It's moving day.

A Well Without Water has moved to WordPress. No offense, Blogspot. You just don't have what it takes anymore.

A Well Without Water on WordPress

New Website!

I purchased a domain for my video production blog:

neighborhoodAVclub.com

I guess that makes me a legit business owner... that and the tax ID that I got back in July.

Away We Go

On paper, Away We Go has the potential to be the next super-cool, consumable “indie” film (It stars a bearded John Krasinski, is directed by Sam Mendes, and is written by Dave Eggars). However, it is much better than the films that it is sure to be compared to (Garden State, Juno).

The story is about a 30-something couple that is expecting their first child. Krasinski's love interest (played by Maya Rudolph) has a natural distaste for marriage, so they stay unwed. Due to a frustrating relationship with their parents, the couple decides to move to an undecided city before their child is born. It then becomes a slightly Kerouacian story of two people trying to find their place amidst a great deal of change.

The film is extremely funny and features a great cast including Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The story is quite interesting and spares you from unrealistic images of idealist people triumphing over conformity. The characters have real problems and real challenges.

I promise that I don't just like this movie because my wife is pregnant.

I finally want to see a new movie.

There are actually several movies coming out in October that I'm excited about. They are:

A Serious Man - Coen Brothers
Zombieland (this may be horrible, but it looks fun)
Capitalism: A Love Story - Directed by Michael Moore
The Invention of Lying - Directed by and Starring Rocky Gervais
Where the Wild Things Are - Directed by Spike Jonze

Recommended Listening

My Brightest Diamond



My Brightest Diamond has been on the cusp of indie super-stardom for years. She toured with Decemberists several years ago (later appearing on “The Hazards of Love”) and has received favorable reviews from numerous music critics. Her vocal style is dynamically operatic, but soothing. Her musical accompaniment is always complex (juxtaposition of an ultra-composed string section with treble-drenched electric guitars), but never intrusive.


Listen to My Brightest Diamond on Myspace!

Songs for a funeral.

I went to a funeral last weekend for a guy that was only a year older than me. He had tragically died as a result of a motorcycle accident that he had experienced several weeks before. I knew him from the youth group that I grew up in, but hadn't seen him in several years. I had no clue who he had become in the last few years of his life.

With that said, I was very surprised by the eclectic music choices at the funeral service. It would have been very hard to pin down a common thread in the music that was chosen to honor and celebrate his life. However, the songs did a great job of portraying the life of a guy that meant a lot to many people. It got me thinking...

What songs would you want played at your funeral? Would you want an uplifting song that would encourage people to take joy in your memory? Would you want something more somber to encourage reflection? How about time period? Would you go for hymns, timeless rock ballads, modern pop, or a collaboration of several?

I would like readers to comment with a list of songs that they would want played at their funeral with an explanation. Here are a few of my choices:

1.“It Is Well With My Soul” Written by Horatio Spafford in 1873. Spafford's children died when a ship sank in route to England from the United States. He boarded the next ship to England to meet his grieving wife. At the exact place that the previous boat had gone down, Spafford looked into the water and penned the words:
“When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrow like sea billows roll.
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say: 'It is well, it is well with my soul'”

2.“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”Written by Robert Robinson in 1757. The lyrics of the fourth verse paint a beautiful portrait of man's struggle with seeking his own desires and leaving the beautiful, safe will of God:
“O to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”

3.“Strangers and Pilgrims” by Save the Ship. I know that is seems arrogant to have a song from your own band played at your funeral. However, my wife and I wrote most of the lyrics to this song together. It is a story about the journey of life, and trusting God to safely take you through it:
“Strangers and Pilgrims, I've made you a homeland.
Make haste, and follow the stars.
By land or by sea, our hearts worn with wandering.
Look up! We are going home!”

so... what about you?

Recommended Listening - Fun.

