zero360/music

I finally got around to checking out Mosaic Church (Charlotte/Mallard Creek)  this morning. I certainly can’t (and won’t) make any kind of assessment as to whether this would be the place to move our family, but I will say it was a refreshing approach, young congregation, in what appeared to be a non-pretentious environment. At minimum, I go to visit a church with my ears open, in hopes of picking up a seed I can chew on for a while to nourish my soul.

The pastor who spoke today was pretty young, and shared a message around the statement “A faith tested by fire is a faith that can be trusted.” He used Daniel 3 and the story of Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego to encourage us to see how trials can strengthen our faith; that is, when we don’t try to compromise or rationalize around God’s truth and remain obedient to his commands instead living to meet worldly expectations.

I think of all the riches in my life, and how I shouldn’t have cares or worries, complaints or regrets, but, of course, I do. Somewhere in closing the service, the phrase “blessed beyond” caught my ear. I wrote it down and have been contemplating it ever since. All the goodness, grace, material possessions, beauty of the earth, on and on, are just what I can see and comprehend — but what God does is bless beyond all these riches by providing a hope that can’t be qualified or measured, far exceeding our imagination or comprehension. Sure, for people going through deep struggles and pain, these words and concepts get shattered by despair and anger, I’ve been there, Lord knows chances are I’ll be there again.

I’m pretty sure I’ll go back for another visit, who knows maybe this is where God would have us for the next season of our lives. If not, I am blessed by the Word today, and pray God’s continued blessings on this congregation, its pastors and leaders, and all who give of themselves to serve the body of Christ.

It’s been over a week now since Karen and the kids made it to FL, first Winter Springs, then N. Ft. Myers, our old stomping grounds. Things have been pretty quiet, lots of time to think. I’m enjoying the opportunity to work from home more than normal, which I can’t do during summer while the kids are out of school. I’ve had time to explore photography and blogs and think about creativity, and though I’ve worked minimally on songwriting, I think the blow has been good.

Interestingly enough, Brian Hartzog and I got to catch up over lunch yesterday. He’s one of the most well rounded indie guys I know, from writing to business to craft. Per usual, I sequestered the first part of the conversation, once Brian opened the door with… “so, how’s everything going?” I ranted about work, home life, etc., the usual stuff, and the fact that it just seems like I’m in a slump again, but don’t really know why. So when I turned the talking stick over to him, I almost lost the tofu I was gnawing on when he started telling me about his new plan for writing and producing his music. Not so much the plan, but the reason he came to this decision point. Seems he was accomplishing getting things scheduled and going through the motions, but at times on tasks that really didn’t have a good ROI for time invested, or in his strategy for accomplishing his musical goals, though initially these things all seemed like great ideas. Hmm, I can relate, and double-hmm I’m giving Brian’s format a whirl, though likely in modified form.

It goes something like this… instead of mixing and matching writing, recording, business and marketing tasks done whenever something specific needs to be done, designate one day per week for a focused discipline. Maybe Monday for lyric writing, Tuesday for tracking, Wednesday for business and marketing, Thursday for mixing and producing, etc. If a specific item doesn’t get done the day it’s in scope to be done, it has to carry to the next week unless all tasks for another focal point get done and there’s time to spare — BRILLIANT!

This makes a world of sense to me, so last night I began laying out my week. I’ll likely limit my schedule to three days, at least to start, just so I can setup realistic goals in the grand scheme. Of course now it’s the weekend, gig tomorrow night at the Pewter Rose with Rick and the 4-Oh, need to hit the music store ahead of time to re-stock bass and guitar strings. We plan to meet at the Rose around 6:00 for dinner and setup, so it’ll be a pretty quick day.

So, my goal for Saturday morning is to clean my studio/office and setup for creativity. Then, I’ll work on my goals for the week, including further planning of my fresh approach to being more focused at writing and playing music. All this while doing some laundry, and hopefully catching up on some reading, and maybe even setup a couple of shots around the house (that’s pictures with a camera, this will be way before happy hour).

