The weekend Thread

[bigoldron]

Haha, yeah, that's the plan, man!

It would be nice to be appreciated, and some people do, but more importantly, it's really important for the survival of many churches for them to offer a meaningful worship experience to their younger parishioners. I fear that our particular congregation is being peculiarly short-sighted in not having at least one fully-contemporary Sunday service to offer. As much as I grew up with traditional church music, fewer and fewer people have done so. They are simply not going to be comfortable with a bunch of men in floor-length gowns preaching in between attempting to sing hard-to-sing, old hymns played on a pipe organ.

Our prior church (same denomination, mind you, across town) had a full contemporary service for some ten years while I was there. My wife can no longer get excited about services filled with pipe organ music, even if a couple bones are thrown to modernity along the way, and I can't really blame her.

Sigh. Practice in the choir loft at 10 a.m. tomorrow!

I agree Brian. Even though it's all worship, and like it or not, for a church to attract more younger families, we have to give more "entertainment value" to our services. This is the generation that group with cable and satellite TV, MTV, the internet, video game consoles and tons of other ways of warping your mind. The old school, solemn worship services just won't bring them in, so we've got to modernize and do what we can to reach them.

Good luck with your situation. You might want to even consider going back to your old church, which I hate to recommend leaving anyone's current church, but sometime you have to...

[Brian Krashpad]

Good luck with your situation. You might want to even consider going back to your old church, which I hate to recommend leaving anyone's current church, but sometime you have to...

Naw, the reason we left was that the old school people took over. (It wasn't over what they'd do to the music/worship but what they'd already done with staff, etc.)

[deeaa*]

I've said it before but music in churches is such a weird concept to me. I suppose over here people would say about music in church etc. that it's fine (and they do have a lot of music happenings I understand, choirs and whatnot, maybe not really rock type stuff though) - but NOT during the mass, or whatever it is called when the priest talks and gives a sermon at specific times a day.

With those I'm sure people's idea is you're NOT supposed to have fun or like being in a church mass, you're supposed to repent and wallow in your own sins and mortality and repent what people did to the saviour :-) all the hymn lyrics are also very much like 'pity me a poor soul' and very much minor key.

I guess it's no wonder the church is losing its members at almost a rate of one percent per year currently. I also always tell my students I save about $600 a year in taxes simply being out of any church, and it's a few mouse clicks online to make an official resignation from the church ;-)

[Ch0jin]

With those I'm sure people's idea is you're NOT supposed to have fun or like being in a church mass, you're supposed to repent and wallow in your own sins and mortality and repent what people did to the saviour :-) all the hymn lyrics are also very much like 'pity me a poor soul' and very much minor key.

I guess it depends on the church and the religion. There is a church almost behind where I live that has live music quite regularly, and they pull in some name artists too. They get so many people some times they have security guards all over my block to ensure residents can still park outside their houses! I've never been inside (Church ain't my thing unless is for historical or architectural reasons and this is a flash new building), but when I've gone past, there are always loads and loads of young people going in and out. If your interested THIS is them.

I also always tell my students I save about $600 a year in taxes simply being out of any church, and it's a few mouse clicks online to make an official resignation from the church ;-)

Could you explain that? You get a tax break because you aren't in a church? If so I'm moving to your country

[Duffy]

Deeaa, around the USA there are a lot of churches that have full out rock bands playing during the service and at outside events sponsored by the church or church organizations. Most of these rock bands today are heavy metal type bands, presumably playing during contemporary services because I know a LOT of the people where I used to go to church, at all but one church, would get REAL upset if a heavy metal type Christian band started cranking up. But it's true. A large fraction of all Heavy Metal bands here are Christian Heavy Metal bands and some of them get big crowds on the road at these concerts and festivals they have. Some of them are major acts with Worldwide audiences. I was quite surprised by this when my twenty year old muscian son told me about this. My impression was that it was mostly all dark metal. The truth is stranger than fiction.

