If I were a poet, a writer, or a singer songwriter and had never written anything but the following verse, I'd be satisfied.
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
My love for Bob Dylan's music hasn't let up since I first heard Subterranean Homesick Blues almost 20 years ago. Other more important things have gotten in the way of seeing him in concert (it's been a few years), and this past year there was a release of every concert he performed in 1966, 36 discs in total. In years past, I would have jumped at the chance to get this, but in reality, there is no way I would have the time or the desire to listen to the whole thing in it's entirety, so I opted for the single release of a show from the Royal Albert Hall, a Christmas present from my dear wife. It showed up a couple days after Christmas. When I popped it into the player, I figured I would take down the tree, why not one enjoyable activity cancel out a not so enjoyable activity. It didn't disappoint. Mr Tambourine to me was the highlight of each of these shows (I've heard several), he draws out every word like it's his last, and the harmonica solos sound like they come from another world. "Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free" must be the most beautiful thing ever written.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
What it Means-the Drive by Truckers
Philosophize It! Chemicalize it!-Kishi Bashi
Cold Irons Bound-Bob Dylan
Fill in the Blanks-Car Seat Headrest
22 over soooon-Bon Iver
Happy Saturday, friends...
andrew
Saturday, January 07, 2017
Sunday, December 18, 2016
"May you never forget what is worth remembering, or remember what is best forgotten."
Last weekend, we took a trip to Florida with our very dear friends. Much to Christie's chagrin, I don't much care for vacations. The transitions between leaving children and work behind to going someplace to have the time of your life is always stressful for me. I always wonder what burden I am creating in my absence. Also, I like to know what environment I'm going to be spending my time in. The vacation was a fine time, though, we saw some sights, and also did some relaxing. Everyone on the vacation liked to take naps. Naps stress me out too, so while they were doing that I did the thing that relaxes me, I walked as far as I could go, on the beach with my headphones on. I tried to walk the entire beach that was within walking distance of our condo over the course of two days, but I think I missed out on a mile or two. These walks weren't all that memorable in that not much really happened, I enjoyed the music I listened to (Chimes of Freedom by Bob Dylan, live in 2000 and Brilliant Mistake by Elvis Costello stand out), I enjoyed the scenery and as I found a shell or two and saw a snowman made out of sand, I missed my kids. That being said, I will always remember these walks, just as I remember the walk I took at Rosy Mound in Grand Haven the morning before Christie and I went on our first date.
On the last night of our trip, we went to this kitschy restaurant on the water where there was a Christmas boat parade going by. When we were seated for dinner, being the sentimental dork that I am, I asked what life would look like for all of us on December 10, 2017, and I hoped that we would remember that we sat at this restaurant (the food was okay) and watched the boats go by. I hoped that Christie and I will be able to maintain our sanity as we have another child. I hoped that our child would bring us as much joy as Lillian and Emmett. I hoped that our friends would have another child by then (if they want one). I hope for so many things, knowing full well that I don't always get what I hope for, but if there is one thing this year has taught me is that God gives me unexpected gifts that are greater than what I hoped for. Merry Christmas, friends.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Brilliant Mistake-Elvis Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfTZl3eRW_g
Christmas in the Room-Sufjan Stevens The surprise hit of the Christmas season!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd9F-xDIbgg
Good Christian Men Rejoice-Joseph Pensak
https://josephpensak.bandcamp.com/
In Dulci Jubilo-King's College
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24EMr1DKNE
Rise Up Shepherd-Nick Lowe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqz_s3RBsVc
On the last night of our trip, we went to this kitschy restaurant on the water where there was a Christmas boat parade going by. When we were seated for dinner, being the sentimental dork that I am, I asked what life would look like for all of us on December 10, 2017, and I hoped that we would remember that we sat at this restaurant (the food was okay) and watched the boats go by. I hoped that Christie and I will be able to maintain our sanity as we have another child. I hoped that our child would bring us as much joy as Lillian and Emmett. I hoped that our friends would have another child by then (if they want one). I hope for so many things, knowing full well that I don't always get what I hope for, but if there is one thing this year has taught me is that God gives me unexpected gifts that are greater than what I hoped for. Merry Christmas, friends.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Brilliant Mistake-Elvis Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfTZl3eRW_g
Christmas in the Room-Sufjan Stevens The surprise hit of the Christmas season!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd9F-xDIbgg
Good Christian Men Rejoice-Joseph Pensak
https://josephpensak.bandcamp.com/
In Dulci Jubilo-King's College
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24EMr1DKNE
Rise Up Shepherd-Nick Lowe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqz_s3RBsVc
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
God's Economy
I suppose you could say it's my job to make money. We put all kinds of other titles to it, but if I don't make money doing what I'm doing, no one will allow me to do it anymore. Being the son of church workers, this hasn't always come easy to me, but I've become moderately good at it. I just came back from our yearly convention, where people are praised for the amount of money they brought to the company. Don't get me wrong, I love the company I work for, but the whole thing always makes me uneasy for a variety of reasons but especially for the praise of money making.
The parable of the talents always puzzled me, mostly because I sympathized with the guy who was given one and buried it in the ground. In the grand scheme of things, I look at my little corner of the marketplace as equivalent to the guy with the one talent. I know the parable isn't talking solely about money, though I think it could be applied to money as well. I've never particularly enjoyed taking people's money, but again, it's the purpose of the enterprise. I don't say this to brag, because it's nothing really to brag about, especially in the company I work for. I think what particularly bothers me about the parable is not the money part of it, it's that I always want to come out even. I want to play it safe. I don't want to disappoint anyone. Even after hearing the parable, I want to take umbrage with God and argue with him about the point of His story. I want to stick up for the guy who hides the money. I want to praise the guy for not taking any chances.
This time last year, I had an idea to have a bible study group open to anyone who wanted to attend while out of town at our company meeting. I've never seen or heard of anyone doing such a thing and I thought it would be a great way to be a witness to a group of people who need to hear the word about Jesus Christ. I had a friend at the time who was willing to do it with me. The friend has since quit the company, and instead of acting alone, I did nothing. To be honest, the reason I did nothing was most likely a combination of laziness and fear of having people roll their eyes at the mere mention of it. I was ashamed to speak the words of Jesus in public.
I thought about Luke 12:48, to whom much is given, much will be expected. No other parts of scripture disturb me in the way this verse and the parable of the talents does. Luke 12:48 always gets me thinking about my parents. Not all have grown up hearing about Jesus every day like I have, how am I holding up my end of the bargain? What have I done with the gifts God has given me? Who has heard me spread the good news of Jesus Christ? Not enough people, I can assure you.
Our economy is based on the exchange of goods and wealth. As anyone who has bought or sold something will tell you if they are being honest with themselves, they want to come out on top of the transaction and make out better than the other guy. Capitalism is based on this principle. The degree to which coming out on top is acceptable is an ever changing target. I'm sure everyone knows the story of the guy who bought the patent for the aids drug and then increased the price 4000%. What if the guy only raised it 50%? Would he still be hated? Probably not. Markets dictate what is an acceptable amount to charge, but in the end, our economy is based on everyone looking out for themselves. This is how our economy works, good or bad. Greed is good. This is the best system mankind has come up with to date.
God's economy works in a completely different way. It's not capitalism, socialism or communism. God's love is given MOSTLY with nothing in return. God's blessings are given ALWAYS with nothing in return. God wants our love back, but not for himself, but rather because He knows that our love for Him is His greatest way of delivering his blessings to us and that a life in love with God is the best that anyone has to offer. There is no viable business model for giving away goods or services with nothing in return.
Instead of abiding by God's economy, we try to bring God into our economy. We try to do things to settle the score, to make things even. I am a person who doesn't like to owe people anything, so if they do something nice for me, I try to do something nice for them in return. If you ask anyone on the street if this makes sense, just about everyone would agree. If we're honest with ourselves, we try to do this with God. We do some good things to make it seem like we have earned God's love. But since God is a horrible businessman, we cannot pay him back, despite all our feeble attempts.
Even a tithe isn't God asking for some of His money back, it's a way of giving God our trust, which only benefits us. I'm sure there are no coincidences in the bible, so it's intentional that in the parable the one man is given 1/10 of the amount that the other man receives, and I believe this points to the fact that we will only be truly blessed when we give everything to God, meaning our lives, our time, our money and most importantly our hearts. God doesn't want us to try to settle the score, or to try to come out even, God wants to use me to multiply His love. This is incredibly scary, since, as I said before, I would rather be the guy who hides his talent in the sand. God wants something better, for me and you.
The parable of the talents always puzzled me, mostly because I sympathized with the guy who was given one and buried it in the ground. In the grand scheme of things, I look at my little corner of the marketplace as equivalent to the guy with the one talent. I know the parable isn't talking solely about money, though I think it could be applied to money as well. I've never particularly enjoyed taking people's money, but again, it's the purpose of the enterprise. I don't say this to brag, because it's nothing really to brag about, especially in the company I work for. I think what particularly bothers me about the parable is not the money part of it, it's that I always want to come out even. I want to play it safe. I don't want to disappoint anyone. Even after hearing the parable, I want to take umbrage with God and argue with him about the point of His story. I want to stick up for the guy who hides the money. I want to praise the guy for not taking any chances.
This time last year, I had an idea to have a bible study group open to anyone who wanted to attend while out of town at our company meeting. I've never seen or heard of anyone doing such a thing and I thought it would be a great way to be a witness to a group of people who need to hear the word about Jesus Christ. I had a friend at the time who was willing to do it with me. The friend has since quit the company, and instead of acting alone, I did nothing. To be honest, the reason I did nothing was most likely a combination of laziness and fear of having people roll their eyes at the mere mention of it. I was ashamed to speak the words of Jesus in public.
I thought about Luke 12:48, to whom much is given, much will be expected. No other parts of scripture disturb me in the way this verse and the parable of the talents does. Luke 12:48 always gets me thinking about my parents. Not all have grown up hearing about Jesus every day like I have, how am I holding up my end of the bargain? What have I done with the gifts God has given me? Who has heard me spread the good news of Jesus Christ? Not enough people, I can assure you.
Our economy is based on the exchange of goods and wealth. As anyone who has bought or sold something will tell you if they are being honest with themselves, they want to come out on top of the transaction and make out better than the other guy. Capitalism is based on this principle. The degree to which coming out on top is acceptable is an ever changing target. I'm sure everyone knows the story of the guy who bought the patent for the aids drug and then increased the price 4000%. What if the guy only raised it 50%? Would he still be hated? Probably not. Markets dictate what is an acceptable amount to charge, but in the end, our economy is based on everyone looking out for themselves. This is how our economy works, good or bad. Greed is good. This is the best system mankind has come up with to date.
