NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

The best music doesn't happen in isolation, but rather comes out of a community movement. I would define community, when it comes to music, as a mixing of artist who bring different ideas together ideas from various genres. The result of musical community is stronger musicianship by all those involved. Collaboration, the meeting of minds, happens naturally. Throughout the course of my blog, I've talked about various communities. Tooth & Nail , Christian Rock, exvangelical communities are definitely the biggest themes. Tegan and Sara grew out of the Northwestern Canadian/American Indie Rock community in the late '90s, and by 2013 became pop stars.   HERE COMES THE RUSH BEFORE WE TOUCH.  Many fans may have been introduced to  Tegan and Sara  when Meredith Grey and Christina Yang danced to their early acoustic,  angry girl music on  Grey's Anatomy ' s earlier seasons.  The musical duo of Calgary-born identical  twins  Tegan  and  Sara Quin  started on the acoustic

No, that riff is not "(Don't You) Forget About Me" by Simple Minds in some alternate, extended drumming version. Today, we're listening to a San Diego-based Worship band's rendition of the classic Christmas hymn, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Formed with former members of indie/Christian Rock bands Reeve Oliver, Something Like Silas, and Future of Forestry  and named after a pub near Oxford University where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met to discuss their writing and their ideas, The Eagle and Child have released several albums and EPs on Tooth & Nail's worship music imprint, Gospel Songs. "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" comes from their first Christmas EP, O Christmas. BORN TO GIVE THEM SECOND BIRTH. Christmas covers have to be excellent in order to take my attention from a traditional arrangement. While I listened to several Christmas songs today, the moody saxophone and the drums on this version stuck out, even after listening to

Red 's debut album, End of Silence , comes in the middle of a maximalist orchestral rock era on the alternative/active rock stations. The lead single, " Breathe Into Me " is a heavily produced single that involves screaming, a Middle-eastern sounding guitar solo, and a string section that sounds like it's being tuned in on an FM radio. As novel as that sounds, a DJ today might be able to recreate that sound if he picked up a hundred other active rock records from 2003-2009. The sound effects and heavy guitars could be found on any Linkin Park record, the strings on an Evanescence record, the screaming on almost any other record. But in 2006, Red's End of Silence was a fun, aggressive radio-rock record, and I had every hope that they would go on to have a career of unique heavy music. FALLING FASTER . Released the summer after I graduated from high school, I didn't really start listening to Red's debut record until the Fall, when I was driving to morning

Everyday Sunday was a Christian Rock band from Ohio that grew in popularity thanks to RadioU and TVU , which aired their played their independent music alongside other major Christian rock acts. The band signed to Flicker Records in 2002 before the label folded and then signed to Peter Furler 's Inpop Records before going independent in 2013. The band was mostly forgotten with the countless Christian Rock bands of the early '00s, until lead singer Trey Pearson made headlines in May 2016. Pearson had recently divorced his wife of seven and half years. The couple had two children and the divorce was amicable, but Pearson came out to his wife and his family as gay. In May 2016, he came out publicly--career suicide for almost everyone hoping to stay in the Christian music industry. But with a changing music climate in which independent artists have a larger platform and with a broader LGBTQ community and allies both in and out of the church and in and out of the ex-vengelical

Spoken is one of the hardest working Christian rock bands that has had very little recognition. Starting in 1996, the band released three albums on CCM singer's now defunct label, Metro 1 Music. Their early, roughly produced records sounded like Rage Against the Machine , and their lyrics also sounded like what Rage might sound like if they were militant conservative Christians. In 2003, the band released their first of three albums on Tooth & Nail Records, A Moment of Imperfect Clarity . Produced by Garth "GGGarth" Richardson , who had produced Rage, Kittie , Mudvayne , Chevelle , Trapt , and fellow T&N bands The O.C. Supertones, Project 86, and Beloved, Clarity  made the group into a post-grunge group. The gloomy sound of Clarity was certainly a step up for the band. Their follow-up album,  Last Chance to Breath , sounded similar to Clarity and the band looked like they would be joining the ranks of the biggest names in Christian Rock at that time. But their nex

Turn off the Stars was a short-lived Canadian pop-rock band. The band was often compared to Coldplay or Keane, but their often wall-of-sound guitars liken them more to Oasis or The Verve. In 2006, their self-titled debut album had one RadioU/Christian Rock hit "Please," the second track from the record. Released in the fall of 2006, this was the soundtrack to freshman year in college, which meant driving on frosty mornings to McDowell Technical Community College to obtain an Associate's Degree that (maybe) saved me $20,000. It was also the year that my family moved to Nebo, buying their first house. But this album took on a new life as it was one of my few albums I could listen to in the car without my mom complaining. So it was an album we listened to several times when we took the long drive up to New York to visit my dad's side of the family, seeing family members we hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. I'VE BEEN RUNNING WITH MY SOUL SO TIRED ABOUT YOU. "G

In 2006, Family Force 5 debuted with their brand of 'crunk,' rap-rock punk that was comical, dancey, awkward, and overall unique. You'd be hard-pressed to find much Christian Rock on  Business Up Front/Party in the Back . Most of the songs are about dancing in the club and falling in love. While pretty innocent, it was one of the first times a Christian Rock band invited its listeners to the club. Known for their outrageous live shows and touring with the likes of Cobra Starship , 30h!3 , Cash Cash , Breathe Carolina , and The Secret Handshake , the band took a stylistic left turn when they released their sophomore record on Tooth & Nail Records in 2008. Dance or Die has much less crunk, more singing, and fewer joke songs. The band started taking themselves seriously on this record, but looking back, I wonder who it was for? THEY TRY TO TAKE OUR LIVES, BUT WE WILL SURVIVE . Family Force 5 is a rock band, but in their live shows they functioned as a boyband. In 2006-

March can take a rainy day and turn it into a snowy night. Waking up to a wet and white world on the first day of school, the day was filled with uncertainties. The first day of school is always a game of catch up, trying to figure out what is going on from others who may or may not know what is going on. As the mild winter took a turn for the cold, the mystery of the weather reminded me that anything could happen in the classroom. Whenever skies look clear and blue, a thunderstorm can be lurking in the principal's office. Just like snow storms, headaches can come out of nowhere. Particularly when the stifling heat of the office meets contentions with unfavorable schedules to be sorted. And while today there were no classes, the doppler radar looks like an active storm season begins tomorrow. IT'S NOT LIKE YOU WOULD KNOW, WOULD YOU? Christian metal core band Haste the Day has had their hits and misses for me. My first exposure to them was their Pressure the Hinges album, whic

In 2019, I rediscovered Wolves At the Gate band from the Labeled podcast. Labeled is a podcast about the history of Tooth & Nail and Solid State Records. As I get older, my tolerance for hard music is decreasing. Of course, when I was a teenager Post-Hardcore was king. Everyone used screaming in their music, but musical genres started to become more defined c. 2006 and there was hardcore and rock. And a lot of rock went more electronic and pop.  Still, even after the murky time, hardcore bands still liked to take a break from screaming and sing a ballad. When I picked up this record, though, I found less screaming and more of the type of music I liked before the rock/hardcore split. This group sounds more like New Medicines era Dead Poetic than Define the Great Line era Underoath. This album made me miss intense rock. Guitars and bass and drums and passionate singing spiced with some well-intentioned screaming.  YOU WON'T MAKE ME INTO YOUR PAWN. "Counterfeit" was th