What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

My friend Karen has a fun discussion on her blog about kids and their career aspirations. Honestly, I don’t think I ever went through a fireman or superhero phase, although for a while I did consider a future in the NBA. The seventeen-inch legs and the inability to soar higher than two inches off the ground derailed my plans. But old dreams die hard. I’m telling you, if it doesn’t require movement, I’m your guy. I may be the greatest one-on-none and H-O-R-S-E player in America.

But here’s what I really wanted to be when I grew up: for as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote after-the-nuclear-holocaust short stories on the playground in third grade. Neighborhood kids would congregate in my garage, and I made up horror stories on the spot (paintings with eyes that moved!). I wrote a poem in sixth grade that was essentially my own eulogy (yes, I was insufferable then, too), in perfect iambic pentameter, even though at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was called. The cognitive dissonance associated with writing iambic pentamenter and, say, making the mortgage payments, never even occurred to me. I just wanted to be a writer.

As I’ve listened to peoples’ stories, I’ve come to find out that just about everybody wanted to be a writer at one point in their lives. Many people still do. It’s one of those professions that has a certain romantic cachet associated with it. There is, for instance, the example of Thomas Wolfe staying up all night and pouring out his soul on the page, running out onto the streets of Baltimore at 4:00 in the morning, pages in hand, shouting “I wrote ten thousand words today!” And there is the example of Jack Kerouac pounding on the typewriter keys as he crossed the country, high on words and America and amphetamines. It turned out that the romanticism wasn’t always the ticket to longevity. Wolfe died at 39, Kerouac at 46. But they went out in a blaze of glory.

Early on the idea of “leaving my mark” also became very important to me. And writers left their marks. You could find those marks in libraries and bookstores. The writers died, but their words lived on, and for a guy who was obsessed with death (note iambic pentameter story above), this sounded appealing. And so I set before myself the modest goal of writing the Great American Novel, a novel that would be so moving and so beautifully written that generations of future romantics and beautiful hippie chick English majors would read my words and swoon. You can’t imagine how much my life was driven by the thought of beautiful, swooning, literate hippie chicks.

And so I became a writer. Kinda. Almost. Okay, I spent 40+ hours every week writing sentences like “The following table shows our current A-B/multivariate testing capabilities as compared to those capabilities needed for market differentiation.” And yeah, nobody was swooning, and it was hard to find beautiful, literate engineers. Still, it was a living, and that seesaw that has romanticism at one end and making a living at the other has been tottering back and forth for decades. I’ve gone back to school a few times since that Creative Writing degree, even though I know for a fact that I had it right the first time. And here’s about the only thing I’ve figured out: it’s a tradeoff. There’s no romantic glory in starving to death and subjecting your family to abject poverty. And the only way to combat the soul-crushing tendencies of corporate America is to do things like write iambic pentameter and to wax rhapsodic about that album that feeds your soul.

More and more, though, I find that I am identifying myself in ways other than “writer.” It’s not that the “writer” tag isn’t important to me. Anyone who knows me knows that’s important to me. But honestly, here’s who I want to be when I grow up: a less selfish jerk, a person capable of caring deeply about others, entering in to their joys and sorrows, a person who is engaged in trying to make the world I live in a better and more just place, and a person who wants to communicate above all to my wife and daughters how much I love them. I will never write the Great American Novel. It’s entirely possible that I will never finish any novel that I start. I’ve got 52+ years of a not-so-great track record. But I will leave a mark. And I will leave it on the people whose lives I encounter. I want the mark to be a good one. No one will swoon. But I hope that it will be a mark characterized by love.

Taking Christ Out of Christianity

From the 3-22-08 Toronto Globe and Mail:

That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country.

But at West Hill on the faith's holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.”

Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity's central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.

Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill's Sunday service liturgy.

I am always amazed by these kinds of churches, not because of the obvious theological issues, but because of why anyone would bother to attend. To that end, I find the pastor's statement to be highly ironic: "I just don't think we can placate those in the pews long enough to transition into a kind of new community that doesn't keep people away."

Keep people away? Why bother attending in the first place? Just stay home and drink Bloody Marys over a late brunch, or head out for a round of golf. Church without God is like an Up with People concert; all feel-good cliches that last only as long as the last note of that "Glorious hope is risen today" chorus. Then it's back to the Kingdom of Me. I honestly can't fathom why people would bother to invest a couple hours of their week in such activities. They can do the Kingdom of Me quite nicely on their own. In fact, it tends to work better that way.

Whatever it is, it's not Christianity. When you remove Christ then you are, by definition, not a Christian church. And yet West Hill United Church retains the form of a Christian church, appropriating old hymns and changing the words to self-help pep talks. Now, there are plenty of people who are not Christians, and who engage in self-help pep talks. And I'm not unsympathetic to these folks. Many of them are my friends. But they don't get up on Sunday mornings and appropriate old hymns. So I'm genuinely curious as to why somebody would give up some sleep on the weekends for such an experience. If I were in their shoes (or slippers), I'd simply opt for more time in the sack.

Collective Mirage

The two-part PBS Frontline series called "Bush's War" ought to be required viewing for every American. Part 1 aired last night. Part 2 airs tonight. If you've been a sentient being over the past five years, you already know much of this history. What is new, and remarkable, is the synthesis of hundreds of hours of videotaped war footage, political speechifying, and behind-the-scenes interviews.

What do we find out?

1. As early as the afternoon of 9/11, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were searching for a pretext to include Iraq in the retaliatory measures surrounding the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
2. If you start with the conclusion, you make the premises fit the conclusion. You will see aluminum tubes, Nigerien yellowcake, and germ warfare wherever you look.

What's fascinating and deeply disturbing here is the phenomenon of the collective mirage. It's impossible to say, really, how much of the mirage was due to a willful twisting of the facts versus, shall we say, merely a creative interpretation of the facts. The key is that the mirage was real. People see funny things in the desert. They always have. They did five years ago. They still do today.

Best Albums of the First Quarter of 2008

These are the albums that have impressed me the most over the first three months of this year. Some of them may not yet be released. Sorry about that. I receive albums months in advance of their release dates, and it’s a thankless task to go back and check on these things. All I know is this is what I’ve heard, and this is what I like. If it’s not out now, it will be out soon. There is no implied order here other than alphabetical.

Marco Benevento – Invisible Baby

An impossible, goofy convergence of jazz, post-rock minimalism, classical wankery, and video arcade game sounds, this is the album to put on for all your friends who think that instrumental music is boring.

T Bone Burnett – Tooth of Crime

T Bone moves forward by going backward. 2006’s The True False Identity was underwhelming, the product of too much vitriol and not enough wit (AKA Steve Earle Syndrome). These older songs from the ‘90s, written to support the Sam Shepard play of the title, are dense, witty, and wonderfully offbeat.

Firewater – The Golden Hour

In which a Nick Cave/Tom Waits acolyte travels to Pakistan, hangs out with the locals, and makes Sufi cabaret punk rock music.

The Fleshtones – Take a Good Look

Garage rock in the noble tradition of ? and the Mysterians, The Standells, and The Animals. No guitar solos. Three chords. Twelve tracks. 30 minutes.

Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

Winner of the prestigious Best Indie Rock Album of the First Quarter of 2008 award, the second effort from the Scots trio is soulful, full of U2-like anthems, and offers creative uses of the work “fuck” on more than half the songs. Who doesn’t love a good midnight organ fight?

Jacob Golden – Revenge Songs

The most conflicted and honest divorce album I’ve heard in years. Golden veers wildly between I wanna kill myself/I wanna kill my baby modes, and his sorrow and anger are tinged with the kind of regret that can only accompany a first-class asshole. “I’ve got no integrity to cling to/I don’t have myself a backup plan,” he sings in an angelic choirboy voice that masks the demons within.

Old 97’s – Blame It On Gravity

After 2004’s subdued Drag It Up, this new one is a fine return to form, and features everything we’ve come to love about the 97’s – Rhett Miller’s smartass, lovelorn songs, and Ken Bethea’s surf guitar king workouts.

Matthew Ryan – Matthew Ryan vs. the Silver State

Matthew Ryan has two moods: sad and angry. Sometimes you get both in the same song. You get more of the same on this album, but with a sympathetic and sloppy band backing him up. And what you end up with is a Replacements album with a very literate singer/songwriter. Nothing against Paul Westerberg, but he never quoted the great World War I soldier/poet Wilfrid Owen.

Son Lux – At War With Walls and Mazes

Oh boy. A capsule summary just will not do. But anybody who combines classical minimalism, Radiohead, hip-hop, techno, opera, and plainsong chant on the same album is almost certainly going where no man has gone before. Recommended for non-Trekkie fans too.

Sun Kil Moon – April

Mark Kozelek can’t write a short song to save his life. As is customary, he divides his long songs between lovely acoustic ruminations and winding, Neil Young-like rockers. He’s excellent at both, and he may have surpassed ‘70s-era Jackson Browne as the King of Literate Mopery on this latest effort.

