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A few weeks ago I was browsing through the used section of my local record store and was thrilled to see a whole bunch of old school Christian “punk” CDs. For $3 or $4 each, I got albums by The Insyderz, Twothirtyeight, Value-Pac, Ill Harmonics, and Pedro the Lion. Listening to each of these compelled me to pull out other records that I’ve had for years: Five Iron Frenzy, The OC Supertones, MxPx, Brave Saint Saturn, and more. Even though this music was once the only stuff I ever listened to, it had been a while since I’ve really dug into it, and one thing shocked me as I started jamming out to them again today.… Continued →

You may have noticed a subtle change in the title of this column. You may have also noticed I haven’t posted a Metaphysical Monday for several weeks. Both of these situations exist because I’m working hard at turning Kafka’s Metamorphosis into a reality. It’s taking longer than it did in the book, but so far, I am successful: my body is slowly turning into a bug. A beetle, actually. Sadly, not a Beatle. Anywho, the point of all this is that I’m planning to write Metaphysical Monthday once every month.… Continued →

When I Learn to Sing The process of finding a front man for a rap-rock band is no simple task. There are many stringent qualifications that must be met. You need someone who can hype up a crowd, rhyme words at a fifth grade level, look good in parachute pants and a backwards hat… and maybe even sing. Matters became complicated to an even further extent in the case of Christian rap-rock bands circa the year 2000. In addition to the previous check list of “skillz”, the mythical creature known as the “front man of a Christian rap-rock band” was in this era expected to be one part adolescent rebel and another part pastoral guide and counselor.… Continued →

Rock The Party Around the turn of the century a new genre of music would see a meteoric rise in popularity. Teenage boys were stoked. Music critics were not. This genre would come to be known as “rap-rock”. Rap-rock was exactly what it claimed to be, a mixture of hip-hop and alternative rock or metal, usually played with down-tuned guitars and loads of testosterone fueled angst. Although pre-internet North Dakota was always a couple of years behind the rest of the world, rap-rock made a fairly timely breakthrough thanks to MTV and massive radio hits by groups like Rage Against the Machine, Linkin Park, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, and 311.… Continued →

We’re A Band I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I’ve known way too many people who have said, “This is the year! I’m going to do P90X!” Most of them get up at 6:00 AM the next day, struggle through the first routine, go to work and exuberantly tell people “I’m doing P90X! It’s so hard! I’m so awesome!”, go to bed that night tired out but with a sense of accomplishment… and then wake up at 6:00 AM feeling like they got run over by a convoy of 18 wheelers.… Continued →

Fever (A Defense of The Big Three) I need to take a brief pause at this point in my story to address something that I believe to be very important. To my knowledge it is something that has never been properly articulated publicly by any music critic from within the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) community. I will take the heat for my opinions and get straight to the point. Those from the outside world often form their perception of all Christian music based on the single experience of having accidentally stumbled onto a mainstream CCM station (designed to explicitly cater to “the church”) while scanning the dial in their car.… Continued →

Let It Begin I’ve always been one of those guys who shakes his presents. I’ve also been known to ask clever, probing questions in an attempt to sucker a gift giver into accidentally letting an all important hint slip out about what I might be receiving. To be completely honest, I probably find just as much (if not more) satisfaction in figuring out what a gift is before opening it as I do in the actual gift itself. It’s rare that I don’t have at least some notion of what is hidden beneath the wrapping paper.… Continued →

Best Kept Secret It’s hard to keep anything hidden for long in a town with a population of less than 2,000 people. You know who’s at the post office by looking at the cars parked out front. If you are walking down the street and see someone working in their yard, chances are you’ll know each other by name. If a kid gets a speeding ticket (or God forbid a minor) it seems like the lady at the grocery store will somehow manage to find out before their parents do.… Continued →

The life of the average teenage boy is full of overwhelming contradictions. You want to fit in with everyone else, but you want to “be yourself”. You want to be treated like an adult, but you don’t want to take out the garbage or clean your room. You want to attract a girlfriend but you don’t want to use deodorant or change your socks. These are just a few of the complicated issues you have to wade through on a daily basis during those tumultuous teenage years.… Continued →

