a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

The Future Is Unwritten
(and anything written has been erased….)

Up on the watershed, standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize, ‘til your agony's your heaviest load
You'll never fly as the crow flies. Get used to a country mile.
When you're learning to face the path at your pace
Every choice is worth your while.
—“Watershed,” Indigo Girls

Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those long, rambly personal ones. So either buckle up or see you next time.

Where to begin, where to begin… and let's just say at the outset, things aren’t as bad as I probably give off here. It’s just that I’ve been dwelling a lot lately on the nature of uncertainty, as it were. And that’s become even more apparent as I write the final quarter of Growing Out, which is all about pursuing a God-given vision. It’s simultaneously been a time to reflect on times where I’ve done just that (not only in the past, but in the very course of this thing I’m in the process of writing – it’s very Escherian to watch yrself write about the thing you’re watching yrself write about… TOLD you this was gonna get rambly....), and once more contemplate what’s next after this (hopefully a few months from now, but more about that later)….

So, in an attempt to process out loud, here goes….

Let’s start with an obvious one: Amy leaves for college (in Portland) in January. At which point, Marion & I go to being official empty-nesters. And here we are in this big old house that could really use some more action in it already. And it’s not for lack of trying.

Which, in turn, affects our group. The good news is, most of those who’ve attended over the last couple years are now in stable church relationships now. And thus, our little triage group has been a success on some fronts, but it’s running out of patients. And let’s just say that Amy’s departure will take a lot of extra dynamic out from those of us left. I’ve had some interesting offline discussions about where the dynamic might go from here. I’ve also had this peculiar hope that the Mike Roe concert might draw in a few new people, at least for the interim, but….

…yeah, it’s been slim pickins’ so far. Sounds like at least some of it is “I’ll do it at the last minute” stuff, but it’s been moving very slowly so far (although I DO have someone coming all the way from Lincoln, Nebraska). It’s not so much about recouping the money (although that’d be nice – we’ve been bleeding the stuff lately) as it is that I’d really like a full house for Mike & arguably moreso Tim’s sakes. (And now there’s a third act – blues dude Michael Miller, who toured the West Coast with Mike. C’mon, $12.50 for advance tickets to 3 acts! If anyone from Loveland’s tuning in here, c’MON already!) You’d’ve thought that since I actually know a handful of living, breathing 77s fans here in town, this wouldn’t be like pulling teeth.

Anyway, spent the weekend putting up flyers all over the place, since most of the obvious suspects haven’t come through yet. I feel like the guy in the parable who invites all his friends to dinner, gets snubbed, and then has to go out to the highways & byways. (Led to a few interesting discussions with complete strangers on Saturday, in any case.)

OK, so on to some of the stuff that’s really weighing on me right now. Let’s start with Seasons 5 & 6 of Growing Out being pushed off until December 2010, for the exact opposite reasons it all got pushed back the first time (They have to release together so they all get a fair chance! No, now they have to release separately so they all get a fair chance!).  At least Seasons 1-4 are still set for June. And as, again, I’m still writing Season 6, the pressure to deliver it by end of year is now off (now that I’m finally keeping to my own self-imposed schedule…) It’s worth noting that although the decision was made a week ago, no-one’s “officially” told me this yet (let’s just say I have a mole, that my boss knows I know, and that I know she isn’t happy about the chain of un-information either). And yes, only five weeks ago I said there weren't even rumors of this occuring, so yes, I was totally blindsided. And I just saw the first versions of the re-re-revised covers; they’re not terrible, but I can’t say any of them thrill me. So far it seems like just another case of breaking what's not broken. But again, they’re not final, so let’s see what happens.

And then there’re the other things I don’t officially know about (and to be fair, haven’t been fully decided upon yet). But suffice to say those decisions will greatly affect my job and what it might look like in the future. And that most of the alternatives on the table at this time are less than enthralling. And that obviously, I can’t share anything specific. And for that matter, that I don’t want to start any unnecessary panic at home and thus can’t really share there either. Thus driving me more than a little crazy.

And it’s probably best not to ask me about the seemingly serendipitous church-plant thing. Because, in all honesty and in the words of Sargeant Schultz, I know nut-TING.