International Punk

My memories of Cop Shoot Cop (yes, a band, not a badly written newspaper headline) are not positive ones. I recall a couple vocalists who yelped more than sang, a distinct lack of melody, and a series of confrontational songs. White Noise was the name of the album I heard, and that was pretty accurate. One could listen to a jackhammer breaking up the pavement or one could listen to Cop Shoot Cop.

Bassist Todd A., one of the principle yelpers, left the police academy twelve years ago to embark on a relentlessly eclectic exploration of world music. His first solo album under the Firewater moniker, 1996’s Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood, was an immediately breathtaking affair, equal parts Tom Waits seedy cabaret and gypsy wedding party, and predates indie rock’s current obsession with all things Balkan (see Beirut, Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box) by a good decade. Subsequent albums have explored Bollywood, klezmer music, and Big Top circus sounds.

Naturally, Firewater’s new album The Golden Hour (out May 6th on Bloodshot Records) sounds like nothing that has come before it. Newly divorced and disgruntled by George W. Bush’s re-election, Todd left New York in 2005 with a backpack, his laptop, and the clothes on his back. The ensuing three-year hejira/debauch through India, the Punjab, Pakistan, and parts of Afghanistan and Turkey is fully chronicled on the new album. Setting up shop wherever he could find willing musicians, recording at times around tribal campfires, Todd provided the songs and the punk attitude, native musicians provided the accompaniment, and a single microphone and a laptop provided the recording studio. The results are endlessly fascinating and disturbing; a man at the end of his rope, rootless, and without hope, howling at the moon, and leading the locals through a nihilist hoedown. Singing about his divorce and the unraveling of normality, Todd yelps “This is no joke/This is my life.” You tend to believe him. Normal must have been a long time ago. Along the three-year trek he was drugged, beaten, robbed, and almost died of a mysterious intestinal illness “I was forced,” he says, “to end my trip at the Khyber Pass on the Afghan border, due to general ill health and the unnerving likelihood of kidnapping.”

The Golden Hour is not pleasant listening, but it comes close to being essential listening. It’s a superb, disturbing slab of desperation and creativity.

4 X 4

There is a concept that exists in the blog world (and perhaps many other places, although I've primarily encountered it in therapy sessions) called the "meme." When you break it apart it looks like "me" "me." And that's pretty appropriate, because that's what it's about. Michael "tagged" me, which is a fancy way of saying that he wants me to write about my life, and then ask two other people to write about their lives. So I tag Martin and Carol.

Four jobs I’ve had

Busboy -- Holiday Inn, Crete, Illinois -- During high school. This was a relatively fancy Holiday Inn, and I had to wear a bow tie and a gold jacket. I looked like Liberace. My first day on the job I ignited the carpet and burned several square feet by spilling sterno (used to light the bananas in bananas flambe). Amazingly, they didn't fire me.

Business Consulting Salesman -- Oh, the odd career paths trampled by a Creative Writing major. I was out of school. I needed a job. And the George S. May Company offered me a job. I walked into various company headquarters, without an appointment, and asked to speak to the CEO. If I was lucky (about 1 out of every 20 calls) I tried to convince various plumbers and building contractors that my company (with me as a shining representative; will quote poetry upon request) could help them run their business more efficiently. I didn't last long.

Technical Writer -- Well, I guess this is what I've done since 1982, and it's what I do most days 8:00 - 5:00. I've worked in most of the IT organizations of most of the high-tech companies in Columbus, mostly at AT&T Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies, but also at Qwest Communications, J.P. Morgan Chase, Nationwide Insurance, various agencies associated with the State of Ohio, Checkfree Corporation, Symix Systems, and KarlNet, Inc. Yes, I'm a consultant, which means I move around a lot. I've developed websites, and written technical manuals, online help systems, marketing literature, online training courses, standup training courses, newsletters, and speeches for CEOs. And one script for an animated training course featuring a blowhard cartoon character who looked and acted a lot like Dick Cheney. That was a lot of fun.

Music Writer -- Currently for Paste Magazine, All Music Guide, and Christianity Today Magazine. And occasional speaker on music and music criticism at various colleges/universities and arts conferences/festivals.

Four TV shows I’m watching

Umm.

Cleveland Cavaliers basketball.

Cleveland Indians baseball.

Ohio State football.

There's nothing else I watch with any degree of regularity.

Four places I’ve been

Athens, Ohio

Venice, California

Florence, Kentucky

Berlin, Ohio

Four musical artists I’m listening to

Frightened Rabbit -- The Midnight Organ Fight

Matt Beckler -- new and still untitled album

T Bone Burnett -- Tooth of Crime

Old 97's -- Blame It On Gravity

We Call This Friday Good

My childhood memories of Easter are inextricably linked with the Church Services from Hell. Growing up in the Catholic Church, Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday represented the ecclesiastical gauntlet. It took real courage and stamina to make it through four services in four days. The Good Friday service, in particular, was a killer. I write that metaphorically, of course. None of us had spikes through our hands or a spear through our side. But we had to stand and kneel a lot, and Father Soltis would solemnly intone almost three entire chapters from the Book of Matthew chronicling the arrest, crucifixion and death of Jesus. The readings alone took twenty minutes. And this was in the same church where the normal Epistle or Gospel readings consisted of three- or four-verse snippets, little biblical soundbytes to get us through our days.

But there was no way to turn the death of Jesus into a soundbyte. The gospel writers took up about a fifth of their narratives to tell the story, and made a big deal out of it. But other than feeling sad, I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to react. Jesus died, and then three days later he rose from the dead, and that was very cool, and quite unusual, and everybody got to eat chocolate and jellybeans and be happy again.

The cross, for my first twenty years on the planet, was the great mystery of the Christian faith to me. I don’t think I heard a single sermon that explained its relevance to my life. It made me feel very bad for Jesus, who was a good man, and the Son of God, and who could do many things, such as generate a lot of food from a little food, a quality I greatly admired. But the fact that the cross actually had something to do with my life was never explained.

I started to get it as a freshman in college. I wasn’t a Christian then. In fact, in my nineteen-year-old wisdom, and having figured out all the great problems of human existence that had baffled theologians and philosophers for millenia, I wanted to distance myself as far as I could from the superstitious teachings of an outmoded religion. But in an English class I read this:

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
-- T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets

Here was some evidence, albeit in highly poetic and cryptic form, that the cross had something to do with my life. I liked to think of myself as sound and substantial. After all, I had graduated from high school and been on the Honor Roll for four years, and I was well on my way to writing the Great American Novel, after which time untold generations of Americans would honor my memory and speak my name in hushed tones. That was pretty damn substantial.

But there was that business with the ruined millionaire and the dying nurse, those disturbing images of dripping blood and bloody flesh. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. They surely had to do with Satan, and the fallen world in which we live, and the cross, and communion. But they were so striking that I decided to just sit with them for a while, meditate on them, try to puzzle out their meaning to my life. And then there was that reference to being restored. Restored to what? Restored from what?

That was all a long time ago. In the meantime I’ve read a lot about the cross, listened to countless sermons about the cross, at one time puzzled over the Koine Greek in those chapters Father Soltis used to intone back in my childhood, trying to wring out every last nuance of meaning about the cross. Here is what I know: T. S. Eliot got through to me in ways that no church service ever could. I’ve bought into the paternal oversight of the ruined millionaire. I’ve been under the care of the dying nurse. And I am not sound and substantial. Our sickness – my sickness – was killing me. And the cross is the way back to health. And here’s the great irony, one that T.S. Eliot understood quite well himself: to get well, we have to die.

This is the way he concluded his great cycle of poems:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire
-- T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets

Dying is terrifying. Just ask Jesus, who sweated drops of blood thinking about it, and who cried out in agony on the cross. The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as a comforter. But there is another aspect to His work that we rarely think about, and which T.S. Eliot reminds us about. He is a terror. He convicts us that the only escape from the flames of hell are the flames that burn up all our useless striving, arrogance, accomplishments, self-sufficiency, all the shit with which we surround ourselves and insulate ourselves and tell ourselves that we are solid and substantial and good. These are holy flames, but they still burn. They are flames infused by love, but damn, they still burn. This is what the cross means: when I die, I live. It’s the great conundrum of human existence, and it’s a lesson I need to be retaught, day by day, because everything in me screams out for self-preservation, protests my own solidity and substantiality, wants to insist on my own innocence. But I am not. I am guilty. And I am forgiven. This is why the cross is good news. This is why we call this Friday good.

Nelsonville Music and Arts Festival

This will probably only be of interest to people from Ohio, and maybe not even to them, but in this age of three-day music festivals costing hundreds of dollars and attended by hundreds of thousands of fans, it's nice to find an intimate, inexpensive and fun festival. This one is in Nelsonville, Ohio, and takes place May 16th - 18th.

The big names are probably Akron/Family, The Avett Brothers, and Betty LaVette, but a few of my under-the-radar favorites (Southeast Engine, Justin Townes Earle, O Death) will be there as well. Best of all it's forty bucks for the weekend, and you'll be hanging out with a couple thousand people (at most) in Ohio's little Appalachian corner.

Paste Nominated for National Magazine Award

This is an amazing thing, and as cool as it gets in the magazine world. It's the magazine equivalent of being nominated for an Oscar. Congratulations, Pasties.

