Just a test post
This is a test post from the iPad to see how the WordPress app works. I'm excited about this new way of posting, hopefully writing will become a more regular thing over time.
That Expiration Date Band
March 12, 2010 – myself, Mike Korth, Will Caudill, and Neil Sheets gathered together with a bunch of friends at the Crabtree Brewery in Greeley, for what turned out to be the last Expiration Date gig. We didn't intend for it to be the last one, but nothing lasts forever, life moves on, and other vague cliches to explain that it just sort of didn't ever happen again. I'm pretty nostalgic by nature, the past almost always looks better after it's happened than it did at the time, and a year since the last gig seems like a good opportunity to remember a couple of my favorite moments.
August, 2005 – Grand Island, Nebraska:
We had seen a battle of the bands go down in this place the year before, and naively thought “let's come back next year and win this thing.” Upon arrival, we discovered that there was only 1 other band competing – our confidence increased at this point, surely we, a band from Nowhere, Colorado, who had played about 2 gigs so far, would be miles better than whatever 'other' band had kindly agreed to open for us. We didn't have any gear in those days, so we spent the hour before the competition frantically trying to borrow drums and amps, then we arrived on stage and realized we'd forgotten to tune our instruments. Several awkward minutes passed as we got everything in tune, and we were ready to begin the set. First, however, I released a very loud, accidental burst of feedback – I wasn't used to the amp, you see. So, with the judges looking at their watches and covering their ears, and with a glare coming from the guy whose amp I'd borrowed that would definitely turn me to stone if I looked him in the eye, we played our first song.
I won't speak for the other two, but I know my playing and singing were filled with wrong notes and missed words, it took about 4 minutes into the set for all of our confidence to be blown away. We stumbled through for about 20 minutes, and then took second place. Of 2. The judges comments that particularly stuck with me were “I like your song titles”, and “you're on your way to being a good garage band.”
October, 2005 – Briggsdale, Colorado:
This wasn't an Expiration Date show - we'd been asked to come out to a church to play some...well, church music, for an evening – we didn't do any of our songs, but what makes this stick in my mind was the soundcheck: We'd been toying around with a weird song I wasn't really sure about called Back2Earth – we made a run of it in the afternoon to warm up for the Briggsdale gig, and a run of notes came out of Will's bass for the first time that would come to define that song and our band for the next several years. I still dislike the lyric to that song intensely, whining about problems with girls is sort of the lowest common denominator of songwriting, it just always felt like we should have been better than that, but for whatever reason it was a favorite track from this moment until the end. Mainly, I think, because of Will's fantastic bass playing.
January, 2006 – Ault, Colorado:
Some late night in early 2006, I got an instant message (remember those?) from Will asking if his friend Mike could join the group. Now, in those days I was hesitant to have an opinion about anything in the band – as the front man and songwriter, I felt like I had too much control already, so any time any of the others expressed an opinion, I was pretty eager to do whatever they wanted. So it was agreed that Mike would join us at our next practice. I can't remember why I didn't bother to ask if Mike could play the guitar, but the first practice with him on board revealed that we had forgotten to check that detail. We kept him low in the mix for about 9 months, and he turned into quite a good guitar player – Mike is one of my closest friends these days but I still don't recommend jumping into someone's band without knowing what you're doing as the beginning of a friendship.
May, 2007 – Toad's Tavern, Denver, Colorado:
This was the only gig we ever filmed or recorded, and I was very pleasantly surprised that we sounded... like a band. I have no idea what has happened to the dvd in recent years, but it was a great night and a confirmation that maybe we were on to something. It seems silly now, but the other thing I recall about that night was how intimidating bars were when we were all under 21. Not only had we come into this place when it really felt like we shouldn't have, but all the people who were coming to see us weren't going to be drinking either... Not a great night for the Toad's bank account, but a wonderful night for us.