So with all that, let’s arc back upwards….

I think I’ve mentioned it here before – and by all means, ignore the irony of my bringing it up again here at this juncture -- but I’ve had a very strong feeling for awhile now that once Growing Out is finally delivered things are going to change significantly. And that I have no idea what that might look like. It might entail any, all, or none of the above. And thus, I need to just say, “OK God, what next?” and leave it there. I’ve been better with that in general, but the accumulating annoyances (many of which aren’t detailed or even alluded to here) have led me to nonetheless vent a bit here.

And thus, to quote Joe Strummer et al., the future is unwritten. (And again, keep those pencils and erasers handy, kids.) And don't nobody go Calvinist on my butt -- I'm talking from my perspective. Again, Season 6 is about literally fleshing out a God-given vision, and in the process of simultaneously looking back and looking forward I get to not only write questions but ask them of myself. Try these samples (from just the first 3 lessons) on for size, because *I* have:

• Why do we limit ourselves when we’re doing what we believe God wants us to do—since, after all, we believe it’s God’s idea?
• Will this vision, once it’s realized, reveal more about God to others, or just more about me?
• Would I still want this to happen even if someone else did it—or even if I did it and someone else got the credit?
• How can fear and doubt—whether it’s about what God wants, our own motives and capabilities, or something else—cause us to miss, or even run away from, what God wants?
• Read Jeremiah 20:7-18. How can one person possibly be feeling all these things at once? How would you explain it? [Suffice to say that while I’m not in this place, I understand it well enough right about now.]
• Where’s the “fire in [your] bones” right now? In other words: What would you attempt for God even if you knew you’d fail over and over? And where does the vision you’re exploring fit into that? 
• What’s tougher for you—to weep, mourn, fast, and pray for God’s will (Nehemiah 1:4), or to wait from “late autumn” to “the following spring” (Nehemiah 1:1 and 2:1) for an answer?
      
And again, don’t think I haven’t subjected myself to these questions as well. Again, it’s all preparation for something.

One thing I’ve been (re-re-re-re-)learning through all this is that it’s really easy to get caught up in “what if’s,” when the fact of the matter is: Our entire life is a “what-if.” Nothing’s in stone. (Again, step off, Calvinists. ) The security we think we’re losing or walking away from is a mirage, while the uncertainty of where God’s leading is the most dependable thing we can possibly bank on.

It doesn’t make it any easier to do, but there you are.

But sometimes it does make things easier. The less I’m locked in on circumstances, and just dealing with what’s in front of me and letting the chips fall, the easiest it gets to move forward. Wherever THAT is. :)

As previously mentioned, Marion & I are off on retreat together week after next (and then we come back to host Mike, Tim, and hopefully a cast of dozens). We both feel like we need this badly. Even if I haven’t shared everything up top with her, I’ve shared enough of it. And she’s likewise looking for guidance of her own right about now. Not least of all because her baby's leaving home. So yr accompanying prayers are more than welcome here.

I don’t expect there’ll be another update here prior to our return. Hopefully I’ll be in a better frame of mind by then. I mean, c’mon, after three days of retreat with my wife in the Rockies, and Mike & Tim in my sun room a couple days later, I’d BETTER be in a better frame of mind. I mean, seriously here….

Posted by: burninglight at 13:36 | link | comments

Tinker to Evers to Free Will

So let's jump on these puppies already. None blowing me entirely out of the water, but all worth your consideration. Two hit-and-runs and a dissertation....

Michael Roe -- We All Gonna Face the Rising Sun. I won't say this is a revelation, but I will say it's a bit of a pleasant surprise. I really didn't want to throw down for Son of Holy Ghost Building, but recent events, after all, necessitated it. And thus, I did. Not that HGB was terrible by any stretch, but as previously stated, it just ain't my kind of music, and thus I couldn't see paying for another CD of the same when what I really wanted was the first collection of Mike Roe originals in 5 years.

