Album #2, Recording Day 1

Eight years and 7 months ago, I set foot for the first time in a professional recording studio (that journey began here).  The Twenty Committee's first album, A Lifeblood Psalm, (check the sidebar) was recorded in the space of two weeks at Radiant Studios in Nashville, and released in 2013.  The drum work you hear on that album is almost entirely the result of one take, recorded live in the space of several hours on that first day as we were laying down scratch tracks.  The other instruments, with the exception of Geoff's keyboards, were all recorded each in a 10-12 hour day.  While we remain deeply proud of that first effort, we are looking forward to a more mature approach to fleshing out these tunes by building them properly, from the ground up, tracking the drums over several days, and then bringing the files home to overdub each instrument in turn.

Today, we began the process, this time with Rave Tesar of Renaissance at the helm.  I think he was excited to start the process, since he told us the night we arrived that he was going to "stay up all night" to get Joe's drums mic-ed and ready for the first session.  Jeff streamlined the process in advance by quantizing practice recordings of all the new tunes and setting them to click tracks (he may have aged several years in the process).  I don't know how we could possibly have worked these complex tunes out with any degree of tempo consistency without that work done prior to rolling the tape.  Even still, there were still some strange moments we needed to work out in the moment, or plan for overdubbing later.

We spent half the day (from 10-3) getting set up.  Anything with a speaker was set up and mic-ed in a separate room for sound insulation.  Geoff's keyboard station was with Rave in the control room.  Once all mics, DIs, and cables were checked, we sounded in each instrument and then established headphone mixes for monitoring purposes.  We took our lunch break standing up, just before hitting record for the first time.  The final take of the day wrapped up around 10:00.

We recorded 5 tunes today in total, each with three takes apiece.  The working titles are "Embers," "Robot Death," "Forevermore," "Star in the Eye," and "Sparks in the Mind (You Wasted Life)" -- all subject to change.  Some of these songs we've been playing/working for years.  Others, we literally were making changes to as of our last practice before this weekend.  We have two monster tunes left to do tomorrow, each broken into 3 parts.  These epics are the most complex numbers on the album in terms of arrangement, tempo variation, and nuance, so we anticipate putting another 12 hours into them -- again, with the primary intent being to walk away with drum mixes (and bass too, if possible).

Rave is a skilled musician and producer.  We are deeply grateful for the expertise, equipment, time, and eagerness he is bringing to the project, not to mention his anecdotes between takes.

Exhausted, but pleased, I close this post by delivering to you these quotable moments of the day:

"We all know that all good music is based off of the kick drum." - Rave

"Are you playing guess the guitar sound?" - Geoff

"Rave, if I open this box labeled 'Rave Miscellaneous,' will there be internal organs?" - Geoff

"There's one thing you'll never hear a Russian say..." - Rave

"Drum plop!" - the band

"Follow the click, not the lick." - Joe

"That's the warmth of my sincerity." - Jeff

Things we can't share (and are totally happy about it): AKA 9 Years of Wedded Bliss

Show of hands.  How many of you, like me and Tara, have a running #thingswecan'tshareonFacebook list?

That list includes hilarious slip-ups, memorable comments, and intimate things that -- on one hand -- we immediately want to share when they happen for the inevitable reactions we know we'd get.  But then we remember in the nick of time that we have reputations.

Filters are kind of important.  We use them for drinking water, air purification, and for internet content.  They protect us primarily from bad stuff getting in.  But they can also protect us from overexposing, venting, or damaging our personal image.

As I was working on our 2020 Christmas letter to friends and family this past December, trying to whittle the year down to some of the major events worthy of recounting, I was reminded that there are so many precious moments that Tara and I share.  So many inside jokes and silly memories -- things that still make us belly-laugh when we recall them, but things that only we would truly find funny, cute, or worthy of recounting.  They also happen, in many cases, to be things that would also be deeply embarrassing if they actually made their way onto social media...

And all of them are things we wouldn't trade for anything.

