Monthly Archive for August, 2006

Getting Back Into The Music Business

Published
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Chris
on August 6, 2006
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My next foray into the world of music has begun. Tentatively titled “The Collaboration: Coast to Coast,” my third CD (and hopefully, first in wide release) will stray away from minimal electronic music production and feature a number of live musicians on guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, you name it. The idea of the CD is to record five tracks here in Newport News and then five more when I move to Oregon, recording with two different groups of friends and getting a different sound coming from each of the groups, but mixed together well enough to make the CD flow. So far I’ve enlisted Kevin Twitchell and Danny Burnette on guitars, Wes Ashworth on vocals, and there is more to come.

I’ll be setting up a section of my blog to update you all on production of the CD, and also release some of the tracks as previews before we release them. It’s gonna be fun, I think even more fun than making my first two CDs, and I just wanted to do something different.

Also, some of my current side projects include remixes of Jessica Simpson’s “A Public Affair” and Howard Jones’ “Look At You Now.”

On that note, my friend Eric Wellington from Rainier, Oregon (aka EJ the DJ) is releasing a new CD on the 10th, entitled “Original Goodness.” The guy’s good at what he does…head to his website, take a listen to some of the tracks and support his music. He also did a great remix of my 2002 track “Discotronic Symphony,” which will be released as a bonus track on his CD.

Cheers.

Accountability: A Necessary Part Of Christian Life

Published
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Chris
on August 2, 2006
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Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Galatians 6:1-2 - The Message

Last night a bunch of the Lakeside young adults (yes, we call ourselves the youth group but we are really all young adults) got together at Steve Ruggerio’s house and we had a great Biblically based discussion on things we all struggle with in our Christian walk. We all named different things, and you could tell a common theme among those of us who admitted what we struggle with was that it doesn’t go away, and sometimes it’s almost too much for someone to handle by themselves.

I was troubled when I heard this, and I vocalized my thoughts after I too admitted things that I struggle with and asked for everyone’s continued prayers. I told the group that if I wasn’t bold enough to mention my struggle and ask for prayer in front of the group, no one would have individually taken their own time to go out of their way and ask if I needed help with anything. Chalk one up for spiritual immaturity or whatever it may be…but it showed that there was a lack of accountability between individual members of our group.

I wasn’t picking on anyone when I said that, in fact, it’s indicative of too many of our churches nowadays. It takes time and effort to help a brother or sister in the faith, and yes, while it’s true that we need to focus on our own spirituality and work out our own salvation (see [bible]Philippians 2:12[/bible]), many times we can be selfish, apathetic and just plain unwilling to try to help someone else out.

Are we spiritually immature? Are we scared to offend? Are we too wrapped up in our own relationships with the Lord that we sometimes forget that someone else may be struggling? Do we not trust each other at times? After I came home last night, I had to think long and hard about these questions and I even had to say yes to all of them. The Lord spoke to me and told me that without personal accountability among the members of the youth group, our relationships with each other will die. That’s kinda harsh but it’s true. Either we’re involved in each others’ lives or we’re not.

[bible]Hebrews 10:24[/bible] tells us to encourage each other toward love and good deeds. That’s what accountability is designed for….it may require some tough love at times, but in the end it’s all for the good. If there is no accountability, personal relationships with others in the church are just about as good as dead.

It takes time to develop Christian accountability friendships, but in the end it is so worth it. The benefits are so amazing, and it brings a group tighter than it ever could be. It requires trust, but then again isn’t the Christian walk about trust and faith in God and in our fellow man???

Announcement Central

Published
by
Chris
on August 1, 2006
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Many announcements to bring forth to my Internet audience today.

Announcement #1:
Today marks the start of the all-too-wonderful month of August. The month that temperatures start cooling off somewhat (well, at least in Oregon they do), we see football season just around the corner, baseball pennant races heating up, friends heading back to college and kids getting ready for school, crops being harvested, the rain coming back to the valley, two special birthdays, yeah, August is awesome.

Announcement #2:
Lakeside Fantasy Football participants, listen up. I created the league yesterday and I am the commissioner. Go to http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/ and search for the league “Lakeside Football Legends” (without the quotation marks). Hit me up and I’ll send you the password…email me, call me or whatever and I’ll give you the password. I need you all to create and name your teams before August 13, because that Sunday after church at 3 PM, we’re having the live draft at Tyler’s house. Once again, I repeat…August 13, 3:00 PM, live draft at Tyler’s house. If you need any more information call or email me.

Also, if you can’t make it to the live draft, I highly suggest that you rank the players you want to draft, thatway if they are available when your turn comes around, it will auto draft them for you. Otherwise you are crap out of luck and your team WILL SUCK and you’ll be out $20.

Announcement #3:
This one’s a doozy. No I have not proposed to Aftan yet, though that would be cool. Instead, it has to do with music I am working on.

Many of you may remember a song I created back in 2002, called “Discotronic Symphony.” It had a nice little dance beat, with a symphonic melody and warm strings in the background. Well I’m re-releasing it, with two remixes (one by my friend Eric Wellington from Rainier, OR). It’s due out sometime in September and it will be a digital single. Which means you won’t find it on CD, instead buy the whole thing for a buck on my site. That’s right, a buck. How awesome is that.

Anyhoo, back to work. Peace, homies.