I'm always looking forward to the next adventure, but it's worth talking about all the good things that have gone on this year.

Have there been challenges?  Yeah, there have.  I spent months standing in faith for a job.  I got a lot of rejections, and feelings of futility and worthlessness tried to come at me in multiple arenas of life.  But my life is an adventure, not a tragedy! (and I'm happy to report that I got a great job that still allows me to do all the stuff I need to do as a musician and artist).  So let's get to the good stuff.

I released The Spark Recharged ( I just got on spotify to check my own release date and make sure it was actually this year!).  It was such a cool project to see come to maturity.  I really enjoy all different types of music, and I wanted to explore an electronic sound.  I got to dig into everything from EDM to chillstep, and I'm really happy with the result.

I very much believe in "Recharged" AND the original "Spark" EP (plus Look Forward!).  You have to understand, I was a kid in his basement writing, recording, mixing, and mastering everything, knowing what he wanted to see and hear.  Of course there are things you look back on and say "knowing what I know now, I could have done this or this better, or perhaps differently".  But still. I'm very happy with what's begun, and I believe in these songs.  I want more and more people to hear them. I'm thankful that God gave me the skills and equipment to create with, and I'm always excited about going to the next level.  Share it with your friends and lets get this in everyone's ear!

And these things have been on the RADIO!  I got to be a guest deeJay on WAIF's "Silent Witness Radio", and came back later in the year to do an on-air acoustic set with Michael (Peet) and Larry.  I got played on 96Rock Cincinnati, WEBN, and "Cincy Music Showcase" 100.7 and 106.3FM (also known as "The Project").  I got contacted by some web-based radio for permission to use my stuff as well.

Now, I wrote the song "Time to Live" right before a bunch of this radio stuff happened.  Interestingly enough, here's the pre-chorus lyric:

"How many times have we just let the monster tell us that
We'll never make it on the radio?
It's just a lie and I won't let that sucker hold me back
'Cause they'll be smart enough to play me though"

I got to do some great interviews with Iain Moss of JesusWired.com as well as Don Thrasher of Dayton Daily News!


More production came to the stage show, including props, wardrobe, and video. 

HOURS and DAYS were spent figuring out live video production, making clips, auditioning solutions, and drafting ideas for stuff that could be built.  Time went into picking out and customizing wardrobe for the stage.  We even got together and built "The House Chunk" from the Premonitions painting.  It has a much deeper meaning than you've seen yet, but one day soon it will all make sense!  I'm building more than just music here, there's a larger universe at play that, if you look, you'll see clues to all throughout my work in multiple mediums.

As far as the video is concerned, some great donations by several people on and off my tech crew has made it possible to bring a great production value to the stage.  Oh yeah, and I just got some scrims!

We played some great concerts.  Just look at this stuff.

I screen printed a lot of shirts, and got a nice setup put together in the basement.  That being said, it takes time!  The screens, the ink, the tape, the shirts, the colors the sizes.....my goodness.  So in the future, I'll probably give some of that work to a local business.  But still, if I want to do a special run on the fly, I can!

Peet and Sarah got married.  It's great having them on the music team, and we enjoyed going out to Maryland for the ceremony!  Peet (ok, his actual name is "Michael") was on the frontlines with me in college jazz band, and it's cool to be able to share that history as we take to various stages.  And Sarah is always willing to come help at concerts, which is very much appreciated.

I got my Master's Degree. It was quite a challenge, having been a music major in Undergrad, stepping into a Master's program made up of Business MBA courses and Communications Department courses.  After all, most of the people there had already spent four years in those fields.  But, I had success!

Onward and upward.  I'm thankful for my support crew, which has grown since this began (Mom, Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Teresa, Tyler, Missy, Austin, Sarah)  It takes more hands than just mine to load gear, set up a stage, and plug everything in.  There are conversations being had right now about things to be created and done this year.  New levels.  I want more people to hear the music.  I've been performing with my live band both onstage and on the web.  What a time to be alive, when we can set up in front of my computer and play a concert for someone in Norway.  There are concerts to organize, videos to think about, new contacts to become acquainted with, images and art to create, and as always, new music to develop.  There are new adventures to be a part of, and people who need to know that THAT is how it's supposed to be.  And you're gonna love it.

The Avengers.  One of my favorite movies, for a lot of reasons, along with about a million other other people.

There's that scene where all the characters are coming to a boiling point.  They're arguing about everything from wardrobe to nuclear proliferation, but one part always stuck in me like a barb.  Tony Stark, captain of the  "I'm not a hero, and we're not soldiers" quip-squad, throws this little spitwad in Steve Rogers' face  "Everything special about you came out of a bottle".  Never have I ever wanted to punch Tony Stark more than I did in that moment.  Because he was so dead-wrong.  Steve Rogers was a good, heroic, honorable man when he was still 95 lbs and 5'4".  Powers just took who he was and amplified it.

Look, I love Tony Stark, don't get me wrong, especially RDJ's Stark.  He's fun to watch, but what I like most about him is that he matures as a man over the course of the films, and really is a hero, despite trying so hard  to deny it.  But why does he try to deny it?  And why do I feel like people are relating more and more to that?  And why do I feel like, in Stark's most immature moments, the audience is still rooting for him for stupid reasons like "He's funny and he's wearing a Black Sabbath shirt.  So he's obviously awesome."  Except, in pretty much the first half of the Avengers, he's not.  He's a mouthy, immature playboy who practically spits in the face of a war hero and starts off by insulting his outfit.  And I think Stark represents a lot about our generation.  Daddy issues, and a belief that heroes just aren't a thing anymore.  Instead, some have insisted on believing that the antihero is pretty much as good and as real as it gets.  And look, believe me, I understand "daddy issues".

I think the reasons people find antiheroes so much more real and relatable is because they know of so few people anymore who went through bad things and still chose to be the hero.

Flip over to a media icon that may of us have grown up enjoying: Shia LaBeouf.  There's been a whirlwind of news surrounding the young actor for the last couple of years.  Public declarations of "I'm not famous anymore" to various PR and personal life snafus.  It's been a tumultuous story to say the least, leading all the way up to news of him "finding God" on the set of Fury.  Which, if it's true, is a great thing.

Now, if I ever had a chance to become friends with Shia, I'd do it (and going into acting, I very well might get that chance).  And I wouldn't run around tweeting, "OMG!  Friends with a movie star."  No.  I try not to freak out about people.  People are just people.  And a good friendship wouldn't need to be publicized like that.  Honestly the guy seems like he could use a good friend.

Anyway, this led me to the big daddy of recent LaBeouf interviews, ironically, done by Interview Magazine.  Within, LaBeouf talked about a whole lot of things.  His early and recent life, his work, and his personal situations.  He, like so many others, expresses an identification with the antihero.  He couldn't connect with actors like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.  He prefers actors with an undercurrent of irony or anger (he cites everyone from Gary Oldman and Sean Penn to Mel Gibson and Steven Segal).  And in his own work, he's tried to use his pain, irony, and anger as well.  And not surprisingly, a lot of this tied back to his lack of a healthy relationship with his father.  Not that he doesn't have one, just not necessarily a healthy one (at least, from what I gathered).  This compounded the insecurity that he, and many other artists like myself, have dealt with.

