Psalm 137

thesufjanstevensmodel5000: Tomorrow is official release day....

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:32:54 -0700

Tomorrow is official release day. Until then, here’s “Christmas in the Room” from the Christmas Infinity Voyage EP. I’m releasing all my original songs from the Christmas box set into public domain, including this one. Merry Christmas.

Video

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:32:22 -0600

Never Apologize For Your Taste

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:57:37 -0600

What I Return To

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:30:00 -0600

Psalm 137 is a yearning.

The Jews in Babylon long to be home. There is a longing and significance put on remembering their home, Jerusalem.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

Longing, craving, pining—these are daily pulls. There is yearning in everyone—to be accepted, loved, validated, desired. The list could go on. This is what I see as being the root of most of our problems—that we are seeking to fill gaps that we feel we have. We spend so much energy and time focusing on how to fix this, it is often paralyzing.

Sitting Shiva is a Jewish ritual that is performed for seven days after a family member dies. It is good mitzvah (“commandment”, or “good deed”) to pay a home visit to the mourners. During this visit, there are no greetings exchanged, no small talk or apologies to the mourners, there are no words spoken until the mourners choose to speak. You just sit with them. There is not a rush of armchair wisdom that comes, no foolish attempts at immediate comfort—just being present in that place with the mourners.

Most of us have participated in a version of this ritual with the music that we listen to. More often than not, I find myself sitting with certain songs.

You know what I’m talking about.

The songs that you return to, the songs that you can honestly listen to forever, the songs that contain you. It’s not that those songs resolve your pain, they’re songs that you can sit with.

Here is a Spotify playlist of songs that I can sit with. These are not all of my all-time favorite songs, that’s a completely different animal (though many on this list are)…and this list certainly isn’t finished.

Let’s Get Growing.

—jordanbishop

SXSW

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:26:24 -0600

I felt compelled to write something about the shark tank that is SXSW.

There is one word that comes to mind when I look back at my 2 day experience of the (festival?) feasting that I partook in: Free.

Most, nearly all, day shows at SXSW are free. Almost every venue serves free lunch, and free drinks. I was a happy receiver of free beer at a couple venues.

Although, I felt like I was constantly being punched in the face while in Austin.

MELLO YELLO. DORITOS. MILLER LIGHT.

Advertising is why the festival runs….at least why it runs largely for free. There are fliers, billboards, and even entire stages (a huge Doritos vending machine) devoted to advertising. Now according to locals, this is fairly recent development at SXSW. It was there before, but never as obnoxious.

Josh Tillman (Fleet Foxes, J.Tillman, Father John Misty), was probably the most annoyed (disgusted, really) by the rampant advertising. At his Waterloo Records show, he joked (in a convincing manner) that he was lobbying for Doritos to get their logo embedded into the ocean floor. In the past few days, he tweeted:

“I’m going to miss #sxsw so much. I think I’ll turn Fox News and Jack FM up as loud as they go simultaneously in every room to cope with it.”

and

“SXSW was a total failure. I didn’t get sued by Doritos once. I did get 5 business cards from lawyers, though. #mustbedoingsomethingright”

So, SXSW is pretty ridiculous. It is all corporations screaming at you the entire time.

But there is also 2,000 bands playing in one city in a weeks time. There are hundreds of shows a day. There is constantly a new, exciting, and incredible performance happening, all within a few miles. That’s incredible.

I think (or would like to think) that the love of music is really the driving force behind SXSW. There are bands there that don’t get to play 10 shows a year, but they are knocking out 13 in 5 days at SXSW. There are still those bands just trying to break out, be heard, and sometimes they are.

And as far as everything being free because of corporate sponsorship, I suppose I cant complain. I don’t feel like I was brainwashed by it.

I was brainwashed by Chris Thile’s insane mandolining, Gary Clark Jr.’s Hendrix-ness, and Father John Misty’s playfulness. I was surrounded by people who really loved music. Not just people who listen to music, but people who’s lives are really driven by music.

And that still seems special to me, and I’ll probably go next year,

Leadbelly

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:15:38 -0700

I recently read a book of poetry by Tyehimba Jess entitles “Leadbelly”. I have listened to some Leadbelly before, but never knew some of his story.