So yes, it's another collection of Mike Roe (sans company this time) covering a slew of old gospel/blues songs. That's already a tipoff as to what you'll think. And for a decidely more enthusiastic and better written spin, go to Andre Salles' review on Tuesday Morning 3 a.m.  That all said, I can actually see myself being in the mood for this again sometime after I've finished fully absorbing it. Done solo, it feels more natural and right than HGB did. Marion loves it (and thus is even more pumped for the concert now). We'll see how the battery of friends & relatives I subjected HGB to feels about it, but I suspect they'll enjoy it more, too. Take this for what it's worth, but it kinda feels like a really good children's folk album (and I have a Pete Seeger kids' cassette to back this claim up -- Aaaaaaabiyo-yo.... ). Winsome is a good word for it.

Thus, we get the whistling, chipper "Jonah in the Wilderness," going into the Boat-Ashore-friendly "Dry Bones" (which is to say, some really nice vocals/atmosphere/gravitas), back to the more upbeat and praisy "Woke Up This Morning With My Mind." From there, jump ahead to the title song. Again, Andre describes it better, but suffice to say a roomful of a capella Mike Roes is never a bad thing. And it does feel like you've stumbled onto the chain gang from O Brother Where Art Thou as you take it in. And Mike turns up the amps for "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down," rendering it a smokin' piece of rockabilly.

I'd have to disagree with Andre, though, on the admittedly weird "We Need More Rattlesnakes" (although I liked his solution to the disconnect he's experiencing). I've always said that Mike Roe is living proof that there WILL be jerks in heaven. Thus, even though it's nothing like the rest of the album, it fits. Basically, a spoken tale of a preacher calling down rattlesnakes on every sinner in town, by name, so they'll all get saved. (Tim: Think a much crabbier, fundamentalist version of Walter Brennan's "Dat mule, Ol' Ribbers (eeet, gasp, sob)... an' ME." Or... )

Anyway, take all this for what it's worth, and if it's not yr thing go find something else of Mike's to buy instead. The man deserves it.


Yo La Tengo -- Popular Songs. Really, the best way to describe this is "Yep, it's another Yo La Tengo album, all right." Which is to simultaneously say: 1) It's all over the map stylistically, as usual, and 2) It's nowhere as good as I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.  (BTW, anyone else notice the direct and ongoing correlationbetween length of YLT album title and quality of album therein?) In short, this ain't gonna get them any new fans, but the existing ones will like it well enough. It IS another Yo La Tengo album, all right, and that's never a bad thing.

Interesting division this time out -- you could easily think of this as Side One and Side Two, what with the first 9 songs/38 minutes being the shorter, more accessible pieces, and the last 3 songs/37 minutes being the long and spacy and/or raveup pieces.

I could see "Here to Fall," the first and longest of the Side 1 songs, actually getting some airplay, what with its Verve-ish string-laden reverb vibe. For more Yo-La-Tengo-the-way-we-like them (loud, fast, distorted and melodic -- i.e., Ray Davies and Lou Reed put their respective habits to the side and make great singles together), check out "Nothing to Hide." And for more of that Zombies vibe leftover from I Am Not Afraid..., go to "Periodically Double or Triple." And admit it, as soon as you hear "If It's True," you WANT to start singing "Sugarpie, honeybunch.... I can't help myself." As well you should.

Then there's the three closing songs, which get longer as they go, um, along. The shortest (at 9 1/2+ minutes), "More Stars Than There Are in Heaven," is a kinda pretty chugging thing; "The Fireside" would be my favorite -- spacy yet engaging (actually reminds me of the better moments from Mike Roe's ^ and Mark Harmon's Orbis). And then there's the 15-plus-minute distortionfest "And the Glitter Is Gone." If you liked "Sunsquashed," here's a decidely more compact version. If not....

And there you have it. Try them now, or find one of those longer-titled albums and give yourself a better chance.

And finally...

David Bazan -- Curse Your Branches. Well, THIS is different.

When we last checked in with Dave, it concerned the dissolution of the wonderful if danged depressing Pedro the Lion, and a retrospective of the music therein. At the time, I mused at length about how what was essentially a one-man band could "break up." Now I get it.

So, as promised, here at last are the results of that wrestling match with.... well, Dave Bazan's wrestling match.... so let's get ready to rumble.... but first, let's catch up a bit.