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THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGAZINE EDITORS
ANNOUNCES 43rd ANNUAL NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARD FINALISTS
* * *
The New Yorker Receives Most “Ellie” Nominations
* * *
Magazine Industry Toasts Best and Brightest
on May 1 at Jazz at Lincoln Center

NEW YORK, NY (March 19, 2008) — Marlene Kahan, Executive Director, American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), today announced the finalists for the43rd annual National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry’s highest honor. Named after the Alexander Calder Stabile “Elephant,” the 2008 “Ellies” represent a record-setting 1,964 entries from 333 print and online magazines. Twenty-five winners will be announced at a gala event on May 1, at New York City’s Jazz at LincolnCenter, Frederick P. Rose Hall.

“Magazines retain their unique appeal even as they traverse platforms to provoke and please today’s most discerning media consumers. The unparalleled mix of immediacy and depth in magazine editorial keeps bringing readers back for more,” said Marlene Kahan, executive director, ASME. “From perennial favorites to unexpected newcomers, this year’s record number of submissions speaks to the exceptional level of quality consistently delivered to our newsstands and mailboxes.”

Two hundred forty industry experts voted on the 2008 finalists, which represent the full spectrum of magazine journalism from politics and science to child-rearing and the arts. Among the emerging themes and statistics from the 2008 nominees:

The awards honor print and online magazines that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative editorial techniques, journalistic enterprise, and imaginative design. Established in 1966, the National Magazine Awards is the preeminent program in the magazine industry to honor editorial excellence. ASME presents the awards program in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Barnes & Noble is the exclusive sponsor of the awards. There will be a reading of winning and finalist articles at a Barnes & Noble location in Manhattan in early May.

GENERAL EXCELLENCE: Recognizes overall excellence in magazines in six circulation categories. The award honors the effectiveness with which writing, reporting, editing and design all come together to command readers’ attention and fulfill the magazine’s unique editorial mission.

Circulation under 100,000
Aperture ● The Georgia Review ● Metropolis ● Print ● The Virginia Quarterly Review

Circulation 100,000 - 250,000
Foreign Policy ● Mother Jones ● Paste ● Philadelphia Magazine ● Radar

Circulation 250,000 - 500,000
Backpacker ● Cookie ● New York Magazine ● W ● Wondertime

Circulation 500,000 – 1,000,000
Budget Travel ● The Economist ● GQ ● National Geographic Adventure ● Wired

Circulation 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
Men’s Health ● The New Yorker ● Play, The New York Times Sports Magazine ●
Popular Mechanics ● Vanity Fair

Circulation over 2,000,000
Glamour ● Martha Stewart Living ● National Geographic ● People ● Time

No Country for Old Magazines

Harp Magazine announced on Monday that their current March/April issue (Dave Grohl for President on the cover) would be their last. This now makes three music magazines (Contemporary Christian Music, No Depression, and Harp) that have folded within the past month. T.S. Eliot was right. April is the cruellest month.

Harp was one of Paste's primary competitors. So am I happy that there's one less competitor out there? Not at all. First, Harp was a fine magazine. Its articles were well written, its scope was eclectic, and its mission was a noble one -- to shine a light on the thousands of worthy musicians and bands who didn't fit within the narrow confines of the Top 40/MTV/American Idol hegemony. The world, in general, is a better place when more people write about these things, not less. Second, a number of talented writers (not to mention the editors) depended on Harp for (at least part of) their livelihoods. I feel bad for them.

Music magazines come and go. The shelf-life (quite literally in this case) is usually a few years. Harp made it for eight, longer than most. But it's bad out there, folks, and right now this is no country for old magazines. It's hard to justify the $20 or $30 per year it might cost to subscribe to a music magazine when it costs $60 every time you fill up your gas tank. So chalk it up to a lousy economy, less disposable income, and the increasing tendency for music fans to check out online vs. print sources for their daily/weekly/monthly musical fixes. R.I.P, Harp. We hardly knew ye.

Searching for the Yarragh

William Butler Yeats, a conflicted soul and superb poet, once wrote about the “yarragh.” For Yeats, the yarragh was a cry of the heart, a haunting and haunted sound that could be found in Celtic (and particularly Irish) song and poetry. It was sorrow and lamentation for what had been lost, and for centuries of foreign oppression. It was anger and self-righteousnessness, a loud and belligerent cry that insisted on the inherent dignity and worth of a people. In short, it was soul, but soul with a particularly nationalistic fervor.

It’s a sound I’ve been seeking out for most of my adult life, ever since I heard Van Morrison sing “Listen to the Lion” for the first time, heard him break free of language altogether and engage in the kind of feral moaning and roaring that was alternately frightening and thrilling. Van has the yarragh, and he can almost always be counted on to let it rip on through once or twice per album. Sadly, his latest album is utterly lacking in anything other than cliches and anemic R&B horn arrangements, so I’ve been forced to do some soul searching in other places.

It should be noted that the stamp of authentic Irishness is not a guarantee of the yarragh. Bono, undoubtedly Irish, doesn’t have the yarragh. Neither do The Chieftains, Ireland’s chief exporter of jigs and reels to the PBS world. Nor should it be all that surprising that the yarragh has occasionally crossed the Irish Sea and taken root in Scotland. In any event, sometimes it can be found in some unlikely places. Here are three artists/bands that have the yarragh. I listened to them all yesterday, nursed my celebratory Guinness, and remembered why St. Patrick was one feisty, soulful missionary.

Damien Dempsey

For my (increasingly inflated) Euros, Damien Dempsey is the best Irish soul singer since Van Morrison, and his last three albums – Seize the Day, Shots, and To Hell or Barbados – have the same vocal voltage as Van at his ‘70s peak. He pushes way over into the red on the yarragh meter. There’s a very Irish thing going on in this music – taking one-syllable words and stretching them out over, say, seventeen notes. That gives the yarragh room to maneuver, and it bursts through in almost every one of Dempsey’s songs. His lyrics and narrative skills alone are enough to recommend this music. But oh, the voice is a force of nature.

Frightened Rabbit

As a poet from the oppressive occupying nation once stated, “What’s in a name?” In the case of Glasgow indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, thankfully not too much. It’s a dreadful moniker for a band, conjuring up images of quivering whiskers and Farmer MacGregor’s garden patch. No matter. The songs on the band’s second album The Midnight Organ Fight (out on Fat Cat Records in mid-April) have the yarragh. “Jesus is a just a Spanish boy’s name,” lead singer Scott Hutchison laments. “How come one man got so much pain?” That’s heading for yarragh territory right there, but Hutchison clinches it with that winsome Scots brogue and an untamed, keening tenor that will make your hair stand on end. Disguised as a typical indie rock band, Frightened Rabbit have more soul than any band I’ve heard recently. I can’t wait to explore their debut album, which I’ve yet to hear.

Sinead O’Connor

Sinead O’Connor’s peripatetic career is a controversial and sometimes sad one, an ongoing chronicle of greatness and missed opportunity. She hasn’t had the yarragh for a while now, and the last sighting was a couple of fleeting glimpses on her massive 1990 hit album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. But oh my God, that debut album The Lion and the Cobra has it in soulful spades. And on songs such as “Mandinka,” “Jerusalem,” and “Troy” she stomps all over her confessional material and does W.B. Yeats proud. It’s an irresisitable combination -- those big doe eyes, that big bald head, and that big, howling, beautiful mess of a voice.

Abba/Music Fatigue/Fuck Bands

That’s Abba. They had an accordion player. I didn’t know they had a drummer, but they did. I guess it makes sense that somebody had to lay down the beats for the dancing queens. He died yesterday, falling through the roof of his greenhouse and slitting his throat on the broken glass. This sounds like a very suspicious way to die (slitting his throat on the broken greenhouse glass? Really?), but that’s what they say.

I am reaching a point where I just don’t care that much about new music. It will pass. It always does. But right now I’m quite weary of reading breathless reports from SXSW about this or that buzz band. You know why? Because it’s all been done before, and I get tired of the artificial hype. Some 1,600 musicians/bands played at SXSW, a few of them well known, but most of them neophytes looking for their big break. Vampire Weekend, the current Big Buzz Band (last month it was Columbus’s own Times New Viking) played at SXSW, and drew lots of attention to themselves. They are, get this, a bunch of preppy students from Columbia University who mix Afro-pop with their indie rock and write songs about Oxford commas and mansard roofs. I don’t mind that they steal from Paul Simon. If you’re going to steal, Graceland is pretty great source material. I just find the relentless hype about the Next New Thing to be really old. One thing for sure: there’s nothing new about Vampire Weekend. Check out the Indestructible Beat of Soweto compilations on Shanachie from the mid- to late-‘80s to hear the people who did it first, and who had more important things on their minds than Oxford commas and mansard roofs.

Two of the big buzz bands have the word “Fuck” in their name: Holy Fuck and Fuck Buttons. I suppose this was inevitable, and probably represents the penultimate way to proclaim one’s independent-thinking, anti-authoritarian stance to the sheeplike indie masses. But I get tired of that, too. And why the hostility toward buttons? Zippers, hell yes. The damn things break, and pretty much ruin your winter parka. Fuck zippers. Fuck ‘em all. I’ll probably feel better tomorrow. But today I think I’ll take a break from music.

