Archives for category: music

NYWC 2A: The Story

October 20, 2007 //

I missed the second half of today’s NYWC because our family went up to Disney for their annual Mickey’s Halloween Treat night. If you have the chance to go, it is lots of fun — games, crafts, dancing and, of course, tons of candy. In any case, that’s why these are my reflections from Day 2A at NYWC.

The running theme throughout the convention is “Storyline” and the YS team has done a fantastic job so far in pulling together the idea that we are all part of God’s larger meta-narrative story. I love that in the room where we meet for the general sessions, they have even played with the way we sit — kind of an “in the round” experience. I was half-expecting one of those U2 circular-type stages where Crowder could run a circuit through the crowd :)

For me, Joe Castillo’s artistic presentation of the Creation story was totally new and unexpected. I can be kind of a cultural Philistine when it comes to art, but my heart was definitely moved by his “SandStory” presentation. Joe has a SandStory video clip of the Passion on his site, which will give you an idea of what this was all about. Marquis Laughlin presented a powerful monologue from the book of Revelation — what a voice! If I had a voice like his, I would talk all day long (not that I don’t already!). I love the fact that to kick off the first general session, we were immersed in the beginning and the end, so to speak, of The Story.

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I’m a sucker for old-school punk rock. I grew up skateboarding to Minor Threat and The Pogues, so getting to hear Flatfoot 56 for the first time today at the general session was really nice. I mean, seriously, how can a band with a bagpiper not put a smile on your face? I really appreciated the video clip in which Tic interviewed them and they had a chance to share their heart. They are reaching kids who might feel utterly rejected by the church by literally meeting them where they are — for example, opening for Irish-punk heroes Flogging Molly. I commented to the bagpiper afterward that this probably isn’t their usual crowd, but he smiled and said they knew this wouldn’t necessarily be their typical audience but that they still had lots of fun performing.

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Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil gave a stirring talk which used The Lion King as an extended metaphor for reclaiming our identities as the people of God and our role in pointing youth back to their true heart and calling. It will probably take a couple of days to interpret the scratches and doodles I wrote in the dark in my notebook, but I will share soon about some of the great things Dr. McNeil shared about the global story in which we, and our students, find ourselves.

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As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of the David Crowder*Band. And, from what I could see today, it appears that so are most of the 4000 or so of us gathered here this weekend. From the opening quarter-note hoedown clapping of “Undignified” to the really green keytar and the exhortation that our singing was “pretty” but need to be much louder, it was classic Crowder — which is to say, the man really has a knack for leading groups of people into the presence of God. The Super Mario synth jam and the (somewhat frightening) video of Crowder as Mario were bonuses.

Singing “Remedy” this afternoon was particularly powerful for me. I think people who have criticized the Remedy album for being too simple have missed the point. I think David has always been an incredible lyricist — pushing the boundaries of our imaginations in corporate worship — and his skill has only grown over time. He evokes so much through so few words. Those of us in ministry (or who have suffered through the “sermon that never ends”) know that it is much more difficult to preach a meaningful short message than it is to drone on & on for an hour.

These words came to life as we sang:

Here we are / Here we are

The broken and used / Mistreated, abused

Here we are

Here You are / Here You are

The beautiful one / Who came like a Son

Here You are

So many of us in youth ministry are hurt, wounded and weary. That’s why I appreciated Marko’s words about the “holiness of wasting time” so much. We need to be honest about our brokenness, not hiding it by working even harder. But it’s not just a story of our brokenness; rather, as we view our frailty and limitations, “We lift up our voices / We lift up our hands / To cling to the love that we can’t comprehend.”

Categories asian american, communication, design, faith, indie, music, postmodern, race, reconciliation, youth ministry

NYWC 1: Freebies, Guitar Hero And War-Torn Nations

October 19, 2007 //

I joined the National Youth Workers Convention last night after a full day at church. While having the convention in town means I get to sleep in my own bed, it also means that I’ll be running back & forth from church and and a few other things. So, apologies for a somewhat less-than comprehensive look at NYWC.