In the time since Pedro went belly-up, on the musical front Dave has given us the fairly atrocious electronica album Headphones (hey Ma, I barely learned to play the Casio and forgot how to write decent lyrics!), and the decent EP-disguised-as-solo album Fewer Moving Parts (wherein we get 2 different versions of the same 5 songs -- all with different titles; still, the title track and "How I Remember" are particularly good).

And on the personal front, let's just say that at the end of his long-standing war with mainstream evangelical Christianity that marked the end of Pedro's run, Dave went on a 3-year bender (including him and his milk-jug's worth of vodka getting kicked out of the Cornerstone Festival), and came out the other side agnostic. And that his wife and both their respective families remain believers.

And that, in a nutshell, is the subject matter of Curse Your Branches. There's really three types of songs here: 1) the my-breakup-with-God-and-how-it-affects-everyone-around-me songs; 2) the "I'm blind-drunk and destroying my family" songs (thankfully, it sounds like he's doing a lot better with this lately); and finally 3) the songs directly addressed to "you." Suffice to say, even if "you" is real, Dave doesn't like "you." And the borders between said three categories blur regularly.

For those wanting more background, there's a pretty fascinating interview (dialogue, really) with fellow ex-believer J. Edward Keyes (who I've briefly crossed paths with on, ahem, certain other Christian music boards/lists) on eMusic: . Perhaps the most convincing thing -- and encouraging, despite its current trappings -- is this:

And I thought, "If this is real, if Christianity is real, I need to feel some kind of intrinsic motivation." There's this bullshit parable about a pastor who goes to a guy's house who's stopped attending church. The guy has a fire going, and so the pastor picks up with the little tongs a lump of coal, and puts it on the end of the hearth. And so they're talking and the pastor asks "Why aren't you going to church?" The guy says, "Oh, I'm just reading the Bible on my own." And so the pastor refers back to the coal that has since burned out, because it wasn't close to the fire. And I just thought, "If there's a real mystical energy that's coming from this being, from this belief, then the coal just has to keep burning regardless. The surrounding coals can't be the driving force keeping it alive." And when I realized that, I thought "My gosh, I've been making profound assumptions my entire life that need to be examined before I move forward." And that was basically it.

I mean, for me, I just want to get some distance. I mean, is it OK for a guy just to get some real distance? It takes years to do this. And in Christianity, the answer is, "No, because if you die tonight ..." Even in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, he talks about how timeline-obsessed Christians are. Christianity builds in all these motivators - you've got to figure it out now, you don't have the time.  And that was one of the first things that I rejected. ...

In the end, I'm in a really happy place right now. I feel like I can hold my own and have permission from myself to be in limbo for years and years, to just collect data. In the meantime, if evangelical people that I know will have me, then great. There are plenty of things we can agree on.

Wait. Read that last paragraph again. Dave Bazan? In a happy place? Well, that's just one of the surprises about this album.

Again, this is more an extended dialogue than a review. Which I hope would Dave would appreciate, especially given his insistence on staying engaged with the same evangelical community whose tenets he's rejecting. He still plays the Christian festivals (Cornerstone welcomed him back this year) and coffeehouses (caught him at one in Fort Collins in March, in fact -- and now Amy is a HUGE Pedro fan; FWIW, both of us feel pretty much the same about this album), does interviews on Christian radio, et al. As he says, it's still a huge part of his life, despite where he comes down right now.

A co-worker here put it best: "It's a break-up album... with God... It's the happiest saddest breakup album ever." (And tim, hopefully you'll get to meet Scott in a few weeks.) It's a lot to process, even at this end of things. Which is certainly one reason I've hardly said anything at all about the CD itself yet. So let's get to that.

First off, it's probably no surprise that the reactions to this album have been quite polarizing. And I'd have to disagree with the vast majority of reviews that either promounce it "the album of David Bazan's career" OR decide "here's where we part ways" and/or "what is this mopey crap?" (It's Dave Bazan, dummy. What the heck were you expecting? ) Anyway, it's good. It's very good. But it's not his best. I'm still weighing where it stacks up against, say, It's Hard to Find a Friend or Achilles Heel, but this is no threat to Control and Winners Never Quit.

