The new Family Force 5 release is available August 19th… ‘Dance Or Die’. The press release sounds exactly like what I expected and I can’t wait! (check out the 2 track EP right now on iTunes)
According to the press release, “The album oozes with over-the-top illustrations, charging out of the gate with funky rhythms, percolating club grooves, undeniably infectious hooks and instantaneous sing-a-longs. Imagine an inventive evolution of the band’s eye-opening ‘Business Up Front, Party In The Back‘ blended with Prince getting down at a Daft Punk concert where Michael Jackson busts out the moonwalk in the center of the dance floor.”
OK. So I really bought this CD last week, but I haven’t stopped listening to it since. I caught them on an episode of “Front Row Live” one night and TIVO’d for a second viewing. I loved the sound and the next day, I bought the CD. I love these guys, even though I can’t get the song “MySpace Girl” out of my head, go check ‘em out.
Just bought the Josh Wilson CD on iTunes. So far I love it. He has the same kind of pop-rock sound as Dave Barnes, and the same great songwriting, plus great musicianship too. Josh plays every instrument on the songs “3 Minute Song” and “Savior Please” except for drums. He fiddles with acoustic, baritone and electric guitars as well as banjo, mandolin, piano, and keys (which provide the orchestral sounds present on the album). While guitar and piano are his primary instruments, Josh also enjoys the banjitar, which is a banjo with guitar styling, “It’s a neat instrument and it’s kind of a cheat on the banjo.” Sweet!
I’ve been enjoying “3 Minute Song” which compares singing about God’s greatness to “Trying To Fit The Ocean In A Cup” and the rest of the CD doesn’t disappoint. Now I’m trying to restrain from tracking down his two independent projects—a full-length album, Dragonfly (2004), and an EP, Shake the Shadow (2006).
I tried to write a song And keep it 3 minutes long Get in, get out, nobody gets hurt And I tried a thousand times To fit God between the lines But I’m finding out that doesn’t really work
I just don’t have the words to say Cause words only get in my way
I must apologize, I have the hardest time Finding something to define a God that I can’t define And even if I could, it would take way too long If all I’ve got is a 3 minute song
I’ve got a hundred metaphors And if I had a million more I could never ever seem to sum this up Besides, how can some melody Communicate eternity It’s like trying to fit the ocean in a cup
I’ll never find the words to say Cause words only get in my way
I would like to dumb this down to 3 chords or maybe 4 But I’ve tried and I can’t and I won’t cause there will always be more
So I apologize I can’t seem to get it right
I also like the humorous tune “Dear Money,” which talks about a love/hate relationship with cash.
Check out this video of him playing “Amazing Grace”
This morning as I began to switch from streaming radio channel to streaming radio channel in iTunes, I remembered it was “New Music Tuesday”! I have been pretty good lately at controlling my iTunes purchases, but the new Dave Barnes CD, Me+You+The World was a surprise to me, so I went ahead and did the old “click-buy”.
This CD is awesome! I listened to it at least 3 or 4 times today and it hasn’t got old yet. There are a few songs that sound a bit like his previous two albums Brother, Bring the Sun, and Chasing Mississippi, but when you love them too, it’s really not a problem. My favorites so far are the current single “Until You”, “Carry Me Through”, and “Good World, Gone Bad”.
“What does it take to change her mind, just one more someone left behind.
It’s a good world, gone real bad, and only love can bring it back.”
Larry Norman, THE PIONEER of Christian rock music (a tag he hated) passed away this morning in his home in Salem, Oregon.
Norman became a Christian at the age of five and was raised in a black Pentecostal church. In 1956 he heard Elvis Presley’s music and would later say that he felt Elvis had stolen rock’n'roll from the church and he was determined to steal it back. The roots of the idea of marrying a spiritual message with rock’n'roll music began there and then in his childhood even though it would be more than a decade before he would have the opportunity to begin fulfilling that vision.
I’d be lying if I said I knew all of his music, but growing up in a very legalistic church (where even drums were considered evil) kinda automatically makes Larry Norman your hero, as far a music goes.
“I ain’t knockin’ the hymns, just give me a song that has a beat
I ain’t knockin’ the hymns but give me a song that moves my feet
I don’t like any of ‘em funeral marches, I ain’t dead yet
All I wanna, I wanna, I wanna say
Why should the devil have all the good music?”
Cons: First listen through, and nothing stood out. I love Jack Johnson, but this all just kinda flows into one long song to me. I’ll give it another listen and see what happens. Maybe “Sleep Through…” wasn’t a good choice for CD title.
I’ve been pretty good in iTunes lately on “New Music Tuesdays”… refraining from clicking the all to easy to use “BUY ALBUM” button. Last night I noticed that Amazon has begun to sell DRM free MP3 files on AmazonMP3 . My first instinct was to dismiss it as another one of those “iTunes killers” that wind up extinct in no time at all, but then I noticed that it actually worked with Mac and iTunes/iPod. This was something new. First thing this morning, I search around the store a bit. There is a decent selection of music, nowhere near what iTunes has, but still not bad. I found a Marc Broussard CD I didn’t have for $4.52, and I’m a sucker for live music. I downloaded the AmazonMP3 Downloader which was pretty simple, clicked “Buy MP3 Album” and in no time, I’m listening in iTunes. Sweet. AmazonMP3 is priced right, DRM-free, and is very easy to use.
Music fans have now downloaded and purchased more than three billion songs from the iTunes Store, and “we’d like to thank all of our customers who have contributed to this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. The world’s most popular online music, TV, and movie store, iTunes features a catalog of more than five million songs, 550 TV shows, and 500 movies, and it recently surpassed both Amazon and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the US.