He says the following.  These of course, are just snippets
:
"My greatest and my worst memories are with my father, all my major trauma and major celebration came from him. It's a negative gift. And I'm not ready to let go of it, because anger has a lot of power. "
----
"I'm an insecure person to begin with, but the only thing I've ever been good at is harnessing the negative in my life. "
----
"Because I always felt like I'm not good enough. I've felt that way my whole life. And I was so desperate to be good in that play that I overdid it. It became competitive in the wrong way. "Not only am I good enough, I'm better than you think I am." And then that became an aggressive thing. Fight rehearsals turned into fights. And it is unsustainable."
----
"I'm showing up with a set of problems, and I hope that they die when I'm done. Fury had to do with machismo, with this small-man complex, why I was getting in fights in bars all the time—there was this machismo element from being this kid who never had a f----- father to be around to protect him. So I'd always be super-aggressive with men. Fury did a lot for me in that regard. It calmed that down for me. "
----
"MITCHELL: It sounds like this is the first time you've ever had real trust in a director? 

LaBEOUF: In men. (...) "
----
"LaBEOUF: Well, how do you become an adult? My paths to adulthood looked like you either commit a felony, you impregnate a woman, or you go to war. These are the things that make a man. That's a skewed idea, but it is what I was raised on. "

-----

Man.  Men.  I do believe that women can be role models and heroes too.  So don't even get out your gender equality soapbox.  This isn't about that.  But what if we actually taught little boys that we can be heroes again?  That we can and should still do the honorable things in a world full of dishonor?  What if we taught our little boys lessons that would make them good fathers?  What if we allowed men to be men again, and like Uncle Ben, told them being the good guy is more than possible, it's imperative.

But this really isn't about men exclusively.  It's about the circumstances of life that have made us believe that the antihero is the only real thing we can expect.  Because we've seen so much hypocrisy, disappointment, rejection, you name it....so many people just don't believe others will just do the right thing because it's right anymore.  And those who do believe it?  We call them naive.  We make fun of their uniform and we call them a "boy scout".  And in some ways, there's been a culture of fatherlessness growing for thousands of years.  Thousands.

Shia also did a piece of performance art recently.  I'm going to level with you, I love art as an artist myself, but I usually find most performance art kind of awkward and weird (I don't mean plays.  I mean, like 'performance art', get it?).  Sometimes it just feels tryhard, or entirely to esoteric to be understood.  But this...well, I think this kinda worked.  

The exhibit was called #IAMSORRY.  He sat a room with his recently popular paper bag over his head.  People stood in line to get in, and were allowed to enter one at a time.  First they were presented with a table full of artifacts from Shia's career.  A transformer, some cologne, a whiskey bottle, the Indiana Jones whip.  People took an object then entered a room to sit one on one with a silent Shia.  Bag on his head, and red, puffy eyes peering through eyeholes as if he'd been crying.  The purpose was to take all these people who become vicious and even violent when criticizing him on the internet and put them face to face with an actual human being.

------

"The Indiana Jones [whip]. I didn't just walk onto an Indiana Jones set not knowing what I was a part of. And when that movie didn't fulfill the expectations, I was f------ broken, man. So when somebody comes in with the Indiana Jones whip, and it was giggle, giggle, giggle, and my face is in a f------ bag and I'm broken, [the question is] "Are you a human being? I am no longer an actor now, I'm a broken man. And this s---- is real right here. What happens to you?" It's wild when that connection happens. That's what we're lacking in this world, really. We all want to be a part of a community. This is why we have so much divorce in this country. No one man or woman can be 50 people to another person. And what we're doing to fulfill that is we're creating a family of ghosts on the internet. You're better off buying a f------ motorcycle and joining the Hells Angels than joining Twitter and finding your community there, but this is what we do. So maybe if the people that type the spam on the internet show up at the door, when they're right in front of you, and it's person to person, left eye to left eye, there can be a soul connection. Something changes. I watched it happen for six days. And it was powerful. "

------

How genuine was this?  Well yeah, people will debate that.  Sometimes it feels like everything like this is a publicity stunt.  Like Joaquin Phoenix.  Like these celebrities are so tired of getting tossed around by the public, that they just decided to do some tossing of their own.  But, this really conceptually made sense to me.  

Shia then talked about some of his more recent projects (none of which I can recommend due to the content within them).  He went around trying to find something more artistically gratifying in the last few years than Transformers, which he felt had no intrinsic value.  And while the first and second movies may have felt the way, I've always felt like the third Transformers movie actually had a LOT of weighty subtext about good and evil, terrorism, society bending to fear and dismissing their heroes, etc.  You can read more about that here.

So how does this all relate personally to me?  I didn't grow up feeling immediately inadequate.  Sure, the father wasn't there.  But the the attacks of inadequacy came slowly, sneaky, later.  I've had to reach back to that kid who knew, and bring him back.  I grew up with huge intentions that I will never let go of.  But as years went on, as I held to those things, I felt rejected.  In music, in art, in social situations, in life.  For a myriad of reasons that probably don't belong on the internet.  And this "we can all be heroes" thing? Some days I wasn't feeling it.  As time went on, I continually felt either dismissed by people or failed and disappointed by them.  I felt like despite a lot of the good things I tried to do, people didn't get it or just didn't care.  I felt like I was always being asked to  be the bigger person for no other reason than someone had to be.  And despite a lot of plaques on the wall for music and academics, day after day I felt like a jaded world was constantly trying to make me become like it every day.

I was once told that I have an overdeveloped sense of grandeur.  I took it as a compliment.  But that sense of grandeur made me disappointed with everything.

It's easy to become jaded.  I've always hated it when people tell you you're naive, in so many words.  "Oh you just wait kid."  "You just wait until you're actually in the industry"  "or you just wait until you're actually an adult" and on and on and on.  

But then I found myself wanting to do it.  Doing it.  Starting to say those things to other people, or at least think them.  Because things hadn't gone the way I thought they should go at a particular time in my life.  Because I got into places and situations and I suffered.  And when someone else started heading in a similar direction, some part of me wanted to tell them, "Oh you just wait, you stupid little wide-eyed fool."  Because some ugly part of me was so hurt by the fact that I suffered when I didn't think I should have had to, that now, they should have to too.  Because what had I ever done to deserve it either?

But this is the problem.  This is that fork in the road for heroes.  For fathers.  For men and women alike.  The only difference between heroes and the bad guys are the choice they make when things happen.  Do they make choices despite what happened, or because of it?  And what do they do when they get power?  If we'd have less of the above and more people willing to tell you, "well, it may not always be easy, but here, let me teach you.  Better yet, let me go with you and mentor you."  Well that....that would solve a lot of the world's problems.  And that's the difference with a hero.  Maybe they have been through some stuff.  But they choose to try to make the world a place where other people don't have to go through what they did.  Think about it: some of the best mentors in the world came from terrible situations.

The hardships I've faced aren't what make me.  Standing against them, what got/gets me through them, that's what makes me.  As soon as I start making my problems my identity, I may gain 1,000 fangirls who immediately find me more attractive because "He's broken and deep", but I'm also divorcing a part of my soul.

And as I've gotten into industries, I've realized that I don't like a lot of parts of them.  I love music, acting, and art.  But I'm not a big fan of their "worlds".  They are weird, strange, uncomfortable, and often dark places.  And and one point I began to wonder, "Why is it that I have been attracted to things that so often are industries that attract damaged people, or take good people and tear them apart?"  I think it's because someone needs to go in there, still holding on to that kid who believes in heroism and greatness.  Someone needs to Captain America.  Not lying to themselves or others about how the world is, but creating a new one within it that is better, regardless of who calls them the "boyscout".  

