Time For A Break

Things have been a bit quiet here blogwise but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. For a music teacher 'tis the season of multiple christmas concerts, school assemblies, and general craziness. Dad of four? You get the picture. But that doesn't mean all songwriting has ceased. On Monday night I was in Old Library Studios doing preproduction for my first solo EP. More about that next year!

I've also finished writing song #47 Better For Me If I'd Never Been Born. A cheery title perhaps, but when I tell you it's about Judas Iscariot it might make more sense. That song's had a long history - I wrote most of the music in 1992.

So with a remix of Tedashii's song Riot and a lullaby/prayer song in the works I hope I may still finish 50 songs this year. I may not get em all recorded, but I'll sum up what I learned from the year of 'writing dangerously' and strike out in a slightly new direction.

Thanks for listening!

  Free songs by Matt Blick

A Week In The Life

Quote of the week.

Teaching guitar to a class full of kids

ME :“what should you do when you can’t play something properly?”
Kids: “Mime”
Me: “No. What should you do?”
Kids: “Give up”

The correct answer, in case you’re wondering, was “practice”.

Welcome to my world. By next year I anticipate answer number 3 will be “autotune.”

My own personal download festival

It seems like only 11 months and 16 days ago I was blogging about my song downloads surpassing the 100 mark. This week they topped a thousand!

1013 to be precise and 110 sheet music PDFs on top of that. This is amazing. Thank you!
Looks like those two days I spent doing html on my download page paid off (even if I do start twitching when anyone says “anchor text”).

The Eglon Song (375+) & The Weight of Glory (just topped 125) are still the big hitters, along with Great High Priest (though First Black President & The Ballad of N.D.C. are starting to catch up).

New kid in class The Greatest Commandment has started to make a few friends in the playground and at 25 downloads he’s no longer last to get picked for football.

My very good friends...

I had no idea when I posted my rant about gospel rap being criminally under-valued that Tedashii, Trip Lee & DJ Official would fly all the way to Nottingham to thank me personally. But they did!

OK they didn’t. But they did do a gig in the world’s best city. It was the sweatiest time I've had in Church since I had a Lamb Rogan Josh the night before a baptism service. It was off the chain fo'shizzle. But where was you? Where was you at?

Back in the real world...

I spent most of last Saturday doing some guitar overdubs on Ben Green’s new song There Is Mercy. Download the original version here unless you want to wait and hear how I ruined a perfectly good worship song.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to head to Barrow Upon Soar for a songwriting seminar run by Joel Payne of Resoundworship.org

I may have another song nearing completion. I’m on the 3rd rewrite of the chorus already so don’t get too excited. Oh, and by the way, it’s a congregational worship song.
Remember when I used to just write those?


Related Posts: A letter to my pupils

Your next 1013 downloads

The Saviour of Christian Music is Not a White Guy With a Guitar…

It’s a Black Man on a Mic.

At first I thought it was merely a result of my ineptitude as a blogger. 

I mean when you’ve giving away one of the best albums of the year and you’re struggling to find a taker something’s gotta be wrong, right?

Then I started to notice the underwhelming coverage that Lions And Liars was getting on the web in general. Hey! Sho Baraka’s reformed (as in theology) style of rap is a sub genre of a sub genre of a sub genre. No wonder he’s off the map.

Then the aptly named ‘Under The Radar’ podcast airs a special rap edition. The music is incredible (download it here) but the host sounded like he was already bracing himself for the backlash. What the problem?

The Christian music scene doesn’t need a new star, a new hero, or a new trendsetter. But we do need someone to save us from an army effeminate, doctrine-phobic mystics, and the ability to play barre chords is not necessarily a requirement.

Man-up

To borrow a line from Sho, when you have ‘hip hop minus all the thugging’ you’re still left with something inherently manly. On the other hand, take a pinch of ‘God is my girlfriend’ sentiments, sung in an effeminate vocal style and smeared with guyliner and it may be marketable, but it won’t make Driscoll’s playlist.

Word

The new rap is most bible-saturated form of music around today. Proof? Who are the champions for this new style of music? Old white preachers. Mark Dever (a man whose church regards Isaac Watts as a little edgy) interviewed Voice & Shai Linne.

John Piper got Lecrae to rap in a Sunday service at Calvinism H.Q. (aka Bethlehem Baptist Church).

Mark Driscoll had Lecrae & Tedashii over to jam at Mars Hill to the studied indifference of 9000 bemused Seattle cage fighting software programmers.

Why did this happen?

