Iced Tea Forever

I was going through some old AHQ recordings I have and thought I’d throw this piece up on ITF just for the anyhow.

This was from a program we did maybe in ‘03 sometime, I’m not sure. It was at East Fairview Mennonite Church, in Milford, NE. The mix isn’t great, but it’s not bad for a live mix.

AHQ Live - My Soul’s Been Anchored (2.1 MB)

This doesn’t really have anything to do with AHQ, but I’ve been thinking recently about unofficial live recordings and how they can reveal the humanity of professional singers. It can be pretty interesting.

As I recall, even the illustrious Guy Penrod isn’t immune. A recording of George Younce’s funeral was made available online, and the Gaither Vocal Band had sang in the service. Guy chunked the ending of “I Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary” pretty bad. It made me wonder of the big boys are subject to morning voice too.

More recently, Roger Bennett’s funeral service is also available online. I just listened to a couple of spots, but Frank Seamans of Legacy Five was having a rather difficult time hitting his notes on the tag of “Jesus Saves.”

Anyway, nothing profound or earthshaking here, just very interesting to me.

When I was visiting Utopia Christmas of ‘05, AHQ briefly went into the studio to record some tracks for a project on which we’re making a contribution. We were under-rehearsed and short on time, but after the main session was over we cut loose and recorded a song from our past just for fun. We’d never recorded it and I had always wished we had the opportunity to lay it down.

A few years ago we needed to learn a few Christmas songs for something, maybe it was this tour. Anyway, we came up with a version of O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and we learned the Cathedral’s version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

A side note of trivia, I’ve heard the Cat’s in concert a number of times. This was a tune they’d sing occasionally, a cappella of course. One time (this would have been with Ernie and Scott) they launched into it and blew the words! They had to stop and start over.

So anyhow, This song is just a kick in the pants to sing. It ends with a high barn-burner tag, on a minor chord no less! Very cool. Now we’ve finally got it recorded, and I suppose there’s nothing else to do with it but post it on the internet.

And if you like to hear By reach for the stratosphere, here’s your ticket.

Download God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (1.2MB, 1:31)

I’ve been real predisposed this week. I’m back now. But anyway, my wife and I stopped at Goodwill this afternoon. She likes to stop there and so do I, so we did. I like to look at music. And by music I mean records. It’s a great place to find old gospel quartet albums.

The Goodwills out here are much more fruitful ground for such endeavors than the ones back in Utopia. There’s always gospel records of some sort out here, I guess maybe the heathen/righteous ratio is more unfavorable in Utopia. Anyway, here’s the loot from today!

Click the image for a larger version.

The top three are all London Parris and the Apostles. London Parris was a phenomenal bass singer, I usually try to snap up anything he did. Here’s an track off of the “His Eye is on the Sparrow” recording, Farther Along. (2:47, 2.5MB)

The next two are a group I hadn’t heard of, Couriers Unlimited. I know of the Couriers, I don’t know if this is just a later iteration or not. Anyway, can you tell the reason I picked them up?! See if you recognize the guy on the left.

Michael English. Not that I’m a big Michael fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I never knew he was with them and it fascinated me. In researching it, I’ve found he was only a member for about six months (this was in ‘83 or ‘84). He went from the Singing Americans to the Happy Goodmans to the Couriers Unlimited, and from there he went back to the SA for a brief stint before he ended up with the Gaither Vocal Band in ‘84. Where of course he shot to stardom.

Anyway, pretty interesting. The album is fairly unremarkable, they sound like an early ’80s SG group going CCM. They do Brent Lamb’s “Army of the Lord,” I thought that was notable.

Then of course there’s an orange Rebel’s album. And did you notice the cassette at the bottom?! The Oak Ridge Boys! “I Guess it Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes,” there’s some fodder for my pathetic car’s tape player. All right! Looks like a ‘92 reissue of an ‘83 recording.

Anyway, that’s my haul for today.

It can get very loud in the Den of Iniquity. And I’m not even talking about the radio.

Awhile ago I told you about how me and my buddy Mark often enjoy yelling at each other. We haven’t been doing it as much anymore because we’ve been pretty much outclassed.

Brian came to work in floor set later last year. Big guy, tough guy. Loud guy. My goodness he’s loud. And he likes it that way!

It’s usually too loud to communicate very far away, and sometimes I need to get the attention of a co-worker up on the mezzanine. I often just grab Brian and say, “Will you yell at Dan for me?” He lets it rip and they hear right away! Works much better than me doing it, and saves lots of time.

Brian loves to shout, and has favorite phrases he likes to toss about for no apparent reason. Things like “NOW WHAT!!!”, “I WANNA BE A COWBOY, BABY!!!”, “WHAT’S UP?!!!!”, and “(insert day of week here) STARTS THE WEEKEND BABY!!!!”, are thrown in with the ubiquitous “MOVE THE LINE!!!” It’s entertaining and definitely breaks the monotony!

