I am continually amazed at how rich a tradition we have in the hymns of past song writers. Brian T Murphy over at Red Mountain Church in Birmingham pretty much exactly expresses my thoughts on the value of hymns in worship. Since becoming the music director at my church almost 6 years ago, I’ve been a big fan of hymns and re-introducing hymn texts through new music. And yes, I have been guilty on more than one occasion of grumbling about the lameness of more contemporary worship songwriters.
That being said, I really enjoyed Steve Holmes resetting my perspective by pointing out some really, really horrendous (and hilarious) hymns from some of my favorite hymn writers. Fact: The great Charles Wesley wrote over 6000 hymns, only about 20 of which we use today. Conclusion: 5960 of his songs suuuhhuck. Bravo, Steve. Bravo.
Places featured in this vid: San Diego, Big Sur, Mt Whitney, New York City, Mt Shasta, New Zealand, Montreal, Alabama, Mt San Jacinto, camping in a Chic-Fil-A parking lot (for 1 year of free food!), Honopu Ridge in Kauai, and my parent’s house.
Harbor Art just pulled off a pretty bitchin art show. Over 30 pieces from 22 San Diego artists exploring the theme Visions From A Perfected City. We partnered with Zagrodnik+Thomas Architects in North Park, who have a really unique and awesome gallery space. They even lent us the talented Mr Dan, gallery consultant extraordinaire. Heather, Matt & Erika did an outstanding job pulling everything together, from artist recruitment to webpage building to finding the gallery space to marketing to live music to refreshments and decor. We estimate somewhere around 250 people showed up, and by all accounts everyone had a great time. I had some cool conversations with the artists, two of which told me it was one of the best shows they had ever been a part of. Our tiny brains are already rolling with ideas for the next event. Hit me up if you want to be part of it! Check out harborart.org for pix and other cool stuff.
Mellie Mix, April 09!
A collection of tunes to make her ears happy.
Chariot, Page France. Let’s Stay Together, Al Green. How I Got Over, Mahalia Jackson. La Vie En Rose, Louis Armstrong. Blindsided, Bon Iver. In Spite Of All The Damage, The Be Good Tanyas. Way Back Home, Husband. Just a Lady, Kutiman. You Send Me (The very cool demo version), Sam Cooke. Little Martha, The Allman Brothers. J’irai La Voir Un Jour, Patty Griffin • Divine Romance, Phil Wickham. Falling Slowly, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova. C’mon C’mon, Jon Foreman. Jesus, Page France
iMix available for your iTunes browsing pleasure. A few of the songs didn’t show up. Noteably, Just A Lady by Kutiman, and C’mon C’mon by Jon Foreman.