These preachers love the word and they love musicians who love the word.

This is something of a sea change as far as ‘urban’ music goes (and why urban? Do all the white guys live on the farm?). Marred by self-actualisation & the prosperity gospel and hamstrung by a ridiculous allegiance to King James English, too often black gospel artists have sounded like funky positive thinking emissaries from the 17th century.

Sunday morning

That all well and good. But can you rap corporately?

No.

And that’s probably a good thing.

Because at the moment it’s hard to tell who’s a worship leader and who’s not. It used to be easy. The worship leader was the one with a hole in the middle of his guitar.

But now he has a Strat, and a band, and a light show. He’s just like any other band leader (except his band gigs every Sunday morning). This problem isn’t the hardware. It’s the songs.

Let’s call him Don

Don has a Transcendental Experience of God.
Don commemorates that in a song.
Don sings that song at every gig for the next 3 years. 
Cool.

Don brings the song into a worship setting and teaches it to everyone.
They sing about Don’s mountain top experience.
Some identify. Some don’t.
Don introduces a few more mountain top songs.
Touching the divine right here, right now starts to become the expectation for a normal time of worship.  
Not so cool.

Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
When he got up off the floor he carried on down the road.
He didn’t build a roadside tabernacle and go back there every Sunday expecting to feel the same Holy Ghost high.

Imagine a testimony time where after every story of deliverance, healing, financial provision the whole congregation jumped up and started confessing that it had happened to them too.

Crazy huh?
Let’s make sure we’re not doing that when we sing.

This is me.

I’m a white guy with a guitar. I’m not dissing my tribe. But I’m thrilled to see something exciting and ground-breaking happening in gospel rap.

I want to welcome what God is doing with open arms, honouring him for the gifting he’s placed in my Christian brothers Sho Baraka, Tedashii, Lecrae, Trip Lee, Katalyst, Shai Linne (to name just a few)

Will you join me?

Here's three good places to start

Under the Radar #80
Lions & Liars
Identity Crisis





Free songs by a white guy with a guitar

DJ Official - EnterMission: Review

Don't forget you still have 3 days left to win this album right here.

EnterMission is less an album BY DJ Official and more a sampler or mix tape on the theme of urban mission featuring Reach Records artists and likeminded friends.

There’s a massive variety on display here, which is both a strength and a weakness. If you like hip-hop there’s bound to be tracks you love and tracks you hate. EnterMission serves you up everything from Nothing Without You (think Pink at her most feminine) to Chisel Me (a masochistic sanctification smackdown) to Not My Own (imagine speed reading Wayne Grudem while listening to nu-metal).

So, while they may not be your favourites, let me tell you mine

Some reviewers have described Show Off (Lecrae & Flame) as cheesy. I don’t agree (this, mon ami, is tres fromage). To me the track is just playful and fresh rather than fresh from the deli counter and as fun is not one of Reach’s strong points I say kudos to ‘em.

Streets Of New York (J.A.Z. & Magellan) is one of the best tracks by DJ Official evoking perfectly the knife edge tension of a city at flashpoint. The lyrics not only paint the picture in stark colours but motivate you to get out there.

Go features some insane speed rapping from H.G.A. (who are these guys?) & Tedashii.

Love Fallen (Gems, Jahaziel, BenJah & Dillavou) is the kind of track that shouldn’t work but is easily one of the best on the album. Crossing so many boundaries that you feel dizzy, the blend of UK & Jamacian rappers meeting over a sizzling reggae track is inspired.

On an album full of gritty realism Sho Baraka’s track Chaos is the hardest hitting of them all. The backing is a claustrophobic Prodigy (Firestarter) style track, all alarms and skittering beats representing the moral chaos Sho is rapping about. This track is Huge.

Overall there’s much to like on this album. DJ Official himself doesn’t cast a big enough shadow to give it a cohesive identity but it would make a good first purchase if you’re unfamiliar with Reach Records and want to check out the different artists.

get this album for FREE.



Related Posts: Sho Baraka - Lions & Liars review



Free songs by Matt Blick

Homesickness, Criticism & Fighting

No it's not a report from the Together for the Gospel conference*, just 3 posts you might find helpful!

Dave Trout of (Radar Radio fame) has some good counsel for touring musicians

Jamie Brown is a font of worship leading wisdom who I need to link to way more often than I do. Ten things to say when someone criticizes you after a service is just one of the many great posts on his blog Worthily Magnify.

Lastly a great rap from Tedashii (& John Piper)



[If you're subscribed to this blog via email, you will have to click on the post's title to watch any video content (the link will take you my site).