It's probably already obvious that there's already several far better level-headed reviews of this album than this one. (Here's just one: http://www.tinymixtapes.com/David-Bazan. I think Andre's finally getting to this next week.) I'm just here to process. So, finally musically speaking, a few things that will stand out immediately from the Pedro pantheon:

1) There's actual arrangements here, No, seriously.
2) Yeah, for Dave Bazan, this is positively perky. Which is to say, he sounds slightly more chipper than Morrissey here, and downright giddy next to Leonard Cohen. I might even say it feels warm in places.
3) It's obviously a lot more personal than any Pedro album. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not.

For immediate evidence of the musical growth, go no further than the opener "Hard to Be." It actually takes more than a minute and a half for Dave to start singing, but it's a very nice, somberly intense keyboard-driven intro (hey, maybe he did learn something from Headphones!). And then, the battle's immediately on:

Wait just a minute
You expect me to believe
That all this misbehaving
Grew from one enchanted tree?

And helpless to fight it
We should all be satisfied
With this magical explanation
For why the living die?
And why it's hard to be
Hard to be
Hard to be a decent human being...

So I swung my tassel
To the left side of my cap
Knowing after graduation
There would be no going back
And no congratulations
From my faithful family
Some of whom are already fasting
To intercede for me

Because it's hard to be
Hard to be
Hard to be a decent human being.

"Bless This Mess" likewise keeps up the propulsion, and doesn't excuse Drunken Dave from the proceedings even as he looks for grace from someone he no longer believes in: "By my baby's yellow bed, I kissed her forehead and rubbed her little tummy / Wondered if she'd soon despise the smell of the booze on my breath like her mom / And it makes me want to be a better man / After another drink. / God bless the man at the crossroads / God bless the woman who still can't sleep / God bless the history that doesn't repeat."

Speaking of Drunken Dave, "Please Baby Please" is the apex of that particular curve. An absurdly bouncy song about a rather harrowing real-life episode where Dave's wife thought he had finally managed to drunk himself  to death (I believe it's the Keyes interview where he mentions that his wife STILL can't listen to this song), then woke up and went on tour, Dave ruminates about the episode and others like it, how it's slowly or not-so-slowly killing his wife, and about what exactly he's passing on to his daughter through all this:

When I woke up the next morning,
You looked right through me
Through your eyes crying,
I could finally see
They said, "please baby please baby please..."

When I called you from Atlanta,
You refused to speak
Not three days sober,
Begging for a drink
And I said, "please baby please baby please..."

Those two pairs of big blue eyes
Stare me down, watching me fall
But what makes a man realize
That he's about to lose it all?

Sunrise at the county lock-up
Now our baby's twenty-three
She'd been out late drinking,
Killed a mother of three
And she said, "please daddy please daddy please..."

The title song sounds directed at both God and family: "Oh, falling leaves should curse their branches / For not letting them decide where they should fall / And not letting them refuse to fall at all."  The more Pedro-esque "Harmless Sparks" might be the most non-personal thing here -- not that the attack isn't personal, as it's about the Catholic sex scandal: "They might have burned / But the priests were out taking turns / Showing nuns what they had discerned about their bodies, in the dark / They carried on, from the evening until the dawn / Like they should have been all along / Making harmless sparks / Instead of breaking little boys' hearts."

Then there's "When We Fell," probably the most direct song to God on here. And again, surprisingly perky and catchy -- think Mick Jagger singing in a monotone and y'r closing in. If you didn't hear the lyrics, you'd think "Wow, what a catchy song. This could be the single after 'Please, Baby, Please.' You know, if it weren't for the lyrics to THAT":

If my mother cries when I tell her what I discovered
Then I hope she remembers she taught me to fallow my heart
And if you bully her like you done me with fear of damnation
Then I hope she can see you
for what you are...

What am I afraid of?
Who did I betray?
In what medieval kingdom does justice work that way?
If you knew what would happen
And you made us just the same
Then you, my Lord, can take the blame.

Yeah, that's a pretty strong thump in the chest. And nonetheless delivered with a Beatles-like brrriiing at the end. It does make me wonder, though: Um, exactly what God were you following before this, Dave? And wasn't the whole purpose of the crucifixion (albeit not in the sense y'r suggesting here) for Jesus to "take the blame"?

