The Hazards of Love
Well…it took a while, but I’m loving The Decemberists latest concept album The Hazards of Love. It is a true work of art, and a daring piece of work for a band that had fully established themselves and their style by the time The Crane Wife took off. “Hazards” tells the story of Margaret, her shape-shifting, forest-dwelling lover, and the random…well…hazards to their love. In about 60 minutes the story is told, to the diverse tunes that have been compared to everything from the Decemberists’ classic folk style to 80′s grunge. I guess you could call it a kind of retrospectively-progressive-folk-rock.
And it’s good.
Check out the entire album streaming online at EW.com.
Oh, and The Decemberists play in L.A. pretty soon. I’m conspiring with a couple friends to go catch their show. That would be a pretty stellar experience, I’m sure.
Tune into the Decemberists’ concert live, tonight.
I love The Decemberists. Their story-in-song style is very engaging, and their music is simply delightful. Well, up to this point it has been, anyway. Next week the band will release THE HAZARDS OF LOVE, their latest album, but you can listen to them play the entire album live, tonight at 11pm ET.
Tune in here, thanks to the folks at NPR.
As a personal note, I’ve heard three songs from the forthcoming CD and, that trio of tunes was drastically different than anything I’ve ever heard from Colin and co. before. And, honestly, I only really liked one of them (“The Rake’s song”). Here’s to hoping the album as a whole is another solid entry in their brilliant repertoire, although it would be hard to surpass their last album The Crane Wife.
KINGS (+ video)
The last TV series NBC ordered before the Writers’ Strike was KINGS, a drama based (so far anyway) on the book of 1 Samuel. Yes, that’s a book of the Bible, and by “based” I mean that the story features a young soldier named David who apparently defies the army of Gath and their champion (tanks, individually referred to as) “Goliath”, is subsequently christened a hero by his country, and made a friend of the King…until the King’s jealousy sets in. Oh, and there’s also a Reverand Samuel in the picture, and repeated references to God (although the King is manipulative in his invocations of the Deity).
I watched the series premiere of this show (aired on March 15) and was honestly surprised by all the Biblical references and the overall quality of the show. It is well scripted, excellently acted, and very interesting to follow. Of course, when the script is penned by one of the authors of NBC’s Heroes and directed by Francis Lawrence (I am Legend), one should expect a high level of quality.
Interested enough to watch the premiere? If you missed it on TV, you can watch it online, via Hulu.
I’m not going to say I love it, but I am probably going to watch the next episode or two just to see how some of these plot lines work themselves out and just how much of the story takes its cues from the Biblical narrative.
This makes me happy…
Death Cab For Cutie is going to release 5 tracks that didn’t make their 2008 LP, Narrow Stairs, on the forthcoming The Open Door EP. The EP will be available digitally on March 31st and in stores April 14.
Tracklisting:
1. Little Bribes
2. A Diamond And A Tether
3. My Mirror Speaks
4. I Was Once A Loyal Lover
5. Talking Bird (Demo)
Can’t wait for this release? Me neither. In the meantime, check out Death Cab’s latest music video for their song “Grapevine Fires”.
Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails…Lovelite?
Really the only thing Lovelite has in common with those two powerhouse alt-rock bands is that they’re offering an album on a “Pay what you feel” basis. Certainly not the first since Radiohead, nor the best, but certainly worth mentioning and listening to, Lovelite’s debut album ALL COLOR is a worship music album as good as any other in that oftenly overly-processed, all-too-generic genre of “Christian Music”. I won’t go out on a limb and say that Lovelite is brilliant or reinvents the worship wheel (because they don’t), but the band certainly has passion, God-centered lyrics, and music that is more interesting and inventive than anything by Tomlin, Redman, Rush of Fools, and [Insert name of practically ever other popular worship leader out there].
Plus, the album’s free (unless you’re feeling particularly generous). So no harm in checking it out, right?
- Check out the album download page.