Where I'm Not

Here. It's called SXSW, and it's the biggest music/film/arts festival in the world, and it goes on, all over the city of Austin, Texas, throughout this week.

Every year I think I ought to go. 1,600 bands/musicians go. Some 13,000 music industry types go. I've received roughly, oh, 2,000 email messages (I'm not kidding) from various music publicists telling me about their bands who will be performing at SXSW, and where and at what times they will be performing, and inviting me down for free beer and barbeque. Some of them have even sent me the handy badges that I would need to enter their exclusive, industry-only-type tents where various bands play and where they serve the free beer and barbeque.

Now, I like music. A lot. And I suppose you could probably slot "free beer and barbeque" into the "Favorably Disposed Toward" category as well. So SXSW basically strikes me as an opportunity to catch lots of great music with people who love great music, to schmooze, and well, to eat barbeque and drink beer. I can think of worse fates.

But once again I am not there. This is because I have a job in corporate America, which graciously provides me with ten vacation days per year. And this year just about all ten of those vacation days are already slotted for speaking engagements at various music and arts festivals and college campuses.

I'm not complaining. Oh hell, yes I am. I could be on spring break with the music world in Austin, Texas. Instead I'm sitting in my cubicle on the 16th floor, looking out over a city covered by almost two feet of snow, and writing about database capacity planning.

I'll get over it. Even in the midst of my despair, I know that my life isn't so bad. I have, for example, access to free staples, and I don't even need to leave Columbus to get them. Life is great. I'll keep telling myself that.

Short Takes -- Van Morrison, Dub Pistols, The Acorn, Eddie Clearwater

Van Morrison – Keep It Simple

I love Van Morrison. But this is a disaster. Throughout his brilliant career Van has periodically phoned it in. And yes, that’s a bad connection you’re hearing. Consider this one then as a workmanlike but uninspired effort, full of predictable, generic rhymes, tepid R&B horn arrangements, and vocals totally lacking in soul and fire. Van, never known to back away from a headscratcher, offers a song called “That’s Entrainment,” which the dictionary defines as “To carry along (a dissimilar substance, as drops of liquid) during a given process such as evaporation or distillation.” Sounds like the blues to me. This is perhaps Van’s laziest and most confounding album ever.

Dub Pistols – Speakers and Tweeters

The Dub Pistols carry on proudly in the 2-Tone tradition of The Specials and The English Beat, mixing in whipsmart rap and house ingredients with the ska and reggae influences. Specials frontman Terry Hall drops by for a few tracks. There’s a mindblowing cover of Blondie’s “Rapture.” Best of all is the seamless fusion of skittering hip-hop beats, blaring trombones, and Cockney rhymes. Alternately playful, spacy, and pissed off, but always relentlessly danceable (you should watch me try), Speakers and Tweeters is one superb album. It’s been out for a while, but it’s new to me, so consider it an idiosyncratic early contender for Album of the Year.

The Acorn – Glory Hope Mountain

Let’s hear it for the oft-maligned concept album. This one, the debut full-length from Ottawa’s The Acorn, is dedicated to mom, perhaps a first in the annals of alienated indie rock. In this case mom is Gloria Esperanza Montoya (the album title is a rough translation of her name), and lead singer/songwriter Rolf Klausener wants you to know about her and the remarkable life she’s led. Employing a quavery folk tenor, indigenous Honduran instruments, and the occasional post-rock crescendo, Klausener and his bandmates offer a suite of songs about a woman who entered the world as a destitute orphan, endured domestic abuse and grinding poverty, and eventually made the long journey north to Canada. There are sentimental pitfalls galore in this approach, but Klausener mostly avoids them, offering impressionistic outlines rather than straightforward narratives, and keeping the syrupy melodrama to a minimum. It’s an understated love letter, and it’s a beauty.

Eddie Clearwater – West Side Strut

Eddie “The Chief” Clearwater recorded his first tracks as an eleven-year-old in Cincinnati in 1961, so to call him a blues veteran is an understatement. But there’s no coasting here. Possessed of a guitar style that is equally indebted to Buddy Guy and Chuck Berry, Clearwater and his guitar slinger cohorts (Ronnie Baker Brooks, Ronnie’s papa Lonnie) rip through a set of blues standards and a half dozen originals that sound like standards. This is Chicago blues (with some rock ‘n roll blurring of the lines) the way it was always meant to be played, full of raw energy, passion, and stinging guitar leads.

Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame -- Class of 2008

It seemed like a good idea at the time -- enshrine the biggest and best stars of the rock 'n roll era, and give them their own building where fans can come and gape at the very guitar pick Eric Clapton used on "Layla."

Reality has turned out to be a little different. The problem is that the list of the "biggest and best" dried up a long time ago. And so, in a few weeks, we (okay, the shrinking number of people who actually seem to care about these things) will witness the spectacle of Madonna, John Mellencamp, The Ventures, and Leonard Cohen entering the hallowed halls. Let's see:

Madonna -- Possessing dubious musical skills, Madonna flounced her way to the top of the charts via a superb body, provocative panting, and savvy marketing. She also paved the way for artists such as Britney Spears. This is surely worthy of some sort of award. I'm not sure that the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame should be it, though. Maybe a plaque at the Playboy Mansion.

John Mellencamp -- Springsteen Lite for the midwest, Mellenhead had a few feel-good anthems. But that little ditty about Jack and Diane was, in fact, a little ditty, and Mellencamp has alternated between throwaway nostalgia and blowhard political diatribes ever since.

The Ventures -- Nothing like honoring an instrumental surf band 45 years after the fact. "Theme From Hawaii-5-0" was really cool, though.

Leonard Cohen -- Leonard Cohen is most famous for being depressed. He's articulate in his depression, but he can't sing worth shit, and his most famous songs -- "Suzanne," "Bird on a Wire," and "Hallelujah" -- have been made popular (and calling Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" take "popular" is really stretching it) by others.

So those are the big stars. Lesser-known producers and songwriters will also be enshrined.

I'm telling you, it's only a matter of time until REO Speedwagon and Toto have their shining moment in the sun. And when that happens, no one will care. Nor should they.

T Bone

I've been listening to T Bone Burnett and thinking about George W. Bush. I'm doing the former because I need to write about him for Paste. I'm doing the latter because I'm dumbfounded that GWB has vetoed a bill that would have banned waterboarding, a torture technique forbidden under the rules of the Geneva Convention -- rules we enthusiastically adhere to and support in the UN, by the way, unless or until they become a little too morally inconvenient.

At any rate, T Bone apparently thinks about George W. Bush, too. Listening to T Bone's back catalogue, which now stretches back 28 years, it's amazing to hear the consistency in both his music and his lyrics. He's always, always, always been focused on truth and the illusions we are likely to settle for instead. Here is one of his latest songs:

If we were to pass an Eleventh Commandment
In twenty years people would be shocked to learn
That there had once been only ten
And wouldn't care if there had been

It all comes down to a moment of truth
Clock ticking in a soundproof booth
From Corpus Christi to Duluth
From Ghengis Kahn to Babe Ruth

If I could only see through glass
I would know what has come to pass
I wouldn't hurry, but I'd get there fast
What's last is first what's first is last

Every time you feel the shift
You conjure fire in a hieroglyph
When you're out for revenge dig two graves
When you run from the truth it comes in waves

We're marching up to Zion
That beautiful city of God
-- T Bone Burnett, "Every Time I Feel the Shift"

Blizzard!!!!

So we've had sixteen inches of snow here in the past twenty-four hours, with two or three more to go, according to the weather man.

Columbus news stations are in an absolute frenzy. You have to understand that with a normal Columbus snowfall (2 - 3 inches), all the news is given over to worried meteorologists tracking the storm, multiple shots of snowplows plowing the streets, interviews with guys who estimate how much salt the city of Columbus still has in reserve, pictures of cars that have slid off into the ditch, etc. But this is the mother of all winter snow storms. I suspect that reporters will still be filing breathless reports on this in July.

Stuff White People Like

This is the best blog ever. But you really need to read the commentary. As best I can tell, the list is also highly accurate. I appear to like about 90% of the stuff white people like.

Here is an excerpt from the #67 thing white people like: Standing Still at Concerts:

Music is very important to white people. It truly is the soundtrack to their lives, meaning that white people are constantly thinking about what songs would be on the soundtrack for the biopic. The problem is that most of the music that white people like isn’t really dance-friendly. More often the songs are about pain, or love, or breaking up with someone, or not being able to date someone, or death.

So when white people go to concerts at smaller venues, what to do they do? They stand still! This is an important part of white concert going as it enables you to focus on the music, and it will prevent drawing excess attention to you. Remember, at a concert everyone is watching you just waiting for you to try to start dancing. Then they will make fun of you.

The result is Belle and Sebastian concerts that essentially looks more like a disorganized line of people than a music event.