God's economy works in a completely different way. It's not capitalism, socialism or communism. God's love is given MOSTLY with nothing in return. God's blessings are given ALWAYS with nothing in return. God wants our love back, but not for himself, but rather because He knows that our love for Him is His greatest way of delivering his blessings to us and that a life in love with God is the best that anyone has to offer. There is no viable business model for giving away goods or services with nothing in return.
Instead of abiding by God's economy, we try to bring God into our economy. We try to do things to settle the score, to make things even. I am a person who doesn't like to owe people anything, so if they do something nice for me, I try to do something nice for them in return. If you ask anyone on the street if this makes sense, just about everyone would agree. If we're honest with ourselves, we try to do this with God. We do some good things to make it seem like we have earned God's love. But since God is a horrible businessman, we cannot pay him back, despite all our feeble attempts.
Even a tithe isn't God asking for some of His money back, it's a way of giving God our trust, which only benefits us. I'm sure there are no coincidences in the bible, so it's intentional that in the parable the one man is given 1/10 of the amount that the other man receives, and I believe this points to the fact that we will only be truly blessed when we give everything to God, meaning our lives, our time, our money and most importantly our hearts. God doesn't want us to try to settle the score, or to try to come out even, God wants to use me to multiply His love. This is incredibly scary, since, as I said before, I would rather be the guy who hides his talent in the sand. God wants something better, for me and you.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
If You Never Got Sick
I got an early Christmas present today, courtesy of my children. Lillian came down with the fever last night, dampening some of our plans for the day. Other than the fever and feeling rather lethargic, she seems to be fine. Later this evening, Emmett came down with the same thing. We had a rare moment for a couple of hours with the two of them on me, without the usual squirming and getting up and down while we watched Polar Express. The two of them laid on my chest, head to head, every now and then Lillian would stroke Emmett's hair and tell him he'd be okay. Of course, I'd do anything to make them feel well again, especially being three days before Christmas, but this was an awesome reminder of how precious my children are and that nights like these don't happen too often. We always seem to be working towards something, or looking forward to something, especially this time of year. But for one night, I was content in enjoying the moment.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
If You Never Got Sick-The Wallflowers
I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In-Sufjan Stevens
Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming-Ella Fitzgerald
I'll Be Home For Christmas-Bing Crosby
Who Took the Mary Out of Christmas?-The Staples Singers
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
If You Never Got Sick-The Wallflowers
I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In-Sufjan Stevens
Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming-Ella Fitzgerald
I'll Be Home For Christmas-Bing Crosby
Who Took the Mary Out of Christmas?-The Staples Singers
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
The Christmas Blues
Christmas is my favorite time of year, especially now that I have small children. Lillian shares my excitement of getting a Christmas tree and decorating it, as well as putting up the lights outside. When she was a baby, I toyed with the idea of giving her the real scoop on Santa Clause. It never worked, my influence is too small, I guess. That aside, we really get into Christmas in the Schroeder household. We pull out the Christmas records and cd's (we even got Lilly a Taylor Swift Christmas cd for her birthday) and listen to them whenever possible. Christmas music is a lot like Christmas memories, every year I remember the good old ones, add new ones, try to forget the bad ones (even though you can't, insert the most annoying Christmas song you can think of) and let the unmemorable ones fade into oblivion.
My favorite Christmas music tends to lean towards the melancholy. I remember all those minor chord Advent songs sitting in church on Wednesday nights. They always sounded so sad and with every new candlelit on the Advent wreath seemed like another invitation to joy, but not so soon. There would be a few more weeks of reminders of how dark the world is before that big white candle is lit. I used to love looking through the hymnal, counting down the songs until the Christmas ones began. Than we would get to Joy to the World or Oh Come All Ye Faithful.
Many of the the great secular Christmas songs have a hint of this melancholy. Everybody always looks at "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as this nice sweet little song about having a nice Christmas, but at the heart of it is an intense sadness. "Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow, until then we'll have to muddle through somehow...next YEAR all our troubles will be miles away."
Thirty six years on, I think I finally understand this sadness that comes with Christmas. We're all in search of a perfection that we never achieve. We buy new cars that lose their value as soon as we drive it off the lot. We strive to keep the house clean and it's getting dirty the second we're done. We work to buy our children toys they are bored with the same day they get it. As the old John Prine song goes, "all the snow has turned to water, Christmas days have come & gone, broken toys and faded colors are all that's left to linger on".
We know all the right answers when it comes to Christmas, and we teach them to our children, only to forget them ourselves minutes after we teach them. We search for perfection with Christmas; we try to make memories to last a lifetime, only to be left with that same empty feeling that our idea of perfection can't be reached.
Which brings us to why we need Christmas in the first place. Jesus came to save us from our frailties, our guilt, our greed, our anger, our shame, our selfishness, you can feel free to pick yours. Christmas came as a light in a dark place, our perfection in an imperfect world. It brings with it a tension between our sadness our sin has created and the joy of knowing the one who came to save us from our sin. My hope for you this Christmas is that you remember all that needs to be remembered, forget all that needs to be forgotten, and most of all, that joy wins.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Lo! How a Rose E'er Blooming-Sufjan Stevens
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas-Bob Dylan
Of the Father's Love Begotten-Concordia College Fort Wayne
Good Christian, Men Rejoice-Kings Choir Cambridge
Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates-Sufjan Stevens
My favorite Christmas music tends to lean towards the melancholy. I remember all those minor chord Advent songs sitting in church on Wednesday nights. They always sounded so sad and with every new candlelit on the Advent wreath seemed like another invitation to joy, but not so soon. There would be a few more weeks of reminders of how dark the world is before that big white candle is lit. I used to love looking through the hymnal, counting down the songs until the Christmas ones began. Than we would get to Joy to the World or Oh Come All Ye Faithful.
Many of the the great secular Christmas songs have a hint of this melancholy. Everybody always looks at "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as this nice sweet little song about having a nice Christmas, but at the heart of it is an intense sadness. "Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow, until then we'll have to muddle through somehow...next YEAR all our troubles will be miles away."
Thirty six years on, I think I finally understand this sadness that comes with Christmas. We're all in search of a perfection that we never achieve. We buy new cars that lose their value as soon as we drive it off the lot. We strive to keep the house clean and it's getting dirty the second we're done. We work to buy our children toys they are bored with the same day they get it. As the old John Prine song goes, "all the snow has turned to water, Christmas days have come & gone, broken toys and faded colors are all that's left to linger on".
We know all the right answers when it comes to Christmas, and we teach them to our children, only to forget them ourselves minutes after we teach them. We search for perfection with Christmas; we try to make memories to last a lifetime, only to be left with that same empty feeling that our idea of perfection can't be reached.
Which brings us to why we need Christmas in the first place. Jesus came to save us from our frailties, our guilt, our greed, our anger, our shame, our selfishness, you can feel free to pick yours. Christmas came as a light in a dark place, our perfection in an imperfect world. It brings with it a tension between our sadness our sin has created and the joy of knowing the one who came to save us from our sin. My hope for you this Christmas is that you remember all that needs to be remembered, forget all that needs to be forgotten, and most of all, that joy wins.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Lo! How a Rose E'er Blooming-Sufjan Stevens
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas-Bob Dylan
Of the Father's Love Begotten-Concordia College Fort Wayne
Good Christian, Men Rejoice-Kings Choir Cambridge
Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates-Sufjan Stevens
Thursday, October 15, 2015
A couple of months ago on a Friday evening, I took Lillian on a "hike" to one of our favorite spots, "Rosy Mound". It goes through the woods up and over hills until you finally get to the shore of Lake Michigan. The payoff for Lillian is, at the end, she gets to swim. The payoff for me is walking hand in hand with my four year old daughter through one of the most beautiful places in our little town. After nine years of living in Grand Haven, I still haven't lost the childlike excitement of seeing the water. It even outweighs my adult like hatred of sand in my shoes. When we got to the water, we had the beach completely to ourselves, it was an evening I'll never forget, and it'll remind me of many nights like it we've had since then in 10 years or so.
The next night, after work, the whole family went for a walk in our neighborhood. It was another wonderful evening. We were almost home and Christie was making Lillian laugh really loud. We heard someone yelling from their driveway. I thought maybe the gentleman was working on his car and was upset that we were being too loud. It turns out, he had fallen and was asking for help. We helped him into his house and as we were helping him, he kept looking back at the stroller that Emmett was in and Lillian standing right next to it. We assured him that they were okay. His wife came out and talked about calling an ambulance and then called her son. She informed us that their granddaughter had died recently and he said maybe that is why he fell. We got him in the house and told him we'd pray for him. Christie wondered if maybe their granddaughter was the four year old who tragically died recently. It turns out it was. My heart sank. She was younger than Lillian.
I visited the gentleman the next day, he was feeling better, but started talking about his granddaughter. I told him I don't want to imagine what that might feel like.
When my son was a few months old during church, the thought popped into my head that someday I'd have to give him up. I'm not sure if that meant one day he'd leave our home to live a life of his own or something worse, but it was a good reminder that these children of mine are a gift from God entrusted to us for a short time. Those two suck the life out of me sometimes, especially the boy at the moment, he is overly fussy (unless he's going for a walk or sitting in the grass), he doesn't want to eat anything that isn't a cracker or a piece of fruit, and he is in to anything and everything that he's not supposed to. This post is three months in the making & as I speak, he's up earlier from his nap than expected. They suck the life out of me but without them life would seem like it weren't worth living. There a lot like the leaves on the trees in the yard at this time of the year, so beautiful, yet so much work. The boys awake & the leaves need raking. Happy Autumn, friends...
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Autumn Leaves-Nat King Cole
Everytime we Say Goodbye-John Coltrane
Autumn Serenade-Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane
Autumn-Joanna Newsom
Daddy's Little Pumpkin-John Prine
Take a drive in the country and listen to these songs and see if they don't put a smile on your face.
The next night, after work, the whole family went for a walk in our neighborhood. It was another wonderful evening. We were almost home and Christie was making Lillian laugh really loud. We heard someone yelling from their driveway. I thought maybe the gentleman was working on his car and was upset that we were being too loud. It turns out, he had fallen and was asking for help. We helped him into his house and as we were helping him, he kept looking back at the stroller that Emmett was in and Lillian standing right next to it. We assured him that they were okay. His wife came out and talked about calling an ambulance and then called her son. She informed us that their granddaughter had died recently and he said maybe that is why he fell. We got him in the house and told him we'd pray for him. Christie wondered if maybe their granddaughter was the four year old who tragically died recently. It turns out it was. My heart sank. She was younger than Lillian.
I visited the gentleman the next day, he was feeling better, but started talking about his granddaughter. I told him I don't want to imagine what that might feel like.