Huddie Leadbetter grew up around the turn of the century. He grew up singing and playing music—his parents former slaves By 1903, at age 15 Leadbelly was playing shows with his uncle’s accordion. Although, would forever be wed to Stella, his beloved 12-string guitar. Chang-gang songs, negro spirituals, classics. Leadbelly was passionate with his music, this ran through his social life too. He once escaped from a Texas prison 1915, only to find himself back there for killing a relative in 1918. He was sentenced to 20 years.

Leadbelly sang his way out of prison. He sang for Texas Gov. Patt Neff, and was pardoned. And six years later he was put back in Angola Prison for stabbing a man.

Leadbelly then sang his way out of prison. A folklorist/musician/promoter named John Lomax got permission to take Leadbelly out of prison. As good as this sounds, Leadbelly was just as much enslaved to Lomax as he was in prison. He had to perform in degrading Black Minstrel Shows, sing songs on command, and play what Lomax told him to.

So throughLeadbelly’s life, he definitely was not a model citizen. He was a victim of racism and oppression. Leadbelly’s music escaped him from prison. Leadbelly’s music, though exploited, was exploited for a reason. It elicited intense reactions from

Leadbelly’s music was louder than all of this.

I could go on and tell you about how incredibly impassioned and nuanced Leadbelly’s voice was, how his playing was heavy and straightforward. But I’ll let you listen for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBSv8Y-Gm-8

-jordanbishop

More Honesty

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:23:00 -0700

“Doubting Thomas” by Nickel Creek. Ever heard it? I was going to attach it, but after a few minutes of trying to find it streaming or tastefully youtubed, I got lazy. Anyhow, give it a good google and keep reading.

There. Isn’t this nice? It’s another honest song about being in an uncertain place, and it’s beautiful for it.

I believe that anyone who has never doubted the things that they hold true has never really learned how to believe them.

This song is about that journey. It’s sad! It’s sad to lose innocence, though I think there are richer joys to be found. But thankfully, this song doesn’t go there. Chris Thile doesn’t tie it all up in a nice package with a happy ending. That wouldn’t be honest. The song is about being in a scary, uncertain place, and those don’t just last three minutes. Sometimes they last a lifetime.

-PR

Honestly.

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:51:14 -0700

I like honesty…

…okay I’m beginning to like honesty more than I used to.

I like lying.

It helps me stay safe from what I don’t know.

From what I’m not.

From what I haven’t done.

It’s a bowl cereal. A jar of mayonnaise. Safe. Easy.

What isn’t good about it is that it isn’t true. It doesn’t have that soul punching “rumpf” to it. It doesn’t feed you. It leaves you hungry.

A lack of honesty wraps you in chains. It’s a kind of slavery.

Maybe that’s why I don’t like a lot of music I used to listen to.
It really wasn’t freeing. It wasn’t honest.

Maybe that’s why I really like David Bazan—he’s honest. Honest about his feelings on love, fear, and faith.

David Bazan, like me, grew up in a Christian culture to Christian parents. He did Christian things like go to a Christian Church and listened to and played Christian music.

At some point, David realized that this Christianity he was taught might not be dripping in truth as he once thought.

Wait just a minute, you expect me to believe

That all of this misbehaving grew from one enchanted tree

And helpless to fight it we should all be satisfied

With this magical explanation for why the living die.

Now its hard to be

Hard to be

Hard to be a decent human being.

David has not taken this subject lightly. He didn’t toss faith overnight into the dumpster. He pained over this. He dedicated his entire album Curse Your Branches to it. The song above, Hard to Be, is the story of David realizing he doesnt really believe what he always has. It’s easy as a Christian to hide your doubt, to hide your questions that you have. It doesn’t look good to have this doubt. Its not good to doubt god.

All fallen leaves should curse their branches

For not letting them decide where they should fall

And not letting them refuse to fall at all.

Bazan is honest on this album. He is finally telling himself, and others, that he doesn’t really believe in Christianity as it has been told to him. Curse Your Branches as an album is a beautiful break-up album to God. It is beautiful because it is true, and that’s what art does best, it connects you to truth and reality.

With the threat if hell hanging over my head like a halo

I was made to believe in a cople of beautiful truths/

What am I afraid of? Who did I betray?

