4/08/2009

The Shackeltons - 60's Retro Rock!



Imagine a band -- A band that exudes musical creativity and power by using elements to convey a grand story. A story of a man whose heart and body is breaking. His love is lost in the Great Chicago Fire, and he's longing to have her back in his arms even if it means running through the smoldering avenues and alleys where he and his dearest once shared their love.


Now imagine a stage strung with a warm glow of white Christmas lights, littered with flowers of all kinds. Picture if you will, this band. This band is called The Shackeltons and they have amazed and inspired the audiences with their artistry and story of lost love and new hope. Life is a battle -- one in which The Shackeltons are prepared to win, so it seems only natural to dress for battle.


The Shackeltons are dressed in uniforms once worn by men fighting wars with guns and grenades, but The Shackeltons are fighting a different battle. This battle is not to destroy, but to rebuild. Rebuild that which has been destroyed in everyone: hope, love, compassion, and optimism. "I'd rather see your soft heart then see your soft skin". "The robots purr like my favorite kittens and I'm forced to love them even though it's with you, who I'm smitten". "I've been away for so long that I've forgotten what love really is, so come on baby- show me what I missed". "My heart is more than these repeated beats, and home is more than these rented bricks, and my love is more than these repeated cries for some silk smooth skin and some dark brown eyes".


Band Professional Life: 2007 – Present






Band Members:


Mark Redding – vocals

Eric Fisak – guitar

Justin McDaniel – bass

Sean Hallock – drums
Dan Schuchman – guitar

LIVE REVELATIONS by Third Day/ Latest audio visual combo pack

There’s yet to be a full definitive Third Day live concert CD or DVD; and the group’s latest audio/visual combo pack, Live Revelations, won’t come close to fulfilling that role. Instead of taking fans through a career-spanning journey with top cuts peppered in from its latest project, Revelation, the double disc set culls the bulk of its set list from that very album and rarely dips back to acclaimed previous efforts.

This type of marketing move has been made for lesser Third Day albums and tours in the past, but at least Revelation is amongst one of its best discs to date. On the CD edition of Live Revelations, album alums like “Run To You,” “This Is Who I Am” and “I Will Always Be True” make searing transitions to the stage, though the best moments are jam sessions with other artists. “Otherside” comes to life with Robert Randolph reprising his role on pedal steel guitar, while the U2/B.B. King cover “When Love Comes To Town” is the hands-down highlight thanks to additional accompaniment from Randolph, Jars of Clay and Switchfoot.

Unfortunately, that all-star collaboration doesn’t make the DVD, but a duet with Red’s Michael Barnes come “Slow Down” does (albeit not on the CD). They are perplexing decisions indeed, but at least “Otherside” appears alongside the golden oldie “Thief.” However, the backstage moments and candid interviews are the real film treasure trove, giving fans a rare glimpse of Third Day members off stage. Live Revelations is far from perfect, but at least the professional and personal moments exposed are entertaining and insightful.

3/30/2009

Jeremy Camp

Hello All,
Today i'm going to share some good information provided by our freinds of CCM Magazine about Jeremy Camp, one of my top list singers hope you agree with me, Enjoy it!

Behind every great songwriter, from Johnny Cash to Paul McCartney, lies a series of greater stories of heartbreak and redemption. Jeremy Camp is no exception.

Camp’s army of fans know how much heart goes into his music. The raw, unbridled spiritual emotion of his debut album, Stay (recorded without a thought of hit singles, record labels or the “industry” whatsoever) resonated with a large group of kids filled with their own yearning for the Lord’s mercy. His acclaimed follow-up, Restored, spoke of the grace of such fulfillment found.
Filled with hope, praise, and an even deeper comfort and understanding of God’s mysteries, Beyond Measure looks to be the Midwestern singer/songwriter’s defining chapter, heralding an even greater peace inside Camp’s expressive soul. Like his Dove Award winning and 1.7 million selling catalog, the album is sure to inspire sing-a-longs that could make even Dashboard Confessional blush.

Never one to shy away from wearing his heart on his sleeve Camp was relating his powerful testimony to a journalist when the new album’s title track began to form within. He remembered something his late wife, Melissa (whose passing formed a crucial nexus of the raw honesty that informs his work) had said to him: “If one person were to accept Jesus through my death, it would all be worth it.”
“I said that in this interview and right when I said that, this whole fog of everything that had been going on in my life finally cleared,” Camp recalls. “I was getting distracted and busy. Sometimes even when you are busy doing the right things you don’t realize what is going on to the full extent of your life.”

