Collide Magazine

Let’s be honest … bloggers get a bad rap. Some people see them as dorks in pajamas who live in their mom’s basement. Others see them as melodramatic, self-involved feed-monkeys, and that’s just not fair (whether it’s accurate or not). All that to say, Carlos Whittaker is a blogger who actually does something. He’s an Integrity recording artist and his debut EP drops today. Congratulations, Carlos!

Grab it for three bucks on iTunes here or Amazon here. You can also check out the story of Carlos’ music below and grab the chord charts for the tunes here.

Oh, and Carlos also won a 2009 COLLIDE Reader’s Choice Award for Best Ministry/Theology Blog this month. I wonder which one — the award or his album dropping nationwide — has him more pumped up this week?

I love music, but I’m not big into musicals. Frankly, I don’t fully understand their appeal. I tend to think of the musical as an outdated artform–a medium that suited Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds but that has no place in the 21st century. Like many other things, I’m clearly wrong about cultural and commercial viability of the musical. Just look at the High School Musical empire, the success of Broadway hits such as Rent, or the “Jai Ho” scene from Slumdog Millionaire. (See also the sheer awesomeness that is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.) For whatever reason, artists and audiences keep coming back to the musical. Again, I don’t why, but they do.

Tomorrow night, after American Idol, Fox will unveil its new musical dramedy, Glee. Will it be good? I dunno. But I’ll probably watch, if for no other reason than to see how the show blends comedy, teen angst, and Journey songs. If you’re a video or live event producer, there might not be a better time to consider incorporating some song and dance into your project. Here’s the official Glee trailer:

Are you a fan of musicals? Will you take a chance on Glee? Have you effectively incorporated (non-P&W) musical elements into your videos or live events?

I woke up this morning to find an interesting email newsletter from Derek Webb in my inbox. Here it is verbatim:

friends-
i haven’t sent many personal emails to this email list but we’re in a situation that has gotten a little out of control and it’s time to fill you in.  as some of you may know, i’ve been working for months on my new record, ’stockholm syndrome’, which i’ve recently finished and turned in to the record label.  they’ve been very supportive over the years, but this time we didn’t get the response we expected.  it seems i’ve finally found the line beyond which my label can support me, and apparently i’ve crossed it.

i consider this my most important record and am adamant about all of you hearing it.  we had originally hoped to have ’stockholm syndrome’ out this month (next week even), but at this point we’re not sure when the record will come out and in what form.  the majority of the controversy is surrounding one song, which i consider to be among the most important songs on the record.  so we’ve decided it’s an appropriate time to break the rules.

but because of various legal/publishing issues we’re having to be rather careful with how we do what we’re going to do next.  that’s really all i can say for now and i’ve probably said too much.

we have a plan and we’re moving ahead, but we’re not sure what kind of trouble we might be getting into.  we’ll let you know as soon as we know our next move-
derek

I don’t have any insight into what all the fuss is about, but David Sessions at Patrol has an idea. Personally, I’m a big fan of Webb’s and can’t wait to get my hands/ears on this new material. If Sessions is right about Webb’s new album featuring “the s-word,” would that discourage you from buying it?

(By the way, you can check out a lengthy interview I did with Webb last year by clicking here.)

For some reason, I decided last week to make a list of all the ’90s Christian alternative/punk/ska/hardcore bands I could remember listening to. It wasn’t long before I decided to ask my Twitter friends to help out because I wasn’t getting very far. The list below is what we managed to come up with. If you have any alt-rockin’ Christian bands to add to the list, leave a comment. (Please note: This list involved no actual research on my part, so please forgive omissions, misspellings, and any other oversights.)

(more…)

I recently acquired The Welcome Wagon’s aptly-titled album Welcome to the Welcome Wagon and I love it. If you like Sufjan Stevens-esque, lo-fi, rustic, indie gospel flaor, then you’ll love The Welcome Wagon, too.

Anyway, I was digging around for a little more info on the band when I came across this interview with The Welcome Wagon’s Thomas Vito Aiuto on Stereogum (a good music blog). It turns out that the band is comprised of Aiuto–a Brooklyn-based pastor and church planter–and his wife Monique. Aiuto does a phenomenal job articulating the Christian faith and the values of his church, Resurrection Presbyterian Church.

Here’s a good snippet about Resurrection’s website from the interview:

STEREOGUM: I went to the church’s website: You have an active community section with classifieds, etc. You also invite people to your home for Home Groups. Is this something unique to your church? It seems like you’re providing a kind of full-time community that moves beyond just the mass, or whatever.

TVA: Home groups are not unique to our church. They simply provide a format for our church to be a community of love for one another, and for the neighborhoods we live in. We hope that our worship of Christ on Sunday spills over in to relationships of care and service, and organizing home groups is one way to do that. Our home groups usually meet once per week in one of our members’ homes, and they end up being a place for people to talk and share a meal, pray, study the Bible and reflect thoughtfully on who God is, and who God is calling them to be.

STEREOGUM: Does a strong web presence — streaming sermons, etc. — help with attracting new members?

TVA: I think that it does. When someone new comes to the church and I ask them how they found us, they often answer that they found info through the web. So we want to let people know that we are here in as many ways as we can.

Read the rest of the interview here.

I’m curious–do you find, like Aiuto, that visitors to your church stop by your website to check you out before they ever darken the doors of your building?