I knew you would appreciate this, so one day I smuggled in some sophisticated equipment and caught a small snippet of Brian yelling (36KB, 0:08).

After quite the recess! Too long, yes, the masses agree. I apologize, but alas, it just didn’t happen. Not for lack of material though, I assure you!

We had a wonderful time in Utopia from Christmas to New Year’s. All my in-laws came along too, they got a good dose of Utopia’s alternative to snow! It rained and rained and even flooded a little bit. I hadn’t drove over a water-overflowed road in quite some time, it felt good again. My in-laws were always making astonished comments like “It’s raining again! It’s still raining! The sun was shining a minute ago and now it’s raining again!! Does it ALWAYS rain here?!!!” Ha ha!

Mom threw a wedding reception for us Monday night, that was fun. Another day we went to the coast, and we also ate at my favorite Chinese restaurant that I have missed very much, Ping’s! (So far I haven’t found any decent non-buffet Chinese restaurants here in Hoosierville.) Visited my farm and warehouse, played a lot of games, got together with AHQ, opened some presents, had a lot of family time. A very good trip.

Oh yeah, and AHQ even gave somewhat of a program. We were impromptuitously asked on Friday if we wanted to have the sermon time Sunday morning, so we took it. I didn’t know if we could remember anything, but we did.

I was scrambling though! I have a propensity for forgetting words anyway, so there were some especially uncertain moments. I got all mixed up on the first verse of “Strong” (1.2MB) and used a phrase or two from the second verse in it. Hopefully no one noticed. When I sang the second verse and got to the phrase I had used in the first, I just made sure I wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. I felt foolish! But all in all it went well.

And now I’m back in the Den of Iniquity. How’s that for an inspiring thought.

So anyway, ITF is back. And Mark, you’re right, I’m not doing my part in helping you break the MD habit. I apologize, and I appreciate the offer for computer use. Same to you if you ever find yourself in Hoosierville!

And I’ll see what I can do about providing you a healthy alternative to help break those MD bonds.

So my piano-playing buddy Darin recently was lamenting the fact that there aren’t more men who play piano. In fact, he says, in all his blog travels he has never found another male pianist!

Darin, I’m happy to tell you that your search is over!

He further questions, “Is a guy pianist a wimp?” Of course not, I say. Maybe a little misguided, but that can be remedied with the revelation of vocal light!

It is no secret that I’m an a cappella freak. I love a cappella music of all kinds. In general, I find instrumentation of nearly every sort quite boring.

There are exceptions of course, and the occasional instrument does have it’s very limited place. For instance, I believe every child should have to take piano lessons. The piano can be a wonderful tool for learning music theory (so that theory can then be applied to the voice of course).

It might surprise you to know that I took piano lessons for several years as a small child. I was too lazy and short-sighted to last though, which I now regret. Further keyboard skills today would greatly enhance my current vocal producing and administration work. But alas, it isn’t so.

I do, however, retain even now quite a bit of the keyboardist talent I once nurtured and cultivated! And for your edification, tonight I blew the dust off the old ivories, sat down and hammered out an instrumental masterpiece!

Allow me to apologize in advance for the quality of my instrument, however. The only thing I have to work with is a rather old electronic keyboard, so my normally larger-than-life dynamics are cut off at the knee. The louds, the softs, the arpeggios, the delicate and intricate passages, the exquisite pedal work, unfortunately all will have to be saved for another time.

But rest assured the raw talent still shines through! Maybe God didn’t want me to continue on the keyboard path because He knew I couldn’t handle the fame, stardom, and riches that I would have had with a concert pianist career.

ITF at the Piano — Make Up Your Mind

For some reason I thought of this the other night and decided I should post it. It goes back a couple of years, but the real reason it is a rarity lies in the fact that I am singing with instrumental backup. I’m an a cappella freak, remember.

It’s fun singing with instruments once in a while, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it.

When I went to BMA several years ago, the place was infested with guitars so we threw together a band. I did the recording and some of the singing. I didn’t do any of the playing, although in the past I’ve been known to be an astonishing guitar player.

At any rate, I think the first song we recorded was “Jesus Signed My Pardon” to the tune of “Folsom Prison Blues.” It wasn’t premeditated, but somehow during mixdown I started playing around with the original Johnny Cash track and ended up with this: Listen to it here.

Speaking of my answering machine message, a little while ago my old buddy Marty (Marty stories here and here) gave me a call.

I used to work with Marty over at the old Plant 103, he was my partner in all things electrical. He was calling to check up on me and see how I was doing. Somehow I get the impression that he doesn’t think ITF needs an office!

Listen here (114KB, 0:12).

Check. There goes another item off my ITF list of things to do. Long-time constituents will no doubt recall when I first posted my answering machine message.

It’s time to update. Being married and all, now I’m not the only one in the house. And seeing the way that ITF has taken off, I of course needed to mention it in case a loyal constituent was calling.

Please take a listen to the new ITF answering machine message (0:09, 101KB).