Tall Skinny Kiwi

Rock on Christmas Festival (Dec 5-6)

We are busy preparing for a rock festival called Rock on Christmas, to be held in Portugal on Dec 5 and 6. LOTS and LOTS of work to do. Like . . . choosing a location . . preparing a campsite (my kids are doing this right now) . . . publicity, etc. Thats right - we don't yet have a location, And neither do any of us have any money. But that doesn't seem to be a problem right now.

Festival organizer Denny Hurst has asked me to be the VJ [bless his heart] which was a WISE CHOICE! In fact, I really think the entire festival will be all about me and my out-of-this-world video jockeying abilities. Really! Suplementing my video magic will be a number of bands from all over Europe, USA and UK, including Verra Cruz [YEAH!] all of which will do a fine job in accentuating the various subtleties of my pixel painting, brain-numbing transitions, and glorious digital grafitti. Also present will be the legendary Pastor Bob Beeman and Rob Cassels who are probably just coming because they heard that I was the VJ.

Of course the Rock on Christmas story at Myspace is heavily biased towards the music, but its all a matter of perspective.

rock on christmas, verra cruz

ColdPlay - Left Right Left Right Left

Coldplay's new album is a free download. Lots of great songs, most of them you would have heard before, but this time recorded live from their concerts. The crowd participation makes Left Right Left Right Left a charming and endearing album and a great introduction to one of Brittain's best bands ever. I just managed to download it - I think yesterday was too busy. Thanks John.

Previously on Tallskinnykiwi: Discussing the theological shades of meaning in the lyrics of Coldplay's Viva La Vida.

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Jon Abel rocked us

Listening today to a CD from John Abel called More Than This. Jon was the songleader at last weekend's Summit in Tahoe. Lovely guy. Great worship leader. Christianity Today also liked him.

Technorati Tags: jon abel, music, worship

Retro: Sonseed and Jesus is my friend

This month's header has a retro feel but actually I took the shot last weekend at Lake Tahoe.

Speaking of retro, Prodigal Jon thinks through the 5 stages of emailing an unintentionally funny video like this one below on the Stuff Christians Like blog. HT: Bob Carlton.

The band in question is called "Sonseed". They are a HUGE hit on YouTube with 4.5 stars and over 2300 comments. You can read the legend of the Sonseed video from Dougsploitation. Lyrics are here in case you want to sing along. Its going to be a close race for the most addictive Christian video in 2008 on YouTube between this one and the Baptist preacher on "He That Pisseth Against the Wall".

UPDATE:
- One website reckons Sonseed is fake but Dougsploitation interviews the original members of Sonseed and it appears they are legit.
- David Crowder covered the song at his church
- Another church last month played the video alongside "A Thief in the Night".
- Download album from Cabel.

Lovin' it? Me too. Now check out these music records I scored recently from a charity shop in Scotland. These are Irish records from 1973 and 1971.

David Pierce on Tall Skinny Kiwi

David Pierce, director of Steiger International and No Longer Music is my guest today. You can interact with him in the comments section if you want to ask him anything. Great guy. Amazing ministry. From a barge in Amsterdam to the ends of the earth, taking its message of hope to "some of the darkest places imaginable, including closed Islamic countries, terrorist clubs, squatter villages, anarchy festivals, brothels, junkie joints, punk & goth music festivals, Satanist clubs and New Age gatherings."

David, it was great to have you at our roundtable in Germany. I have a video of you encouraging us all to be courageous and not wimpy. You are pretty hard core. Do you get accused of being rude?

Yes, unfortunately sometimes I have been accused of being rude. I think it’s because I am going deaf from being in so many clubs and so now I don't realize that I am shouting all the time. I also have the habit of spitting when I speak, which has also been a problem.

You end up in some dark places with your band. Tell us the hairiest experience you have had recently.

I could give many examples, but the most dramatic one that I can think of is when we played for the second time at a hard-core satanic club called the House of Satan in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In spite of the fact that you could taste the darkness when we went there the first time, we knew that Jesus wanted us to go back. The club was packed with a mixture of Gothic kids, Satanists and speed freaks. We played in a cellar that looked like a cave. The cement walls were all painted black and there was only one slow pulsating strobe light, which made you feel like you were on a bad acid trip.

Paul says in I Corinthians 2:1-5 that he preached Christ and Him crucified so that people will not be convinced by human wisdom but by God's power. I knew that it would be stupid to go in the House of Satan in my own power; I desperately need to see the power of God. That’s why we lift up the cross.

A lot of postmodern ministries and groups working with today's youth get criticized for not being confrontational enough. You seem to be out on the other spectrum with your hard hitting, full frontal evangelistic ministry. Is that because of the type of people God has called you to?