Start with: “There You Are” and “Our Peace / All Color”
Social Networking + The websites I couldn’t live without
[["Conditional Needs" -- Makeout Party]]
“Social networking” in the online (some might say abstractly impersonal) sense is hardly a new phrase. Although it is still a fairly young phenomenon, the surge of sites like myspace, facebook, twitter, and youtube (as well the myriad of trickle-down sites influenced and inspired by these original behemoths), the reality is that online social networking has become quite a significant chunk of most of our everyday interaction. Some, like my friend Caz, have a real aversion to a lot of the new trends, particularly the slightly narcististic twitter and the increasingly invasive/stalker-friendly-facebook.
I, on the other hand, appreciate their existence in culture, and enjoy the opportunity these sites give me to keep tabs on friends that I don’t see or talk to every day. It’s not a matter of not wanting to keep in touch with them via the old-school method of a phone call, the slightly more outdated Instant Message, or the [*gasp*] stone-age person-to-person, face-to-face chat. No, it’s just a matter of time constraints. Between working from 8 to 5:30 and fitting school around that, it’s hard to keep in touch with everyone. And yet, I wish I could. So, whatever people want to shoot out to the world via their twitter-feeds or status updates is fine with me; it helps me feel more connected to people I truly do care about. Plus, I don’t really like the whole “stalking” mentality. It’s much easier to just read whatever friends serve up on twitter.
Some people spend all of their time on sites like facebook and youtube; it is very easy to lose track of time as you’re surfing from one profile or video to the next. These sites have their uses, certainly, but are there sites out there that you actually would be somewhat lost without, or Web apps that play a significant part in your daily existence? Here are mine:
1. Evernote
Evernote is a brillaint mobile phone application (it works for your computer, too) that allows you to write notes, record snippets of audio, and take pictures on your phone, and then uploads it to evernote.com where you can organize, save, and download the stuff. It’s a wonderful way to take notes in the middle of a meeting or jot down a grocery list before you forget. Since my cell has an unlimited data plan, this works perfectly for me, and allows me to take a virtual notebook with me wherever I go.
2. Last.fm
I love music. If you know me, you should know this. This site is for anyone who actually enjoys music (and not just the top 40 charts, but actual music). What last.fm can do for you depends upon what you want it to do for you. At it’s most basic form, last.fm is a music recommendation site much like pandora which streams music playlists based on a band or artist that you like. Get a little bit more serious about your music and you’ll want to sign up for a free last.fm account and download the “scrobbler” which will basically record anything that your desktop media player is playing and upload it to your last.fm profile. Last.fm keeps track of what you listen to, including your likes and dislikes, and recommends music playlists accordingly. It also builds charts of the artists you listen to, recording the amount of times you’ve listened to this track or that band. Get really serious by downloading the free scrobbler for your iPod which will record all the stuff you play on your portable media device and upload that to your profile as well.
Last.fm is a must have for someone who loves music and loves finding new tunes to populate their iPod. According to it my top three most listened to artists are Death Cab For Cutie, Switchfoot, and Sigur Ros. Hmmm….
3. Google Docs
Similar to evernote, but as a web app and less a mobile phone app. Google docs is a great way to write and store, collaborate and share documents, especially now that the site can also view PDF files. With the wave of the future being to push more and more online, it’s great to be able to have your documents at your fingertips, online, wherever you go. Always just a few clicks away.
4. Meebo
Why download a desktop Instant Messenger application when you can chat with all your buddies online? IMing may not be the craze that it once was, but if you ever do find yourself chatting these days, why not sign up for meebo and do it online? You can aggregate your buddies from all sorts of other applications (including Yahoo, Gtalk, MSN, AOL, Facebook, etc) into one comprehensive buddy list. Plus, gotta love the name. Meebo. It just sounds cute and friendly.
I would be lost without all of my newsfeeds. But I also would never have enough time in the day to visit every single site on my “must-read” list. So that’s why I use google reader, the — in my opinion — best in the business when it comes to RSS Feed Aggregators. Google continues to make this web-app better, too, improving on the features without sacrificing the simplistic accessibility of Reader.
