A “Window” Exclusive: Matthew West at the Ballpark October 29, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Music.Tags: Matthew West
add a comment
NOTE: This interview has been picked up by TitleTrakk.com so I suppose it’s no longer “exclusive”.
It was the top of the 12th inning in a 2-2 ballgame, and the Cincinnati Reds had loaded the bases against the Atlanta Braves. Singer Matthew West watched the game with mixed emotions. He was happy to be able to catch a great game with his family on a sunny Atlanta afternoon (though he is a Cubs fan), but he was also eager for this extra-long game to end, since he was set to perform a post-game concert. Even so, the event that broke the tie was nothing he would have hoped for.
Cincinnati’s Micah Owings settled into the batter’s box with one out. The first pitch came and Owings swung but missed badly. Desperate for a double play, the Braves’ pitcher fired a two-seam fastball, but at the last moment, just as the ball was released, he sought to back off on the speed a bit. Instead, the ball sailed at 93 mph, straight at Owings’ head. Owings turned at the last moment and the ball struck him on the left ear flap of his batting helmet, violently knocking him to the ground.
A dazed Owings was helped off the field and stitched up. He did not pitch again for 14 days, as his recovery depended not only on physical issues, but also on a psychological element. He’s a normally reliable hitter, especially for a pitcher, but could he become more tentative or afraid?
Matthew West understands. Like an athlete sidelined by a major injury, his career was brought to a standstill in 2007 after years of damage to his vocal cords necessitated surgery. His recovery involved two months of silence, days sometimes flooded by doubts. Like the athlete hoping to return to action, West wondered if would be able to sing as well, or sing at all.
Today, West is indeed back, perhaps stronger than ever. He had the most-played song on Christian Radio in 2008 (You are Everything), and he might very well attain the same status in 2009 with The Motions. Just like he identifies with the athletes on the field, he knows that people in the audience face circumstances that shake up their world and threaten their livelihood, so his surgery and recovery have become an important part of his witness.
During the game, West recalled the surgery and reflected on how life has changed since then. “My surgery has made sure that I stay very human, as opposed to being a guy on stage who has it all together. It’s been a powerful couple of years of being able to share from a very real and vulnerable place in my life, and to share what God taught me through that.”
Like anyone facing a trial, West struggles a bit with placing its significance in context. “I have to be careful not to overdramatize what I went through. The minute you think your problems are big, take a walk through a pediatric intensive care unit. You’ll quickly gain a better perspective of your own problems. In my own little world, though, this was the headline. We all have pain and tragedy in various degrees. Someone else’s loss of a job is my vocal surgery. It’s not like that tragedy’s worse than this tragedy. When it hits you, it hits you hard.
“My voice represented a lot more than just my voice. It represented my livelihood, my ability to provide for my family, my calling, what I feel like God has called me to do. That’s why I stopped pursuing other endeavors years ago. I went down this road with no backup plan, because that’s what I believe you’re supposed to do if God calls you to something, and all of the sudden I find myself thinking, maybe I should have had a backup plan! That’s a scary thing to go through.”
Fortunately for West, no backup plan was needed. With a concert just hours away, I asked him if he has changed his approach to singing, and if he thinks he sounds any different. “I think my voice is a lot more temperamental,” he observed. “I can tell if I’ve had 5 or 8 hours of sleep. When I’m tired, I sound like I’m tired. But when I’m on, I feel like my voice is better than ever, and that’s crazy! After I started singing again, I felt like I had gone through a tune up. A lot of people have told me that from my first record to this record I’m singing a lot better than I ever have. I’m so thankful for that.”
There is no lingering tentativeness in West’s songwriting. In fact, despite his history, he related that he still writes songs that are probably too high for him. He chooses a melody and a key for the song, and hopes to figure out how to sing it later: “That’s probably what got me into surgery!” Indeed, he calls The Motions one of his most difficult songs to sing, but one that just doesn’t sound right in a lower key.