In what medieval kingdom does justice work that way?

Bazan is tackling what I have experienced in my life. A feeling of betrayal of these beliefs you’ve been told to believe your whole life. This feeling of guilt that the false Christian faith can bring. I’m not calling the Christian faith false, but I think any Christian ritual or teaching that piles on guilt or reminds you of what your not, it is not actually Christian at all. Jesus did scold people for their actions, but nowhere does he remind people of their shortcomings repeatedly. That kind of Christinity is false, that Jesus is not the Jesus I know.

What Curse Your Branches does musically is different than all of his other albums. It is much more of a pop sound than Pedro the Lion, a much more full sound. For example, the most depressing song on the album (which is a feat) “Please, Baby, Please”, is produced with an orange sun-kissed tinge. Each song highlightes David’s straining and strangely beautiful voice. David Bazan is the master at making catchy, cynical, and depressing lyrics fit perfectly into jubilant melodies and overall emit a joyful glow.

The music does more than keep a balance between the depressing and joyful. Bazan sounds free on this album.

You can tell he just had to get those songs out of him. They had to be sung.

Curse Your Branches was honest for David, and this album sounds like freedom, freedom from this boredom, frustration, feeling guilty. Freedom from lying to himself about what he believes.

Now, two years later, Bazan has moved on. The album Strange Negotations (2011), is much less focused on faith. He is moved on from being so focused and haunted by faith, doubt, and everything in between.

So, now, a moral.

Let’s be honest, because being honest is truth.

Like John 8:32 says, “…the truth will set you free.”

-jordanbishop

In Lists: 2011

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:50:00 -0700

End of the year lists. Probably though they were over, right? Well you didn’t expect this month-long procrastinating fool to give his take. So, here are 3 lists for 2011, kind of.

5 Albums I Wished I Liked More in 2011

These are albums that I really wanted—and still want—to really enjoy, but mostly haven’t for some reason. These are not “bad” albums, most are probably great, but I haven’t been able to appreciate them fully at this point.

1. Wilco- The Whole Love

There is something about the album. It’s like monkey bars, its fun, but I just cant stay on for very long. I want to though. I stayed on with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and was rewarded greatly. So, with past in mind, and my man crush on Jeff Tweedy, I will continue to listen to The Whole Love, and wait until Wilco’s genius punches me in the face again.

2. Feist- Metals

Now, this album is one of my favorite of the year, in fact it appears on the list, “Albums I Love Now, but Would Have Hated 5 Years Ago”. This album is incredible, the first half of the album alone is insane, each song is a masterpiece, musically and lyrically. The second half of the album is also very good. I just wished this album dug into my soul more, I think in time it will.

3. Radiohead- King of Limbs

Can I just put Radiohead’s entire discography on this list? I like Radiohead, but it bothers me that I don’t love Radiohead. The thing is, I really want to love Radiohead And this album follows the pattern that nearly every Radiohead album goes through: 1)”Yes, a new Radiohead album, this will be the one that opens my Yorke heart. 2)”Its pretty good.” 3)”I really want to like this more”. 4)Keep listening.

4. Childish Gambino- Camp

Who wouldn’t want to hear Troy Barnes’ (Donald Glover’s name on Community) rap album? It was exciting news, and I really hoped I would like it. We all make mistakes. Sounds like he is trying to be a hipster Lil’ Wayne. Really, really, really bad. Sorry, Troy.

5. Tyler, The Creator- Goblin

Insane, dark, and creative hip-hop? Yes, please! Oh how I wanted to like this album.

“But after bowlin’, I went home to some damn Adventure Time”= J.

“I’ll crash that f-ckin’ airplane at that f-ggot n-gga B.o.B is in/ And stab Bruno Mars in his g-ddamn esophagus.” = L

Albums I Love Now (2011), but Would Have Hated 5 Years Ago.

Written from the point of view of my 16-year-old self, right after listening to the album.

Megafaun- Megafaun

“I liked the first song, the second song was awful, just bad drums and bird noises. Should have more guitar solos.”

Feist- Metals

“Are you kidding me? I fell asleep after the second song, seriously boring. Pass.”