Going back to the old days of the sixties and so forth, the Black churches, especially down South and in the big cities had all out Rythym and Blues bands playing during the services, rocking out. Like in "The Blues Brothers" movie. The Blacks really cut loose with music in church and a lot of the great Black singers came out of church musical backgrounds. A lot of that musical tradition trickled down into out of church club settings and so on.

Even during the American Frontier Western movement where people were moving West and occupying Indian Territory that was completely devoid of any type of cultural structure, the bar room entertainment was often provided by the same person playing piano that played it in church on Sunday. This bar room piano player provided the back up for the dancing girls and everything.

Also around here you can get tax breaks for giving to charities, but I'm not sure of church charities count, but they probably do. You definitely don't get a tax break for dropping out of a church.

I sympathize with these guys here that play in church and I'm convinced that in the future rock bands and metal type bands will be more up front and integral to churches that are really successful in connecting to people. Churches, I would think, depend on encouraging younger generations and bringing them into their congregations - that's the way of the World. Survival of the fittest, natural selection - what works the best generally gets chosen, not always, but that is the forward movement of things in the long run. Some people still drive '69 Pontiac GTO's but the vast vast majority don't. Definitely a nice car; Pontiac doesn't even exist anymore!

[Robert****]

I was in Anaheim... NAMM show baby!

[Brian Krashpad]

I was in Anaheim... NAMM show baby!

I've seen the pics!

I'd like to do that one day.

[Eric***]

I've said it before but music in churches is such a weird concept to me. I suppose over here people would say about music in church etc. that it's fine (and they do have a lot of music happenings I understand, choirs and whatnot, maybe not really rock type stuff though) - but NOT during the mass, or whatever it is called when the priest talks and gives a sermon at specific times a day.

Well, speaking as someone who does play in church, there's usually a singing portion of the service where we play, then during the sermon portion we're off duty -- similar to what you describe.

With those I'm sure people's idea is you're NOT supposed to have fun or like being in a church mass, you're supposed to repent and wallow in your own sins and mortality and repent what people did to the saviour :-) all the hymn lyrics are also very much like 'pity me a poor soul' and very much minor key.

This varies quite a bit. There are always people from the older generations who like to hang on to the music of their day, usually organ-driven and it can contain some of the lyrical content you describe. I think that for most people here (read: this forum) who play in church, we're kind of frustrated with that mindset and want to modernize and guitarify the music in church.

I guess it's no wonder the church is losing its members at almost a rate of one percent per year currently. I also always tell my students I save about $600 a year in taxes simply being out of any church, and it's a few mouse clicks online to make an official resignation from the church ;-)

Yeah, with something like religion, there's almost always all of this baggage about whether you're going to let the current cultural norms dictate what you do in church, since some people think that church/religion is supposed to be exempt from the societal pressures of the present. It puts churches in a tough spot to where they're trying to survive, but the communication/relevance gap between their way of operating and everyone outside of the church (particularly younger generations) continues to widen every day.

It's pretty sad, because the point of religion isn't to judge people and yearn for the old days -- it's to provide a framework and setting for coming before God. That just gets lost in the shuffle more frequently than I'd like to believe.

p.s. please don't ban me for this. I'll shut up now.

[Eric***]

Friday: It was my wife's birthday, so I took her to this upscale vegetarian restaurant we'd both heard about (we're both vegetarian), then went and got ice cream. It was pretty awesome.

Saturday: Went to this not-exactly-interesting gathering of in-laws down in Delaware. Came back and went to help my friend fix/solder his bass -- the 1/4" jack had a wire that had come loose. Pretty easy fix. Ended up watching football with him for the rest of the day.

Sunday: Played in church, then talked with my wife for awhile and decided that it might be time to switch churches. Neither of us really like the place where I play as a church by itself, but I have a couple of great friends on the worship team, and I like the people overall. Right now I play there in the mornings and we go to our "real" church on Sunday evenings, but the whole thing is really draining, and she feels like she should go to the place where I play in the mornings.

