after a posted a video of an amazing kid guitar player, someone sent me a link to this amazing 12 year-old drummer. dude. check out the part where he plays with his hands.

(ht to chad farrand)

or, any other day in history, for that matter. what a massive undertaking this was for someone.

on this site

on may 24, 1963, the #1 song was a one-hit wonder by a guy named jimmy soul: .

yeah, i suppose this is kinda name-dropping. but i’m pretty excited to be going golfing with david and toni crowder, and jack (the lead guitar player in dc*b), today. should be a great time — i expect to get my butt kicked. they are serious golfers.

looking forward to the concert tonite at san diego’s house of blues, and hanging with the whole band afterward. can’t wait to hear the new album live.

holy cats. no, he’s not a perfect guitar player. but, c’mon, he’s, like, 8. or so.

(ht to )

love “they might be giants” — i have all their cds (well, i have 13 of them). and their kids stuff is some of the best kids stuff available, including the song the alphabet of nations. found this animation video of the song, thanks to bobby c. so, with apologies to my canadian friends (you’ll see why), here’s the alphabet of nations:

the alphabet of nations, animated by ben kling

ok, wait. i went to youtube to see if there was a version of this video i could embed. nope. but — wow — the aphabet of nations must be either highly inspirational for youtube-type-video-creators, or, it was assigned as an animation project for some design school course, because there are a bunch of videos! here are a few of the best (but i still like the flash one i linked to above the best):

david crowder band’s new album, (amazon has them listed as “david band crowder” — ha!).

i’m currently on my 12th listen-through of my absconded pre-release copy (sent to a co-worker) of this album, which doesn’t officially release until sometime in late september. and i hardly know where to start, in terms of choosing words to describe what i’m listening to.

let me start with this: for me (and i know that music is subjective), there is no god-focused collection of music better than this.

now, let me back up a bit. i was a major consumer of christian worship music for a few years. this was particularly easy to do, since we got pretty much every new ccm release through our office back then, for youthworker journal record reviews. so i didn’t even have to pay for ‘em. but, at some point, it was more about being a consumer than about being consumed. it was more about what’s next and what’s new than about what’s eternal and what’s mysterious. i got bored with it all: not bored with worship; but bored with listening to worship music.

except. i never got tired of the david crowder band. maybe because they really don’t quite fit a simple genre description of worship music. it’s like, rage against the machine wrote and performed songs that were almost all political in content. but that wasn’t their genre. they were an alt-rock-rap group, or some other genre combo-platter. same here. dc*b is a nu-rock band. and they sings songs about god, pretty much exclusively so.

last evening, as i was driving in my car, with this new album at a particularly engulfing volume level, already singing along, i had two distinct images come to mind:

first, i could already imagine — it was a strong image, i felt my throat tense with emotion as i envisioned it — singing some of these songs with thousands of youth workers this fall at the national youth workers conventions. the line “you make everything glorious” from the song, “everything glorious”, was one of those lines. i can hear it now, as i type this: 4000 youth worker’s voices joining together to sing that line. crowder stepping away from the mic, making it clear we are not singing to or about him. same with the line “you never let go” from the song by that title. mmmmm.

second, i was in the midst of noticing how easy david’s voice sounds on this album. i never thought of his voice as forced before. but there’s a new level of vocal maturity here. it’s rounder, smoother, calmer, more beautiful. and then, i started to notice a similar kind of growth in the other instruments: b-wack’s tinkering and beeps and blips are more prominent, but not distracting. mike d’s keyboard (i assume it’s mike d) is downright gorgeous on the title track. jack’s guitar is extra-crunchy on “we won’t be quiet”. hogan’s violin emotively pure, like a sound of a child with a clean, pure voice, on the opening track. i could go on — the same could be said for each band member. so here’s the image i had. some things grow in a linear fashion, along a line. and that’s not necessarily bad. the next spot on the line can be better, certainly. but as i was listening, i had this image pop into my head of growth in all directions — like the growth of a firework just after bursting, or the growth of a network diagram on fast-forward. this is what the growth of dc*b feels like to me on this album.

