Blog.

This Sunday, my church is doing a baptism service at this little camp in the middle of the country at a small pond they have there. Amazingly, as of this writing, there are 80+ people signed up to be baptized, and we expect to have over 100 by Sunday. We’re also expecting 600+ people to show up, which makes for quite a few watermelons and smores!

I thought you guys would like to hear a glimpse of the music set that we have planned for the evening. The following are four of the five songs we will be doing and were recorded by Paul Kordon (our worship leader) and I last week, with both of us doing the vocals, Paul on guitar, and me on mandolin. For the actual set on Sunday, we will add an acoustic bass guitar, a lead electric (country-fied) and a small percussion/drum setup. Needless to say, I’m very excited about this.

Enjoy the audio. (Click on the triangle on the far right of each player to play the song…)

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Sorry for the lack of updates lately, a friend from Texas came to visit and said she checks this blog daily, so I will try to do better for her and my other faithful reader, whoever that my be. (probably my mom) Anyway, the other night I was bouncing from blog to blog, and myspace page to myspace page and found an artist that I am highly impressed with. Also, I have been blessed to get to know another talented independent artist in my area that I would like to share with you. Both are finalists for a couple Momentum awards, which are kind of like the Dove awards for independent artists.

First, my friend Alyce Metallo is a talented pianist, vocalist and woman of God. Her personality is contagious and she’s married to an Italian guy that runs the mafia. Ok, maybe he doesn’t run the mafia, but he’s really cool.  I should probably put a “shout out” (the terminology these days…  ~sigh~) to their daughter too, who is every bit as awesome as her parents.  We’re supposed to get together for dinner soon and I’m excited to continue to get to know her and her family. Her music is hard to describe as it covers a wide variety of styles, but if I had to put a Genre to it, I would call it hip-latin-hop-pop. Check her out here and here. Buy her music, support her, send her messages telling her how much you like her music…

One of my new favorite independent artists, Brad Reynolds, is based in Nashville and instantly captured my interest with the song titled “Anyway”. Here’s the first verse and chorus to that song, just to give you a taste of his writing: (emphasis mine)

He’s been sleeping on the sidewalk
since the money went away.
Can ya love him anyway, really love him anyway.
He lost his mind but finds the time to bum a dollar everyday,
but my Jesus says to love him anyway.

Cause love is the only evidence against us
that tells the world we’re guilty of a change.
There’s not a one who lives among us
who wasn’t lost somewhere along the way.
Judgment turned to mercy and mercy took our blame,
but it all comes down to loving anyway.

You can check him out here and here. Check out his biography here. Buy his music, support him. We need more artists like this.

Also, if you like them, please vote for Brad and Alyce here through the end of February.

I was reading up on a friend of mine who leads worship at a little church in College Station, TX, where I moved from. He’s a singer/songwriter and truly has a gift for lyrics and an unbelievable heart for the Lord. I found this post by Ross, and was overwhelmed when I read it. That is what a family looks like.

By the way, check out his music here: www.rosskingmusic.com and here: Ross’ myspace