If you find yourself invited to a concert with a white person, do NOT expect to dance. Prepare yourself for three hours of standing reasonably still. It is also advised to get a beer or (if legal) a cigarette so you have something to do with your hands. Although it is acceptable to occasionally raise one hand and point just above the stage.

This is all true.

Aloha

That's the entrance to the Kahiki Supper Club on E. Broad St. in Columbus, sadly gone since 2000. When I was a kid, my parents would occasionally take the family out for dinner to the Kahiki. It was, to put it mildly, a marvelous sensory experience, although very little of that had to do with the food, which was terrible. But the Kahiki was another world right in the heart of central Ohio. There was a tropical rainforest in there, and a waterfall, Ohio farmgirls named Betty wearing grass skirts and leis, weird neon-lit fishes, Tiki torches burning brightly, and alcoholic beverages that bubbled like volcanoes. It was faux Polynesia on the prairie, and as a little kid I thought it was the most exotic place in the world.

I've been thinking about the Kahiki a lot recently. Paste Magazine has asked me to review the 18-album oeuvre of a musician named Arthur Lyman. Arthur, along with Martin Denny and Les Baxter, formed a sort of holy triumvirate of kitsch in the late '50s through the mid-'60s, and his exotic music was the soundtrack to a lot of Space Age Bachelor Pad cocktail parties. He played marimbas and vibraphones, and covered everything from Broadway show tunes to Bob Dylan folk protest songs with a Hawaiian twist. Then there were the parrot and macaw calls in the background.

I will confess that a little bit of this stuff goes a long way, and that nine double-album CDs is a lot to digest. But I'm also looking forward to the experience. I will listen to this music and think not about Hawaii, but about E. Broad St., and the Kahiki, and I will relive a wide-eyed part of my childhood. Aloha.

Bad for America

Here we are in the midst of another fun and frolicsome political campaign in America. And, as part of that campaign, certain well-known radio talk show hosts and religious leaders have urged their followers to vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Because they want to see Hillary win? Of course not. Rather, because they believe that their preferred candidate has a better chance of winning against Hillary Clinton vs. another Democratic candidate (let's call him Barack; hypothetically, of course).

I struggle with this approach. On one hand, this is America. You can vote for whoever you want to vote for. But if, in fact, you support John McCain for president, then shouldn't you be voting for John McCain in the Republican primaries?

What's wrong with trying to sabotage the political process of the other side? Well, try this for starters:

Let's take a hypothetical situation. Let's say John F. Kennedy and John Kerry are both candidates on the Democratic ticket, and that Abraham Lincoln and Bob Dole are both candidates on the Republican ticket. You, as a Republican supporter of Honest Abe, fear John F. Kennedy. He's visionary, he's charismatic, and he just might win if he's the Democratic candidate. So you, as a Republican (or an independent who supports Honest Abe), vote in the primary for John Kerry, figuring that Abe can take Kerry without any problems in the general election in November. Let's assume that the same thing is going on on the Democratic side as well. Most Democrats support John F. Kennedy. He's a strong candidate. But Abraham Lincoln is a formidable opponent as well. So the Democrats all vote as Republicans (or independents) in the primaries for Bob Dole, figuring that JFK can take Dole without any problems in November.And if enough people think and behave as you do, we end up with a general election featuring John Kerry vs. Bob Dole. Who wins? Who cares? America loses. The two best candidates are not running for the highest office in the land.

This is not how the American political process was designed to operate. Our whole political process is intended to work when people vote for other people they want to win. And I would argue that you circumvent that process at every step of the way when you work to ensure that the best (or most formidable, if you'd prefer that) candidates are not represented in the general election. It's bad for America.

Am I off base here? Any thoughts?

Proud Parents, Primaries, and Fox News

Fox News, stodgy bastion of conservatism, is trying to change its image. So they sent a group of young, hip reporters (you know it’s just a façade; they’re all going to vote Republican in November) to a couple campuses in Ohio and Texas yesterday to chat with college students and find out how they voted in the big primaries. And they interviewed my youngest daughter Rachel, live and in person from the campus of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

I may be biased, but I thought Rachel spoke more articulately than the Fox News reporter. The reporter asked questions like, “Are you down with Obama?” Rachel actually responded in respectable English, and addressed specific political issues and why she favors the policies supported by Obama. She is more than “down with Obama.” I was proud of her, and it was fun to see her on the screen.

Alas, it didn’t matter. The Hillary machine rolled on inexorably in Cleveland, as I suspected it would. The old school Democrats control the northeast corner of the state, and always have, and Hillary is nothing if not an old school Democrat. Obama probably never really had much of a chance. And it made me realize, again, how limited our own personal perspectives are. Based on the people I know and hang around with, I would estimate that, oh, about 99.7% (Hi Bryan! It’s good to buck the popular trends!) of them are ardent Obama supporters. It’s apparently a skewed view of reality, which in Ohio roughly translated to 54% for Hillary and 44% for Obama. Still, I’m enjoying the political process in America. What an amazing thing. For the first time in my voting life, I’m actually excited about the prospect of voting for someone rather than simply trying to choose the lesser of two evils. Don’t tell anyone. It probably means the guy I’m down with doesn’t stand a chance.

Elvis Costello -- This Year's Model

My review of the reissue of Elvis Costello's great 1978 album This Year's Model is now up on the Paste Magazine website. You can find it here.

Son Lux -- At War With Walls and Mazes

Son Lux's (Ryan Lott's) debut album At War With Walls and Mazes has just been released. I've written about it here a couple times, and you'll find more of my thoughts in the upcoming issues of Paste Magazine and Christianity Today Magazine. The year is still young, but it will take some sort of miraculous effort to unseat this one as the best album of 2008. Beneath the icy chill is a warm heart, and it's the damndest collection of sounds (classical piano, hip-hop beats, gurgling synths, clattering trains, operatic divas) that you'll ever hear. It's also Exhibit A on how to make an album as a Christian, which is distinctly different from making a Christian album.

My friend Josh Hurst has just written a very fine review, which you'll find here.

And Pitchfork weighs in with a surprisingly positive review as well.

Dennis Wilson -- Pacific Ocean Blue

1978 was a great year for music. Punk had finally filtered down to the mainstream, and the resulting New Wave mashup of snarling attitude and pop hooks actually made it fun to listen to the radio again.

Since 1978 is now officially 30 years ago, and since record labels are fond of releasing 30th Anniversary commemorative box sets and expanded special editions and the like, it's a good time to rediscover some great music you may have missed (potty training was such a drag that year for some of you) the first time around. The recent superb reissues of Nick Lowe's Jesus of Cool and Elvis Costello's This Year's Model would be a great place to start.

But it was a pretty good year for the rock 'n roll dinosaurs, too. That fellow above is Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boy Wilson brother you probably don't know much about. Brian wrote and sang most of the great songs, Carl played great Chuck Berry guitar licks and wrote and sang. Dennis? Well, Dennis played the drums. Badly. Although he toured with the band, session drummers usually replaced him in the studio. And since his gruff and ragged voice was closer to Tom Waits than The Four Freshmen, he rarely sang on the Beach Boys albums.

But Dennis, the one Beach Boy who could actually surf, was a complex, gifted, and enormously conflicted human being, and you can hear all that and more on the reissue of his 1978 album Pacific Ocean Blue, which has been paired with a second disc of abortive tracks that were to comprise his followup album Bambu, which was never issued. It's a quintessential California album of the time (Jackson Browne would have killed for a couple of these tunes), and it's the sound of a man whose life is falling apart; full of tender ballads and almost jazzlike hymns, and pervaded by a sense of self-doubt and insecurity. It's the great lost Beach Boys treasure, and it's coming to a record store (do they still have those?) near you on May 13th. In one of the many ironies surrounding the Wilson brothers, the quiet, introspective Dennis actually released the first Wilson solo album. Alas, it was to be his last. In the crowning irony, the surfer drowned in 1983.

Inheriting Millions, No Billions

Has anyone ever responded to one of the heartrending pleas for help that are typically sent via email from some desperate African widow? The scenarios vary somewhat, but they seem to revolve around a hidden fortune, the tragic death of a loved one, and your (yes, your) ability to resolve the financial impasse. For your help you are eligible to receive half of the hidden fortune, which typically amounts to many millions of dollars.

I figure that I've now passed up something on the order of half a billion dollars that could have been mine. That would have almost paid for my daughter's semester in NYC. So I'm kicking myself, and wondering if anyone has actually responded to such a letter. What happened? Did you receive your millions? And why do I seem to receive one or two of these desperate pleas every week? How did I get on that mailing list?

Americans Changing Churches at an Increasing Rate

The New York Times, summarizing a survey done by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, notes that Americans are changing churches/religions at an increasing rate. I believe it, but I'll also throw something out here, and see if it resonates with anybody.

I don't identify myself with a particular theological tradition other than "orthodox Christianity." And I wonder if there are others out there like me, and whether that fact contributes to the increased fluidity noted in the Pew survey. The fact that someone is Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, emerging church, whatever, is almost immaterial to me. I say "almost" because, yes, I think doctrine matters very much in terms of basic Christian beliefs. But once those basic beliefs (nicely encompassed in The Apostle's Creed) are confirmed, then the things I'm looking for in a good church can be met in a variety of denominational settings. And I'll go to the "best" church that meets those doctrinal requirements (and I'll define "best" in a minute).

