The Power 20 Countdown....  
                                                        chart

          Interesting News                          
 

From switchfoot.com in regards to their new record:

In 1991, when Rolling Stone interviewed Dylan on the occasion of his 50th birthday, he gave a curious response when the interviewer asked him if he was happy. He fell silent for a few moments and stared at his hands. 'You know,' he said, 'these are yuppie words, happiness and unhappiness. It's not happiness or unhappiness, it's either blessed or unblessed.'

This record was written somewhere between the blessed and the unblessed, between the godly and the ungodly by a few young urban professionals from San Diego. These songs are dreams and questions, bleeding together, breathing in and out- always somewhere between life and death. And I feel this tension, this distance now more than ever, like a numbing ache... deep inside. The distance between the way things are and the way they could be, the distance between the shadow and the sun. And this is where we exist: within the paradox. Living out our lives: oxygen and carbon and hydrogen and so on... This record was the attempt to make something beautiful in filthy backstage dressing rooms everywhere, trying to sing something true with a broken heart. This record was written about things that I don't understand.

And yes, there's more than a wink of irony in all of this: making music from our most intimate thoughts and selling these songs online for a dollar a pop. Singing an anthem every night about how "we were meant to live for so much more" and many times feeling like a failure; singing "I dare you to move"and feeling trapped. Both loving and hating all the fuss that the music has brought. Knowing that even Rock and Roll, perhaps the best job in the world will not make me happy (in the yuppie sense of the word).

And yes, this American life is absurd! a strange paradox indeed... Perhaps no amount of money, sex, or power has ever satisfied us before, but maybe today will be different! Maybe this new purchase will make me happy! And the sun rises and sets once more- another day, another dollar. A carbonated beverage will help to chase your insecurities away. This new product will help to fill the meaningless void I feel inside. And so I drink the beverage, wear the clothes, and watch the war on TV. meaningless. meaning less.

Do we hunt our ridiculous suburban dreams like the neighborhood cat? Have we quietly fallen in line with the advertisement? Are we driven by ego uncontrolled, our lives simply vain pursuits of meaningless ends? Do we attempt to validate our existence by materiel means, relational acquisitions, sexual conquests, fiscal achievement, and cultural prowess? It was another jewish man who said something like this a while back.

"All is meaningless,"
Declares the teacher.
"Meaningless, meaningless,
Everything is meaningless"

For me, there is a terrible, wonderful freedom in coming to terms with these un-happy, un-yuppie words. It's a strange consolation in our dizzy and breathless race for happiness to find that you will never outrun the horizon. It's an avalanche you can't escape. It's a fatal wound that you cannot heal. If you fall on this rock you will be broken, if it falls on you you will be crushed. You see, this album started with a blow between the eyes that I am still recovering from, that's really all I've got to offer these days.

So in the half-light glow of radio shows, music videos, and greedy billboard charts I am aware of a darkness that is beyond me, I am coming to terms with my unbelief. No, I don't believe in rock and roll. No, I don't believe in the success that we've achieved. And no, I don't believe in me. In a free market world of the bought and sold I feel caught in between. I believe I've heard about a man who was exploited to sell everything from indulgences to the wars of men. And yet he offered only one bitter pill that was not easily marketed. Maybe that's what this record hopes to be: a simple bitter pill of truth that steps outside of our hamster wheel and looks up at the stars and beyond.

Maybe Dylan was right when he said Rock and Roll isn't Rock and Roll anymore. I've met so many lonely, desperate, beautiful people over the past few years. Yeah, I've got a bitter pill to swallow, but it just might be true. Maybe our lives drift quietly by and we can't stop the current. Maybe this modern river leads to the sea of death, where no medicine can cure these ills. Perhaps our restless wanting is satisfied only outside of ourselves.

It was another jewish man who said something like this, "If you seek to gain your soul you will lose it." I am on a journey that will one day come to final

Five Iron Frenzy
Our Last Article Ever
by Kevin D. Hendricks 
A long time ago in a square state far, far away there was a band named Five Iron Frenzy. Sadly, that band is no more. This is their final sto
  click here   

            Industry News

Kurt Carr: Bringing People Together Thru Music

By Mark Weber

{ChristianMusicMonthly.com}

Kurt Carr, who has become one of the mainstays of modern gospel music, right up there with Kirk Franklin, Donnie McClurkin and Yolanda Adams, is on a mission. The journey’s long, and sometimes it’s hard, but he continues to work long hours toward breaking down barriers within the church, especially when it comes to color and race.

