The limitless vs the limiting
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Music

I find myself in the studio now reviewing the manuals for new software, equipment and diving into the real challenge which is not just using the equipment, but using it well.

I suppose all artists wrestle somewhat with what is in their mind (limitless creativity) against the physical manifestation of their art (limiting canvas).  

The music in my head sounds vastly different than the guitar tracks, vocals, ect. that I actually record. The recorded soundwaves of my art does not sound the same as in my cerebral realm. 

So in comes messing with the sound, mics used, mic placement, all the technical things one can do to achieve ones purpose, only to find on can be stuck there indefinatly.

In the end, I think all artists ultimatly discover what they do well and build upon that strength in their work. I think one has to do that in order not to go mad or become discouraged  when reconciling the fact it is nearly impossible to share with others exactly what you want them to hear/see.

But in the act of discovering and delivering what you do well becomes an art in itself. 
And I think all great artists became great because they didn't limit themselves to the limitless, yet neither totally staying within that which limited them. In some ways, pushing themselves in two different directions which allowed their art to become larger than it would have been otherwise.

Ok I probably just confused everyone who read this but it makes sense to me. :)

Anyway be on the lookout for new material in 2008, begining to appear on Myspace within the month of March.

8:15 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thanksgiving Adventure

On Thanksgiving day the Mrs and I took our newborn downtown to prep up for a Saturday Breakfast for feeding the homeless. Knowing businesses were closed in Deep Ellum I wanted to park out front instead of the usual back parking lot.. you know just in case....

So as we are there decorating some homeless guys break into the building from the back and start smashing out a window on the deck to start stealing some of the music equipment and food. At first we heard banging and thought someone was out back banging on the door, but they were already inside. Once Keri saw feet from the upstairs window we grabbed our 3 month old and made our way outside, that was when they saw us and took off running.

It' a little unnerving to think we could have been hurt, its also a little sad that they knew this was a resource for helping the homeless and they were going to pillage it for themselves, but come Saturday we served a hearty breakfast, had music, and gave away door prizes (blankets, gloves, ect) to those who came in. I found myself a bit emotional being in the midst of the experience. Not that I can put it into words fully, but there is something moving about a massive undertaking of serving. It's not glamorus, it's not something that we strive to do every second of the day, but it in essence is an extension of Gods Kingdom.

Happy holidays to everyone!

10:48 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

In the quiet
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

The other week my 2 year old woke up crying to an apparent bad dream at about 3 in the morning. Dragging myself out of bed to go put him at ease I was wanting to get back in bed ASAP so I wouldn't be worn out for work later. He asked me to lay down with him and I couldn't fit on his tiny bed so I just got on my knees and laid my head on his bed and he rolled over to go to sleep... my mind got to wandering about God coming to our needs when we need Him. Is it ever inconvient for Him? My mind then expressing it's desire to spend more time with God and I realized how simple the solution was... JUST DO IT!  You could call it a "duh" moment,  but it hit me like a load of bricks. Make the time... take the time.

My son was finally back to sleep, and I went to bed to drift back into restful unconscienceness. I thought about a dream I had about my dad. It is the only one I remember having about him since he died. In the dream it was friends and family all together in a room just talking and hanging out. My dad walked into the room with a big smile and his face, everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and gave him a standing ovation. Everyone was clapping. He just sat down and looked at me with a very happy smile and never said a word.. in the dream we all knew he was deceased, but were not bothered by him being there.

I don't know what that means, if anything. I usually don't take too much stock in dreams. But it has stuck with me for months.

I drift back to sleep.

God help me make the time, take the time to spend with you more.

8:38 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Does using your talent for God mean keep it boring?

Before our praise band plays @ church we pray to be a participate in the worship service and to not take away from it. Which is a worthy thing to desire, I know I do not want to get up and make everyone think I am such a great musician.

However there seems to be this tendency within people who are wanting to use their talents for God to not do anything over the top because then you are 'exalting yourself' instead of exalting God.

What constitutes exalting oneself?

 If ones desire is to honor God with a creation of something artistic does it stop honoring God at some point if it suddenly has the complexity and technique beyond what others can do?

Is it because we think simplicity is more honoring to God?

Is it because we think it would cause people to not be impressed with God but with the artist?

Is it so we can be secretly proud of how humble we are?