James Blake- James Blake

“What the hell was that? Most of it was just terrible—random noises. How anyone can enjoy this is beyond my comprehension.”

Jessica Lea Mayfield- Tell Me

“That’s chick music, man.”

Portugal, The Man- In the Mountain In the Cloud

“Sounds like bad 70’s music. I guess it’s kinda catchy though.”

Bon Iver- Bon Iver

“Wow. One of the most annoying and weird albums I have heard in a while. Every song he sounds like he is going to cry. And the saxophone? Come on!”

St. Vincent- Strange Mercy

“Chick music.”

5 Albums That I Found this Year, That Didn’t have a 2011 Release

1. Nathaniel Rateliff- In Memory of Loss (2010)

By far my favorite album of 2011, although it was released a year prior. This album is the most lyrically powerful, musically supportive, and downright passionate album I have heard in a while. Its one of those albums that you don’t realize how much you love it until you are listening—that moment when all other music become obsolete.

2. Bowerbirds- Upper Air (2009)

Incredible songwriting and simple sound leads to a simply complex album. One song in and I’m done. I’m hooked. Cant wait until the new album drops.

3. The Avett Brothers- I and Love and You (2009)

First listens were brutal. I loved the old romp-stomp Avett Brothers jams of the past. That’s not so much the case on I and Love and You. The album is smarter and more mature, while maintaining its listenability, as it turns out, it’s the Avett Brothers best album.

4. Bob Dylan- The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

Why isn’t it a requirement in our education system to tell students about the brilliance of Bob Dylan? I haven’t heard this album until this year, and it released 48 years ago. There is something so personal and relevant about this album—Bob Dylan, everybody.

5. Das Racist- Shut up, Dude (2009)

The most I’ve laughed while listening to an album in a long time. Comedy is not their only strength, the production is tight—with producers like Sabzi on the record –it’s no surprise. And their lyrical delivery and prowess is nothing to laugh at. Gush.

Albums I could have included on this list: Al Green- Let’s Stay Together (1972); The Black Keys- Chulahoma (2006); J. Tillman- Singing Ax (2010), Year In the Kingdom (2009); Megafaun- Gather, Form, Fly (2009); St. Vincent- Marry Me (2009); David Bazan- Curse Your Branches (2009); Pedro the Lion- It’s Hard to Find a Friend (2001); Danielson- All Albums.

Well, that’s it for 2011. 2012.

jordanbishop

The new Wilco album sounds very good to me. It’s loose and...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:47:00 -0700

The new Wilco album sounds very good to me. It’s loose and free; they sound like they’re having fun. It would be a good album to listen to in the sun, by water.

The last song is called “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)”

I said it’s your God I don’t believe in
No, your Bible can’t be true
Knocked down by the long lie
He cried I fear what waits for you.

It’s from the perspective of a son hurt by his father’s religious convictions, perhaps those sorts of legalistic convictions that may be rooted in love, but never show it.

Against the weather dawning
Over the sea
My father said what I had become
No one should be.

The son is pushed away from the faith, but ultimately God finds him anyhow.

Outside I look lived in
Like the bones in a shrine
How am I forgiven?
Oh, I’ll give it time.

Now the father is dead, and the son feels a strange mix of emotions - a mix of mourning, bitterness and relief. A couple websites here and there quote Jeff Tweedy explaining that his character does believe in a loving God, and is relieved that his father will finally know him. There’s forgiveness there, but it’s not a clean break. He’s still wounded, still conflicted, but still loves his father.

I can hear those bells
Spoken and gone.
I feel relief I feel well
Now he knows he was wrong.

Bless my mind, I miss
Being told how to live.
What I learned without knowing
How much more I owe than I can give.

Even with all that, I’m still not sure how to read some of the lyrics.

Something sad keeps moving
So I wandered around.
I fell in love with the burden
Holding me down.

Wilco lyrics leave a lot more questions than answers, but the music tells so much of the story. An endlessly repeating progression on a lonely, cold guitar (IV IV I V, if you’re curious), a cycle that keeps leading back into itself, keeps repeating, for 12 minutes, several times hinting at ending, then marching on again, stronger. Tinkling piano and slide guitar float around like vapors of spirits, beautiful and ephemeral. Buried guitar feedback and the deeply reverbing drums evoke a wide, empty space. The lonely guitar can’t break free from its theme, and it tries and keeps trying.

