andrew dodson

The Josh Martin Band was back in action this past weekend - finally. For the past year, it seems like we played a gig, took three months off, played a gig and repeated the process. For the next several weeks, it’ll feel like we’re a “real” band again with several gigs coming up.

We played at Cedarmore this past weekend (our home-away-from-home) for Memorial Baptist’s men’s retreat. The weekend started for us with a rehearsal on Thursday night. Since we led worship for the retreat, we stayed away from our originals and played some new (to us) worship songs. A modern version of “Come Ye Sinners” seems to be a new favorite for the band. We also played “My Hope Is You” (Third Day), “By His Wounds” and “Days of Elijah” for the first time. It amazes me that we can spend twenty minutes learning a song and play it an hour later (in this case, “Days of Elijah”). We also broke out “Open the Eyes of My Heart” for the first time in about two years - with no rehearsal. Sometimes, we like to fly by the seat of our pants.

Josh broke out his electric guitar for the weekend. Since Bert left the band, some of our songs need a little more body to them, so Josh has decided to play his electric on a few songs. I thought it sounded great on “My Hope Is You.”

The only other real news from the weekend is that we will begin recording our next album this fall! I wasn’t expecting us to start recording so soon, but it’s coming together pretty quickly. Bert is gracious enough to let us use the facilities at Cedarmore for recording, but we have to use them before they shut them down for the winter. This means we have to get rolling, and that’s just fine by me. As of right now, this is how the album breaks down:

• Christ Is Our Life
• Clumsy Believer
• Exposed
• Good Enough
• Come Thou Fount (maybe)
• Come Ye Sinners (maybe)

We’ve worked on at least three other new songs that still need some work (and titles that I forget right now). One song in particular has come together very quickly over the last couple of weeks, and we still have more material in the works. Looks like we’ll be shooting for a release date sometime early next year!

Most people that read this blog know that I have a (not-so-small) collection of Bibles.  The good news is that I haven’t bought a new one in a long while.  And, hopefully, when the ESV Study Bible comes out in October, that will be my last Bible purchase for a long, long while.

So, I’ve turned my attention to commentaries.  I’ve been reading up on some of the better collections.  The debate is whether to buy a complete collection from a series, or purchase individual volumes from different collections.  Challies had a good post on this a few weeks ago, and he seemed to like the option of buying individual volumes from different collections.

I’ve decided to go the way of a complete collection from a series.  My choice is the Crossway Classic Commentaries.  They are a set of commentaries by historic reformed writers & pastors, edited by modern reformed theologians.  Right up my alley.

The next question became, “where to start?”  Romans is always a good start.  Maybe one of the gospels.  I’m doing a study of David right now, so I thought about starting with the 1 & 2 Samuel volumes - but they’re seemingly not available (yet).  So, I went with probably my favorite book of the Bible - Psalms.  It is split into two volumes, and is essentially an edited version of Spurgeon’s Treasury of David.  I bought the first volume this past weekend.  It’s been great digging in so far to some of my favorite psalms.

My plan is to buy one volume per month until I have the entire set.  Next up will be the second volume of Psalms.

Some time ago, I posted that I wanted to make loops for every song done by The Point’s band. Wisdom soon set in and I realized this was silly. Not every song needs a loop in the background. And, occasionally, my loops get shot down (wink, wink John Bennett!). But, I’ve still enjoyed programming simple click tracks to every song. Since a few of the band members are on in-ear monitors, this helps tremendously with tempos. Plus, I’ve never had a big enough drummer ego to assume I’m always spot on with tempos. How’s that for modesty? If help’s available, I’m not going to turn it down.

For a while now, I’ve been using iDrum to program my click tracks. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s a simple eighth-note shaker/hi-hat sound. I’ll occasionally get adventurous and program a more complex loop. The advantage to using iDrum is that I can switch between click tracks from song-to-song pretty quickly during our worship set. But, there is a drawback.

On the few songs where we actually run a loop through the house, it means I have to use a different program to control the loop. I usually create my house loops with a combination of Tracktion and iDrum. It gets even more complicated when I need to fade out the loop or stop the loop at the end of the song. Since I have sticks in my hands, it leaves me wishing God would’ve given me a third arm in these situations.

To get around this, I started using Ableton Live (the “Lite” edition) this past week. It’s very well-known for being a great, live, on-the-spot music tool - hence the name. I was able to program click tracks and loops together in a set, including fade outs on the loops. It worked like a dream. Switching click tracks and/or loops from song-to-song is even quicker in Live than in iDrum. I programmed the set to switch to the next click track/loop with the press of a button on my keyboard and we were off to the next song.

There is a learning curve to Live. I’m normally pretty good at figuring out programs quickly, but I’ll admit that I had no clue how to operate Live. My buddy Jeremy helped me a bit and I’ve figured some more out on my own, but it’s taken a good month or two to get to this point. But, if you’re looking for an efficient way to manage programmed parts of your music in a live setting, I highly recommend it.