Like the injured ball player returning to the batter’s box, West has changed his game – he now follows a strict 25-minute vocal warmup routine – but he confesses that he still has a little paranoia. “What happened to me could happen again. Those blood vessels could burst again. Last night, I was in the studio singing until about 2 a.m.; we have this deadline. I hopped on the bus, went to bed about 3. We drove here, and I didn’t sleep very well, and then I got up and started talking and singing [for the Braves’ chapel service at noon]. I start to think, ‘My voice feels weak, I hope nothing’s wrong.’ But you can’t live in fear. I can’t think about that too much because I still want to sing with all my heart and really go for it.”
That’s just what he did, once the 12-inning game finally concluded and a pair of players shared their testimonies. The eight-song set was punctuated with an energy that lifted the crowd and a host of money notes and falsetto unhindered by vocal trauma.
West had an easy rapport with the crowd, and even performed an original song entitled, “Thanks to All the Braves Fans who Stuck Around.” I wondered how many in the crowd caught the Lou Gehrig reference when he stepped to the mic and said, “Today, I consider myself…” before trailing off and laughing.
There were moments of choppiness in the set, such as the demanding chorus of “Next Thing You Know”, but I’ve always thought this add a realism that makes live music unique. The highlight was one of those moments that can only happen with a large audience, when Only Grace turned a capella and then turned into Amazing Grace. West stepped away from the mic and joined the chorus of thousands, singing passionately to none but his Creator and Healer.
A Tale of Two Concerts October 22, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Music.Tags: U2, Andrew Peterson, Andy Gullahorn, Andy Osenga
add a comment
It was the best of times, it was the best of times. I cannot start my tale like Dickens, because the two experiences I want to tell you about were both superlative. Both were live music events, and at first glance they had very little in common.
The first show featured a sound booth the size of a bus. The second had a single mixing board.
Before the first show, a battalion of roadies constructed the largest stage ever built for a concert tour. Before the second show, one of the performers set out a little guitar stand to hold the three guitars he would use later.
The first show was the 36th stop on a tour that had already featured multiple dates in Paris, Milan, Barcelona, and Dublin. The second show was jokingly called a “world tour”, and was the fourth stop. Ever.
The first show cost me $55 for a ticket behind the stage. The second show was free. Over 70,000 people paid that price or more for the first show. A hundred or so came to the second.
The first show featured a band called U2. You’ve probably heard of them. The second featured an erstwhile band called Andy and the Andys. I would be most impressed if you’ve heard of them.
There were certainly marked contrasts. U2’s show is epic in every measurable way. I was raised on the music of these four punks, and I knew every word to every song they played. The show was all bombast and lights and sounds – oh, the sounds! Andy and the Andys isn’t even a real band. It’s three singer-songwriters who happen to be named Andrew and who are good friends. They like each others’ music, and they like to write songs together every now and then. Their show used house lighting and sound in a massive church’s little chapel, and bombast was nowhere to be found.
It was challenging to make out all of Bono’s words when he spoke, and facial expressions were hard to come by, even through binoculars. By contrast, Andy Osenga was a good ten feet from me, and I could still have hit Andy Gullahorn or Andrew Peterson with a spitball. Not that I would, mind you.
However unlikely, these contrasts somehow bred striking similarities. Some were superficial. In each show, there were three singers. Adam Clayton doesn’t sing, but Larry Mullen Jr. appeared to be wailing at times from behind his drum kit. Bono you know about. But man, the Edge? Dude can sing. I’ll admit I did not know he sang the falsetto chorus on “Stuck in a Moment”. To the Edge (is the “The” supposed to be capitalized?) does U2 owe much of its longevity. Similarly, all three Andys sing, with unique and effective voices that just floored me when they merged.
Other similarities were subtler. Neither show featured overt sermonizing on God or spoken prayer, but both had strong spiritual undercurrents. Grace and Love are themes that run through much of U2’s music, and the Dome could not have felt more like church than when “One” bled into “Amazing Grace”. For their part, the Andys are all Christian musicians on Christian music labels, but this was not a “praise and worship” concert. It was really more about stories of the faith and the honest experiences of three sojourners.