Let’s all thank Wilco for writing music so appropriate to such a messy and bittersweet story.

-PR

Let me introduce you to Frank Fairfield. He’s got a story....

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:34:00 -0700

Let me introduce you to Frank Fairfield.

He’s got a story. You can google it. In short, he’s as genuine as they come. He was playing folk songs on banjo, fiddle and guitar long before the current wave of folk popularity hit, and he will be playing them long after it passes. At times, he has had a mustache, and he wasn’t joking. He’s as genuine as they come.

I saw him while he was opening for Fleet Foxes when they were first touring for their self-titled album. None of us had heard of the guy, and we couldn’t really understand any of his lyrics, but for me, seeing him play was one of those rare, mythical moments when I was swept up in Frank’s music. I wasn’t judging it, rating it, cataloguing it. I wasn’t even trying to record every bit of it in my head. I was too taken with him, and who he was up there, how his music grew right out of his identity and yet he played songs that were older than he was and tell stories much longer than his. Honestly, I wasn’t even enjoying it the way I enjoy him now. I was fascinated, but it was the dreamlike kind of fascination, not the analytical.

He has two studio albums and lots of radio/daytrotter-type sessions. I only have a few scattered songs of his, and I aim to get more.

I’ve been reading a lot of Cormac McCarthy this year. Right now I’m on Blood Meridian, which follows a group of bloodthirsty, broken Americans hunting Apache warriors and Mexican civilians alike for scalps in the 1840s/50s. My mind is deep in the myth of the west. Not the blissful cowboy scene or the American dream, but the real one, dark, tragic, filled with ugly stories and redeeming grace. This music suits it well.

There’s something authentic about him. It seems to me that country has grown a long way from this type of music, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Most professional bluegrass I see and hear emphasises speed and precision, like the speed metal of folk music. I can’t quite define it, but something about Frank’s music just feels ancient. He sounds like an old country that I’ve never heard. Unpretentious, raw, heartfelt, undeniably talented, a little bit alien to my ears.

I hope you like him too, friends.

-PR

http://pitchfork.com/features/why-we-fight/8703-on-beauty-which-really-does-not-have-to-be-dull/ The...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:31:00 -0700

http://pitchfork.com/features/why-we-fight/8703-on-beauty-which-really-does-not-have-to-be-dull/

The “Why We Fight” series always speaks to me. It discusses the deeper undercurrents that shape the way we listen to, evaluate and talk about music. This one is worthwhile.

First order of business was to debunk the subtle, pervasive idea that important music is music that flips the bird to conventional/traditional/pleasant music.

Especially exciting to me was his idea that pleasant music,
music that doesn’t try to rub you the wrong way for dramatic effect or muscle your mind into changing your tastes,

can be boring if it’s pleasant by virtue of “subtraction” - removing everything challenging or unfamiliar and presenting a sort of musical vanilla for wide, if shallow, appeal,
and
can be awesome if it uses its sound pallet intentionally, making pleasant or predictable choices on purpose, adding beautiful things in the pursuit of beauty.

Some examples, from my own personal tastes. No fighting.

Boring pleasant:
Jack Johnson type acoustic rock,
Norah Jones style good-singer-with-unobjectionable-music,
lots of Coldplay singles,
things that follow formulas
Mumford and Sons at their worst

awesome pleasant:
Wilco,
Denison Witmer,
Feist,
Coldplay’s Viva la Vida and other highlights,
things that pretend to follow formulas but TOTALLY DON’T,
Mumford and Sons at their best

Feel free to disagree. But I really like this way of looking at the nice stuff!

-PR

I was walking through the street of the second snowfall today. ...

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:14:00 -0600

I was walking through the street of the second snowfall today. Everything seemed….right.

The snow was making friends with the wind.

Cars slowed.

Bikes grew into legs.

I felt privileged to walk onto the leaf-covered streets. I felt as if I was going to disturb the snow mounded leaves, each hand placed on the street.

A stray dog.

I named him Beau, for he was a handsome Australian cattle dog—I think. Beau was too happy to know that he was going to be in trouble soon. That’s how it should be. Being too happy, too caught up in the heavy limbs, the scattered leaves, and the music to care.

