This is a fantastic essay by Gordon Atkinson (aka Real Live Preacher). I’ve been reading Real Live Preacher for a while now, and it’s one of my favorites. Great writing from a man who holds a number of jobs (pastor, Web developer, writer, etc) and writes about all of it with a wit and sense of grace that is rare, and precious.

A few favorite tracks for 2005 so far (all vaguely centered around hip-hop, though only the Mars ILL tracks are really anything “purist”).

Mat Kearney – girl america (bullet)
Mars ILL – reach, flirt with fame (pirate radio)
Soul-Junk – Ungst Func Slag Collision, Hogging All The Islands

“U.S. military crews are launching more than 100 helicopter flights a day from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln ferrying food, water and medicine to tsunami victims, a task they say is far more satisfactory than the Iraq war that seems only to destroy.”

Reuters article

This is my prayer: God, forgive my cynicism. Help others to see this seemingly self-evident truth; that to build and help is better than to destroy.

See also my earlier post about how you can help.

There have been a huge number of posts I’ve read regarding the recent tsunami disaster in Asia, and I feel that I need to add my voice to the mix in crying out about the loss of life and livelihood.

Please help. Donate, pray, and encourage others to do the same. The money you spend donating is worth so much to those in need. God help us all to help our brothers and sisters in need. As my friend Tiegs quotes Jesus, “Whatever you have done unto the least of these you have done to me.”.

My man Elias posted the following information about how to help:

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You can donate:

1. Directly to large international non-governmental organizations (NGO) such as World Vision, World Relief, etc. Giving options will be posted on their web sites.

2. Directly to local NGOs overseas. This would require sending your money by wire transfer directly to the bank account of the local NGO. It costs about $30.00 to send a wire transfer, and you would not receive a tax deductible receipt. It is the fastest way to get money to local response efforts.

If you want to send money directly overseas, I recommend the following organizations:

In Sri Lanka – contact LEADS (Lanka Evangelical Alliance Development Service)
Contact person – Roshan Mendis
e-mail – [email protected] or [email protected]

In India – contact the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
Contact person – Rev. Richard Howell
e-mail – [email protected] ; [email protected]

Thailand – contact the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand
Contact person – Rev. Rev Silawech Kanchanamukda
e-mail – [email protected] ; [email protected]

3. Indirectly to Geneva Global which will accumulate gifts in a fund and send them directly to local NGOs in Sri Lanka, India, and Indonesia. Funds will be designated to a specific project and followed with a report after the project is completed.

Checks for Geneva Global projects should be sent to:

The National Christian Foundation
Geneva Global Brokerage Account #13799
1100 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 900
Atlanta, GA 30342

Note also that there are three stages of disaster relief:

Stage 1: Immediate relief such as medical treatment, food, drinking water, clothing, blankets

Stage 2: Temporary shelter, dry rations, cooking utilities, sanitary utilities, trauma counseling

Stage 3: Permanent shelters, reconstruction, restoration of livelihood

Many donors will give to Stage 1 because the news is hot. Donors tend to neglect Stages 2 and 3 once the media coverage quiets down. These later stages are vital because they avert further loss of life from disease, malnutrition, and exposure. Geneva Global will direct funds to Stage 2 and 3 projects.

A quick announcement: I have turned off the ability to add comments to entries I post here. I love this feature from a community and interaction standpoint, but I can’t stand the fact that spammers have targetted blogs as the new place to spread their junk.

I may try to implement one of the fixes to this problem (MovableType 3.0, MTBlackHole, etc) at some point, but for now, just e-mail me at [email protected] if you have a comment, and if it’s intended to be public, I”ll post it in some form or another.

We have a new addition to our family now: Hannah Elaine Van Loo. She’s 13 days old right now, and is a beautiful addition. I thank God for such an awesome new child.

Not at all related: I figured I would post links to a few unreleased tracks that have been sitting on my hard drive for a long time. They’ll eventually make their way into the downloads section, but for now, you faithful blog readers, you get them exclusively.

Feeling Loverly [a downtempo instrumental from 2001-2002…hip-hop and dubbby in feel – 10.3MB mp3]

A rhodes jam [another dubby hip-hop downtempo instrumental from the same time period as “feeling loverly” – 7.9MB mp3]

bells and chimes rework [a glitchy, beatless piece I worked on without having a place to release it; there’s a part 2, but the rhythm track just doesn’t quite work. maybe someday I’ll finish it and release it as an entire piece…maybe. 3.9MB mp3]

You may have known about The Shins for years by now, but I’m just getting into them right now. Their record “Chutes So Narrow” is super good pop music (a friend @ work has it) and I’m checking them out live on KCRW right now (an archived Morning Becomes Eclectic set).

The Shins live on KCRW (from November 2003).

I first found out about The Shins from an article about them in Tape Op, my favorite magazine about music production. Producers of all stripes, take note – it’s an awesome magazine about music production for the rest of us (that is, those who don’t make records on $750,000 SSL consoles and $5000 Nuemann tube mics). Plus, it’s free for a subscription!

Tape Op – sign up today!

New Breed, “Love” (from “Nine”, on Uprok)

Who in hip-hop drops a line like “And rock it til the hands of time on clocks stop / til the speakers get burned out by the power of my passion / til loving one man with all your heart comes back in fashion”? That’s Elsie, on “Love”.

Braille, “Hip Hop Music” (from “Shades of Grey”, on Syntax)

Classic production (love the horns!), makes me think of Pete Rock or DJ Premier in their prime.

Procussions, “Water’s Edge” (from “As Iron Sharpens Iron”, on Basementalism Records)

A beautiful closing to their full-length debut album.

Flynn, “Love is Dead” (from “In Like Flynn”, on Illect)

This is a bomb, it just explodes out of the speakers.

Dert, “A piece of forever” (from “Fledgling”, on Isolated Music)

Note: the recommended way to listen to “A piece of forever” is as loud as you can bear while driving in a car with the windows down. Subwooofers recommended but not required. This track is as good as anything Jay Dee has done, in my book; nice sample of the announcer from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight Marauders” album, too.

Plus, the full album is only $5 at CDBaby now!

Wow, there’s a lot of dust around here. Sort of like my studio before I started the massive clean-up effort that I engaged in immediately after returning from Montreal and the Mutek festival. I’ll put pictures up as soon as my new 4-space racks arrive and I get things neatly bolted into them.

Anyway, I’ll be posting a Mutek wrap-up soon, but for now, hold tight.

My favorite album of the moment (for the last week or so, really…) is Dert’s “fledgling”. It’s my “Endtroducing….” for the spring/summer, I think. Check out isolated music (dert’s label) for a little more info, and purchase and listen to 2-minute samples of a bunch of tracks at via May 3, 2004