Both bands pulled off remarkable feats out of contrasting necessities. The Andys played guitars. Some acoustic, some electric, but that was it. Osenga did occasionally kick a drum pedal (while singing and playing the guitar), but there was an obvious lack of a rhythm section – the bass and drums that drive a song and keep all the players in time. It’s a testimony to the quality of these musicians that each song did have rhythm, that they did keep remarkable time, that they sounded so polished on songs that had only recently been learned. I was thrilled to hear a couple of new songs from my hero Andrew Peterson, and I marveled as his similarly-named bandmates added their own little riffs and fills. Was this improvised or rehearsed? Peterson mentioned that one of the songs, a lovely homage to the relationship between songwriter and listener, had been written only 4 days ago. How could Gullahorn and Osenga complement it so well? Through an extraordinary and intimate understanding of the craft of a song. Since that’s not a material possession, is it wrong to covet that?
U2 had rhythm in spades. Clayton’s bass and Mullen’s drums reverberated in my head hours after the last encore. Their challenge was in creating intimacy and relationship in that most overwhelming of settings. I can think of no other group who could pull it off so admirably. Every band mentions the town they’re playing in for cheap applause. Bono even threw in an occasional “y’all” for similar effect. But then there was the mention of the other musicians who had come to see the show that night, and the accolade for their activism. And the tangible resonance of the playing of “MLK” just a few blocks from Ebenezer Baptist Church. Moreover, the mammoth stage itself was built for contact. A circular racetrack circumference was used to satisfy every corner of the Georgia Dome, and I was thrilled to behold “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, recast as a protest for the current political oppression in Iran, since all four band members gathered behind the stage to play the song, not just for the 20,000 people back there, but for me. In fact, it was all those people who inexplicably fed that intimacy. We were all there for music, for entertainment, for spectacle. We united for a common cause and the cause rewarded us.
In the end, the strength of both shows rested not on staging, or even personality, but on music. U2 played for hours and hours, and we sang along and we never sat down because we love these songs. The Andys played songs few of us had ever heard, but they were so visceral and meaningful that we responded. Sometimes we laughed, heartily. How can one not laugh at Gullahorn’s deadpan ode to Osenga’s severed toe? Other times we were devastated. The group performed a Peterson song called “Golden Boy”. It’s not my story, but the fact that it is someone’s story shook me deeply. Whether you’re with 70,000 people or 100, we’re all in this together. Didn’t John Donne say “I am involved in mankind”? It is music, our common language, that moves and unites, which is why it is such a joy to see brilliant practitioners of music at work.
The Concert of the Decade October 14, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Music.Tags: Amy Grant, Casting Crowns, GMA Week, MercyMe, Michael W. Smith, Point of Grace
add a comment
It was the concert of the DECADE, and I’ll bet you missed it, didn’t you? Don’t worry, I’m here to help. I wrote a piece with a brief recap and a “state of the GMA” that posted on Christianity Today yesterday, but while I was watching I kept my own little running diary of notes. So, in case you did indeed miss it, here’s the diary. And don’t worry, the next decade is just a few months away.
8:32 Eastern time, trying to log in just two minutes late for the 7:30 Central time show. I tried to get in early but was denied. I’m having a little trouble logging in, so I suppose it would have been better to drive 3 hours to Nashville and buy a $1,000 ticket.
8:41 Finally logged on, 11 minutes late after many refresh attempts. The site is half-broken, but the stream finally started with an a capella choir, the Fisk Jubilee Singers. There’s one soprano who is two close to a mic that’s turned way too far up. Plus, the backdrop in the barn here is wildly disorienting. A video montage of Dove Award moments follows including a fabulous array of famous mullets. Bart Millard introduces Amy Grant, who somehow reminds me more of Carole King every time I hear her. She performed a beautiful acoustic version of El Shaddai. This is more an in-person event than a live broadcast, with just a couple of cameras and a less-than ideal sound mix. I want to go to full-screen mode but the stream was so challenging to access I’m afraid.