Blessed with his new wife, Adie, and their daughters Isabella and Arianne, Jeremy reflected on everything that God has done. “I remember just being on my face, just weeping, saying ‘Lord forgive me for getting caught up and busy.’” He wrote the song. And then, quickly, he realized its theme would shape the entire new album.

“This album shows even more what God has done in my life than Restored. It’s a little more personal to me, more like Stay, but musically and vocally it is leaps and bounds above both. This album is so diverse, but in such a good way.”
“This record is just me,” he says, repeating for emphasis: “It’s ME. Period.”

From radio pop to rousing hard rock to soft-spoken ballads - experimenting with falsetto a la Keane while still dipping into the baritone that won comparisons to Matchbox 20 toward the start of his career - Camp’s diversity makes sense. After all, he grew up in Indiana, where the radio dial boasted Top 40, Classic Rock and Country in equal measure. “In the Midwest there is a wide range of people and variety and that ties into my writing,” Camp reasons.

Case in point: “Yesterday my bass player was like, ‘Are you going country on us? That lick sounds country.’ I was like, ‘I don't know, that just came out, I guess.’ Some people just like a group to be mellow, or pop, or rock, but I can't help it, that's just how I write. The variety defines a lot of my music.”
Camp was raised in a Christian home and drew musical inspiration from worship music and secular tunes alike. Touchstone albums in his artistic development include U2’s The Joshua Tree (“you hear the passion in it when Bono sings, it’s huge”), Delirious’ King of Fools (“the first worship CD I heard that was really outside of the box”), Jars Of Clay’s debut album (“it really stepped out from the scene”) and Steven Curtis Chapman’s The Great Adventure. “The albums that drive me are the ones where you can hear the passion behind it,” he proclaims.
Contrary to the mythologizing that has happened in some of Camp’s press, Bible college did not steal him away from a football scholarship, but he was certainly headed that way when the Lord, and music, took him in that direction.

Camp spent two years studying scripture at Bible college, from Genesis to Revelations. “That was a huge part of my life. It really gave me a foundation of the Word of God. It really got me grounded in life. God did a huge work there.

“And that started a lot of the writing of the music. It added some depth,” he says. “It was a big part of why I’m doing what I’m doing, why I share and minister and speak my heart when I play live.”

Stay was written during the most broken time of Jeremy’s life. “I did not write that record thinking ‘this will be a hit.’ I wasn’t signed. I just wrote that record as my heart.” It’s an impossible record to duplicate. And Camp hasn’t tried.

Carried Me: The Worship Project was his next release, as fans came onboard behind the truth on Stay. “I have just tried to move on to the next chapter. I remember the emotions involved in most of those songs. It’s special.”

As the Jeremy Camp phenomenon took hold on the road, an incredible thing happened. Jeremy met South African singer Adie and the pair fell in love. He wrote the song “Restored” in the back of the bus after they became engaged.
“You have restored me/ my feeble and broken soul.”

“After Melissa died, I never thought I'd be here,” he says humbly. “But God just opened up my life. Somebody asked me how I could say everything is fine. I never said everything was fine. I just said that God restored me from that confused, hurting place in my life. He has given me strength and taken me out of that dark place in my life. There are still scars. There are still memories. But I can't deny that God has blessed me immensely. I have to be so thankful. I have two kids, my beautiful wife, I'm just blown away at God's grace and God's faithfulness.”
Restored” became the cornerstone of the album by the same name. The record catapulted Camp to even greater success and acclaim but looking back, it was all a bit of a whirlwind. “I hear story after story of how God has used those songs, and it's great,” he reasons. “But I look at this new record and I go, ‘Wow.’”

“When You Are Near,” “I Am Nothing” and Beyond Measure’s title track are filled with messages that Camp says God really pressed on his heart.“I even wrote a worship song. All of my songs are definitely worshipful but this is a straight up worship song like you’d hear in church. I wasn't going to put it on because it ‘didn't fit the album.’ But I couldn't help it! It poured out of my heart.”
While there are new flourishes of melody and depth on Beyond Measure none of it sounds contrived because Camp says he didn’t set out to do something different. “I just wrote my heart and let God take care of the rest.”

“We were getting all caught up in, ‘What is the first single going to be?’” he relates with his trademarked honesty. “And you definitely want to be wise in everything you do. But finally I was just like, ‘Just put out a song!’” He laughs. “What God lays in your heart – you have to rest in that. You can’t over-think things.”

And that attitude is a good approximation of Jeremy Camp’s entire vibe. Where he’s been, where he’s at, and where he’s going with Beyond Measure.