ALL THE WAY LIVE 1999 would prove to be a pivotal year in my young life for many reasons. I had just started the ever-tumultuous 8^th grade, I got my first job washing dishes at a local greasy spoon, I finally managed to score my first kiss, and most importantly… I started my first Christian rock band. This may never have come to be though, had not an equally significant event taken place before hand. That significant event was The Supernatural Tour. I still have the ticket stub from the concert.… Continued →

SET IT OFF I’m going to be honest with you. I am not a Calvinist. I like to believe that God’s sovereignty is shown through the fact that humankind gets to make its own choices even though God could pull every string and direct every action.  However (get ready for the hyperbole), it is hard for me to look past the idea of divine appointment, née even the possibility of total pre-destination in some extreme instances. Such an instance was about to occur. It wouldn’t seem like much at the time… I will never forget the day that I received “The Tape”.… Continued →

TEENAGE POLITICS I suppose it was inevitable that at some point my god-fearing (and also Marilyn Manson-fearing) mother would try to find a substitute that could replace my quickly developing taste for “worldly rock-and-roll”. She made it her task to find me the “Christian” alternative to Metallica. At this point in my life my only exposure to Contemporary Christian Music was the mundane crap that was peddled on the local Christian radio station. There was also a group (which shall remain nameless) of college age, amateur, wanna-be-rockers that would come to our Lutheran church once a year and butcher what I would later found out were actually some fairly descent songs.… Continued →

The Votes are in, Barack Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States of America. Whether you love him or hate him, let’s put all that behind us and focus on our Faith and Love for one another. I am personally glad to finally have breathing room when watching TV without being force fed all these different political commercials and ads. It’s over and now the next 4 years begin (to go downhill, lol). 2012 has been a tremendous year for music and we can all be thankful that so many great bands have stuck together (or reunited) to bring us one hit record after another.… Continued →

RESTLESS YOUTH In the year 1998 a small, quiet town in rural North Dakota was the place that I called home. I was about to enter the seventh grade and my life revolved around three things; sports, girls, and church… probably in that order. I spent my days in school, and my evenings either at practice for whatever sport was in season or walking around town consuming vast quantities of Dr. Pepper with my friend Henry. My nights were spent listening to music while reading or drawing.… Continued →

Energy is something that is extremely hard to gauge on a music album. Energy is the tone and excitement portrayed by the musicians. It’s the passion you hear in the sound. But how does one contain the energy of The Chariot and put that into an album? If you’ve ever seen them live, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Or Emery. They know energy. Ever notice the first track on any of their albums is one of their heaviest or hardest songs? Mainstream music production tends to suck the energy right out of music.… Continued →

The OC Music Awards have just opened up the voting for their People’s Choice Award, and what band could possibly more deserving of the award than Orange County’s finest ska band The O.C. Supertones? Click on this link to submit your vote! It appears that you can vote multiple times, so make sure to vote every day until voting closes on February 15th! The winner will be decided by text votes March 9, 2013 at the main OC Music Awards celebration.… Continued →

Last weekend, my wife and I visited a Benedictine Priory. We were able to attend the nightly Compline service they had, which is a nightly music service meant for meditation and evening prayers to end the day of work in which the monks have labored. At the priory, my thoughts turned to Thomas Merton, one of my favorite authors.  I’ve made no secret of my affection for the writings of C.S. Lewis, and Merton is another in this line of spiritual thinkers that come from a different background than I do.  … Continued →

I need to be clear about something. Neither myself, the graphic artists (Benaiah Clothing), or any staff member at IVM are into Illuminati, Free Masonry, or any other “Occult” type organization. The “new” logo was simply chosen because I thought it looked cool and I dug the colors/design. There is no deep hidden meaning behind the lightning bolt eye other than it representing our “Vision” (Indie VISION Music). I’ve been hearing some complaints and/or confusion relating to our new logo. It is NOT the all seeing eye or anything silly like that.… Continued →

The issue of Transhumanity is of great interest to me and it’s something I’ve given a good amount of thought to over the past few years. The song “Artificial Immortality” is about this issue and my thoughts have changed since then (4 years ago). Transhumanity, shortened to h+, “is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.”… Continued →