September, 2007-July, 2008 – Blind Dog Studios, Longmont, Colorado:
During several evenings and weekends over these months, we laid the tracks to an album that will probably never be released. It's almost totally done, but as we don't really exist anymore it feels a bit strange to think about working on it again now. A couple of things learned in the studio – first, in the studio, there are only opinions. On stage, it's a lot more objective – something either works in front of an audience, or it doesn't. If you're unsure, you can try it in front of a few different audiences, but eventually, you'll know. In the studio, you don't have any of that. You can have people you know there with you, you can have some friends listen to some rough mixes... but you only end up with one finished product, and however much you've worked on it, you only think it's great. You don't know. The other thing I discovered in the studio, was that people have opinions different to mine. In live situations, everything goes by so fast that you let most things go, but in the studio, if you play something that someone else thinks is awful... it can be listened to again, and everyone can weigh in. You discover very quickly whether or not you're on the same page musically in the studio, and we are all very different people.
March 12, 2010 – Crabtree Brewery, Greeley Colorado:
2009 and 2010 were pretty lean years for us, I think we played 3 gigs, of which this was the last. We'd made friends with some people who run some poetry slams in Greeley, and they asked us to play about 20 minutes between each of the rounds... so 5 sets over the course of a few hours – it made for a great evening. Because we'd played so little lately, I was expecting a disaster of a gig, but this worked out really well. They hadn't set up the main part of the brewery where they normally have gigs, because they didn't expect anyone to show up, so we were crammed into a corner by the bar.... which meant the place was pretty packed even if there were all of about 40 people there. It was a hot, loud room, of friends and fans who knew most of the words better than we did, and fittingly, the last song we played was It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). We “debuted” a new song that night, funnily enough, so that audience was the first and last audience to hear 'I'm Not.' And now, We're Not.
T
Reflections on 2010 Part Two
...and perhaps the biggest theme that has permeated the year?
A change of circumstance does not change anything on your inside.
Like any of you reading this, I have two lists. The list of things I really don't like about life, and the list of “If only I had...”, and in my head on some level, I'm convinced that if I get the second list, it will fix the first list. The first list contains things like “I'm incredibly bad with money,” “I tend to freak out when I realize I've done something wrong and then lie to cover my tracks,” “I value peoples opinions of me more than I value people themselves, so I don't say hard things to people sometimes when they need it,” “I'm pretty awkward socially, but don't like being alone much either” - incidentally, this means I'm that frustrating guy who complains about being lonely but then gets invited to something and bails because it will involve me being in a room where there's a high chance that the only other person I know there will be in a conversation with somebody else, and I'll end up picking different things in the room to lean on, one of which will be in the way of someone else carrying food, and one of which will collapse under my weight.
You know, that list.
Then the second list contained things like “If I had a bit more money, if I get a job that doesn't make me get up at 3am, if I start again in a new town with a new community....” And perhaps on some level there is some sort of psychological benefit to a fresh start. But it's mainly a lie. With a bit more money you don't stop believing the lie that toys will make you happy, it just starts taking fancier toys to make you happy. Being around a bunch of new people doesn't change your propensity to say things just to make them like you, and it definitely doesn't mean you get a chance to try being socially “normal.” It's fascinating really, I would guess it doesn't even take a whole 60 seconds before you've sold yourself and suddenly getting these people to laugh will pretty consistently define a good day vs a bad one. I'm not sure why I slipped into second person there – if an English major is reading, it's cowardice more than it's bad grammar.
So that's me, a year later. New – well, bigger - clothes, and still sort of a mess. Why? Because at the end of the day, none of the things that make the life the way it is are external. I can't point my finger at anything and say “stupid universe! Always ruining everything!”, because even if you would change the whole universe I'd be the same person in a different universe. So what? Are we all stuck to be miserable and pointless, like a broken pencil whose owner just bought a laptop? Not exactly. All of the petty things that I find to be unhappy about are, at the end of the day, issues of worship. I know, that word sounds all churchy and weird – humor me for a minute and assume it's a shorter way of saying “looking to something for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life”. I handle money badly because at least partly I worship - look to for meaning, purpose and satisfaction in life - the things it can buy. I lie and mistreat people for their approval because at least in part I look to their approval for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life. And a change of job, a change of house, a change of city – more of what didn't work before still doesn't work.
There is, instead, one who we were made to worship. One who is more stable than our shifting useless ideas about what life is about. One who we can look to for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction, because the point of the whole universe for all of eternity is Him. One who, even though we rejected Him again and again, came to our level, as a human, born in a stable, into poverty, lived a life of perfect trust in God, like we were all meant to, and then died on cross to pay the penalty for every moment you and I have spent finding meaning, purpose, and satisfaction somewhere other than in Him. This one is Jesus, and He calls us to admit that finding joy and satisfaction here is useless. We weren't meant to! We were made for Christ's sake, and anything else just ends up chasing false dream after false dream, into hopelessness.
