I love music. I have come here to write about what I love. I am also associate editor of an online poetry review. You can see it @ rufouscityreview.com
Here’s something I wrote for class that ended up changing the way I think and feel
excerpt from “10,000 Mother Fuckers (That’ll Do)” by Jason Mraz
I’ll sing my stories for you,
and you will sing for me, too,
and together,
we can make it through.
They say,
“When you sing you’re prayin’ twice.”
Don’t that sound nice?
So, rise up,
come on, and give it a try.So sing out,
Sing out loud,
We can be 6 billion mother fuckers singing proud,
Oh, sing it loud,
Sing glory,
Glory, glory, glory,
Hallelu… Hallelu… Hallelu…
Hal… Hal… Hallelu… Hallelu… jah…
Hallelujah…
Hallelu…
Oh, say hallelu.
I have an annoying, sometimes mentally harmful, need to understand the how’s and why’s of a belief system before I permit myself to comply with all of its teachings. I think this is my brain trying to compensate for not being used in the way it seems to want. I started out in college as a mathematics major and slowly made my way over to English and then landed, with some turbulence, in journalism. I think my fine-toothed-comb approach to religion and spirituality come from the science based part of my brain that is under-worked. I was ok with this for years, until one day a woman came to me with an important message:
“God told me to tell you that you are special to him and that even though you might not be feeling it right now, he has a special plan for you. He sees you and thinks you are beautiful.” She told me that while she was praying God told her to find a girl in a blue shirt and a purple hoodie. He told her this girl needed to know that she was special. God gave her a name, Brittany.
I looked to my friends to access their faces. Were they faces that said, ‘OMG! This if for cereal,’ or were their eyes rolling as if to say, ‘Girl, she crazy.’ But they just stared at me. My brain waged a mini war. Part was saying “Umm, yeah right. She is some sort of crazed loonie toon looking for someone to join her cult and dance around a fire naked with her.” And one, slightly more logical part said, “Umm, excuse me, you have been having some emotional instability lately. Maybe she’s onto something.”
After a few awkward minutes exchanging nervous laughter, she finally introduced herself. Her name was Lauren, and she was some sort of leader for Western Michigan University’s chapter of InterVarsity. I had heard of it and always thought it was some sort of sports organization. Shows what I know.
InterVarsity, according to the website, is a national Christian fellowship that aims “to establish and advance, at colleges and universities, witnessing communities of students and faculty who follow Jesus as Savior and Lord.”
Lauren invited me to the next meeting and wished me a blessed rest of the day.
Intrigued, my best friend and roommate Jessica, accompanied me to InterVarsity’s next meeting. Everyone there was really welcoming at first, but as I passed over the threshold of the chapel I was overwhelmed by a feeling I still can’t quite explain. It was like I was the chosen one and every one’s eyes were watching me, mouths watering to get the first bite of fresh impure flesh. However uncomfortable I was, I vowed to stay and see what exactly went on here in this foreign place.
After what seemed to be like hours of announcements, the atmosphere changed from friendly to sermon-y. Jessica and I had plans that we were already an hour late for and now seemed like a good place to make our quiet exit.
As we shimmied through the pews, a hand shot out and caught me by the arm. Taken aback, I whipped around to see who was accosting me. It was a thin, little woman.
“You’re not leaving already are you?” she said, her piercing eyes trying to look comforting as if to say you are one of us now. The whole time her hand was still holding my arm.
“We have plans that we are late for. We have to go,” Jessica chimed in seeing my blank face.
“Well that’s too bad,” the passive aggressive lady whined and slowly released my arm.
As we walked out to the entrance, Jess and I exchanged looks of disbelief, eyed darting between the doors , my arm and our eyes. Apparently, we were so engrossed in reading each other’s thoughts that we didn’t notice a different girl had followed us out. Jess’s fight or flight instinct kicked in and she attempted to make a break for it, but she was caught up by my kindness.
I have this way about me that even on my worst days, my face says please come talk to me. Unfortunately, I can’t turn it off, so when I turned around to see what Jess was fleeing from, I tried to transmit a look that said I have somewhere to be, but i must have just said Yeah, come talk to me.
This very quiet girl introduced herself and asked for our names and emails. Jess said, “Umm…no thank you,” but I was not so sly.
I tripped on my words and found it easier to comply with her request and then leave as fast as possible.
With this development I moved into a strange place between wanting to believe in God and wanting to find my own spirituality. I wanted all the information I could have about Christianity, but then I didn’t want my conversion to seem too easy. I wanted to go on a journey and end up somewhere that felt like home. I wanted to have so much confidence in my spirituality, that I would hold it to the greatest of tests.
This led me to several months of self conflict. I tried to force a journey through my own spirituality, but everywhere I turned I was finding excuses to keep Jesus out of me. I really wanted something to believe in but I couldn’t find the time to continuously seek out Jesus. I would find flashes of sense in my now weekly moments with Lauren. I had gone from one extreme to another. I had gotten so close to Christianity as to say out loud that I believe in God and so far away from it that the mere idea of a the Christian God seems over reaching and illogical.
