mikeymo's place

Sunday mornings for Gospel Light Worship are a combination of hectic and comfortable.  While things vary from week to week, here is a typical week for me.

6:15 - The alarm goes off.  I slap it once or twice (not too hard, as it's my Android) and get it to snooze for a bit.  Finally, I drag out of bed, and get ready.  I grab the guitars and out the door by 6:45.

6:50 - Coffee at Dunkin Donuts is a must.  No one wants to be around if I skip this step, trust me.

6:55 - I generally pick up Daniel, our youth pastor and my co-worship leader.  We chat about stuff as we make our way to GLCC.

7:05 - Arrive at GLCC and I start setting up.  I pull my rig out of it's case and set up everything, tune the guitars, and get ready.  Then I head over to the sound booth, fire up the board, the amps and the PC, and make sure things are as they should be there.   Other members of the team start arriving.  Aquim will come and adjust the drum kit for the hundreth time, Laura will come in an lay down on the back bench, Daniel pulls song sheets for the vocalists.  I print off any charts we might need.

7:30 (ish) - We gather on the platform and pray.  Hopefully, everyone is there.   We do a straight run through of the songs in the set.  Daniel will work with Laura and Anna on the vocal parts.  While we rehearse, the sound team  will begin changing out mics (we lock the good ones up during the week), straightening cables and making sure the media for the week is working.

8:30 - Usually by this time we've finished the run through and are happy.  We'll take some time to either work on new songs, do some training or have a meeting.

9:00 - The morning classes are starting, and we vacate the sanctuary.  Generally, Aquim, Daniel and I (Sometimes others) will walk across the street to the diner and have breakfast together.  More coffee.  Eggs.  Yum.

10:00 - We head back over to the church.  If it's hot, I run to the KidzPort building and turn on the air conditioners.  We greet those who've arrived early.

10:15 - We start playing instrumental music as people pray and get ready for service.  Or talk in the lobby.

10:25 - The opening song happens.

10:30 - The service proper starts.

How does your Sunday stack up.   Rob Rash wanted to know, so he's askin....
Feel free to comment here.

This was an extra-special weekend at Gospel Light, to say the least.  We were blessed with the presence of my good friend Joel Klampert as a guest worship leader for our Sunday service.  But we started the weekend with a coffeehouse on Saturday night at a local church plant.  That went awesome, and was a great way for people to meet Joel and get to know who he was as a musician.  (and to have some fun and listen to good music.)

Sunday was amazing as well.  We offered ourselves as Joel's band for the day, with great results.  It's been a while since I've seen that kind of engagement from the congregation. Hearing familiar songs done in unfamiliar ways was very healthy, I think.  On to the set!

Opening:

All Because of Jesus (Fee)(A)

Main Set:

Happy Day (Hughes/Cantelon)(A)
Glory to God Forever (Beeching/Fee)(A)
Greatly to be Praised (Kim)(A)
Majestly (Smith)(A)
Everlasting God (Brown)(A)

Offering:

Christ is Risen (Maher)(E)


I was amazed at how well the band hit it off with Joel and how quickly they locked into his style.  I've played with him many times, but Daniel and Aquim had never even met him, yet by the end of rehearsal,  it felt like we'd all been playing together for a long time.

The last three songs were done as a kind of medley, which was great to keep the flow going.  "Everlasting God" was a "game-time" addition, but fit in great, and then we tagged the whole thing by going back to Mike Kim's "Greatly to be Praised."  )If you're not using that song, you need to check it out.

Following the altar call, we invited everyone to stay and continue worship, which some did.  We kept going for quite a while after the service "ended," which was very cool.

Check out other recaps at The Worship Community.

Alrighty, then.  There's a new kid on the block, and of course, your humble music-and-computer blogger has thrown himself into the fray.  While still reeling from the awesomeness that is Google+, along comes Spotify to U.S. shores.

What is Spotify, exactly?

Imagine a jukebox that has every song you can imagine, available whenever you want, that plays only songs you like, wherever you are. Imagine iTunes being what it should be, instead of that bloated hunk of software detritus it actually is.  There you have it, but you can look up Spotify reviews anywhere, can't you?

The challenge I faced was the fact that Linux is not officially supported on Spotify.  There are two options here; running the Windows version under WINE, or running a Linux beta package.  The problem with the Beta is that there is apparently some issue with the way it handles the ad push, so it requires a paid, ad-free Spotify account.  Something that is anathma to my Linux-lovin' heart, by the way.

