The Amazing Tony Royster Jnr (Aged 11)

Tony Royster Jnr entered the Guitar Center National Drum-Off competition Hollywood in 1995 aged 11 (not 12 as was announced) and won. This is his performance...



Where is he now? Well, though he still has time to jam on other people's drumkits sadly, like many of us, he been forced to get a day job...



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Drummers are NOT to be trusted

The Literal Journey

There's a lot of these 'literal videos' about, but here's one of my favourites - the solo section alone is priceless.

Dave Scott has put a lot of work into this and it makes me realise just how bad many 80's videos are!

If you want more check out

Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Dave Scott

and

Take On Me by Dusto McNeato

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Never gonna give your teen spirit up

Pixar's 'UP' - A Review Round Up

Pixar’s Up is undoubtedly the best film (of any type) you are likely to see this year. It’s so good I’m at a bit of a loss to know where to begin, so here’s a few quotes

Not The Usual ‘Disney’ Morality

I always love how Pixar subverts the common kid’s movie morality or storytelling, and this was no exception…How often do we hear, “hang on to your dreams and believe in yourself”? Yet this little Disneyism would define the bad guy in UP, not the good guy.

Greg@RabbitRoom.Com

Two of the three central characters are cranky old men, which is a wonder in this era…"Up" doesn't think all heroes must be young or sweet, although the third important character is a nervy kid...who, for once, isn't smarter than all the adults.

RogerEbert

‘That’ Opening Sequence

The opening montage of the man and his wife was one of the most well created bits of film-making I have ever seen, I think– at least as far as animation is concerned. I honestly can’t think of anything that comes close to touching that. In the span of what couldn’t be more than five minutes, you walk through an entire marriage, it’s up’s and downs– real stuff too, not corny. And they do it all without saying a single word.

Russ Ramsey@RabbitRoom.Com

The wordless ten-minute (ten!?) montage of Carl Fredricksen’s life at the beginning of the movie is a far more touching, beautiful, and real love story than any romance movie you’ll see this year.

Dave@BannaneryPublic.Com

I hadn’t heard or seen anything about the opening 15 minutes (keeps getting longer folks!) which included the “silent movie” life flashing past your eyes. It was like getting knocked over by a ton of bricks…even though you only saw Carl’s wife for a few minutes…she was someone you came to love. And that made her passing that much more sad...Boy did I bawl.

Jim A.@RabbitRoom.Com

The Trust Of An Audience

I watched the crowd filter in and find their seats and I wondered at what an eclectic pilgrimage they were. Young boys and girls came hand in hand all covered in blushes, laughter and delight. They came in families, by the dozens, herding children with candy and eyes peeled wide. Groups of young men sauntered in adorned with attitudes like costume jewelry, their pants slung low and clattering with chains. Elderly couples stepped down the aisles deliberate and slow to settle themselves patiently into their seats. The middle-aged, the old-aged, and the barely aged at all filled the theater and hushed to hear the whisper when the lights went low. What a privilege it is to have the trust of your audience. Such is Pixar’s legacy that people who would otherwise turn up their nose at a mere ‘cartoon’ came in droves to fill the house based on the trust of a studio’s name alone. It’s a precious and delicate thing.

Pete Peterson@RabbitRoom.Com

“What thrilled me about the movie…was the obvious care taken in producing it. The people at Pixar are like potters…They obviously love what they do…I thought it was a beautiful piece, indeed”.

Marcus Hong@RabbitRoom.Com

I'll leave the (almost) last word to Dave@BannaneryPublic.Com

Here’s my frustration with Pixar: they’ve ruined so many movies for me. Not their own movies—other studios’ movies. They keep pumping out one great animated movie after another, so by now I’ve foolishly begun to associated computer animation with high-quality movies. Naturally, then, when I watch a movie like Monsters vs. Aliens, it ends up being pretty disappointing, because there’s no depth or maturity or plot behind the formulaic humor and self-empowerment follow-your-dreams schmaltz.

Up is a computer-generated movie about an old man flying to an imaginary land in a totally impractical vessel—a house suspended under thousands of helium-filled balloons. Yet it feels much more real than nearly any adventure movie you’ve ever seen...

...What all this means is that I am now a slave to Pixar for life. From now on, I will have to go see every movie of theirs in theaters as soon as it is released…

here’s my recommendation for Disney: hand Pixar two bags full of money with dollar signs on the side, and tell them to make whatever movies they want to make.