We live in a world that abides by the creed, "Pics or it didn't happen."  So we share everything for the validation.  We overexpose because we live for the likes.  All of our experiences feel more legitimate and exciting when they're community experiences.  We video and share our kids' special and embarrassing moments, because we like to know that we're not alone in our parenting struggles.  We broadcast our "failure to properly adult" to reassure ourselves that other people are lazy and irresponsible too.  Every nook and cranny of our lives, no matter how ugly, can become spotlight avenues for exploring our sense of self-worth.

Thriving off of the opinions and reactions of others might fall into a Type A personality block in the sociologist's book, but in biblical terms it's actually called the fear of man (Prov 29.15) and it can truly undermine our worship of God and our ability to properly love, value, and serve the people God has placed in our lives.  After all, instead of using others to stroke our own egos, our primary objective as Christians is to model the missional mindset of Jesus, which is to serve (Mark 10.45).

This is just a short little post directed to husbands and wives, intended to think together with you about the benefits of protecting certain things and treasuring secret moments with your spouse.  If you're married and reading this, remember that the #thingswecan'tshareonFacebook list is a special thing for you and your spouse.  Not everything in your marriage needs to be proclaimed from the social media rooftops.  There are so many private things between me and Tara, special things afforded to us by our marriage covenant, that are privileged moments.  You and your spouse would be better served protecting those things by sharing them only between the two of you, than by giving other people windows into the special things that should stay between you.

Today, Tara and I are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary.  Throughout the course of our decade-long relationship, we've been recording our memories and moments -- our road trips, house purchases, and coffee dates -- but it wasn't until 2018 when a certain little boy came into our lives, and then a little girl two years later, that our Photos libraries truly began exploding our cloud storage.  We are certainly guilty of overexposing our kids on Facebook (I mean, who could blame us?  Our kids are darn cute), but even in that realm, we would be wise to beware of how much we conflate real life and social media.  Sometimes the precious moments we have are cheapened by sharing them; sometimes the value of a memory is found in the bounds of privacy.

Maybe at the heart of this post is a statement about maintaining an appropriate level of marital and familial transparency.  On one hand, I believe that Christian marriages and families are called to a community of accountability.  It's called the Church, and being part of it means surrendering my rights to my independence.  It's critical that we are transparent with one another so that we don't fall into undiagnosed or unaddressed patterns of sin.  But at the same time, there is also a sacredness to be preserved in our marriages, a privacy and protection warranted by having and holding none other from this day forward.  Over-publicizing on a public platform is often the natural result of over-publicizing in smaller settings: how much of my marriage am I comfortable sharing with close friends?  Family?  Do I have a tendency to complain about my spouse, our children, the challenges we face as couples, etc -- all without my spouse knowing what I'm revealing, much less being comfortable with that level of detail?  Are our divulgences TMI, or are they sensitive to the fact that our marriages are to be upheld in honor, mutual respect, humility, and propriety?

So here's a post on social media about the stuff you shouldn't post on social media.  What a world we live in.  Would you join me in striving to protect what is precious in your marriage by seeking to love and respect your spouse, preserving your special intimacy and allowing no outside influence or internal friction to damage your unity?

Live together, laugh together, rejoice together, worship together.  Share what's appropriate with others, ask for help when you are lost, and commit to having the same conversation again and again -- if that's what's necessary to persevere.  Relish the things you can share with absolutely no one but your spouse.  Remember the command of Hebrews 13.4, which demands the marital union and all the intimate things that go along with it should be protected and upheld.

That's been my goal for the last 9 years.  Lord willing, Tara and I will maintain that for the next 9 and beyond.

Sweetheart, thanks for laughing at me and with me all this time.  I love you.

February 25, 2012

Three personal blessings in 2020

2020 has claimed another casualty.  The other night, I had to retire my faithful French press after it slipped off the drying rack, hit the countertop, and cracked.  I felt like playing "Taps" as I reverently laid it in the trash can.  And then swept a bunch of veggie ends on top of it.

