by the end of the second song I had settled in. And I listened to the music for an hour without once thinking of Facebook, and only having to push the blog out of my mind two or three times. I didn't work at imagining dance either, I only allowed myself to see what my subconscious pushed to the forefront. But the majority of my intellectual faculties were focused on the music texturing and the songwriting.

It wasn't until the next day that I realised just how much I had enjoyed that -- that piece of time where I managed to completely forget about the existence of Facebook. It isn't until you taste freedom that you realise how deeply entrenched you are in bondage. Four years I've let this thing -- this elaborate chunk of HTML -- dictate my thought patterns. Why?

I could go onto a psychological exposition on this, but we've all heard it before anyway, and it doesn't really answer anything. All I have is... why? Why do we seem to think it's so essential -- essential enough that we automatically think in Facebook text bites? What kind of creative freedom would we have if distilling our daily 'accomplishments' into a Facebook status that only three people will read wasn't a part of our natural thought process?

Music Day

Just in time for a new year of Music Day posts, I've acquired a considerable amount of music in the past few weeks.

It started with the discovery of classicchristian247.com this past November. Not only have I discovered songs from my childhood that I had previously not known the names of, I have also discovered other music I've come to enjoy. (I would have said 'new music' except it's mostly from the eighties.)

However, the music they play on the station that I tend to like usually exceeds the iTunes Store's repertoire. So I turned to eBay.

In the past month or so, I've rounded out my entire White Heart collection (save Don't Wait For The Movie), gotten that one last Petra album that iTunes steadfastly refuses to carry, and bought at least one album from a flash-in-the-pan because I kept hearing songs from that artist on the radio.

Then, just before Christmas, I stopped at the second-hand store. I needed one last component for my little sister's gift and my mother suggested looking at the second-hand shop.

What I needed conveniently happened to be right next to the music section. So while I waited for my mother to return (she had dropped me off and taken the rattletrap to get groceries), I browsed through the music.

There I found Jars Of Clay's debut album on cassette, plus Steven Curtis Chapman's Signs Of Life, Newsboys' Take Me To Your Leader, and Petra's Petra Praise 2 on CD. All told it was less than five dollars. All of the CDs are in good condition and at least side one of the cassette is good (I haven't gotten around to the second side yet).

For Christmas my parents got me two Newsboys albums I didn't yet have and a friend got me an iTunes gift card, which, when added to the store credit I already had, yielded nearly fifty dollars. I'm still chipping away at that.

And now... I've talked about getting a USB record player for years now. My father has quite a collection of 1980s Christian records, most of which I'd also fallen in love with back when I was four or five years old and he would play DJ in our living room in the evenings, spinning his favourite songs on vinyl and CD for our enjoyment. Even now, hearing the songs he played most often brings me back to those evenings when I would sit by the stereo with him on our brand-new white carpet and look at all the album covers and -- perhaps most importantly -- look for the copyright year of each one (because even back then I was nerdy enough to care about this).

Anyway, back to the story.

So the other day I needed something at the electronics store. My father came with me, saying he wanted to look at something.

We left the store with the cable I needed... plus a shiny new record player. I think it was a purchase for him more than it was for me -- I've never seen him so excited.

Long story short I've spent the better part of the past two or three days importing vinyl. I intend to convert a few of his favourite albums to CD for his birthday next week, but right now I'm high on all his DeGarmo & Key and David Meece albums. (Though I'm sure he would enjoy having those on CD too -- after all, he evidently liked their music if he kept buying their records.)

So today, after much deliberation, I have decided to feature this:

Title: You Are The One
Artist: Keith Green
Album: Songs For The Shepherd
Year: 1982
Label: Pretty Good Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

(Note this is Keith Green, not to be confused with Steve Green (this confused me to no end as a child). Keith Green was the guy with the really thick curly hair who died in a plane crash. Steve Green, as far as I know, is still around (in fact, I think he's still recording).)

When I first heard a Keith Green song, about a year or so ago, I wasn't particularly impressed. I don't remember which song it was, but I remember thinking it was rather boring.

However, after a couple of months of hearing his work on the radio, it's started to grow on me. I think he composed with the piano rather than the guitar, a rarity in Christian music to say the least (David Meece is the only other Christian artist I can think of right this second who also composes on the piano). In fact, I read a review of a Keith Green album once that said simply, 'Keith Green makes the piano keys sing.' The more I listen to his songs, the more I'm inclined to agree. The rock feel of some of his other material (not so much in this song) has a sort of 'class' that isn't easily found elsewhere. I like electric-guitar-based rock as much as the next person, but piano-based rock is a nice burst of fresh air.

Another thing I've grown like about his music is the passion, the love he had for God. You hear it especially in the song I just posted... you can hear the smile in his voice, like he's almost about to laugh just from joy. It's such a simple song, but he has so much fun singing it you can't help singing along.

I was dying
But You gave Your life for me
Oh...

Music Day

Since it's Canada Day and Canada is my native land, I thought it would be appropriate to feature a Canadian artist for this week's music day.

It's been a challenge though... I can only think of two Canadian artists that I like. One of them I'm not really that familiar with, and the other, my favourite, barely makes an appearance on the iTunes Store.

Key word: barely.

I never thought I would say this, but thank goodness for greatest hits albums. I searched this artist on the Store and aside from her (amazing) Christmas album, iTunes also carries one greatest hits album. Unfortunately for me it contains mostly her earlier material and until I get my hands on a decent record player I can't listen to the full versions that we already own of those songs so I don't even know what they're like. There were a couple of songs I do know (from cassettes) but though they're excellent songs, they weren't quite what I had in mind for today's post.

Then, as I was previewing the album to see if I recognised some from the mix tapes my father makes; it came to one song whose title I didn't recognise... but the song I most definitely did.

I don't know if it was mislabeled on the Store (which wouldn't surprise me), or if the artist/label themselves changed the track's name sometime (which isn't likely), but either way I give you:

Title: The World's Last Night (original title; labeled The World's For You on iTunes)

Artist: Connie Scott

Album: Forever Young

Year: 1989

Label: Image 7 Records

It's here on iTunes, and can you believe it's not on YouTube?

This is an amazing song. I know I say that almost every week, but seriously, this time it's true. Connie Scott has a beautiful voice and this song really makes use of it. The children's choir at the end is a nice touch too.

In fact, my plan is that once I've finished the rough-sketch choreography of Michael Card's The Edge, this song is next.