Without getting into it too much, I basically said that nothing is more important than where we are spiritually, so we decided it might be time to find something that's more of a home base for both of us. That'll be a big transition for sure if it happens. In the meantime, there's a lot of praying happening.

Went to our real church on Sunday night and then went to a friend's place for dinner.

[Katastrophe]

Upscale vegetarian? Consider my curiosity piqued. Sounds awesome, and I'd like to try that out once. As I live near Houston, TX (with a HUGE annual livestock show), veggie only places are hard to come by. I'm a big meat eater, but I do like to try out healthier stuff when I can.

Good on ya for making the decision to switch churches...

I got to work a full weekend for the first time in a while, and am grateful.

School starts tomorrow, and I've expanded my studies beyond the schedule I already have. I'm enrolling in a phlebotomy certificate program that runs concurrently with my current schedule.

Look for more disjointed, nonsensical posts from me around May.

[Duffy]

I used to play Conga drums in a church I really liked. My ex wife played electric piano. The minister was awesome and became a very good friend of mine. A lot of the people were cool. The minister had full control over the church and made all the decisions, essentially.

He encouraged me to rip it on the Congas but I was always conservative because I didn't want to draw heat, but the minister wanted to get a full band going. Haven't been back there for a while since I moved farther away from the place after getting separated and divorced. Before the divorce the ex wife suddenly refused to go to his church because of some imaginary excuse. Actually she had lied to the minister and he called her out on it. Being from a "church jumping" family she was quick to jump to a different church and resented it when I would take my son to his church and have spiritual development meetings with him. He even had a reputedly gay dude playing electric piano, and he could rock it up and sing good too. He obviously didn't care about what ever the guy's orientation is and he defended the man steadfastly. I don't know if he was gay or not but I found out that I liked and respected the guy. I mean he wasn't aggressive or threatening, he was just another good person and helpful.

I'm so glad I'm out of that misery but I miss that church and the attitude and aspirations of the minister to really get progressive with the music program and rock and roll it.

These type churches are around. I think you really have to be selective and look around. It's like looking for a puppy. When you find the right one you "know" it, it's intuitive, metaphysical - you just know this is the one. It's kind of supernatural really. Finding the right place will undoubtedly take a lot of time and work if you really want to check around and try to find a suitable situation.

One thing I noticed after I started going to church after not being involved since a teenager, I was about fourty when I went back - was that there were a lot of old people at the church and then there were people in their thirties with children mostly. Some fourty thru sixty year olds as well. But conspicuously, as in my own personal history, an obvious absence of people above around sixteen and not until around the thirties did I see an age group segment represented.

Obviously the teenagers drifted away with other responsibilities, partying late on Saturday nights, drifting farther and farther away. Almost no participants between sixteen and thirty something - that's a fifteen year gap. Ironically, that age group that was missing is absolutely in need of spiritual development, just like I was, and I knew I needed to work on the spiritual side of my life, but I didn't do anything about it until after I got married and had a child of mine. Once in a while you would see a stray couple of young adults show up and maybe stay for a while, but the interest level was not there to really draw them in.

A lot of the youth groups had good intentions, but they wouldn't let the youngsters and young adults dance for some strange reason.

That, to me, seemed to greatly negate the great potential influence the metal bands that played at the Friday night church coffee house had. They had it right. They had a young adult Friday night prime time partying time frame for their "night club" event. It was right on time. But not allowing dancing seemed to me to really squash any real interest that could have been developed.

I really respect you guys that are playing in church. You are the progressives that need to persevere and maybe you can manage to get some good music to stir some spiritual interest in young adults and even get Friday night clubs going at the churches that draw in the absent ones that are so direly in need and maybe desperately seeking a way to find a way to work on the spiritual side of their lives. I don't think you can develop the spiiritual side of your life on your own - I think you need to congregate. Finding ways to draw these young people in is a real goal.

I mean they could advertise in the paper and have dances and hot bands that cared about trying to help these people that so need the help. It wouldn't cost hardly any money and would take place during time that is generally not being utilized by the churches and doesn't require intense managerial supervision other than the youth group coordinator or music director.

