Music

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

newsboys: LIVE

If you had told me last year that by this time next year there would be a Newsboys AND Superchick album out with my name in the credits I would have thought you were crazy and probably said “ya, in my dreams”. I really don’t know how it happened, it’s just God’s awesome work as usual.

The Superchick album, Rock What You Got, has been out a while now… but the Newsboys live album just came out a few days ago. It’s amazing. Oh FYI… Newsboys is my favorite band of all time incase that wasn’t obvious.

The album was definitely one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done because I put myself under so much pressure to make the design awesome. After lots of revisions I started to realize that when you work with clients that already have a super strong and consistent brand, in the end you must work with that brand and not fight it, no matter how tempting it may be to make the design completely your own.

Case in point, check out all the revisions. Notice the one that deviates from the rest? That one was probably my personal favorite. I am really happy with the end result, even if it wasn’t my favorite. A few of my photos were used in the packaging and I did do most the art direction and all the design/layout except for the photo collage on the cover, which was already made a while back (and had been used on some promo material for the GO tour) by David Dobson.

If you like the Newsboys, this is a great cd/dvd to own. Be sure you buy a hard copy tho, so you get the actual full concert DVD and my beautiful packaging, and not just the iTunes version. Better yet, buy both!

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Monday, September 29th, 2008

Take the Walk

Even if you aren’t a fan of Hanson, and when they come up all you can think about is MmmBop and those lovely boy band days, you gotta give them a TON of credit for growing up to be amazing guys even though their super volatile younger years were spent basking in glow of the paparazzi. You couldn’t go to the grocery store or turn on the radio without hearing their hit song or seeing their cute little faces on the cover of Tiger Beat.

Unlike most of their peers, the Hanson boys never let any of the fame get to their heads. Even when their popularity dwindled after they started writing more from the heart and they lost the teeny bopper sound that defined them, they didn’t just throw in the towel or turn to drugs and bad relationships. Instead they started taking trips to Africa and researched ways to help fight the war on poverty. The most recent of their ongoing attempts is Take the Walk – a charity catalyst organization that helps to raise awareness about poverty by hosting barefoot walks before every Hanson concert. They also sponsor TOMS shoes, Free The Children, Docvia, and blood:water mission, raising awareness and money for those causes as well.

Truly I’ve never seen this amount of charity work done by any other band except Jars of Clay with blood:water and newsboys with Global Tribe, and I really wish every band would join forces with one of the three organizations… can you imagine the impact that would make?

Our favorite musicians and music itself plays such a powerful role in our lives… it can inspire us to live life with a greater purpose than our own selfish desires that only lead to unhappiness and regret… and live a life filled with hope, wonder, love and fulfillment… one lived with the purpose to serve and love others and find the solution to problems that cause millions of our brothers and sisters to live life in a way that all people would find unacceptable if only they truly opened their eyes to it.

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Sunday, August 31st, 2008

She & Him

I went to see She & Him at Mercy Lounge last month when my sister and her friend Stacey visited. First of all let me say it took me a while to get into them. My sister ranted and raved about how good they were but I just didn’t get it. After a few listens I had decided they were boring and not my cup of tea. But I decided to give them multiple tries and listened to them in the car, at work and at home almost every day for a few weeks and I slowly began to appreciate the stripped-down old-fashioned sound, the catchy, adorable lyrics and the way listening to them made me feel like I had discovered an old forgotten band from the early 70′s… one that never aged, haha.

So for those not cool enough to know, She & Him is actually fronted by the actress Zooey Deschanel. One of my favorite comedies is “Elf” where she stars along side Will Ferrell and saves Christmas by singing carols to spread cheer. What’s ironic is in the movie she loves singing but is afraid of singing in public. Well, in person Zooey is probably the most timid and shy performer I have ever seen live. She sounded and looked amazing, even played some piano, tambourine and made horn/trumpet noises with her mouth which was awesome… but overall she pretty much just stood there looking like a deer in headlights. She did start jumping around at the end which was very cute.

Oh and if you go to a She & Him show, save yourself a lot of trouble and ridicule and leave your camera at home. At one point in the show Matt Ward (the “Him” part of She & Him) even dedicated a song to “all of you not taking pictures” ouch. Zooey made a couple anti picture announcements as well… seems they are not a fan of the camera.

So, going against their wishes I still took around 250 pictures. Oops. My bad… here is my fav:

Rock those bangs Zooey!

**UPDATE: I don’t know how or why, but somebody put the above photo in Zooey’s official Wikipedia page, as the MAIN photo. It’s been up there for a few years now, and been seen by God knows how many people! Whoever you are, thank you!

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