I was headed out to catch some music tonight, I think I’ll pass and hang with a couple of neighbors, keep it within walking distance and call it an early night home… back to the quiet craze.

Wall Mounts

Originally uploaded by zero360/music

Thanks to Laurie Koster for sharing this shot from a recent Spreitzer gig at Pura Vida. I love the colors and individual animation that’s going on. Rick didn’t make the shot, but we all know he was there!

Saturday night, backyard porch of Summit Coffee, Davidson, NC… jamming with Spreitzer and Co., the crowd is picking up, we’re opening for Dustin Edge. Upstairs Attila the Honey is jamming, too. Plenty of music to go around for all who like to listen to independent artists play at what’s become the mainstay venue for indie writers/performers north of I-85 in Charlotte.

So we get done, I pack up and wipe down the sweat, grab a cold beverage and sit back for Dustin, of whom I’ve never even heard — was I in for a killer surprise!

Immediately drawn in by his style, attitude, and performance, Dustin, formerly of Cast Iron Filter, spun out some 15-18 songs in the next hour plus time frame, ending totally unplugged in the midst of those closest to the stage. Dustin’s headed for NY to pursue the next level of the dream.

Doubtful I could even begin to articulate the breadth of his songs or style. I qualified him early on as Jeff Buckley meets Elvis Costello. My encouragement to anyone who reads this post, take time to go listen, more than once, peel back the songs, let them get under your skin.

Best to Dustin and his wife as they head to NY, I’ll be looking for the next opportunity to catch him perform in the Charlotte area.

Good night in NoDa tonight… First I met Rick, Stacey and Kevin for a bite at Cabo Fish Taco, very enjoyable way to kick off the evening. Then it was off the Evening Muse to serve as the music sandwich between Sally Spring and The Turnstiles.

Lots of activity for the gallery crawl postponed a week (normally on the first Friday of the month) to keep from competing with generic 4th of July happenings. NoDa was crawling with people, and the Dog Bar was packed with people and dogs. It’s an outdoor scenario where the human to canine ratio is about 2:1. The NoDa neighborhood Jam Band filled the night air out behind the Smelly Cat, where ice cream cones/cups and coffee drinks were selling as fast as they could be made.

Looking forward to the Summit tomorrow night, but I really enjoyed hearing some new music and seeing lots of new faces I’ll likely never see again.

San Diego was great, what a beautiful city, and as technical/business conferences go (the reason I headed west), this one (Burton Group) was about as good as it gets. I’ve been back a week, and hoped the refresh would have led to a song by now, but I’ve been a busy catching up both at home and work, and have barely scratched through a few old songs and fondled a few new ideas. With my family readying to make the annual trek to FL to spend time with grandparents and break up their summer, I’m hopeful that while they are gone the muse will spring out of the closet and sit in my lap for a while.

I’ve got a pretty good list of things to do around the house while it’s empty, time to make a reasonable one to match for the writing/music side of things. First, I plan to make contact, and potentially a short road trip to meet with a musician/producer about getting an EP done by end of the year. I plan to spend some time out on the deck early mornings and evenings with notebook and beverage of the hour just brainstorming through some ideas, as well as cutting some guitar/vocal tracks for rewrites of established material. Lastly, I’ve made initial contact with a writer in Nashville who’s asked to co-write, and possibly help me market material, so I’ll be seriously and fervently working this angle. I’ll stop here, because if these goals materialize, the rest of the summer will be a real success.

Since the 4th of July didn’t necessarily pan out as we’d hoped, the baseball game we planned to go to was a wash, and while we saw bunches of fireworks in and around the neighborhood, things were on the quiet side due to the fairly unexpected, yet much needed, rain. Now it’s the 5th of July, and I’ll get up and watch the ladies final at Wimbledon in a few hours, tear through some errands and before long it’ll be Monday and back to work.

