I Cannot Sleep Without The Radio On.

Circa Survive captivates me.  Circa Survive should not captivate me.

 

I am trained in my snobby musical ways to hate bands like Circa Survive.  Their guitar parts are cheesy and Satriani/Steve Vai-ish and song after song everyone’s tone doesn’t change on on any intstrument.  Vocally, Anthony Green sings every song the same way he sang the last one, pushing his vocals higher and higher, Mars Volta style.  So why do I like this band?

• Deep lyrics that make me ponder
• Catchy, pockety drumming
• Fun, predictable, technical guitar playing
• Satisfying melodies
• I loved seeing them live even before I heard their recorded music

 

There it is.  Say what you will about them, Circa Survive is in my brain and in my earbuds as I cram for my final tomorrow.

Aim for the floor.

If you know anything about me, you know that I play drums.  I play a lot of drums.  I might not be the most flashy or the most technical, but I am a drummer void of shame.  The satisfaction achieved from a heavy kick and snare pattern in the context of worship music or creative secular music is not just a feeling, it’s a spiritual thing that comes from my chest and the heart inside of it.  I love to hammer through a song hung deep in the pocket.  I love to punch my kick drum and feel it resonate through the room, especially when well mic’d.  I love the whip-crack cymbal technique.  Keep ‘em low and flat with plenty of space to swing.  I only need like two of them, but they should be big and well-matched.  Say “ZBT” or “B8″ and I will punch your jaw.  The most satisfying part is a good snare.  My snare is 7.5″ deep and made of solid Birch.  I installed a 42-strand snare bed just recently, and now the instrument sounds entirely different than before.  It’s all low and growly, a very warm, controlled sounding snare.  It sounds like love to me.

 

I write all this to say that I am very excited for ONE this year.  Every year at CSU, all the ministries that want to get together for an extravagant night of loud, joyful worship.  Last year we had about 600 kids, three bands, and two speakers.  I was blessed to be in the the band that closed out the night.  This year we have consolidated to only one band, although many ministries have joined us that did not participate last year.  It will be even bigger, and we will have much less practice time than last year with a less firmiliar band than before.  But I am thrilled.  We spent our whole first practice seeking God and praying together last night.  The feeling was wonderful.  We have already began to unite our ministries in heart!  I am incredibly excited to drum again this year.  The set is two hours long, with lots of time for Reason expressions.  I am so excited.  Our God is here and he is a glorious King.

How To Disappear Completely.

Today my roomate and I returned to a head shop we had visited last week.  This head shop has a pretty decent vinyl collection, and today was the day they said they would have a bunch of Radiohead vinyls in.  I purchased Kid A, my favorite Radiohead album, and Phil bought In Rainbows, his favorite. All day we’ve been enjoying the clever, warm sound of Radiohead on vinyl. 

On a different note, tonight Campus Crusade moved into our new venue (Johnson Hall Rm. 222 if you care to know) after outgrowing the last one.  It was one of the best meetings in Cru history.  We have a great new sound guy named Steve, who has made things so much easier for us, so the music sounded pretty good I thought.  There were probably 350 kids tonight, which is a lot for any school club, not to mention an evangelical Christian club.  Tonight I tried a new snare drum tuning ala Jared Henderson from Newlife.  I installed a gigantic 42-strand snarebed and bought super thin 1-ply heads.  I was so excited, but it turns out I don’t know how to make that kind of a setup sound good.  It was real chainy and loud, but too muffled   I switched snare drums for the second set and things sounded better.