This pseudo-journey left me uncertain and unable to say for sure what I believe is there and what I believe is looking out for me. That was until about a month ago.
I have always had an affinity for music. It moves me like nothing I have ever known. There is never a time where I have felt it betrayed me or lied to me. It comforts me when I am sad and motivates me when I need a kick in the ass. I have a healthy addiction to concerts. When any band I have heard of comes to town, (which in this case can be as close as The Strutt in Kalamazoo and as far away as Comerica Park in Detroit) I make it a point to go. There is something I enjoy about being in a group of people that all share the same interest in music. And until this weekend, I didn’t quite know what it was.
Saturday, November 5th, 2011 will forever mark the day I found the answers to all of my spiritual questions.
With my best friend and concert cohort in toe, I ventured out to The Intersection in downtown Grand Rapids to see Foxy Shazam, an experimental rock band fronted by a Cher-Freddy Mercury hybrid, and Panic! at the disco, a pop-punk quartet from Las Vegas.
I had seen Foxy earlier this year at Warped Tour and I was astounded by the crowd’s reaction. Everyone stood in silence and watched the theatrics of lead singer, Eric Nally and keyboardist Sky White, careful not to miss a word of their performance. To me, this was so foreign. It was my third year at Warped Tour and no one ever just stands there. It was like everyone had been hypnotized by Eric and no one wanted to be “that guy” that ruined it for everyone else by crowd surfing or moshing.
The headliners, Panic! at the Disco, have been one of my favorite bands since my freshman year in college. This is weird because, Panic’s debut album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, came out when I was a junior in high school and it’s raw emo-centered tracks were geared directly to my age group. But, I didn’t pay them any attention until my best friend across the hall from me introduced us.
My concert buddy, Julie and I spent the first hour or so just hanging out. The first set was from a bad neither of us had heard of nor really cared about. We walked around the venue, got some drinks and talked to the merch table workers.
When Foxy came on, I was ready for a surreal experience. I knew what to expect and they delivered and then some. Their set was longer this time and since the stage was inside, the overall experience was better than before.
Eric’s squeaky, boyish voice got the crowd excited. He stopped mid way through the set to talk to the audience. He shared a story about how he had planned to take some time off to spend with his son, Julian. When his record label called him and said, “Hey Eric, we know you want to take some time off to be with your wife and Julian, but we have this tour that we want you to play on. Would you do it for $10,000?”
“And, I said, ‘you know what, I’d like to, but I really need to spend time with my family,’” he continued with the story. “And they said, ‘Well, Eric we understand. Would you come out and do the tour for $20,000?’ and I said, ‘No.’ And they said, “Ok Eric what if we offered you $50,000.’ and I still said, ‘No.’ and then he said, ‘Eric, would you do the tour for free?’ and I said, ‘Well how can I pass that up?’”
The next song in their set is one of the best examples of their slogan ‘Foxy Shazam: White Music for Black People.’ The song is innocently titled “I Like it.” The song starts off like a track cut right out of the eighties, with fuzzy guitar bass and hard hitting drums behind the first verse:
Big magic woman
Oh you got me
Under your spell
You hypnotize
Me with your hips and thighs
I wear these shades
So when I stare
No one can tell
That’s the biggest black ass I’ve ever seenAnd I like it, I like it
That’s the biggest black ass I’ve ever seen
And I like it, I like it, a lot
Foxy’s music is funky and messed up in all the right ways, just like the band mates.
Julie and I wandered around some more after their set. We got more drinks, talked to the merch table workers and scouted out better places to stand. Neither one of us likes to be in the front. I think we were both traumatized at our first concert where we were at the barricades and left with bruises and death threats. We like to stand near the back of the middle. You can usually see from there and, most of the time, manage to not get punched or kicked in the head. Yes, I have been kicked in the head, more than once. It comes with the territory and most of the time I see it coming so I just duck. Sucks for the people who crowd surf over me, I never pull my weight.
When the DJ stopped the music and the lights dimmed the place erupted with screams and applause. This was only the second tour since Panic! had lost half of their quartet to artistic differences. Really, Ryan Ross and Jon Walker, the original guitarist and bassist, were just sad that they couldn’t be The Beatles. There is evidence of this fact in Ross and Walker’s new band the Young Veins. Ross was tired of playing second fiddle to lead singer Brendon Urie. They tried really hard to keep it all together. They came out with their sophomore album, Pretty. Odd. and it was a completely new Panic. The evidence of The Beatles influence on Ross, the main song writer, was obvious. Even though Ross wrote the songs, he needed Urie for the delivery. He has a sharp, high voice that cuts right through your brain waves. When each side had had enough, they broke it off and Ross and Walker went their own way. Urie and drummer Spencer Smith kept the act together and inducted Ian Crawford and Dallon Weekes as touring lead guitarist and bassist, respectively.
The newly reformed Panic! came out to a light show that seemed to reflect off the electricity of the crowd. The show was sold out and the crowd was just getting into the night.
Panic! opened with “Trade Mistakes,” a song from their new album Vices & Virtues. It’s intorduction is a harmony of violins that open up to piano and drums. Urie’s sharp yet inviting voice rings out the first verse:
Placing a smile at the perfect event,
Gracing your skin with the side of my hand,
If I ever leave, I could learn to miss you,
But “sentimental boy” is my nom de plume.
