In her last years with us, Granny used talk about the Sweet By and By. Today, I was listening to a collection of old American gospel tunes when I caught the phrase. I looked up the whole song to see the context. Here are comforting words:

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

Refrain:
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blessed;
And our spirits shall sorrow no more,
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

To our bountiful Father above,
We will offer our tribute of praise
For the glorious gift of His love
And the blessings that hallow our days.

Sara Zarr recently wrote about “listening to whole CDs at a time again, not as background music but as a discrete activity that involves full engagement.” She’s not the only one re-discovering the joy of the artistic whole represented by a well-crafted album of songs. In the last eight days I’ve seen Guster play in Cleveland and Bruce Springsteen totally tear up the joint in Auburn Hills. What does a small Boston band playing the HOB in Cleveland have to do with a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer lighting up an arena? Like Zarr, they’re exploring the impact of a song collection listened to attentively as a whole. Instead of laying on the floor between stereo speakers, the bands invite their audiences to experience their full albums in order in concert. Guster celebrated the 10th anniversary of their breakout album Lost and Gone Forever by playing the whole thing. Bruce, well it didn’t seem that Bruce had any real reason except that it’s a good idea. In Auburn Hills, he played Born to Run, and at other stops on the tour he’s playing other albums from his formidable catalog.

Back in the day when albums were thought about and crafted as a cohesive unit, song order and what not was carefully planned to provide thoughtful pacing and content. The best albums were collections with great songs, yes, but also a gestalt in which the collective power soared. You can think of U2’s Joshua Tree, the slowly building intro to “Where the Streets Have No Name”, the powerful whallop of “Still Haven’t Found”, the intense but subdued “With or Without You” providing a bit of a breather before the torrent of “Bullet the Blue Sky”.

It should then be no surprise then that playing an album through in concert would provide a meaningful concert experience. The other benefit is that the band is forced/gets to play tunes that may have fallen out of the live repertoire. Guster commented that some of the songs hadn’t been played since the original supporting tour. What a treat for committed fans to hear deep catalog cuts. And for concert goers who aren’t obsessed fans, it’s a chance perhaps to hear a side of the artist not usually seen.

So, Long Live the Long Play. May the power of the album not be entirely stripped away by the fragmented iTunes download and MP3 player random play.

Somehow missed this last summer. Here’s Sam (nee Leslie) Phillips playing new songs in someone’s office. It’s a cool concept. You see folks working at their desks and others gathered round like an impromptu jam session at the coolest office in the world.


NPR: Tiny Desk Concert: Sam Phillips.

Drove to Dayton and back yesterday so that we could hear the immenently hummable GUSTER play a show at the University of Dayton. They handed out free chocolate soy milk at the door. Something I didn’t notice when we saw them at the Toledo Zoo is that the bass guitar seems to be the red-headed step-child* of the group. There was just the one instrument, but everyone–except the drummer–played it at some point; it just got passed around. The show was fantastic; the sound was well done; the crowd was very into it.

As a side note, in the “Never can eat too much pig” department: I enjoyed the pulled pork and ribs combo at Smokey Bones although next time I think I’ll just stick to the pulled pork.

Guster in Dayton

*For some reason I’ve been hearing this phrase alot lately. Don’t really know where it came from, and, apparently, neither does anyone else. It’s colorful and dismissive of groups of which I am not a member, so it must be ok to use. Right?

Jaime in Red

Originally uploaded by TCTruffin

One thing you can do when you want to feel old is find a group of college students who think that your high school era is a cool, retro time-period and then create an event where everyone celebrates said era. Because Sherry and I like feeling old, 80’s Night with the English Enthusiasts has become something of a tradition at TU. Sherry takes groups of students thrift-store shopping in order to find vintage 80’s duds. This year, she also did many of the girls’ hair. Traditionally, we’ve read 80’s song lyrics in a dramatic fashion, which isn’t hard to do since most of the songs were overly emotional. This year we added the horror that is karaoke. For the record, I did succumb to the microphone and performed a rendition of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics.

Visit Flickr for more photos.

Oh, the red tinted singer is Jaime, this year’s Outstanding Student in the Field of English at Tiffin University.

And also, now those folks that wanted us to be blogging about TU can be happy.

I was avoiding work by browsing through iTunes today. Though it would be interesting to see what iTunes says my favorite music is. I must admit to being a bit dismayed at the lack of variety in the “regular” music category, but then I remembered that I don’t listen to much music on my iPod, so iTunes wasn’t catching all the other stuff I hear.

However, when it comes to Christmas music, I do listen to quite a bit on the iPod since a) I’m the only one in the house with deep abiding love of Christmas music and b)it’s easier to carry the iPod than a whole bunch of extra CD’s in the car. So, here’s 10 most listened to Christmas albums of my 2008:

1. The Cool Shades of Christmas by Jay Rouse
2. Snow Angels by Over the Rhine
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi
4. One More Drifter in the Snow by Aimee Mann
5. A Celtic Christmas by Emily Mitchell
6. Winter Guitar by Laurence Juber
7. Home for Christmas by Amy Grant
8. On Yoolis Night: Medieval Carols & Motets by Anonymous 4
9. A Christmas Album by Amy Grant
10. Chant Noel: Chants For The Holiday Season by Santo Domingo de Silos Abbey Monks’ Choir

So, yeah, I’m lovin’ it that the Steelers are headed to the Super Bowl for the seventh time. What do I do about it? I stop shaving for a few weeks in a lame “playoff beard” motion. Other than that I make sure I know where my towel is so that I can wave it around on Super Sunday.

On the other hand, take a look at what a group of kids, ages 11-13, have put together. Even if you’re not bleeding Black and Gold, you gotta admit that these kids ROCK. Like, you know, really rock, not just wanging on a plastic video game controller rock.

Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for this link to U2’s new Christmas song, which is being used to promote (RED)WIRE–a digital music magazine dedicated to helping fight AIDS in Africa.

This has been making the rounds. And I can see why. Enjoy.

Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for pointing the way to this wonderful film on Sacred Harp, or shape note, Singing. You can watch it for free this week by going to this link.