Band of the Week

Underoath. For sure.
My absolute favorite band, Underoath combines screamo with Aaron Gillespie's clean, beautiful face. Whoops, I'm sorry. I meant to say vocals. My bad. I've had the extreme privilege of seeing them live (but only once), and it was the most brutal, incredible, out of this world show of my entire life. Now for the technical stuff. When Underoath formed in 1998, Dallas Taylor was the lead "vocalist." Their music (as seen on "Act of Depression," "Cries of the Past," and "The Changing of Times) was basically just people screaming their lungs out over top of some random blips and bleeps and electronica. Taylor left the band in 2003, and was replaced by Spencer Chamberlain. Somewhere in there, they began mixing Aaron's vocals in with the screaming, creating a cleaner, more enjoyable sound. (My opinion.)

Their lyrics have been the subject of many of my vague blog titles and facebook status updates. "It's all in the way, I say what I don't mean, and mean what I don't." (The Created Void/Lost in the Sound of Separation) "I never told you/but it's all in your goodbyes." (A Boy Brushed Red, Living in Black and White) "Hey unfaithful I will teach you/To be stronger, to be stronger/Hey ungraceful I will teach you/To forgive one another." (Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape.)

Band Members:
Spencer Chamberlain: Lead vocals, long hair that gets really sweaty and flings all over at shows
Aaron Gillespie: Drums, vocals, gorgeous face. (Whoops. How did that get in there again?) Also the only member of the ORIGINAL Underoath that is still in the band.
Chris Dudley: The sweet guy that plays the keyboard and synth and headbangs
Grand Brandell: Bass. Which is a very important instrument
Tim McTague: Lead Guitar. And AMAZING NAME. And cool beard
James Smith: Rhythm Guitar. And also apparently rather good looking.Note: If you live in southern California, and your name rhymes with "Zennette Haynard," you will probably NOT enjoy this band.

Not so much on the "break" part...

Spring break officially starts at noon tomorrow. Between noon tomorrow, and one o'clock on Monday, March 15, these are the things that I will have accomplished:
Packing. Church. Crossroads. An evening with my favorite people on earth. Breakfast with Madison, followed by breakfast with Molly (and Maggie?). I'll probably only eat one of those. Unless there's bacon. Time with Grandma and Grandpa Baker. A night at Indiana Wesleyan University including: an admissions meeting, a meal, a class with Andrew, staying with Melissa, and a tour. An overnight at Taylor University, including: staying with Ashleigh, a tour, chapel, and an Admissions meeting. A visit to Huntington for a tour and a meeting with Admissions. Dinner with Aunt Evelyn. Two nights with my Aunt Kendra, Uncle John, and Ian. A visit to Calvin for chapel, a tour, and lunch. A visit to Kuyper for a tour and an Admissions Meeting. A visit to Cornerstone for a tour and an Admissions meeting. A meeting with our Peru team. Church at either Sister Lakes or Third. A Project 86 concert.

Here are the ADDITIONAL things that I need to accomplish: Lit homework. Study my Spanish book for a very long time. Learn how to do Algebra yet again. Stop doing so poorly in my classes. Possibly make some form of decision regarding college. SLEEP.

Yeah. Not so much on the break part of things.

Anyway, I'm (hopefully) going to blog about each school I visit, with pictures. Hopefully. My homework should possibly come first, I think.

I hope Cory calls. That would just make my break SO MUCH more interesting. (Cory. If you somehow stalk me and found my blog and read it every day hoping for some mention of your name, that was sarcasm. Really. I can do without 6 calls in ten minutes while I'm trying to plan out my life. Sorry kid.)

I Could Be In Love, If, You Wore that Dress Everyday

Went to NTBI (New Tribes Bible Institute) in Jackson tonight with the youth group. I always like roadtrips, but tonight's was pretty epic. Heart-stirring speaker, music, statistics, an amazing video, and some deep conversations.

I had a chance to talk to a couple of the students for a while. I was looking at the list of all the unreached tribes, and they came up and started talking to us. Pretty cool. I would definitely like to go there after college, I think.

Aaron and I were talking on the way home, about how much it bothers us when people say they "just don't feel called to missions." Everyone is, in the Great Commission. Sure, you might not go to the remote jungles of Indonesia, but you're still called to be a missionary where you are. Just some food for thought.

It's a part of me, though. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am called to full-time foreign ministry. I can FEEL it, whenever someone talks about missions. When a speaker asks who will go, I want to jump up and scream "ME ME ME!!!" The more I fall in love with Jesus, it gets easier to spread the Gospel here, but my intense desire to go "into all the world" only deepens.

Tonight made it even stronger. I just want to scream. I know my grammar is no good right now, and I don't even care. The world needs to know the love of my Savior.

Some hard conversations when I got home, but J's always there to make it better :)Not sure if it showed up well or not... but it was epic.

From Time to Time

Please note. This is all Jenney's fault. Her Oregon post made me nostalgic.

Bleak. Cold. Blank.

