Category Archives: Music

“Making It” In Music [Part 3]: My Advice

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At the end of the day, my “success” in music isn’t much, so my advice isn’t much. But I do feel like I’ve learned a lot along the way in my journey with the Lord and with music and I want to share that with you.

  • Invest in YOUR local church – Be present where God has put you. There’s always a need in the church and you’re called to do your part in the Body of Christ. Don’t just serve or earn a paycheck, but give wholehearted. If it’s not costing you, you’re not serving.
  • Let God lead you – It’s possible that God can be calling you to move past a dream and into a better reality that He has for you. If your number one dream and desire is to follow God wherever he leads, you can’t go wrong.
  • Don’t wait for God to do it all for you – God orchestrates everything, but that doesn’t mean you sit around and wait on Him to do everything. Work hard. Be driven and proactive.
  • Don’t give up – From lots of people I’ve talked to, sometimes timing is just off. If you don’t give up, God could always open a door later.

“Making It” In Music [Part 2]: A Missed Opportunity

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Have you ever looked back at something and knew you missed out on something huge? Ever thought about where you’d be today if you had made a different decision or seized that one opportunity? I haven’t “made it” in music, but I’ve had some potentially life-changing opportunities come up.

I start playing with a guy when he’s getting offers from different labels, but for some reason nothing ever falls into place. Someone calls me to play with them that could easily have me busy every week all over the country, but it’s not only up to us and those above in management can’t make it happen. Prior commitments prevent me from being able to play with them that one time they ask me and I’m never asked again. Someone else is just a better fit playing with them…then they get signed.

Everyone misses opportunities. I’m not the only one. And you aren’t either. And considering where I’m at now, it’s obvious that none of those have worked out.

I’m grateful for that.

 It’s clear that God’s timing is not right with each opportunity. It’s easy for those things to get you down, but there will always be another chance when the Lord’s timing is right if that’s the direction He takes you. For me, I know that there’s always a chance God could open another door. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do.
But what’s become most important to me is not that I am doing music, but that I’m fully invested where God puts me and always follow Him when He leads me elsewhere. That’s the most important thing to me and so important for all of us.
But there are definitely some things that are important to taking music to the next level for us and things you can do to move towards “making it”…
To Be Continued:
Check Out Part 3 Coming Soon…

“Making It” In Music [Part 1]: High School Dreams

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Sometimes people will ask me something like, “how do I make it in music?” or tell me “I want to do this for a career, but don’t know how.” I’m always humbled by comments like those, because I have no idea why they’re asking me! I honestly can’t say that I’ve “made it” or even know how!

I remember being a senior in high school and writing on Xanga (yes, remember Xanga? about how I had finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Remember, I played guitar in middle & high school, but really just acoustic and really only at my church and my school’s praise bands. I liked music, but wasn’t really doing anything with it. My senior year, I decided to quit sports (which I had always done and was kind of known for doing) and focus on music. I had started a band that would eventually become Six Piece Suit and really wanted to focus on finding other guys to play with us and starting to get around. I started working on playing electric some then too.

I remember sitting at my family’s desktop and posting to Xanga this post:
“It’s so clear…I want to do music for the rest of my life. I want to tour around the country playing and leading others in worship. I don’t want to do anything but serve the Lord and play music…why wouldn’t I do this?”

I had no idea what that necessarily meant. Or that I’d be posting this 6 years later. In some ways, I’ve been able to do this on a much smaller scale. Of course you always want things to last longer, be more successful, but it’s pretty cool to see God’s faithfulness in that because that’s the only way I can look back and smile about this.

But I haven’t “made it” in music. I am not signed to a label or playing enough to support my family on any of that income. If I was honest, I’ve had a few potentially life-changing opportunities that have just fallen through…one of which happened in the last month…

To Be Continued:
Check Out “[Part 2]: A Missed Opportunity” Coming Soon…

Left Behind

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So I read these books over the weekend about the rapture called Left Beh…

just kidding…had to do that with a title like that one!

Seriously though, I played with Chris Orr outside of Birmingham this weekend and it was a great weekend. Ty was back playing keys with us (first time out on the road since we’ve started working together) and my brother, Avery, played drums too. It was a great weekend. It rained most of Saturday and Sunday, and we were ready to get home after the Sunday morning services. We tore down quickly and got everything by the door to wait for the trailer to be pulled up. Then it happened…

We were going for a record time of packing the trailer. I think we got it all out of the church and into the trailer in three minutes. I was the one packing in the trailer nicely and a few others were bringing the gear out. I got the Duesenberg, but someone must have overlooked my Tele in my Incase case.

We got the phone call when we were probably 45 minutes or so down the road and had just finished lunch. We could’ve gone back but Chris had to go back in the next few weeks anyways and I could make due with the Duesenberg. I tweeted asking if anyone was able to bring it from Birmingham to Atlanta and I had quite a few responses. So hopefully my friend Michael will bring it back to me tonight.

It’s not that I didn’t have it and thought I wouldn’t get it back…it was the fact that it was left that made me feel so bad. Almost like leaving a kid somewhere. You may get them back perfectly fine, but YOU still left them.

Am I the only one who has left a guitar or piece of gear behind?

