everything that's on my mind

I was introduced to Brand New via eMusic a couple of years ago when I downloaded Deja Entendu. Shortly thereafter, I bought their newest at the time, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, which made an appearance in my top 10 list in 2007.

Their latest, Daisy, was released last month and has quickly become a favorite of mine. And, like it’s predecessor, it is destined for my top 10 list again this year.

It’s hard to nail down a genre to attach to these guys because every time they release a new album, it’s a “brand new” sound, so to speak. The band that recorded this album does not even sound like the same band that released Your Favorite Weapon eight years ago. The difference is rather astounding. They started with a power pop/punk sound, and eight year later are being compared to Nine Inch Nails.

In short, this album is outstanding, again full of their trademark lyrical depth and musical diversity. Each Brand New album I’ve downloaded has had to grow on me a little. It’s always taken a few listens for it to take hold, and this one was no different. But like the others, each listen reveals a little more of the genius of Brand New, and in the case of Daisy, my opinion is that it’s the best they’ve done to date. I thought Devil and God was a great album, but for me, this newest release has surpassed it.

Standout tracks for me include “Bed”, “Bought a Bride”, the title track, these two: the first single, “At The Bottom”, and “Sink”:

I’m going to reach back into the summer again this week. If you know me at all or used to read blog 1.0 very often, you already know of my love for the music of Iron Maiden. I became a Maiden fan during my junior year in high school, shortly after the release of their 1983 album Piece of Mind. They are still, 26 years later, my favorite band.

In early 2008, the band embarked on a world-wide tour labeled the “Somewhere Back In Time” tour, in which they played primarily classics from their 80′s music and used a set similar to the “World Slavery Tour” of 1984-85. On the tour, they traveled via their own custom Boeing 757, flown by none other than lead singer Bruce Dickinson. (Bruce is obviously a trained pilot, who flies charter jets for a British airline, and is therefore the most awesome singer in metal history.) During the first leg of the tour, they managed 23 concerts in 11 countries in only 45 days, including dates in Australia, India, Japan and various countries in the Americas. And during that leg, a film crew accompanied the band in order to chronicle this unique experience. The result – the documentary film Flight 666 – was released to theaters in April of this year.

A few weeks later, in early June, the film was released as a two-disc DVD set. Disc one contains the full-length documentary film, and disc two contains 17 live songs, each from a different location on the tour. The documentary is great, and the live concert disc is equally outstanding, showing that Iron Maiden is still at the top of their game when it comes to performing live. On live DVD’s in recent years, they’ve played many of these classics. They’re the signature Maiden songs that will always be in their set list. But it’s really sweet to see them playing other songs from the 80′s era again, songs that they haven’t played for a long time, such as “Aces High”, “Revelations”, “Powerslave”, “Moonchild” and the 13-minute epic “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, one of my all-time favorite songs.

Maiden has done a lot of great work over the years. The Live After Death concert has always been the gold-standard of Maiden DVD’s, but Flight 666 may now have overtaken it. The combination of documentary of the tour and the live performances are just amazing. In this DVD set, Iron Maiden shows why they’re still the best metal band around.

Here are my two favorite performances from the DVD:

While everyone around here is still talking football (particularly Arkansas-Florida), Friday night was the significant event of the weekend for me. Midnight madness signaled the beginning of college basketball season, as teams all around the country officially began practicing for the upcoming season.

As we all try to erase from our memories the tragedy that was North Carolina winning the final game of the 2009 season, there’s much to look forward to in 2010.

As a Duke fan, I’m looking forward to seeing this year’s team. Though they lost a couple of significant players, they also added a couple, and so I’m pretty optimistic once again. Those two losses were in the back court, but their gains are in the front court, which is long overdue. And with Coach K at the helm, I anticipate another solid team and another outstanding season for the Blue Devils. This year the ACC crown should again return to Durham.

As one who despises North Carolina, it’s going to be great to see them field a team that does not include Travel Tyler Hansbrough or Tywon Lawson. I’ve never been so glad to see two players go. While Carolina will still have a very good team, thank God it won’t be because of those two.

And as one who thinks Kentucky fans think a little bit too much of themselves, I look forward to the Calipari years and what embarrassment and sanctions he’ll eventually bring to Lexington. Seriously, does anyone doubt that day will come?

Official games are still a few weeks away, but I’m already charged up and ready to go. I can hardly wait until the first game tips off.

College basketball season is upon us.

The most wonderful time of the year.

Go Duke!

GTHC!!

I was a bit surprised upon hearing the new album from The Avett Brothers, I and Love and You. The “Beatles of bluegrass” seemed to be bit less bluegrass and a bit more pop than they been have before. The banjo, acoustic guitar and bass are all still there, but the piano provides the dominant sound on this new release. And the result is a bit different, but outstanding nonetheless.