When my son was a few months old during church, the thought popped into my head that someday I'd have to give him up. I'm not sure if that meant one day he'd leave our home to live a life of his own or something worse, but it was a good reminder that these children of mine are a gift from God entrusted to us for a short time. Those two suck the life out of me sometimes, especially the boy at the moment, he is overly fussy (unless he's going for a walk or sitting in the grass), he doesn't want to eat anything that isn't a cracker or a piece of fruit, and he is in to anything and everything that he's not supposed to. This post is three months in the making & as I speak, he's up earlier from his nap than expected. They suck the life out of me but without them life would seem like it weren't worth living. There a lot like the leaves on the trees in the yard at this time of the year, so beautiful, yet so much work. The boys awake & the leaves need raking. Happy Autumn, friends...
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Autumn Leaves-Nat King Cole
Everytime we Say Goodbye-John Coltrane
Autumn Serenade-Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane
Autumn-Joanna Newsom
Daddy's Little Pumpkin-John Prine
Take a drive in the country and listen to these songs and see if they don't put a smile on your face.
Monday, December 22, 2014
My old man got me hooked on the Marty Stuart Show on Saturday nights on RFD TV. There's something about Saturday nights that make me want to be at home, doing what I always do on Saturday nights. Usually that involves listening to records, hanging out with the kids, then having a couple glasses of wine after we put the kids to bed. My dad is usually doing the same thing, so my mother tells me.
Watching the end credits last week, I noticed the song playing over the credits as sounding familiar, it sounded alot like Bob Dylan's "Things Have Chaged" from the movie Wonder Boys. It won an academy award, & is generally viewed as one of his greatest songs of the past 20 years. I googled Things Have Changed and Marty Stuart, and a song popped up called "Observations of a Crow", off his 1999 album The Pilgrim.
http://youtu.be/HcNxM1p9khI
After doing some more research, it came to my surprise (only because I thought I knew just about everyone who's ever played with Dylan) that Stuart sat in on a Bob Dylan show in September, 1999 in Nashville. The late, great writer Paul Williams writes this about the performance:
From Paul Williams: "I notice there's an extra person on stage playing mandolin. I take a good look through my binoculars: Marty Stuart. I've always wanted to see Bob with a real bluegrass band and throwing Marty into the mix transformed Bob's band into just that. Bob was talking to Marty in between songs all night long, as much as I've ever seen him verbally communicate with anyone on stage.
" ‘Tangled Up In Blue' finished off the acoustic set and as many times as I've heard this song, I don't know if I've ever heard it quite so beautifully rendered. Bob was genuinely inspired by Marty's presence and he pulled out his harp and played it better than I've heard him play it in a long, long time. He and Marty were standing right next to each other, trading off and it was quite a moment. Marty's mandolin added so much to the sound of the band, making them sound even tighter and more rhythmic than usual.
"This was the first time I'd seen anyone sit in the while night and, as great as those other folks were, this was definitely the finest overall contribution I've ever seen anyone make in a walk-on role. It was night and day seeing Bob with Paul Simon and then with Marty Stuart. It was obvious whose company Bob preferred, which is not to put down Simon, who the large crowd seemed to enjoy, as it is to say how much he seemed to immensely enjoy Marty's presence on stage. I know I did. I would love to see him join the band or at least make the trip down to Memphis on Saturday. All in all, I'd have to say that this was quite possibly the best Dylan concert I've ever seen and I've seen some great ones. Last night was pure magic."
Bob Dylan is certainly no stranger to country music, he's been playing Hank Williams and other more obscure country songs since he's been putting music to tape. His friendship with Johnny Cash has lasted since the early '60s, and he's played with Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatts, and Charlie Daniels. His 1969 album "Nashville Skyline" started what was known as "Country Rock". In 1999, though, Dylan's concerts began to feature a nightly bluegrass cover to open the show, as well as many covers of Johnny Cash songs, & he began sporting country western suits every night. Some of his moves while playing guitar were reminiscent of ones you might see on The Marty Stuart every Saturday night. Who knew RFD TV was so influential?
http://youtu.be/6PPxVYuO8Ic
http://youtu.be/L9EKqQWPjyo
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Blue Moon of Kentucky-The Stanley Brothers
Not Fade Away-Buddy Holly
Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates-Sufjan Stevens
A Good Year for the Roses-George Jones
If We Make it Through December-Merle Haggard
Happy Monday, friends...
Watching the end credits last week, I noticed the song playing over the credits as sounding familiar, it sounded alot like Bob Dylan's "Things Have Chaged" from the movie Wonder Boys. It won an academy award, & is generally viewed as one of his greatest songs of the past 20 years. I googled Things Have Changed and Marty Stuart, and a song popped up called "Observations of a Crow", off his 1999 album The Pilgrim.
http://youtu.be/HcNxM1p9khI
After doing some more research, it came to my surprise (only because I thought I knew just about everyone who's ever played with Dylan) that Stuart sat in on a Bob Dylan show in September, 1999 in Nashville. The late, great writer Paul Williams writes this about the performance:
From Paul Williams: "I notice there's an extra person on stage playing mandolin. I take a good look through my binoculars: Marty Stuart. I've always wanted to see Bob with a real bluegrass band and throwing Marty into the mix transformed Bob's band into just that. Bob was talking to Marty in between songs all night long, as much as I've ever seen him verbally communicate with anyone on stage.
" ‘Tangled Up In Blue' finished off the acoustic set and as many times as I've heard this song, I don't know if I've ever heard it quite so beautifully rendered. Bob was genuinely inspired by Marty's presence and he pulled out his harp and played it better than I've heard him play it in a long, long time. He and Marty were standing right next to each other, trading off and it was quite a moment. Marty's mandolin added so much to the sound of the band, making them sound even tighter and more rhythmic than usual.
"This was the first time I'd seen anyone sit in the while night and, as great as those other folks were, this was definitely the finest overall contribution I've ever seen anyone make in a walk-on role. It was night and day seeing Bob with Paul Simon and then with Marty Stuart. It was obvious whose company Bob preferred, which is not to put down Simon, who the large crowd seemed to enjoy, as it is to say how much he seemed to immensely enjoy Marty's presence on stage. I know I did. I would love to see him join the band or at least make the trip down to Memphis on Saturday. All in all, I'd have to say that this was quite possibly the best Dylan concert I've ever seen and I've seen some great ones. Last night was pure magic."
Bob Dylan is certainly no stranger to country music, he's been playing Hank Williams and other more obscure country songs since he's been putting music to tape. His friendship with Johnny Cash has lasted since the early '60s, and he's played with Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatts, and Charlie Daniels. His 1969 album "Nashville Skyline" started what was known as "Country Rock". In 1999, though, Dylan's concerts began to feature a nightly bluegrass cover to open the show, as well as many covers of Johnny Cash songs, & he began sporting country western suits every night. Some of his moves while playing guitar were reminiscent of ones you might see on The Marty Stuart every Saturday night. Who knew RFD TV was so influential?
http://youtu.be/6PPxVYuO8Ic
http://youtu.be/L9EKqQWPjyo
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Blue Moon of Kentucky-The Stanley Brothers
Not Fade Away-Buddy Holly
Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates-Sufjan Stevens
A Good Year for the Roses-George Jones
If We Make it Through December-Merle Haggard
Happy Monday, friends...
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Any day now I'll be a father again. Before we had Lillian, I always pictured myself having a son. Now I have a hard time imagining myself being a father of a son. I wonder what it will be like if he's really into football or hunting or stuff I know little about. I'm not sure how well a growing young man will do around here being interested in folk music, jazz, poetry or politics. I really appreciate my ol' man's approach to our interests as kids. He was never overbearing, he didn't tell me I was doing something wrong, he let me figure things out on my own, but he put the time in to play with me & help me. He didn't yell from the stands, & he never questioned my coaches.
I'll never forget one time after a basketball game, he told me I was the most talented player on the team. I always thought that strange, when I was in 8th grade & especially now, because I clearly wasn't the most talented player on the team. I wasn't sure if he was trying to boost my self esteem, or what he was doing, but it was clearly uncharacteristic of him to do any kind of ranking of abilities. I appreciated the gesture, though.
Maybe he'll be athletic and get good grades like his mother. I hope I can teach him to stand up for what is right. I hope he has a thirst for learning. My ol' man never gave me any speeches about how a real man acts, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. I think I got the message from his actions, though, that a true measure of a man isn't how much money he makes or how far he can hit a golf ball, but rather how much he shows others the love of Jesus.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Moody's Mood for Love-King Pleasure
Series of Dreams-Bob Dylan
Vito's Ordination Song-Sufjan Stevens
Someday Sparrow-Laura Cantrell
Different Days-Jason Isbell
Happy Sunday, friends.
andrew
Sunday, December 08, 2013
You & me at the edge of the world, the year in music 2013
I find music criticism tiresome and fascinating at the same time. Very few album or concert reviews hold my interest for very long, most are incredibly lazy and rely on preconceived notions on the artist they are reviewing, or even worse, other reviews they've already read. When Bob Dylan's "Another Self Portrait" came out this year, every review mentioned how the album this collection's outtakes come from were panned by the press and include Greil Marcus' review of "Self Portrait" where he begins with "what is this sh*t?". Many failed to even talk about the songs included on the album.
I used to have high dreams of being a rock critic, but soon realized I didn't have the avenues to crack into this field, and it also seemed like a hard way to make a living. As music is my favorite subject, I still love reading about it almost as much as I love listening to it, even though very few critics hold my interest for very long. My ol' pal Kevin Davis ( http://kevinpauldavis.blogspot.com/) is one of the few good ones.
As I don't have as much time to dedicate to my hobby as I used to, I prefer to look at the music I listen to as benchmarks of my life. If you can't relate the music you listen to to your own experience, you might as well listen to w-lite or the light rock station of your choice. When I think of "Another Self Portrait" I think of the chills I got listening to the new version of "Sign on the Window", a song I've always loved, but now it has a beautiful piano intro to the tune of "Danny Boy" and the rest of the song has a string arrangement that gave me chills listening to it for the first time while mowing the lawn. It's hard to get chills mowing the lawn. There are lots of gems on this collection, and it's true that the albums that these outtakes come from are far inferior to this collection, it makes me wonder how much different the arc of his career would've been if these songs had been released, but then again, I wouldn't be appreciating them for what they are now, little treasures found in an attic to be enjoyed later. What I'll remember most about this album comes from my daughter. One day, we're sitting on the couch & my daughter starts singing, "Annie's going to sing her song called take me back again!". Now, I know what the three of you who read this blog are thinking, that I sit around & teach my daughter Bob Dylan songs all day. That's really not the case, at least not this time. I was extremely proud. My pride however has led to me having to listen to that song ad nauseum, everytime we get in the car she always wants to hear the "Annie song".