So, my immediate goal is to look hard at the possibilities for the next couple of weeks. To immerse myself in music every chance I get, to read, play, run, workout and clean up my diet, write and practice, be good at what I’m working at and expect the best from my efforts. To take chances and forget about the vanity in industrial strength opinions. If there’s one thing I can be it’s emotional. Question is, can I get these bad boys off my sleeve and into the next songs I write, and when/if heard, will these emotions stir or be filtered?

New month, new quarter, new season, endless possibilities [+]

On my way to San Diego for a work related conference, I started reading “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller, non-religious thoughts on spiritual Christianity. Right out of the gate I was captivated by a statement about jazz being a product of the first generation of post slavery Negroes. I studied Jazz in college, and though I played the genre for many years, never became an accomplished jazz musician. For all my time within these circles I’d never heard this fact about the purveyors of the only true American art form.

So I started thinking about how this mindset has impacted my life. That is, where has conflict played itself out in ways I could not have expected and enabled me to either prosper or go in a direction that compelled me to explore creative or spiritual channels I otherwise might not have considered. No need to for excruciating detail, but there was a season I managed to invite trouble in various shapes and forms into my life, and with fairly regular consistency. I managed to lose my driving privileges, and had to work within reasonable distance from my apartment. So while working as a waiter at a vegetarian restaurant located about a 10 minute bicycle ride away, I overheard a fellow waiter’s mother, a local public service celebrity, having a conversation about an opportunity that led to a junior college music scholarship, which I can honestly say I likely wasn’t qualified for. But I worked my tail off and actually got through my first level of formal music education, including my first taste of various flavors of jazz.

A little more than a year after getting married to my precious wife, Karen, things in the local music scene were getting rocky. My wife sees an add in a newspaper for military musicians, specifically the Navy. I call the number and talk to someone who invites me to audition. So the day of the audition, I call and ask for the person I’d originally spoken with and they were not expecting me. Seems most folks that get these type interviews are brought in by recruiters or some other “reputable” source. I’m pretty sure the smirks were real as I passed through a rehearsal room to “jam” with a rhythm section. I was a pretty scraggly, long haired presentation, not military looking whatsoever… they accepted me just the same.

Just ten months later, having gone through boot camp and six months of military music training, I checked into my first Navy band in Newport, RI. A year later, in the midst yet another tempest created by my own selfishness and inability to recognize and cling to grace, our first son was born. By God’s mercy my wife endured this season of turmoil and we headed back to FL a couple of years later. It was the end of my enlistment and I somehow had come to the conclusion the Navy wasn’t my career path, though I’d been offered the bass instructor gig at the school of music where I learned how to be a military musician. End Part A of my second level of formal music education.

Suppose my wife had left me, suppose I decided to re-up and go to another band, or take the bass instructor position? Well, I didn’t, which led to a series life changing events over the next couple of years. I heard some intriguing music that totally drew me in, on a contemporary Christian station. I got a job that was supposed to be for a woman at a communications shop where three guys evangelized me. Suppose I’d changed the station and never went back to it, or wasn’t forced to take a administrative assistant job I really needed, suppose I didn’t respond to the message of the Gospel?

As it were, I ended up in a great blues band by night and working as a graphics, data, network guy for a day job. I was struggling in many ways just to make ends meet for our family now of two boys, as well as the notion of being a new Christian, which I really had little grasp on, and ended up back in the Navy Music Program for another couple of years — all this being Part B of my second level of music education.

After leaving the Navy, and the routine of working a day job and playing whatever gigs I could get, I chose to play music only in church, leading to yet another set of circumstances that otherwise would not have happened. At a Saturday morning rehearsal, one of the worship vocalists ask for a few minutes to share a lyric for the sake of having someone put it music. A bit to my surprise, no one jumped in… I’d done this once before in college, so I took the challenge. I guess I’d always been a sort of a songwriter, but this one event helped me realize I could get back to music outside the context of such structured musical vehicles like the Navy or church. Suddenly the chips began to fall such that I met with a friend from a previous job who is an indie artist that invites me to a meeting held by a local chapter of Nashville based songwriting association… suppose I’d not listened to the voice of encouragement at that Saturday morning rehearsal.