A little while back, I had visited the Children’s Pastors’ Conference at the same location (the Town & Country) because my wife was attending. It was at the same location, but right off the bat I could tell that NYWC was going to be different. I’m guessing it was the giant screen Guitar Hero battles being waged in the ballroom hosting the YS store. While I was getting my convention bag, I was wondering why I kept hearing Rage Against The Machine.

Speaking of the bags, YS has done something really incredible. The convention bags come from a company called Freeset, who are “in business for freedom.” Each bag tells this story of freedom in North Calcutta. For 6,000 women, poverty no longer dictates that in order to provide for their children they have no other option but to sell their bodies in prostitution. Now, because they are paid fair wages and work decent hours through Freeset, they can break free from the cycle of degradation and poverty. As their site says, “Freedom has been passed on to the next generation.”

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As I wandered through the massive exhibit hall, I tried to find the fine balance between looking at each booth long enough to figure out if I was interested not looking long enough to make eye contact with the people there in case I wasn’t interested. But, like a good youth pastor, I do love the freebies — and this exhibit hall is a treasure trove of freebies! I gathered a nice water bottle, two t-shirts, a couple of pens, several devotional books and magazines and even a DVD in my first day of hunting-gathering. I’m also entered in several drawings to win an iPod.

An aside: The only time I’ve ever won anything in a contest was in high school. I was listening to the local alternative radio station when a contest in which the tenth caller would win an awesome prize would win. Eagerly, I called into the station. I was surprised when I dialed the phone number and I heard ringing rather than a busy tone, even more surprised when someone answered. Breathless, I asked whether I was the tenth caller. Confused, the DJ asked to which contest I was referring. I explained what I had heard and we put two and two together and realized that I had been listening to a program I had taped (perhaps a primitive form of podcasting?). The DJ got such a kick out of the mixup that, although the original prize had long been claimed, he offered me an alternate prize — an Anthrax VHS cassette. Embarrassment won the day, though, and I never went in to pick up my winnings.

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I had a great conversation with the good people at the Invisible Children booth. Invisible Children began when three college students filmed a documentary giving a glimpse into the horror of the twenty-year Ugandan war, in which children live daily in the real fear of being abducted and forced to fight and kill as part of these warring armies. You can see an Invisible Children clip online here.

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The late evening Worship Together concert featured Matt Maher and Michael Gugnor. While I have seen their names around, I haven’t really had a chance to listen to either one of them. [edit] ~~It seems that Matt Maher’s big hit is his version of Tomlin’s “Your Grace Is Enough.”~~ Matt is best-known for the song he co-wrote with Chris Tomlin, “Your Grace Is Enough”

Before Marko pointed out that Matt was actually the co-author of “Your Grace” and not just someone re-doing the song, I was thinking about the American worship industry’s strange fascination with making big hits out of cover versions of current praise songs — particularly when there is not much substantively different between the versions. Blessed Be Your Name, Here I Am To Worship, Beautiful One and Hang On To You immediately come to mind as recent examples.

The fact that I did not feel a connection with Matt’s songs does not reflect on the level of his performance or execution. His songs are great and he has a nice, clear voice. Rather, I think my heart has been moving in different directions when it comes to worshiping through music. While Matt was leading, I tried to reflect on what songs I do help me worship God. My mind wandered over to Sufjan Stevens’ rendition of the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

So, it was with great pleasure that I received Michael Gugnor Band’s first song which was, of course, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It was nothing like Sufjan’s pared down, intimate take; no, this take featured drum loops, soaring guitars and sweeping synth lines. They took to the stage with passion, and were greeted with folded arms and what appeared to be mostly scowls. I think the youth pastor crowd is pretty tough. In fact, after their concert, I told the band how much I enjoyed their set — but what I really wanted to say was, “Tough crowd, eh?”

But they certainly won me over. I love the fact that they seem to genuinely enjoy playing, and they wore their hearts on their sleeves in worshiping God. On their most recent CD, which I picked up at the merch table afterwards, the track “Fly” features what I imagine must be the only banjo solo meets Queen-referencing harmonized guitar solo in the worship industry. It didn’t hurt their appeal to me that their t-shirt I purchased doesn’t even say their name. It simply reads, “God is green” — incorporating a tree and recycling symbol. Gotta love a worship band that promotes stewardship of the earth!

