I Still Have Never Seen You: David Bazan Week Part One

I’m currently 31,000 feet in the air experiencing some mild turbulence and trying to write a blog that can adequately explain why after 30 years I’m no longer sure I believe in the existence of God. To be fair, if I had to make a choice at this very moment, I would say I believe there is a God. An atheist friend of mine and I were having a discussion about this very topic recently and his assertion was that the burden of proof falls on the believer to make the case for God. I opened my mouth to start making that case, but nothing came out. What happened to me?

From 1997 to 2004 David Bazan fronted a band called Pedro the Lion. Bazan has long been associated with the Christain faith, having released his first record on Christian label Tooth & Nail, and done extensive touring of churches and Christian festivals before transitioning into playing bars and clubs as he began to release records for Jade Tree and, most recently, Barsuk.

Upon the release of Pedro the Lion’s Whole EP in 97, I was just finishing high school. I was raised in the Christian church and my parents were pastors the majority of my life. I was your average teenage believer, meaning I believed what I did because I had very few reasons to question it. Sure I had a girlfriend break up with me because “God told her to” and I had a very close friend die in a car accident, but because I was rooted in the same belief system I had been in all my life, these circumstances seemed more like annoyances to my faith rather than deal-breakers. I remember thinking about them and not being able to come to a viable conclusion, so instead of forcing the issue, I just stopped thinking about them.

I started listening to Pedro the Lion that fall during my freshman year of college. I immediately identified with songs like “Nothing” and “Almost There” because of their fresh narrative structure. Bazan had a way of using irony and metaphor that I had never heard before from a “Christian” arstist. To say the songs challenged me to start thinking differently would be to ascribe a fictional importance to them; my questioning was coming from a different source. By the time I saw Pedro the Lion for the first time in 1998, being outside my belief structure, specifically the church I grew up in, already had me exploring the heretic nature of modern philosophy and trying to figure out why I no longer felt anything when I went to church.

It’s then that I heard Pedro the Lion’s It’s Hard To Find A Friend LP and a song called “The Secret of the Easy Yoke.” This song, whose lyrics are quite literally about the narrator's struggle to experience God within the structure of the corporate mega-church, rang true to me. I interpreted the song as a comforting lullaby for the disenfranchised church go-er who still believed in God--and that’s precisely who I was at that time. I felt encouraged, reasoning that I might be able to think critically about the world around me and the religion I grew up in while still holding fast to my belief in God.

This Weeks Chain Letter Happenings

Hey all! I'll be posting later today after I get off the plane, but here's some shows you should check out this week:

Wednesday Jan 13th the Robotanists @ Spaceland

Thursday Jan 14th TS & the Past Haunts @ Echo (unconfirmed)

Friday Jan 15th Modern Time Machines @ Pehrspace

cheers

Video from Madison. WI

Chain Letter will return tomorrow with David Bazan Week in anticipation of his house show we are hosting Sunday January 17th. I will be tracking 2 trajectories of spirituality as it relates to Bazan's music.

Winter Wonderland

Turns out landing in the snow is not nearly as scary as I imagined it was! Heather and I spent the entire day yesterday traveling from Los Angeles to Madison, WI, and the final, heavily delayed landing in Milwaukee was the least interesting part. My highlight was driving west on highway 94 in a snowstorm at night when the windshield wiper of our car went flying off the windshield. With no exit for miles and the wiper hanging like a dead limb off the side of the car we debated whether or not it was a good idea to have Heather hold the wheel from the passenger seat so the driver, my good friend Josh, could unbuckle his seat belt and reach his entire body out the window into the flurry and attempt to put the wiper back into place. This plan, while not completely carried out, did not work. Luckily we were traveling behind a snow plow that was salting the road keeping us in traction and visibility until we could pull off the freeway and fix the problem.

Madison in a snow storm is absolutely gorgeous. We had dinner and beers at a local pizza joint that we walked to from our hosts', Josh and Jessica's fantastic house. It's been fifteen some odd years since I've been in the snow and I sorta forgot how wet it was. It looks so fluffy until your drunk wife makes powdery snow balls and hurls them at you. Then you get wet and cold. So fun, though!

In the only music related news of the day, I received a phone call from Travis as we deplaned in Milwaukee telling us that the Past Haunts have a gig next Thursday night at the Echo. I'll keep everyone posted on this and our adventures in the winter wonderland that is Madison,WI.

Ps I just checked the outside temperature. 9 degrees.

High Anxiety

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. This is a very normal thing for many people, but to me it takes some self-conquering. By that, I mean, if I allowed myself to be a slave to my anxieties I would never, never, get on an airplane. Never. But I fly all the time because I am able to rationalize my way into the cabin.

