I’ve always wanted to blog through the process of creating a loop and include folks along the way to get feedback at each portion. Then look back and see the evolution of the song as I made changes. So this post starts that journey.

Part 1. Main Groove

I’ve started to write a loop for an original arrangement of In Christ Alone by Stuart Townend. This arrangement may be pretty far out for those that know the traditional arrangements, but I hear it all coming together in my head well and if you’re a worth anything as a writer, you gotta trust that inner head arrangement. At this point I just have the main groove looping over the verse progression. This was done all in one session, total session time was probably 6 hours or so. I think I spent 3 hours on the drums alone, finding the right kick/snares and making tone adjustments and such. Spending time on each individual instrument’s (drums having many instruments -> kick, snare, toms, etc…) tone is so important.

Here’s how I organize my thoughts when searching for drum sounds. I make a list of all the candidates (all that I think may work) for each sound and then I go through each one comparing one to another and selecting the better of the 2. Repeat process until you only have one left and last sample standing wins!

So here’s what I have so far, just a few measures looped over. From here I’ll peel it back and get the instrumentation for the verse with vocals.

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One of my favorite new(ish) rock bands is Alberta Cross. They have an incredible record out called Broken Side of Time, make sure you pick that up, it’s fantastic. They recently did an interview and live session at Electraplay and here’s the video from one of my favorite not so rockish tunes called Ghost of City Life.

UPDATE: Re-published today for the re-release

I’ve been listening to The Medicine for a couple weeks solid. I don’t like doing first impression reviews because most of the time my favorite songs end up being those that took a while to grow on me. My ears start hearing things on the 10th listen that I didn’t hear the 9 times previous. So what did I hear?

The album starts off with Reckoning Day and I’m blown away by John Mark’s vocals. His voice sounds better than I’ve ever heard it, not only in presence but tonally I think his voice is just spot on. You can also hear exactly what John Mark was talking about in the natural reverb recording techniques they were experimenting with. The warmth of the verb is a tone carried throughout the album and really ties each song together and I think creates a great atmosphere for the heart of the album which is a story resurrection.

John Mark tells the story of Christ’ resurrection with intense language and vivid imagery, fitting for the story that’s told. This is demonstrated in songs like Skeleton Bones,

Skeleton bones stand at the sound of eternity on the lips of the found
Graves stones roll to the rhythm of the sound of you
Skeleton bones stand at the sound of eternity on the lips of the found
Yeah so separate those doors and let the sun of resurrection in

One of the greatest songs on the album, and one I can’t wait to do on Easter, is Death In His Grave. The imagery and phrasing used in that song is so incredibly moving, the chorus says:

On Friday a thief, on Sunday a King, laid down in grief
But awoke with the keys, of hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave

The resurrection theme not only deals with the historic moment but also addresses our own personal death to sin and resurrection in Christ as shown in songs like Carbon Ribs, Dress Us Up, Out of the Ground and Ten Thousand. In our previous interview I asked John Mark if there were any he could see being used in corporate worship, and I think there are quite a few here that will be used. Dress Us Up is one that jumps out as something an entire congregation could get behind and sing without trouble. The song proclaims the power of God’s love over death.

Dress us up in the blood of a son
Who opened up His veins so that we would overcome
Hell and the grave and the power of his love
After 3 dark days he showed us how it’s done
and he still does

I don’t think there can be any question this is John Mark’s finest work. This is certainly a step forward musically, lyrically and in his songwriting. The songwriting still has the exposed emotions John Mark is known for but this record comes across as a more matured presentation, not quite as raw as before. It’s truly a storyteller album and the story is captivating and beautiful. Go buy this album now!

originally posted 10/7/08

[via thereifixedit.com]

Recently I had the good pleasure of interviewing James Duke (guitar player for John Mark McMillan) as well as review his new release from his new project called “All the Bright Lights.” That record is largely instrumental and is a collection of incredible guitar tones and textures. So when I saw a blog post from James discussing how he gets his tones, it got my attention.

James gives a lot of great advice in his post and I encourage you to read the entire post, but he opens up the post with some great general advice to guitar players.

“I have gotten a lot of emails lately asking for advice about how to get good guitar sounds. A lot of times I get asked something like “I have all the same stuff as you but i’m not getting the same sound for some reason”. I try to tell them , nicely, that they can buy everything I have, but it’s not going to make them sound like me. If that was the case I would have all of The Edge’s gear.  And all of Jimmy Page’s gear. and I would have bought the same microphone as Bono…

I can play through anything and still sound like me.  I can play through a line 6 spyder amp and still sound like me.  I don’t enjoy that, mainly because a modeling amp just doesn’t respond the way a nice tube amp does. But I can make it work.”

As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now Arizona passed what many are calling the nation’s “toughest” immigration law this past Friday. Reaction across the country has been quite heated and I’ve talked to many of my Mexican friends here in Phoenix and most are at the least concerned if not angry. Now there have been reports of random councilmen(women) calling for boycotts over this law passing and now we have the Canadian band Stars starting their boycott saying,

“We love AZ, But until its racist new immigration law is repealed, Stars (and many others) will boycott this state.”

Some local music blogs have expressed concern about the “many others” portion of that tweet(because who cares about the Stars?) and it’s impact on the AZ music scene. I personally find it hard to believe that this music boycott will gain any steam and if it did that it would last for any length of time. But regardless of the boycott’s success or failure, one thing I realized is this is quite an ironic turn of events as it reminded me of the church’s all too common response to mainstream entertainment, and that is to boycott when we disagree.

Whether it’s a Dan Brown or James Cameron movie, or Jay Z talking about “Jesus can’t save you“, the gut reaction of so many in Christendom is to call for a boycott and disengagement instead of a missional engagement in the culture and bringing the truth of Christ to that situation. A boycott is such a shallow, temporal mean to an end and cares nothing of the people involved or any eternal implications that may be at play.

Look bands, if you hate the AZ immigration law that’s fine. But you should come down here and sing about it. Get involved in our culture and hear what people’s concerns are and use your creativity to speak what you feel is true. If you care at all about the “injustice” of it, or those you feel are impacted by the so called racist nature of this law, then you should be down here and playing every club until your message is heard. Right now all I hear is a whiny band from up north, that knows nothing about AZ, that probably had no plans to play AZ anyway and sacrificed nothing of themselves but rather made a superficial gesture to make themselves feel good.

I know this sounds crazy coming from a Christian, but I’m hoping that us Christians have learned our lessons from cultural disengagement and boycotts. So take it from us, if you want change, then get engaged in the culture and impact it from the inside out.

UPDATE: F****** Up’s Pink Eyes says bands should play in AZ now more than ever.

John Mark McMillan has just released his first single, Skeleton Bones, off his forthcoming album re-release(+ some new tunes) of The Medicine. Also packaged for free with the single is a video of a live performance of How He Loves. The new arrangement to How He Loves is really incredible, never sounded better. The song has been covered by a lot of people but they pale in comparison to John Mark’s now new original version.

As of this moment Skeleton Bones is within a few downloads of being #1 on iTunes Christian/Gospel charts, so let’s get him to #1 already!