So maybe a better way to say the thing that has proven itself true over and over again this year, is this:
Jesus is everything.
Even when, and perhaps especially when, I'm bad at remembering it.
Merry Christmas.
T
Reflections on 2010 Part One
A few assorted thoughts on 2010.
- Good jobs exist. That probably sounds trite, and only easy to say when you have one. I accept that. And things at work will never be 'perfect' in any sense – this is a broken universe, I am I broken human working with a bunch of other broken humans. But at the end of the day? I get to do a reasonably interesting job for a living wage with a bunch of people I like. In times of economic trouble, it's easy for everyone to get cynical and stop thinking that it's possible to find good work – I'd just like to encourage people that it exists. There is a downside, however, which is...
- Switching from a physical labor type job to an office job makes you fat. I've gained about 25 lbs in the last 12 months. That's disgusting.
- It's nice to know that when I don't have to be somewhere at 3am, I am actually capable of getting somewhere on time. I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen.
- Wide social circles are only fun when you have time to maintain them. I was once quite pleased that there were so many groups of people I had relationships with and could drop in and out of – when your life ends up being a bit less flexible, what that actually looks like is that you just have a bigger list of “people you could call and hang out with but it would be awkward cuz it's been a while” than most people.
- I don't miss anything about being a teenager, really, except having time to write music. You know the last time I wrote anything? January 2009. Not quite worth going back to being driven to CSU in a minivan, but I do miss being able to spend a few hours a day with a guitar. I guess this must be why rock stars don't have jobs.
...and perhaps the biggest theme that has permeated the year?
Continued tomorrow.
An unnecessarily detailed account of an awkward moment.
I am unfortunately good at awkward moments. If you’d like to have the experience of getting along fairly well, and then suddenly something happens resulting in us not talking for months on end because it’s just too weird – I’m your man. I don’t know quite where this comes from, but like most of the personality quirks I’d like to get rid of, I’m guessing I picked it up from my father (don’t read that as harshly as it sounds, he would tell you the same thing, and I’ve learned many good things from him too). But even my awkwardness was no match for a woman I met last weekend in Greenwood Village.
A professor I had at CSU many moons ago told me that Greenwood Village was intentionally designed in a confusing way so as to discourage outsiders from ever returning – they certainly achieved their goals. Thirty seconds after entering, all hope of going back out the way I came in had been lost, and it only took another five minutes before the feeling that I was just going to have to give up and start a new life here had set in. I had come to this place to watch a Green Day concert, and because it had been a somewhat spontaneous decision, I had to come down a few hours early so that I wouldn’t have to fight through the will call line and the admission line. Finding myself with 90 minutes to kill, and not having eaten anything so far that day, I thought I would take advantage of the Greenwood Village Plaza and find something to eat before the gig. Another twenty minutes of driving in circles ensued, and I finally found the area I was looking for, two blocks away from where I’d started.
Judging from the signs, I had expected Greenwood Village Plaza to be this area’s equivalent of Centerra, and it was, with one exception – Centerra usually comes with people. As far as I could tell, on this sunny Saturday afternoon, only two other people were wandering the streets of Greenwood Village Plaza. It felt eerie, as though there had been a bomb scare, and we had somehow not heard the news. Or perhaps the entire area wasn’t open to the public yet, and those two others I saw walking about were just beta testing the complex. I found an Irish pub which looked like it would satisfy my pre-gig burger and beer needs, and cautiously went inside. I say cautiously, because there didn’t appear to be anybody in there, either. Just as I turned around to leave, a man sprang up from behind the bar and told me to sit wherever I wanted, before disappearing underneath the bar again. I was beginning to suspect I was interrupting the trials for the USA Olympic Hide-and-Seek team.