Amy follows with a new song, Please Don’t Make Me Beg, and a promise to keep making music for a long time. Before that she told a story about her origins in the industry and her position now as the “first concert” for so many current artists. “I’m your Vestal Goodman without the big hair and the big boobs,” she quipped. “So, uh, well that doesn’t lead into the next song very well. I haven’t written the breast song yet.”
9:04 Bart Millard declared himself a “product of the system”, mentioned his childhood steeped in Christian music, and then I lost the stream.
9:17 Still no stream. I’ve turned on Monday Night Football while refreshing the page dozens of times. I either get a message that the site itself is down or the player times out when trying to connect to the stream. I guess this means word got around and the concert is a big draw. Alas.
9:21 I’m a little bitter that Bart Millard killed my concert. I drove the man all around Atlanta, for Pete’s sake! Who is this Pete, by the way, and what is his sake?
9:23 That ungrateful Bart is probably singing right now, and I’m placing my bet on I Can Only Imagine.
9:25 I’ve emailed the GMA. Like they don’t know their concert of the decade is broken. I guess I feel bad for them, but I honestly thought we’d figured out streaming video. You had to register for the stream, so they must have had a decent idea of demand.
9:30 It’s back! Eddie DeGarmo is talking about the GMA and what’s going on. He just declared that the GMA is committed to hosting the Dove Awards in 2010. “This is not the beginning of the end of the GMA. It’s the beginning of the future of the GMA.” He then introduced Congressman Marsha Blackburn, who proceeded to kill the stream again. Well, I don’t think she did it. At least not intentionally. At any rate, I got 3 minutes of the concert of the decade and it was just people talking.
9:34 Whoa! It’s back again and the rest of the site even looks right. It’s like someone in Nashville just got back from Best Buy with a bigger internet cable. Our auctioneers for the evening, David Nasser and a GMA board member (Roy Miller?) took the stage. David Nasser’s personal stories are charming. He was raised Muslim, and recalls learning much about Christianity through music. “I learned that it was okay as a Christian to like girls, as strange as that sounds, through Baby Baby.” The first item up for auction is a week at Eddie DeGarmo’s beach house in Watercolor, Florida. This is bizarre. The highest bid is a steal at $2,100. I mean, dude, Eddie DeGarmo! I would listen to DeGarmo and Key tapes all week long. And yes, I said tapes. The next auction item is a chance to be written in as a character in a Karen Kingsbury book. Brilliant idea, but no one bites at $2,500. Apparently this will go online, so you can buy it! I want to buy it so I can be the Amish farmer who falls for the mysterious maiden while the prairie winds blow. And I want to wear overalls.
9:46 Natalie Grant is telling stories of her first GMA event 11 years ago. “I am so proud to be a part of the Gospel Music Association.” Natalie passionately performs In Christ Alone and introduces Kirk Franklin and Anthony Evans. Kirk states: “This organization has done more than any other Christian organization I’ve been a part of to reach out and be diverse. This has been a community that has always made me and my friends feel at home and feel welcome.” GMA has indeed embraced varieties of music that cross cultures and races, something we sadly see too little of in the church. Kirk (well, Kirk’s choir, as it usually the case) perform Imagine Me.
10:06 Martha Munizzi says: “Don’t kid yourselves. There are a lot of secular artists that know about gospel music. It’s their church.” I hope that’s true, and I hope they’re watching right now, because the man joining Martha on Because of Who You Are, Jason Crabb, can wail. How Great is Our God follows as an extended gospel soul romp.
10:18 The Booth Brothers and their accents represent Southern Gospel, and declare a bit of a truce between southern gospel and the GMA. I don’t follow Southern Gospel, so I didn’t know there was a rift there, but it is so often true that adversity binds people to a common cause. The Biblical notion that trials can eventually lead to hope for the future is apparent here, and the hope is that a new GMA will be better than ever. By the way, the Booth Brothers delivered some sweet harmonies on Castles in the Sand, which is not really just about sandcastles.
10:25 Mark Hall of Casting Crowns continues the community theme. “It’s so cool to get to a place and just hear Jesus music from all different styles and all different genres.” The band sounds good on Voice of Truth. It’s an almost-unplugged version but it’s plugged in, if that makes any sense. I got it – it sounds like it would if they set up their gear in my garage and did a little show for me. Not much like the CD, but curiously endearing. Lifesong follows, and I am once again jealous of Mark Hall’s vocal range.
