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The balance of summer

August 22, 2010 in God, Life, Music, Personal, Projects, Travel by Stephen | No comments

(Or I hate driving home in the dark but love driving to my friends’ houses in the dark, or how Sufjan Stevens has influenced the way I think about titles)

It seems that I have slowed down my reading, but this is not true. I have slowed down my writing about said reading. I have slowed down my writing about everything, actually: Independent Clauses has been painfully slow, this here blog has been at a dead stop, Peter C. Myers is about to kill me for not working on Sangtera, and I haven’t written a song in months. I’ve been keeping Gospelized moving at a fairly regular clip, but even that has been subject to some stumbles.

There are decent reasons for this pause in productivity (health issues, logistical problems, emotional exhaustion, etc.), but God is working the problems out. I’m standing around and watching, honestly. I haven’t had the energy to do much more than trust that God’s going to be God and do what is best. That takes a considerable amount of energy, lest you scoff.

I have, however, started a new fiction project. Having gotten The Greater Clothes Exchange of the Universe stuck at a major plot point of which I can’t currently solve, I’ve tabled it along with The Last Unicorns on Earth (if they’re in the same place as my abandoned short story ideas, they’re having quite a crowded rave party, I must say). Never fear, though; this new fiction project has a beginning, middle and end. It may end up being a novella, but nevertheless I am confident that the existence of an outline will help see it through to completion. I am also going to write it as quickly as possible so that I am not burned out when the editing process hits. I am not really sure how fast is “as fast as possible,” but I’ll keep the news flowing. The working title is “The Fire Administration Company.”

I’m hitting a bunch of concerts this fall: I have my tickets for Sufjan Stevens (DAL) and the Mountain Goats (OKC) already, I’m planning on buying tickets for Mumford and Sons in Dallas November 4th, and I’m debating going down for the Tallest Man on Earth on September 17 and Avett Brothers in OKC sometime. I’ve seen the Avetts twice, so that one isn’t a huge concern for me; but if there’s a good party of people going, I could easily be enticed to see them jump around with a banjo and a double bass.

Opolis also has a mega-awesome slate of shows for fall, and I’m sure I’ll hit the Appleseed Cast, among other shows.

Sufjan’s new EP is strange and wonderful. Arcade Fire’s new album tries hard to be epic and mostly succeeds. Tokyo Police Club’s Champ is still a bunch of pensive guys trying endearingly to be energetic.  Fall music is just around the corner, which means I’ll be busting out Damien Jurado’s Rehearsals for Departure a lot more than I have in the past eight months.

And with that, the dark comes earlier and earlier, which is where the middle third of today’s far-too-long title comes from. I dislike that, but I like the temperatures it brings. Can I have long days of cold weather? Do I have to go the Arctic Circle for this? Or does this happen in Canada somewhere?

Go go gadget project updates

May 9, 2010 in Music, Projects, Sports by Stephen | No comments

So Gospelized has been a great success so far in my book: I enjoy doing the work immensely, and people are responding critically and with congratulations. I can not ask for much more out of a project.

Peter C. Myers and I are starting up serious work on our fantasy novel. I am incredibly excited about this; Peter C. Myers’ thoughtful friendship and joie de vivre are encouragements to my soul.

Independent Clauses needs some new writers; it has come down to solely me. While I’m okay with this, the growing stack of music on my desk is not.

I’ve put The Greater Clothes Exchange of the Universe and The Last Unicorns on Earth on hold right now. I am focused on Gospelized and the fantasy novel (which I will soon unveil the title for, as soon as we have a working one!).

I’ve been reading a great deal of literature about Christian art, as well as Christian art itself. I have Dick Staub‘s The Culturally Savvy Christian sitting next to me, as I’m half-finished with it. I recently purchased beautiful hardcover editions of Paradise Lost, The Poems of John Donne and The Confessions of St. Augustine; I have started in on the Donne so far. At the same incredible book sale, I purchased a softcover volume that includes all of the Chronicles of Narnia (side note: I almost wrote the Chronic WHAT cles of Nar-nia).

