Music of the month

Matt Nathanson, Some Mad Hope: I went to a Matt Nathanson concert once, but it was to see the opener (and my personal musical idol) Matt Wertz. Nathanson put on a hell of a show, but for some reason I just couldn’t get into his recorded music. When I heard clips from Some Mad Hope, however, my mind was changed and I immediately pre-ordered the album. This is acoustic/pop/rock at it’s purest and most emotionally moving. I recommend checking out the Making of Some Mad Hope video to get a taste of the sound on this album. Also, I am selling my autographed copy at Half.com. Favorite tracks: Car Crash, Come on Get Higher, Heartbreak World

William Fitzsimmons, Goodnight: I must personally thank Brandon for this one. A simple text message that said “Hey have you heard of William Fitzsimmons?” was all it took, and soon thereafter I was downloading Goodnight from iTunes. Fitzsimmons’ beautiful acoustic/folk/slightly-electronic music is in the same vein as Iron & Wine and Sufjan Stevens. It’s perfect “fall” music. Favorite tracks: Mend Your Heart, It’s Not True, Everything Has Changed

Eric Hutchinson, Sounds Like This: Eric Hutchinson is the latest of many musical discoveries that comes by periodically perusing the Awarestore Top 10. His music would best be described as quirky piano rock with soul. Think Ben Folds meets Jazon Mraz. I had the good fortune of catching his live show with Amanda at ISU a few weeks ago - before my CD came in the mail - and even though it was only Hutchinson and his bass player, the show was great. One of my favorite songs was called “7C”, which he described as being about a landlord who falls in love with two of his tenants and is then compelled to kill them. I know, it sounds weird, but the song was awesome. Sadly, it’s not on the album… but it still rocks. Favorite tracks: Ok, It’s Alright With Me, You Don’t Have to Believe Me, All Over Now

Athlete, Beyond the Neighbourhood: I was slightly interested in Athlete’s previous album, but they’ve totally nailed it with Beyond the Neighbourhood. This album sounds a bit like a British version of Copeland, but more anthem-rock-ish and less depressing. Favorite tracks: Hurricane, Tokyo, Second Hand Stores

Kent, Du & Jag Döden: Kent is the greatest Swedish rock band you’ve never heard of. I was telling my brother about them the other night, and I said something like, “Kent is what would happen if Sigur Rós decided to rock.” That everything is sung in Swedish makes the whole thing even more appealing, in my opinion. They have a new album, Tillbaka till samtiden (”Back to our time”), coming out on October 17 as well. Favorite tracks: 400 Slag, Den Döda Vinkeln, Mannen I Den Vita Hatten (16 År Senare)

Robbie Seay Band, Give Yourself Away: This album has been playing nonstop in our youth room for about two weeks, and I don’t foresee that ending anytime soon. It’s a great worship album, and the band unironically gave away free downloads of the whole thing for a while. I love the song New Day, about which the band says, “I think most of us feel the world is a mess right now and yet the idea of the sun rising and a new day beginning is still a powerful gift.” Amen. Favorite tracks: New Day, Eternal One, Stay

Releases this fall I’m looking forward to: José González - Down the Line; David Crowder Band - Remedy; Rascal Flatts - Still Feels Good; Dashboard Confessional - The Shade of Poison Trees; Kent - Tillbaka till samtiden

• Quarterlife. “A show about a group of twentysomethings coming of age in the digital generation. And a social network about what it means to be creative, to pursue a passion, to make a difference in the world — or just to find a place in it.” (ht: Adam) 09/14/2007
• It looks like MySpace will be receiving a long-overdue facelift that has “significantly better organization of user information, and moves from a two column to three column approach.” One of the commenters on the post said it best: “this has been, imo, the biggest pitfall of myspace. i don’t care how many teeny-boppers use the site. i can ignore them. but i can’t ignore the fact that the usability of the site is hindered by it’s cluttered design.” 09/13/2007
• things magazine has a short essay on living in simulation. “There’s a lack of depth on the internet, a world with an atmosphere just one pixel thick that has reached out across all forms of media and turned everything into a vast, shallow pool that stretches as far as the eye can see. All visual culture is instantly at our fingertips, with the thrill of discovery superseded by a high fructose corn syrup buzz that comes from near-constant, 30fps stimulation.” There are obvious implications here for the church, many of which are covered in Shane Hipps‘ fantastic book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church (@ Amazon). 09/13/2007
• The Art of Mapping on the Run discusses the impact of human activities on physically altering the planet, requiring increasingly frequent redrawing of atlases. “Some scientists focused on global environmental change say it is no surprise that atlases, in essence, are becoming autobiographical, reflecting the reality that the physical Earth is increasingly what the human species makes of it.” 09/08/2007

I’ve been Simpsonized

Go ahead, Simpsonize yourself.

• Introducing the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks. Now here’s a website that’s right up my alley - I despise bad punctuation, especially bad punctuation on public signage. At what point in school do people learn that using quotation marks is an acceptable form of emphasis along with italics, bold, and underlining? Related: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (ht: ysmarko) 09/06/2007

Google Reader (or, confession of a late adopter)

I should just go ahead and file this in the “I’m a moron” section; I mean, there’s a reason RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. So last night I finally hopped aboard the Google Reader train.

Google Reader (and other RSS aggregators like it) basically makes it really easy and less time-consuming to browse many blogs and websites in one slick interface. So rather than surfing the inordinate amounts of blogs that I try to read by using bookmarks, all of the information is in one place and automated, so I know immediately if there is new content on any given site.

Now, I assume the readers of this post fall into one of two categories. Either you 1) have never heard of RSS readers and this is all new to you, or 2) have been using an RSS reader for ages, and you see me for the fool I am. If you’re a “1″, you should try it out. The RSS feed for my website is located on the orange button on the left side of this page (under “Subscribe”). If you’re a “2″, I must simply hang my head in shame and ask for mercy.

Hey, Google Reader just notified me of some new content. This is going to be good.

UPDATE: Here’s a great video called “RSS in plain English” that should clear up most questions.

• Dave Matthews released a single and video for “Eh Hee” via iTunes on Tuesday, and for a limited time the video is free. “Creating the whole thing on his own, having Williams create the video (rather than relying on a big-name director), releasing the single unattached to an album, going in a musical direction that’s bound to confuse the fan base…there’s a great deal going on here.” 09/05/2007
• 10 Qualities of a 21st Century Gentleman. “There are too many male Christians these days content to stay indoors, play with their PlayStations or iPods—keep their world small and safe. Not only do I believe this is detrimental to the male identity, but I believe it is detrimental to the gospel.” 09/05/2007
• In light of the recent accusations against my hero, Bear Grylls (including being called “the adventure equivalent of a cheese souffle“), the new episodes of Man vs. Wild will be “two hours long, instead of one - partly because so many of the locations are so remote, but also so we can go into greater detail, and show the behind the scenes work, including the crew’s role.“ 09/05/2007
• I’ve tried to limit the amount of YouTube videos I post here, but I just couldn’t help posting this video of a gorilla playing a Genesis Phil Collins song. I don’t understand how it relates to the product, but it’s a hilarious commercial nonetheless. 09/04/2007

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