I am a theological mongrel (some would say "bastard," and they'd probably be right, too). I grew up in the Catholic Church, pursued the god of hedonism for a while (and then a little while longer as a Christian, and then longer again; that's still the besetting temptation in my life), came back to the faith through the Jesus Movement, was a Jesus Freak in a non-denominational Christian community for eight years, have been membered in Brethren (Anabaptist/Arminian) and Presbyterian (Calvinist) churches, and currently find myself in a Vineyard church, which combines elements of the Jesus Freak, Calvinist, and Anabaptist traditions with a liturgical and contemplative focus that is heavily indebted to the Catholic and Anglican traditions. So what does that make me? I don't know. A Christian, as best I can figure.

I will be membered wherever people desire to pursue a relationship with God, and understand in some fairly non-negotiable ways that dying to self and living for Christ is the hardest and most rewarding life imaginable, and that it takes a community where people are known and loved, warts and all, to make that happen. That's what constitutes the "best" church, in my opinion. Realizing that any church will fall somewhat short of the mark (if nothing else because I am in it), I have always looked for the local church that comes closest to understanding and embodying those ideals. When I was a young adult that was a community in the middle of the ghetto in Columbus, Ohio. When I lived in a small Ohio town it was the local PCUSA church. Now it's a Vineyard church, although, quite honestly, I'm sure there are Vineyard churches out there that would drive me crazy, and that I could never be a part of. I'm simply not wedded to a particular theological tradition, and changing traditions is simply the price that has to be paid when one moves, and when one is looking for the "best" local incarnation of what it means to be the body of Christ at a particular time in a particular place.

From what I can tell, there are a lot of similarly-minded Christians out there. I'm in a church full of them; people who recognize the value of a lot of different theological traditions, and how those traditions can address the shortcomings of any one theological viewpoint. I am, first and foremost, a Christian. The doctrinal/historical distinctives are not unimportant, but they take a back seat (pew? folding Samsonite chair?) to hanging out with a bunch of folks who understand, deep down, their need for Christ, their own culpability in the mess they have made of their lives, and their utter dependence on Jesus to sort it out. First and foremost I look for a messy church. If all things are done decently and in order, then I simply figure that people are wearing their nice, proper Christian masks, and I have better things to do with my life than play that game again. And I wonder how much those kinds of thoughts factor in to the increasing fluidity of church membership that is noted in that Pew survey. Anybody have any thoughts?

Larry Norman

In April of 1974 I prayed the Sinner’s Prayer and asked Jesus Christ to be my Personal Lord and Savior. About a week later several new and still somewhat dubious friends who called themselves “brothers” and “sisters” started badgering me to stop listening to Pink Floyd. “Listen to Larry Norman,” they told me.

So I took them up on the advice. Athens, Ohio, where I was living at the time, had a Christian bookstore on Court Street that was full of the usual kitsch; coffee mugs with Bible verses, puppy and kitty posters, a couple shelves of books, and, at the back, one sparsely populated shelf of “Christian” albums. I flipped through them. Most of them appeared to be made by Christian families at an Appalachian wedding; ma, pa, and the kids all wearing goofy grins and ill-fitting suits. At the very back of the stack was Larry Norman, who looked like a hippie. I bought his album, which was called Only Visiting This Planet.

Decades later, at the height of a multi-billion dollar industry, Contemporary Christian Magazine, which covered this sort of stuff, named Only Visiting This Planet as “the best Contemporary Christian album of all time.” All I knew in 1974 was that it had to be better than the grinning Blackburn Family. So I took it back to my dorm room and played it. I liked it. And I played it a couple months ago as well, pulled out that old, scratchy vinyl copy and cleaned it up, and listened thirty-four years down the line. I winced a few times, but I still liked it.

Larry, who died yesterday, was a friend I never knew, and a frustratingly untrustworthy witness to the faith. He was talented, insecure, prone to fanciful tales that bore little or no relationship to the truth, possibly mad as a hatter, and utterly, fearlessly in love with Jesus. The truth is that he made about three good albums over the course of thirty five years and dozens of releases. He repackaged his thirty great songs over and over again, made ridiculous claims about his role in the music industry (the founder of rap was my favorite), and claimed to be the spiritual mentor to everyone from Paul McCartney to Bob Dylan. He was also the self-proclaimed Father of Christian Rock, and for once he got it right.

Those who are familiar with the safe, sanitized world of Contemporary Christian Music might be startled if they listened to those thirty songs. There was nothing safe and sanitized about Larry Norman’s music. He sang about gonorrhea, drug addiction, NASA’s foibles, the death of Janis Joplin, and Jesus. Always about Jesus. Larry was wrong about some of those things. The devil never ever had all the good music. Larry Norman had some of it, too, and so did all the lost pagans Larry both excoriated and loved. But there was an emotional directness and honesty and prophetic tenacity about those songs that anyone – CCM musician or otherwise – would do well to recapture:

You kill a black man at midnight
Just for talking to your daughter
Then you make his wife your mistress
And you leave her without water
And the sheet you wear upon your face
Is the sheet your children sleep on
At every meal you say a prayer
You don't believe but still you keep on

That’s from a song on Only Visiting This Planet, and you can bet your glow-in-the-dark Bible verse keychain that the Blackburn Family wasn’t singing anything like that. So when I read about his death this morning I was more than a little surprised to find tears welling up. Larry Norman is dead. Damn. On that first album of Larry’s I ever bought he sang, “You think it’s such a sad thing when you see a fallen king/Then you find out they’re only princes to begin with.” He could have been describing his own life. For a while I viewed him as the great Christian musical hope. Eventually I figured out that he was a screwup, just like me. He was the imperfect brother I never knew. He was the king of Christian rock, and I will miss his imperfect, maddening greatness.

Taylor Made/Glaswegians

On Monday I ventured forth to Upland, Indiana to speak at Taylor University. “Upland” conjures images of mountain streams and coniferous firs in my mind, but reality was something different. Reality was a few cornfields that had been plowed under to make way for the university, and an ice cream shop called Ivanhoe’s, which appeared to be the only commercial establishment in “town.” Parents looking for an environment that provides few distractions from the academic life could hardly do better than Taylor University.

I enjoyed my time in the heartland. Aside from some initial confusion about where I was supposed to speak, the evening came off without a hitch. I didn’t stumble over my words too badly, the audience of 25 or so students and faculty members appeared to be awake throughout the proceedings, and we all got to listen to and talk about good music. I was asked some of my favorite questions (new finds: Son Lux and Jacob Golden; five desert island discs: take your pick from The Beatles, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, U2, Steve Earle, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Cockburn, Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen, John Coltrane, Al Green, Fountains of Wayne, Little Richard, Sandy Denny, Van Morrison, The Clash, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Evans, Marvin Gaye, Henryk Gorecki, Vigilantes of Love, Joe Henry, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Pogues, Graham Parker, Uncle Tupelo, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, Mark Heard, Muddy Waters, Radiohead, Squeeze, Bill Monroe, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Steeleye Span, Ralph and Carter Stanley, Johnny Cash, The Jayhawks, Sufjan Stevens, Richard and Linda Thompson, Chuck Berry, Brad Mehldau, The Pixies, Aretha Franklin, The Beach Boys, Sigur Ros, Charlie Parker, Tom Waits, Arvo Part, Buddy and Julie Miller, Merle Haggard, Billie Holiday, T Bone Burnett, Whiskeytown, Buddy Holly, Tonio K., Howlin’ Wolf, The New Ponographers, The Hold Steady, Emmylou Harris,The Byrds – okay, that’s 97, but who’s counting? Oh yeah, The Old 97’s should probably be a part of that list, too.).

In any case, I’m glad I get to do these things periodically. And I’m always amazed and grateful that people show up to hear me. I also had a great roadtrip with my pastor Jeff, and a nice time with my BIL/SIL Bill and Jan, who put us up for the night in nearby Muncie. Many thanks.

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People from New York are called New Yorkers. People from Glasgow, Scotland are called Glaswegians. I don’t why this is, but it’s one of those etymological truths that makes life so unpredictable and delightful.

The Glaswegian trio Frightened Rabbit have made my favorite new album for this week. It’s called Midnight Organ Fight (we won’t speculate too much on what that might mean) and it’s due out April 15th. In spite of the unfortunate band name, Frightened Rabbit do not sound like their trembling twee countrymen Belle and Sebastian. They sound like a poppier version of The Frames, or a more soulful version of another Glasgow band, The Twilight Sad. In any event, lead singer Scott Hutchinson has the soulful brogue going that Glen Hansard[1] employed so masterfully on the Once soundtrack, and he writes quirky and frequently violent songs that are belied by their sunny pop melodies. You cyberwegians should seek it out once it becomes available.

[1] Yes, Mr. Geography, I do realize that Ireland and Scotland are not the same country. But for the purposes of this discussion, their soulful brogues sound similar to one another.

Random Musical Notes

Whither (Wither) Columbus?