But I can't take credit either.  If it wasn't for my relationship with Jesus, I'd probably have given up on life a long time ago.  Those who know me best know that.  I'm not trying to put some forced Evangelical button on this.  That's not my intention.  I just have to be honest.  I can't sit here and say that because I'm so awesome, blah blah blah.  This is why I hope that Shia "finding God" was such a real thing.  Because as I went on, I had to learn to let God be my father.  I was constantly finding myself in situations where I was supposed to be the role model for other people.  And it felt so unfair.  How was I supposed to pull out of almost nothing something to give to someone else?  How was I supposed to be something for someone else that I felt like others hadn't taken the time to be for me?  (and before your gears start turning, no, this is NOT directed at a particular person.  Sometimes it's just the subtler things that start to add up to a person.) After feeling like the third wheel in episode after episode in life, how was I supposed to build a car?  I had to draw that strength from somewhere, and I know good and well that it wasn't me.

There has been a lot of talk recently around buzz words (is that term too 90's?) like "Christian Artist" "Industry" "Mainstream" and so on.  The main opinions convulsing around the internet and mediasphere seem to be the following:

1-There should be no such thing as a "Christian Artist" or "Christian Industry".  We should all just be artists so we can have more of an effect on the world and have less limitations.  Plus, the "Christian Industry" is a convoluted place full of insincere lyrics, non-innovative music, and pretty much subpar everything.  Plus, how can a song be "Christian" or not?  What does that even mean, and how do you define it?

2-"Christian Artists" need to be separate because the whole world is flushing itself down the toilet anyway.  Christian music is better than anything else out there, and we should stop trying to compromise to become "accepted" by the world.

Does that sound about right?

Here's the thing, both sides of this cultural....thing are very sincere.  I think I have a perspective worth sharing on this though, because I see that there is validity to either side.  I don't claim to have all the answers, but I think I have at least a start to a solution.  

Let's start with opinion #1. I'd like to balance it out.  

It's sad but true that labeling yourself as a "Christian Artist"  has been limiting for some (but certainly not all)(and actually, it's been quite the career booster for others).  The Grammys have been prime example.  For some seemingly asinine reason, there have been "Christian and Gospel" Grammys that haven't even come close to being televised, which in my opinion wasn't fair to artists who were very well good enough to be on the networks next to the rest of the Billboard top 40-ers (I'm talking about radio-playable, rock and pop artists specifically.  Many of which aren't lyrically "preachy" anyway).  Whatever reason you might have for TobyMac (and I just picked him because he's a very big artist right now) not being "suited" to perform on the same block of staged airtime next to Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars, it frankly isn't good enough.  We've been happy to be relegated to the back room for far too long, on artistic and industrial grounds that don't even make sense.  Since when is holding a "religious" affiliation any less suited to TV than wearing a meat dress or building a career on bashing politicians?  Better yet, why this specific affiliation?  There are plenty of artists who incorporate spiritual overtones (from all sorts of beliefs) into their music all the time.  Again, many of these artists have plenty of individual/particular songs that are "crossover" and aren't overtly (or even underhandedly) preachy

Plus, why "limit" yourself to the "Christian Industry".  Do you want to change the world for the better, or don't you?

I spent some time also feeling like "Christian Music" was losing a lot of its creative spark.  But then I realized that was a jaded point of view, meant only to make me believe that.  I mean, the Newsboys were doing things in the 90's that I feel like people treat like a game changer when the Black Keys do it now (with no disrespect to either band).  But then I actually turned on the radio.  And you know what?  I found that there was TONS of stuff I just didn't like on secular radio.  Some of these songs just weren't written well, had hokey lyrics, and seemed like more of a triumph for their producer than their artist.  I know that's all just personal opinion (I certainly don't want to run around insulting other people's music), but that's how some of it came off to me.  And then, some things that I really did like.  And it was the same in "Christian Music".  So I've basically come to the conclusion that if you don't think there are still artists doing good things, you just aren't looking hard enough.  There are creative "Christian Artists", and there are "secular" ones that are neither more skilled or "genuine" than their counterparts.

But at the end of the day, we've gotten so caught up in artistic qualms that I think we forget that the message is key.  I don't really care  if an artist is "Christian" or not, if their lyrics are still super contrary to what that's supposed to mean, then what's the point?  I don't care if they're selling your CD at Berean.  I still love and respect you as an artist and person, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to your music.  

This opinion also says that music doesn't have a spiritual or philosophical affiliation.  Well, I may not have all the answers on that.  But there are really different stances on that too.  For example, when I was in college I was in a music history class and we were discussing an instrumental composer (I don't remember who offhand) who was apparently gay.  Some music historians and philosophers suggested that you could hear this in the way his pieces were written.  Well, frankly, I couldn't hear it.  But there are examples of music, both with words and without, all through history that have allegedly been imbued with idealisms and philosophies far beyond what the average listener may even pick up on.  "This symphony is antisemitic" and so on. So I suppose that's something to think about.  I'm not saying every little thing is full of hidden, conspiracy theory worthy vibes.  But not all music is devoid of affiliation either.  It's like Paul told the church in Corinth, (my paraphrase), don't let things freak you out or have power over you, but be conscious of your own convictions and the how they may affect others.

Ok, let's talk about opinion #2.
It's true, the whole world can be a dangerous place.  Many has been the wide-eyed young artist that wanted to "cross over" and ended up getting mixed up in the process.  And people all over the place feel like the world is flushing itself down the toilet.  And trying to "compromise" should certainly not be the goal.  

But, consider this.  What if we did write songs as Christians and just let them affect the world we live in?  What if we were clever and skilled enough to write some songs that could be played on secular radio, and some songs that could be played on "Christian radio".  Then people from both camps would run to us and we could share something good with everyone.  We shouldn't be acting like "everyone else", but we shouldn't be afraid to walk out our front door either.

What if an artist wrote a 10-song album.  9 of those songs being tunes that could be played on secular radio and didn't feel contrived (or religious), and then 1 all-out, you could play it during church, worship song?  How would you categorize that CD?  And would it matter?  It would be an absolute crime for the secular industry to reject perfectly good music because it might also be alongside something that is/made by an artist who could be categorized as "Christian" or because there was a single worship song on the album.  People could act like it wasn't there, but that wouldn't make it go away.


Thing is, there really is merit to the "Christian Industry".  It's done a lot of good things for artists who would have been rejected elsewhere.  And, everyone who argues that the "Christian Industry" shouldn't exist are forgetting one very important thing:  it at least tries to be a safe haven.  You don't want your kids having to search through a forest of explicit content to find something ok to listen just because you thought the "Christian Industry" was a dorky idea.  This is a point we can't forget, because even if the whole"Industry" was done away with, people would immediately get to reorganizing and categorizing things again.  It's what people do.  It's a good thing.  It gives generally like-minded people something to gather around and share.  It may have a long way to go to become everything it can be, but what doesn't?

My point is, I UNDERSTAND both ways of things, and pluses and minuses of each of them.  


At the end of the day, what's the answer to this?

Just do what you're called to do.  


This is where I currently stand:  If someone asks if I am a "Christian Artist" I will reply with a definitive "yes".  But will I always market myself that way? That depends on how I'm led.  The systems we have are imperfect.  But so what?  We serve a God who IS perfect, and He isn't limited by systems.  So we shouldn't be either.  



I believe in the music I'm making.  You can buy it on ITunes by clicking here.

We can learn a lot from super heroes. 

There's this quintessential statement that has been cemented in the lore surrounding Spider-Man.
"With great power comes great responsibility"
We've all heard it.  Or, most of us anyway.  And it's the thing that makes a super hero just that.