Believe it or not, this is something of a gratefulness post, because in the midst of the 2020 pandemic, a broken French press is just about the worst thing that has happened to me and my family.  It is incredible to me when I pause to think about the innumerable and unspeakable hardships that have befallen our world: death and permanent health impairment from Covid-19, unemployment, debt, riots and looting, isolation, fear, loss.  For me, things have remained fairly consistent, and that is an incredible mercy from the Father.  Many people who I know have not had the same experience.

Each morning as I've walked the dog, my prayer time has started with simple gratitude to the Lord: "Father, thank you for the breath in my lungs today."  As I've studied the Scriptures, I've been challenged that so much hinges on the Christian's ability to pursue and maintain a spirit of thanksgiving.  Simple gratefulness is the enemy of a host of sins -- see Ephesians 5.4, where a simple spirit of thanksgiving is the antidote to "sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness... filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking"; and 1 Thessalonians 5.18, where giving thanks is connected to giving voice to (rather than "quenching") the Spirit.  It's alarming the weeds of entitlement, bitterness, and arrogance that spring up in the hard, mineral-deprived soil of ingratitude.

Here are some things that I've chosen to be intentionally grateful for over the last few months.  In truth, they were unexpected, positive "fallout" of the pandemic and quarantine experience, and I couldn't honestly ignore them.

My family.  Even through the hardships, discouragements, and uphill journeys, my greatest joy in life is being a husband and a father.  My son turned two in June, and my wife is now 7 months pregnant with our first daughter.  Working from home for the months of March through May, to be present for some amazing developmental moments in Zeke's young life, was such an unforeseen blessing.  I've on-and-off been "that dad" -- the one who is constantly taking pictures of his kid (never thought I'd be "that dad," by the way) -- and looking back at many of the shots I snapped during the spring, it's amazing to me to see all those profound but subtle changes in his face, voice, and mannerisms.  Those are precious moments for which I was able to be home, by God's grace.  Were the world experiencing more "normal" circumstances, I might have only experienced those changes more indirectly.

My church.  The people who comprise Fellowship Bible Church have found ways to stay united through it all.  Their love and support for our leadership has been such a blessing in a time where it has felt like our hands have all been collectively tied.  Through extended online church and frustrating social distancing requirements upon reopening, our people have simply gathered to fellowship and worship.  All of these circumstances have served to show that God's Great Commission purposes for His Body pervade even a scenario that ground the rest of the world to a halt.  Even the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church (Matt 16.18).  The hardships reveal who is truly invested in spiritual growth and edification, and force us to be inventive in how we continue to do what we have always done.  I'm thankful for a persevering church family, held unerringly by the One who is "able to keep you from stumbling" (Jude 24).

The internet.  As a youth pastor, I find myself criticizing more than celebrating things like the internet, social media, and video games.  However, the long period of separation from extended family, friends, and my students reminded me anew that all tools are only as good as what they're used for.  In 2020, we have witnessed both the ills and the gains of media and technology: ugly conspiracy theories going viral, racism not being exposed for the purpose of change but filmed for the sake of outrage and backlash, media outlets functioning as judge and jury for events with absolutely no clear context, memes substituting for rational arguments, conversation undermined by accusation.  But Zoom was truly a godsend for us in youth ministry, Facebook live was so beneficial for conducting online prayer times, and FaceTime became a means for me to continue direct and vital counseling.  I praise God for the common grace in these tools that have enabled us to maintain the immense priority of meeting and fellowshipping together (Heb 10.25).

These are just three things that have given me pause to celebrate in 2020.

To be honest, I've not always maintained this type of attitude.  I've been prone to anxiety and quick to complain -- even eager to complain about restrictions and mandates that have been laid down from the powers that be.  I've needed all the inconveniences of 2020 to help me realize my dependence upon things less than Christ.  It's also an indictment of my heart that I've not always been this intentionally grateful, in 2019 and years past, prior to the world being turned upside down by a virus.  As the year rolls on, it is my intent to further grow in this discipline, and in so doing allow the Lord more fertile, submissive soil in my heart in which to work.