I keep reading breathless reviews about the new U2 concert film U23D. I admit that my previous experiences with wearing the funky glasses at 3D movies has left me less than optimistic. But everything I read tells me that this truly is something different -- U2 on a giant iMax screen, with eye-popping visual effects. One reviewer I respect, who is not typically given to hyperbole, stated that the experience was like being a fly on Bono's shades, and that the new technology employed in this film could very well revolutionize the film industry. He noted that this was less like viewing a concert film and more like being at the concert, on the stage.

Okay, so I was sold. The film opens today at numerous iMax theaters throughout the country. Columbus, Ohio? Nope. Even though there are a couple iMax theaters in town, there are no current plans to screen the film. Columbus really does have a lot going for it in the arts, but here was a fine opportunity that was left withering on the vine. The good news is that you can still go to those iMax theaters and watch helicopters swooping through the Grand Canyon.

A Less Than Thrilling Reissue

Michael Jackson's Thriller is 25 years old this week, and that means that it's time for the deluxe reissue treatment. When an album has shipped 100 million units, as this one has[1], it's hard to imagine who might be left out there to buy it. So to make this work you have to bring in the guest stars. The just-released reissue offers the original album, seven bonus tracks featuring the likes of will.i.am, Kanye West, Fergie, and Akon, and an accompanying DVD that includes the three original MTV videos from the album and MJ's performance of "Billie Jean" from the Motown 25th anniversary TV special.

It's a mixed bag. Is the original album great? Of course. Any album that includes "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "Thriller," "Beat It," "Billie Jean," and "Human Nature" deserves the highest accolades. Is the original album a stinking pile of manure? Yes. "The (Doggone) Girl is Mine" and "The Lady in My Life" represent the worst of saccharine, treacly excess, and the former permanently soured me on the ongoing musical capabilities of one Paul McCartney. On the new remixes, will.i.am bravely steps into the McCartney breach, and does his best to whip the froth into something of substance. It doesn't work. The other remixes fare no better for me, but that's primarily because I have little or no interest in people named Kanye and Fergie. Fans of contemporary R&B might be more impressed. The videos? Are you kidding? The videos are fabulous, ridiculously fabulous. No wonder that newfangled MTV experiment took off after the release of this album.

Overall, though, it's not enough to make me want to fork over 30 bucks to hear music I already have. But the videos almost win me over. Here's a newsflash: dude could dance.

Thrilling Reissues

Rhino is re-issuing the first four Replacements albums (Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take out the Trash, Stink, Hootenanny, and Let It Be) in late April, with the usual remastering, bonus tracks, etc. This is cause for great rejoicing, and a fine reason to discover the shambolic glory that was The 'Mats.

And the king of reissues, Elvis Costello, will see his second album This Year's Model, reissued for about the fourth time in early March. It's a 2-disc set featuring the original album, 11 B-sides and outtakes from the TYM era, and a 17-song concert from 1978,

If you don't have the original album, what are you waiting for? It's as great as rock 'n roll gets. Costello's first album, 1977's My Aim Is True, revealed a stunningly talented songwriter, but This Year's Model has it beat (it's the beat) in every way -- the songs, the production and, most importantly, the emergence of an amazing band in The Attractions. Steve Nieve's circus calliope paired with those pounding drums and Elvis's snarling vocals is one of the wonders of the modern world. The outtakes and B-sides have appeared in various configurations over the years (I have most of them on an old vinyl record called Taking Liberties). Still, Costello at this stage of his career was recording more great songs than could fit on his officially released albums, and almost all of these 11 "new" songs are quite wonderful. And the concert recording finds Elvis at the top of his game. Costello was hit-and-miss as a live performer, at least in 1978, and I saw him drunkenly stumble through a horrid forty-five minutes in Columbus (the same night he infamously insulted Ray Charles as "a blind, ignorant nigger"). He's much, much better here, and I'd say this live recording (from Washington D.C.'s Warner Theater) rivals the great live recording at the El Macombo Club from the same era.

Fabchannel.com

I've just discovered this marvel of the modern world -- a website that offers a video archive of full concerts, and allows you to view them from the comfort and privacy of your 24-inch iMac monitor (eat your heart out, laptop users). I ventured over there to watch Joe Henry, who was and is great in concert, but I eventually got suckered in to watching most of the Flogging Molly concert as well. It's great fun to watch young people pummel one another as a band plays fiddles and accordions. Who woulda thunk it?

[1] Making it, by far, the best-selling album of all time. The nearest contenders -- The Eagles, Pink Floyd, and Celine Dion -- don't even reach Thriller's halfway point in terms of sales.

A Model Life

My daughter Katryn, currently studying fashion merchandising in NYC, has an amazing internship with a woman named Nicole Miller, who is apparently a hotshot fashion designer. Nicole has her doing basic scutwork for no money, but that's okay because this is one of those rites of passage that people in her field have to go through before they can land a real job. But there's been fun, too. For the past two weekends Katryn has worked behind the scenes at a couple big fashion shows and trade shows. Part of her role has been to work with a team of Nicole Miller drones who undress/dress the models when they come off the runway. They usually have about thirty seconds to get it done. It's kind of like being on the pit crew at a Nascar race, except you're changing Joan-of-Arc-themed evening gowns instead of tires.

I've been reveling in Katryn's stories of the models, who are all about 6'3", weigh 107 pounds, and have single names like Moldavia and Mischa. The devil apparently wears both Prada and Nicole Miller. The upside is that unlike the normal scutwork, Katryn has been paid for working the fashion shows. In Nicole Miller dresses. If she could sell them, she'd be making more money than me. But, of course, being the fashionista that she is, she doesn't want to sell them. She wants to wear them. Me? I'm thrilled for her. I just wish she could wear the bills we're racking up as well.

Here she is with Alexandra. Or maybe it's Mischa.

Falling on the Sword

I don't normally get overtly political here, and I promise I won't do it again for a long time, but I have to say that the developments of the past month or so have left me cautiously optimistic. For the first time in 32 years there appears to be no presidential candidate (who has a chance of winning; sorry, Mike Huckabee) whose policies align closely with the religious right.

James Dobson, who focuses on a lot more than the family these days, has already stated that he cannot, in good conscience, vote for John McCain. That echoes views previously stated by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. And that leaves, well, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as the choices, doesn't it? You think the good Dr. Dobson will be pulling the lever for Clinton or Obama? Me either. So what's an upstanding conservative to do? In ancient times, when faced with a similar predicament, vanquished leaders would fall on their own swords. I wonder what the modern-day equivalent might be?

It was a bad marriage all along, so I can't pretend that I'm disappointed. The unholy alliance between evangelical Christianity and the Republican Party caused massive damage to the reputation of the Christian Church. Nowadays when someone asks me, "Are you a Christian?" I am forced to equivocate. "Yes, I am," I tell them, "but not in the way the term is commonly understood in 21st century American culture. I don't care about the color of my state on an election-night map. I'm the kind of Christian who just wants to follow Jesus."

Make no mistake. I surely believe that following Jesus has social and political implications. But those implications cross party lines, and more frequently than not have absolutely nothing to do with party lines. It is the great religious tragedy of the last quarter century that those distinctions have been lost, and that evangelical Christianity has been equated in the public mind with a particular brand of political activism that is narrowly focused on issues such as abortion and gay rights. In contrast, I would like to think of myself as pro-life, even after kids are born.

And so in November I will vote for a candidate who will offer an imperfect solution to complex issues, and who will not be God's President. And I will rejoice because, for once, and perhaps for all time, the stranglehold has been broken. Maybe, just maybe, we Christians will figure out that looking to any political party to embody God's will is as much an idolotrous stance as worshipping a golden calf. And maybe, just maybe, we will be willing to serve in the prophetic role to which we have been called; standing apart from political systems, and working toward a social agenda that values loving and serving people -- individuals unborn and aged and everywhere in between -- as the means by which the Kingdom of God might be advanced.

Contemplative Cowboys

I like my cowboys with philosophy degrees. It’s okay if they wear the Stetson hats as long as they quote Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein. Or know how to spell their names. Or at least have more on their minds than longnecks and short skirts. These three cowboys more or less fit the pattern, although none of them wears a Stetson, and one of them is at least partial to longnecks and short skirts. But I’m giving him extra credit for the literary reference on “Faulkner Street.”

Kasey Anderson – The Reckoning

Portland, Oregon troubadour Kasey Anderson has some cojones. He starts off his third album with the atmospheric five-minute title track, an apocalyptic spoken-word piece that will be an immediate turn off for Bubba and Wanda, who are just looking for a good two-step dance tune. Then again, Bubba and Wanda probably won’t know what to do with the song about New Orleans jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden either. But fear not. If the Woody Guthrie cap and the Steve Earle rasp won’t convince you, then honky tonk barroom brawlers like “Hometown Boys” and “Wake Up” will immediately certify Anderson’s working man’s poet credentials. He’s a literate working man’s poet at that, and songs like “Don’t Look Back” and “For St. Ann’s” are surrealistic, visionary ballads, the product of someone who’s paid a lot of attention to those mid-‘60s Dylan albums. It’s a strange mix of sounds and influences, and it doesn’t always work. But Anderson’s a fine narrative-driven songwriter and storyteller, and the meat-and-potatoes honky tonk and roots rock peeks through often enough to make The Reckoning not only a worthwhile listen, but an entertaining one as well.