Speaking of Bob Dylan, I saw him in concert once again in 2013 at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo. One of the most exciting things about seeing Dylan in concert is the ever changing setlists, you never know what he's going to play on a given night. That's gone now, he plays the same set every night. The trade-off is that he puts in a more focused, consistent performance. On this night, he performed one of the best versions of Beyond Here Lies Nothing that I've heard, he had the crowd whipped up into a frenzy that I've never witnessed at a Dylan concert. I also got to hear songs from "Tempest" for the first time, including Pay in Blood, where he changes the lyric to say "my conscience is clear, how about you?", and a jawdropping performance of "What Good Am I?".
My favorite musical moment of 2013 happened at the Ladies' Literary Club in Grand Rapids (it's not really a ladies' literary club) where we saw Kishi Bashi. Some performers have something about them that you can't explain, their music has a way of getting under your skin. I don't understand his lyrics in the least bit (many of them are in Japanese). His music is pure joy. I was there with my best concert going pal, and we sat towards the back (there's not a bad seat in the house and it was a sold out show). On the steps leading up to the theater, a lady rocked her newborn child so that they could listen to the show for free. It made me wish I lived in the neighborhood, so I could walk with Lilly down to these steps to listen to whatever show was going on. It's a good reminder that music should hang in the air for anyone to enjoy, whether they have a ticket or not. It also made me wonder what happens if you were to unexpectedly drop the average person who isn't an avid music searcher like my friend & myself into the ladies literary club when Kishi Bashi is in the midst of one of these crazy performances what they would think of it. So this is an open invitation to the three or four readers of this blog, the next time Kishi Bashi comes to Grand Rapids, I'd love to buy anyone who wants to go a ticket.
This is totally unrelated to music, but that song reminds me of when we went to Traverse City & I took Lillian to Old Mission Peninsula & told her we were going to the edge of the world.
I believe having my daughter leaves me with not as much time for my favorite hobby of seeing live music and listening to new music, but whenever I do see a concert my mind usually wanders towards what she's doing and what she would think if she were at the concert with me and thinking of her usually makes me enjoy the concert even more. Last weekend, we attended a concert at church of a choir from South Africa called the Key of Hope. Lillian loved it & wants to listen to it every time she gets in the car now. I love that she loves it.
iYo Yo Yo, From Jamaica, South Africa, With Love from Stephen McGee Films on Vimeo.
Here's hoping you had a great music year, too.
andrew
I used to have high dreams of being a rock critic, but soon realized I didn't have the avenues to crack into this field, and it also seemed like a hard way to make a living. As music is my favorite subject, I still love reading about it almost as much as I love listening to it, even though very few critics hold my interest for very long. My ol' pal Kevin Davis ( http://kevinpauldavis.blogspot.com/) is one of the few good ones.
As I don't have as much time to dedicate to my hobby as I used to, I prefer to look at the music I listen to as benchmarks of my life. If you can't relate the music you listen to to your own experience, you might as well listen to w-lite or the light rock station of your choice. When I think of "Another Self Portrait" I think of the chills I got listening to the new version of "Sign on the Window", a song I've always loved, but now it has a beautiful piano intro to the tune of "Danny Boy" and the rest of the song has a string arrangement that gave me chills listening to it for the first time while mowing the lawn. It's hard to get chills mowing the lawn. There are lots of gems on this collection, and it's true that the albums that these outtakes come from are far inferior to this collection, it makes me wonder how much different the arc of his career would've been if these songs had been released, but then again, I wouldn't be appreciating them for what they are now, little treasures found in an attic to be enjoyed later. What I'll remember most about this album comes from my daughter. One day, we're sitting on the couch & my daughter starts singing, "Annie's going to sing her song called take me back again!". Now, I know what the three of you who read this blog are thinking, that I sit around & teach my daughter Bob Dylan songs all day. That's really not the case, at least not this time. I was extremely proud. My pride however has led to me having to listen to that song ad nauseum, everytime we get in the car she always wants to hear the "Annie song".
Speaking of Bob Dylan, I saw him in concert once again in 2013 at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo. One of the most exciting things about seeing Dylan in concert is the ever changing setlists, you never know what he's going to play on a given night. That's gone now, he plays the same set every night. The trade-off is that he puts in a more focused, consistent performance. On this night, he performed one of the best versions of Beyond Here Lies Nothing that I've heard, he had the crowd whipped up into a frenzy that I've never witnessed at a Dylan concert. I also got to hear songs from "Tempest" for the first time, including Pay in Blood, where he changes the lyric to say "my conscience is clear, how about you?", and a jawdropping performance of "What Good Am I?".
My favorite musical moment of 2013 happened at the Ladies' Literary Club in Grand Rapids (it's not really a ladies' literary club) where we saw Kishi Bashi. Some performers have something about them that you can't explain, their music has a way of getting under your skin. I don't understand his lyrics in the least bit (many of them are in Japanese). His music is pure joy. I was there with my best concert going pal, and we sat towards the back (there's not a bad seat in the house and it was a sold out show). On the steps leading up to the theater, a lady rocked her newborn child so that they could listen to the show for free. It made me wish I lived in the neighborhood, so I could walk with Lilly down to these steps to listen to whatever show was going on. It's a good reminder that music should hang in the air for anyone to enjoy, whether they have a ticket or not. It also made me wonder what happens if you were to unexpectedly drop the average person who isn't an avid music searcher like my friend & myself into the ladies literary club when Kishi Bashi is in the midst of one of these crazy performances what they would think of it. So this is an open invitation to the three or four readers of this blog, the next time Kishi Bashi comes to Grand Rapids, I'd love to buy anyone who wants to go a ticket.
This is totally unrelated to music, but that song reminds me of when we went to Traverse City & I took Lillian to Old Mission Peninsula & told her we were going to the edge of the world.
iYo Yo Yo, From Jamaica, South Africa, With Love from Stephen McGee Films on Vimeo.
Here's hoping you had a great music year, too.
andrew
Saturday, November 09, 2013
Storm Windows
I raked the lawn today & put all the patio furniture in the garage for the winter. While doing so, I couldn't help but regret how few times we ate dinner at the table on the deck or even sat there. I think this is my new favorite poem. When we are young, we take solace in the fact that certain things will last forever, when we are old we mourn the fact that nothing lasts forever.
The Chairs That No One Sits In
You see them on porches and on lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple
who might sit there and look out
at the water or the big shade trees.
The trouble is you never see anyone
sitting in these forlorn chairs
though at one time it must have seemed
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.
Sometimes there is a little table
between the chairs where no one
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.
It might be none of my business,
but it might be a good idea one day
for everyone who placed those vacant chairs
on a veranda or a dock to sit down in them
for the sake of remembering
whatever it was they thought deserved
to be viewed from two chairs
side by side with a table in between.
The clouds are high and massive that day.
The woman looks up from her book.
The man takes a sip of his drink.
Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking,
the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird
then another, cries of joy or warning—
it passes the time to wonder which.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
The Heart of a Saturday Night-Tom Waits
Storm Windows-John Prine
Josh Mcbride-The Head & the Heart
Hang Me Oh Hang Me-Deep Dark Woods
Dink's Song-Bob Dylan
Happy Saturday, friends...
andrew
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Schroeder Family History
This mantle is made out of a barn beam that came out of a barn that is believed to be built in the late 1800s or the early 1900s by a gentleman named John East in a town called Britton, Michigan. Here's the story of how it got here.
This house was built in 2000 or 2001. The Schroeders (Andrew, Christie & Lillian) purchased this home in 2012. They had moved here from a condo on 1079 Moreland street that Andrew had bought when he moved to Grand Haven in 2006. He met Christie in 2006 at a dart tournament at the Kirby Grill in downtown Grand Haven. Andrew & his friends put on the dart tournament upstairs, & one of his friend's girlfriend decided it would be best to bring Christie along to try to set them up. Christie says that Andrew barely said anything to her all night long, but that is his way. They soon fell in love and were married on May 3, 2008 at St Johns Lutheran Church on Taylor Street in Grand Haven. Their honeymoon was in Maui, Hawaii.
Christie's grandparents are Arnold & Irene Potter & Maurice & Grace Racey. Arnold & Irene lived in Wyoming & Maurice & Grace lived in Fremont. Arnold worked for a bread company & Irene was a stay at home mom. Maurice worked for Model Coverall & was a prisoner of war in the Korean war. Grace worked for Russ' Restaurant. All of them live in the greater Grand Rapids area.
Christie's parents were Calvin & Marlene Racey. Cal is a manager of a Russ' restaurant in Grandville & Marlene works for an eye doctor's office in Grandville. They were married at age 18, & had three children, Dan, Dawn & Christie. Dan owns his own business, Row 2 tickets & is married to Kim. They have three children, Sydney, Nora & Jacob. Dawn also works for Row 2 Tickets & is married to Greg (Mcqueen). They have two children, Grady & Peyton. Cal & Marlene are devoted grandparents who would do anything for their children or grandchildren. Cal is an avid sports fan, a golfer, & baseball card collector. Marlene loves to travel, shop & spend time with her grandchildren.
Christie was born on March, 31 1984, the youngest in her family. She was an excellent student, she has a beautiful singing voice & was an All State softball player in high school (something her father is very proud to point out). She was offered scholarships to play softball in college, but turned them down. She attended Central Michigan University, but later transferred to Grand Valley, where she lived in various apartments & with her parents in Jenison. She studied social work. She eventually got her Master's Degree & now works for Davita Dialysis. She helps people with various services & diagnoses them. She loves her job & is very good at it. She is always concerned with people's well being, at work & outside of work. She is a devoted wife & mother. She loves to shop with her mother, play softball, travel & spend time with her family. She's traveled around the world, including Hawaii &Australia. She is the love of her husband's life.
Andrew's grandparents were Earl & Doris Saville & Clarence & Rosemary Schroeder. Earl was a chemist, working for various companies including the Glidden Paint Company. He was one of the chemists who worked on one of the first exterior latex paints. Doris did various jobs & was a stay at home mother. They lived in Ohio until moving to Tecumseh, Michigan in the early 1980s. Earl passed away in February, 2007. Doris lives in Saline currently, & is 91 years old. Clarence & Rosemary lived on Ridge Rd in Britton Michigan. They moved there in 1946 when they were married. Clarence was a farmer & a school bus driver. Rosemary was a schoolteacher. Rosemary passed away in October, 2000 at her home on the Ridge Rd. Clarence passed away in May of 2013.
Andrew's parents are Thomas & Pamela Schroeder. Tom is a pastor at Christ our King in Saline & Pam is a schoolteacher in Ann Arbor. They met at Concordia College in Ann Arbor, & began dating while on a choir tour in Europe. They resided briefly in New York City, but spent the majority of their lives in Southeast Michigan. They lived in Waltz, Saline & Milan, where they currently live. They had three children, Heidi, Emily & Andrew. Tom always spent lots of time at his father's farm in Britton & would bring Andrew there many Saturdays to work when he was a child. Pam loves everything musical, she plays in the church praise team & directed choir. Heidi lives in downtown Saline with her husband Scott & her children Quinn, Avery & Kaleigh. Emily lives on the outskirts of Saline with her husband Bob & her daughters Ella, Sophia & Lucy. Heidi is a photographer & an interior decorator & Emily is a stay at home mom after working for Consumer's Energy.
