The Tales of Thomas sophomore album, Divine Service, is now available for purchase, here. It'll take about 6 weeks or so to be up on iTunes and other download sites. I'll post a couple more free mp3s in coming days. My sincere thanks to all who helped lend a hand with these songs and to those that have supported my musical endeavors. It is my heartfelt prayer that these songs will find a home in some congregations as a vehicle to praise the God from whom all blessings flow.

Oprah likes to do her "Favorite Things" shows from time to time, and in keeping with that tradition, I thought I'd share my favorite two places to watch live music happen online. The first is a French site called La Blogoteque.  The link is to their vast archive. From what I can tell (since much of the writing is in French and I don't parlent Francais very well) they ask artists visiting Paris to come and film them doing a couple tunes in spontaneous ways: sometimes it is just with an acoustic wandering around the streets, other times they set up a small gathering of friends in a flat, or in Sufjian Stevens case, on top a roof. They don't edit the film; it is just a raw and intimate take of an artist performing a song with background noise right in there. Some of my favorites are Bon Iver, David Bazan, Arcade Fire (especially the song filmed with the entire band squished into a freight elevator), Adrew Bird, and the aforementioned Sufjian. Check it out. The quality of their filming is really great stuff.

The 2nd place I enjoy me some live online music is KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic hosted by Nick Harcourt. This show has been around for years and I'm always excited to watch my favorite artists perform in-studio. Recent performances by Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, and M83 have been very cool. My favorite episode has to be by Imogen Heap (formerly of Frou Frou). This one woman band is one of the most amazing musicans I've ever had the pleasure of watching/hearing. She opened her set at Coachella a couple years ago by singing acapella. She looped her voice and handclaps mulitple times so that by the end of the song there must have been 12 tracks of just her and it was beeeeautiful! Only a woman could multi-task this well!  

Nothing beats being at an actual show, but since very few of my favorites make there way to San Diego (most hit L.A.before moving up to San Francisco, Portand, and Seattle), watching online is the next best thing. Enjoy.

Here is a mock-up of what the next album will look like. It is a painting by 16th century Cretan artist Michail Damaskinos entitle, Holy Liturgy. He was a very influential Greek artist that spent a lot of time in Venice. His use of vibrant reds and lighter flesh tones in the post-Byzantine era was very unique for his day. Here's the wiki on him for anyone interested. I spent a week in Crete a couple years ago and it was a beautiful place with some very interesting characters. As I engaged a couple locals sitting next to me on a barstool in the local watering hole I realized this is the place where all the outlaws of the Europe end up.

Some will find this an odd choice for an album cover, and I guess it is, but my thinking is that we pray each week, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven", so this pictures the heavenly realm of worship depicted in Revelation 4, Isaiah 6, as well as other places, and it is a stimulus for me personally to pay tribute to my King whenever I reflect upon this.

The chorus to the Jimmy Buffett song, A Pirate Looks at 40, has always felt like it was written for me.

Yes, I am a Pirate, two hundred years too late.

No cannons go thunder, there's nothing to plunder,

I'm an over 40 victim of fate;

arriving too late, arriving too late.

Don't get me wrong! I've never wanted to be a pirate, nor do I believe in blind fate. And I'm not 40, yet! But...the point of the song is that the author feels like he was born at the wrong time; his vocation no longers exists and he feels trapped. This my friends, I can relate to. Which leads me to the point of the post.

My dayjob recently sent me to New Orleans for a week, which was nice of them, since I had never been before. I have no pre-Katrina comparisons, but it was a bit dirty, with a higher-than-normal homeless population. But it also has that pseudo-European charm that comes with age. I tried to stay off the beaten tourist path, but not too far off, or I would've just been beaten on a path. Visited several small clubs and listened a ton of great music, mainly jazz...naturally. What I found really interesting as a musician is that the vocation of "musician" is an actual blue-collar job in New Orleans. Walking down Bourbon or Chartre, or any street for that matter, you will find literally hundreds of restaurants and bars of all sizes featuring live music beginning at 6 or 7 running late into the evening. In cities I've lived in such as Seattle or San Diego you can make a meager living (if you're really good), but hardly enough to claim it as your real occupation. In New Orleans you can be a decent jazz drummer  or trombonist that works the swing shift (6-midnight) five nights a week at the same upscale restaurant. Who do you know that says, "I play the trombone" when asked what they do for a living? Like I said, it's a blue-collar job. They're not bringing in American Idol money, but at least the city offers opportunities for musicians to make money doing what they love, which I find encouraging.

This brings me back to my Jimmy Buffett quote. I often listen to a Baroque classical music channel through itunes when I'm reading, and it takes me back to when the church employed musicians and hymn writers, and contracted artists and architects to beautify their sanctuaries, and I feel like I'm "a church artist, arriving two hundred years too late..."

With the push for seeker sensitive and purpose driven and "relevant" missional churches all vying for a place at the head of the ecclesiastical table, is it any wonder that the role of the church artist has been diminished? Why employ artists to paint a mural or canvas if you're gonna meet in a theatre or school cafeteria? I'm not dogging churches that meet in these spaces. After all, I spent almost three years myself in an AMC theatre. But I know first-hand that with this comes certain aesthetic sacrifices, so paintings are replaced with powerpoint; the grand piano with the electronic, etc. And one of the results of the global rise of top 40 CCM hits is that a church can now rent "worship bands" that will come in for a couple hundred dollars and play the latest and greatest to Christians who like...well...the type of music that wins Dove awards in Nashville. How this music is missional or seeker sensitive is beyond me since only Christian sub-culture likes it (I'll save this for another post)?