Justin Townes Earle – The Good Life

When your last name is “Earle” and your middle name is “Townes” you have a lot to prove. So if the comparisons are inevitable, and they are, give Steve’s kid some credit. He’s his own man, and on his debut album he carves out a sonic niche that is more indebted to Hank Williams and truckstop jukebox anthems than either of his two famous namesakes. The title track and “What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome” are straight out of the Merle Haggard and Buck Owens school of Bakersfield honky tonk, which is a very, very fine thing indeed. Unlike dad, Justin’s voice has the twang but not the rasp, and there are times when he’s a dead ringer for the young Hank Williams. But like dad, Justin has a penchant for writing songs set during the American Civil War, and his “Lone Pine Hill” is a good one that can hold its own with Steve’s “Taneytown” or “Ben McCulloch.” The album bogs down a bit toward the end, but the first eight songs are all memorable, and this is an impressive debut.

Hayes Carll – Trouble in Mind

Hayes Carll released the best Americana album of 2005 in Little Rock. Carll claimed at the time that all the good songs about Texas were already written, but that Arkansas was fertile new territory. And he was right. Trouble in Mind, the followup that arrives on Lost Highway Records April 8th, is worth the three-year wait. There’s the usual colorful cast of characters – drunkards, roustabouts, country singers – some of them all rolled into one autobiographical sonic package. There’s a great cover of Tom Waits’ “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up.” There are gut-wrenching ballads like “Faulkner Street” and some great southern fried boogie, courtesy of guitar duelists Will Kimbrough and Georgia Satellites alum Dan Baird. Best of all there’s the hilariously vengeful “She Left Me For Jesus,” a good ol’ boy’s plot to get back at the man who stole his formerly fun-loving woman. “If I ever find Jesus,” Carll avows, “I’m gonna kick his ass.” There’s about forty-five minutes of asskicking here, all of it of the good, stomping musical variety.

Aradhna -- Amrit Vani

There’s no great secret here, but I’ll spell it out. I’m a Christian who has very little use for Christian music. Although some of my favorite music has been made by Christians (U2, Bruce Cockburn, Vigilantes of Love, Tonio K., Innocence Mission, Mark Heard, Peter Case, T-Bone Burnett, Sam Phillips, Buddy and Julie Miller, Over the Rhine, not to mention Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Willie Johnson and Ralph and Carter Stanley), the Contemporary Christian Music genre in general, and the Worship Music wing of that genre in particular, holds little appeal. There’s too much imitation of Fleetwood Mac circa 1975, and too much wince-inducing, sub-Hallmark “apple of my eye/wind beneath my wings” shite. When it comes to music that actually connects in spiritual ways for me, and that I actually want to listen to in the car outside of Sunday mornings, give me Sigur Ros or Miles Davis. They probably didn’t know they were creating worship music. It just worked out that way for me.

So when an album comes along that fits squarely within the Worship Music tradition, and I actually like it, then there may be some evidence that hell has begun to freeze over. But it’s happened with Aradhna. The four core members of the band – Chris Hale, Peter and Fiona Hicks, and Travis McAfee – are as American as their names would indicate. But they’ve all spent significant portions of their lives in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India. And therein lies the strange and wondrous merger of two worlds that contributes to the uniqueness of the band’s music, and to the surprising vigor of Amrit Vani. There are sitars here. And tablas. They sound as exotic as you would expect. And there are acoustic guitar arpeggios and gently lilting violin solos that wouldn’t sound out of place on a very western Windham Hill album. It works beautifully. The lyrics are sung in Hindi, and far from being an impediment, the language barrier is actually a great help (see “apple of my eye” and “wind beneath my wings” above). Like Sigur Ros, sometimes the indecipherable is greatly preferable to the old, tired formulas. And by the time we reach the final song, “Narahari,” the music swells and soars, the ramshackle choir enters sounding like the Hindustani angelic host, and something remarkable happens. I find myself worshipping God.

Amrit Vani digs deep in a contemplative, meditative way that few worship albums even begin to approach. And it’s quite lovely. Even in the car.

Generic Hipper-Than-Thou Album Review

Disclaimer: There are a couple of cusswords ahead. One of them is part of a band name. If the prospect offends you, don't read on. But this is what hipper-than-thou people do.

This is from a review that appears today on a well-known music website that shall remain nameless:

Under the up-with-people-and-feelings sermon Tom Greenwood and whoever comprised Jackie-O Motherfucker that week gnash on electric guitars and set Slinkys down staircases. The whole thing feels like that episode from "Funkadelic: The Sitcom" where Eddie Hazel hung out with Swamp Thing against his parents' wishes.

This is an album review. Anybody know what the album sounds like? I surely don't. If I found that in a book, I'd throw it across a room. But it's on my laptop, and laptops cost a lot of money, so I'm not going to throw it.

Today's koan: what is the sound of one Slinky on the stairs? I am also apparently of the generation who missed Eddie Hazel, whoever he or she might be, and it's unclear whether Eddie was part of Funkadelic (a band I do remember) or a television sitcom star. And I definitely missed out on Swamp Thing, who would probably be against my wishes as well.

I get so tired of reading reviews like this, and the whole hipper-than-thou smugness and winking cultural references that nobody understands except the reviewer. And so, in the interest of saving everybody time, I've tried to put together an all-purpose hipper-than-thou album review. The fact that it never gets around to discussing the music is irrelevant. In fact, that's the point. But I've tried this out on several musical genres ranging from techno to bluegrass, and it works. Feel free to fill in the blanks and submit it to your favorite musical website. You too can be part of a fun and profitable home business, and receive free CDs in the mail.

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[ArtistName]
[AlbumName]
[LabelName]

[ArtistName], like the towering Romanian Dadaists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco, [has/have] always created works that are both invitingly open and shrounded in mystery. [AlbumName] is no exception.

[AlbumName], in fact, reminds me of the time – let’s call it The Post-College But Pre-Grad School Years – when I fell in love with M. Of course it didn’t – it couldn’t – last. You can blame it on our socioeconomic differences, our parents’ absolutely rigid and totally indefensible insistence that at least one of us had to earn an income, the silly squabbles over where we would live (New York for me and Papua New Guinea for her; but look, one can study seashell currency just about anywhere). God knows I’ve blamed it on all those things. In any event, it was too much to overcome. But, of course, Tzara had his own woes with Greta Knutson. I’m sure he would understand. And [ArtistName] does as well.

You can tell because [he/she/they] convey an almost telepathic empathy in these songs. I listen to them and think, “You know, [ArtistName] really [get/gets] it. It’s like [he/she/they] have walked a mile in my Kurt Geiger Solea Storm pumps with the stacked conical heels, the ones I just bought two weeks ago, and which are already scuffed.” Nothing lasts. You can’t depend on anything or anyone.

[AlbumName] is the kind of album that reminds me of the smell of freshly mown grass on a motherfuckingly bright late spring morning, the kind of day when you’re 12 years old, and the school year is almost over, and you’ve just beaten the shit out of Bobby Morrison because he kept calling your sister a ho, and life is just about perfect except for the blood on your shirt. It’s that good, and that bad. It is beautiful and wondrous, tawdry and tragic, much like my life. I both love and hate my life, and I love and hate [AlbumName] as well. It’s all in the ambiguity.

Fleshtones - Take a Good Look

I love garage rock. But I hate garage rock revivals, even though I firmly believe that the genre is vibrant enough to be revived every five years or so. With the exception of The White Stripes, every one of the latest crop of revivalists -- The Vines, The Strokes, The Hives -- has let me down. After impressive starts, they flame out into limpid sophomore albums. And they never find their way back.

So thank God for The Fleshtones. They started making garage rock twenty-five years ago, they've never stopped, and they've never, ever sucked. Their latest album, Take a Good Look, is twelve songs long, half an hour short, and chock full of snarling vocals, cheesy Farfisa organ, amateurish guitar work, and perfectly realized little pop moments. The Animals and The Dave Clark Five and The Yardbirds and ? and the Mysterians used to blast this blues-based stuff out in the mid-sixties. There isn't a wasted note. I love it. "Look out for the jet set Fleshtones," they sing. You should.

Upcoming Speaking and Writing Engagements

For those of you in my vast readership who want to know about such things, here you go:

Speaking

Monday, Feb. 18th -- Taylor University, Upland, Indiana (8:00 in the Student Union)

Thursday, June 12th - Sunday, June 15th -- Trinity Arts Conference, Dallas, Texas

Monday, June 30th - Sunday, July 5th -- Cornerstone Music and Arts Festival, Bushnell, Illinois

Let me know if you'll be there; I'd love to meet you.

Writing

Paste Magazine -- Upcoming articles and reviews on R.E.M., Matthew Ryan, Son Lux, Joe Grushecky and the Iron City Houserockers, South, and Griffin House

Christianity Today Magazine -- Upcoming article on Son Lux

All Music Guide -- Currently no time, but I'm hoping to find the time.