Thursday, April 17, 2008

Music Links

Good news everyone: Matthew Wilkinson has gone and made all of his music available for free download at myspace. I have been talking about this guy on here for at least a year, and now there is no excuse but to go hear his stuff. Go to his myspace page and check out his albums in his friends section. I recommend starting with Sinners (I can't stop listening to it), but everything is worth checking out. Some fanastic songs here. For real. Stop reading my useless blog and go listen to them.



I decided to get a myspace page again so I could keep better track of some of my favourite music. If you are any where near open to getting some new music in your system I highly recommend you check out indie musicians such as my brother Jeff Coutts, he and Dave McGregor's band The Young Wire Wicks (who have an album forthcoming), Nathan Carroll, and Brock Tyler. You won't regret listening to any of them. Carroll and Tyler are on a Canadian tour (with the Wire Wicks at some venues as well) soon so if you can see them nearby you may want to try.



I should also mention that on my myspace page I put my one and only recorded song. It is called Alone. It was written first for my own prayers, then adapted for our seminary chapel, and then my friend Dale offered to record it. My wife Angie sang with me and my friend Dale did all of the fiddling with the drums and bass and mixing. I am not saying it is the greatest song ever, but it is a lament from the heart, and I think we need more laments.

Finally, I told a few people in my Barth reading group that I'd post a link to this stupid theology quiz, so here it is. It is pretty artificial and full of questions that are false dilemmas or misleadingly vague, but I must admit it labelled my theology pretty accurately as neo-orthodox, and even picked up on my holiness/wesleyan background, my recent catholic leanings, and my felt-disconnect with charismatic stuff. If you want to blow 10 minutes and see what it tells you, check it out.

4 comments:

Tony Tanti said...

Listened to your song. I am moved. There is not enough lament in my world. The back and forth with Angie works great and I LOVE the ending.

How long indeed.

I also took that quiz. Nailed me pretty well. Here's the results in case you're curious:

You scored as a Emergent/Postmodern
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
Emergent/Postmodern
75%
Neo orthodox
57%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan
57%
Classical Liberal
46%
Roman Catholic
32%
Reformed Evangelical
29%
Charismatic/Pentecostal
29%
Modern Liberal
25%
Fundamentalist
21%

Jon Coutts said...

i scored similarly, except you reverse emergent with neo-orthodox and there's my top 3. i never read the write up on it. should've.

thanks for the comments on the song. i think there are laments out there, but they don't make them into public (or at least not church public) which is a crying shame. maybe because the intensity of the emotion goes away, or you feel embarassed. that's true of mine, but i think i am faithful to GOd by sharing it and not forgetting the dark parts just cuz right now it feels pretty light.

thanks for your comment.

Anonymous said...

Jon:

You and Angie have such amazing voices, and the interplay between the two textures works SO well on your track. It reminded me of Low -in their better moments, especially with that dark guitar droning behind the voices.

Wow.

Jon Coutts said...

i didn't expect the song to be so critically acclaimed! thanks.

as i'm sure it is with all recordings, both me and the guy doing the mixing would love to have spent more hours on it. it gave me a real appreciationg for the art

Blogroll