People will squabble all day long about what makes a super hero.  Or maybe even just a hero in general.  Is it their powers?  If so, perhaps Batman doesn't qualify.  After all, he's just a rich guy.  And here departs the sarcasm train, inevitably leading to Tony Stark's money, and somehow looping back around to Superman and whether he's cool or just ridiculously overpowered.

And somehow in all of this semantical nonsense, we've missed the point.
Let me reiterate: "With great power comes great responsibility."

Specifically as people who can create, whether we be artists, musicians, filmmakers, anything, we have power.  Great power.  The power to change and shape minds and culture.  To inspire, or merely redirect.  We have the power to give people something to identify with.  To stand behind or rally around.

Because behind every great song, every film, every heroic campaign, there's something basic.  Something elemental that resonates within ourselves and others that reminds us of who we're meant to be.

It's why when Bruce Wayne garnishes himself with a bat, years later street kids are scribbling it on the sidewalk in hopes that he'll return.  It's why, after the Avengers save New York, children are strapping trash can lids painted with stars to to their arms and guys head to the barber shops in droves to get the unmistakable Stark goatee.  It's why, when Peter Parker prints a spider on a luge onesie and finds who he is, street artists scrawl arachnids on brick walls in dripping paint.  It's why one kid who knew there's more  purpose to music and adventure and all things media than just entertainment sketched out a fireball on a scrap of paper, then invited others to wear it proudly.

"What is this, Sam?" You may ask.  "Narcissism?"  No.  This is a reality check.

Look, thanks to Suzanne Collins, hordes of females are running around with a fictional bird stuck to them and wearing their braids slung over one shoulder (not that I have a problem with Suzanne Collins.  I quite like "The Hunger Games").

I consider myself a lot of things.  A writer, an actor, but let me speak chiefly as a musician for a moment.

As musicians, we are one of the few types of people on earth that are basically looked at like super heroes.  I'm not saying we "deserve" it any more than the single father construction workers.  But it's just the way it is.

I remember when I was a kid.  Real little.  Like, 3rd and 4th grade.  I remember hearing lyrics out of other kid's mouths.  Seeing them imitate dances they saw on TV.  And even then I remember thinking, "These kids need different a different kind musician."  I won't say "a better class" (despite the Dark Knight reference here that's just begging to be corrected), because I'm not going to arbitrarily throw blame around.  But different.

The Grammys.  The resonance is still palpable, and I didn't even watch the thing (not because I have some big objection to the Grammys, I was just doing something else that night).  But people talk.  And the internet, well, it's the internet. 

Is it risque or is it empowering?  Is it edgy or is it damaging?  Is it inspiring or just sad?

We are culture shapers.  People will google us and see what we stand for, what we believe in, how we live, what our lyrics mean.  They'll wear our emblems, our hairstyles, our shutter-shades.  Men.  Women.  Children.

One thing about super-heroes, they have remarkable power.  Superman got his via a somewhat involuntary manifestation, but hey, so did Darkseid.  Imagine the self-control it must take to be Superman.  Batman is a guy with wealth, brains and astounding skills.  But hey, so is Deathstroke.  Peter Parker is the result of what you might call an accident.  But so is pretty much everyone he fights.  It comes down to what you choose do do with your power.

We creators, we have remarkable power.  In the wake of a performance or a major release, people often treat us like our abilities are nearly mythical.  And you know what?  Perhaps they are.  We can stick our hands right into your soul, and so often, you are more than willing to let us. 

But we must remember the lesson that Peter Parker's story has endeavored to hammer into our collective awareness.  Because people will imitate us.  They WILL follow us.  They will lend their themselves to our causes, but we have the responsibility of being the vanguards of those causes.

We may not always do it perfectly.  It's sad to see life overcome some little Disney star and watch their life suffer as they try to define who they are.  We too, after all, still undergo constant character development. But like any good super hero, our endeavor should be to embody the ideal.  This power isn't just for us. 

Because so often we already have the super, but we also have to remember the hero.

Recently, I posted this to social media, "Not fishing for compliments, but thankS to any1 who encouraged me in singing. My voice was a source of self-conciousness for a LONG time."

Much to my chagrin, Twitter's 140 character limit forced me to use webspeak to articulate this post (and we just won't talk about my outright capitalization faux pas).  However, you get the point.

It may come as a surprise to you to hear this from a performer, but it was true.  Before I made The Spark, I tried time and again to come to terms with the way I sounded behind a microphone.  Take for take, there was always something.  Weird enunciation.  Glottal noises.  The vocal fry didn't want to fry that day.  It sounded too too immature.  Too something.  I knew how I wanted to sound, and it wasn't what I was hearing.  Mostly, it was just the timbre of my own voice and the tinges of colloquial accents that I just wanted to be different.  Because I KNEW what a really good singer sounded like. 

And then there's the voices in your head that come with being a music student.  Knowing so many spectacular vocal majors and theater students that could probably tear apart my breath support.  My diction, vibrato, head and chest tones.  And at the end of the day, even if I had gotten ALL of that right, I still didn't even know if I liked what I heard.

I was comfortable in the realm of the instrumental.  That's what I had buried myself in for years.  I picked up the piano, the saxophone, the guitar, bass, and drums.  Composing, arranging, mixing.  Assuming through all that time that singing would just be easy.  Because everybody sings.  It was just that the further I went, the more I knew what I wanted to sound like,  I wanted to just be more than a "great songwriter and an ok singer", and felt so desperately hindered by what I heard on playback, despite 25 takes full of good intentions and full-bore energy.

And even in the spheres of instrumentals and post-production, I could feel the constant mental barrage of "what-if" criticisms.  Because again, being a music major or even just a professional, there was always going to be someone who could legitimately tear apart saxophone tone or pitch.  Someone who might know what I could have done better with guitar sounds or articulation, or who could call me out for using parallel intervals in my part-writing for strings. 

But the voice.  The voice remained my biggest stumbling block.  And it wasn't that I never sang publicly, my vocals drenched in the maw of loud instruments and messy live sound.  It wasn't that I didn't have those moments singing in the car when I thought,"MAN!  If only I were doing a vocal take right now instead of singing to the dashboard!  I'm ON IT right now!".  But still, getting behind that ever-demanding microscope of a studio condenser just seemed to always leave me frustrated.  Should I have taken more voice lessons when I was younger?  Should I have taken them in college?  Should I just keep waiting for my voice to change some more?  I didn't just want to sound like another high-note yelling guy.

As always, I'm going somewhere with this.

Now, back when I started recording, I did not have the "proper" equipment to be doing it.  I was literally recoding full-on songs with a computer mic.  A Packard-Bell, "oh look, you can use this in an AOL chatroom" computer mic.  With it, I would mic a Roland keyboard amp (though which, I became mad-skilled at playing keyboard drums for a 12 or 13 year old, or whatever I was) that belonged to the church or an Esteban lunchbox practice amp and record into Sony's "Acid" music studio, which was quite literally $60 at Best Buy.  Recorded right onto our dell lookalike.  I eventually graduated to recording guitars direct from a pedal and using an interface, but i was still using that clunky old program.  And to give you an idea of just how clunky it was, EVERY take created a brand new track.  And was stuck that way.  And if you were using plugins like reverb, delay, distortion, etc., you had to MANUALLY copy those settings for literally every take you did.  Even just volume and pan.  EVERYTHING.  Needless to say, I I ended up with projects with well over 100 tracks in them.  And even back then, I couldn't just record songs with bare bones rock bands.  I was working those keyboard string and synth sounds for everything they were worth.  But I did the best with what I had.