That would be a fun atmosphere to perform in, for me at least. I should try to find a forward looking church and try to put something together, already realizing what I'm up against. Wouldn't be the first time I beat my head against a wall. Perseverence is a virtue and a strength.

Again, good luck and strength to you guys that are up there trying your best to do what you know is so necessary.

[Eric***]

Upscale vegetarian? Consider my curiosity piqued. Sounds awesome, and I'd like to try that out once. As I live near Houston, TX (with a HUGE annual livestock show), veggie only places are hard to come by. I'm a big meat eater, but I do like to try out healthier stuff when I can.

Eh, the only reason I'm vegetarian is because I just don't tend to eat much meat. I guess I'm not a very strict one, because I will occasionally have bacon on a veggie burger.

BTW, if you want to know what upscale vegetarian restaurants are like, they're like this.

[deeaa*]

Could you explain that? You get a tax break because you aren't in a church? If so I'm moving to your country

Yes, you get ~1,5% less taxation (in my area) if you're not in the church.
It varies a little, not sure but understand it's between 1,2-2,3% that you have to pay off your gross income if you belong in a church.

For me that'd make ~940 U.S. dollars a year...between me & my missus we save enough money for a week's holiday in the Mediterranean by not belonging to church :-)

Not all churches, though, just the main ones I understand, Lutheran and orthodox ones.

[Brian Krashpad]

Sounds like to me that in Finland some churches are probably state-supported, with an opt-out provision. Of course, that could not happen in the States, as being directly prohibited by the Constitution.

***
Eric-- prayers and mojo on the church search/decision. In our case, the most important consideration was finding a church our kids would be comfortable at. My son has 3 years of high school to get through and I want him to stay grounded. Jack enjoys Youth (they're going to Busch Gardens this coming weekend) and has friends there. I like where we're at, the Youth Group is good and there are a lot of good folks, it's just frustrating we don't have a modern service. Mrs. K just can't get excited about a trad service or even the supposedly "blended" one I play at, after being spoiled by 10 years of a true contemporary service at our prior place. So at a minimum I'ma stay here with my son through high school, unless something goes wrong on his end.

***

Don't have any recollection of Friday, stayed in with la family.

Saturday: praise team practice for a whopping 2 songs. Didn't do any leads so it was basically a waste of time, could've simply done run-through pre-service on Sunday. Stayed in, watched the playoffs and did some laundry.

Sunday: pre-service run-through and 2 songs in church. Used the Ric, which had been giving me tuning headaches right up until the service but then sounded fine for the actual performance.



Got a little "experimental" and used the modern Marshall setting rather than my usual go-to Vox setting on both songs. Sang backing vocal on both, a little intimidating singing up in the loft when the real singers in the choir are all staring at you.

Went home for lunch and more NFL playoffs.

Had a Pedagogy side-band practice at the office that evening. I've pretty much decided I'ma use the '52 RI Tele as my go-to in that band.



Have also settled on using my SC XD lined out to my Sunn head and 2x12 cab as my stage rig for this band. Sounds really great.

[Duffy]

Started out by playing my new MIM white standard telecaster with hot ceramic single coils, no noise cancelling in any switch position, very noisy; thru my new Line six POD HD500.

What a surprise. Completely silent and sounds great. The noise reduction in the HD500 completely eliminates the noisyness of the tele in any switch position and retains beautiful tele tone.

Next I'm going to play my new Ibanez AF125 full hollow body electric thru it. It sounds super great thru it with no feedback at all, even at high volume.

And playing my Les Paul thru it, hooked up right now, sounds absolutely fabulous. It is an Epi LP std plus top with nickel covered Seymour Duncan JB and 59 pickups. Later I will plug in my new Epi LP black Custom with great sounding stock pickups.

The HD500 really enables you to get some great tones out of any guitar.

[Brian Krashpad]

That Pod sounds great Duffy!

I stayed doped up pretty much the whole weekend. Have gone from half doses to the full 2 ml hydrocodone per 6 hours.