I first heard The Avett Brothers a couple of years ago upon the release of their last full length album, the excellent Emotionalism. I’ve since downloaded a couple of EP’s (Gleam and The Second Gleam), which were also very, very good. So, I had high expectations for this new release.

There are a handful of songs here that would seem at home on previous albums (“January Wedding” and “Laundry Room” come to mind first), but as I mentioned, this album is largely driven by the piano. From upbeat pop songs like “Slight Figure of Speech” and “Kick Drum Heart”, to ballads like “Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise”, “Ill With Want” and the title track, to the aforementioned songs with their more predictable sound, this is a great album all the way through.

When you have to follow an album like Emotionalism, you’re more than likely going to fail to meet expectations. In a sense, The Avett Brothers did just that, but they did it by reinventing themselves. It was not the album that was expected from these guys, yet it is a terrific album. I highly recommend checking it out.

Here is the title track and “Laundry Room”:

Just a few of the things I’ve been reading online this past week…

Jesus delivers the constitution?

I came across this painting online late last week. (Actually, I saw the version with humorous captions first.) I didn’t use the image in this post since it states on the site that it is copyrighted, so you’ll have to click the link to view it. It’s a ridiculous conflation of Christianity and American nationalism which is offensive in many ways. I considered commenting on it then but didn’t have time. Instead, I will direct you to a post by Greg Boyd, who pretty much nails it (and said it better than I would have anyway):

There are many other loathsome aspects of this idolatrous work that could be mentioned, especially regarding the people present in “Satan’s corner” (on the lower right corner), but enough has been said. The bottom line is that someday, people from every tribe and every nation will gather around Jesus (Rev. 7:9-10) and I assure you he won’t be holding a particular nation’s Constitution! The chief business of the church is to model this beautiful unity-amidst-diversity in the present. We are to manifest a Kingdom in which there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, rich or poor, American or British, and in which there is no violence.

This painting is a perfect illustration of the sort of primitive tribalism and diabolic nationalism that keeps Christians from doing this. It must, I believe, be renounced in the strongest possible terms.

Read Boyd’s full post Painted Idolatry: “One Nation Under God.”

To be a Christian…

The war between Christianity and science that some believers find it necessary to wage is often sad enough, but far worse when it manifests itself in such a way as to drive someone away from Christianity altogether. Internet Monk tells the story of “Niki”, a Japanese student visiting the United States. Niki came and left an atheist, and prior to leaving, explained why she could not be a Christian to a teacher of hers:

“I am an atheist because I believe in evolution. When people here explained to me what they must believe as Christians, I always ask them about evolution, and they say “You cannot be a Christian and believe in evolution.” So I cannot be a Christian, because I believe that evolution is true.”

I cannot personally buy into the idea that science is simply a “vast conspiracy” to destroy Christianity, as some seem to believe. Science seeks to explain the way the world works and sometimes that may contradict some interpretations of scripture. (Few people still believe the world is flat, after all.) Hopefully, we can learn from stories like Niki and not allow rigid beliefs regarding how God accomplished certain things (when he has not specifically revealed it) hinder others from believing in him. It’s not necessary to dismiss modern science in order to believe. Faith in God and faith in science can coexist.

You can read the full post here: Niki Made Her Choice and, Apparently, So Did We.

A love story

I’ve seen a couple of Michael Moore’s films (Bowling for Columbine, Sicko) and enjoyed them. While there are always valid arguments against some of the things he says or does through his films, I thought that both of the films I’ve seen raised important questions and created dialogue about the topics they covered. And that, in part, is what Moore is shooting for, I believe.

I’ve never known anything about with what kind of religious/spiritual beliefs Moore has, if any. (Turns out he is Catholic.) With his new film Capitalism: A Love Story just being released, I read this letter from Moore regarding the film and the question he asks: “Is capitalism a sin?” I thought it was worth the read, and look forward to seeing this film as well. You can read the letter here: Michael Moore: “Would Jesus be a capitalist?”

WM3

Just this morning I read this article posted at The New York Times site: Torn by 3 Lost Boys and 3 Convicted Youths. It concerns the case of the “West Memphis Three” and their ongoing attempts to get a new trial. Shortly after reading it, another article appeared in my reader from the WM3 blog titled “New Eyewitnesses: 3 Boys Last Seen Alive With Terry Hobbs”. Apparently, one of the boys’ step-dad (Hobbs), who was never interviewed, was the last person seen with the boys. Also, as was discovered two years ago, Hobbs’ DNA was found on one of the bodies. While much remains to be seen, it seems there’s one more bit of evidence pointing towards someone besides the WM3.