My Top Albums of 2011

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Here are some of my favorite albums of 2011. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, so feel free to contribute:

MUSIC

  • Mylo Xyloto – Coldplay
  • Augustana – Augustana
  • Bon Iver – Bon Iver
  • Ashes & Fire – Ryan Adams
  • Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
  • Barton Hollow – The Civil Wars
  • Economy – John Mark McMillan
  • Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes

2011 Top 5 Christmas Albums

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It’s finally here! The Christmas season always means I’m rocking some Christmas music. Here are my favorite albums this year:
  • Songs for Christmas – Sufjan Stevens
  • A Very She & Him Christmas – She & Him
  • A Charlie Brown Christmas – Vince Guaraldi Trio
  • Songs for Christmas – Phil Wickham
  • A Very Merry Christmas – Dave Barnes

What would you add to this list?

Dallas…The Band

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I have really been digging the two songs that Dallas has uploaded to their Band Camp page. It’s just plain good. From watching their videos on YouTube, I am also excited about their tracks that are unreleased right now. I love Taylor’s tones, his and Tyler’s parts are great and Josh’s vocals are fantastic. The songs are just great.

Not sure when we’ll be able to download the songs, but check out Dallas’ YouTube channel, Band Camp page, Twitter and Facebook and buy the songs when they are released for download!

In honor of this post and his new band, check out Taylor Johnson’s updated gear for the band on his Gear Talk post here!

Coldplay.

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Coldplay is a band that I’m particularly thankful for. I remember being on a ski trip with some close family friends. Trevor showed let me borrow his A Rush of Blood to the Head CD for my walkman (Yes…that’s right). I loved it.

When I got home, I bought the album and later found Parachutes at a Pawn Shop for $5. I also picked up Live 2003 DVD/CD at Best Buy shortly after (when it was still new!). I remember X&Y came out, I was in Panama City Beach with my high school girlfriend and her family and had to get her mom to drive me to pick it up the day it came out. When Viva La Vida came out, I downloaded it as soon as it became available on iTunes late at night. I’ll never forget getting to see Coldplay a few years ago. We had floor seats and I spent most of the night walking up to the front, as close as I could get (I had to keep moving so I couldn’t get in trouble…but hey, it worked). It was a magical night.

I just really like Coldplay. So with Mylo Xyloto coming out, I was obviously super excited. Coldplay has been one of those bands to me. A few weeks ago some friends and I watched them at Glastonbury on DVR and had almost an hour of conversation about the bands evolution and different albums. When I first started playing electric guitar, I watched and researched how to get Johnny Buckland’s Parachutes and A Rush of Blood tone. I ended up buying a ’72 Tele Thinline Reissue because of that. I’ve been very influenced by them, and while I’m not going to review the new album, I wanted to express my appreciation for Coldplay, their music and influence on me as a musician.

Pick up all their old albums for at a discounted rate, as well as Mylo Xyloto.

Ten Out Of Tenn Tour

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I got to go with some friends from church to see the “Ten out of Tenn” tour, featuring 10 solo singer/songwriters all playing together and backing each other up and included Amy Stroup, Gabe Dixon, Katie Herzig, KS Rhoads, Tyler James, Matthew Perryman Jones, Trent Dabbs, Butterfly Boucher, Andrew Belle and Jeremy Lister (who wasn’t at the show, though they had some special guests to make up).

Apparently about every year they’ll record an album together and then do this tour. A friend of ours went a few years back and said we had to go. I had only heard of maybe 4-5 of the ten artists, but it was a great night!

Check out the Ten out of Tenn site and music!

Pedalboard Update: Fall 2011

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I’ve been thinking about changing a few things around on my board for the past few months. I was going to just swap out a pedal or two, but things were too tight to swap, so I had to wait to do a makeover. In the next few days, I’ll be posting about how I plan out a pedalboard, but in the meantime, I wanted to post the board and what I’m doing with what.

Here’s the chain:

  • [JHS Little Black Buffer - this will be first in the chain, but I ran out of power cables to power it, so I'm going to wait to put it on there until I get another cable]
  • EB Jr. Volume – still put pre-drive to control gain…I’m using this a lot more now. It’s nice to be able to pull back gain so easily
  • Budda Wah
  • This1sMyne True Bypass Looper – everything in the rest of the chain goes through this and has stereo outputs at the end
  • Diamond Compressor
  • Micro POG
  • RC Booster – currently using this for EQ and anything else needed…it pretty much always stays on, but will probably change once the Little Black Buffer gets put in the chain
  • Timmy – main drive for everything
  • Joyride – used for kicking everything up a bit and also used as a light drive
  • DD-5 – my favorite digital delay pedal
  • DD-20 – decided to use this over the DL-4 as it’s a little more versatile and you can dial in the BPM
  • DD-5 – kept another one of these on the board to use for different settings
  • Echo Park
  • RV-5
  • Empress Tremolo – I swapped this out for my Tap-A-Whirl…I love the sound and the gain knob on it that allows it to be heard better than the TAW.
I’m still using the Juicebox and Pedal Power 2+ to power it and Lava Cables. I’ve also got one FS-5U and a mini tap (that I got with some pedal I bought in the past, though I’m not sure who made it…maybe Dan at This1sMyne…?) for the Boss delays.

I’ve also updated My Gear Page to show these new updates.