The more elegiac "Lost My Shape" (trying to act casual?) is Dave taking Dave to task. I have to imagine this one was written a few years back, as his faith and life in general was falling apart. Thus, for me, it's probably the most powerful thing on here.

You used to feel like a smoker shivering in the cold
Waiting outside the bar 'til the opener's over
But now you feel like a drinker 20 days off the sauce
Down at the liquor store, trying to call your sponsor...

You used to sound like a prophet
Everyone wanted to know
How you could tell the truth without losing that soft glow
But now you feel like a salesman closing another deal
Or some drunk ship captain raging after the white whale
You used to feel like a forest fire burning
But now you feel like a child throwing tantrums
And then some

You used to feel like the prodigal returning
But now,
Now you hate what you've made
And you want to watch it burn.

Let's just jump to the end, and to another contribution to the theoretical "best thing Dave Bazan's ever done" bandwagon -- the closing organ-and-slide-driven elegy "In Stitches." It certainly brings all three of this album's themes together in one place, although I can still feel the stitches on this song, too.

my body bangs and twitches
some brown liquor whets my tongue
my fingers find the stitches
firmly back and forth they run
i need no other memory
of the bits of me i left
when all this lethal drinking
is to hopefully forget
about you

i might as well admit it
like i even have a choice
the crew have killed the captain
but they still can hear his voice

a shadow on the water
a whisper in the wind
on long walks with my daughter
who is lately full of questions
about you.
about you.

In short, this battle isn't over by a long shot, and on more fronts than Dave can count. This latter "about you" is delivered is a falsetto howl, and boy, does it work. If he'd only stopped there. But he doesn't. He comes back for one more verse:

when Job asked you a question
you responded "who are you
to challenge your creator?"
well, if that one part is true
it makes you sound defensive
like you had not thought it through
enough to have an answer
like you might have bit off
more than you could chew.

I'm sorry, but that just feels petulant -- and I dare say, "defensive, like you [Dave] had not thought it through." Again, it makes me wonder what God played into all those Pedro albums. And I can't help reflecting on my own pre-Christian experience -- when I first read Job, that was exactly the part that blew me away. Here I was whining "Why me?" and there was God saying, "Why NOT you?" I found that quite liberating, actually. And a few months later, I'd be embracing the God Dave Bazan has now rejected, or at least put at arms' length. Again, read the interview to get the more accurate picture. (And, as someone else has pointed out, Job and his buds get almost 40 chapters in before God was able to get his 3 chapters of words in edgewise.) Anyway, it ruins what had been an honest, if not necessarily the preferred, ending.

But it doesn't ruin the album as a whole. Obviously I disagree vehemently with a lot of the conclusions Dave Bazan come to here. But rejecting the message and rejecting the messenger are two different things. That dumb coda aside, there's few songwriters -- and frankly, nowhere near enough Christians -- as honest as Dave Bazan, and as long as he brings that to the table, I'll be here to listen. And waiting for God to reignite that coal as He certainly can.

Posted by: burninglight at 16:04 | link | comments

Making the Dream Real

Mark yr calendars (well, I'd better mark mine, anyway): Friday, October 16th. I've joked about it on more than one occasion (and/or provided various dream permutations), but pending signing of contracts and exchanging of dollars, it's actually gonna happen: Mike Roe -- he of the 77s  -- will be playing at "The Church at Lake Loveland" (i.e., our house).

And no, Patti Smith and The Scattered Pages won't be there, but I AM trying to get in touch with another certain smokin' guitarist and songwriter from Colorado to see if he might consider taking a long bus ride to provide the opening set. That'd be remarkably cool in and of itself. (And if so, I just realized that I'd uttered a prophetic word about it here.)

That's going to be one very interesting week, in fact. Marion & I are going to be off on retreat through the beginning of that week, then come back and do THIS.  Pictures (and hopefully soundboard recordings) when they become available (and hopefully for both sets).

And in other news THIS week, we celebrate Marion's 50th birthday. hoo-hah, she says.

Next time: I hopefully finally finish processing the Dave Bazan album, I may even tell you what I think of the new Yo La Tengo... and heck, since Mike's coming to my house anyway, maybe I oughta check out his new album....

Posted by: burninglight at 13:27 | link | comments (7)