Carr’s main musical aim is to bring people together of different colors and backgrounds. That’s always been in his plan, but now, more than ever, he is committed to the cause, going so far as to name his latest CD, “One Church,” and listen to contemporary Christian music vocal group Avalon in order to influence his own music so it reaches outside of the often insular black community.

“Martin Luther King made a statement that 10 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week because— generally—whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics worship together independent of each other,” says Carr. “With my new CD, I hope to open the minds of people, making a ripple that will get bigger and bigger, getting people to think we can worship with people who are different than us, and listen to things we might not normally listen to.”

Carr thinks that people of different colors and races don’t come together not because they don’t like one another, but, rather, because they don’t know each other. With that in mind, he thinks music can help bridge the gap between people, often advising CD buyers to get two copies when they purchase an album. “And give one to someone who doesn’t look like you,” he’ll say.

Growing up, Carr was not part of a church-going family, so it’s pretty amazing to think where he is now, reaching thousands, if not millions, bringing gospel music all around the world to churches and festivals, like Encounter Ontario (www.encounterontario.com), this August 20, 2005, in downtown Toronto.

“I started at age 14 at Hopewell Baptist Church in Hartford, Connecticut. God touched my heart and I went to church by myself; it was around the corner from my house. I went to church, eventually joined the choir, and the rest is history,” he says.

After becoming active in his church’s music programs, Carr’s mother noticed his budding talent, and bought him a Walter Hawkins album, which he listened to daily for a year or two. He taught himself how to play the piano based on those songs.

Carr became a skilled musician. He graduated with a degree in fine arts from the University of Connecticut, and was mentored by gospel music’s legendary Richard Smallwood.  Furthermore, in 1986, another legend, Reverend James Cleveland, asked Carr to join him as pianist and musical director. Smallwood and Cleveland both had positive and lasting impacts on Carr.

“With my musical expertise and education, I want to continue setting a bar of excellence in the gospel music genre,” he says. “I want to keep ‘songs with substance’ popular. In order to cross over to secular radio, we take Jesus out and water down the message and make it ambiguous and people listen to it and derive whatever meaning they want from it.  I don’t think that’s the true meaning of gospel, because the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. You don’t have to say, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’ in every song, but the theme and the message should be there and be clear and I pray that God will use me to do that—to make that popular again.”

Carr truly depends on God to guide his music ministry, which has seen its share of ups and downs.

“I was doing my music, and I felt like I was making good music, but for some reason people weren’t getting it—they weren’t hearing me—and I became very discouraged and went through a difficult time, but God gave me the strength to hold on and then the song ‘For Every Mountain’ came, which ended up becoming one of my biggest songs,” he says.

“Another song I wrote, ‘I Almost Let Go,’ has a line: I was right at the edge of a breakthrough and couldn’t see it. That’s what happened during the time I made the For Every Mountain album. There were some transitions at the record company and my album sat on the shelf for six months—six months of not knowing if it would come out, not knowing my future or my destiny. I was right at the edge of the breakthrough I needed to become ‘Kurt Carr’ and for the ministry to go where it is and I couldn’t see it because I took my focus off of trusting God and put it on looking at the situation I was in.”

You’ll find Carr in church often, because it’s a place where he can connect with people who knew him before the fame. It’s also a place where he can be encouraged, inspired and blessed. Carr thankfully remains grounded and humble, despite soaring record sales and ever-increasing popularity.

“I tell people you have to really be careful when you’re a celebrity, because people tell you you’re great everyday,” he says. “You’re always seen in your best light—that’s why I stay grounded in my church.”

He smiles when he recalls being at his church in Los Angeles a few months back, when a little 8-year-old kid exclaimed, “Oh my God Kurt, I didn’t know you were so big!” Carr says it was a humbling moment when this little kid just saw him as a choir director at church, not some international celebrity.

As he travels the world, Kurt Carr takes gospel music to places it has rarely or never been before. When he comes to Encounter Ontario, August 20, 2005, at Ontario Place in downtown Toronto, you can bet he will do his best to bring diverse people together, praising Jesus as One Church. For ticket information, please call 866-620-7827 from anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, or visit the festival’s informative website, www.encounterontario.com.

(What's New Archives)