And finally - 3D or 2D?

The 3D is overrated and adds nothing to the film
Dave and Roger agree with me.

Some more links

podcast interview

http://www.pixarplanet.com/blog

www.pixarblog.blogspot.com

Related Posts: Then Pete said, "let us make Carl in our own image".

Derek Webb: What Matters More...Being Controversial?

If you follow all the latest news in the CCM world and are on the Wide Worldled Interweb you can't not fail to have missed all the hoo-har surrounding Derek Webb's new album Stockholm Syndrome and specifically the song What Matters More and specifically specifically the BAD WORD he says on that song. A BAD WORD that is a synonym for

"poo"

Want to know what all the fuss is about?
Want to hear the song?
Want to hear a christian say a BAD WORD?
Do ya?

Well you can download it here for free!


My 2 cents? (Which, like all my songs, is free).

This is an average song, not the best he's ever done, not even the best on the new album.

The BAD WORD doesn't add any impact to the song.

The figure he quotes doesn't seem to match anything current - hunger, aids, peanut allergy-related deaths,

Tony Campolo said the same thing. 20 years ago. It's hard to be cutting edge when you're two decades behind a sociology professor.

The song leaves us with the message that "something bad is happening to someone somewhere and SHAME ON THE CHURCH for not caring!!!!!"

Perhaps Derek was just panicked by the heat coming from a new contender for his controversy crown?

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Ladies & Gentlemen - John Pointer!

Here's the truly amazing John Pointer, Texas based multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, composer and actor. Watch him doing alone what it took 4 members of Led Zeppelin to do, armed only with a guitar, delay pedal, flight case and healthy set of lungs. Amazing...

Kashmir - Solo Acoustic performance by John Pointer (Short) from John Pointer on Vimeo.

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Yuri Lane

Then Pete Said, "Let Us Make Carl In Our Own Image"

Pete Docter, creator of Pixar's 'Up', is a Christian. Here he tells World Magazine how his faith informs his art

It is a story's ability to draw people into common experience that Docter, who is like his Pixar colleague Andrew Stanton a Christian, says best allows him to exercise his faith in his work.

" In making these worlds I feel closer to God through working out the details of my creation as He must have worked out the details of His creation. Before I wrote out the character of Carl, I thought about his life story—where he came from and what went into to making him who he is so he would feel as rich and real as he possibly could. And that seems a bit like God with us—I know everything about him, and took great joy in making him."

Meg Basham World Magazine.Com


You can listen to a very interesting podcast with Pete here -

podcast interview with Pete Docter (NPR.org)

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At Long Last...

Hey I FINALLY have a blog roll!!!!!!

Check out all the people I deeply love and respect

(scroll down, it's on the left...)

Why The Big Paws?

This post has moved

 it's now

 HERE

No Wonder Paul Had A Hard Time At Mars Hill...

Zach saw it first

Shared via AddThis

We're Starting A (Bowel) Movement # 2

Isaac Watts might have beaten me to the punch with his bowels song but here in 2009 it’s The Eglon Song that is moving people to the very core.


Downloads last week went past the 150, now 175 206 mark making it officially my most popular song . I’ve been tweeted, googled and facebooked (it only hurts a little) and Eglon has been lighting up the whole southern hemisphere.

Hold on, let me turn my hype generator down a notch…

Eglon has been downloaded by several people in New Zealand. Not quite viral then, more sniffly with a tickly cough.

The feedback has ranged from the good;

I can't get it out of my head. I even looked up the chords, so I could play it.

brilliant. we need more scripture stories set to song. I hope to hear this sung in churches across the nation.

What can I say… absolutely brilliant & biblical!!!!!Everyone loves it here

To the bad;

I thought that the song is not funny at all - I find it disturbing that this songwriter could not write about more upbuilding topics

In some ways, I wish the chorus were a little less catchy…

- Stephen Smith. Director, Information Services Crossway Books & Bibles

and the ugly;

This outrageous slur has just been brought to my attention. You need a slap

- King Eglon (Yes, the big guy has his own blog).

If you’ve downloaded the song and like it, why not

• Leave a comment

• Tweet it, Digg it, Delicious it, link it, email it. Heck, record it on a cassette tape and stick it in an envelope if you want. (All the songs on this blog are free for you to share in any way you want. Go on be greedy. Download ‘em all twice).