This weekend I hung out with Brent Baldwin, who was co-songwriter with me in Tragic Landscape (second side note: the current band picture at that site is one of about four on the internet that feature me without facial hair). We got together because we, along with members PC Hance III and Kyle Smith, recently decided to record Tragic Landscape’s last, lost album HeIsTheSuperFool over the next few months. As we will be in two separate towns, it could be a slow process. We’re okay with that. It’s been in the queue for four years already.

We also wrote a few songs for a possible future project tentatively titled Broken Keys that we plan to conduct primarily over long-distance, a la The Postal Service. Think soft-rock and reggae meshed together. Totally kidding. It will sound nothing like that. Honest.

Also, I’ve been recently pretty obsessed with Lost and Found by the Fools. Its beautiful melodies and gentle songwriting have captured the essence of this slowly-arriving summer for me.

Wrapping up this absurdly long project update, I’ll leave you with the realization that we are in the sports doldrums. As a Mets fan, I can’t even get excited about baseball until late August or September, because that’s when the Mets will either crash and burn or barely eek into the playoffs. No matter how awesome they’re doing, they’ll find a way to mess it up. And there’s no other sports to watch, save NASCAR, but there’s a whole post on whether or not that’s even a sport. Same for golf. Less than 180 days to college football season!

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Ukelele army

May 6, 2010 in Humor, Music by Stephen | No comments

I usually like to write things on this blog, but there’s just nothing to be said after watching this ukelele choir cover “Kids” than this: “I want to hug every member of the ukelele army.”

Props to Alex Lee for bringing it to my attention.

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Human ping-pong

April 17, 2010 in Life, Music, Personal, Projects by Stephen | 1 comment

I’ve been having a lot of issues with my creative life recently. They come in the form of several realizations.

The first is that I don’t have the guts to do terrible things to my characters. I get annoyed when writers do emotionally damaging things to their characters; it makes me want to stop reading. At the same time, if a writer can make me feel that strongly for a character that I do not want to see that character in harm, the author has done his job very well. So, to rephrase my previous statement: I balk at good writing. If I balk as a reader, there’s no way I can I get through it as an author. This is probably why my manuscript looks a lot more like Garden State than The Royal Tenenbaums. Both are essentially about family. One does brutal things to its characters emotionally and makes me feel it. The other has Zach Braff in it.

I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to combat this. I suppose I’ll work on writing realistic characters in painful situations and get used to it. Otherwise Ted Dekker will keep selling more books than me.

The second realization is a begrudging admission of something I’ve fought against for a long time. As much as I love piano and bass, rock bands need guitars (Ben Folds Five notwithstanding). And out of all the instruments I’ve ever picked up, the guitar is the only one that has baffled me. So, I need a guitarist. And that’s a difficult proposition.

The final realization is that my emotional stress has been incapacitating my creative life instead of enabling it. At the risk of sounding metaphysical, I’ll say that I’m wasting good suffering by not turning it into good art. That’s all. Don’t want you to think I’m going off the deep end here. But I did write a hymn today about my frustrations. It’s my daily post over at my new art project (which I will let you all in on soon, as soon as I finish tweaking a few things).

I’m trying to turn it around; it’s a real struggle. But I suppose most things in life are.

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Sung songs

April 6, 2010 in Music, Projects by Stephen | No comments

All of my writing has been inspired by music. This is one of those facts that I knew but didn’t know; I knew that it was easiest to write while listening to music, but I didn’t consider it not possible to write when not listening to music. And that was a correct consideration; I still am able to produce words. But my best ideas have not spun lucidly out of instances or experiences; they’ve been mitigated by and, in many cases, produced from interactions with music.

So, in that spirit, I am starting a project. Over the next few weeks, I am going to be producing short stories that are inspired by songs. The title of the song will be the title of the short story. Some may be very short. Some may be longer. Some may directly deal with the song’s subject matter. Some may be birthed out of a line, a chorus, or even a general feel of the song.

I’m not giving myself a hard-and-fast timeline on these; short stories are not like skulls to be cranked out. Not that he makes less or greater art. But it takes more time on the average to craft a short story (even a really short short story) than it does to make a mini art project like those. I’m totally down with admitting his project could end up being way, way cooler than this one, even if it takes “less time” on the whole. Nevertheless, I persist with this project. I’m calling it “Sung songs.”