Andrew was born on July 3, 1979. He moved to the Grand Rapids area in 1997 to attend Grand Valley State University & got a job working with the Sherwin Williams Company. He graduated in 2001 with a degree in English. He then took another job with the Sherwin Williams Company, where he still works, now as a store manager in Holland. He is proud of the fact that his first paying job was painting the "Cow Palace", an old Britton building that was moved to the Schroeder farm. He is also proud of the fact that his Grandpa Earl Saville also worked in paint. He loves his family & his heritage, even though he moved hours away to Grand Haven. He loves to listen to & collect records, as well as attend concerts. He also loves sitting on his front porch & is an avid Detroit Tigers fan (the Tigers are beginning the American League Division Championship series today against the Boston Red Sox).
Lillian Isabelle was born on November 19 at Spectrum Hospital in Grand Haven. Andrew & Christie tried to have a baby for a long, & for a while were afraid that they weren't able to have children, so when Christie got pregnant with Lillian, she was a real blessing & continues to be to this day. She has red hair, & inquisitive blue eyes, she loves to sing & has a wonderful imagination. She is also very smart & very polite, although sometimes she has a defiant streak not uncommon in redheads. Her favorite things to do are jump on the trampoline, go to the zoo, play with her "black game (mom & dad's ipad)" & torture Winston the dog.
Andrew & Christie are planning on having a second child, if it's a boy they are going to name him ______ & they are undecided on the name if it's a girl. Lillian goes back & forth on whether she wants a brother or sister. The Schroeders attend Hope Reformed Church, right down the street from here. They believe that there are no coincidences in life, & that all of the seemingly inconsequential decisions that led them to this time & place with each other are all part of God's plan.
Today, October 12, 2013, the fireplace in this house is getting a new mantle & new brick. We hope you've enjoyed it. The mantle was taken from Opa's barn, which was owned by John East as mentioned above. Clarence Schroeder moved the barn to their property on the Ridge in 1946, the year they were married. This year, Tom Schroeder took one of the beams from the barn, & with the help of his wife, Pam Schroeder, they fashioned it into this mantle.
The Schroeder's family bible verses are two sides of the same coin. The first one is is Philippians 4:13 "I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." Christie wrote this bible verse on the floor of Hope Reformed Church when it was remodeled in 2013. The second verse is from 2 Corinthians 12:9 "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.'". We are only as strong as the God we rely on, & that God is stronger than any brick, oak or anything found on this earth, & as Tom Schroeder would say, "His love will never rot, rust or fade away".
This house was built in 2000 or 2001. The Schroeders (Andrew, Christie & Lillian) purchased this home in 2012. They had moved here from a condo on 1079 Moreland street that Andrew had bought when he moved to Grand Haven in 2006. He met Christie in 2006 at a dart tournament at the Kirby Grill in downtown Grand Haven. Andrew & his friends put on the dart tournament upstairs, & one of his friend's girlfriend decided it would be best to bring Christie along to try to set them up. Christie says that Andrew barely said anything to her all night long, but that is his way. They soon fell in love and were married on May 3, 2008 at St Johns Lutheran Church on Taylor Street in Grand Haven. Their honeymoon was in Maui, Hawaii.
Christie's grandparents are Arnold & Irene Potter & Maurice & Grace Racey. Arnold & Irene lived in Wyoming & Maurice & Grace lived in Fremont. Arnold worked for a bread company & Irene was a stay at home mom. Maurice worked for Model Coverall & was a prisoner of war in the Korean war. Grace worked for Russ' Restaurant. All of them live in the greater Grand Rapids area.
Christie's parents were Calvin & Marlene Racey. Cal is a manager of a Russ' restaurant in Grandville & Marlene works for an eye doctor's office in Grandville. They were married at age 18, & had three children, Dan, Dawn & Christie. Dan owns his own business, Row 2 tickets & is married to Kim. They have three children, Sydney, Nora & Jacob. Dawn also works for Row 2 Tickets & is married to Greg (Mcqueen). They have two children, Grady & Peyton. Cal & Marlene are devoted grandparents who would do anything for their children or grandchildren. Cal is an avid sports fan, a golfer, & baseball card collector. Marlene loves to travel, shop & spend time with her grandchildren.
Christie was born on March, 31 1984, the youngest in her family. She was an excellent student, she has a beautiful singing voice & was an All State softball player in high school (something her father is very proud to point out). She was offered scholarships to play softball in college, but turned them down. She attended Central Michigan University, but later transferred to Grand Valley, where she lived in various apartments & with her parents in Jenison. She studied social work. She eventually got her Master's Degree & now works for Davita Dialysis. She helps people with various services & diagnoses them. She loves her job & is very good at it. She is always concerned with people's well being, at work & outside of work. She is a devoted wife & mother. She loves to shop with her mother, play softball, travel & spend time with her family. She's traveled around the world, including Hawaii &Australia. She is the love of her husband's life.
Andrew's grandparents were Earl & Doris Saville & Clarence & Rosemary Schroeder. Earl was a chemist, working for various companies including the Glidden Paint Company. He was one of the chemists who worked on one of the first exterior latex paints. Doris did various jobs & was a stay at home mother. They lived in Ohio until moving to Tecumseh, Michigan in the early 1980s. Earl passed away in February, 2007. Doris lives in Saline currently, & is 91 years old. Clarence & Rosemary lived on Ridge Rd in Britton Michigan. They moved there in 1946 when they were married. Clarence was a farmer & a school bus driver. Rosemary was a schoolteacher. Rosemary passed away in October, 2000 at her home on the Ridge Rd. Clarence passed away in May of 2013.
Andrew's parents are Thomas & Pamela Schroeder. Tom is a pastor at Christ our King in Saline & Pam is a schoolteacher in Ann Arbor. They met at Concordia College in Ann Arbor, & began dating while on a choir tour in Europe. They resided briefly in New York City, but spent the majority of their lives in Southeast Michigan. They lived in Waltz, Saline & Milan, where they currently live. They had three children, Heidi, Emily & Andrew. Tom always spent lots of time at his father's farm in Britton & would bring Andrew there many Saturdays to work when he was a child. Pam loves everything musical, she plays in the church praise team & directed choir. Heidi lives in downtown Saline with her husband Scott & her children Quinn, Avery & Kaleigh. Emily lives on the outskirts of Saline with her husband Bob & her daughters Ella, Sophia & Lucy. Heidi is a photographer & an interior decorator & Emily is a stay at home mom after working for Consumer's Energy.
Andrew was born on July 3, 1979. He moved to the Grand Rapids area in 1997 to attend Grand Valley State University & got a job working with the Sherwin Williams Company. He graduated in 2001 with a degree in English. He then took another job with the Sherwin Williams Company, where he still works, now as a store manager in Holland. He is proud of the fact that his first paying job was painting the "Cow Palace", an old Britton building that was moved to the Schroeder farm. He is also proud of the fact that his Grandpa Earl Saville also worked in paint. He loves his family & his heritage, even though he moved hours away to Grand Haven. He loves to listen to & collect records, as well as attend concerts. He also loves sitting on his front porch & is an avid Detroit Tigers fan (the Tigers are beginning the American League Division Championship series today against the Boston Red Sox).
Lillian Isabelle was born on November 19 at Spectrum Hospital in Grand Haven. Andrew & Christie tried to have a baby for a long, & for a while were afraid that they weren't able to have children, so when Christie got pregnant with Lillian, she was a real blessing & continues to be to this day. She has red hair, & inquisitive blue eyes, she loves to sing & has a wonderful imagination. She is also very smart & very polite, although sometimes she has a defiant streak not uncommon in redheads. Her favorite things to do are jump on the trampoline, go to the zoo, play with her "black game (mom & dad's ipad)" & torture Winston the dog.
Andrew & Christie are planning on having a second child, if it's a boy they are going to name him ______ & they are undecided on the name if it's a girl. Lillian goes back & forth on whether she wants a brother or sister. The Schroeders attend Hope Reformed Church, right down the street from here. They believe that there are no coincidences in life, & that all of the seemingly inconsequential decisions that led them to this time & place with each other are all part of God's plan.
Today, October 12, 2013, the fireplace in this house is getting a new mantle & new brick. We hope you've enjoyed it. The mantle was taken from Opa's barn, which was owned by John East as mentioned above. Clarence Schroeder moved the barn to their property on the Ridge in 1946, the year they were married. This year, Tom Schroeder took one of the beams from the barn, & with the help of his wife, Pam Schroeder, they fashioned it into this mantle.
The Schroeder's family bible verses are two sides of the same coin. The first one is is Philippians 4:13 "I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." Christie wrote this bible verse on the floor of Hope Reformed Church when it was remodeled in 2013. The second verse is from 2 Corinthians 12:9 "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.'". We are only as strong as the God we rely on, & that God is stronger than any brick, oak or anything found on this earth, & as Tom Schroeder would say, "His love will never rot, rust or fade away".
Friday, August 16, 2013
I'm hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan...
I met my beautiful wife, Christie while I lived there. After we had been married for a year or so, we got a knock on the door, it was our neighbors from a couple of doors down. They just dropped in to chat, not being the most social people on the planet, we were kind of caught off guard. They seemed like good people & we really enjoyed their company, & the husband had really good taste in music. Maybe they enjoyed our company, too, or they were simply being nice but they invited us over for dinner & we've been friends ever since. They are truly a couple of the most beautiful, selfless people you will ever meet.
Around the same time we were looking for a new church. They invited us to visit theirs, not in that creepy way that makes you feel like you are being sold a vacuum cleaner. We loved it & felt very welcome, but, being of a slightly different denominational persuasion, I was hesitant to become members of their church. At the same time, we were struggling to get pregnant & there were a lot of messages at church about adoption, & we struggled with the idea that we might not ever be able to have children. Around the time we decided to finally become members at Hope, we found out that Christie was pregnant.
I couldn't see it at the time, but I've come to know that God had a hand in all of this. I've never been more certain of anything in my life that if we had not met our neighbors & not went to church at Hope we wouldn't have Lillian. I found out later that our friends we met at the condo prayed for us long before we ever became friends. God worked through their prayers & through their friendship & our lives have been forever changed. Lillian is truly a gift from God. Being her father makes me a better man.
I don't like to owe anybody anything, be it money or favors. It's incredibly humbling for me to know that I will never be able to repay my friends for what they've done for me & my family. They truly followed Christ's example. Christ's death on the cross & resurrection didn't fit our human model of transactional exchanges. We exchange gifts, we pay for services rendered. God gave us a gift we can't pay for, no matter how hard we try. I always wonder if humans are ever possible of a selfless act in this model, but I now know it's possible.