Categories asian american, church, design, faith, music, worship, youth ministry

As Much To Myself As To You

October 9, 2007 //

Jonah Matranga is one of my favorite artists. His music has been influential on a wide variety of bands. His work in Far showed that it wasn’t a contradiction to bring together heartfelt lyrics and face melting riffs. And before Chris Carrabba was stealing hearts and gracing magazine covers and the Plain White Ts were in heavy rotation on every tween in America’s playlist (you know, the Hey There, Delilah guys?), Jonah’s work as onelinedrawing brought being a singer/songrwriter back into style in indie and punk circles. He has even been featured on a couple of hip hop tracks by Fort Minor and Lupe Fiasco.

While I am a big fan of his music, I appreciate his honesty and humility as a human being. I saw him perform to an audience of about twenty or thirty people last week at the Casbah and he sang with the same sincerity and passion as he does to a packed house of hundreds. Afterward, he manned his own merch table and stayed late into the night to talk with everyone who came. I had emailed Jonah a couple of weeks ago with some questions about his show — and he surprised me with a phone call the day before the concert. Although I was trying hard to hide my enthusiasm and play it cool, Jonah was extremely normal — just a friend reaching out to another friend and connecting. After his performance, we talked a bit about family and he gave me a big hug as I left.

One of the most fun parts of Jonah’s live performance is his wealth of stories. With a big smile, he introduced his cover of the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back as being the roots of “emo” — not Rites of Spring or Fugazi. And before singing his song Tides, he described how a major corporation offered him essentially a hatchback full of cash to use this song in a commercial. In the end, he said, he turned them down — not out of some high and mighty, punk rock ethic — but simply because it didn’t sit right with him. These days, music is commercialized to the point of “indie” music being indistinguishable from mainstream radio in terms of usage in ads and sponsorships.

Jonah made a really good point during his show about the importance of honesty. Some bands “sell out” but experience a kind of cognitive dissonance about it, and so they try to rationalize or explain away what they’ve done. However, wouldn’t we all be better off with a little more honesty? If Apple wants to use your song in an iPod commercial or EA Sports in their next video game franchise — and the prospect of swimming in a vat of the gold dubloons these mega corporations are willing to pay is really attractive to your band — then just be honest about it. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, you don’t have to score scene points with anyone — just do what you do with integrity and honesty.

I think this really hit me hard because I’ve been struggling with my current ministry context. Please don’t misunderstand: this is a good church , I love working with the students here, and our church’s leadership loves the Lord and His people. But I can’t help but feel that I’m not being completely honest to my calling — the thoughts about ecclesiology, mission, creativity, friendship and community that have been brewing inside me for quite some time now. I’m living in that tension, and trying to discern where this road might lead — with as much honesty and truth as I can muster.

I love this line from As Much To Myself As To You by onelinedrawing:

As much to myself as to you
As much a list of questions as
A list of what to do

Mystery, doubt, confusion. This is the mess that so many of us live in — I’m just hoping that it leads somewhere soon.

Categories church, communication, community, faith, indie, ministry, music

Remedy Drops, Asians Rejoice!

October 3, 2007 //

A note of disclosure: I am a big fan of David Crowder’s work. My wife and I once took a couple of college students and drove two and half hours from northern Jersey into the wilderness of Long Island to attend one of his concerts. Like many others, I was thoroughly impressed with their last release A Collision — for its epic scope, indie rock ramblings (and extra long titles!) and for the circumstances under which the album was released (the album as a response to death, just as the band lost their close friend and pastor Kyle Lake).

The highly anticipated follow-up to A Collision (if we skip over B Collision, the ’06 EP of B-sides and other miscellany), Remedy, was released on September 25th. Though I understand the sentiment behind CCM Patrol’s review of Remedy — and I definitely appreciate their honesty (and, often, bluntness) in reviewing much of the music that is released in the Christian market — I was certainly not disappointed with this album.