WINE it is.  But WINE stinks.  WINE is a pain.  (for the uninitiated - shame on you - WINE is a Windows compatibility layer that - generally - allows Windows executables to run under Linux.  And WINE is a pest.

Sooooo... The solution? PlayOnLinux.  PlayOnLinux is a front-end for WINE that takes most of the yuckiness out of it.  In fact, it makes it a dream.  POL was written mainly to run Windows-based games, but it works well with all kinds of Windows programs.  (POL is available in the Ubuntu Software Center.)

Simply click the "Install" button, point it to the Spotify installer, and in about thirty seconds, you're up and running... perfectly.  And it get's better.  Install the Spotify app on your Android or iPhone/iPod Touch and connect to your WiFi network, and as soon as you fire up the app, the desktop client instantly picks up the device and asks what you want to sync to it.   (Mobile streaming is only on a paid basis)

When I installed the desktop app, it instantly found every media file on my computer.  Like, right away.  Same thing with the Android app.  And it's much easier than the old "drag-and-drop" method of file transfer.  Very nice.

Spotify is certainly a game-changer, as it has been in Europe.  Many European music labels are reporting that Spotify is now their single greatest source of revenue.  And just about everyone is on there, from the biggest bands to indies.  (Surprise, surprise, you can't get either the Beatles or Metallica.  Luddites.) Even with the high-end (at ten bucks a month) premium account, Spotify could render pay-to-own music obsolete, especially given the fact you can download and store 3,333 songs for offline listening.  

After all, why settle for thousands of songs, when you can have millions at your fingertips?

Sometimes you get one of those weeks that you think is is going to go great, and it's a nightmare.  Other weeks you think will be a train wreck, and they turn out pretty good.  This week was one of those. We had a serious time of breakthrough and release, and some real good worship.  We spent a lot of time without instruments, just crying out and worshiping, which was awesome.

Anyway, here's the set:

Opening:

Take Me In (Browning)(G)

Main Set:

We Cry Out (Johnson)(C#m)
Happy Day (Hughes)(C)
For Who You Are (Sampson)(B)
Majesty (Smith)(F)

Offering:

One Way (Houston)(B)

Laura was leading today, which is why we went so far up on "Majesty."  We tried it in D and E, but it didn't sound right.  Taking up by a fourth seemed to be the key. (Punny, I know) We tagged it with "I Love the King" which worked really well. We even had Junior singing the chorus to "Majesty" under "I Love the King," which was really a nice way to end the set.

We're really excited for next week, when Joel Klampert is coming to lead worship.

Comment on how your weekend went, and read others at The Worship Community. 

We switched things up quite a bit today at Gospel Light, and for the good, it seems.  We've done acoustic sets before, but this was different.  Our set up today was an acoustic guitar, a cajón, a shaker, a rainstick and a bass guitar.  On the vocal side, it was Daniel and Laura.

Daniel led from acoustic, while I played the percussion, and Jr. kept it tight on bass.  The mood was intimate and mellow, yet from looking over the congregation during worship, the changeup was well received. Here's the set:

Opening Song:

Better is One Day (Redman)(E)

Our Setup Today

Main Set:

Open the Eyes of My Heart (Baloche)(E)
Hosanna (Fraser)(E)
Our God (Myrin/Redman/Reeves/Tomlin)(A)
Mighty to Save (Morgan/Fielding)(A)

Offering:

Friend of God/Jesus is a Friend of Mine (Gungor/Houghton/Polichetti)(E)

Yeah, you read that last one right.  We tagged "Friend of God" with the Sonseed classic, "Jesus is a Friend of Mine."  Instant hit.

I think "Open the Eyes..." and "Hosanna" were especially suited to our setup today.  "Hosanna" came out sounding very Hillsong Chapel-y and the Baloche tune just sounded - great.  I could see people really moving and getting into things, and a few came up after service and said they hoped we did that again, so I'm sure we will.

Check out other recaps at The Worship Community. 

There has been a ton of chatter on Facebook, in blogs and on Twitter regarding the acquittal of Casey Anthony this week.  Honestly, I think it fitting that the verdict comes on the heels of the Fourth of July.  Casey Anthony was acquitted in a process that began over 200 years ago.