For the last five or so years I’ve been honing a new set of musical skills, while adding the fundamentals of being a writer. But having a full-time day job makes being a serious writer difficult. I do mentally draining work all day long, and though I try to spend time on a song or playing music in some form or fashion just about every day, it’s easy to get discouraged about chasing a dream at this stage in my life.

As long as there’s breath, there will be conflict and resolution — risk and reward — faith and hope. Challenges can bring pain, but without them there’s no refinement of my being. I want to grow as a person, father, husband, writer, and musician… by past grace I’ve made it this far, by future grace I will run this race to the end. I’m pretty sure if I had never found the blog that led me to “Blue Like Jazz” I’d still have these perspectives, I suppose just not in the same light.

It’s not easy to write about someone I don’t personally know. Though every time I’ve seen and listened to Tim Russert, he made me feel as if I did know him. His approach to journalism as personal as it gets, whether president or military leader, he never pulled punches. But as deep as his questions got, he was not harsh,  demeaning, or biased. Tim Russert was a man for every man.

He probed to make us think, and in turn, make us more effective people and Americans. The pending campaigns and elections need Tim’s centered, balanced approach to the issues, who will fill this gap? In the grand scheme of God’s sovereignty, it sure seems like the most interesting of timing for Tim’s passing.

How do I miss someone I didn’t really know? Not sure, but I’m fairly certain, the impact of his death will have far reaching implications in a political climate where trust is all but completely eroded. Let every man take note, we can do better, and it starts with taking Mr. Russert’s lead — seek truth with dignity and respect and settle for nothing less.

Last night I played a gig with Rick Spreitzer and Kevin Edwards at the Green Rice Gallery in NoDa… very enjoyable. I mean, people flowing through all evening, looking at the various artwork hung on walls and placed on stands, sipping wine and beverages, munching on treats — lots of smiles and conversation. All this going on as the three of us sat in a corner and jammed acoustically (me on electric bass) to Rick’s original indie music, sort of an art on art foundation.

Rick mentioned at one point, “starving artists don’t just paint”, which I thought was a great off-the-cuff line, unfortunately, I’m not sure  anyone heard it through the buzz of chatter. We were not turned up very loud and had a sort of muffled edge, so during a 10 minute break, we tweaked the sound then took off for a 2nd set. As the night progressed I felt as if we were less the foundation and more an art piece in the corner. Some folks commented as they’d wrap around the walls viewing art, buy a CD, or stand and listen longer than most before moving on. The flow of ever-changing faces was really fun to watch.

All in all, the night, which I actually wasn’t even looking forward to because I’d had such a busy and at times oppressive week, ended up being a wonderfully relaxing and inspiring time. As we packed up, the buzz between Rick, Kevin, and I continued. When the owner paid Rick, she said she hopes to have us back. We roadie’d the gear into a night totally lit with sound and energy from all the people on the streets and both the indoor and outdoor bands at the Muse and beyond. I’ve been hanging out in NoDa, albeit infrequently, for a few years and have observed it become what I saw last night… good for all. Business owners must love it, the folks that hang must love it, and other than the fools that choose to rely on crime to feed their vices, it’s really a pretty eclectic, peaceful scenario.

Funny that out of all that is enjoyable, reality comes back and paints our next hours, days, and chapters. I got home more tired than I thought I was… barely lasted an hour before my eyes were shut, battled the fact I needed to sleep about 30 more minutes, then just went to bed. Overslept, wasted half the morning, now I’m writing this entry… be right back, I need some more coffee… OK, I’m back. So, today will be “busy” with whatever I need to get done, would like to do, and maybe a little day dreaming. But reality will “paint” my thoughts and actions, and influence my hopes and dreams.