In high school, I got ahold of Mackie's Tracktion.  I could finally record multiple takes on the same track.  Listen, I know that's not a big deal, but it was huge to me.  Mixing wasn't so much expertise to me as it was making each element sound "cool" and hoping it all worked together.  And I was still mixing on hyped computer speakers from Best Buy (but hey, they had a cool sub).  Which, to be fair, was a step up from the dinky plastic "welcome to Windows 98" ones I started with. 

It was during those days (or perhaps more often, nights) that I wrote so much music.  Night after night in the basement, out of the sunlight and a few degrees colder than I liked it.  With no one but the immediate family and the occasional friend really listening.  For years.  YEARS.  Grabbing the guitar and playing concerts for future audiences in an empty room.  I could see them.  I could see the stadiums.  Sometimes it was exciting, but other times, so frustrating.

It was during those days in high school that I made Premonitions.  Writing and recording were one in the same thing.  No physical person around me knew how to teach me to do what I was doing, to give authoritative answers to questions technical or musical.  My family supported me, bought me things (for which I am very thankful), but if I wanted to learn something, into the internet hole I went.  Into the abyss of forums, not knowing the term for what I was trying to do, and wrangling through search queries until I finally figured out what "it" was called.  And you know what?  Even now, as a 22 year old who holds a music degree, I am still enthralled by the music that came out of those times.  There's stuff I wrote when I was 14 that I still plan on using.  Because I was doing the best with what I had, and it was still good.

In college I made the transition to Logic, and finally met someone who could teach me things about something I sort of thought I knew.  Damon Sink took me under his wing in the areas of studio mixing and composition. 

It wasn't always ideal though.  We were both horribly busy in the music department and were doing this stuff as an independent study of sorts.  We often met in his office and just hooked my laptop up to a couple of mini monitors to talk about mixes I was working on for other bands.  Sometimes though, we'd meet at his home studio, which was much more conducive to sonic learning.  But hey, did I mention that by this time I was doing work for other bands?  Which was sort of astounding, given that I knew so little technically, but thankfully have been blessed with a good ear.

Through all this time I had experimented with vocals.  Never happy with them.  Yet, by some miracle, I was mixing the vocals of other people, and that stuff seemed to work.  So what was the deal?!  So I decided to put my foot in the door by doing guest vocal spots on other people's albums.  it was a way to see what people's reactions would be.  And if listeners didn't like it, then hey, I was just a guest vocal. 

That was the first step.  That was first time I forced myself to do it.  But there was a sort of merit in that.

Eventually I told myself something.  I told myself  that all my personal excuses (all based in self-criticism) couldn't continue to stop me.  I told myself that if I didn't make myself do it, it wouldn't get done.  That I had to give it what I had, even if I wasn't totally satisfied with it. 

It was hard, because with every take, with every edit, I felt the weight of history.  I know that sounds really overdramatic, but in my head it was like, this could be the take that ends up on the recording FOREVER.  And that was such a huge deal to me.  And sometimes it still is (I'm working on that...).  But realized that I had to swallow that, at least temporarily.  Long enough to jump off the high-dive.

Now, don't get me wrong.  You should do what you do with excellence.  Don't use what I'm saying as an excuse to do something half-baked.

When I was working on The Spark, I'd spend hours doing a bunch of vocal work, then come back the next day and not like it at all.  It was infuriating.  The only thing that stopped me from putting a hole in my computer was that, if I did that, there would be a hole in my computer. 

But slowly, something started happening. As I let people listen to the demos, they told me they liked my voice.  Not just the music.  My voice.  I almost didn't understand.  Because often, I didn't like it.  I could have cried.  It was like finding out your dog hadn't died after all.  Sometimes I almost had to stop myself from disagreeing with them, saying something like "well yeah, I really like this part too, but I need to re-record this, this, and this....." 

And I guess you could say the rest is history.  When I listen to The Spark now, I hear places that I can improve.  But that's what happens.  And I don't want to just rush on to another project.  I want more people to hear this.

I find myself writing vocal parts that I KNOW will challenge me live.  And I've listened back to live footage in recent months, sometimes disappointed at an issue like pitchiness.  But I can feel and hear myself getting better and better.  Really.  And I realize that if I hadn't put it out there to begin with, I wouldn't have had a foundation to get better from.  To challenge myself with.

I recently got to headline at the Underground, and I was listening to the footage and getting so excited.  I was impressed.  By me.  I was getting so excited in the car, so genuinely happy with what I was hearing.  Sure, there were off notes here and there, sure, my ear caught everything that needed improvement, but man, I enjoyed listening to it so much.  And one of the things that propelled me was others telling me the same thing from one performance to another. 

And I'm just going to keep getting better.  I'd love to do other professional singing in the future.  Maybe in theatre or movies.  And one day maybe I'll take some more lessons.  Become one of Brett Manning's clients, hire a vocal coach for the road or something.

When I was little, my parents never lied to me.  Not even about stuff like Santa Claus.  You should have seen me, trying to inform all these delusional kindergarteners that no jolly old elf made an annual squeeze down their home's exhaust pipe.  But the comfortable ignorance of the masses just wouldn't tolerate the strains of one lone truthbringer.  Anyway, mom always told me, "At any specific skill/task, there will always be someone better than you."  It wasn't a slam.  It wasn't even a discouragement.  She was just being honest, and would teach me to just do my best, because my worth isn't determined by a skill.  Some days, knowing that was liberating.  Other days, perhaps not so much.  But you know what?  It should be liberating.

Look, there are people who really aren't called to do things.  We've seen them.  The people that are just so convinced that they think they want to do music or acting or ANYTHING (doesn't even have to be "artistic") and you watch them and think, "Man, I'm glad they like doing this and everything, but they just ain't got it."  It can can make you cringe.  But when you know you have the gift, take what you have and use it.  Even if it doesn't seem like much.  Start with it.  You may know that people may be able to criticize it.  And YOU will almost certainly be able to criticize it, but ENJOY it too.  I personally, LOVE listening to my own music.  Not out of some deep narcissism, but because I just genuinely like it. 

Do the best with what you have.  And grow with it. 

Let me start off by saying that if you are a musician, Christian or otherwise, my goal here is not to pick on or offend you.  I love and appreciate you (and may very well like most of your music, or not), but this is what I see.  I just ask that you consider it, and then decide for yourself.  But if you're gonna read it, read it all.  I don't want you doing to me what most people do with the Bible, which is taking away part of it and not considering the entirety.

I recently happened across a blog that sought to talk candidly about the problems of Christian music, both as an art form, as an an industry in general.  What followed was a discussion of how impersonal, disingenuous, and uncreative as a whole the thing has become.  Inside, I had a struggle with this.  One part of me agreed, the other part didn't, or at least didn't want to.

Of course, the comments section blossomed (or should I say 'festered'?) into a bunch of debates as to the validity and/or cause of these woes.  The basic consensus seemed to be that popular Christian music was "disingenuous" because it was lyrically and musically a bunch of copycatting, but that it also was so unreal because it isn't practical to sing about how everything is ok all the time. 

This left me pretty frustrated.  Because I both agreed and disagreed with both of these points.  And I can make statements about it that make me feel the same way.