I don’t know when the first one is coming, but it’s coming soon.

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A Mixtape, IC-Style

April 4, 2010 in God, Music, Personal, Projects by Stephen | No comments

I reposted this from Independent Clauses.

In Internet terms, today I am celebrating the BEST. DAY. EVER. For my Savior did not stay dead; he rose to give the world life. I live because he wanted to give me life through his sacrifice.

As such, it’s time for an Easter playlist, IC-style.

1. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing – Sufjan Stevens. I know it’s a rule in baseball and mixtapes to not put your home-run hitter as your lead-off man. But this song so perfectly sums up everything I believe about Jesus Christ that it has to be played first. Musically gorgeous, lyrically foundational; this track is amazing. Thank you, Sufjan.

2. Good News! (For Everyone.) – Aaron Hale. Technically a Christmas song, but Easter is good news for everyone.

3. Really Something – Aaron Sprinkle. “Sometimes I actually forget that this is really something.” And I do. And it’s a tragedy.

4. Heaven – Brett Dennen. I don’t agree with his theology, but he asks the right questions. “Is there a home for the homeless? Is there hope for the hopeless?” Yes, yes there is.

5. Oh Christmas Tree! or Happy Birthday by Elijah Wyman. In the midst of intense pain and grief, there is mercy and grace. It is hard to find sometimes, but Wyman captures that spirit and puts it to song.

6. Never Enuff – Mansions.  The narrator of this song is trying to break up with God. God does not break up with us. That’s pretty much the Easter story.

7. More than Ever – Holy Fiction. “I need you more than ever.”

8. Against Pollution – The Mountain Goats. One of the most misunderstood songs I’ve ever tried to give people on mixtapes. This song, although it does include a store clerk killing a would-be robber by shooting him “in the face, and I would do it again,” is not an endorsement of violence. It is a passionate endorsement that life is so important to the narrator that if he has to kill to stay alive he will do it. While I don’t fully agree with the degree to which the narrator goes, I deeply understand the sentiment. I want life, and to quote the Postal Service, I want life “in every word, to the extent that it’s absurd.” I don’t want to go down now. I want to keep kicking. And Jesus Christ offers that in spades.  Even then, the chorus: “When the last days come/we shall see visions/more vivid than sunsets/brighter than stars. We will recognize each other/and see ourselves for the first time/the way we really are.” Please. Amen.

9. Revelation – Hands. “Hear, oh Earth; the Lord our God is one.” Probably the only time the time-honored Jewish prayer has been sung by a man-choir in a epic nine-minute hardcore song. God is a big God.

1o. We’re Nothing Without You – The Juliana Theory. Self-explanatory.

11. Sufficient/Knocked Out – Bleach. Half the song proclaims how God is all-sufficient; the other half pleas for God to be all-sufficient in the midst of deep, deep struggle and pain. This is the Christian fight in ten minutes.

12. Fishing the Sky – Appleseed Cast. This is not even a remotely religious song. But when I hear it, it’s the closest thing to heaven I’ve ever heard.

13. Always – Switchfoot. “And I am always, always/I am always yours.”

14. Hope to Carry On – Caedmon’s Call. Don’t be scared off by the name; it’s Derek Webb singing. The title is self-explanatory. The track is glorious, upbeat, yearning acoustic folk.

15. That Where I Am That You May Also Be – Rich Mullins. One of my heroes, musically and in the way he lived his life, this was one of his final songs before he went to where He was. It is about as optimistic as a song gets while still grounded in non-sappiness.

16. Jesus – Page France. “Jesus came up through the ground so dirty, with worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy, we call him his magic, he calls us worthy, Jesus came up through the ground so dirty.” The gospel in indie terms.

May God find you where you are, comforting those that need comfort and shaking those who need shaking. Amen.

I’ve played Aaron Robinson’s “Price is Right” 119 times

January 27, 2010 in Music, Personal by Stephen | No comments

Here’s what I got, folks: Hype Machine. Pretty much the only way to find obscure tracks semi-legally. I’ve been using it aggressively lately, because I just linked it to my Last.FM, which takes care of about all of my OCD music listening tendencies (I’ve listened to “Matinee” by Damien Jurado only 63 times, as opposed to 81 times for  “California Skies” by Novi Split?! How is this possible?).