6. The ESV Study Bible (online)
I love my ESV Study Bible. The English Standard Version is a relatively new translation of the Bible that uses a fewer number of manuscripts than does the original King James Version…but the manuscripts are also older and are of enough quantity to still certify accuracy. The ESV Study Bible just came out last year, and not only does it contain the rich text of God’s Word in this excellent translation, it is also full of thousands of notes by a plethora of respected scholars and theologians. And now, the entire Study Bible (complete with the notes) is online at this slick site, and accesible to those who own an ESV Study Bible (and, for the rest of this month — everyone else too). As an additional feature, the online ESV Study Bible also contains every chapter, every word of the text in audio form, available for streaming at the click of a button.
Oh…and I also use facebook. And Twitter. 
What about you?
Love for the game…
[["Yankee Bayonet" -- The Decemberists]]
My love for basketball has been thoroughly rekindled since I’ve been here in Bakersfield. Every couple of nights I try to find my way to the park a mile from my house, meet some friends who are there, or join the guys already playing, and just…go at it. For a couple hours it is a great way to blow off steam, get exercise, and have some good, competitive fun. I have missed the game. Missed all those nights in the gym with my various basketball teams, fighting it out for an hour or so on the hardcourt. Great memories. The championships were fun, yes, but in the end, it was the game and the awesome comraderie that went along with it that made me love it so much.
I’ll never forget the last game I played. It was in Oklahoma City; the National Homeschooling basketball tournament. We were seeded higher than I thought we would be, but as a team, we rose to the competition, and played our hearts out, going all the way to the championship game of our bracket. The championship game was against a team that featured two dudes that had played on the All Star game (one as a starter). It was an intense, physical game — one in which I got the hardest hit to my groin that I’ve ever received…ha, that sure made running up and down the court interesting for a few minutes. (Luckily someone called a timeout before too long!) Anyway, the game went down to the wire, but we ended up surging ahead and then put it out of reach with some free throws at the end. Afterwards our coach ran out and sprayed all of us with…7Up. (I did say this was a homeschool basketball tournament ) Truly memorable.
I like the bit of that that I get back on nights like this when I get to go down to the playground and hussle it out with 9 other guys for a couple of hours.
Glorious Compassion
[["Your Hand in Mine" -- Explosions in the Sky]]
I was reading Matthew 14, which begins by recounting the beheading of John The Baptist and then continues with the story of the feeding of the 5,000+. I don’t know how many times I’ve read this chapter before, but the juxtaposition of John’s beheading with Jesus’ famous bread-making miracle never stood out to me before. Now, I don’t think I’ll ever read either story the same way again.
From the text we learn that John has just been beheaded by Herod’s command in order to appease the whim of his wife(‘s daughter). After this, John’s disciples come and take away John’s body and bury it. “And then,” verse 12 says, “they went and told Jesus”. The following verse says that when Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew, turned aside, left their company, and got on a boat heading for a deserted spot.
But when he gets off the boat he discovers that a huge mass of people are already waiting for him. They’ve followed Christ (on foot along the shore, according to the text) with their sick friends and family in tow, and they want healing.
In a move that doesn’t amaze me so much as it simply confirms who Christ is and what His purpose for coming to Earth was, Jesus “ha[s] compassion on them and heal[s] their sick.” The greek here indicates a powerful movement within Christ, and very strong emotion. A lot has been said about the love and compassion of Christ for the lost and for his disciples alike, but for me, this was another beautiful way of showing that even in the moments after hearing of John’s awful death, Christ was still willing to set aside his emotions and his feelings and give himself to the people. He healed the sick. And then, later in the story, he meets another need and feeds them too.
In the call to be Christ-like, this kind of selfless love is no less difficult to pattern ourselves after, but it is nonetheless mandatory to adopt.