We live in a house right down the street from the church & we walk there when the weather's nice. It's easy now to piece together all the seemingly unimportant decisions & moments in life that lead to the moment I find myself in, & I realized that they are not without purpose. I don't miss living at our old condo. We drive by it every three months or so, often when we are going out to dinner with our friends we met there. When we moved out, we left a note for the people who bought it, inviting them to Hope & we prayed for them & will continue to do so.
Happy Friday, friends.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Every Grain of Sand-Bob Dylan
Happiness-Jonsi & Alex
You Are Not Alone-Mavis Staples
Walk Like a Giant-Neil Young
Vito's Ordination Song-Sufjan Stevens
Saturday, July 06, 2013
Looking for the heart of a Saturday night
I remember going to bed at night & hearing the sound of Mash & Nightcourt on the television set. I don't know why I particularly remember those songs, because I'm quite certain my parents didn't watch those television shows every night. It was always quite comforting to hear that in the background as I went to bed. The times I remember when my parents would allow me to watch even a few minutes of Nightcourt, I enjoyed it, even if the jokes were well over my head.
As a dad, I'm quite conscious of what Lillian might remember as she grows up. I'm quite certain it will be something completely different from what I may want her to remember. Christie says she doesn't remember anything before the age of 7, & that makes me sad to think about. If you asked my mother, I'm sure she doesn't watching Nightcourt all that often. There are all kinds of songs that sound to me like Saturday night (listed below) but I'm quite certain they won't mean a thing to Lillian like they do to me, & that's probably for the best.
Saturday night is fast becoming my favorite night of the week. It usually works out that we'll go out to dinner on Friday night & stay home on Saturdays, that's just the way I like it. We had an excellent meal on the deck. Lillian & I went for a walk after dinner to the bridge overlooking both the Pottawatomie Bayou. From the bridge we could see a couple of parties happening at houses on the bayou. One of the parties had one of those inflatable bouncing things that held lots of kids. Lillian saw this & asked if she could play in it & I had to explain to her that it was for a party that we weren't invited to, & this wasn't quite the blow to her 2 1/2 year old heart that I feared it might be. I thought to myself that if I were at that party with all that good food, toys & waterfront property & saw somebody like me walking down the street, I'd be jealous of that guy & wishing I weren't at the party. That's probably kind of sad, too. We walked home, had popsicles on the porch, read a few books & it was off to bed for her, & the night was a little slice of heaven for me. I hope in someway, if not this night, but nights like this one, are the ones that form in her mind that she remembers fondly.
Tom Waits-The Heart of a Saturday Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7UHd7NVegE
John Prine-A Good Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVWaYxnNiW8
Dawn Mccarthy & Bonnie "Prince" Billy-Poems, Prayers & Promises (John Denver Cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSsJUgiuyjE
John Prine-Donald & Lydia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_k9mslBS0A
John Prine-Blue Umbrella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQncxrf1fWY
Happy Saturday, friends.
andrew
As a dad, I'm quite conscious of what Lillian might remember as she grows up. I'm quite certain it will be something completely different from what I may want her to remember. Christie says she doesn't remember anything before the age of 7, & that makes me sad to think about. If you asked my mother, I'm sure she doesn't watching Nightcourt all that often. There are all kinds of songs that sound to me like Saturday night (listed below) but I'm quite certain they won't mean a thing to Lillian like they do to me, & that's probably for the best.
Saturday night is fast becoming my favorite night of the week. It usually works out that we'll go out to dinner on Friday night & stay home on Saturdays, that's just the way I like it. We had an excellent meal on the deck. Lillian & I went for a walk after dinner to the bridge overlooking both the Pottawatomie Bayou. From the bridge we could see a couple of parties happening at houses on the bayou. One of the parties had one of those inflatable bouncing things that held lots of kids. Lillian saw this & asked if she could play in it & I had to explain to her that it was for a party that we weren't invited to, & this wasn't quite the blow to her 2 1/2 year old heart that I feared it might be. I thought to myself that if I were at that party with all that good food, toys & waterfront property & saw somebody like me walking down the street, I'd be jealous of that guy & wishing I weren't at the party. That's probably kind of sad, too. We walked home, had popsicles on the porch, read a few books & it was off to bed for her, & the night was a little slice of heaven for me. I hope in someway, if not this night, but nights like this one, are the ones that form in her mind that she remembers fondly.
Tom Waits-The Heart of a Saturday Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7UHd7NVegE
John Prine-A Good Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVWaYxnNiW8
Dawn Mccarthy & Bonnie "Prince" Billy-Poems, Prayers & Promises (John Denver Cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSsJUgiuyjE
John Prine-Donald & Lydia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_k9mslBS0A
John Prine-Blue Umbrella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQncxrf1fWY
Happy Saturday, friends.
andrew
Friday, January 04, 2013
Tis the season for year end lists, & since all the painting is done at my house & the basement is cleaned & I have vacation days to burn, I've read alot of best album lists for 2012 in between playing with a two year old. In the old days, I liked to think I was uniquely qualified to weigh in on what I thought were the best albums of the year. Nowadays, with time to listen to music & money that isn't being used for house remodeling limited, I read these lists as a way of catching up on what I might have missed. The other night, my friend & I got to talking about our favorite albums after he showed me how to use spotify which lead us to trade playlists of our favorite albums. We're not that full of ourselves to claim that these are the best albums of all time or anything, just full of ourselves enough to come up with a silly music list. It's fun, & I'm on vacation. Currently, I've got a bad head cold & am missing a Christmas party, so bear with me.
I was going to keep it to ten, but my friend broke the rules & made it thirteen, so I broke the rules even further & made it twenty, in no particular order.
The Milk Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom
Life for me got a whole lot better when, as an adult, I quit worrying about what was cool, how many friends I had or what I was doing on a Saturday night. I'm not sure what that has to do with Joanna Newsom, except for the fact that you can't make an album like this when you are concerned with such things. You don't play an album like this for friends when you're worried about whether they think you're cool or not. Most people I know who have heard this album think it's the wierdest thing they've ever heard. Once you don't worry about that any more, there are worlds to discover. Reading the lyrics only tells you half the story, the way they're sung keeps you searching for the ending to the story.
"no means no, where I come from, i am cold & waiting for the spring to come"
"never get so attached to a poem, you forget truth that lacks lyricism"
Desire by Bob Dylan
For some reason, I own 4 copies of this album, two on vinyl, one on cd, & one on vinyl framed with the album cover, one of the coolest gifts I've ever received. The story goes that Dylan heard the violinist playing on the street & hired her to play on the album. The violin makes it. It weaves it's way through the album like a snake, giving it an other-worldly kind of sound. The interplay between the violin & the harmonica is sublime. The story also goes that when Emmylou Harris was hired to sing back up on the album, she was given none of the music to rehearse ahead of time. You can hear her struggling to catch up with the lyrics mid-song. This is Dylan's great melting pot approach to music, to create a moment that can't be rehearsed & can't be duplicated.
"it was true that in his later years he would not carry a gun, 'I'm around too many children,' he'd say, 'they should never know of one'"
"Isis, oh Isis, you're a mystical child, what drives me to you is what drives me insane"
"Oh sister, am I not a brother to you? And one deserving of affection? And would our father not like the way that you act? To love & to follow his direction?"
Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron & Wine
There's so many kinds of emotions on display in this album. Anger, sadness, joy, rebellion, but mostly melancholy, & this album finds the beauty of all of them. The album takes a happy moment & reminds you of all the sad ones that came before, but also finds hope in sadness as well. I've enjoyed other albums by Sam Beam, but none of them come anything close to this one.
"love is a dress that you wear, long to hide your knees"
"slept through Christmas, slept like a bucket of snow"
Trace by Son Volt
This album was released in 1995 & I don't listen to it too much anymore. It caught my ear though & made me seek out all kinds of music that came before it & after it. It is one of the more famous Alt-Country albums & it lead me to seek out music by some of my favorite artists like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Buddy Miller & lots of others. The album used to get played on "The River--93.9", a station out of Windsor that played all kinds of great music. Of course, the station didn't last too long, but my fascination with the kinds of music it played continues on.
"now & then it keeps you runnin', never seems to die, trails spent with fear not enough living on the outside"
"looking for the right kind of live free or die..."
Kind of Blue-Miles Davis
Post 1950's jazz is the rarest of art forms that is rarely understood or appreciated by anyone who doesn't play music. I think I'm one of those rare people who loves jazz who doesn't play it, although I still don't understand it. Kind of Blue is accessible to the jazz novice, but yet is brilliant all the same. The key to this album is the space between the notes, or the notes that don't get played. Someone who is truly good at something doesn't need to tell you how good they are. Miles was great, & he knew it, but he didn't care who else knew it.
Souvenirs-John Prine
If there's one album in my collection that gets the most play over the last five years, it's this one. In 2000, after recovering from cancer surgery, Prine re-recorded a collection of his greatest songs with his new voice. This voice was the first I ever heard from Prine, & I still don't enjoy the original versions of these songs as much as I do on Souvenirs. His voice sounds like he's lived the life he tells of in these songs, much like a John Updike novel, Prine finds the greatest meaning in the smallest of details. His songs sound like a liquor store in a small town on a Saturday afternoon, that feeling that life is moving for everyone but you.
"you know that old trees just grow stronger, & old rivers grow wilder everyday, old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say hello in there."
"there were spaces between donald & whatever he said, strangers had forced him to live his head, he envisioned the details of romantic scenes, after midnight in the stillness of the barracks latrine."
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus-Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
If I were in a band, & I wanted the band to go for a specific sound, it would be the sound of this record. It's so big, it's got the four powerful backup singers, a driving percussion style piano, an eery sounding violin, plus a full rock band. Then there's angry, crazy old Nick Cave, who's singing teeters in the balance between singing & shouting. The energy level is so high, you think it can't sustain itself but it does, & the album's balanced out nicely with a few choice slower songs like Babe You Turn Me On. .
The mighty wave their hankies from their
high-windowed palace
Sending grief and joy down in supportable doses
And we search high and low without
mercy or malice
While the gate to the Kingdom swings
shut and closes
I See a Darkness-Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Whenever I hear someone lament how music isn't as good as it used to be back in the day, I always tell them they aren't looking in the right places. Will Oldham, aka Bonnie Prince Billy, is one of the greatest songwriters of the past twenty years. He's a little strange to say the least, & his singing isn't for everybody, but if Oldham was around in the sixties, I'll bet the Byrds would've done a whole album's worth of covers from him & had hits from them. Johnny Cash covered the title track, & he even got Oldham to sing backup. His voice is so fragile on this record it feels like it will fall apart at any moment. It stares depression & hurt right in the face. I think he could've made twenty albums that sounded just like this one (and I'd buy every single one), he's that prolific, but every one of his album of his is a different direction.