oh, and lyrics. yeah. wow. as usual. try this one on for size, from the final cut:

and the problem is this
we were bought with a kiss
but the cheek still turned
even when it wasn’t it

and i don’t know
what to do with a love like that
and i don’t know
how to be a love like that

when all the love in the world
is right here, among us
and hatred too
so we must choose
what our hands will do

where there is pain
let there be grace
where there is suffering
bring serenity
for those afraid
help them be brave
where there is misery
bring expectancy

and surely we can change
surely we can change
something

and the problem it seems
is with you and me
not the love who came
to repair everything

and i don’t know
what to do with a love like that
and i don’t know
how to be a love like that

when all the love in the world
is right here, among us
and hatred too
and so we must choose
what our hands will do

where there is pain
let us bring grace
where there is suffering
bring serenity
for those afraid
let us be brave
where there is misery
let us bring them relief

and surely we can change
surely we can change
o sure we can change
something

the whole world’s about to change…

ok, i’m gushing, i realize. for me, this is why god invented music. sorry you have to wait a month. pre-order, i tell you.

kendall payne’s new album, paper skin, is out and available from her website, from cdbaby, and on itunes. and i highly, highly recommend it.

kendall’s been a long-time favorite of mine, ever since she stepped onto the stage at a national youth workers convention, when we’d never heard of her, and blew every single living soul away with her simple-but-powerful voice, songwriting, guitar playing, and uber-compelling all-around stage presence. i remember being at greenbelt in england, when kendall was there. no one knew who she was. so yaconelli had her play a song or two at the beginning of his always-packed seminars. pure magic.

this new album is the kind of evolution i like to see in an artist i’m already a fan of: enough of what i’ve come to love in her music (shockingly honest and open lyrical content, a voice that could slay dragons or shush a cranky baby, simple and clean production), combined with growth (as a musician, as a human, as a song writer, and as a jesus-follower). kendall’s married now, and — maybe that’s brought some stability to her life? — this new collection of songs has less fiestiness, and more confidence.

and another huge change: she learned to play (and write for) piano. the guitar is still there on some songs (i think i still prefer kendall on guitar), but the piano-driven songs add a whole new wing to kendall’s house of sound.

if i had a third hand, i’d give this album three thumbs up.

St. Vincent is the band of singer-multi-instrumentalist, Annie Clark. The 23- year old is a veteran guitarist for two musical armies, The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’s touring band. Marry Me, St. Vincent’s debut set, was released recently.

i downloaded this album after reading that description, along with this commentary, on bob carlton’s blog:

After listening for the past day, what charms me is a deluge of guitar, bass, and beats pulsing forward with warmth and immediacy alongside Annie’s classy soprano. Her lyrics can be weird or tongue-in-cheek or dead serious, capturing what it feels like to be 23 years old in America and caught up in “the delirium of love blues and wartime blues and the various swashbuckling adventures of existence”.

it’s such an amazing album. rich in texture and, at least for me, invitational and urgent in lyrics. there are surprises all over the place, both musical and lyrical. and her voice, it’s difficult to describe… haunting? pretty? captivating, to be sure.

there’s a deep and wide extra-serving of wonderful female vocal alt-something-or-other music being released these days, between fiest and st. vincent, and the next up on “ysmarko’s recommended music,” kendall payne. dig it.

i totally dug this new john reuben video, word of mouth. great visual imagery on cultural propensity to demand uniformity and to snuff out creative thought.

this volume of ysmarko’s recommended music is a catch-all of the best music i’ve downloaded in the past few months. too many to write reviews of them all. upcoming reviews, however, for kendall payne’s new album, and the amazing .

icky thump, by white stripes. file under “way-out creative alt-rocker duo from DEEE-troit rock city.”

theology, by sinead o’connor. file under “eclectic dreamy spiritual music, better than the reviews it’s received elsewhere.”

the else, by they might be giants. file under “fun, creative, original goof-rockers.”

, by chick corea and bela fleck. file under “the sound that results from mixing a brilliant jazz pianist with a legendary bluegrass banjo virtuoso.”

blunt object (live in tokyo), and prog, by the bad plus. file under “jazz piano trio with inescapable hooks.”

(music from the motion picture). file under “silly quirk music that’s fun for the whole family.”

release the stars, by rufus wainwright. file under “brilliant lyricist with always-creative piano-driven pop progressions.”

new moon, by elliott smith. file under “postumous collection of brilliant alt-folk songwriting.”

volta, by bjork. file under “wtf? i like this.”

back to black, by amy winehouse. file under “sultry-voiced retro r&b and blues with modern lyrics.”

minutes to midnight, by linkin park. file under “it’s mid-afternoon and i’m drowsy, and i need some hard and fast music that works like an energy drink.”

the reminder, by fiest. file under “brilliant lilting pop that does not get old after dozens and dozens of listens.”

the fragile army, by the polyphonic spree. file under “choral pop madness with hooky singability that makes you want to be a part of the choir.”

zeitgeist, by smashing pumpkins. file under “if there is such a thing as ‘classic alternative rock’, this is it.”