Jason has been a lifeline to me in so many ways. As many pastors know, life and ministry in a church context can be an isolating experience. There was a point several years ago when I felt adrift for a number of reasons. I felt compelled to reach out to Jason because I had read about the intentional community he led here in San Diego and was drawn to our common love of DIY punk and hardcore. I still remember fondly the first lunch we shared at Sipz (yes, with a “z”!). Finding a kindred spirit — in life, ministry, and music — made all the difference for me.
Speaking of kindred spirits, if you listen to this first episode, you will hear a moment of what I can only describe as profound serendipity when my new friend Adam and I connect over our mutual love for Seam. This blog, and pretty much all of my social accounts, are named after an album by Seam called Headsparks. So, when I found out that Adam used to run Seam’s MySpace page, this basically confirmed our music-nerd-best-friend status!
Check out the playlist we curated for this first episode:
Come join us on our Facebook page as we build a community celebrating punk, hardcore, and new faith communities! We’d love to hear from you.
With a name like “Destroy This Place” and sporting a font in the title sequence that might feel at home on an Earache Records album cover, no one would blame you for being ready to toss up some metal hornz as you queued up this track, Graves.
Don’t let the font fool you, though, friends.
This is 90s Chapel Hill indie rawk bliss, taking the torch from Superchunk (not Torche).
An already wonderful Beirut song beautifully reimagined by Kishi Bashi for a string quartet.
Songs that speak this deeply to me inevitably turn my thoughts toward the music of our worship as followers of Jesus. We don’t need soaring chorus/delay-soaked electric guitars to create anthems of longing, beauty, and connection (although I’m certainly not opposed to tipping our hats to The Edge’s guitar electronic-wizardry).
Also makes me think I should’ve stuck with violin past middle school.
Clearly, blogging has not been a favorite of mine this year (although I should resolve to commit myself to more regular writing in the new year. I need to take a Buddy the Elf kind of approach to blogging: I just like to blog. Blogging’s my favorite.)
While this was a bad year for apocalyptic predictions, it was a good year for movie explosions. And my enjoyment of films is almost always directly proportional to the number of onscreen pyrotechnics. Three cheers for The Avengers, Looper, and The Dark Knight Rises. I greatly enjoyed watching Wreck-It Ralph with my family, and trying to explain all of the old-school gaming references to my daughter.
2012 was also a good year for old guys getting the band back together for the purpose of melting faces.
I missed Refused the first time around back in the late 90s, but managed to catch them twice this year. I even managed to keep both my contact lenses in for the second show! Their genuine gratitude at being given a second chance to perform and their energetic approach to playing reminded me why I love punk rock.
Quicksand played a short, but mean set at the FYF Fest — it was worth kicking around in the dust to catch them (I’m really stoked to see them again in January!).
And, while it wasn’t the Drive Like Jehureunion show I’ve been pining away for, I was blown away by SD’s own Hot Snakes at the Casbah. It took two drummers to maintain the intensity of their barn-burning punk set.
Not all my live music events were reunions shows, though. There was also the Christmas Unicorn:
. . . . .
And now, a few of my favorite albums released in 2012, alphabetically:
151a, by 
Bloom, by 
Swing Lo Magellan, by 
Shields, by 
S/T, by 
My Head is an Animal, by 
Wrecking Ball, by 
Silver & Gold, by 
headsparks* 