*SPOILER ALERT* READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET! Well, now that some of us have seen The Dark Knight Rises, let’s look at what we’ve viewed. I have to say up front that the movie didn’t deliver like I expected it to. I hate to admit that some people were correct in having mediocre expectations. After 4 straight Christopher Nolan films that exceeded my absurd expectations, I just couldn’t imagine a scenario where I was let down. I had tempered my expectations and I knew from the beginning that this movie wouldn’t be as good as The Dark Knight.… Continued →

In a few short days, The Dark Knight Rises will open in theaters. This is an event that you are either 1) anticipating or 2) in need of a wake up call so you can anticipate it. … Continued →

This article will address several topics, so if you happen to be disinterested in the movie titled Moonrise Kingdom, be not afraid! But yes, first of all, Moonrise Kingdom was fantastic. I’ve written here before about my feelings on Wes Anderson movies. And I’m here to tell you that his new movie is his best yet. I went to see Moonrise Kingdom with my drummer Chris and bass player Codey. We had a blast as the movie made us laugh and as it wowed us with mesmerizing colors and superb, unique shots.… Continued →

These titles are MY personal faves of the first half of 2012 (so far). This is only an (MY) opinion and does not reflect the overall personal listening habits of other such staff members at IVM.

Becoming The Archetype is on the road right now and I’m reminded of how much work every band on the road is going through. If you haven’t noticed, the nation is blazing hot right now. And if you didn’t already know, lots of bands our size and smaller frequently sleep in their vans for lack of other lodging accommodations. The result is a mixture of bad smells and zombie-like brains. The positive side is that if you enjoy sticking to the fake leather lining of the front seat, life has never been finer!… Continued →

Everyone needs a day/week off, I suppose.  So I’m writing this on my computer a couple hours before it goes live just to say I couldn’t find time the last week to write a new MM post.  Between touring and recording, an opportunity just hasn’t presented itself to create anything I feel compelled to write about. So enjoy a week off and read other good articles on IVM instead of MM.  I hope the summer is underway and already spectacular for you.  I hope July 4 is filled with lots of grilling out and fireworks.  … Continued →

You can file this one under the Classic Christian Albums heading for Metaphysical Monday.  Released in 1999, this album is second only to MxPx’s Life in General as far as Christian punk albums go (in my opinion).  While remaining fairly obscure in the underground, Blaster the Rocket Man created an album of incredible musical and lyrical excellence. The music of Blaster the Rocket Man was a mix of punk/horror punk and rockabilly.  It was eery and fast and fun.  Otto Bot’s voice had a giant dynamic range, swinging from a wolf-like growl on “I Like Lycanthropy” (fun fact: I once ordered 250 stickers with “Equal Rights for Werewolves” on them and sold them at the BTA merch table in honor of this song) to an almost Elvis-like croon on other songs.… Continued →

Today’s blog is mostly about those long forgotten “Classics”, the bands and/or albums that have been largely overlooked by a new generation (and those that follow). I made a post about this on my facebook page and I figured i’d elaborate on the subject here. Here is what was said: Even though some bands have enjoyed recent reunions (and success), there are numerous others that have been virtually forgotten. Our society moves at such a quick pace that some truly inspirational and innovative bands have been left in the dust.… Continued →

It seems like all the main brains in Christian theology right now are self-proclaimed Reformed guys.  Preachers and authors such as John Piper, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Francis Chan (sort of), Tim Keller, J.I. Packer, Mark Driscoll (also sort of), and David Platt are all either part of the Reformed tradition or are closely related to that family of theology. Reformed theology can be very controversial, but just to overview the basic emphasis, Reformed theology shoots to unite the modern church with the basic tenants of the Reformation.  … Continued →

Christianity has given the world a hefty volume of great authors and books.  Obviously, you’ve got the Holy Bible, which is by far the best-selling book in the world.  And outside of that, you’ve got a rich tradition of the Church producing excellent literature.  Some of it is philosophical, some of it is allegorical fiction, some of it is straight fiction (and sometimes even science fiction), some of it is poetry, some of it is revolutionary ideology aimed at the church and of course, some of it is theology.… Continued →