Fun. is a bit of an indie/pop super-group. The band is made up of Nate Ruess of the Format, Andrew Dost of Anathallo (one of my favorite bands of all time), and Jack Antonoff of Steel Train. Their self-release album "Aim & Ignite" was released on August 25th. You can stream the entire album from their myspace:

Fun. on Myspace!

Modest Mouse Review

Modest Mouse “No One's First and You're Next”
Epic Records, 2009



There are a few times in my life that I would classify as “glory moments”. These are times that I was fortunate enough to experience something extraordinarily cool. These are the moments that you immediately think to yourself “one day I'm going to tell my kids about this.” These moments are never to be contrasted with a list of personal triumphs (like getting married or finding out you will be a dad... those are on a completely different plane). Here are a few of these experiences:

1. I met and interviewed KRS-One while working at a TV station in Tallahassee
2. I sat in a recording studio while Cody Bonette was tracking a demo for “Petty” for the final As Cities Burn record Hell or High Water
3. In 2004 I got pulled onstage at an Against Me! concert (during the last song, “We Laugh at Danger And Break All The Rules”) by the bass player after he saw that I sang every word to every song.
4. I saw Modest Mouse in a very small venue in St. Augustine (along with my future wife and good friend) about 3 months before Good News for People Who Like Bad News came out. There were probably 150 people in the room.

Modest Mouse is the classic indie band of our generation. Since their formation in the early 1990's, they have been a major player in the direction of the genre (not to mention the cowboy scene). They have gone through major musical transformations over the years, but have always stayed true to the spastic and abrasive sounds that they originally became popular for.

No One's First and You're Next is a collection of Singles and B-Sides that have been released over the last 4 years. It is not a proper follow up to We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, but functions as a mid-day snack between records.

Modest Mouse has progressed a lot in the time-span that this collection covers. The songs represent a solid cross-section of where they have come from (since 2004... not 1994), and where they are going. Notable tracks include “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” and “The Whale Song” which both harken back to the raw indie pop sounds of The Moon and Antarctica. “Sattelite Skin” has a more polished feel (like “Float On” or “Dashboard”) and seems to have been one of the more recently-written songs on the album.

No One's First... produces few exceptional moments. However, for the people that can't help but purchase anything that Issac Brock touches (yeah, I've got the Ugly Cassanova record), it takes an important place in the complete Modest Mouse discography.

(6.5/10)

Cool Hand Luke Live

Friday night (August 7th), Mark Nicks from Cool Hand Luke played a show at Lynn Haven Methodist Church. This is a video of him playing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing":

Cool Hand Luke - "Come Thou Fount" from Thomas Irby on Vimeo.

Special thanks to Eric Darnell for shooting with me. You can see some of his other work here:

Eric Darnell Media

Video Project

This past Sunday at Lynn Haven UMC, where I serve as the Technical Director, was Senior Sunday. I made a video to celebrate the occasion. It is called "We're All Members" and runs about 4 minutes long.

we're all members from Thomas Irby on Vimeo.

I had a few audio issues on two of the interviews, but I think that the video as a whole turned out pretty good.

Post Rock: Background Music as a Genre

There have been a million comments made about how bands like Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky sound like they should be in the soundtrack to a movie. Their music is peaceful, ambient, and generally instrumental. In 2004, the music of Explosions in the Sky was paired with the mediocre football film Friday Night Lights. Then in 2006 Mogwai was called on to score the documentary about legendary French football player, Zinadane Zidane called Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait.

Since the use of post-rock in films went from discussion fodder to actuality, the genre has dropped off significantly. Explosions in the Sky released the poorly-rated All of the Sudden, I Miss Everyone and Mogwai's Mr. Beast and The Hawk is Howling were received to little excitement by otherwise-adoring fans. I'm sure that its only coencidence that the genre began to dissapate around the same time that its music began finding its way into popular films... but it makes you wonder. Many of the artists found that there is little room for progression in a genre that takes so much pride in minimalism.