Maybe soon I will have thoughts.

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New Free Stuff Every Day Forever and Ever (and no more evers)

January 15, 2010 in Music, Personal, Projects by Stephen | No comments

So, my good friend Adam Howard has enlisted a percussionist to accompany his mad guitar skills. With Jordan Weeks in tow, Adam is going to write a song every day and post it on YouTube. This is gonna be awesome, guys. They’re only two songs in and they’ve already busted out pedal looping, weird synth-like instruments, sung rounds (no, seriously!), djembe, struck poses (okay, that is a little ridiculous) and more awesomeness.

In short, GO HERE AND LISTEN. Cause it’s goooood.

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A Discography of sorts

December 20, 2009 in Music, Personal by Stephen | No comments

I’m impressing myself with my prolific songwriting abilities. As I’m on the verge of releasing How We Lived (December 26, get ready!), I notice that I’ve already written eight full songs and about a dozen song fragments for my next Stephen Carradini and the Midnight Sons album. I decided to go back and look at my songwriting by the numbers.

41 full songs

8 releases

5 albums (as Jacksonism: Image is Nothing, Living is Everything. With Tragic Landscape: Jessica Brown Was Here, Job. As Stephen Carradini and the Midnight Sons: How We Lived, Unnamed future album)

2 EPs (Jacksonism: The Sea In Us Will Ever Breathe. Tragic Landscape: The Great War.)

1 Single (Jacksonism: Tell Your Kids.)

11 people played/sang on my songs

7 years

That’s a lot of songs.

Bombarded by new music

December 11, 2009 in Music by Stephen | 1 comment

I’ve been in a music rut for a while. Ever since the oh-so-impressive Tuesday that dropped albums by the Mountain Goats, Avett Brothers, and Relient K on me, I’ve been leaving those on repeat. Most people would be content with albums by their three favorite bands coming out on the same day. But no, I am fickle. I have listened thoroughly, declared favorite songs, and put the highlights on mixtapes. Those albums have already found their way into “standard rotation.”

In the last few days, however, I have been bombarded with material. I’m reviewing Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane for Robot Bomb, and I got that package on Wednesday. I received the masters of my own album How We Lived (Woohoo!) yesterday. Also yesterday, I went to Guestroom Records with a gift certificate and emerged with Bishop Allen & the Broken String, Tilly and the Wall’s O, Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm, and Warner Bros.’ 2009 sampler. I picked up the sampler for free because The Cribs and Regina Spektor are on it. Interestingly, hometown heroes Stardeath and the White Dwarfs were on the sampler too. Even more interestingly, Pitchfork-beloved hometown heroes The Evangelicals parked their tour van next to my SUV while I was in Guestroom. It was pretty metal, in the words of B. Burns.

Then last night I had the distinct privilege of seeing the Katie Tracy Band, which did covers and originals. The talented Ms. Tracy covered Ingrid Michaelson’s “Breakable,” which I’ve heard several times covered but never in its original form. So I looked that up today; the music video for it is pretty awesome. Speaking of music videos, I recently discovered a video of Robbie Williams covering The Killers’ “Human” in a rockabilly style. It’s pretty amazing.

Then today I received a mysterious e-mail telling me that one of my friends had downloaded an Andy Davis EP, and that I could do the same for free. So I did. While I was researching my friend Nathan’s e-mail address to tell him of the find (because that’s part of the deal when you dl Davis’ EP New History), I discovered from his blog I Hope Your Ears Bleed that Vanguard Records gave out a free sampler as well. Considering that Vanguard manages the incredible talents of Josh Radin, Josh Ritter, Brandi Carlisle, Greg Laswell, Joe Purdy, Brett Dennen AND Needtobreathe, I immediately jumped all over this.

Add to that mix the reviews I’m writing for Independent Clauses on Anna Madorsky’s Incantation and Mittens on Strings’ Let’s Go to Baba’s, and that’s the amount of music I’ve come into in the last three days. Wild.

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