For instance, sometimes I feel like the Christian music industry (and I am talking everything from worship and pop to rock and metal and hip hop.  Everything.) is a great, safe bastion for listeners and families.  There are artists and networks that really are doing great things.  Other times I feel like it's just full of a bunch of people who don't read their Bibles and need to do so before they do any more damage by writing songs that come out of their own personal religion.  But, I try not to be too harsh about this, because I know everyone is in different places and isn't always going to act perfectly.  Still, sometimes I look at how the world basically ignores Christian artists,  the dying festivals, the bands scraping for cash, and I feel like the whole thing is drowning in its own blood.  Then again, I look at artists like the Newsboys or TobyMac, and they seem to be doing really well. 

So what is the real problem?  Is Christian music changing the world and doing great, or is it barely noticed and hardly surviving?  It seems like the answer to these questions can all be "yes", just depending on where you go.
But what's the cure to the problem?  Could it be that, rather than us having an artistic crisis, we need to first look at things on a spiritual level?  And why, for the love of God, have more people not asked THAT question?

Don't get me wrong.  I have a music degree from an esteemed school.  I studied music theory, composition, studio production, classical and jazz performance.  I take a hard look at popular music as well, and I am very interested in the art  of songwriting and lyricism.  I can talk to you about art and how to do it better.  I can talk to you about ways to make more artful worship music that isn't just a collection of tweetable one-liners.  But again, I think what we really need to do, as the body of Christ, is look at this spiritually FIRST. 

And so here are some of the real problems.  And solutions.

1. We've believed a lie
I was recently at an event and there was some music playing over the in-house radio.  The music was a mix of Christian and secular artists, but what really caught my attention was a particular Christian rock song that really talked about "How weak and broken" I am, or something of the sort.  I say 'something of the sort' because I've heard stuff like that  probably thousands of times.

I'm weak.  I'm sick.  I'm broken.  I'm helpless.  I'm a wreck.  It's all that I can take.  I'm breaking down.
There are secular bands whose sound I really enjoy, but when did we start taking lessons from their lyrical playbook?  I'm not saying that we should never talk about the things we've faced or are facing.  But I am saying that we need to stop making declarative statements taking ownership of infirmity and insecurity as if they were meant to be a part of us.  And this happens a TON in our rock music, but seeps into our worship and other areas as well. 

I understand this to a point.  Usually we sort of defend this by saying "Uh yeah, Sam.  We're saying that we all need Jesus.  We're a wreck without Him."  Ok.  Fine.  I get that.  But we've honestly crossed the line 90% of the time into glorifying weakness, pain, and fear.  And none of that exists in God.  And we're made in His image.

It's authentic when its real to you.  A lot of our music that DOES sound more authentic is that which is about pain and weakness.  But what that tells me is that our pain and weakness are more real to us than the victory we've been given in Christ.  And that's a problem.  I understand that we are often trying to lead people to the cross, and that means showing them that we all need Jesus.  There is validity to that.  But have we taught them ANYTHING about the life they are supposed to live AFTER the cross?  About how Jesus came to give us "Life, and life more abundantly (John 10:10)"?

A lot of people use 2 Corinthians 12 to justify this, where Paul says:
"5 Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
6 For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.
7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."

We have to understand not only the context here, but what he's talking about.  It sounds like, from this one passage out of an entire letter, Paul is saying "I'm a wreck and that gives God glory."  Not so.  Could it be that we are perhaps just reading his meaning incorrectly AND out of context?

First of all, Paul knew he wasn't chopped liver.  In Phillippians 3, Paul straight up says that if judged by things of the flesh, he'd have had room to glory.  He could have boasted, because when he was still a Pharisee, he was good at it. 

This is also the same man that said this IN 2 Corinthians 5:
"20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Paul talked a lot in his letters about the pain and persecution he and other Christians face.  But Paul always gave more glory to Jesus than to his situation.  In the above scripture, God tells Paul that his Grace is sufficient for his situation.  It's unfortunate that most people read this as God saying, "tough it out Paul".  That tells me that we have a TINY, EMACIATED picture of the power of God's Grace.  What if Paul is saying above that he will focus on the Glory of God despite his infirmities so that he'll be able to actually receive the power of Christ, as opposed to giving glory to his infirmities, which would actually block him from receiving the Blessing?  What if when he says "I take pleasure", he is actually taking that pleasure from God and not from the problems themselves?

It's not wrong to admit that we're wrecks without God.  But we aren't supposed to be without God.  Yet we keep writing as if we are.  And this not only gives the world a weak picture of God, we end up literally eating our words.  And that's what's happened to the industry.

Proverbs 18 says:
20 A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

The scripture says that we are the Body of Christ, his representatives in the earth.  So what's up with the people who are supposed to be the picture of Christ constantly talking about how wretched and weak they are?  Because that's the picture we give the world of Jesus.

God says in Joel 3:10 "Let the weak say 'I am strong'."  Have we paid attention to that?
How about Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1:22-24, where Paul outlines that Christ has great authority in his Name, which he's given to his people, the church, who are supposed to exercise it in the earth?

Jesus told his disciples in Matthew to pray for the will of God to be done in the earth just like it is in heaven. 

Or how about  Colossians 1?
" 9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

The fact is that Paul wrote Phillippians, his most joyful letter, while he was at the bottom of one of the worst prisons in the known world.  It was literally the sewer of the palace, sloshing with feces and infested with rats.

We've believed a lie.  The lie was that we weren't artists and were unfeeling robots.  They cheapened our experience by telling us that we didn't feel deeply, and that hurt us deeply.  We forgot that some of the greatest songs of victory ever were written by people shoving it back into the face of their hardest times.  Our reaction to being called "disingenuous" was to start glorifying weakness.

We need to talk about things we deal with as humans.  Even God himself experiences sadness.  His chosen nation, Israel, was an expressive people.  They danced when they were happy, but ripped their clothes, howled, and put ashes on their heads when they were sad.  Yes.  And fear and weakness are things we all have to contend with, but they are NOT NATURAL.  Fear is the enemy of God, and we are made in the image of God.  God is love, and "perfect love casts out all fear".   Standing against fear and weakness have become part of the human experience, but they were NEVER meant to be.  They aren't innate to us.  And we are supposed to stand against them (Eph. 6:13), not just continually write odes to them out of some religious sense of piety and a bad definition of humbleness.  Because then you have a bunch of kids confessing over and over that they are so "weak, broken, and helpless" as they sing along with you. 

God didn't make a flawed creation.  He made a perfect creation that was never meant to operate apart from Him.  We've believed the lie that being "genuine" means acting like we are inherently weak and fearful beings, and we ARE NOT.  We have to be watchful about what message we are sending and how we are sending it. 

We are broken without God.  But God never created us to be apart from Him.  And we NEED to show the world what it means to be WITH him.  That doesn't mean we never talk about sadness, or say that we've never felt brokenness, but we have to STOP taking innate ownership of those things, or else, why did Jesus even come then?  He came to bear our sickness and carry our pains, and KILL them on the cross (Isaiah 53:4).  I've written sad songs.  I probably will again.  But I want to know the difference between showing dimension and openness and just promoting bad confession.  It's not always easy.  But I think that spiritually, the industry has suffered from this long enough.

2. The industry believes in doing business, but not prospering, which is corporate suicide.  And don't tell you that isn't what you see happening.
We know that as Christians we are supposed to give.  Give to God.  Give to those that are hard and easy to love.  Give to the poor.  But in order to give give give, we have to also receive.  We HAVE to believe in increase.  God wants to bless us because He loves us, and because in order to bless other people, do what we're called to do, give to the poor, and everything else, we need abundant resources.  I'm not saying that if you've experienced hard times that I am judging you.  Stuff happens, and my family has gone through that too.  But hear me out.