I would think in most trivial matters, including this one, God is mostly concerned with the desire of our hearts. I am wanting to play creativly, but I am wanting to play creativly for God.

Vocalists, artists, musicians, architects, whatever your skill you have been blessed with, what is this tendency to hold back? Does God give a gift only to be particially unwrapped? Does God want potential for mastering and honoring to Him be supressed?

A lot of questions... more questions than answers in this blog.

But I look at creation and see some pretty awesome extremes between and variety within species. God seems to love variety, God loves His creation. A lot of it conjurs wonder and inspiration to the beholder and the one who stops to 'smell the flowers'. Why should our expression then be bland?

This inclination we have once we come to the point in our lives to use our talents to for the Creator, we have to keep it simple.. keep it plain... keep it, dare I say, even boring has been on my mind a lot this week.

1:29 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Microsoft luv

Well- I had wanted to reinstall Windows XP on my studio computer because I was experiencing some stutter on Windows 2000 and the awesome installation cd formated and installed XP on my second hard drive.

Yes, the drive that contained all my backup and recordings I have ever done. Yes. They are all gone. Bye bye. Toast. So I am starting over from scratch.

Nice.

7:31 AM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Back in the Studio

Sometimes you can't wait for things to be just right before making commitments.... life is still crazy... things still seem to be barely in control...

But with the loving encouragement of my wife I am making the time to get back in the studio and record some new material.

The goal? To be playing live by the end of this summer and seeing where this ministry can be effective.

The challenges? Basically... everything is fighting me it seems. But I just 'have to show it who's boss' as my grandfather would say. But I figure if I put in 1-2 hours a night, every night, for the next few months I should be able to accomplish that goal in one way or another.

So... hopefully in a few weeks I'll get a couple new tracks up.. some new pictures... and some new updates... and some new friends. Which will be good, I can't believe it's been a year since joining myspace and I basically have the same songs up. Are you guys sick of them yet? Hopefully not! But there will be some new stuff soon enough.... God willing.  :D

12:49 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Heard this song a hundred times, but this time it was different

A Sort of Homecoming

by u2

and you know its time to go through the sleet and driving snow

across the feilds of morning lights in the distance

and you hunger for the time time to heal desire time

and your earth moves beneath your own dreamland scape

on borderland we run

i'll be there, i'll be there tonight

the cities walls are all come down we'll dust a smoke screen all around

see faces plowed like fields that once gave no resistance

and we live on the side of the road on the side of the hill as the valley explodes

dislocated, suffucated, the land grows weary of its own

on borderland we run

and still we run we run and don't look back

i'll be there i'll there tonight

the wind will crack in wintertime this bomblast lightning waltz

no spoken words just a scream

tonight we'll build a bridge across the sea and land

see the sky the burning rain she will die and live again tonight

and you know its time to go through the sleet and driving snow

across the feilds of mourning lights in the distance

no don't sorrow no don't weep for tonight at last I am coming home

I am coming home

Welcome home dad

@}----

1:35 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The human soul
Current mood: sad

Last Thursday I found myself as every other day just doing what needed to be done... all my "stuff" on my priority list. Trying to get everything I need to finish taxes, training, annual review at work, ect.

I found myself out driving to Fort Worth that evening to meet a couple engaged to be married to discuss the possibility of me being their DJ, on the way there got in an arguement with my wife and had to let her go so I wouldn't show up at my meeting with red eyes (already been a stressful day).

Little did I know as I took a wrong exit in Ft Worth I was driving by my father who had just been discovered sitting in his work truck in a Wal Mart parking lot, unresponsive. He has passed away sometime that morning after 7:13 am from a heart attack.

He was too young, I thought of how hard his life had become the past couple of years, working unrealistic hours (sometimes getting up at 3am and getting home at 9 pm) he had aged so fast, lost some of his spark. I had even got impatient with him at times. Now, it was over. He had passed on.

The city of Ft Worth gave us his 'belongings', nail clippers, wallet, keys, and a cell phone in a bag. So weird to think of what people can tell about you with what you carry on your person....

Death is ugly. Its an invader. Everything comes to an ugly stop when you get 'the call'. Everything you thought was important is put in proper perspective when death takes someone you call your own.

I am thankful for the last Sunday I had with him. He got to tell me how proud he was of me and my music. He got to help with my 2 year old son who was acting up that afternoon... my 2 year old who will soon forget who my father was as he is too young to remember.