“I'm looking to touch the heart of God and He'll take care of the rest. I think this is the best record I ever put out. Stay, I can't compare to that, because of what happened, but I can say that this is the one where it's the best record I've put out in every aspect. And this is not because, you know, this is what everybody says about a new record; I do feel that way. I'm really, really excited.”



Artist Professional Life: 1994 – Present

3/26/2009

Barlow Girl

BarlowGirl is an American Christian rock–CCM band from Elgin, Illinois. The band is composed of sisters Alyssa Barlow (lead vocals, bass, keyboard), Becca Barlow (backing vocals, guitar), and Lauren Barlow (lead vocals, drums).
The band has won several awards in their genre; their song "Never Alone" was the longest running #1 song in 2004 on Radio and Records Christian Hit Radio (CHR) and Christian Rock charts, and was the "Song of the Year" on both charts. BarlowGirl became the best selling new Christian artist of 2004.

Their song "I Need You to Love Me" was released at the end of 2005. The single broke the record on Christian Radio & Retail Weekly's (CRW) Christian CHR chart by holding the #1 spot for 13 consecutive weeks. BarlowGirl was the second most played artist CHR artist of 2005 behind Sanctus Real. It was the most played song on Christian Hit Radio in 2006. BarlowGirl was voted the January 2006 winner in Yahoo!'s Who's Next after viewers were shown the video for the song.
BarlowGirl is also among the 12 artists selected to be a part of the first volume of the Big Shiny Planet Bible Study released nationwide through LifeWay and Family Christian Stores on 2007. The three sisters were youth ambassadors for the National Day of Prayer in 2007.
Early years
The Barlow girls ' father, Vince Barlow, created youth CDs at his church, Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, the second largest church in the United States. He was hired to perform at events all over the United States. He brought his daughters as his backup band in the late 1990s. BarlowGirl began writing songs and performing them at his performances. The trio stopped touring with their father when Becca and Alyssa began college, but they did perform at his nearby concerts. The trio had written around ten songs by 2002.

The Barlow sisters were given a paid trip to the Gospel Music Association's Music in the Rockies seminar at Estes Park, Colorado, in mid-2002.
The sisters were not informed that the seminar was a record industry event for unsigned artists, nor that it was a competition. They reached the finals of the event. Record companies became interested in the sisters after word of mouth spread about the seminar.
The group's name became famous before the group released their first CD. The group Superchick included a song titled "Barlow Girls" on their initial release, Karaoke Superstars, as a tribute to the actual Barlow sisters and their stand for purity, and effectively introduced the sisters to the music world. The sisters were signed to Fervent Records on October 14, 2003.
BarlowGirl's philosophy
The band has gained a following with their message from Romans 12:2 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." The band advocates waiting on God's timing concerning romantic relationships. They were quoted as saying, "We believe that God has one perfect man already chosen for us; therefore we have no need to worry ourselves in searching for him. When the time is right, we know God will bring us together. In the mean time, we are not hiding in a closet avoiding all males, we are still living our lives, just without the pressure of having to have a boyfriend."

Discography
BarlowGirl (2004)
Another Journal Entry (2005)
How Can We Be Silent (2007)
Home for Christmas (2008)
TBA (2009)

Newsboys... Disbanded?






Big news in the Christian music world! The announcement was made yesterday that Peter Furler is stepping down from the lead singer of Newsboys. Newsboys have gone through their share of changes, most recently a short stint with Paul Coleman as guitarist, but this news comes as a shocker to the Christian music world.

The dfiference here is that Peter Fuler founded the Newsboys over 20 years ago in a garage in Mooloolaba, Queensland AU. He is the man who started the band, and has been with it the entire time.

Whats more interesting is the replacement for Peter Furler. Michael Tait (of DC Talk fame) will be taking over Peter's role. While he is an amazingly talented musician, Mike Tait is also very different in style from Peter. The most noticeable difference is that the Newsboys lead singer has always been Australian.

I love Newsboys, and I love the late DC Talk even more, but I am unsure about this combination.It has brought me to a question: Does Newsboys - Peter Furler still = Newsboys?I saw one person had posted on a Newsboys forum that 'if you take Bono out of U2, it is no longer U2.' I think it's a good comparison. You have to question whether a band is a name only, or a sum of its parts. I think what we are looking at here is something like we saw with Sonic Flood. The band today is not the same band as in their debut. Rick Heil, the current lead singer, bought the rights to the SonicFlood name. They are still a worship band, but the band itself is not the same one it began as, now with an entirely different group of people than it started with in 1999. Even so, the difference is not as evident as in the case with the Newsboys.My opinion is two-fold (not that anyone asked). First, to answer my previous question, I think that no, it is no longer the Newsboys as their fans all know them. I would prefer that they say something like 'the Newsboys are disbanding, but we are starting a new band and bringing in Mike Tait.' While that is not the case, Newsboys will no longer be what it has been. They may still be very good, but not the same. Secondly, I am also excited to hear what it will sound like with Michael Tait as lead singer. Again, he is possibly the most under-rated vocalist out there, and has an amazing voice.