I’ve posted before on the WM3 case and have made plain my feelings about the case. Parents of two of the murdered children (including Hobbs’ ex-wife, the biological mother of one of the victims) now believe in the innocence of the WM3. Likewise, I continue to believe that the true perpetrator of this crime was never caught, three innocent men continue to sit in prison 16 years later, and hope that justice will be served one day soon.

This week’s now playing features the new releases from grunge heavyweights Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains. I decided to comment on both albums in one post since I have some common things to say by way of introducing them.

Considering they were both born into the grunge music era in the early 1990′s, I didn’t hear much from Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains due to the fact that I was largely absent from the popular music scene of any kind during that time (see my review of DMB last week, where I made mention of this as well.) Even now I’m not certain I can name a grunge band beyond the four I’ll mention below.

I remember Nirvana’s breakthrough with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Nevermind when I was still living in Memphis a year or so after I had graduated college, and also the success of Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and Ten. It would still be a couple of years, I believe, before I actually bought my one and only grunge album – Soundgarden’s Superunknown, which is still one of my favorites from the 90′s.

But despite missing out on much of the music at the time, I eventually stepped back into the past and acquired the likes of Ten and Nevermind, along with other albums from Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. When it came to my attention a couple of months ago that both Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were releasing new material this fall, I found myself looking forward to hearing what both had to offer.

 
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Pearl Jam

I remember Pearl Jam largely from the Ten album, and I haven’t really kept up with them much since. So I was somewhat surprised to hear the new album, which sounds less like the grunge I remember them playing and more like a straight ahead rock and roll album, with a little pop and punk thrown in the mix as well.

There are many things I could say about this album, I suppose, but the first is this: Buy it. Now. It’s just an amazing rock album and you need to hear it. While I was never a big fan of Eddie Vedder’s voice back in the 90′s, I really love the way he sounds here. Perhaps my broader musical tastes these days have allowed me to enjoy him more than I did 15 years ago, I don’t know. The highlights for me personally include opening track “Gonna See My Friend”, “The Fixer”, “Johnny Guitar” and my current favorite “Just Breathe”. But I could easily have listed the other tracks as well. Truly, there is not a bad track here at all.

I didn’t think I’d buy another album this year that could possibly break into my top three from my mid-year list, but I think I’ve found a contender, and I highly recommend it.

The only thing negative I could possibly say is that it’s too short. At only 37 minutes, it leaves you wanting more. But perhaps that’s a good thing. It’s a much better than being glad it’s over.

Here’s “The Fixer” and “Just Breathe”:

 
Black Gives Way To Blue
Alice In Chains

The first concern I had when I heard of the new album was this: will it still be Alice In Chains without singer Layne Staley? Since he died of a drug overdose in 2002, I couldn’t help but wonder what a post-Staley AIC would sound like. Would it just be a pale imitation of what they once were? Like Journey without Steve Perry?*

My second concern was that it’s been 14 years now since they released new material. Is their best work behind them and were they simply trying to recapture magic that is long gone? It’s hard enough to “come back” after that length of time, but I thought it would be far more challenging considering concern number one.

Well, I was immediately encouraged upon hearing a couple of new tracks on youTube a while back – “Check Your Brain” and “A Looking In View”. No, the album is not Dirt, and yes, it’s not quite the same without Staley. Nevertheless, I am very pleased. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell and new member William Duvall share vocals on the album and do a fantastic job. Cantrell’s guitar work is still solid and they’ve produced some great tracks here. Standouts for me include the aforementioned tracks, along with “Lesson Learned” and the title track, a tribute to Staley with piano provided by Elton John. It’s possible that some AIC fans will be disappointed in this album, but it’s hard for me to imagine why.

Here’s “Check My Brain” and the title track:

* Since my facial expression and sarcastic tone do not translate to text, I wanted to point out that the Journey reference was a joke. I hate Journey because they suck.

I’ve been struggling to get any reading done in the last week or so. I put Spong’s book on hold to quickly knock out Donald Miller’s new book, and then came back to Spong. However, I’ve only managed one chapter in the last week. If you know much about John Shelby Spong’s work and about my own church background, you know there are some significant differences in the things he says and what I’ve heard most of my life.

In that chapter, in which he examines the relationship between ecology and theology, Spong discusses the elements of the theistic definition of God – that “God is a divine being who comes to us from outside this life”, that he rules from outside this world. One of the elements of this definition, he contends, is the idea that it speaks to people’s need for security. Believing in “a miracle worker in the sky who can come to our aid” is comforting.

