Category: Music

  • 2012 Music Mashup

    That’s one robust mash-up. 

    You can download the MP3 here.

    It’s got a good beat, might make a toe tap or two.

  • The New Crowder Album

    I had no idea this was coming. My little inner Crowder got all excited. I bought it straight away, such a fanboy.

    Here’s the link.

    Did you get it? What do you think?

    I’m listening to it for the first time. And I’ve got a big old smile. 

  • Bono is the man

    And the moral of the story is….

    ht to Ed Noble

  • The new wedding video

    joya and emre | wedding music video from David Robin on Vimeo.

    What is the world coming to?

    No seriously… this is pretty cool. I kind of wonder if they did the wedding bits for reals and then had everyone stay seated and redo a couple bits. It’s not too often you see a boom camera used at a wedding. I like it!

    And a nice use of the iPad on the front end there, too.

    An idea for my friends Paul and Amy. This would be a nice little $50,000 upgrade to your package!

    What do you think? Fun or tacky?

  • The Civil Wars: My Father’s Father

    I have a not-so-secret love affair with The Civil Wars. Their harmonies are chillingly beautiful.

    If I were a concert promoter I’d be booking these guys now. Their stock is on the rise.

  • Sick Puppies – Maybe

    When the generations prophets cry for change you have to ask yourself:

    Am I a catalyst for the change they are calling for or am I the object the catalysts are fighting against?

  • Time Lapse Video: Backyard Hummingbirds

    A few weeks ago we hung this little hummingbird feeder. We were amazed to discover that the hummingbirds (who nest in a tree in our backyard) discovered it within hours.

    Maybe it makes me sound old or stupid? But I don’t care. I love watching these amazing creatures in my backyard. And I love watching them up close when they are at the feeder.

    So every few days we take it down and clean out the little bottle of sugar water, then mix up some more for them. It’s really fun! We can’t believe how tame they are. (You can get like 6 inches from them.) And it’s really cool when they come close or “buzz the tower.”

    This morning, I thought it would be fun to set up my camera to take time lapse pictures while we went to the farmers market. All told, we captured about 2 hours of pictures… one every 10 seconds. 665 frames.

    The video above is the result.

    The song, as you may recognize, is from Jars of Clay. It’s called The Long Fall. (click here to buy it on iTunes)

  • Firework by Katy Perry

    Gosh, I really love the message of this video.

    I want to encourage youth workers to watch this video twice. Watch it the first time with your adult glasses on. Get annoyed that there are fireworks shooting out of her chest or two boys kissing or even that a girl strips down and jumps in a pool.

    Those are the things you are trained to see as an adult.

    The second time, put on the glasses of a high school student. Remember what it was like to be one of the people portrayed in the video. Feeling out of sorts. Feeling unpopular. Feeling isolated from the world you wanted to be a part of.

    Perhaps now you can see why this message is so powerful? (More than 500,000 views in 24 hours!) Perhaps, just perhaps, Katy Perry is preaching a message you’d also like to get across?

    Maybe she’s a prophetess to a generation? (And doing it outside of being a part of the church? Gasp.)

    Perhaps we need to learn that her use of art and symbolism to communicate to students is something we need to think about way more than just the spoken word? Perhaps we need to continue to foster ministries that embrace and empower students to express themselves and feel safe? Perhaps we need to celebrate when students break free of peer pressure that’s keeping them down or isolating them and dance with them as they embrace freedom? Maybe the message of this video could be a halfway point to talking about freedom in Christ?

    When I see people in youth ministry looking down on the powerful messages the media is portraying, I get frustrated in the realization that the church continues to perpetrate the same old lie. “If it isn’t our message shared in our way, it must be bad.” (This is a closed theory, like I talked about here.)

    And I wonder when we’ll embrace openness and acknowledge that our message is true, and can be open, expressed in ways we don’t have to approve of and still be truth?

  • Google honors John Lennon

    One of the most fun jobs on the internet must be to be on the team that plays with Google’s logo. I love this little doodle. Maybe I’m in love with the style or maybe the music? All I know if this is just too cool.

    I want to be a dreamer, forever.

    ht to Michael Novelli

  • I like Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream

    Currently, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is top 10 on iTunes. It’s huge. And I am not ashamed to admit that when it pops up on my iTunes I listen to it 3-4 times in a row.

    While I’m sure most youth workers groan when they hear this song… I take a totally different perspective.

    I want this to be my students dream, too.

    Well, not exactly— since the video leaves a lot to the imagination. Here’s what I mean by “I want this to be my students dream, too.”

    • I want my students to have a fun, audacious, spontaneous, and exciting sex life. (Until they get married- “Pre-sex lives.”)
    • I want them to fall in love and be happy with that person for a long time. I want their love life to be fun, like a teenage dream.
    • I want them to fall in love early in life. I want them to grow up (meaning, take full responsibility for themselves) and get married ASAP. I believe we’re creating a self-fulfilling prophesy that they aren’t ready when they are.

    Perhaps the reason this song speaks to so many people is because we tell people to wait too long for this type of relationship? Perhaps there was no room in our lives at 18 or 19 years old for a no-regrets love affair? Perhaps our parents scared us out of teenage dreams with statistics about divorce and telling us we needed to go to college first?

    But this dream, I believe, is quite similar to God’s desire for us. The Bible is clear about sex before marriage. But it is equally clear about early marriage.

    I just know when I watch this video I think about my relationship with Kristen. We were almost 19 when we met. We took lots of walks on the beach. (aka- free dates) Outside of the motel line– that video was us! Our parents both told us we were too young and we ignored them. (Just like they ignored their parents warnings!)

    When we got married at 21 we fulfilled the dreams of this video and it was great. (Though, Kristen grew up baptist so skin tight jeans were out of the question.)

    My prayer for youth ministry is that we are crazy enough to tell our students and their helicopter parents that they need to have teenage dreams for themselves. I pray that we become culture creators and truth tellers in such a way that gives our society a wake-up call. Teenage Dreams isn’t shameful. We would not exist as a people if it weren’t for generations of teenage dreamers. We don’t need to shame teenagers from their sexuality, we need to teach them appropriate ways to embrace it.