The snowy landscape

Matches my emotion

From time to time

I miss it so much

That I'm in physical pain

I lie awake

Staring, staring

Endlessly

Wishing to go back

Back to those endless drives

Those stupid arguments

Back to M-46 and M-99

Haunted arboretums and

Great deals on photos

Back to the movie theater

Sitting in my car, talking

The windows fogging up

Back to doing insane amounts of school work

Making dinner and cleaning up

Just because I wanted to

Back to having friends

And a life

I want to go back

Back to the student center

To poke fights and real worship

To sitting at Subway for all hours

Sharing a 2-liter of Mountain Dew

Back to counselor talks

Drinking tea and walking down railroad tracks

Back to spending hours in Blockbuster

Fighting over the evening's selection

Waiting for you to put your shoes on

Driving out of my way on purpose

I want to go back

Back to learning to drive in the snow

To pizza dates and movie nights

To laughing hysterically

Being who I really am

Back to gangsta impressions

Followed by deep discussions

Sheer honesty

I want to go back

But we can never go back

So I stare

Endlessly

Bleak, cold, blank

The snowy landscape

Matches my emotion

From time to time

Band of the Week (pt. 2)

If you were wondering why Taking Back Sunday stopped being good after Tell All Your Friends, the answer is my second pick for Band of the Week. Guitarist Josh Nolan left the band after this album, and with his sister Michelle, former TBS bassist Shaun Cooper, and drummer Will Noon, formed Straylight Run.
Their sound is like a mellower Taking Back Sunday, with female vocals. Melodically similar to Death Cab for Cutie, but still original. As always, I was drawn to the band first by their music, and then compelled to take a closer look when I examined their lyrics.

"Sing me something soft/Sad and delicate/Or loud and out of key/Sing me anything" (Existentialism On Prom Night), "Holding on to the phone/Holding on to this glass/Holding on to the memory of what didn't last/Waiting for better days/They'll never come/So dry your eyes/It's better/Now it's done." (Now It's Done), "A laundry list of problems/Doesn't make you interesting/And never getting help doesn't make you brave/Not listening to reason doesn't mean that you have faith/You're just cutting off your nose to spite your face" (Sympathy for the Martyr)

Straylight Run creates a sound that I can crank up in the car and fall asleep to at night, and mingles it with lyrics that are relatable and open without being annoyingly emo.

Now comes the sad part. I discovered this band on accident, when looking for a Taking Back Sunday CD at a little record store in Daytona Beach (Atlantic Sounds Records) on February 18. I googled them a couple days later, and found this posted on their Tumblr page:

"Dear friends and fans of Straylight Run,

We are very sad to announce to you that we will be going on an indefinite hiatus. We call it a hiatus and not a break up because the band still enjoys working together and is open to the idea of doing so in the future. If it was up to us we would continue making music throughout this year and the years to come, but the unfortunate reality is that being in a band is a business and when business isn’t good you can only keep going for so long.
We are still making plans to release the live album that we recorded at the end of our last tour. As of now there is no release date though, so stay tuned for more information on that.
We would like to thank everyone one of you who ever came to a show, bought one of our records, took us on tour or supported us in any way at all over the nearly seven years that we’ve been a band. We’d also like to thank everyone that has worked for us, especially Dave Stein, Andrew Buck, Dayna Ghiraldi, Shannon Kimball and everyone at Padell. We have had an amazing time and feel so incredibly grateful to you all for everything we’ve experienced throughout our years as a band. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Love,
Straylight Run"

What can I say? I think I'm cursed. :(

Band of the Week (pt. 1)

I meant to do this every week. Then I forgot. Now I remembered. There are going to be two this week :)

La Dispute: Rocky introduced me to La Dispute a while ago. I downloaded one of their albums and forgot about it. I discovered it on my iPod a week or two ago, and fell in love. Similar to mewithoutYou, this style of music isn't for everyone. It's best described as poetry recited somewhat melodically over music. At times it's angry, and at times the emotion is so raw that I wanted to cry.With lyrics like "You still cross my mind from time to time/And I mostly smile/Still so set on finding out where we went wrong and why/So I retrace our every step with an unsure pen/trying to figure out what my head thinks/but my head just ain't what it used to be," (Andria), "I think I saw you in my sleep, darling/I think I saw you in my dreams/You were stitching up the seams/Of every broken promise that your body could not keep/I think I saw you in my sleep," (Such Small Hands) and "And I remember when I knew that you'd be leaving/how I barely kept up breathing/and I bet if I had to do it all again, I'd feel the same pain/And I remember panicked circles in the terminal in tears/How I wept to God in fits/I've hated airports ever since,"(Andria, again) La Dispute combines pure lyrical honestly with tight instrumentals, and somehow makes it work.

Girl Put Your Records On

During my trip to Florida, I fell back in love with music. I'm not really sure how it had come about that music and I had broken up, but we had. I had become selective and picky, listening almost exclusively to Death Cab for Cutie (during the day) and Sufjan Stevens (at night). I downloaded a couple of new albums, but found no reason to listen.

On the flight to Florida, however, that all changed. I had created a playlist of four or five albums I had had for a while but never listened to, but stuck in about 25-30 songs I know well. After buckling my seatbelt, using maneuvers that would make most yoga master jealous, I wrestled my iPod from the backpack that was shoved under the seat less than a foot in front of me. I stuck my headphones in my ears, cranked up the volume, and closed my eyes. The sounds that came out of my iPod were foreign. It was a band I had never listened to, and I was immediately intrigued. The song was a short one, and soon a song I knew came on. I listened to the familiar sounds while processing the first song. Then came another new band, and another, and more familiar songs. Fast, slow, loud, soft, happy, sad, angry, melodic, angry, lovesick, in love, heartbroken, healing, praising, wishing. It was beautiful. The perfect mix of new and familiar- a lot like my life at the moment.

I kept my earbuds in throughout both flights, and the car ride home. Dinner seemed oddly quiet, even with my cousin screaming gleefully, because I had no soundtrack. Each night as I went to sleep, my iPod was playing in my ears. I had a HUNGER for music. I visited an incredible little record store in Daytona Beach, and found MORE new music. The hunger didn't subside. It didn't matter the music, I just needed music in my ears. Every car ride, in between meals, laying out by the pool- all the time, the whole vacation.

I fell asleep and woke up to music. I cranked it up in the car. Algebra class was even more torturous than usual. It was like I had been thirsty in the desert, then I discovered a water source ten feet away from me. I had been wanting new music- then I discovered my iPod. :)