As the Reds very quickly fade from the National League Central race, they’ve decided to start dumping players & salaries. This is a typical move for teams once they give up hope on the rest of the season. In the Reds’ case, they’ve been idiotic about their moves.

First, they traded Ken Griffey, Jr. This was a bit of a surprise to me, but after some thought, I was okay with it. He is getting older, he’s never contributed much to the Reds success (or lack thereof) during his stay in Cincinnati, and his contract runs out at the end of this season. We likely wouldn’t have him back next year anyway. What did we get in return? A relief pitcher by the name of Nick Masset. To his credit, he’s pitched fairly well since coming over from the White Sox. But, really? We traded a future Hall of Famer for a no-name relief pitcher?

Today, the Reds finally made good on the season-long rumors to trade Adam Dunn. The Big Donkey is a typical big-league power-hitter. He either smashes it out of the park, walks or strikes out. Not much in between. In the field, he’s slow and error-prone. Typically, I’d be okay trading a guy like this. But, the Reds offense has been dismal this year and Dunn is the only source of consistent power in the lineup. Dunn’s 32 HR not only leads the Reds, but the Majors. After Dunn, the player with the second-most HR is Edwin Encarnacion with 22. And this is coming from a team that plays in one of the most homer-friendly ballparks in the Bigs. At the outset of the 2008 season, the offense was not a concern. As we’ve entered August, the Reds offense has yet to produce anywhere close to the levels of previous years.

What did we get for Dunn? Three minor leaguers. The only player named in the deal so far is in Single-A right now and doesn’t look all that impressive.

Both of these trades come off the heels of trading offensive-super-power Josh Hamilton in the off-season. Of the three, the Hamilton-for-Volquez trade looks brilliant so far (at least up until the All-Star break). For Griffey and Dunn, the Reds become the trade losers. They received hardly anything in return for both players. Let’s just hope the core of Votto, Bruce, Phillips, Encarnacion, Arroyo, Harang, Volquez, Cueto and Cordero can pick up the slack in 2009. I’m not holding my breath.

While running some errands in Lexington on Saturday, I noticed a bumper sticker. It read “got hope?” (a la “got milk?”). Barack Obama’s website address was printed below the question. My first thought was, “seriously?” Are people really putting all of their hope into a politician? How bad has America become that we look for hope in a politician?

Personally, I’d much rather place my hope in God than Obama, McCain, Bush, or any other politician. We can have our preferences, and that’s great - it’s what makes America a great country. But, ultimately, God decides who will sit in the oval office, live in the governor’s mansion, and occupy an office in city hall.

Romans 13:1-2 (Listen)

13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

Some would ask, “what if they are crazy and do evil things?” First, we should pray for them.

1 Timothy 2:2 (Listen)

2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Then, we need to recognize’s God’s control over the situation and know that he is working to accomplish his purposes, which are meant to be good for us. Think about the crucifixion of Christ. Regardless of what you believe, I think it’s safe that we all agree a crucifixion is brutally evil. In the case of Christ, though, God ordained the event to happen.

Acts 4:27-28 (Listen)

27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

The ultimate good of Christ’s death on the cross was forgiveness of our sins.

The world is full of tension this day-and-age. We can all ask the question of why God would allow such evil to happen in the world? This is a deep question that can be talked about much more in depth than this post. But, we can rest assured that God is working to accomplish his purposes, which will ultimately benefit those who have placed their faith in him. That gives me much more hope than a politician can offer.

(For more on this subject, I highly recommend Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. He writes on this matter much better than I can.)

Osteen’s wife isn’t living her best life now on an airplane. Draw your own conclusions.

This is why churches and Christians need to be preaching a TRUE gospel to a lost world.

How ’bout the new look of the blog? Wordpress.org has revamped their theme directory and I found this one yesterday. I really like the simplicity of it.

So, what have I been up to? I’ve kept up with learning Flash and that’s coming along fairly well. I’m thinking about implementing some Flash on the Josh Martin Band website, but I’m not sure. I’d like to put what I’ve learned into practice in one way or another.

I’ve mainly spent time redesigning a few sites as of late. I continue to get people calling or emailing with interest in having a website done, so that’s been encouraging for BADmedia. I’m hoping to nail down a few more sites by the end of this week.

The Josh Martin Band stepped back on stage this past weekend at the Frankfort Christian Academy. It was good to play again. We’re going to start rehearsing again soon for some upcoming gigs. Josh has written some new material, so we will work on that as well.

Q: At what point can it be determined that a person’s music collection is too large?

A: When considering buying an album at the iTunes Music Store, you search your music library to discover you already own the album. In addition, the album’s play count in iTunes sits at zero. Meaning, at some point you spent $10 on something you’ve never used.