Archives for category: music

Music to Ease the Pain

November 24, 2008 //

… of missing out on free Dr. Pepper, that is.

If you weren’t able to register for your Guns N’ Roses-inspired free Dr. Pepper yesterday — or weren’t able to wait out their overloaded, laggy website — here are some free tracks (of actual good music that didn’t take, like, decades to release!) to ease your 23 flavors-less pain.

The good people of Dischord Records are offering the classic melodic hardcore Egg Hunt 7″ tracks as free digital downloads to everyone who registers for an account there. Yet another reason to support great independent music!

In other 80s news, Stereogum has a couple of clever covers for your downloading happiness, including The Welcome Wagon‘s version of Half a Person by the Smiths and Takka Takka’s take on the Phil Collins epic In the Air Tonight. Did I mention that I went to seminary with Vito Aiuto of The Welcome Wagon?

Also, you can download an Obama-inspired track by none other than the Boss himself (and you don’t even have to make up a fake email address to give to Sony).

You might want to wait before picking up your New Order reissues, though.

Categories freebies, indie, music

Over the Hills and Far Away

November 23, 2008 //

Hillsong United — with their high energy octave-jumping choruses and emo-tinged ballads — dominates much of the modern praise & worship scene. I often find that I like their songs more after the experience of singing them live in the context of a worship gathering — although this is not strictly limited to Hillsong United songs (a prime example: Charlie Hall’s “Sweep Me Away” is literally one chord — with some minor shifts and tons of gagdetry — but is a personal favorite because of a particular worship experience).

This past weekend, I was guest-speaking at a series of gatherings where we sang the Hillsong-penned Saviour King (complete with the Aussie spelling of Saviour!). A key theme for us was the idea that the church is not a building or destination but, as Rob Bell writes in the provactively-titled Jesus Wants to Save Christians, “The church is a people who live a certain way in the world.” The church is not a monument but, rather, a movement. So, this particular lyric from Saviour King was particularly meaningful for me:

Let now your church shine as the bride
That you saw in your heart as you offered up your life
Let now the lost be welcomed home
By the saved and redeemed those adopted as your own

Perhaps it’s a bit of poetic license or holy imagination, but I really like the idea of Jesus picturing us and who we could become in Him as He gave His life away. I’m really drawn to the notion that Jesus not only saves, but He dreams as well.

Categories church, music, worship

David Crowder Must Be Pleased

October 26, 2008 //

…at the news that Dr. Pepper is giving away free soda to everyone in the United States if — if — Guns N’ Roses finally releases Chinese Democracy during 2008 (unless, of course, you are ex-GNR members Slash or Buckethead in which case, no, you may not be a Pepper, too, even if you ask nicely).

Categories freebies, just grinning, music

Music is the Currency of Community

October 24, 2008 //

Earlier this week, I heard one of my personal heroes, Ian Mackaye, deliver a Q+A session at the UCSD campus.

Ian, for the uninitiated, is a pioneering figure in independent music — founding member and singer of seminal punk bands Minor Threat and Fugazi, as well as current singer of The Evens, and one of the co-owners of Dischord Records.

I have never heard Ian in this particular setting, but I knew he was sharp from the in between song banter I’ve heard from him during past Fugazi concerts — for example, urging crowd surfers to do something truly radical and, instead of crushing the fans up in the front, to try getting passed to the back of the audience instead.

On this particular evening, Ian showed up without an agenda — he opened up the floor to any and all questions the audience had. Questions ranged from the silly (“Who would win in a potato sack race between you and Henry Rollins?” — which, by the way, Rollins would probably win; clearly, the man does many push-ups) to the political (e.g., the current election, war, etc.) and, of course, the musical (in case you’re wondering, Ian has been listening to Eddy Current Suppression Ring lately).

Ian is an extremely quotable person, quick on his feet. I love what he said about the significance of music:

Music is the currency of community

Read the rest of this entry »

Categories church, community, faith, indie, music

Is It Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away?

October 14, 2008 //

I still haven’t shaken my bad habit of including snarky tracks in my mixtapes. For example, a killer Poison hit might provide a smirking counterpoint to a bone crushing Coalesce track, or the theme to the A-Team could lighten the mood after some Slint mathiness.

I was just thinking of updating my Muxtape page (finally) and how great it would be to include You’re the Best Around from the OG Karate Kid (by the way, check out this karate monkey — this song is such a versatile soundtrack!).

Unfortunately, when I tried to login to my Muxtape page, this is what I found.

Muxtape’s strengths were its simplicity — both in its aesthetics and its ease of use. However, what I enjoyed most was strolling through the diverse array of music its community hosted. Muxtape acted as a sort of cassette mixtape 2.0:

A physical cassette tape in your hands has such an insistent aesthetic; just holding one makes you want to find a tape player to fulfill its destiny. My goal with Muxtape’s design was to translate some of that tactility into the digital world, to build a context around the music that gave it a little extra spark of life and made the holder anxious to listen.

After lengthy talks with the RIAA and major record labels Muxtape — in its original incarnation — no longer exists. Apparently, they’re reorganizing with a focus on bands, but it kind of seems like this ship has sailed.

Sigh.

So long, Muxtape — we hardly got to know each other.

Tags mixtape

Categories indie, music