My god, the music.

I listened to Bon Iver’s recent self-titled album on the walk. It was magnificent. It was…overcoming. When listening to Bon Iver, I get really caught up in the lyrics and sometimes neglect the beauty of the music. I didn’t get caught up in the lyrics. I wasn’t trying to figure it out. It had things figured out for me. I was just walking, every step seemed ritualized, this music knew me. It knew when I looked up at the canopy of green-yellow leaves still on the trees, when I was nearly dizzy from trying to follow the intricate pattern of the snow, when the birds would somehow still playfully pass by. It knew. And it knew more than I did. Somehow, I walked 5 blocks east of the street my house is on, then 4 blocks west of it. I live less than 5 blocks away from the building I was trekking from. It should take 15 minutes.

It took me 40 minutes.

My thin jacket, jeans, and TOMS didn’t not agree with the weather. My feet were pools, my hands red—my ears and nose too. It wasn’t until I removed my earbuds that I noticed my casualties.

Then I realized that I had 30 minutes to make it back to my next class, I had 3 papers due in 2 days, all 3 of them unfinished, I had no money, no groceries, no time for listening to music.

I was too caught up to care.

Just don’t press pause.

—JB

(a spotify playlist linking to the album is below)

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

(this post was written 2 weeks ago, I just didnt post until Oct. 31)

"Will it make me something? Will I be something? Am I something? The answer comes: Already am,..."

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:25:42 -0600

“Will it make me something? Will I be something? Am I something? The answer comes: Already am, always was, and still have time to be.”

- Anis Mojgani

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAC3WXOOWE

Music and Me

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:45:23 -0600

Hello, wide and diverse internet. Let me introduce myself.

I’m Paul Rice. I’m a Christian from the west suburbs of Chicago. I live in Holland, Michigan, where I went to college. I am a worship leader and a Young Life volunteer.

I love music. I’ve loved music since the 7th grade, when, in the depths of clinical depression and some major social misalignments, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins became my emotional escape, and music rich with character and emotion became a part of my fragile identity.

All throughout high school, I explored. I had a 90s alt-rock phase, a 70s prog-rock phase, a 60s hard rock phase, lots of phases. I absorbed facts, dates, albums, all sorts of things. Without really meaning to, I began to build up this organized mental encyclopedia of music (music that I liked, at least). The connections of influence and style and antithesis excited me. I loved to talk about music, but didn’t have many people to talk about it with, just a couple rare friends who trusted me to introduce them to bands and a lot more friends who didn’t really care, and would cringe when I put The National on in their car. All the while I used the internet and public library to the fullest extent possible.

In college, I found the community I was looking for. My freshman year social scene formed loosely around shared musical experiences - that shared desire to rant to someone who understands about Modest Mouse’s early albums, that need for someone to go see Stars with. I started DJing at the college radio station with a close friend, I ransacked countless laptops’ musical libraries for goodies, accumulating a massive library, sometimes out of genuine interest, often in the name of “completion.”

This culminated in 3 years spent as a music director at WTHS. Our mailbox got 10-20 new CDs every week, and a few of us were tasked with listening through them and picking the good songs out of them for airplay. I gave serious listens to 4 CDs a week on a good week, moving to the next back so quickly that most of the bands I discovered existed in my memory as a vague impression and maybe a slapped-on genre label. Even when I found something I really loved, after marking some songs with the precious 5-star in my Itunes, I would move on to the next album, leaving it unlistened to for weeks or more. Also, if we asked really nicely, we could get music-business-people to get us into most shows for free.

Now I’ve graduated, and after three years, it’s all over. No more continuous flow of free new music. No more rabid song-sharing with dormfuls of excited music lovers. No more reviews, year-end lists, or radio show playlists. My library was growing all on its own, and it suddenly stopped cold.

And I love it.

Staying up to date becomes exhausting. In high school, I discovered a few bands that I still love, bands with influence like Pavement or Sonic Youth; bands with built-in communities of other artists like Broken Social Scene or Sufjan Stevens. The excitement of finding a few artists that I liked better than the radio gave way to an adrenaline rush of continuous discovery. It feels great, but the feeling stops long before the rush of worthwhile music does. There will always be new music that’s worth listening to. There will always be music from decades past that I’ll want to smack myself for not discovering sooner.