A few seconds later his straining voice breathes life and meaning in to the chorus:
I may never sleep tonight,
As long as you’re still burning bright,
If I could trade mistakes for sheep,
Count me away before you sleep,
I’ll stay awake ’til I trade my mistakes
Or they fade away.
From the moment Urie opened his mouth I was entranced. It felt like all of the questions in my life no longer mattered. All that mattered was that I was there, lost somewhere between chords, harmonies and genius.
It took a few songs for me to realize what was happening, they played old songs from AFYCSO like “Nails For Breakfast Tacks for Snacks” and “Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes off,” and a couple songs from Pretty. Odd. By the time they got to the seventh or eighth song, “Camisado,” I realized something. At first I couldn’t quite understand but when it finally came to me I felt a sense of transcendence. I was having a spiritual experience. I felt the energy in the room (and right about here is the point where you lose faith in my sanity, but stick with me). I had found my belief.
The center of every religion is creation. Art is creation; music (for me) is art at its finest. Music has become my religion. I believe in it; I always have. It’s powerful; it pulls people from deep dark holes and shines a light on them. It’s saved me from the few times I thought there was nothing out there but darkness. Musicians are my priests and songs are my canon. We are a congregation.
Concerts are the masses of my religion and Saturday’s concert was my baptism into this new spiritual life. As I looked around me with tears in my eyes, I saw everyone reciting verses together with no promise of a prize if we got the words right. It didn’t matter where we had come from or what our lives had been like; the music was the savior. We put our faith in our pastors and priests to discover the truth about life and death and to translate it in a way that will make sense for our simple minds.
I have experienced the same thing time and time again, but it never hit me that this was the spiritual belief for me. What’s interesting is that is matters not where I am. I can be at a concert, in my room, or on the street and no matter what I can have this experience over and over again. I will make my pilgrimage every time I get the chance and bear witness to my faults and short comings. I will stand with hundreds of strangers, arms in the air, palms towards our priests and be forgiven for the things I have done and be relieved of the things I cannot change.
A friend once said to me, “I believe in a religion. I call it ‘The Song.’ I have a theory that everything in the universe emits a frequency and that when you really look at the word, it is all made up of sound.” My friend told me this my sophomore year of college. Nothing has ever sounded so beautiful or made quite as much sense to me. I will not pretend to know how everything works. Nor will I discredit anyone else that believes different from me. That is what is beautiful about my beliefs; I do not have to claim to have the only right answer.
I’ve tied this one experience together with a few other times similar things have happened to me. For example, when my mom had first been cleared of cancer, I was at a show in Pontiac seeing a band I had only ever heard of named Valencia. In the middle of their set the lead singer started talking to the crowd. He said his mom had been diagnosed with cancer a few years before and he wrote the next song for her. The song is called “(I Don’t Wanna Go on Alone) Still Need You Around.” Shane Henderson’s voice as lead vocal in this song is so perfect, like a little boy and a man not quite sure what he would do with out his mother:
See, I’m tired now and my mind won’t quit
since I got the news that you were sick.
I thought of life, of time and death.
If I could only use my breathe,
I’d breathe my life into your lungs.
With love and strength, I have faith I will lift you up.
It’s a lesson learned.
As we move on, I still need your around.
I’d be lost without you.
I’m not sure I could face this world on my own.
No, I don’t wanna go on alone.
I don’t wanna go on alone.
His story and the words spoke to me and I bawled my eyes out in the middle of at least a hundred people. I had, that summer, sat with my mom in the hospital and felt all the things he was singing about. I saw her in the worse times, and wanted so much to give up what I had just to see her be herself again.
Along with the specific experiences there is one artist that I feel and great spiritual connection to. His name is Christofer Drew, but his fans know him better as Never Shout Never, eatmewhileimhot, Christofer Drew, or his newly made GONZO.
His music ranges from happy little ditties as younger NSN, to deep songs about his personal past as himself, his view of the music business as older NSN, parodies of scream-o music in eatmewhileimhot, and his own take on the new dubstep/techno era that is upon us. No matter the subject, I get lost. He has limitless talent. He can play the guitar, banjo, piano, harmonica, organ and pretty much anything else he sits in front of. His impact on me varies by day. Some days the place I go is one of pure bliss. Other times, the place I end up is dark.
His most recent single, “Time Travel,” explores his new found fame and his insecurities and disappointments he’s found in it:
Nothing is real
I know this cause I made a deal
With the devil
He told me that I was just wasting my time on the moon
So I flew to the sun
Lost track of my soul on the run
Suffering 12 degree burns
I learned that the sun was no fun
In the first stanza, Drew is talking about looking for a record deal when he was still self producing is own demos. He was a teenager still when he signed a deal with Warner Brothers that ended a war between recording companies. The deal was that Warner Bros. had to give him his own imprint label, Loveway Records.
My Blog is White (White Hot That is) 
SEXY YEAH YEAH
This is perfect. Are you going to create one about every band you love?