Friday evening I let the dosage wear off and went over to church for a praise team practice, since the youth group was going to Busch Gardens on Saturday and several of our players were going to that.

Before dosing up Saturday morning I drove my son and a friend, who'd stayed overnight, in to church so they could go on the Busch Gardens trip. Later on Saturday I made the mistake of riding a bike for a couple miles. My son's friend had tried to ride it over to our house (he lives a lonnnnnng way away) and I came and rescued them on the way home from radiation on Friday, and locked the bike to a fence. So on Saturday my wife drove me over to the bike and I rode it back to the house. The short ride took a lot out of me. Won't do that again while I'm still in treatment.

Sunday I went in to church, driving in before I had any meds, then took a half dose when I got there, then drove home carefully aroun 12:30. Another service where we only played 2 songs. Ugh. We should be doing ALL the songs, not 2. Played the Peavey T-60,w/the Schecter Tempest Special in reserve.





Got home and pretty much laid about in bed all day, watching the NFL playoffs. Taking the day off today and getting some rest, but will drive in to radiation when the drugs wear off at 2 p.m.

[Eric***]

Geez BK, take care of yourself! Doesn't sound like fun to me.

You know, your stories about the apportioning of the church music makes me grateful for my current church, where we at least do all of the songs, even if they could be done better. I did say that we/I might be moving to a different church soon, but my wife and I are discussing it and praying quite a bit to try to figure out where we're actually supposed to be, instead of just jumping straight away. So for now I'm in the same place.

Friday: Went to this beer bar a few minutes away from home that we'd heard about. Pretty cool place, and totally out of the ordinary for the area of town where we live. I hope to go back there a few times; it's nice when you find a place you like.

Saturday: Went to a brunch with some friends, then putzed around home for most of the day. Delivered some old clothes to a thrift store and got my wife to play Halo with me, since I got a better-functioning xbox recently. She actually kind of likes Halo and is getting better, so that was kind of fun.

Just took it easy and relaxed at night. It's good to have a weekend like that once in awhile.

Sunday: Didn't play in church, but went to the service anyway. The music was OK -- it degenerates into this wall-of-sound thing really quickly, which is effective enough as worship music, since the point of it is building tension at the climax, not necessarily musicianship. Still, it's kind of annoying to be associated with poor quality music like that. The drummer, bassist, and I are all pretty irritated with how our sets sound.

In the afternoon, I went and played with a few guys at some guys house. I had jammed with the host once before, but this time there was another guitarist who was pretty good (better than me, anyway) and a hand-percussion guy. Mostly Stones, Steely Dan, Clapton-type stuff, which was OK. I didn't know 90% of the songs we played, but it was fun enough anyway. Hopefully that continues.

Went to our usual church in the evening for one of the last times -- we've decided that one is probably going to end soon, which is OK. Life has changed, and situations have to change as a result. Went out for beer afterward.

So yeah...slow weekend, but highly enjoyable.

[Brian Krashpad]

Geez BK, take care of yourself! Doesn't sound like fun to me.

Next couple of weeks are going to be a real pain. Literally. I will see about getting a more powerful scrip at "doctor day" tomorrow (I see both my chemo doc and my zap doc on Tuesdays), because even at full dose, about two hours to 90 minutes before I can dose up again, I can barely swallow. Mouth is all torn up, neck/face's got radiation burn, and I wake up in the morning pretty beat.

Have nine more zaps to go, and 2 chemo Tuesdays.

[Katastrophe]

Put in a 16 hour day Friday night / saturday morning... Full shifts on Saturday and Sunday... 4 hours sleep today, and off to school for studying for a bit before I picked up Baby Kat at daycare.

I'm tired, but it's a good tired.

Geez, Brian, I hope you recover quickly from this. Do you have a pain management doc? If your insurance offers it, take 'em up on it. Usually, they are anesthesiologists that specialize in nothing but mitigating pain to where you can function without having to time out doses.

Eric, I envy all the live music in your life. Sounds like you had fun, and that's what music's all about!