But I don’t want to be up to date anymore. I want to love music again, and it’s hard to do both. Do you feel the same? Have you found your way back to the surface? I’d love to hear how. Here’s what I’ve been doing.

I’m listening to albums that I love, and enjoying it. There are so many artists and albums that I’ve declared “good!” but hardly listened to, and I think that’s a big part of why new albums from bands like Radiohead, Belle and Sebastian or Arcade Fire haven’t hit me like their earlier works did. I just moved on too fast. Likewise, a band like The Welcome Wagon, who didn’t blow me away at first, grew on me a ton just from repeated listens and some opportunities to apply personal meaning to their songs. I gave that album some time to live and breathe along side me, and we warmed up to each other. I don’t do that as much as I used to.

As much as repeated album-digging is good for me, I still crave surprising mixes of unfamiliar music, because that’s just the kind of listener I am. But I’m being intentional about what sorts of mixes of songs I expose myself to. I used to just put in a 5-star shuffle to guarantee that I’d be into whatever came on. It guaranteed that I burned out on a lot of really great music instead. Now I’ve been listening to all of my songs in alphabetical order when I want to be surprised. If I don’t like something, I delete it, or rate it low if I want to give it another chance sometime. I don’t keep things for the sake of “completeness” anymore. If I don’t like it, I can get it out of the way of the songs that I really want to invest in. This helps me to rediscover things that I moved away from too quickly. It also helps me to appreciate the gems when I hear them instead of cramming them into my ears every day.

I’m taking my friends’ tastes more seriously. I used to just absorb their tastes into mine, liking everything and nothing in my tastes’ vastness. Now, when a friend has a radio show, I listen with respect. When a song I don’t like comes on, I allow myself to not like it, and when an awesome song comes on, I thank them. I talk about it. I associate the song with them, letting it mean something to me by association. (Not everyone has friends who are DJs, but this applies to mixtapes, car playlists, etc.) The music that matters to my friends matters to me not because I want complete knowledge of all good music, but because I love my friends.

Have you absorbed so much music that you’ve forgotten how to love it? Have you been so led astray by the variety before you that you don’t feel comfortable listening to the same thing for a week? I don’t think indie culture was always this broad. In the 80s, when college radio was pioneering the first real alternative movement, local scenes were dominant. Bands with devoted followings and fans who championed a few small bands because if they didn’t, who would? Now we all try to soak in as much as we can, because the conversation has become so diverse and fast-paced that it’s easy to be caught up and hard to commit. It’s easy to love a band that gets rated an 8.5 on Pitchfork and hard to love one that gets a 3 and is generally left behind by the current. I think it’s good that we have so much access to so much music, but it’s hard to know what to do with it. I think the answer is commitment and investment in what we really love and what matters to us and our communities.

I think the way I interact with art matters to God. That’s another conversation, but I wouldn’t say much that I haven’t already said. He wants things to matter to me. He doesn’t want me to be sucked into the emptiness of a shallow musical experience when I could be listening to music in a way that stretches and deepens my soul. Life to the full is wide, but more importantly, it is deep.

There are a lot of thoughts crammed into this, and none of them are explored very fully. These ideas have been stewing in me for a long time and I’m sure they will continue to develop. But let’s make this a conversation. I don’t think I’m alone in the problem, and I don’t think I’m the only one thinking about what we can do about it.

That’s me and music. How about you?

Love, Paul Rice

Burning is just what I need. Burning on the inside, making...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:13:00 -0600

Burning is just what I need.

Burning on the inside, making its way out.

I said we need hope now more than ever before, do you believe it?

Burn all my worries, my unkempt relationships, my hate, my not good enough’s, my plans, my hopes, my illusions, my facades, my hunger for more, my I should have’s, my god, my reasoning, my cosmos, my ideas about how life ought to be—this house I have built. Let it burn.

I’m burning, waiting for you to take an axe to my heart, saying, pour out your hate in my hands, I’ll let em’ slip through my fingers.