Our adversarial system of justice is the best in the world here in the US.  Now, the "law-and-order" types (of which I am one) will bemoan all the criminals getting off and all the convicted felons getting out of jail because they are overcrowded, or the cable is on the fritz, or some other liberal weenie nonsense.  Those on the other end of the spectrum feel we are wasting resources prosecuting "victim-less" crimes and that the right-wing nut job government has run amok with warrantless wiretaps and naked body scanners at the airport.

People question how a defense attorney can defend a "monster" like Casey Anthony.  But the hard fact of the matter is this: defense attorneys like the ones who defended her, or John Gotti, or John Wayne Gacey or anyone else play a vital role in our society: they keep the government honest.

A few years ago I was selected for jury duty and seated in a trial.  (a duty which I am honored to carry out, by the way.)  A young man was on trial for raping his former girlfriend and, to put it in the vernacular, "babymomma."  The trial lasted two days.  The defense attorney was clever and somewhat theatrical.  There were many witnesses who testified for the government. The girl was sympathetic, the defendant, not so much.

We returned a "Not guilty" verdict in less than half an hour.  The prosecutor had simply failed to do one thing: extinguish any reasonable doubt.  And we must remember that is the standard.  We might think that Casey Anthony absolutely did terrible things to that sweet little girl.  We might believe in our hearts that she is a monster, that she took the easy way out to continue her party-filled lifestyle.  We might hate her.  But unless we can - dispassionately - look at the evidence and conclude that there is no other way this possibly might have happened, no matter how unlikely, then the jury did the right thing.

The prosecutor in this case did a bad job.  The government experts couldn't even agree on how Caylee had died.  There was compelling circumstantial evidence, but not a single fingerprint or strand of DNA.  There was chloroform, but no idea or explanation of why it was relevant.  In this "CSI" era, we need to do better.

The same law that protects Casey Anthony, the law that favors defendants, the law that require prosecutors do more than simply make sense - that law protects you and me better than any army. And it gives us confidence that - for the most part - those who are convicted are, in fact, guilty.

No matter what you see on TV, trials like this are not about justice for the victim. They are not about morality; they are about law.  Or as Scottish writer William McIlcanney said, "Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice?  It's what we have because we cannot have justice."

Justice is God's bailiwick.  Caylee will receive her justice some day.  So will Casey.  I leave that in His good hands.

The other day I  wrote about some musical influences by bands that came about before I came to the Lord, and before I started playing music.  I wrote about a setlist of classic rock songs I am learning for an upcoming event.

But, of course, as a worship musician, I have Christian influences that also inform my musical voice.  Let's look at some of those:

Steven Curtis Chapman


Early on in my walk, I swiped a copy of SCC's Greatest Hits album from my wife.  (which isn't really stealing, right?)  I was thinking that Christian music had to be pretty lame.  But this album was filled with some great songs, and I remember thinking that some of the other stuff might not be so bad.  I pretty much wore that CD out my first year in the church, and knew every nuance of every song, especially Will Denton's amazing drum work, which was a huge influence on the way I play drums.

Israel and New Breed 


As much as I like Israel Houghton's solo stuff, I really love his work with New Breed.  I've probably lifted more arrangement ideas from Alive in South Africa than any other source, especially when it comes to medleys.

Paul Baloche


Honestly, for me Paul is more a worship pastor figure than a recording artist.  Even before I got to hang out with him a bit at last year's Forge Conference, he always seemed very down-to-earth and genuine to me.  I've learned more about not only things like structuring a worship team and arranging music, but also having a heart for worship from his videos than almost anywhere else.  And what songs!

Nigel Hendroff


When I think about a worship guitar player, I think about Nigel.  He has amazing technique, and there is an ease and grace to his playing that I constantly try to emulate (and fail miserably, by the way)



David Crowder* Band


I've broken bread (well, pizza) with David and the guys, and I've seen how he treats people who approach him off stage.  That tells me as much about his heart as his music does.  And I love his music.  From his early acoustic stuff, to the constantly-playing-in-my-car-all-the-time Remedy Club Tour Edition, Crowder pours into me and back out all the time.  I love the quirkiness and the unabashed fearlessness of the music.  I'm nearly inconsolable that they are splitting up after this tour.

And there you have it....   what about you?