Anyway, my point is that the music is so dumbed down now that any musician can play it, so unbelieving musicians sign up and play in these 4-hire worship bands, because it is an easy quick buck, and I don't blame them. I'd take $100 to strum three chords to [insert name of any popular worship tune here] for 30 minutes, go outside during the sermon and listen to the game in my car, only to come back for round two and play the same three chords for a couple more songs, collect my check and wait for the next community church to come a knockin, except I AM a believer and have a deep love and respect for the ancient craft of hymnody and don't want to see it degraded any further.

Alright, I guess that's enough complaining for now. Had to get it off my chest. I feel better after a little blogotherapy. Someone may retort, "Well for all your bitchin why don't you just move to New Orleans?" To which I would reply, "Have you experienced the humidity?" Nuff said. Peace.  

For anyone that has tried to purchase hard-copy CDs of the Tales of Thomas or Nathan Partain through our site links, I am sorry for the confusion. Unfortunately, the production company I use deleted both of these albums, so I have to go through the painful process of reloading them this week. Hopefully will be solved by the weekend. The second issue is that this companies software is not Mac compatible (what are we living in communist Russia?), so I'll be hitting up my old friend Scott to make it happen.

So my apologies to Nathan and any would-be purchasers. They are still, however, available on itunes or at independent bands.

Over the last couple of months I've been laying down piano, some percussion and assorted orchestral parts for my 2nd album, but until now, I've not been able to get a decent vocal or acoustic recording due to the lack of a good preamp or condensor mic. Thankfully, through some nice Craigslist finds I've picked up what I think is going to be a great combination for the budget DIY recording enthusiasts, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I stayed home yesterday because my city is burning down (you've probably seen it on the news with the moniker - FIRSESTORM 2007 or something ridiculous like that), and I finally got time to do quite a bit of recording; nothing like being hemmed in by fire to stir the creative juices; plus the smokey air gave me that Tom Waits drinking whiskey all-night type of vocal take (just kidding). I'll post a couple demos soon to the myspace page, but here are my new recording equipment recommendations:

Mackie Onyx Satellite. This is a newer 2 channel preamp that utilizes Makie's Onyx preamp. This is firewire, which works nicely (no latency) with my Apple G4 powerbook running all basic tracks into Garage Band, which will later be transferred into its big brother, Logic Pro for post-production.  The Onyx Pres are really nice; a lot of air, good head-room with a natural sound. I've heard nothing but praise for these preamps. It also has a lot of routing options for running headphones and speakers and has for me a much needed insert for outboard effects and compressor.

Speaking of compressors. I had a friend recommend FM Audio's RNC (really nice compressor) a while back and then I got a great deal on one (150 bucks!) and couldn't be happier. My voice has a pretty big range and I like the soft - to - loud dynamics in my song-writing. What can I say? I'm a product of the grunge generation and still consider Gish and Siamese Dream two of my favorite albums of all time. I could've used a compressor on my last album. Instead I let my post-production guy do it after it was said and done and the album suffered vocally because of it - lacked warmth and controllability. This little RNC is awesome. Squishes everything without taking the life out of it. Highly recommended.

Lastly, I've gone thru a lot of mics in 3 years and I haven't been happy with any of them. I've tried high-end mics in the studio like Neumann, but of course, cannot afford it. I've tried semi-pro like Blue's Baby Bottle, which is actually pretty good but still out of my price reach, so I tried MXL, Shure, and the highly rated Sound Precision C3, but to no avail. After reading a couple positive things about the very affordable AKG Precision 200 mic, I finally bought one. Now I realize that a lot of being happy with a mic is dependent upon your voice type, preamp and other factors, but this one is a keeper. I am a mid-rangey tenor and haven't tried it on a girl's voice, yet, but for my voice it works great. I'm still experimenting on acoustic and will probably use it for some drum overheads, so the verdict it still out on that, but for a price conscious garage recording do-it-yourselfer, it is well worth the $180 you'll probably drop on it.  

So, if all goes well, I'll have the new album out hopefully at the beginning of 2008. - BT

SRR is happy to announce that Nathan Partain's album "Parlour Session" is now in stock. This album is a collection of revised hymns recorded at Nathan's house in Seattle, often done in one take. If you're a fan of Jeff Tweedy, Iron and Wine, or Red House Painters I think you will dig this one.

And while I'm at it, I might as well tell you that Nathan has recently accepted the pastor of worship position for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Indianappolis, so he is either on the road or getting ready to move his family across this great nation. Redeemer is losing a great musician and leader with Bruce Benedict taking off to London, but they are also gaining a great guy, too. God bless you in your new work, Nathan.

I'm happy to announce SRR will be putting out Nathan Partain's album, "Parlor Sessions," next month. Nathan is the Chief Musician at his church in Seattle along with being one of the co-founders of the Liturgy Fellowship. Luke Morton passed me his CD last month and I was blown away by its intimacy, lyrical depth and Nathan's passionate voice. Please check-out his artist page, become a friend on myspace and get to know Nathan. I've put up a couple teaser songs for download on the mp3 page. Enjoy.

No More to Fear is now available at your favorite download site of choice. Enjoy!