Category: Photography and Music

Here is the current progress on “Pretty Cafes.” Coming along very nicely lyrically, I think, and the chorus seems to work. (After the chorus, it peters out because I haven’t finished it yet.)

New song in progress: Pretty Cafes. This is only a snippet, but I think it’s coming along pretty cool. Turn it up to hear best.

Mosquito larva, captured in the wild backyard, photographed through my son’s microscope.

Last night I achieved a life-long dream: I played a screaming Eddie Van Halen-like guitar solo in front of a cheering crowd at a battle of the bands. My brother is a high school teacher, and I sat in with the “teacher band” at his school’s annual “Battle of the Bands.” We had a blast playing classics by the Eagles, Van Morrison, Neil Young and U2. I never got to do this back in high school, both because I wasn’t as good then as I am now, and because I wouldn’t have been allowed to get involved in such a “worldly” thing. 🙂

The most amazing thing about this Battle, though, was the “Emo” group. “Emo” is characterized by machine-gun riffs using drop-D tuning and “singing” that is best characterized as “Cookie Monster growling into a loud PA system.” Fans of Emo “get low,” meaning they dance wildly in front of the band, spinning their arms like dervishes and often bashing into each other (kind of like “moshing,” but that’s so ’90’s.). Emo kids tend to dye their hair jet black and dress androgenously, with the boys wearing girls jeans and black leather boots. There was a vigorous group of Emo kids, some from another school district, at this concert. The school Principal looked horror-stricken as the kids began to “get low” and the decibels rose.

I have to say that the main Emo band that played was remarkably good for a group of high school kids. The guitarist had great tone and timing, the bassist and drummer were tight as, well, a drum, and the singer’s growl was remarkably consistent with the Emo style. Emo isn’t really my thing, but as a musician, I appreciate all kinds of musicianship, and I don’t want to sound like my mom (bless her heart) when I was 13: “THAT’S NOT MUSIC, IT’S NOISE!!!”

But…. my goodness, it’s hard for me to relate to the Emo crowd. The growl-singing just sounds EVIL, and I shudder to think what the lyrics are all about (it’s impossible to make out what the singer is actually growling when the band is playing). And these kids just seemed so lost. I suppose their parents think the kids need their space and freedom to experiment, and maybe there’s something to that, but it seemed so clear to me, taking in the whole scene, that these kids are trapped, not free. They think they’re embracing an honest nihlism that views explosive, angry self-expression as the greatest good and irony as authenticity. The real irony is that, for most of them, it doesn’t seem authentic at all. I wish there was a way, in my music or teaching or writing, that I could introduce them to Jesus, help them feel Aslan’s breath on their faces, see them smile without shame.

I bought a decent microscope for my older son, along with a camera attachment. Here’s my first effort — it’s the cell structure of a flower petal.

I had the synths revved up again this weekend, and here is the result: Sea, a new Ambient composition. If you’re new to Ambient music, it’s an experimental form, usually without too much melodic or rythmic structure. The idea is to become immersed in the soundscape rather than in the form.

This is part of an Ambient project I’m working on that I’m calling “Answering Job,” based on Job 38. In Job 38, God answers Job’s distressed questions, but not in a way we might expect. “Sea” is based on verses 8-11:

“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,

when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,

when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

Last year I started teaching guitar lessons to a handful of kids, mostly from church. It gives me a little fun money to spend on my hobbies (like buying guitar toys). I have two students who have been with me now for about a year and a half, both of whom were complete beginners when we started. Today I cranked the amps up, and we were rocking on a Green Day song one of them wanted to learn. Rocking! What a cool feeling — here are some kids who are learning to love the instrument I love, who hopefully will know the joy of playing music all their lives, who maybe will be worship leaders somewhere someday — and I’ve had the chance to teach them how to play. This is one of those things that leaves a legacy. I love it.

Here’s a rough sketch of a new song, Bound for Glory. It’s a Texas two-step using the new country drum loops Santa brought me. Much of it is a complete mess, the ending is a disaster at this point, but I think it’s going to end up being a fun and singable tune.

Patti, the noble steed, surveys the snow-covered yard.

Seventh Avenue, 10:00 p.m. — last class of the semester taught, heading for Penn Station — it’s all over but the grading.

I’m working on a new song inspired in part by C.S. Lewis’ book “The Great Divorce.” It’s called Shadowlands. The song title is a link to the MP3 file, which is a very, very rough demo with just some acoustic guitar and guide vocal. I still need at least one more verse. Here are the lyrics so far:

I walked the dusty streets
Of this Shadowland
I held these broken stones
In my own two hands
It seemed so real to me
When I made my stand
In this Shadowland

[chorus]In the Shadowland
They don’t remember what you’ve done
In the Shadowland
It doesn’t matter where you’re from
Everybody ends up here
In this Shadowland