As a creative type human, nothing is more important to me than listening to the right music at the right time. This is especially important this weekend as I head to St. Louis to see Matthew Sweet on his special 20-year anniversary Girlfriend tour. This tour is going to blow the minds of those of us who remember Sweet’s battle against grunge music and how he ultimately won that battle. A boy from Nebraska invented power-pop, and boy are we all thankful.

To be honest, Sweet thinks of himself as some sort of Beach Boys/Neil Young hybrid, and while that may be true, to those of us who have been in love with his music, he certainly superseded both of them. not in album sales of course, but in making music that remains melancholy and beautiful.

I first heard Matthew Sweet when I was living in Indiana as a high school senior. The Girlfriend album had just hit, and “I’ve been waiting” was making the indie rounds in the Chicagoland area. I went to Lollapalooza with my two best friends, and we ended up sitting near Matthew, who wasn’t a star, and to be honest didn’t even seem like a star in the making. He was cool, fun, liked comic books and hot girls, just like we did. I remember being shocked when the local tv station who did a late night music show, pulled him aside in the row to the side of us and began interviewing him. Who was this dude?

Well, “that dude” ended up being the most influential musical influence on my entire life.

Now, while critics properly hail Girlfriend as a remarkable achievement in music history (the first proper, and still the best, power-pop album of all time), it was really the follow up to this record that impacted me most.

I’m talking about Altered Beast.

If Girlfriend was the album that endeared Sweet to the world, it was Altered Beast that showed the world that rockstar darlings are not to be trusted. you see, just when you think they are going to hand you more of the same old crap, the best of them do something completely different. Altered Beast was like some sort of candy-coated haunted house, with dark imagery playing just beneath the jangly guitars and vocal harmonies. While Girlfriend had documented Sweet’s divorce, Altered Beast seemed to tackle the issue of the evil side of humanity in general, which is much more ominous than one man’s failed love life.

Needless to say, I loved the album immediately.

To this day, it remains one of my favorite albums of all time, and alongside Rich Mullins’ A Liturgy, A Legacy and A Ragamuffin Band, my favorite Fall album.

Like Altered Beast, Fall is a candy-coated haunted house, you see. While the leaves turn gold and red and fall beautifully from the trees, we can’t help but feel a bit awkward since we know that in their beauty, the leaves are also in the throes of death itself. As each track plays, you tap your foot and hum along, pleased with the gorgeous layered guitars and harmonies, but what is that twinge of horror you feel? Oh yeah, it’s the fact that Sweet isn’t letting you forget that underneath it all, he’s dying.

And so are you.

Awfully powerful words, aren’t they? Over the past year I began hanging out with a group of guys from Lee University. Some are recent grads, some are seniors. Most all of them work/volunteer at Regenerate Music Co. All of them are much younger than me.

They have a habit, these friends of mine, that has been rubbing off on me. They say, “I love you” all the time, and they really mean it.

At first, this took a bit for me to deal with. I wasn’t used to being told by other men that they loved me so much. I mean sure, every once in a while at a church service or something it would happen, but in general, not very often. These guys? All the time. Seriously.

When you meet them. When you say goodbye to them. When you call them on the phone. These are some loving dudes.

It’s strange how hard it was to get used to. I think for many men my age, we were raised that words like, “I love you” were sacred things. Saying them too often would take away their power. I can remember specific conversations from my youth where those very thoughts were placed into my head.

(SIDE NOTE: I also once knew a family who didn’t let their children say the word “Awesome” because “Only God was awesome”. In retrospect, I’m not sure that there are any words out there to properly describe the awesomeness of God, and they might have been ok using the word to describe my awesome skateboard moves. Just sayin…)

The problem with that mentality is that it trains us to say it too little. We become unable to properly express something that is clearly true. We all agree that not all love is romantic love. The scriptures teach us as much. But we know what love is, and for some reason we hold it close and don’t ever share it. Saying I love you to someone when it’s true only strengthens the word and the relationship. It validates feelings and makes verbal what the heart knows to be the case.

Well, as time went on, I found myself saying those words back to the label guys, but it didn’t stop there. I found myself saying them to other friends who I love dearly. I can tell that for many of them this is a new feeling, (I certainly try not to make it creepy sounding) but some of them have begun saying it back to me as well and this is a good thing. No, it is a GREAT thing.

I love not being afraid to love. After all, it was by love that I was set free in the first place.

This time I have the feeling that it is going to be more fantastic than most. For starters, I love everyone I’m working with. In addition to this, I’m simply in a different place in life. The people I’m creating with are all very easy to get along with, and yet we seem to push each other well so I feel creative and not stressed, which I’ve never experienced before.

We began recording today what I hope and believe will be the best album I’ve ever done. It’s a cool feeling to be involved in something so fun and so fulfilling. I love my dayjob and I love The Alderman Group. I really enjoy the podcast that I do with Ryan. But somewhere, deep down, there is a part of me that HAS to make music. Perhaps it isn’t the best music ever made, but it satisfies me deeply.

What are you doing that brings you satisfaction in life?

Rob

To be honest, the main goal was simply to retake some vocals and guitars on Indiana, the title track of the album. (yep…for those of you who are wondering, I’m calling the album Indiana. More on that some other time)

Anyway, I was worried about how pitchy some of it was after the first night, and the challenge was to take the vocals and guitar at the same time to catch the very fragile feeling of the song while keeping some of the whispery parts on pitch. We didn’t quite get there on night 1, so I’m glad we retook some things.

Having April on hand to throw in some BG vocals on the song was an added bonus.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s Night 3.

The Thing, Vocals and Aliens

We didn’t record anything I wrote, but instead we worked on a song that Derrick wrote called “Pictures”.

I was really thankful to have been asked to lay the vocals down on this, and we had a great time. I really hope people enjoy the finished product. There are some really great moments in the song, with my favorite being the musical interludes that occur after the choruses. For the interludes, we put down lead guitar, Hammond organ and some string and woodwind parts. I think they sounded really pretty.

So, here’s the video…dig it. (Note: When Kinsey threatens to take off his pants, it is a reference to having a “Dusty Strickland Moment”. Those of you who know Dusty should understand this. There were no pants lost during the recording session.)

Recording (Day 2)

Here’s a brief montage of what went down.

ROB AND PAUL – RECORDING SHOES AND BLACKBERRY WINE