This is Mark Lee Townsend. He is a genius producer who is responsible for Relient K and House Of Heroes among other bands… plus he was DC Talk’s guitarist.  I had the privilege of hanging out with him for a bit at Dark Horse studio a few weeks ago with Everyday Sunday (whose new album he produced) and snapped a few pics. He had a lot of fun stories about Relient K and their beginnings. Apparently he is back in the studio with them right now recording their new album. Good Stuff.

Rating:  

After giving it a solid 10 listens or so, I am still not thrilled with U2’s “No Line On The Horizon”. The title track is by FAR my favorite, with an infectious whoa-oh-oa-oh-oa-oh-oa-oooo that you can’t get out of your head. Other than that “Get On Your Boots” is a pretty entertaining track, but I start falling asleep with most the other songs. How U2 is considered one of the best bands of all time puzzles me, honestly… I love Bono, and some of their songs are amazing, but honestly… Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, newsboys, delirious? … U2 can’t touch those bands. U2’s last couple singles are about as good as some of those bands worst songs. I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks they have gone downhill… it seems some of the critics agree with me this time around.

And what is with the album packaging? I mean, it’s clean, and I love the cover photo and the = is rather creative - but the photos of the guys are some of the most cliché band pictures I think i’ve ever seen, and the font used inside looks like arial, copied and pasted straight from the word document… not to mention it’s very hard to read on some pages.

Something is happening that I never thought possible. A newsboys tour, and album, that involves me. They’ve been my favorite band since I was 10 years old… before I started working for them I had seen them 18 times in concert. In my wildest dreams I would think how amazing it would be to work for them…

I’m ecstatic to say that in front of me on my computer, right next to this window, I have open a window in photoshop with the new newsboys studio album packaging… two days ago I was at their tour rehearsal and pretty much got my own personal newsboys concert. A day before that I assisted at the album photoshoot and got to take tons of pics of my own…

As if that wasn’t enough, I got to redesign the website and myspace as well - and for the cherry on top, the tour they are going out on is to benefit an organization called Global Tribe. I just so happen to work for Global Tribe as well, and all the print and web material for Global Tribe is my work as well. I’ve been quite busy, as you can imagine… but it’s paying off.

If you’re a newsboys fan, go check out DuncanPhillips.net… Duncan’s launching his own website and store, and I bet you can guess who made the website…