I finally saw dad yesterday. I realized then when we love someone it is their soul that we really love. Not their face, not their mind, but their soul. The body is just the medium the soul expresses itself through in this life. Once the soul is gone the part we love is gone. We are left with a shell that does not have a natural expression because there is no life... even the skin is jealous to be alive as when you touch it is steals your body warmth and feels cold to the touch. We were made to be alive. Not to die.

I am not writing this as a tribute to my dad. I love him and miss him, and still getting my head together for the funeral tomorrow. My life is a tribute to him and the ways he raised me up. If I had only known I only had these last years left with him things would have been said a little different, things would have been done a littler different. But that is the past now. I now am going to bury my dad, help my brothers take care of mom, and soon enough I will be joining my dad and grandparents who have gone before me...I say soon enough not that I expect it to happen soon... but even if I live to be 100 years old it is still too soon.

I need to go, I have to pick up cd's of my dads music I have made for his memorial service... his music... I feel bad I never listened to him as 'an artist' but just as 'my dad making music.' I hear his music in a new light now. Thank you dad for everything. Thank you God for his soul. I am sad his voice is now silenced from the world. But will use mine to continue Gods work.

9:33 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The words of Jesus the church has mostly ignored

I thought of this while responding to Blundys blog.

I believe this to be the most ignored prayer by Christians and the church taken from John 17.

"I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

Is the church really one?

For too long Christians have divided themselves up into denominations (Bible church, Church of Christ, Assembly of God, Baptist, ect) and kept those outside their denomination out.

If I asked all christians to think of a denomination other than theirs and list somethings about them I would probably get answers like "they don't use music instruments during worship, but my church does", "their church thinks dancing is a sin, mine doesn't" or "they don't have sunday school but mine does".

I doubt many Christians would be thinking "they believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so does my church", "they believe Jesus died for our sins and so does my church", ect.

I don't think the church as a whole understands the core pieces of scripture are agreed upon throughout various denominations. It's the issues not clearly defined in the bible people like to divide and split up the body. But we are warned.

1 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV) Brothers and sisters, I have used myself and Apollos as examples to help you. You can learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Don't go beyond what is written." Then you won't be proud that you follow one person instead of another.

 We can discuss our differences, what we believe, not every Christian is going to be at the same point in their walk with God. But we should still be one church, not many 'churches' comfortable in our own little hole believing our church is the 'one true church.' (see Romans 14- 15:1-13 for more info)

How is the world to know God really did send us when people will divide churches over whether we use real wine or grape juice during communion? Whether we use electric guitars or piano while singing to God? What day is the best day to worship?

There is more than one way to worship God, we could perform communion using Doritos and Coca Cola and singing to God with someone playing the spoons and washboard. God is interested in your heart not your churches traditions.. unless you churches traditions are put above God. Which I think is something us Christians are doing. And we are paying the price for it.

Who knows, we might find out how exciting it is to serve God through a relationship and not just because its what your church has always done.

I challenge anyone who is reading this blog to reach out to the body of Christ that are outside your church, outside your denomination. Challenge those in your church to do the same. We don't have to agree on everything, and believe me, we are not going to get our theology straight this side of the grave, but one thing we need to do is stop looking down or judging our brothers and sisters who don't worship the exact same way we do when they aren't violating scripture. That is merely human pride. We need to start showing love of the spirit.

9:50 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

The Plano Experience

Ok- so I drive to Plano get to work. Plano is a city north of Dallas that used to be called Llano, named after a hispanic train driver but some bright politician thought the American public was too stupid to understand or pronounce a city begining with repeating consonants so she changed the name to Plano*.. ok so I digress in my opening statements...

Anyway if you have never been to Plano and you live in Dallas just drive north on 75. You will know you are in Plano when cars on the highway cut across three lanes of traffic in less than a second to exit the highway.The closer the cars are to hitting the dividers and exit signs the deeper you are in Plano territory.

Seriously, I have been working in Plano for years and it never ceases to amaze me when it happens.

I almost joined a car crashing party this morning by a guy who cut across my lane in front of me and swerved back because the lane next to mine was already occupied by cars which had erroneously taken the exit before the double white lines. Those people must have been visiting Plano otherwise they wouldn't have been so rude as to obey traffic laws. :D

Anyway that's all for today.

* Plano history as I have been told- may not be factual but probably is. :)

8:19 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment