Feelin' like a kid again...

Remember that excitement you used to get deep down inside your soul around the 20th of December back when you were 7 or 8 years old? When you actually could comprehend that Christmas was just days away and not just some magical, mysterious date and time to happen sometime a long, long time from now? I can remember being filled with the sensation that I just couldn't sit still or I may just go completely crazy. The energy and the excitement on Christmas Eve was so exciting it was nearly tangible. I can remember waking up hours before the pre-determined 8:00 start time to Christmas in the Wallace household with my brother so that we could go peek at the loot Santa had left under our tree. I'm not sure why we did this because it only made those last few hours go by even more slowly than the entire previous day. You'd think we enjoyed going back to the room and wrestling with some giant, black, shapeless beast called Patience. But, oh how we rejoiced when that 8:00 time showed up on our alarm clock. I bet if there were a video camera mounted outside our bedroom door it would record two boys bursting through the gate with the same fervor as the thoroughbreds blast from the green gates at Churchill Downs, minus the jockeys of course. We would run into mom and dad's room and wake them up, "It's Christmas, time to get up! Time to get up!" So parallels my feelings after listening to the new release of the Coldplay song, "Violet Hill," off their upcoming album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.

Go to Coldplay's website now to get this song for free (if you haven't done so already). I love the new song. Right of the bat, however, you'll notice that this song has a new sort of feel to it for a Coldplay song. Possibly the biggest difference you'll notice is that Chris Martin is singing in a low voice. I read that this was going to prevalent on this album and it honestly made me quite leery. Gone are the guitar driven riffs of their previous songs. Present, however, is a steady driving beat that draws you into stomping your feet as the drums, bass, and guitars power through the chorus. Still present though, as Carey put it, are all the essential Coldplay "parts" that we have all come to know and love.

So now the tough part, I must sit here and wait. Now comes that vaguely familiar feeling that I felt for years growing up. I'll let my excitement build to a tangible, nearly unbearable level, as I wait for the rest of the album to be released on June 17th. It will all culminate on the 16th when I'll burst through the doors of the local record store at midnight and shout, "It's Coldplay time! Time to get it out of the box!"

A musical enlightening!

So today I discovered the gloriousness of the music group known as Mute Math. I've known about these guys for a while, thanks to Kess and Carey, having them tell me, "I think you would really like these guys." It's not that I doubted them, I was just caught up listening to something else at the time. (And what does that really mean anyway? Have I, a fan of all types of music, put myself in a place where someone hears a song, and thinks, ""his is an Andy song"? Interesting. What music might someone label you as "really enjoying"?) However, I was blatantly reminded of this group after watching a few DVR'd episodes of The Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel (which is possibly THE best television channel on television, in my opinion, totally different topic though). The hit single, Typical, is played over a montage of clips from new episodes of old shows, Dirty Jobs, Man vs. Wild, Mythbusters, etc., along with clips of new "Alaska Week" shows. Not only does the song hook you in, but the clips are stunning in all their HD glory. Which leads me to think that being the guy that gets to put music to things like that and in movies might be a really fun job to have, all the while, being an extremely difficult job when you think about how many songs there truly are to choose from. Anyway, back to Mute Math. I listened through their self-titled album today while repairing some motherboards. If you haven't heard any of their songs, I would highly/strongly encourage you to download "Typical," "Chaos," or "Control." With a new CD being released later this year, I begin to grow quite excited about the potential for some really great new music coming in the very near future:
Brit-rock sounding Telecast releases a new album in 4 days, their first in nearly four or five years. Of course, Coldplay's Viva la Vida: or Death and All His Friends releases this June, along with another Third Day record, of which "Call My Name" is the first release and while Mac's voice sounds the same (no problem with that at all!), I can't help but feel that the music is something I haven't heard from them in a while. I'll be excited to hear the rest of the album. New to the music scene, Tenth Avenue North is a new group that I think has some potential, though the single, "Love Is Here", currently on Christian radio definitely has Hillsong United qualities to it. (Though there's nothing wrong with that in particular, hopefully they will define their own sound on the rest of the album). Speaking of Christian music, Chris Sligh, American Idol hopefully of maybe last year(?), is releasing an album in May. His first single, "Empty Me" is a beautiful song about one's struggle with the vain things in life and how easy it is for those things to fill our heart's desires pushing our desire for God right out the door. The other group I hope to check out, Sleeping at Last, is another Carey Jones suggestion, and I have to say, if it's another group, like Mute Math, that he feels "Andy will like," I'll be very excited to listen to.

And so it began...

Today I join the ever growing throng of people who have their own blog. Why? To be honest, I'm not real sure. I wonder, who will really want to take the time to visit my blog and really truly learn anything new about me that they wouldn't by just talking to me? Then I realize, that I have in fact gleaned information about others from their willingness to make their lives known through blogging. So, here goes nothing...

~A