• Use it to minister to your flock. Sermons series on Judges, Sunday School, ministry times…

If you don’t like the song

• Leave a comment anyway (go on – I can take it)

• Download some of my more normal songs (hint – all my songs are more normal). See if you like those better. You find 'em all in the My Songs column on the left.
  

And if you haven’t download the song yet, why not…

• Watch a documentary on the Beehunters of Kazakhstan? (They hunt using trained bees you know).

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Don’t Call Me Shurely*

Shure produce an excellent free e-zine aimed specifically at church sound guys/tech teams Shure Notes for House Of Worship. The latest issue has a round table discussion with some top sound engineers. If you do a monitor mix before you do the house mix they give you compelling reasons why you should stop doing it! (Update - thanks to Alastair and Mat for pointing out the main article contradicts this advice! Shurely shome mishtake! What's happening Shure?!!)

check out the round table discussion here.

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*Spot the film reference? Leave me a comment. The first correct answer will recieve a Blank Microsoft Word Document! Write your own letter, list, poem, anything!

We're Starting A (Bowel) Movement

Zach Nielsen has resurrected a long neglected classic by Isaac Watts that deserves a wider audience. If you doubt how much the meaning of words can change in the last 300 years why not try this bad boy out on your congregation this Sunday?

1.Blest is the man whose bowels move,
And melt with pity to the poor;
Whose soul, by sympathizing love,
Feels what his fellow saints endure.

2. His heart contrives for their relief
More good than his own hands can do;
He, in the time of gen'ral grief,
Shall find the Lord has bowels too.

check out the whole thing here

I did hear a rumour that both Devon Kauflin & Reformed Praise have reset it to music and are locked in a furious race to see who can record it and release it first.

But that could just be a rumour.

Of course we could just do what Jerry suggest on Z's blog and substitute 'heart' for 'bowels', but hey! let's be creative! Why not substitute 'bowels' for 'heart' and make some of our modern songs more stately?

After all aren't these an improvement...?


Achy Breaky Bowels (Billy Ray Cyrus)
Love Is Like An Itching In My Bowels (The Supremes)
Little Boy Bowels (Andrew Peterson)
Expressway To Your Bowels (Blues Brothers)
Bowelbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley)
Bowels Burst Into Fire (Bullet For My Valentine)
There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Bowels) (Eurythmics)
Sweet Bowel Ache (Fats Waller)
Give Me A Clean Bowel (Fred Hammond)
Open The Eyes Of My Bowels (Paul Baloche)
Soften My Bowels (Phatfish)

Any classics I've missed that need a change of 'heart'? Leave me a comment!


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Behind The Song: Great High Priest

Image:Judith Burrows

Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (Heb.7:26-27)

The first worship song I ever wrote was based on Hebrews 7:26. Ten years later reading the same passage in my quiet time I began to sing the Bible verse again. Where my first attempt had been a straight memory verse wedded to an odd little tune, this was more of a development . I was struck by the idea, in the following verse, that Jesus meets our need.

What need?

Surely our greatest need is to be reconciled to God who is rightly angry at our sin, belittled by our desiring trinkets above him. The concept of the wrath of God is under attack today but I don't think God's love makes any sense without it. God saves us from himself and for himself.

Jesus you’re my great high priest
The only one who meets my need,
My need to be forgiven & set free.
The anger of a Holy God
Defamed by all the wrong I’ve done
You took upon yourself so willingly
When you sacrificed your sinless life for me.

In the bridge I wanted to capture something of the contrasts in who Christ is, the things which Jonathan Edwards called "An admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies".

Great High Priest & Perfect Lamb.
Almighty God & Suffering Man.

The song came quite quickly for me (months instead of years!) & only changed in one small but significant way. A more compact version of the bridge was originally part of the chorus (coming just before the last line). My friend Steve Burns, a member of Grace Church Nottingham suggested making it into a bridge. It was a great idea and the song became the first one written for Grace Church Nottingham.

Musically, the only unusual thing is the Gmaj7/B chord (low to high: X20032) that occurs on "hoLY one", "blameLESS one" and after "forgiven and set free".


Download the free mp3, chord sheet & lyrics here.


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