There’s only one person I know of that can sing a Mariah Carey song better than Mariah Carey, and that’s RoseAngela. This past Sunday, Rose sang “All I Want for Christmas” in Anderson and we showed it live on the big screen in Greenville. Here’s the video:
All I Want for Christmas from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.
(And, yes, that’s real “fake” snow coming down in the background.)
Today was the official release date for Lincoln Brewster’s new album, Today is the Day. The album is available on iTunes for download. It’s already the #1 downloaded Christian music album and, as of this post, it’s #21 overall on iTunes. You can catch a preview of one of his new songs here.
While we’re celebrating some cool news regarding one of my site sponsors, you may also want to check out these opportunities:
Church Volunteer Central is hosting a conference next week out in Colorado. Keynote speakers include John Ortberg and Wayne Cordeiro. You also get to pick from eight different workshop trails for developing people and unleashing your volunteer ministry.
Collision Media has joined as the newest sponsor. They’re a full-service web, print, photo, and video design company with a special emphasis on church media. Collision Media’s clients include organizations like Focus on the Family, Sprint/Nextel, Univision and LifeChurch.tv.
Is your business or organization interested in joining the site sponsorship team? Shoot me an email to get more details.
Lincoln Brewster was kind enough to play “5 Questions” with me. Only, like a typical artist, he wanted to play by his rules. I sent him the questions. He recorded an audio file with his responses. In the spirit of full disclosure, these are my questions, but I’m not asking them. The interview lasts less than 10 minutes. Take a listen.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you haven’t already, check out this free stream of one of Lincoln’s songs off his new album. You can pre-order the album over on iTunes.
Hey, this is pretty cool. I recently had the opportunity to interview Jonathon Douglass. You may know him as JD, one of the lead singers for Hillsong United. In honor of Perry’s visit this week with Hillsong’s Senior Pastor Brian Houston, I thought this might be the perfect time to share behind-the-scenes insights from a Hillsong insider.
TONY: For the three people left in the world that may not be familiar with your story, tell us about Hillsong United.
JD: Ok… We are a bunch of people who are totally passionate about serving God and his church. We have grown up in Hillsong Church (where we still all are really involved in serving) and just began to lead worship in our youth ministry. Our hearts were (and still are!) desperate to see God move in our youth group and he really did about 10 years ago and we started to write songs and God has really blessed what we do and now we get to share it with a whole lot more people than we ever thought!
TONY: Thanks for helping to bring rock music to worship. What artists have most shaped who you are as a musician?
JD: There have been many! I guess Coldplay and U2 are always the big ones. We all have different tastes in music but are pretty much open to be inspired by anything.
TONY: When the music stops, what grabs your time and attention?
JD: My family. Our church… Friends… I love the beach.
TONY: Your most recent project is called I Heart Revolution. What kind of revolution to you have in mind?
JD: Well it’s simple… the “I Heart” phrase is just another way of saying I love… I guess there are many things we hope are to happen from this project like people finding faith in Christ and recognizing the power of the local church but another main theme is were hoping we all move from being so self-centered and self-focused to live for others and be about loving our neighbor and using whatever we have in our hand to glorify God and help others… (that’s it in a nut shell)
TONY: The woman that cuts my hair is a big fan of Hillsong United and she’s going to Brooke Fraser’s concert next week. Do you think the person who cuts your hair would consider seeing me in concert?
JD: Well luckily the lady who cuts my hair is from church and she is a nice Christian lady so your chances would be higher than you think….
And there you go. You can learn more about Hillsong United’s I Heart Revolution by visiting their MySpace page.
I just hope you have great speakers connected to your computer.
Lincoln Brewster’s newest album, Today is the Day, releases on September 23. I got my hands on a pre-release of the album and listened to it for the first time last night. All I can say is some of the guiter riffs are unbelievable. No. Really. I don’t think they’re humanly possible. Brewster is a beast with the guitar.
Now, here’s the deal. I didn’t want you to have to wait until September 23 to hear this. So, with a little help from friends, I was able to get you a preview stream of my favorite track off the new album. The guitar solos are amazing.
Are you ready? Crank up the volume and listen to this:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Did you like that? Well there’s more just like it on the rest of the album. Be patient. Beginning next Tuesday, you’ll be able to pre-order the album from iTunes.
Aren’t you glad I’m looking out for your musical interests?
I recently caught up with Joel Auge, my Integrity Music featured artist for July. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with my amateur interviewing skills and respond to a handful of questions. I’m so not used to interviewing rock star musicians, so please have patience with me.