Reviews are highly subjective. In fact, part of the fun of reading reviews is vehemently disagreeing with them (and later grumbling about what a bunch of cultural Philistines those reviewers are). As Marko wrote in his review of Remedy, when I listen to this album, I picture myself singing this in company of those who love the King (to borrow a Crowder phrase). One of my most powerful times of worship in the context of singing along with other people happened several years back at one of the Thirsty conferences. DC*B was leading their version of Thank You for Hearing Me, and right at the moment in which the distorted guitar kicks in (if you’ve heard the song, you’ll know what I’m talking about), thousands of earnest worshipers lifted their hands in unison. So, you will not read an impartial, detached, “pure” review of the album from me — it is virtually impossible for me to separate the experience of listening to the album from the experience of being there.

One interesting phenomenon surrounding DC*B is their popularity among Asian American youth — Korean American kids, in particular. As Andrew Beaujon writes in his book Body Piercing Saved My Life (which I also recommend), “…for some reason its members don’t fully understand, the David Crowder Band is huge among Korean Americans. They were due to play a large Korean church in New York City a few nights later and had recently played for a mostly Korean crowd of eleven thousand in Los Angeles.”

I actually had a short email correspondence with Crowder, which included a brief discussion of their popularity with Asian American kids. DC*B puts on a high energy show with lots of goofy fun. I was at their concert in LA that Body Piercing mentions, and one of the highlights of the evening was when Crowder broke out his shiny red keytar and challenged the crowd to make a louder noise than the Neil Diamond concert in town. You have to love a worship leader than gets all up in Neil Diamond’s grill. In all seriousness, though, I believe it is precisely this goofiness, freedom and spontaneity that appeals to Asian American youth. At home, for so many Asian American teens, their value is in direct proportion to their performance. There is very little room to make mistakes — after all, Johnny Kim down the street plays first-chair violin, is president of his youth group, and won a governor’s award for academic excellence — and he does everything his mother tells him to do, and he’s waltzing into Harvard a year early… on a full scholarship, no doubt.

So, when Crowder urges these kids to whistle along and get a little undignified as they connect with our God who loves them just as they are, something deep within them responds. Remedy therefore is an appropriate metaphor for our community as well — despite the veneer of perfection and achievement, we are an awful mess on the inside. For too many of us, the internal pressure builds up until it explodes in rage, binge drinking, or worse. What a sight it is when captives are genuinely freed in the presence of the King!

Remedy is definitely simpler in approach than A Collision — no rock operas or postmodern parenthetical asides on this album. However, Crowder continues to write simple lyrics that are deceptive in their depth. Take this beautiful line from their reworking of O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, “There are so few words that never grow old… Jesus.” Or these words, from the title track:

Oh, I can’t comprehend / I can’t take it all in

Never understand / Such perfect love come

For the broken and beat / For the wounded and weak

Oh, come fall at His feet / He’s the remedy

Plus, how can you deny a worship album that features a track with the Nuge himself melting faces with his song-length solo in the background?

Categories asian american, church, hooray!, music, reviews, second-generation, worship, youth ministry

Steal The Blueprints

September 21, 2007 //

Just thought I’d share an excellent song & video from the band +/- (plus minus). This band includes members of Versus, who were part of the original Ear of the Dragon tour back in the day. And, even further back in the day (back in the day-er?), I went to high school with some of the band members. +/- has an indie/electronica vibe but they are no Postal Service knockoff; they’ve been around since 2001. This video won an award at last year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Speaking of which, this year’s SDAFF is coming up in October. Not sure if I can make it, but the film festival schedule looks fantastic. Of particular interest to me are Air Guitar Nation and West 32nd.

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As an aside, I love the +/- website address: plusmin.us — sort of like del.icio.us. I get a kick out of these domain hack web addresses. In addition to the corny humor, sometimes these sites just make sense. For example, whocalled.us is pretty much what it sounds like. According to their site, a person would visit when, “The phone is ringing, and I don’t recognize the number. All Caller ID says is, “NAME UNAVAILABLE”. Please help me figure out who is calling and what they want.”

Categories art, asian american, films, hooray!, indie, music