2/16/2009

Switchfoot

Switchfoot is an American alternative rock band from San Diego, California. The band's members are Jon Foreman (vocals, guitar), Tim Foreman (bass guitar, backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums, percussion), Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), and Drew Shirley (guitar). Known for their energetic live shows, the three guitarists in the line-up often operate simultaneously, building on the pop sensibilities of Jon's songwriting, and, rounded out by Jerome's work on the synthesizer, bringing his industrial roots to the sound, the band works up "the Switchfoot sound"– a melodic crunch of densely layered sound featuring some electronic experimentation, and often driven by hard-charging guitar riffs, while throwing in a few softer, spacey ballads as well.



Switchfoot first gained mainstream recognition after the inclusion of four of their songs in the 2002 movie A Walk to Remember. This recognition led to their major label debut, The Beautiful Letdown, which was released in 2003. It went on to sell over 2.6 million copies and produced the band's best-known singles, "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move".

Switchfoot is often referred to as a "Christian band", mostly due to their involvement with the Christian rock scene in their early days. But the band has always shunned this label, "For us, it's a faith, not a genre", says Jon Foreman. "We've always been very open and honest about where the songs are coming from. For us, these songs are for everyone. Calling us 'Christian rock' tends to be a box that closes some people out and excludes them. And that's not what we're trying to do. Music has always opened my mind—and that's what we want". Duly, Foreman's lyrics steer clear of preachiness, exclusive declarations of faith, or even any mention of Jesus Christ, instead questioning the status quo, probing existential issues through "Socratic dialogue" in which he answers questions with more questions, exploring frustrations, or simply being inspirational. This approach has resulted in Switchfoot often being described as a "thinking person's" bad. Foreman's poetry is acclaimed by fans and critics alike for its heartfelt honesty, which is evident in his appraisal of the human condition, and in his willingness to not just embrace his faith, but to express doubt as well.


Discography
1997: The Legend of Chin
1999: New Way to Be Human
2000: Learning to Breathe
2003: The Beautiful Letdown
2005: Nothing Is Sound
2006: Oh! Gravity
2009: Unreleased TBA

Awards
Orville H. Gibson Guitar Awards
2001: "Les Paul Horizon Award" for the most promising up-and-coming guitarist — Jon Foreman

ASCAP Awards
1997: "Best New Artist"
2006: "Impact Award" awarded "to celebrate the success and influence of his songs in mainstream rock music"[52]— Jon Foreman
2006: Top 50 list of Most Performed Song of 2005 — Dare You To Move

GMA Dove Awards
2004: "Rock Recorded Song of the Year" — Ammunition
2004: "Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year" — The Beautiful Letdown
2004: "Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year" — Meant to Live
2005: "Artist of the Year"
2005: "Short Form Music Video of the Year" — Dare You To Move
2005: "Long Form Music Video of the Year" — Live In San Diego
2005: "Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year" — Dare You To Move
2006: "Short Form Music Video of the Year" — Stars

San Diego Music Awards
1997: "Best New Artist"
2001: "Best Pop Artist"
2001: "Best Pop Album" — Learning to Breathe
2002: "Best Adult Alternative Artist"
2003: "Best Pop Album" — The Beautiful Letdown
2003: "Album of the Year" — The Beautiful Letdown
2004: "Song of the Year" — Dare You To Move
2006: "Artist of the Year"
2007: "Album of the Year" — Oh! Gravity

1/06/2009

Newsboys Special en Rock Station

Este Sabado pasado iniciamos nuestro programa ROCK - STATION con el especial de Newsboys donde repasamos algunos hechos de esta banda que se presento en Costa Rica el pasado 5 de diciembre en el auditorio de la Iglesia Oasis de Esperanza.

Ademas recorrimos desde los origenes del grupo Australiano pasando por su discografia, sus singles y los premios a los que han sido nominados.
Tambien compartimos su musica (desde lo mas viejo a los mas nuevo que han sacado). Escuchamos Shine, Entretaiment Angels, I'm Not Ashamed, Love, Liberty, Disco, Something's Beautiful entre otras.
Para este sabado tendremos un super especial de otro de los grandes del Rock Cristiano... quien sera??? Asi que no olvides conectarte el proximo Sabado a las 3 de la tarde hora centroamerciana a ROCK-STATION... Lo que estabas buscando!