I’ll repeat it and repeat it until you believe it, you’re gonna be ok! Say it to me…

Psalm 137 (part II)

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:47:00 -0600

Musical artist Shad made a connection in a song from this story to modern music. He describes a person who used to make music, who know no longer does. We will see that this person is a used as a representation of the current state of the music industry, and a reflection of human society.

I heard you had a voice like an angel

I heard a strange tale

About a saint that fell

Music became jail

This person is not fully aware that they are in this “jail”. This person used to be in music because they loved it, but now they just “sorta re-assemble melodies, fine-tune, and turn em’ into single after single”. They are bored and have music and life ‘figured out’:

The world’s a stage

And you know this play well

Gee I bet you even know how it ends

Shad zooms out on the story and critiques:

Fools wanna make stars instead of music that’s smart or special

Because art at a level that’s real can be harder to peddle

Business prefers a market that settles for 2nd rate

Kill the true artists martyr the rebels

That’s the system and it’s straight from the heart of the devil

This comes to point where the person is self realized, but does not know how to get out of this vicious system:

I heard you had a voice like an angel

And don’t really sing no more

But you still running the game so

If you don’t behave like them

They call you crazy

And if you won’t slave for them

They call you lazy

The person in this story—used as a representation of the music industry(and could be society in general)—has forgotten why they make music, why they love it. They have forgotten the primal joy in making beautiful sounds with their natural gifts.

It could be said that they have forgotten Jerusalem. They have ignored and forgotten that music was made to give, create, describe, and be love. They are in a “foreign land” and demanded to sing, but how can we sing in a foreign land?

This song is called: I Hear You Had a Voice Like An Angel/Psalm 137

So, that is what this blog is about, and more fully, what music is about. It is about the music that is played in the foreign land but has not forgotten its purpose. True, good music that is remembering Jerusalem. Music is reconnecting to the earth and life as it was meant to be. Musicians should rather be incapable of playing music than to forget the simple, pure, whole love that music is rooted in, and is. Music should bring life.

Lyrics To Voice Like An Angel, here

Listen to it, here

Hope we have some fun with this.

jordan bishop

Psalm 137 (part I)

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:22:00 -0600

By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

How can we sing the LORD’S song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.

Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, “Raze it, raze it
To its very foundation.”
O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

This blog will be musically based, but is not confined to just the music itself. These writings will be devoted to revealing and discovering how music connects people to ultimate reality, which we will see is raw love. These writings will be about slaves in a foreign land, wishing it better to have no music, than to forget about this reality that we all are all to live in a “whole love”.

A further explanation is below.

Psalm 137 is a snapshot of a people in a deep mourning. The Babylonians have come into Jerusalem and destroyed the temple of the Hebrews; they have taken them from their home and into a “foreign land”. Once again, these Hebrews’ lives are thrown into chaos. Everything they know is now challenged and foreign. Toward the end, the Hebrews show a deep seeded hate for those who wronged them. The captors are now demanding songs of joy, songs of pride, and songs of worship.

But how could they sing these songs in a foreign land?

Jerusalem is not only their home, the home of the temple, the holy land of their ancestors; Jerusalem represents everything that was right and good. Jerusalem can be paralleled to the Garden of Eden, a pure, beauty. Jerusalem represents how all things should be, the paradigm, the simplest and most pure form of all things; Jerusalem is the representation of love in its purest form—Jerusalem is hardly a city.

“If I forget you, Jerusalem,” the lamenter then cries, “let my right hand wither / let my tongue cleave to my palats”.

They refuse to forget the land they came from, their roots, this prefect paradigm that they came from. It is better, for them, to have their hands wither (wither, also means forget in Hebrew), and their tongues to stuck to the roof of their mouths than to forget Jerusalem, this ideal of love. They would rather be incapable of playing music than forget this. What is the point of music if it is not connected to Jerusalem, the way all things should be?

But they are in a foreign land. They are not in Jerusalem anymore. Their lives are now dictated by this oppressive and foreign power. Jerusalem, this raw, pure representation of love, is not completely destroyed, rather it is damaged beyond coomfort. They are removed from it, but not completely, as long as they remember it. Forgetting, forgetting would be tragic. Forgetting would be a disconnect, a death.

So, they remember. They are not going to forget where they came from, Jerusalem, the place of whole love. In their music they can remember.

This concludes part I.