He goes on to suggest, however, that this idea of God should have disappeared a long time ago. He says:

There is not a theistic God who exists to take care of you or me. There is no God who stands ready to set aside the laws by which this universe operates to come to our aid in time of need. There are no everlasting arms underneath us to catch us when we fall. Ask the people who were the hapless passengers of those hijacked airplanes as they were hurtling toward the World Trade Center or the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. No divine hand reached down to save them. Ask the families and friends of the crew on the spacecraft Challenger as it exploded shortly after lift-off in 1986. No protecting diety embraced them. Ask the children, spouses or parents of service personnel during the various Iraqi wars where this supernatural God was when they received the official message from their government which began, “We regret to inform you…” Ask the Jews where the God who could split the Red Sea was when they were being marched into Hitler’s crematoriums during the Holocaust. Ask the children who were born with the HIV virus or the parents of an only child who is killed by a drunk driver. The God that we presume lives above the sky, whose primary vocation is to watch over, guard and protect vulnerable human beings, somehow appears to be frequently off-duty.

The “off-duty God” has given me trouble for some time now. I’ve battled doubts related to all things spiritual for over ten years now and I’ve posted in my previous version of this blog about such things in the past (see Is Anybody out There? and Confessions for a couple of examples.) Sometimes it’s a battle over whether or not an interpretation is correct. Increasingly, it’s a battle over whether or not an idea is true at all.

Yet it’s the questions of “why” or “where was God when…” that continue to haunt me the most. At the risk of sounding like one of my kids, I want to shout “that’s not fair!” The well-known tragedies that Spong mentions are examples we all see, but there are so many more. When a couple loses their only child in an auto accident while he’s on a kindergarten field trip. What good comes of such an event? When a friend’s wife decides life is no longer worth living, leaving him and their two preschool daughters behind. Why do these girls have to grow up without their mother, and wonder what drove her to do such a thing? When a friend loses his dad and a relative says at the funeral that “God had a special job for him and needed him right now.” Really? What about his family? Did they no longer have a need for him? I doubt they would agree.

I wrote about David Bazan’s new album, recently, which is a chronicle of his own journey and the difficulties he has encountered with matters of God and faith. The album closer “In Stitches” contains the following lyric:

When Job asked you the 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
or you might have bit off more than you could chew

The answer God gives Job, if you can call it an answer, sounds like “shut up, I’m in charge, and you can’t understand it anyway.” That may be true, but it doesn’t make it or other statements such as “his ways are higher than ours” or “we’ll understand it all by and by” any easier to swallow. Perhaps if he appeared to me in the same manner he supposedly did to Job, it would be. But for now, in this world, at this time, Spong’s suggestion that God is “frequently off-duty” does seem too often true. The definition of God that has him in control of everything is not necessarily comforting when it appears he either isn’t or chooses not to be.

Once again, as I’ve said before, this is not any type of declaration that I have abandoned faith (or that I will at some point in the future.) I’m only thinking out loud, I suppose, and my thoughts are no doubt incomplete. I believe I will be working through these types of things for a very long time, and I’ll likely post more about that journey here.

It’s the way I’m built, I believe; to want things to make more sense. I can’t help it, and when they don’t, it causes me to doubt and/or ask questions. Many things I’ve always believed seem to make less sense as the years go by and I ponder them more and more. In my post two years ago, I asked the question “how do I reconcile what I believe with what I see?” I may never resolve it in a way that will be sufficient in my own eyes, but I suspect I will always be trying to answer that question.

I have several new albums on my list that I want to mention soon, all released in the last couple of weeks. But this week I’m going to reach back a few months again to an album I bought this summer.

I remember hearing about Dave Matthews Band a lot back in the 90′s, but I never really listened to them. For a while I listened to a lot of what was coming out of the CCM world and lost touch with some of the mainstream. I heard a few songs here and there, often not knowing it was them until later, but never heard enough to become a fan. It’s actually kind of sad that my first real exposure to them was this new album a few months ago.

I became interested in hearing more after watching a live concert on television this summer. Seeing the band playing a number of the songs from this new album hooked me right away. Shortly thereafter, I decided to download Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.

The band went through a tragic change while putting this album together – the death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore during it’s early stages. Moore’s saxaphone bookends the album on the opening instrumental track and in the final moments of the final track. There are moments of grieving his death and celebrating his life sprinkled throughout the album. But the music is what drew me to the album. The mixture of rock, funk, jazz, and even some eastern flavor and bluegrass, really keeps me listening to this album regularly. I can’t yet compare it much to past DMB albums, since I’m just now hearing some of those. But this one is definitely a winner.

Two nights ago, DMB played here in the Little Rock area. I didn’t go. The timing wasn’t really right for me, but I hope the opportunity presents itself again in the future. This album is great, but I understand seeing them live is an entirely different experience, one I hope to have as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. It is definitely one of my favorite albums of the year. And now, thanks now to eMusic carrying the DMB catalog, I’m catching up on what I missed out on last decade as well.

Here’s “Why I Am” and “Shake Me Like A Monkey”: