Christianity Today Magazine has released a list of the best albums of 2007 and Recovery placed #4!
I am thankful to have made the list considering that Saint & Pilgrim is a TOTAL indie operation run out of the back of our home! It’s an eclectic list filled with signed and unsigned artists and I’m honored to be included.
Here’s a snippet of the write-up:
“Recovery is a richly textured stunner that combines acoustic guitar, atmospheric keyboards, and drum programming with warm strings and horns. To say there’s nothing quite like Casella in the Christian music landscape is an understatement, and that’s part of why we find the album so captivating”
Read the whole thing here.
Posted in News by Jeremy | 16 Comments »
“I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.”
-Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves To Death
I heard a sermon last weekend in which the pastor stated that the church is not a business. How true and how great it is to hear it said out loud!
Even more than that though — the people who come to church are not customers.
While it may be no surprise to some, it is still worth sounding the call that we’ve lost our understanding of what it means to be the church. I’m doing some reading lately to deepen my knowledge of this. Especially working in and around churches as a lone-ranger sort of musical artist guy.
Sometimes I end up out on the road trying to connect with audiences from different church backgrounds and just totally feel like I’m grasping at straws in trying to relate to them. Maybe I should just play music and shut up. Let others do the talking.
But what if what they are saying isn’t the Gospel? What if it turns your skin and makes you want to vomit? 12-step motivational speeches that pass for “gospel” and aren’t any different that what you’d get by watching Oprah or Dr. Phil.
I’m uncomfortable with the undefined sort of role I have (or do not have) within the church. It’s too blurry and too loose of a cannon to be shot out of. Flailing out into the national landscape and hawking my merch. I don’t know about a lot of this anymore.
Just confessing.
And what’s funny to me is that a lot of this thought process is a logical extension of the dialog I started with myself while writing and recording Recovery. Digging deeper into the marrow of things and feeling the gravity of the Truth….and now that conversation has injected itself into the way I pursue my career and not just the way I write and make records.
Feels like growth. Film at 11.
Posted in General, Creative Process by Jeremy | 4 Comments »
O God of earth and altar, in mercy hear our cry;
our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die;
the walls of gold entomb us, the words of scorn divide;
take not Thy thunder from us, but take away our pride.
From all that terror teaches, from lies of pen and tongue;
from all the easy speeches that satisfy the throng;
from sale and profanation of honor and the word;
from sleep and from damnation, deliver us, O God!
-G.K. Chesterton, 1906
Posted in General by Jeremy | 4 Comments »
I’m on a major Radiohead kick this weekend. I’m traveling out in Arizona playing shows and I can’t seem to turn off my Radiohead playlist. I’d forgotten how great they are.
I’ve found that In Rainbows has given me fresh appreciation for Amnesiac which I’d previously not really absorbed. Wow. It’s unreal.
I think they are the most important band of my generation making music today. Especially when Thom pushes aside his paranoia and is just happy to be part of Radiohead. The whole new record feels that way to me — like they are just happy to be themselves.
Posted in General by Jeremy | 33 Comments »