Abraham was our picture of God in covenant with people.  And if you even paid attention to the New Testament, you know that time and time again it talks about how Christ is the seed of Abraham, and we have been made one with Christ.

Galatians 3
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

This doesn't mean you'll never have to do anything.  What it does mean is that there is prosperity in God's calling for your life.  And if you look at Abraham's life, he was one of the richest men of his time.  He wasn't greedy.  He didn't love money.  He loved God, and God blessed him and used that to not only show his power, to to bless others. 

There are a couple of famous scriptures that some people think debunk God's interest in us prospering.  The first is the story of the rich young ruler, in Mark 10:17-27

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

17 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.” 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 22 But at these words a]">[a]he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

23 And Jesus, looking around, *said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus *answered again and *said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “b]">[b]Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus *said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

There are several things a lot of people miss here.  First of all, Jesus knew the Old Testament very well.  And he was constantly proving to people like the Pharisees that even if you think you've kept the law perfectly, you haven't.  That's why Jesus came, because people couldn't be perfect on their own.  The rich young ruler says he's kept the law perfectly, and Jesus knows good and well that even if he thinks he has, he hasn't.  But he lets that go, because he targets the area he needs to grow the most in.  This guys relies more on money than on God.

Most people stop there, and say, "See, it's hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."  Ok.  But Jesus didn't say it was hard for them to exist there.  Just to enter.  Also, look at how much this freaked out the disciples.  "Who then can be saved?" they ask.  It freaks 'em out!  Why?  Because they all had money!  They were all fishermen, craftsmen, businessmen, Luke was a doctor for pete's sake!  Jesus replies, "With God all things are possible!".  So Jesus tells them that with faith in God (and subsequently in Him as messiah), anyone can. 

Another scripture that gets used a lot is:

1 Timothy 6:10New American Standard Bible (NASB)

10 For the love of money is a root of all a]">[a]sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

This scripture doesn't say that money is the root of the evil, but the LOVE of the money. 

So why, Sam?  Why would God want us to be prosperous.  Well, first and foremost because he loves you.  Also, because it brings glory to Him.  He made Abraham's name great knowing that Abraham would make His name great.  And, according to this scripture:

"Galatians 3:29New American Standard Bible (NASB)
29 And if you a]">[a]belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s b]">[b]descendants, heirs according to promise."

One of the reasons Jesus came was to connect us to the Blessing that Abraham had.  We are meant to experience the same greatness that he did.  And when we prosper we are able to do MORE and BETTER things for OTHER PEOPLE.  We live in a world that tries to legislate morality and use the government as a tool to provide for people.  What we end up doing is forcing people to give.  That's not what God does.  In the book of Acts, people got together and started selling a bunch of property, taking care of each other, pooling their resources and making sure the poorer among them were taken care of.  But the difference was that they did this from a motivation of love, and did it by choice, not by obligation. 

The Bible is the story of Christ and the Blessing.  You can literally read the whole Bible and trace Christ and The Blessing from beginning to end.  Christ came to connect us to the Blessing so that we could do great things for him.  The world is literally falling apart.  But if you look at the Church in Acts, they were "self" sufficient.  The outside economy had very little bearing on them. 

The world has sequestered Christian artists to special little, untelevised, "CCM" ceremonies, while the lines are continually getting more blurry at the Grammys.  I want a Grammy.  I want stadiums.  I want to show that God is strong and able, and I want thousands of people because what He has for them is for everybody.  We literally cheat thousands of people out of the gospel when we act like stadiums are just for people who "sell their soul to the devil". 

People should want to do business with us. They shouldn't dread working with us.  We should make our payments on time, give them a little extra just to bless them, and quit being so rude at the chinese restaurant on sundays.

We'd have more stars on TV, more airtime on the radio, and frankly, better artists if we would just allow God to bless everyone (including US).  It's funny too, because people are so hypocritical about it.  We act like being a Christian means "Well, get used to small to midsize venues for the rest of your life, because it's a struggle out there, and renown is evil" but everyone flips out and gets the Christian tinglies when they find out that someone like Justin Bieber might have been raised by parents with faith.  It's like fame is all evil until someone famous says "Jesus" on the Grammys, because suddenly we might have some celebrity support.  We aren't supposed to seek fame for fame's sake.  We aren't supposed to be greedy for riches.  Those things on their own are dangerous, but again, we were meant to experience them in a close relationship with God, not in and of ourselves.  But we are supposed to prosper to bring glory to God.  What does it say to the world when God's infrastructure is failing?  Did he call you to do it, or didn't He?

Christians have gone through hard times.  I am NOT criticizing you for going through a rough financial time.  Kenneth Hagin taught that God wanted us to be blessed while he had a nickel in his pocket and barely enough gas in his tank.  He was THIS CLOSE to being dirt poor.  But he kept teaching the promises of God, and eventually saw them in His life.  Because of him, we now have Rhema Bible school in Tulsa, and scores of other outreaches around the world.  But he had to keep his faith in God's promises.

We need to do better business.  We need to quit pretending like a handshake and a smile will pay for food, gas, lodging, and bills, and using the "we're just a church" line to justify it.  Quit talking about how much it costs to buy toilet paper for your building, but then bringing in artists that you can't take care of.  And if you are in a tight spot, make sure they know that BEFORE they come to you.

This whole lack of funding spiraled downward, and will continue to do so in some circles if people don't start doing things right.  A friend of mine was telling me how he wished he could find more Christian music that he liked, but that it was hard to find because it wasn't getting played. In the areas where there isn't variety and inspiration, it's because executives HAVE to play it safe.  It's because they are TRYING to do business, but DON'T HAVE THE MONEY to take risks and promote more artists because of the problems outlined above.  There are great artists doing amazing and timeworthy things, but we have to realize that God blesses and supports people through people. 

When I was a kid, I wanted stadiums.  And I didn't see why not.  I thought that if your record sounded professional, than you must be packing out huge places.  And why not?  Carman did it.  The man packed out Texas stadium with a free Gospel concert.  The dude did rock, worship, rap, country, story songs.  I'm serious.  He was literally one of the biggest artists of the 90's (Christian, secular, or otherwise) in terms of record sales, but yet the world acts like he didn't even happen.  And that.  That shouldn't happen.

3-Talent doesn't mean you're ready
A lot of people are talented.  Walk into a guitar center.  There is probably at least one guy or girl in there that could be on the Grammys based on skill.  But do you actually know what you're talking about?  Given the opportunity, as a Christian artist, or an artist that is a Christian, or whatever, is your message worth hearing?  I feel like there are talented groups who don't know their Bible for beans, but then there are people who know the Word who really need to work on their musical professionalism. 

Do both.  That's all I'm saying. 

Here's my first bit of fun news for The Spark, the tracklist.
1. Daybreak (instrumental)
2. House of Shadows
3. The Screen
4. Walk With Fire
5. The Roses
6. Whatever It Takes

My next blog, I'll be talking about the project as a whole, and going into more detail about each track.

Which track title intrigues you the most?  Feel free to comment!  And in case you missed it, here's the announcement from the home page:

It's finally here, my debut EP "The Spark"  It will be available as either a slick physical copy or from your favorite online download outlet. Want a physical CD or other merchandise, but live out of state?  Awesome!  I'm in the process of setting up a web store which should be up and running by launch if not before.  Keep an eye on the blog page, as I will be posting all sorts of fun things leading up the the release!
#TheSpark

I love it when music sounds rich, layered, and well produced.  That's why I often find the way bands sound live very...well, less than. At least depending on the genre.  I love to use a lot of effects and textures, but I like for my setup to be simple (at least, in a modular sense) so stage logistics can be taken care of quickly.