If you are freaked out by flying here's a couple of things that make me feel better:

A planes wings can safely bend something like 15 feet in either direction.

Flying is all physics. It works. Crashes are mostly due to human error and in 99 percent of cases, there were seven consecutive human errors that lead to disaster.

It's a lesson in control, or lackthereof. Driving a car, walking around on the ground, these things give me the illusion of control. Without sounding overly dramatic, life is by definition out of my control and can be taken from me at any moment no matter what I do. Sure, there are certain laws and principles of living that increase my chances of staying alive. Never getting in car would increase my chances of living far greater than never getting in an airplane.

So flying in a plane is actually a freeing experience because it allows me to acknowledge the fact that I'm not in control and let go.

I am always a happier person when I let go.

If none of these things work tomorrow, Heather is under strict orders to heavily medicate me.

New Music Tuesday: Kissing Cousins and Summer Darling Team Up With 826LA

Recently, Heather was invited along with other local songwriters to participate at an 826LA function in Echo Park where she was teamed up with three neighborhood kids and a fellow volunteer to help the kids write a song. Below is a performance of their song "So Sleepy (The Bells)." Pretty priceless stuff.

As it happens, this was only phase one of the kids songwriting extravaganza. 826LA has teamed up with Origami to ask bands to record the songs the kids wrote for a charity record and concert. The record will be a Vinyl/Digital release with the vinyl being limited to a 500 count pressing. Confirmed participants include Cold War Kids, Fiona Apple, Zooey Deschanel, and now, Summer Darling! That's right. We spent the better part of 4 hours last night working on our adaptation of a song called "Mexican Food." As you can imagine by the below video, it was certainly an entertaining challenge, but we're pretty sure we got a kick ass song out of it. Look forward to a Summer Darling song like you've never heard us released on this amazing compilation where all proceeds go to benefit 826LA sometime later this year!

Goals: 42% Less Scary Than Dreams

This year I said good-bye to resolutions. Not that it was difficult; I've never given New Years Resolutions much thought. Picking an arbitrary date and deciding to change an aspect of my life is something I've been relatively successful at (I quit smoking 864 days ago, to name one) so I've never felt the need to make resolutions.

However, a conversation I had with Todd on our way home from Christmas merry-making convinced me that setting goals is an important step to achieving success. This conversation coincides with a book I'm reading on success, and while I've always been a skeptic of recipes for succeeding--and still am as I tend to believe each person's path to success is different--I have to admit there's value in setting goals.

Goals are like dreams you have just prior to waking; often times they are clearer and more defined than the countless dreams we experience during our deepest sleep. Dreams seem unattainable at times. Sure, I'd love to be signed to Sub Pop but I have no clue on how to get there. Goals are merely speculations, ideas that if actualized may lead us closer to that unobtainable dream.

So in the spirit of accountability, I've decided to publish the goals Summer Darling have set for ourselves in 20Penn. It's a bit scary. I hope to re-read this post next January and discover we've accomplished all of them, but it's certainly possible that we may not get them all in.

Summer Darling's Goals:

1. Put out the record. We've all signed off on the mixes, the art is nearly done, and mastering is scheduled for the end of the month, so this one seems like a no brainer. Except that we've been writing and making this record for the better part of 4 years. I've learned patience the hard way and I refuse to take this goal lightly until I'm listening to the record on my record player.

2. Play more shows that are all ages and play more shows outside of Los Angeles. Don't get me wrong--I am so excited to play Spaceland this month. I couldn't believe it when I realized this, but it will be the first time Summer Darling has ever headlined Spaceland. However, we feel like it's time to expand our audience. We want to get the kids into this. We want to get the kids in other cities into this. We gotta escape from Los Angeles!

3. Music Video. We need to make a video for our new record. This goal is probably the most intimidating for me, since I know little to nothing about getting this done.

4. Vocals. We need to learn how to sing live. It's fine to coast on passion now and again, but the vocals on the record are very intricate and we want to try and recreate them for shows.

5. Write and record new material in a concise fashion. No more 5 years between records. We've talked about trying to write and record at least another Ep's worth of material this year, if not start on another full length.

There we have it. The 5 goals for Summer Darling. If anyone feels compelled, post some of your own goals in the comment section. Feel free to do it anonymously. You'll at least have a record of them. Accountability is key! Let's make this a good year!

Be part of the collective this week: Chain Letter happenings

Kissing Cousins and Twilight Sleep @ Pershing Square Ice Rink Wednesday January 6th. The show starts at 7:30. Free.