I heard on the news last night (in between dozes) that Al Sharpton is coming back to Charlotte to tongue lash our law enforcement agencies for shooting a young black man that was waving a gun at police. It would be nice if he’d come and stick his nose in the crack houses and gang dens and try to make some sense of that mess, too. Maybe take a ride through some once thriving neighborhoods now littered with for sale signs, which are perpetual lawn ornaments. Who wants to buy a house in a neighborhood that’s either gang controlled or where owners don’t care enough to mow their grass, much less maintain their houses — black, white, Hispanic… whatever! Hey, Al, why don’t you get in a Charlotte cop car on a Friday night and experience what they see and deal with on a daily basis?

And I’m so perplexed by the “Got Hope” t-shirts for B’Obama… give me a break! The Dem’s have had control of the house for almost two years now… nothing. Gas prices up what, $1.25? States in the great northwest are poised to deliver alternative energy, but for the red tape… where are the Dem’s? We’re still spending BILLIONS on space programs — who cares the dust on Mars is red — where are the Dem’s?

Our country’s livelihood is at stake, most just complain about it, hope is at a premium. If the only hope we have is to vote in a new president, that’s not a hope with much (if any) substance. My hope is in that which I can’t fathom or see, the hope promised by the word of God, which is in and of itself God, at least to me. My hope is based on promises so misconstrued and twisted by man, mis-labeled as “religion”, that I can understand why it seems so few choose to travel this narrow path. This hope paints a picture of peace for eternity, and in my heart. But along with this hope come the promises of life… struggles, fears, pain, and despair.

It’s up to me which brush I choose — the broad or the pencil thin tip — and what colors I paint, black and white, shades of grey, or a broad palette of lush colors I create from the basic set. We are all painters, artists in this life, it’s how we express and portray our hope that makes us who we are, to ourselves and those with whom we share our lives. It’s up to me to determine if hanging on to what I know is worth the possibility of missing out on adventures I’ve yet to imagine.

These days seems just about everything is deadline driven. From dinner at 5:30 to get the kids somewhere by 6:15, to the next powerpoint at work, or preparing for my next trip — whether to Nashville or the grocery story. Good news is, I can do this! The bad news… I tend to stress and get caught up in details instead of enjoying the process and the moments that matter. While recently reading through some scripture in 1 Kings about Solomon’s wisdom, I realized, this is where I want to be — asking for and receiving wisdom into and for my life, just as Solomon did.

So I’m thinking I won’t have the whole jurisdiction over all these countries and peoples, and that’s cool with me, I have enough to handle with the single family in our household. And I don’t need to be great at everything I do, but be faithful and do things with the right heart and hope in that which I can’t see.

I can be a rather poor reader, usually 3-4 books at a time, struggling to finish any or all of them, sometimes having to restart and skim through a book to get reoriented. I’m currently going through “Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren, and finishing up the sections on seeing life from God’s view… life is a test, life is a trust, life is a temporary assignment (in a temporal place). Interestingly, before reading these chapters, I’d just written some songs easily tied back to these perspectives.

Kinda cool… then I think about practical application.

Of the three elements, trust is the one that frequently eludes me and pretty much causes the most turmoil in my life. To me, trust means totally reliquishing control. Should be easy seeing as I really don’t have control of anything to begin with except the choices I make. Some decisions should be black and white, right vs. wrong. It’s those where wisdom, instinct and desire collide that keep me on my toes, sometimes at the edge of a cliff, trying to balance choices against making “right decisions”.

Truth is, I’m at a point where I time should be one of the most compelling factors in choosing for the rest of my life. If I live to 100, my days are but the strike of a match in light of eternity… if I miss out on what today has to offer, tomorrow might be my eternity. Time to think about the countdown and live with a bit more reckless abandon and ferver.

God’s word says ask for wisdom, I’m asking … am I trusting?