10:36 Jon and Sherry Rivers are brutally honest about his recent admission of addiction and his recovery, and the theme of community is broadened. Point of Grace are introduced, and I like the mandolin-backed How You Live, though the ladies’ vocals aren’t mixed as well as they could be.
10:44 Smitty time! Three roadies struggle with a Yamaha keyboard while Michael patiently waits, starts playing, then looks up to an empty mic stand. I love it! A mic is found, and Smitty launches this peppy medley: Love Crusade, For You, Secret Ambition (which was released in 1989 seems to be right in this $1,000 per plate audience’s wheelhouse), Place In This World, Thy Word (for Amy), and, yes, Friends. Here comes Amy! You just can’t beat that harmony. I honestly don’t think they sing this song together very often anymore, so this is really a treat.
“I think I’m supposed to have everybody come up, but I really don’t know what we’re gonna do… (sings) Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…” Smitty then changes the key for the group singalong, and then kicks in the Tomlin chorus, “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free…”
10:57 The credits are rolling over an entirely inappropriate smooth jazz score. Good concert. Some heartfelt reminders of why music is important and some insightful commentary on why the GMA is important. The tension between industry and ministry will always be there, but tonight the ministry was apparent.
“Concert of the Decade” tonight October 12, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Music.Tags: GMA Week
add a comment
If you’re interested in Christian Music, take note. Tonight, October 12, at 8:30 pm eastern time you can watch an online stream of a so-called “Concert of the Decade” being held in Nashville to support the Gospel Music Association. The lineup is impressive: Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Casting Crowns, MercyMe, Kirk Franklin, Natalie Grant, Point of Grace, plus a handful of gospel artists. Visit www.concertofthedecade.com to access the stream.
In case you’re wondering, the GMA is a trade organization that promotes and advocates for what I usually call Christian music but they call gospel music. They’re the group that puts on the annual Dove Awards and GMA week. They’ve been hard-hit by the industry downturn and this event is a response, along with a complete organizational restructuring and the resignation of longtime president John Styll.
Doctored Photos October 5, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Things that amuse me.add a comment
Time recently published a gallery of ten very prominent doctored photographs. They go back as far as the Civil War (who knew they could doctor photos way back then?) and some have such historical significance that, if you’re like me, you have seen them a hundred times and had no idea they had been altered.
Make sure you check out the Oprah pic!
Mister Lyrics Geek on SMS by David Crowder Band October 2, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Music.1 comment so far
Amy is a song-repeater. If she has a favorite song on a CD, she will play it back-to-back-to-back. In fact, the CD was a wonderful invention for her, since song repeating is far more difficult on cassette. I rarely repeat a song, but sometimes I’m in the car, and totally struck by a song, or I missed a certain lyric and want to hear it again, and I’ll hit that Back arrow once.
I’ve been repeating a song on the new David Crowder CD lately. A lot. It’s called SMS [Shine]. SMS apparently stands for the first line, “Send me a sign”, but it’s also a clever play on words (play on acronyms?), since SMS is the abbreviation for Short Message Service, also known as text messaging. So, the song is about messages that tell of the presence of God.
The first verse reads like the Psalmist complaining about the silence of God. “Send me a sign, a hint, a whisper. Throw me a line, ‘cause I am listening. Come break the quiet, breathe Your awakening. Bring me to life, ‘cause I am fading.”
There is a hint of desperation in Crowder’s vocals, until the quiet piano rises for a chorus of repeated half notes that turn the prayer to worship: “Shine Your light so I can see You. Pull me up, I need to be near You. Hold me, I need to feel love.” And then there’s the last line, another subtle play on words that moves me:
“Can You overcome this heart that’s overcome?”
I’m not normally a big fan of wordplay in songs. Remember that Point of Grace song that beat you over the head with the bridge across the great divide? You just knew it was going to become a cross to bridge the great divide, right at the key change. Somehow, though, Crowder manages these lyrical tricks so well (see Wholly Yours), as SMS so beautifully demonstrates.