Usually, musicians seem to be at the mercy of the sound guy, and whether they sound good or not can sometimes be decided by whether the person behind the board is a well-meaning dude who knows nothing more than how to work the volume faders, or someone who can set gain, eq, compression, and external effects like a boss.  But then there's the room, or the unforgiving lack of early reflections in an outdoor environment that can make even an amplified drummer sound like he's just whacking cardboard.  Let's be honest. 

Sometimes, things like this don't matter.  As a musician that has played many types of music, almost none of this matters if you are playing in a jazz combo, or in something like a 70's style, earthy jam band.  But a lot of problems arise when it comes to aspiring artists that want to make something more akin to modern, radio-esque music, especially those in the rock area whose albums are all about coming across like a wall of sound. I've heard professional touring band's live guitar tone sound like like a buzz-saw on a tin can.  But the question is, why?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve played heavy music in some pretty simplistic situations.  Tiny sound board with no eq, tiny PA with no dedicated subs, outdoors.  And you know what you do?  You just give it all you’ve got.  But I think that if you can do better, it’s good to know how.

First of all, there are the reasons I mentioned above.  Truth is, finding a sound person who knows how how to set input gain, fill out the whole EQ spectrum (without things sounding harsh and painful), and use compression to make things punchier (and safer for the listeners and equipment) is not always easy for performance venues.  Even someone who can do this to a certain point may be a bit stuck on mixing for one certain genre, and not another. 

So this lands things on the shoulders of the band.  And for rock especially, there's some things I wish heavier bands would consider.

1-Just because you want to sound "raw" and "unprocessed" live (whatever that means, considering you're already plugging a genetically modified classical instrument into a big loud box full of transistors or vacuum tubes and oversaturating it's sound to kingdom come), doesn't mean you shouldn't consider more than just your guitar and your amp.  In fact, modern heavy/hard rock IS a very processed type of music.  It just is.  Whether you think it is, or whether you think your favorite artist sounds "produced" or not, trust me, they are.  The musicians who sound worst live though, are the ones who refuse to understand this.  I'm not saying you need to use autotune live or put all your guitars on track and just sync.  What I am saying is that that, a lot of rock players seem to want to forget the fact that after they set their 3-band EQ and mic their cab, or set up their drum kit, there are usually a lot of drastic things that happen afterward that makes them sound the way they do.  In a lot of cases, it can sound pretty barbaric when two guitarists and a bassist plug straight into their amps, a drummer just sets up his kit, and a with no mic technique gets thrown into a channel strip with practically nothing on it but a gain control.  I've been at SO MANY concerts where to me, the music didn't seem like music at all.  I knew the song, I heard the parts, but it just sounded like a bunch of people that happened to be playing loudly at the same time, and not music.  Bassists, if you play hard music, different uses for compression!  Guitarists and Bassists, learn that your tone is NOT ALL ABOUT YOU!  One of the biggest mistakes guitarists and bassists make is setting their tone separately in their respective homes at super-loud volume (fatiguing their ears anyway) and then assuming that that it will sound just as good when everyone else is playing.  What you need to know is that there are frequencies that PILE UP QUICKLY, especially when you're playing with a drummer.  I’ve head a lot of guitar tones that sounded awesome on their own, but the moment the drummer started playing and using cymbals, it turned to brackish noise.  And and bassists, good bass tone compliments good guitar tone!  Guitarists need to know that their amp sound different from various angles too.  I almost always try to jump off the stage and listen to what my amp sound like to the front row audience.  The irony is, that while my tone sound great to me when I’m standing listening to the speaker cone from an angle, being directly in front of the amp (where the most die-hard fans are likely to be), it has often sounded the worst!  So I want to create a tone that is going to sound best to the audience, not to me. 

I think it’s a great idea when bass and guitar players get their hands on things like 32 band eqs and compressors, and start learning a bit about how to sound good wherever they go.  And vocalists, it wouldn’t hurt you to learn about EQ, Compression, Reverb, and Delay.  Because most hard music vocals usually sound pretty less-than live without at least some compression.  Don’t believe me?  How many scream vocalists do you know that would do an acoustic set?

2-Digital is not the enemy.  About 10 years ago, there were some people with some really compelling arguments as to why analogue was so much better than digital.  And maybe in some cases, this is still true.  A lot of guys love the sound of their vintage fender twin in the studio.  Ok, I get that.  But things like amp and cab emulation, digital synthesis, backing tracks, and Impulse Responses have come a long way (especially for harder music).  So far in fact, that bands like Periphery put down their tube-driven monsters and picked up the Fractal Axe FX for studio and live.  And, as a producer, you’d be amazed how much sampling I see being used in places where listeners most-likely don’t want to believe it.  The term “drum replacement” is pretty much ubiquitous, whether a producer likes to use it or not.  Because the truth is that a lot of drums sound better in the studio or in a room built to make drums sound good, and not out in the middle of an open field (despite what the average performance video would have you believe).  Drums are a harder philosophical situation for me too, because I believe in the versatility and reliability of real acoustic drums, as a drummer myself.  However, they work best when they are mic’d up properly in large venues.  In small to medium venues, they are just so loud that they either drown everything out, or the sound guy doesn’t put them in the PA mix to try to compensate, and they lose all their punch.  Not to mention, in a lot of instances you end up with a snare and kick that sound relatively good, but cymbals just get neglected all together.  Some of the most effective sets I have seen have incorporated acoustic and electric/sampled percussion.  As I said, this situation is almost exclusive to heavier music, since the drummers are playing loud most of the time.  But more often then not, while harder rock music is one of the types of music that requires the most production attention, it is often one of the types that is given the least production on the local to regional level.  “Plug and play” seems to be the name of the game, and it often makes even very skilled bands just sound like cavemen.  And backing tracks aren’t the devil.  Look, I believe that a good band should be able to play without backing tracks if need be, or crank out an improvised jam.  I was a college musician that played jazz and with a jam band from time to time.  But the reality is that a band with one guitarist can easily have two to five guitar tracks going on simultaneously on an album.  And a band with one vocalist probably has so many harmonies and octave doubles on recording that short of hiring a bunch of backup singers (which, of course, is awesome and preferable in many cases), backing tracks make the most sense.  The same applies to string arrangements, special effects, etc.  OF COURSE it would be ideal to tour with an orchestra (and if you don't think so, in my opinion, you aren't thinking big enough), but what irks me is when a band has a song that relies heavily on something like a string arrangement, then they just play the dirty, bare bones version of it live because they haven't put any effort into production value.  Some people don't have the technical capabilities, and that;s totally understandable, but still.

What prompted this blog is that I’ve seen some cover bands lately that have their gear setups way more involved (and better sounding) than tons of “professional” full-time touring bands.  Because they aren’t afraid to use different effects, to mix analogue and digital, and even use electric drums if they need to (which, have often sounded abundantly better in an outdoor stage situation than an acoustic kit, as long as the PA is decent).  It’s funny, because I’ve seen “pro” bands essentially doing the “plug and play” thing live, sounding like a really skilled garageband playing ok covers of their own material.  Then I’ve heard cover bands full of semi-pro regional musicians who will roll onto a stage with racks of fine-tuned equipment, because they’ve done their best to create what they heard on the ALBUM, and they have sounded FANTASTIC (despite their weird stage antics).   They’ve got their effects and tones and patch banks all dialed in.

So, something to think about.


 I could go a lot deeper than this, but I think this about covers it.  What do you think?