I don’t think so. I think everyone today is sick of hearing lies all day long and are desperate to hear the truth. Sadly, they are not hearing the truth because often those of us who know the truth remain silent. This seems especially true in the Christian music and art scene.

It seems that when Christians do enter the art scene, they only perform for other Christians. Those who do dare to go before a secular audience often hide their message by speaking in such an obscure code that only Christians recognize it. Or maybe they dare to speak, but they do it in a way that sounds like a bunch of slogans and clichés.

[HEY - KEEP ON READING - ITS JUST GETTING GOOD!]

Technorati Tags: david pierce, no longer music

CCM - The Future of Contemporary Christian Music

"All the younger artists signed to Christian labels within the last 10 years or less will struggle to understand where they fit—if they fit at all anymore."
"Another whole group of “ccm” era survivors will continue to move country music forward with great success"
"The Tooth & Nail tribe of artists will continue on. It’s about touring and live music. T&N had that right from the beginning—here’s a van and an atlas—see ya."
Bloggable memes from Charlie Peacock as he lays out the future of CCM. HT: Addison Road.

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Flight of the Conchords - Go Kiwi's!

Flight of the Conchords debut album hits Number 3 in USA. Well done! As you know I grew a beard so that my friend Derek (who looks like Jemaine) and I could do a take off for YouTube. We actually didn't have time for that. Well we did but we were too lazy. Anyway, I shaved off my Bret Beard yesterday and have gone back to being myself. Pretty pathetic beard though.
If you have never experienced Kiwi culture at its finest, check it out. Their YouTube videos get millions of hits. HT: Steve Taylor

Technorati Tags: conchords, flight of the conchords

Larry Norman (1947-2008)

Larry Norman, the "father of Christian rock" passed away yesterday. His friend and colleague Steve Camp has the skinny, and a song dedicated to him called "If I was a singer".

I never met Larry but my wife who grew up in California heard him many times. In fact, his song "I wish we'd all been ready", combined with that image of a lawn mower running without its operator in the movie "Thief in the Night", scared the hell out of her and led to her conversion to Christ in the late 70's. I don't think she would embrace that form of eschatology anymore but hey - we both owe Larry a big thank you when we get to the next life. Larry's website is LarryNorman.com

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Helen J Hicks and her new single

iTunes release of the single "Love's Not for Sale" by blues/jazz singer Helen J Hicks. Profits go towards fighting human trafficking. Last week I saw Helen perform a fantastic set at a London club where she released her excellent new album [buy it on Amazon] on her LoudMouthMusic label. I took some video of 'Love's Not for Sale'. Here it is.

Afterwards, Helen and James joined our group for dinner. Delightful couple. I told Helen she sounded a little like Nora Jones - hope that wasn't an insult.
Helen J Hicks, like every musician on the planet, is also on Myspace

Technorati Tags: blues, helen j hicks, human trafficking, jazz, music

'Swang' and Producer Jason Rey

Here is one of video producer Jason Rey's videos called Swang, which has achieved almost legendary status in the Houston hip-hop scene and is now a standard for other short hip-hop videos. One of the hip-hop artists, Hawk, died tragically from gunshot wounds shortly after this video was taken. Check it out and watch the cars SWANGING down the street. [Did i say that right, Jason?]

Jason Rey [de Leon] has been one of our Christmas guests. His favorite food at our feast, in case you were wondering, was the goose and chestnut/apple stuffing. Despite having his ass kicked by my 7 year old daughter Hannah in last night's karaoke competition, Jason managed to find his groove in one of the hip-hop songs and used his advantage to beat Abigail, who is a few years older than Hannah.

This is Hannah licking a lollipop after humiliating Jason (right) in the Jones's Christmas Karaoke competition, while Jessica plays with our kitten Charlie Chaplin.

I asked Jason about his video "Swang" and what that word means. I have nailed him down to a quasi definition:

Swang is a word given to the sync'd swerving down the street of a groups of "slabs" ie, late 70's/early 80's American big bodied cars. Think 1950's low-rider cruising making it into todays world.
- Rapper Z-Ro from Rap-A-Lot Records uses "swang" in at least one of his songs on Z-Ro vs the World.
- Swang on Wikipedia is not very helpful here, referring to a folk dance from Malwa but the ending sentence alludes to this new word:
"More recently elongated to "Swanging" in the verbal form for a more "hip" and "youthfull" use. For example "I was swanging allnight baby!""
- Swang on Urban Dictionary offers some helpful sentences that will help you talk like a native:
"look hear comes some hot whips they'r swang'n"

Technorati Tags: hip hop, video