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On the excellent song writing of The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle

Thursday, October 22, 2009

From “The Declaimers: Two Rock Bands That Want to Be Heard” by Sasha Frere-Jones for The New Yorker:

The grind of the boom box’s capstan is often audible, but it does not overwhelm Darnielle’s stentorian voice or his violent strumming; he may be the least self-conscious singer alive. His songs, insistent and stuffed with words, are like late-night pay-phone calls from a lover determined to complete a thought before the quarter runs out…

Frere-Jones is stronger on The Mountain Goats than on The Hold Steady in this article, but still has nice insights on two bands that will be on Calvin stages within a year of one another.  Looking forward to being converted on November 4...

Former CCM musician Joy Williams on why she moved on

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Everyone sees life through a grid. Part of my grid is faith. When I was in CCM, I was just singing about the grid. I’ve come to a point where I want to sing about what I see through the grid. In CCM, I was always pushed to sing about faith from a “victorious” angle, when I feel like so much of faith is wrestling through questions.

From an interview with Joy Williams.  Check out her new band, The Civil Wars, which does a lovely video cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me To the End of Love.”

 

 

Chicago Reader feature on David Bazan

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

One of the things the biennial Festival of Faith & Music is about is making connections.  This year, we helped make an historic connection between Dr. Cornel West and hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco—we’re still giddy.  Another connection that wasn’t entirely new, but was renewed and strengthened was that of David Bazan with his old friend Jessica Hopper and his newer friend David Dark (though the Hopper/Dark connection was new).  Hopper interviewed Bazan as one of the workshops during FFM.  Then, the three converged in an interesting way in a recent feature article Hopper did for the Chicago Reader called The Passion of David Bazan, which includes quotes from Dark.  It’s a great article about a musician who’s come to Calvin at various points along his very public journey of understanding his relationship to Christian faith.  Check it out—highly recommended.

A new incarnation for a Familyre Famile

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Great Comfort Records has announced its inaugural release, Come, O Spirit!, which is a collection of hymns as interpreted by the likes of Leigh Nash, Welcome Wagon, Damien Jurado, David Bazan, Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer.  The album is the brainchild of Mason Neely and Isaac Wardell, both of whom presented at last spring’s Festival of Faith & Music as the collective Bifrost Arts.  Come, O Spirit! embodies Neely and Wardell’s belief that “a new generation of musicians from across the spiritual spectrum is emerging, discarding the trappings of the Christian-culture industry to reintroduce the transcendence, beauty and historical gravity of western scared music to the places where it belongs: dinner parties, road trips and back porches.”  Great Comfort Records is the newest enterprise of Daniel Smith, his wife Elin and his parents Lenny and Marian—a delightful Famile to be sure that radiates a kind of fresh, authentic faithfulness that is all too rare.

Billy Corgan launches “spiritual” web site

Musician Billy Corgan picked 9-9-09 as the launch date for what appears to be a new blog about spirituality called “Everything from Here to There.”  Though the language in the inaugural post rings a bit vague and New Age-y, it will be interesting to see where the conversations about the integration of body, mind and soul go, as that is a frequent topic of conversation here in the SAO: how do we avoid dualism and reunite in thought and practice elements that should never have been separated from each other?