The next verse is critical. In the silence of God, we must remember that He’s acting out of love, and our evidence is His track record. Here, Crowder (and cowriter Jack Parker) recall the greatest sign ever sent, Christ. Look at the contrasts between verses one and two:
Send me a sign, a hint, a whisper | You sent a sign, a hint a whisper
Throw me a line, ‘cause I am listening | Human divine, Heaven is listening.
Come break the quiet, breathe Your awakening | Death laid love quiet, Yet in the night a stirring
Now, notice the little changes in the chorus that follows:
Shine Your light so I can see You | Shine Your light so all can see it
Pull me up, I need to be near You | Lift it up ‘cause the whole world needs it
Hold me, I need to feel love | Love has come what joy to hear it
Can You overcome this heart that’s overcome? | He has overcome, He has overcome
For me, this is a master class in lyric writing. The words convey a simple message but do so with the richness and importance the message deserves: when God is silent and seems distant, faith is sustained by the sign He already sent, and it’s all in the Bible (His text message). I think sometimes all it takes for Him to start speaking again is for us to remember that truth.
Blog Nuggets: new links and crates of love October 1, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Blog Nuggets.Tags: Blake Lewis, Rod Stewart
add a comment
Nugget 1: I’ve made several trips to the Home Depot recently, and so far I’ve been impressed with their response to the floods. The stuff people need the most is in stock and has been moved right up front, and as far as I can tell the prices have not been jacked up. In some cases, they’ve been dropped. The corporation also made a big donation to relief efforts.
Nugget 2: Why do sports announcers make such a habit of declaring how a certain statistic is completely meaningless, then immediately giving an example of how the statistic predicted the very outcome of the game? I heard this on one of our local sports talk radio stations: “I will always believe without a doubt that time of possession doesn’t mean diddly, but when your opponent has the ball TWENTY MINUTES longer than you do, you just can’t win the game.”
Nugget 3: I’ve quietly added a couple of blogs to the blogroll on the right, but I’d like to call them to your attention. The Focus blog is a Psalm-a-day devotional being written by members of our church. I’m honored to post on Wednesdays. “Anita’s Love” is a heartwarming and heart-wrenching tribute to Anita Schick by her husband Greg. He’s posting some of her past journal entries, letters, and emails, and I get to know her better with every post.
Nugget 4: Rod Stewart has a new CD box set of previously unreleased session demos. For anyone interested in the genesis of a song, it’s quite interesting. He lays down a vocal demo for “You Wear it Well” over a fully realized instrumental, and we learn very quickly how important lyrics are! One line goes, “So I went… on… my own way, feeling that everything’s done. Well I was tired… out, never the best, could not deedle-aw-duh. Do do do do la la la.” In another improvised line he actually replaces the titular words, “You wear is well” with “Your underwear”, sung just as passionately.
Nugget 5: Speaking of lyrics… Normally I ascribe to the “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything” school of writing, but I’m so moved by another new release that I must put on my evil critic hat. Remember Blake Lewis? I was a big fan on American Idol
when he would bust out the beat box on his way to a second place finish behind Jordin Sparks. He’s just released his second album, and some of the lyrics are just mystifyingly banal. There’s a whole “super-modern-digital” theme like it’s the early 90’s and CDs are a new thing. Here’s an excerpt from the title track, Heartbreak on Vinyl.
“Heartbreak On Vinyl was the name of the store. Now the store is gone and we can’t meet there anymore. We were digging in the crates of love. Well darling sometimes love just ain’t enough. Heartbreak on vinyl was for people, I guess, who fall in love in Analog and never let go. Oh oh oh.”
Digging in the crates of love? There’s a pickup line for you. Analog love is apparently untenable in our super-modern-digital age, and the second track tells us what’s better: Binary Love! It even gets a bonus syllable; it’s sung over and over as “by-uh-nary love”.
Finally, thanks for reading. We’ve passed 5,000 hits on the blog, which is cool.