* This is a joke.

Best Of 2009: Music

My Best Album Of 2009

is a tie between

Identity Crisis (Tedashii)


Intelligent gospel-saturated Hip-hop delivered with passion and clarity

Buy It.
Read the review.


...and...

Armistice (Mutemath)


The Christian/Not Christian band for the Crowder generation stepped up to the plate and hit the ball out of the park. Then walked into the car park and hit the ball back into the park. Then did handstands on the piano.

Buy it.
Read my review - part one, part two.


Best Praise & Worship Album (by a mile)

Awaken The Dawn (Keith & Kristyn Getty)




Shame on me for not writing about this album before now. A great group of writers (the Gettys plus Stuart Townend) write theologically profound songs that real people can actually sing! But the killer one-two punch is Kristyn's beautiful voice on top of some incredibly 'right', gimmick-free arrangements. Stand out tracks - Creation Sings The Father's Song & Still, My Soul, Be Still.

Buy It.
Read a few recommendations. Soul Audio
William Chong
Jamie Brown (NB DO NOT judge the song Creation Sings on the awful Youtube version!)



Best Free Album

Thru You (Kutiman)




I have to give an honourable mention to Lyrycyst's Revolution, but this is why the Internet exists. Listen to it, ponder how it was made and then try and argue that copyright law doesn't need to evolve (if you dare).

Download it.
Read my original post.


I'm sure you disagree. I can take it.
Who would YOU put here?




Related Posts: Half birthday top 5 free downloads
Half birthday -Top 5 music videos

Tedashii: Identity Crisis - Best Album of 2009 (so far)

`

If Christian music can make you cringe with embarrassment, Christian rap can be extra cheesy. So often it’s just a pale imitation of whatever was big with secular audiences 10 years earlier.

Which is a shame. Cos if there’s any musical form suited to preaching in song it’ s rap. The typical rap track contains as many words as a whole rock album, giving an unparalleled opportunity to treat a subject with all the necessary nuances and qualifications – vital when most heresy is birthed trying to make God simple to understand. Sad to say much hip-hop has failed to live up to it’s potential. The Christian alternative to ‘bigging yourself up’ is often preaching ‘actualise your potential, ‘be your best you now’, ‘God loves a winner’. Yadayada...

Things are changing however.


A new breed of rappers seems to be emerging, particularly around the Reach record label, guys like Lecrae, Trip Lee & Tedashii. Clear on the doctrine of sin & the importance of the local church, wise to the snare of worldly approval, they rock hard, preach holiness and sample John Piper. Tedashii’s new album, Identity Crisis, is exhibit A.



Intro get off the starting line full throttle, taking you from “Hey baby, what’s up?” to rapping about “Imago Dei” in 1:43 backed by a hyperactive classical piano riff.

I Work follows right on. An aggressive renunciation of peer pressure perfectly welded to a track that would feel at home on the Rocky 2 soundtrack.

In a similar vein 26s’ gives a wake up call to idolatry in the low rider culture. Tedashii perfectly captures the wide-eyed worship of the ride while guest Lecrae preaches to the “self proclaimed kings”

“Tell me where it ends boy,
‘cos the truck don’t bring you luck,
and it sho’ nuff ain’t gonna pay your sins, boy”

Though there are several mellower tracks on the album, Tedashii is at his best when he plays hard. And he plays hardest on Make War.



Kicking off with a sample of John Piper bemoaning why Christians don’t fight harder against sin in their lives, Tedashii grabs the baton and rams the point home so powerfully that I almost wish he could back Piper every Sunday morning!

And maybe Piper would be glad to have him - there’s a mature theological grasp on display here that should make many Christian singers ashamed to open their mouths when they have so little to say, and say it in such a bland rehashed way.

After spending most of the time out in the world, the album bows out with a pair of tracks closer to home.

Church’s hilariously sleepy groove paints the futility of the nominal churchgoer “Jesus must know me cos I heating up a seat in the church” and contrasts sharply with Community’s relentless forward motion. In fact the contrast is almost too sharp. A casual listen could give the impression that this exciting ‘community’ is something to be found ‘outside’ the church. But the chorus spells it out. There’s a blessing on “them church boys” when they “live in community”.

Overall verdict – a relentless drive-by against idolatry and apathy.

If you love rap – Buy It
. And if you think you don’t because your only point of reference is DC Talk - Buy It anyway.

Related Posts: John Piper vs. Led Zeppelin