Jason Castro Video |
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A student in youth group sent me this video that I thought I’d pass along I thought it was so beautiful.
Archive for the 'Music' Category
Songs from Jacob’s Well |
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When I was in Seminary back in Kansas City, I used to sneak off to a church called Jacob’s Well on Sunday nights. I eventually became friends with a few of the pastors on staff and have come to think of it as one of my home churches in many ways. Even out here on the East Coast I still think about Jacob’s Well and pray for them. I keep in touch with a few of the people involved there so I feel like I’m still connected in some small way. Well something happened this week that has really reignited that connection for me.
Last week Kara was in Kansas City for the 2008 Emergent Conversation - “Reclaiming Paul.” The event was hosted at Jacob’s Well and she brought back a gift for me - the newly released album from the worship band. Songs From Jacob’s Well by Mike Crawford and his Secret Siblings has brightened by week. One incredibly powerful song in particular (Words to Build a Life On) that has been a part of my journey the past few years has finally found its way onto a recorded format. So it’s pretty much been on constant repeat in the car lately. These songs remind me so much of the time I spent at Jacob’s Well, listening to them half way across the country makes me feel like I’m there again… or at least like I’m still connected with that community. It doesn’t hurt that the music and lyrics are both works of art. Not cheesy, cranked through the grinder mush that so much Christian music tends to be these days.
You can get the 2-disc album here. Coming soon to iTunes.
Across the Universe (2007) |
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Kara and I just got back from Across the Universe. This is a musical-film not too unlike Moulin Rouge in concept. It is the story of the turbulent 60’s (race riots, Vietnam war, drug culture, etc.) told through the songs of the Beatles. In one ad I saw the tag line was “In the lyrics of the world’s best known songs lies a story that has never been told… until now.” A fitting description. Across the Universe takes incredibly popular even ubiquitous Beatles songs that can seem sentimental to us young folk and puts them back in the uncertain times from where they came. So much more than a music video could, this film embodies the Beatles music, letting the lyrics rise from the people who sang these songs as if they were their own stories.
Derek Webb’s Eschatalogical Hope |
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Derek Webb has put to music what John the revelator put to papyrus so many years ago. Listen to the eschatalogical hope…
This Too Shall Be Made Right
by Derek Webb
People love you the most for the things you hate
And hate you for loving the things you can’t keep straight.
People judge you on a curve
And tell you you’re getting what you deserve
and this too shall be made right.
Children cannot learn when children cannot eat.
Stack them like lumber and children cannot sleep.
Children dream of wishing wells
Whose waters quench all the fires of hell.
and this too shall be made right
The earth and sky and the sea are all holding their breath.
Wars and abuses have nature goraning with death.
We say we’re just trying to stay alive,
It looks so much more like a way to die.
and this too shall be made right
Yes there’s a time for peace, there is a time for war.
There’s a time to forgive and a time to settle the score.
A time for babies to loose their lives.
A time for hunger and genocide.
and this too shall be made right
Oh, I don’t know the suffering of people outside my front door.
I join the oppressors of those I choose to ignore.
I’m trading comfort for human life,
And that’s not just murder, it’s suicide.
and this too shall be made right
Oh, this too shall be made right.
New Derek Webb! |
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May 1st Derek Webb is releasing his new album, The Ringing Bell. If you are a crazy Derek Webb fan like myself and don’t mind putting down $20 for the new album and a 96-page graphic novel that was apparently inspired by it then you can download the new album today.
Done and done.
I’m a few tracks into the new album, it’s much more rock-n-roll than the previous folksy Mockingbird. It’s making me think of 70’s rock a bit as I listen to it. I’ll write more later as I have time to digest it.
Underground Emo Bands |
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Their best album is 90 minutes of silence and they’ve only released it online.
As an mp3?
It’s a WORD DOCUMENT.
Best of 2006 |
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We’ve got a little less than one day left in 2006, so I think it’s safe for me to finally post my second annual “best of” lists for 2006. Man-O-Man I hope a bunch of great films and albums don’t come out in the next 18 hours and make me look like a fool. Feel free to argue the insanity of my picks and link to your own “best of” lists. Remember today and tomorrow are the two days when “thou SHALL judge” the previous year anyway.
Albums
5. Tool - 10,000 Days
4. AFI - DECEMBERUNDERGROUND
3. In Reverent Fear - Stomacher
2. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
*1. Derek Webb - Mockingbird
*This album is FREE (just click the link)
Films
6. Why We Fight
5. Taladagea Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
4. Inconvienient Truth
3. Lady in the Water
2. Blood Diamond
1. Little Miss Sunshine
TV Shows
5. My Name is Earl
4. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
3. The Colbert Report
2. LOST
1. The Office
Books
5. The Secret Message of Jesus:
Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything
by Brian McLaren
4. The Irresistible Revolution:
Living as an Ordinary Radical
by Shane Claiborne
3. The Myth of a Christian Nation:
How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church
by Gregory Boyd
2. Presence-centered Youth Ministry:
Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation
by Mike King
1. The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture:
How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church
by Shane Hipps
Posts on chuckp3.com
5. July 4: Civil Religion’s Easter (10)
4. Dead Man’s Chest (11)
3. Kara and I are Engaged (17)
2. Radical [financial] Trust and Obedience (19)
1. Faith in the Military (46)
Gadgets
5. EyeTV Hybrid
4. Google Analytics
3. Library Thing
2. Harmony Remote
1. YouTube
Stomacher is Released! |
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Tuesday In Reverent Fear released their sophomore album Stomacher. I’ve been privileged to watch/listen to this album come into being over the past four years and it will be well worth the wait for those of you who are already fans of IRF’s Written in the A.M. Screamo and hardcore fans will still find deliciously devastating tracks but in general IRF’s sound has matured into a more well rounded, fuller and diverse piece of work. Jarrod’s lyrics are good enough to stand on their own, his literary and fictional influences come through in what is highly artistic song-writing. If that wasn’t enough the music that drives Stomacher is epic and feels downright theatrical. I almost feel like this album needs to be listened to in letterbox.
Go get this album, rock out to “666777888” or “Castle St.” while you drive or put on “The Greatest Love” or “Streetwalker” and fall into a trance. Whatever you do go buy this album today.
You can get it on iTunes HERE.
Free Derek Webb |
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I have previously compared Derek Webb to Keith Green. Well Webb is continuing to impress me, starting Sept 1st he’s giving away his newest album, Mockingbird, for free. In the article he even says that Green was his inspiration for doing so. Check freederekwebb.com. This is quite possibly the best Christian album I’ve ever heard. Webb has the most thoughtful and theologically rich lyrics I’ve heard. His music is prophetic in a time when most Christian music is about as deep and prophetic as your local Wal-Mart. So go check it out… and pirate it. Go ahead he wants you to.
“In general, I hate Christian rock music. But now I have heard the songs of Derek Webb. Webb’s songs are free of the pietistic sentimentality that usually characterizes popular Christian music. His music, like the Gospel, is at once hard, edgy, and beautiful.”
- Stanley Hauerwas
A King & A Kingdom |
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A King & A Kingdom
by Derek Webb
who’s your brother, who’s your sister
you just walked passed him
i think you missed her
as we’re all migrating to the place where our father lives
’cause we married in to a family of immigrants
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it’s to a king & a kingdom
there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it’s to a king & a kingdom
but nothing unifies like a common enemy
and we’ve got one, sure as hell
but he may be living in your house
he may be raising up your kids
he may be sleeping with your wife
oh no, he may not look like you think