" i hope that one day, buddy, we'll have peace in our lives, together or apart, alone or with our wives. and we can stop our whoring, & pull the smiles inside, & light it up forever, and never go to sleep. my best unbeaten brother, this isn't all i see."
Bryter Later-Nick Drake
There's two approaches to appreciating art of any form, you can listen to the piece on it's own & appreciate it on it's own merits or you can wrap together the art & the artist & understand the conditions that may have given root to the art. With Nick Drake, I don't think you can separate the art from the artist. Bob Dylan once wrote, "pain sure brings out the best in people...doesn't it?". I'm not sure what drives a person to become a songwriter, but I think with some of the best ones that there's just thoughts swirling around their heads that will make them go crazy if they don't do create something. There's a long list of great songwriters that committed suicide in the prime of their lives, or more accurately, in the prime of their artistic output. Phil Ochs, Elliot Smith, Kurt Cobain to name a few. That seems to be the case with Nick Drake. His lyrics are small & sparse, he's that rare musicians who can generate power from quiet sound. A brilliant, sad, little album.
Automatic for the People-REM
REM was the first band I was really into as a teenager, my buddy Mike & I used to listen to them while playing ping pong all the time. I happened to borrow his cassette copy of Automatic for the People when I went on a school trip to New York City in January 1995. I can't separate the bittersweet sound of "Sweetness Follows" from the New York skyline, and I'm not sure I want to.
Bootleg Series Volume 4 "The Royal Albert Hall Concert"-Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan isn't the first artist to not give the audience what they want, but he's probably the most notable musician to do it. By the time this concert was played, it was no secret that Bob Dylan was playing with an electric guitar (gasp!) & that he abandoned the topical songs that made him famous. Most reviews will tell you that the audience loved the acoustic first half of the show, but the songs Dylan chose to play weren't the folkie "Blowin' in the Wind" type songs that the audience wanted to hear. He plays the long, Rimbaud inspired epics that span for eight plus minutes, drawing out the lyrics & spitting the consonants into the mike as percussion. It's pure punk, long before anybody ever came up with the term "punk music". The harmonica solo on Mr Tambourine Man seems to get lost in time somewhere, he loses control of it for about a minute or so before pulling it back down from the rafters to end the song. The electrified second half starts like a shot gun blast with "Tell Me Momma". The song has no defined set of lyrics, alot of them are made up on the spot or sung so loudly that you can't understand them. It's rock & roll for the sake of rock & roll and the crowd was amped up and ready to hate him for it. In that sense, he did give the crowd what they wanted. They heckled & booed & Dylan feeds off of it, heckling them back.
All of this leads up to the penultimate moment after the show piece of the night "Ballad of a Thin Man. One guy shouts (audible on tape) "Judas!", another shouts (inaudible on the tape) "I'll never listen to you again!", to which Dylan replies drolly, "I don't believe you...you're a liar" & then turns to the band & yells "play fucking loud" before kicking off "Like a Rolling Stone". Rarely does an actual event live up to the hype & mythology that surrounds it, but I believe this one exceeds it.
Blue-Joni Mitchell
This album sounds to me like it is longing for something always out of your grasp. Longing for a place, longing for a lover, longing for a past to be made right. Usually, I like my music to be spontaneous, & with spontaneity comes imperfection. This album, on the other hand, is as close a thing to perfection as I've heard. Every guitar strum, every note, every breath is perfect. Anything I could say about would only muck it up. Just listen to it.
"let's have a round for these freaks & these soldiers, a round for these friends of mine, let's have another round for the bright red devil who keeps me in this tourist town"
Horses-Patti Smith
I wonder what women of my Grandma's generation might think of this album. That isn't any kind of value judgement, sometimes I prefer the lack of sarcasm & irony from people who came of age before 1965. You don't hear anything like this from anyone before 1975. And yet, I believe there is a consistency of human emotions & experiences that exist throughout the ages. Some might say it's drugs, but I don't need drugs to appreciate anything, & I'm pretty sure Patti Smith didn't need drugs to make this album. What I love about this album is it shatters the idea that things have to be pretty, & this isn't pretty, or that the unpleasant things of society need to be shoved into a dark closet.
I'll finish the rest later...
andrew
I was going to keep it to ten, but my friend broke the rules & made it thirteen, so I broke the rules even further & made it twenty, in no particular order.
The Milk Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom
Life for me got a whole lot better when, as an adult, I quit worrying about what was cool, how many friends I had or what I was doing on a Saturday night. I'm not sure what that has to do with Joanna Newsom, except for the fact that you can't make an album like this when you are concerned with such things. You don't play an album like this for friends when you're worried about whether they think you're cool or not. Most people I know who have heard this album think it's the wierdest thing they've ever heard. Once you don't worry about that any more, there are worlds to discover. Reading the lyrics only tells you half the story, the way they're sung keeps you searching for the ending to the story.
"no means no, where I come from, i am cold & waiting for the spring to come"
"never get so attached to a poem, you forget truth that lacks lyricism"
Desire by Bob Dylan
For some reason, I own 4 copies of this album, two on vinyl, one on cd, & one on vinyl framed with the album cover, one of the coolest gifts I've ever received. The story goes that Dylan heard the violinist playing on the street & hired her to play on the album. The violin makes it. It weaves it's way through the album like a snake, giving it an other-worldly kind of sound. The interplay between the violin & the harmonica is sublime. The story also goes that when Emmylou Harris was hired to sing back up on the album, she was given none of the music to rehearse ahead of time. You can hear her struggling to catch up with the lyrics mid-song. This is Dylan's great melting pot approach to music, to create a moment that can't be rehearsed & can't be duplicated.
"it was true that in his later years he would not carry a gun, 'I'm around too many children,' he'd say, 'they should never know of one'"
"Isis, oh Isis, you're a mystical child, what drives me to you is what drives me insane"
"Oh sister, am I not a brother to you? And one deserving of affection? And would our father not like the way that you act? To love & to follow his direction?"
Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron & Wine
There's so many kinds of emotions on display in this album. Anger, sadness, joy, rebellion, but mostly melancholy, & this album finds the beauty of all of them. The album takes a happy moment & reminds you of all the sad ones that came before, but also finds hope in sadness as well. I've enjoyed other albums by Sam Beam, but none of them come anything close to this one.
"love is a dress that you wear, long to hide your knees"
"slept through Christmas, slept like a bucket of snow"
Trace by Son Volt
This album was released in 1995 & I don't listen to it too much anymore. It caught my ear though & made me seek out all kinds of music that came before it & after it. It is one of the more famous Alt-Country albums & it lead me to seek out music by some of my favorite artists like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Buddy Miller & lots of others. The album used to get played on "The River--93.9", a station out of Windsor that played all kinds of great music. Of course, the station didn't last too long, but my fascination with the kinds of music it played continues on.
"now & then it keeps you runnin', never seems to die, trails spent with fear not enough living on the outside"
"looking for the right kind of live free or die..."
Kind of Blue-Miles Davis
Post 1950's jazz is the rarest of art forms that is rarely understood or appreciated by anyone who doesn't play music. I think I'm one of those rare people who loves jazz who doesn't play it, although I still don't understand it. Kind of Blue is accessible to the jazz novice, but yet is brilliant all the same. The key to this album is the space between the notes, or the notes that don't get played. Someone who is truly good at something doesn't need to tell you how good they are. Miles was great, & he knew it, but he didn't care who else knew it.
Souvenirs-John Prine
If there's one album in my collection that gets the most play over the last five years, it's this one. In 2000, after recovering from cancer surgery, Prine re-recorded a collection of his greatest songs with his new voice. This voice was the first I ever heard from Prine, & I still don't enjoy the original versions of these songs as much as I do on Souvenirs. His voice sounds like he's lived the life he tells of in these songs, much like a John Updike novel, Prine finds the greatest meaning in the smallest of details. His songs sound like a liquor store in a small town on a Saturday afternoon, that feeling that life is moving for everyone but you.
"you know that old trees just grow stronger, & old rivers grow wilder everyday, old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say hello in there."
"there were spaces between donald & whatever he said, strangers had forced him to live his head, he envisioned the details of romantic scenes, after midnight in the stillness of the barracks latrine."
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus-Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
If I were in a band, & I wanted the band to go for a specific sound, it would be the sound of this record. It's so big, it's got the four powerful backup singers, a driving percussion style piano, an eery sounding violin, plus a full rock band. Then there's angry, crazy old Nick Cave, who's singing teeters in the balance between singing & shouting. The energy level is so high, you think it can't sustain itself but it does, & the album's balanced out nicely with a few choice slower songs like Babe You Turn Me On. .
The mighty wave their hankies from their
high-windowed palace
Sending grief and joy down in supportable doses
And we search high and low without
mercy or malice
While the gate to the Kingdom swings
shut and closes
I See a Darkness-Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Whenever I hear someone lament how music isn't as good as it used to be back in the day, I always tell them they aren't looking in the right places. Will Oldham, aka Bonnie Prince Billy, is one of the greatest songwriters of the past twenty years. He's a little strange to say the least, & his singing isn't for everybody, but if Oldham was around in the sixties, I'll bet the Byrds would've done a whole album's worth of covers from him & had hits from them. Johnny Cash covered the title track, & he even got Oldham to sing backup. His voice is so fragile on this record it feels like it will fall apart at any moment. It stares depression & hurt right in the face. I think he could've made twenty albums that sounded just like this one (and I'd buy every single one), he's that prolific, but every one of his album of his is a different direction.
" i hope that one day, buddy, we'll have peace in our lives, together or apart, alone or with our wives. and we can stop our whoring, & pull the smiles inside, & light it up forever, and never go to sleep. my best unbeaten brother, this isn't all i see."
Bryter Later-Nick Drake
There's two approaches to appreciating art of any form, you can listen to the piece on it's own & appreciate it on it's own merits or you can wrap together the art & the artist & understand the conditions that may have given root to the art. With Nick Drake, I don't think you can separate the art from the artist. Bob Dylan once wrote, "pain sure brings out the best in people...doesn't it?". I'm not sure what drives a person to become a songwriter, but I think with some of the best ones that there's just thoughts swirling around their heads that will make them go crazy if they don't do create something. There's a long list of great songwriters that committed suicide in the prime of their lives, or more accurately, in the prime of their artistic output. Phil Ochs, Elliot Smith, Kurt Cobain to name a few. That seems to be the case with Nick Drake. His lyrics are small & sparse, he's that rare musicians who can generate power from quiet sound. A brilliant, sad, little album.