After sitting at a table for a very long few minutes, a server approached, and I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was insistent on making this as uncomfortable as possible. She came to the table and just stood and stared for what felt like about fifteen minutes, but in reality was probably almost a second. And rather than “what can I get you?” or the equivalent, her chosen opening line was “you’re going to the Green Day show.” Not a question, just a statement of fact. I asked what made her think that, and was told it was “the way I was dressed.” At this point it’s worth pointing out I wasn’t wearing thick black eyeliner and red and black striped pants. No, it was my blue jeans and button-down short sleeved white shirt that gave me away. I looked like a construction worker’s idea of “business casual,” but to this server, that said “Green Day Fan.” Fair enough. I hope her theories on what people look like are equally skewed in every direction, so that if someone does go in wearing a fedora, skinny jeans, and a black spiky belt, they’re greeted with “are you here to fix the blocked toilet?”
After that exchange, she returned to staring awkwardly at me, so I asked for a 90 Shilling, half out of thirst and half because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She left and went over to the bar, and rather than getting a beer, had a very long conversation with the barman. I only really came in here to waste time before the gig, so you would think that I wouldn’t mind that she’s taking her time bringing my drink… but don’t be fooled, I found that highly annoying for some reason. Eventually she brought it over, taking care to fill it too full and then spill a bit on the table when putting it down. I decided now would be a good time to order food, but she disappeared before I could open my mouth. It was at this point that I realized she also hadn’t brought me a menu, which meant I couldn’t loudly close it and slam it down on the table, in that way you do to signal “I’ve decided what I’d like to eat.”
Having decided against food, the server appeared again, and very aggressively said “aren’t you going to order any food?!” I then apologized (I’m English, I apologize to inanimate objects if I bump into them), and asked for a burger. The rest of the encounter went pretty much as you’d expect – it took forever and then tasted awful - but she didn’t engage in another staring contest or blurt out anything strange, so I suppose it was a win. Searching for a suitably surreal way to end this experience, I tipped about 40%, to ensure that she understood how much I appreciated this level of service and hoped she would bless other customers with the same delightful manner. Time I walked into this joint: 4:30pm. Time I left: 6:15pm. “Longest, most awkward mid-afternoon meal” is too dull to make the Guinness Book of Records, but I’d like to think I won, anyway.
Headphones
I consider myself to be a practical audiophile. That is to say, I like my music to sound as good as it can, but I accept that there's a level at which that becomes impractical. For example, cd does sound better than mp3, and vinyl does sound better than cd, but I like to take my music with me, into the car, and to work, and that sort of thing, and the needle keeps slipping off the record every time I go over a pothole, so it seems like an mp3 player is still the most practical thing to listen to music on.
So, within an mp3 player, how is the best possible sound achieved? There tends to be two factors to this. First, bitrate. You can judge for yourself the point at which you stop hearing a difference, but I find that good sound from an mp3 doesn't really start to happen until after 192kbps - so much gets lost in the downgrading that your computer does when it rips from a cd at 128 or even 64kbps. Most of us have enough harddrive space to store decent quality mp3s nowadays (and if you don't, an extra 500gb costs less than $100 and and well worth it), and if you're keeping the bitrate low to preserve space on your mp3 player, I'd question the logic there - slightly fewer, higher quality songs must be a better listening experience than 10 or 20 additional low bitrate tracks that have that digital artifact sound strangely reminiscent of someone farting in the bathtub.
But the second factor in the sound of your mp3 player, and the reason I wrote this thing to start with, is your headphones. The highest quality sound in the world, coming through those awful white iPod earbuds, is still going to sound you're listening to the band on the other side of a brick wall that you've covered in 7 layers of pillows. The cheapest way to get the best sound from headphones, of course, is to go with the big over the ear can style ones, but practicality rules that out for most of us - they're difficult to carry around, jogging is impossible, and you look like an escaped mental patient with them on. So what to do? Earbuds range from the ridiculously cheap (Wal-Mart sells some for $1.99/pair) to ridiculously expensive (you can get some that are are specially molded to the inside of your particular ears for around $1500), with many options in between. My favorite model that I've tried has to be these Sonys, but at $45 per pair they're not cheap, and unfortunately they're about as durable as a poorly constructed metaphor. If you plan to listen through them standing up straight, perfectly still, with no movement, and never take them out of your ears again, then they're a perfect pair. I went through 3 pairs in 2008, however, and spending $135/year on headphones just isn't good stewardship. They do sound fantastic though, and if they ever make a more durable model, I'll be first in line. But until then... Altec Lansing saves the day.