TONY: Tell us about yourself. (Pretty hard-hitting first question, eh?)
JOEL: I’m 29. Number 9 of 11 kids. 6 brothers/4 sisters. Raised roman catholic in the small (5,000 people) Canadian rural paper town of Espanola, Ontario. I’ve been doing music in some form or another for over 10 years. My wife (of 4 years in September) is the brains of this operation. You could call her my daily operations manager seeing as her role has become so crucial in both my personal life (“Hey Joel.. don’t forget your guitar!”) , and as a strong ballast and sounding board in my ministry as well.
We live in Hamilton, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. I’ve been an itinerant worship leader at The Meeting House family of churches for several years now. I met Michelle there where she was serving as the children’s director. We have a 1 and 1/2 year old yellow lab named Kaya. Trouble maker. I am also the owner (one of two) of HitGrab Inc. We develop facebook applications. Our MouseHunt facebook game is currently rated the most engaging facebook application out of 30,000 or so others. This has to have been one of the most exciting years of my life.
TONY: Dude, in case you haven’t heard, I committed Facebook suicide recently because of application developers like you. That aside, what’s the inspiration for this first album?
JOEL: To be honest, my wife and her impact on me has been behind much of the inspiration for the album. She (with God’s guidance I’m sure) pulled me out of the shadows and felt compelled to encourage me to write songs for the Church (big C). I had been in a worship band in the past, then a mainstream band.
A lot of the songs on “On The Blue” are romantic in nature. The idea that God romances his bride has always been an interesting concept to me. And now that I have a bride of my own, it allows me to explore this Godly romance from this new perspective. I liken our music in church to us bringing Jesus a bouquet of flowers. It’s just one element of our relationship, but it’s important that we let Him know how we feel about Him.
TONY: If you had to liken your musical style to an animal at the zoo, what would it be? (Does Rolling Stone ask questions like this?)
JOEL: I love the polar bears at the San Diego zoo… and I’m Canadian… and there’s a certain folksy canadiana to some of the songs… so I say Polar bear. Strange? Yeah. I know :)
TONY: What’s your favorite “polar bear-like” song on the album and why?
JOEL: I’m really loving Singing Halleluia these days. It’s got some nostalgic moments that have been ingrained into my mind and when I think of this project, I think of that song first.
TONY: OK, final question… When you grow up, what would you like to be?
JOEL: I highly doubt I’ll ever “grow up”, but if I had to… I’d love to be a giant pointer. A one-way sign to Jesus. Not a zealot. Not a judge. Not a hypocrite. Not religious. Not anything but a man who is reflective of the one He serves. A servant in the greatest potential movement for love the world has ever seen.
Listen to samples of Joel’s new album, On the Blue, and check out videos and photos by visiting Joel’s fancy E-card. More importantly, buy the album so other rock stars want to talk with me.
RoseAngela and Daniel opened today’s services at the Anderson Campus with their rendition of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.” This is a recording on my Flip Video camera, so the video and audio quality don’t do it justice. There will be a better version on our web site in a couple of days. In the mean time, here you go.
UPDATE: Thanks to the help of the media team, here’s a much better video/audio version of the opener. By the way, these close up shots beg the question: Who has prettier hair–Rose or Daniel?
UPDATE 2: I’d just like to thank Ingrid for sending all her friends to my site. It’s been a long time since you’ve all visited. I was starting to think I’d lost my edge. Welcome back. (And, no, I’m not going to post your comments, but I’ve really had fun reading them today.)
Crazy In Love from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.
Lee McD and the band played “We Stand” at the conclusion of yesterday’s service. It’s my favorite song off of Lee’s new album. I asked the boys over in the media area if they could rip the video of the song and upload it for the rest of us to see. So, here you go. Crank up your speakers and listen to it loud. This isn’t your momma’s worship music.
In case you missed it, we had a little poll a couple of weeks ago. Over 300 people responded. The question I asked was this: “Consider the worship music at your church. What genre of music would best describe the style?”
Here are the results of the poll:
By comparison, I thought you might be interested in seeing the same results from the current top 100 songs on iTunes.
Now, before we dive in, I think we need to state the obvious. This wasn’t a very scientific poll, so it doesn’t accurately reflect all the churches in the country. In fact, though I wish it weren’t the case, I’m guessing my site lacks ethnic diversity in its readership. That being the case, I’m hoping that explains some of the disparity we see in the numbers.
With those caveats, it’s pretty obvious that there are some glaring differences between the music genres that our culture is listening to and the ones used in our churches (those represented by the readers of this blog). For example:
That raises some questions in my mind:
What are your thoughts?
