09.14.05 WHERE IN THE WORLD IS SHLOG.COM?

Here are the last 500 viewers of SHLOG.COM.  Yep.  Pretty American at this point.  Let’s spread the love a little.  If you have friends in non-American places I’d sure like your help getting them to SHLOG.COM.  We need a global conversation here, more than one perspective, about the important matters of music, life and um...what do we talk about here again?

Anyway, help spread the word.  Please?

-SG

09.13.05 TEXANS UPDATE

Bad news first.  When I was in Beaumont I got to talk with a cousin of mine who works for Entergy, the electric company scrambling to get power back on in and around New Orleans.  He’s in charge of a group of guys doing the repairs and reported to me that looters had stolen a van of theirs and had made the repair efforts next to impossible in New Orleans proper because of attacks on Entergy’s offices.  A bad element had been shooting at their offices and repair crews in a fight for food and other supplies or valuables in the office buildings or repair vehicles.  As of this past weekend (9.10,11.05) repair crews were being escorted by armed guardsmen and were still unable to get to some parts of New Orleans due to the imminent threat to their lives.  The very people Entergy is trying to help, the poorest of New Orleans, are thought to be the very people making that help impossible to render.

More sad news.  This same cousin, a heavily armed NRA card carrier and second amendment enthusiast, went to the gun range this weekend with a friend from the FBI.  This agent reports that the FBI has snipers in and around New Orleans, on rooftops, and has been “picking off” looters and other criminals.  The FBI, he says, will not release their “kill count” to the media but claims “it is very high.”

GREAT NEWS! Brian and I visited his brother Chris while in the Houston area.  Chris is a pastor at Ecclesia (a church in Houston) and is personally housing 20 volunteers from Erwin McManus’ church Mosaic in Pasadena, California.  These volunteers are primarily twenty-somethings giving their time and skills to the care of evacuees in Houston: visiting the Astro Dome, distributing food and clothing, organizing donated items at a warehouse etc, through Ecclesia.  And sleeping on Chris’ floor.

Chris reports that the main need at this point is not housing, since the bulk of evacuees relocated to Texas are already being absorbed by Church families taking them in or finding them apartments or other suitable housing.  The greatest need is funding for these efforts.  A family in Houston who has decided to put an evacuee family in an apartment will eventually need help paying that rent since evacuees are believed to be displaced for at least a year in some cases.  Churches like Ecclesia are also operating on budgets and tithes not designed for such massive relief endeavors like this.  They are buying supplies and paying staff at a pace most churches could not sustain without outside financial help of some kind.  Any church hit by the storm or involved in caring for those affected by it now needs churches in the rest of the US and the world to help them financially.  Findhelter.org is working on ways to connect such churches in need with churches willing to give assistance.  I’ll keep you posted.

Central Baptist church in Bryan/College Station, TX, where I played Friday night (9.9.05) has placed approximately 300 people so far and reports that city officials enlisted the help of local churches like theirs in finding homes for displaced families.  Now there’s a welcomed change: The government asking us to do our job instead of us asking the government to do it for us.  Hope that trend sticks when the debris clears.

So there’s news from the front-lines of the Texas relief efforts.

09.12.05 POLL RESULTS: WHAT SHLOGGERS LISTEN TO MOST

It might not matter that much what radio stations play at all some day.  Seems like a lot of us have already stopped listening.

09.12.05 WILL WORSHIP FOR CASH

I ran into an artist in the airport this weekend who told me he/she/they were working on a “worship” record.  Turns out this artist was allowed by his/her/their label to make two “substantive” records that would not probably sell well or get played on the radio (one because of the other obviously) IF he/she/they would make a “worship” record between the two.  A “worship” project that is not “substantive” would be guaranteed to make the label enough money to make up for two not-so-well selling projects.

Vomit.  Is this “worship” movement a “move of God” or a move of capitalism?

09.12.05 BEAUMONT, TX 9.10.05

This show was just plain weird.  Weird in a very entertaining way.

First of all, this was a 9/11 show held on 9/10.  Huh?  But wait, it gets better.  It was supposed to be indoors but the venue was turned into an evacuee shelter.  So we played next door at a massive 15,000 capacity outdoor ampitheatre instead.  Amazing facility.  Great sound.  Good line-up.  But things can always go wrong - even in the best situation.

1000 tickets were pre-sold, but because of thunder storms and the change of venue only about 200 people ventured out to the show.  The two side stages were rained out and 47 independent bands slated for the festival had to be whittled down a bit and then the remainder thrown into the main stage rotation through-out the day.  There wasn’t enough time for everyone to get their promised set lengths so label artists cut their sets and independent artists played only two songs each.  I felt horrible for guys who drove long distances to play longer sets for big crowds but wound up playing eight minutes for 200 people with no time for a soundcheck.

I got to see Paul Colman play again, taking the opportunity to grab a picture of him in action.  He stopped in the middle of his song and asked me to get one of his “good” side.  Thunderous laughter from the small crowd.  Ok, a smattering of laughter.

The Swift, friends Brian and I made on our trip to El Salvador, rocked out with their cross between Weezer and Ben Folds pop.  They (pictured here with Brian and on stage) piano-rocked the crowd just after One Bad Pig, a middle-aged punk outfit from the eighties reuniting for a few shows this year, awed the crowd with tight power punk and a dive from the drum riser into a swimming pool filled with ice cream.  “The world is like an ice cream sundae.  It’s all gonna melt someday!” they shouted again and again.  Not sure why one decides to incorporate large amounts of dairy desserts into one’s show but some things are meant to be enjoyed and not judged.  Ashamedly, I did like it.  I bow before the legends and inventors of 80s Christian punk.

The sound company was truly horrible, mistreating the promoter, trying to pick a fight with Brian, and walking off from the main board randomly and not returning for long periods of time.  I was ready to start my set, for instance, but instead sat on the edge of the stage talking to the “crowd” while waiting for the sound man to finish his smokie-treat and return to work.  Never seen anything like this before.  The production crew’s juvenile apathy and the other hurdles of the day eventually led to a minor emotional meltdown by the promoter and his team.  Understandable. It’s not easy being a promoter, especially of a show this large.  Add bad help to the mix and it would force anyone into the fetal position in search of a happy place.  Paul prayed with the promoter and encouraged him to go on with the show, telling him we’d get through this together.  His charisma and pastoral gifts came in handy, saving the day perhaps.

And we did go on.  Every band got to play eventually, we weren’t rained out and great music and relationships were made - along with sundaes of unusual size. (below)