These headphones, the UHP106NP Backbeat Classics, are very, very nearly as good as the Sonys, and, through the website I just linked to twice (click here, a third time!), are less than half the price ($18 before shipping). They're incredibly durable, have a cloth covered cord (so it doesn't tangle), and sound fantastic. The cord is a bit noisy when it rubs on things, so you might want to safety pin it to your shirt or something when running, but on the whole, they're the best combination of value and sound I've ever come across. So throw away the iPod ones, and the Skull Candy ones (why everyone thinks they're high-end I have no idea, I've tried several pairs and they've all sounded awful), and experience the sound that your favorite bands spent months in the studio trying to create.
T
Even if…
I've long been fascinated by the book of Habakkuk. He's a relatively minor character in the Old Testament, part of those books that make up the minor prophets that people rarely read. But it's one of those stories - like much of the Bible, I suppose - that has no middle ground. Either God is as good, powerful, majestic, and all satisfying as Habakkuk makes Him out to be, or Habakkuk is completely crazy, and the god it describes is completely evil. There's no room for it being a nice story, a myth passed down through time, or a fable of sorts. The basic premise of the book is one of concern for the world. Habakkuk looks out at those around him and sees an awful lot of evil. He pleads with God, asking Him to do something, anything, about this. It's something many of us have felt, I'm sure - reports of so-called relief workers in Haiti buying teenaged prostitutes while they are there, for example, turn me very quickly to anger about the state of society.
And how does God respond to his plea? He reassures Habakkuk that He will put an end to the evil that has so frustrated him. So far, so good... but how? God plans to send in an opposing army to totally destroy Habakkuk's town. It's the equivalent of calling the police to complain about knife crime in your neighborhood and having them respond "no problem there, we're planning to bomb the city on Tuesday." Certainly not the reply that was expected.
I think most of us would forgive Habakkuk just about anything in response to God's plan. Anger? Confusion? Disbelief? But instead, Habakkuk offers this prayer, at the end of the book, that has haunted me since I first read it:
I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
to come upon people who invade us.
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.
What an incredible thought! Faced with the destruction of everything around him, Habakkuk says "even if there's nothing left here, no food, water, anything, I will still rejoice in who God is." As I said earlier, it either means Habakkuk has lost his mind... or this God really is an unending source of the deepest joy imaginable. The kind of joy that transcends any circumstance, that is only found in Him. I can assure you that the latter is true. This God brings joy in any circumstance - not joy at any circumstance, but a life transforming joy that makes us look at everything differently because our joy and contentment is no longer dependent on the things happening around us.
But there's something very troubling about this idea. As Habakkuk proclaims his enduring joy in Christ, even if his city is invaded, it strikes me that certain "even if"'s are harder for us than others. While I would like to look at this text and think "I can do that, I can have joy in God in any circumstance," in reality certain prospects fill me with dread and uneasiness. Will I still "rejoice in the Lord, take joy in the God of my salvation,"
- even if I'm still single in 60 years?
- even if in ten years I'm still in Ault and these churches are still in their present state?
- even if I have to wake up at 3.00am for the rest of my working life?
- even if the whole Sunday night crew fall away from the faith?
- even if I never get better at fighting the temptations to lie and lust?
I'm not suggesting any of these scenarios are especially likely, but from Habakkuk's prayer and a host of other texts in the Bible I know I'm commanded to be completely satisfied in Christ even if all of those things happen and worse. To let those prospects dampen my faith in God's promise to work all of life for my good reveals idolatry in my heart, it reveals that certain things are more worthwhile to me than knowing Him more. It's because of this that we're called to continually check our hearts - to "watch your life and doctrine closely", as Paul told Timothy. The more we're aware of our potential idols, the quicker we can repent and return to the wellspring of grace and joy, whenever circumstances take our eyes off of Him.
So which "even if"s are the hardest for you? What picture of the future of your life looks the most unpleasant? Watch these things closely, and remember that above all of them is a good, gracious, transcendent God, who is good and does good to us, always.
T
Hello!
Having gone about a year and a half without a blog of any kind, I've realized I'm narcissistic enough to still want to have a place to put...things. This isn't meant to be anything special, but occasionally I want to write something or link to something that doesn't really work well through Twitter or Facebook. And so here goes.