Automatic for the People-REM
REM was the first band I was really into as a teenager, my buddy Mike & I used to listen to them while playing ping pong all the time. I happened to borrow his cassette copy of Automatic for the People when I went on a school trip to New York City in January 1995. I can't separate the bittersweet sound of "Sweetness Follows" from the New York skyline, and I'm not sure I want to.
Bootleg Series Volume 4 "The Royal Albert Hall Concert"-Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan isn't the first artist to not give the audience what they want, but he's probably the most notable musician to do it. By the time this concert was played, it was no secret that Bob Dylan was playing with an electric guitar (gasp!) & that he abandoned the topical songs that made him famous. Most reviews will tell you that the audience loved the acoustic first half of the show, but the songs Dylan chose to play weren't the folkie "Blowin' in the Wind" type songs that the audience wanted to hear. He plays the long, Rimbaud inspired epics that span for eight plus minutes, drawing out the lyrics & spitting the consonants into the mike as percussion. It's pure punk, long before anybody ever came up with the term "punk music". The harmonica solo on Mr Tambourine Man seems to get lost in time somewhere, he loses control of it for about a minute or so before pulling it back down from the rafters to end the song. The electrified second half starts like a shot gun blast with "Tell Me Momma". The song has no defined set of lyrics, alot of them are made up on the spot or sung so loudly that you can't understand them. It's rock & roll for the sake of rock & roll and the crowd was amped up and ready to hate him for it. In that sense, he did give the crowd what they wanted. They heckled & booed & Dylan feeds off of it, heckling them back.
All of this leads up to the penultimate moment after the show piece of the night "Ballad of a Thin Man. One guy shouts (audible on tape) "Judas!", another shouts (inaudible on the tape) "I'll never listen to you again!", to which Dylan replies drolly, "I don't believe you...you're a liar" & then turns to the band & yells "play fucking loud" before kicking off "Like a Rolling Stone". Rarely does an actual event live up to the hype & mythology that surrounds it, but I believe this one exceeds it.
Blue-Joni Mitchell
This album sounds to me like it is longing for something always out of your grasp. Longing for a place, longing for a lover, longing for a past to be made right. Usually, I like my music to be spontaneous, & with spontaneity comes imperfection. This album, on the other hand, is as close a thing to perfection as I've heard. Every guitar strum, every note, every breath is perfect. Anything I could say about would only muck it up. Just listen to it.
"let's have a round for these freaks & these soldiers, a round for these friends of mine, let's have another round for the bright red devil who keeps me in this tourist town"
Horses-Patti Smith
I wonder what women of my Grandma's generation might think of this album. That isn't any kind of value judgement, sometimes I prefer the lack of sarcasm & irony from people who came of age before 1965. You don't hear anything like this from anyone before 1975. And yet, I believe there is a consistency of human emotions & experiences that exist throughout the ages. Some might say it's drugs, but I don't need drugs to appreciate anything, & I'm pretty sure Patti Smith didn't need drugs to make this album. What I love about this album is it shatters the idea that things have to be pretty, & this isn't pretty, or that the unpleasant things of society need to be shoved into a dark closet.
I'll finish the rest later...
andrew
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Tune My Heart To Sing Thy Grace
I love listening to NPR's show All Songs Considered. A few music geeks get on the radio & play new music they've discovered or by artists they enjoy and they talk about them. This time of year, they always have a Holiday music episode where they play mostly Christmas songs. The show isn't particularly reverent of Christmas, several of the shows contributors are Jewish, so there are always a few funny Hanukkah songs. The contributors each make several song selections & they describe what they like about it, & the whole group will discuss it. Halfway through the show, Stephen Thompson (I think that's his name) introduces a song from Sufjan Stevens 2005 Christmas album. This didn't surprise me in the least in that Sufjan Stevens is a favorite among music geeks. What surprised me was the song choice. I would've guessed one of the few secular songs on the album like Get Behind Me Santa or We're Going to the Countryor even one of the better known traditional songs like Oh Holy Night or Away in the Manger. Instead, Thompson picks Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, not a Christmas song at all. This version has Sufjan playing the Banjo, the rest of the instrumentation is acoustic, & is exactly the arrangement of the hymn. He plays it straight, no additions, no flourishes or wild cacophonous noises that Stevens loves to throw into his songs. It was exactly the treatment I love to hear applied to old hymns, artfully & simply done.
I'll tell you what I love about this little experience of listening to this in the car. The show isn't religious in any way, it's a show for people who love music by people who love music. I'm not sure if the gentleman who picked Come Thou Fount is Christian or not. For those who heard this show, it didn't matter. The message of that song came through all the same. He played the song because it's a great song, better than any other he could think of.
Sufjan Stevens is a Christian. His music is enjoyed by Christians & non-Christians alike. His music isn't promoted by a Christian music label. Sufjan Stevens has made a name for himself because he makes great music, not because he is a Christian. It matters not whether he makes any great statement about being a Christian, the message comes through in the song. I believe we are called to do the same. We are called to do what we do to the best of our abilities to show God's love to others. This performance fits the bill, it cuts through the smoke & the darkness & shines brightly for all to see.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Do You Hear What I Hear?-Sufjan Stevens
Silent Night-Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns
White Christmas-Charlie Parker
Silent Night All Day Long-John Prine
Greensleeves-John Coltrane
Merry Christmas, friends.
andrew
I'll tell you what I love about this little experience of listening to this in the car. The show isn't religious in any way, it's a show for people who love music by people who love music. I'm not sure if the gentleman who picked Come Thou Fount is Christian or not. For those who heard this show, it didn't matter. The message of that song came through all the same. He played the song because it's a great song, better than any other he could think of.
Sufjan Stevens is a Christian. His music is enjoyed by Christians & non-Christians alike. His music isn't promoted by a Christian music label. Sufjan Stevens has made a name for himself because he makes great music, not because he is a Christian. It matters not whether he makes any great statement about being a Christian, the message comes through in the song. I believe we are called to do the same. We are called to do what we do to the best of our abilities to show God's love to others. This performance fits the bill, it cuts through the smoke & the darkness & shines brightly for all to see.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Do You Hear What I Hear?-Sufjan Stevens
Silent Night-Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns
White Christmas-Charlie Parker
Silent Night All Day Long-John Prine
Greensleeves-John Coltrane
Merry Christmas, friends.
andrew
Monday, September 17, 2012
Don't Waste Your Words
I voted for President Obama, & will vote for him again. I've had a job since I was 16 years old & don't depend on the government for anything except for roads, bridges & schools just like everyone else. I don't think I'm entitled to anything other than a president who doesn't deem me "dependent on the government" because I don't agree with his political beliefs.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye-John Coltrane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Jmcynp9d0
Lulu's Back in Town-Thelonious Monk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzT0bytg4-w
That Lucky Ol' Sun-Bob Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0SHh5LARcA
Angel From Montgomery-John Prine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CDLCr0fxOQ
Would You Come & See Me in New York?-The Welcome Wagon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2CMoENiClI
Happy Monday, friends...
andrew
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye-John Coltrane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Jmcynp9d0
Lulu's Back in Town-Thelonious Monk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzT0bytg4-w
That Lucky Ol' Sun-Bob Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0SHh5LARcA
Angel From Montgomery-John Prine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CDLCr0fxOQ
Would You Come & See Me in New York?-The Welcome Wagon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2CMoENiClI
Happy Monday, friends...
andrew
Saturday, August 04, 2012
You're Old Enough to Know Well...
Picking the song of the week isn't as easy as I thought it would be, I'm always looking for a song in my collection that holds some great truth that the world needs to know. It's not always easy to find, every song has it's own perception of the truth, some songs don't tell the truth at all. One of the reasons I started collecting music is that I thought at some point I would find a record that would say everything that needed to be said. Twenty years on, I haven't found it. I'm not sure this is what Dawes is getting at with this song, but it sounds that way to me, "as if something that's written should be taken as true". I love the idea that you have to break something else to make something new. It reminds me of the line from the Alejandro Escovedo song Down in the Bowery, "I hope you live long enough to forget all the stuff I taught you, 'cause when it's all said & done I hope you got your own set of rules to hang onto". Music is an incredible growing organism in this way, nothing is completely unique, it all builds on from what's been done before.
"You can judge the whole world by the sparkle that you think it lacks..." That line makes the song for me. People complain about all matter of things, one of my biggest pet peeves at work is when someone will complain about something that they could fix in the amount of time it took them to complain about it. I think that's what the song gets at. There's nothing more dull than the guy that points out how dull everything is. I like the ambiguity of what "When my time comes" means. When my time comes to die? When my time comes to make the world sparkle a little bit more? I don't think it comes to a conclusion & it certainly doesn't have an answer. It's more interesting that way. That's the way life is, the answers don't usually come easy, if they ever come at all.
There were moments of dreams I was offered to save
I live less like a workhorse more like a slave
I thought that one quick moment that was noble or brave
Would be worth the most of my life.
So I pointed my fingers and shout a few quotes I knew
As if something that´s written should be taken as true
But every path I have taken and conclusion I drew
Would put truth back under the knife.
And now the only piece of advice that continues to help:
Is anyone that´s making anything new only breaks something else.
When my time comes
Ohhhhh oh oh oh.
When my times comes
Ohhhhh oh oh oh.
So I took what I wanted and put it out of my reach
I wanted to pay for my successes with all my defeats
And if heaven was all that was promised to me
Why don´t I pray for death?
And now it seems like the unraveling has started too soon
Now I´m sleeping in hallways and I´m drinking perfume
And I´m speaking to mirrors and I´m howling at moons
While the worst and the worst that it gets.
Oh you can judge all the world on the sparkle that you think it lacks.
Yes you can stare into the abyss
but it´s staring right back.
When my time comes
Ohhhhh oh oh oh.
When my time comes
Ohhhhh oh oh oh.
Oh you can judge all the world on the sparkle that you think it lacks.
Yes you can stare into the abyss
but it´s staring right back.
When my time comes
Ohhhhh oh oh oh.
When my time comes
Ohhhhh oh oh oh.
I did a lot of hiking in Kauai. There's a lot of mountains & it gets kind of addicting because you want to keep going to see what might be around the bend. The farther up you go, the better the view. Pictures don't do it justice. It makes me wonder why I didn't do more hiking when I was younger, when I had more time. Then again, I never had the chance to be at a place like Kauai when I was younger. I knew at every turn that I'd probably never see anything like it ever again. The song On Up the Mountain by Jakob Dylan kept popping in to my head. "You're old enough to know well, the better things are all uphill. Bitter songs are never sung in the highlands where you belong."
I love the way the song starts "you're old enough to know well". Whatever follows that phrase won't be easy to say & it won't be easy to hear, but it desperately needs to be heard & said. It sounds like a father talking to his child at a time when he knows that life won't be as innocent for them as it once was. It's about the journey being more important than the destination. When you're a kid you have a sense of permanence about things, an expectation that maybe things will be the way you want them to be for a long period of time.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)