Kareoke Culture

Saturday night, my friends and I celebrated our friend J.D.'s exit from the bachelor life by going to a San Clemete Irish pub on kareoke night. I was incredibly fun. We began our musical performaces with an out of tune version of "Minnie the Moocher," sung by Dominic and your humble narrator. The night would continue with "When a man loves a woman" sung by Dom and Jackson, "Time is on my side" sung by Jon Berk and J.D.'s best man Dave. Later, I sang my token cover song "I believe," changing the line "He'll see me a person, not just a black man," to "canadian" at the end. The crowd cheered. The climax occurred after a rather shady rendition of "Baby got back" sung by a large of group of marginally attractive women who reffered to themselves as the Pirates Princesses. Steve, Jon, and myself took the stage to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody"...and then every guy in this side of the pub jumped on stage and joined together in the loudest sing along of one of the most difficult rock songs to sing. It was incredible. I'm convinced the kareoke man hated because none of us took the songs we were singing seriously, or at least as intensly as our two predecessors that monopolized the mic until we showed up and showed them up with our amazing stage presence.

What was amazing was how loud we all were. We were that group that sang to every song. Danced to every beat. And razed our glasses after every singer. We empowered those who would normally feel self-concious on stage. The amazing part was that we were all rather sober, though everyone probably thought we were drunk. This may be a negative, but I'll take it as a positive since we didn't need artificial material to give us energy and comfort to be loud and happy. We're naturally good-hearted people that love others and don't have any inhibitions about what others think. Though I must say that John Englehardt is my favourite drunk. He met a random dude and kept hunging him and eventually got a shot of whiskey from the guy. He also met an fellow seminary student and they each confided in each other about their drunken states.

I couldn't help but wonder about people that do this on a normal basis. This was my first official kareoke experience-or atleast one with music in the background. I wondered if this was place people went because they couldn't get real jobs here. Was this the only place they could truly express themselves without worrying about because taken that seriously. It's like a person that masks their aggression in a joke. Besides us, these people took their oke seriously. These were people that did theatre, choir, and band in high school. This was their tribute to the past. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but there were some people there that just looked defeated. I wonder what would happen if they would have taken that singing lesson more seriously or, at least, gone out for a part at the local theatre. But until that realization, kareoke seems to serve an important part in this culture, giving people their three minutes of fame with the safety of their day jobs. But alas, Blessed Union of Souls would simply remind us that "love will find a way." Perhaps love will lead people into something real beyond kareoke.

Black Snake Moan (Sundance Film Review)

From the director of Hustle and Flow, Black Snake Moan proved to be a great surprise. Finally, a film that is sexual with a purpose. It’s a story about a woman (Christina Ricci) who was sexually abused and has grown up constantly needing sex to survive. She comes in contact with a bitter farmer (Samuel L. Jackson) after a bad night of partying. This farmer suddenly feels the need to nurse her back to health. During the process, he finds out that she has a deeper pain going on. He then takes it upon himself to cure her of her “wicked ways.” He then chains her to his living room as a way to make her go “cold turkey” on her addiction to sex. What follows is a lot of hysterical dialogue and surprisingly engaging characters. There are two intriguing aspects of the film. First, Samuel L. Jackson sings several blues songs, and they are extremely well done. The music and the lyrics are well thought through. Second, the symbol of the chain is quite powerful. We are given the its literal when Jackson chains Ricci to his living room. We are then given its symbolic use when Ricci has a small golden chain wrapped around the waste of her wedding dress. In one of the final moments of the film, she must choose to use sex to solve her problems or change, and she grabs hold of the chain and decides to take a new path.

American Worship pt. I

The modern-day church is failing. And I say this with as much optimism as I can. I once heard someone say that there are so many Christians turned off to the church, just imagine how much greater that number is among non-Christians. Worship music is among the many categories that are failing. Postmodernity is an arguable idea, but many agree that postmodernity says one thing: modernity is dead.

Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Darrel Evans, David Crowder, Jeremy Camp, Tommy Walker, and assorted organizations are the leaders of contemporary worship. Many are excited by these names, but an important question needs answering. Why have they formed their own genre? Worship music is no longer simply defined by the lyrics but now has a specific sound. This sound can be described as a step above of what is heard on contemporary Christian music stations: distortion is more noticeable, drums can dynamically press forward, and the bass can catch a groove. But with the exception of David Crowder, singers must have clean, inoffensive voices. By nature, worship music is simplistic due to the massive amount of songs many worship leaders need to learn—only Tommy Walker and Delirious have left this simplified format—to a dagree. From a musical standpoint, worship is still behind. Even the most updated worship band is still five years behind current music trends—minus San Diego-based Something Like Silas who have found a genre home with the post-emo crowd.

Sad fact: If worship leaders were not playing worship music, they would be out of a job. We are now back to the ancient argument of “Christian bands” or “Christians in a band.” What I mean by this is simple, should we be supporting mediocre music because a Christian made it. My initial answer would be no, because I hold to Madeline L’Engle’s concept that there are only two types of art: good art and bad art, and bad art is bad religion. Thus, do we really need more people badly representing the name of God? Many Christians will say they like the sound of worship music. I do not deny that, but I would further argue that their preference to this particular style of music has been socially constructed. Here is a simplified example: Eric was scolded for listening to secular music when he was in junior high. In fact, his parents made him stop listening to secular music and started making him listen to Christian music. He was forced to listen to so much Christian music that he got used to it as a genre (the recording styles, song structure, guitar effects, lyric formation), and forgot about earlier comparisons to mainstream trends that might have existed in his head. Another example: A young girl goes to church from a very young age where the only progressive songs played are “Lord, I lift your name on high” or “Shout to the Lord.” Then someone brings in new songs from Matt Redman. Redman’s music was years ahead of her normal dose of ‘80s worship. But 5-10 years ahead of her such a trend is still another 5-10 behind. These two examples prove an important point about Christian culture. First, a fear of changing with the times sets churches back several years and claims that any modern change is a sinful compromise. In looking at modern worship this way, it could be easy for any of the popular worship leaders to simply exploit the church music scene because it only has “up” to go.

This is only the music. I haven’t even started on the lyrical portion of songs, but that will be enough for today as I do not want to allow my pessimism to completely take over.