I have compiled a few of my favorite post-rock albums as a bit of a retrospective to the genre. This list is by no means all-inclusive (like Sandals Jamaica). I'm sure I will miss a few gems.


Godspeed You! Black Emperor - “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven” EP Kranky Records, 2000 (Canadian orchestra-rock that utilizes samples and an onslaught of musicians)


A Silver Mt. Zion - “He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms”, Constellation Records, 2000 (features members of the aforementioned Godspeed You! Black Emperor)


The Album Leaf - “In a Safe Place” Sub Pop Records, 2004 (Electronic ambience with minimal vocals. One of two bands that I've seen live that required a bathroom break halfway through the set)


Explosions in the Sky - “The Earth in Not a Cold Dead Place”, Temporary Residence Limited, 2003
(Texas Post-Rock that helped bring the genre into popular culture)


Mogwai - “My Father, My King” EP Matador Records, 2001
(Scottish band known for being organ-rattling loud)

Recommended Listening - Noah and the Whale

Noah and the Whale is an indie band from London. I first heard about them when they were recently featured in Relevant Magazine. Their album "The First Days of Spring" will be out on August 31st. You can hear a preview of the title track from that record here:

Noah and the Whale Myspace

Album Review - Iron and Wine

Iron and Wine “Around the Well”
Sub Pop Records, 2009

To music fans, very few things are as irritating as rarities and b-sides collections. The only worse things are concert DVDs and solo-projects. All of these things have one particular purpose: milk as much money out of the fact that people like your band while having to put forward the least amount of effort. These projects normally come out in between releases (especially when a follow-up CD is overdue) and serve to satisfy the consumer without having to go through the process of writing or recording new material.

It has been two years since the release of “The Shepherd’s Dog” and Iron and Wine is in desperate need to keep the attention of the twenty-something’s that scooped up their music in the aftermath of their contribution to the Garden State soundtrack. That attention grabber is “Around the Well”: a two-disc rarities and b-sides collection that spans Sam Beam’s entire career as an acoustic performer.

Unlike most rarities collections, many of the songs on this CD are actually good enough to put on proper releases. Songs like “Sacred Vision”, “Communion Cups and Someone’s Coat” and “Love Vigilantes” sound just as good as any other track that Iron and Wine has released. Some tracks (like “Friends they are Jewels” and “Hickory”) are more lo-fi than others. However, the grittiness of Beam’s earlier recordings lends itself well to this kind of sound.

As a whole, this album does a great job at bridging the gap between Iron and Wine releases. Someone who isn’t an avid fan could put in this record and listen to it from start to finish with at least moderate contentment. In an attempt to build appreciation for “Around the Well” I have prepared a list of rarities and b-sides collections, solo projects, and DVD’s from other musicians (ranging from horrible to unpleasantly mediocre).

-Bright Eyes – “A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995 and 1997”
-Death Cab for Cutie- “You Can Play These Songs with Chords”
-Headphones – David Bazan’s side project from Pedro the Lion
-Thom Yorke’s solo CD that came out between “Hail to the Thief” and “In Rainbows”
-The Blood Brother’s DVD that I got as a companion purchase with “Crimes”… whatever that piece of junk was called

…that became a bitter rant toward the end. I apologize.

(7.5/10)

Iron and Wine on Myspace

Random Myspace Band - Cains and Abels

Cains & Abels is an indie/rock band from Chicago. I found them through Anathallo's myspace and loved them instantly. The most remarkable thing about their music is the distinct sound of an interesting vocalist. Their singer has a voice that is not easily digestible, but creates beautiful melodies that carry dark, but well-constructed lyrics. My favorite tracks so far are "Killed by Birds" and "Dark Days"

Cains and Abels Myspace

Recommended Listening - The Welcome Wagon

The Welcome Wagon is a two-piece folk band from New York made up of the Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique. Rev. Aiuto is currently the senior pastor of Resurrection Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, NY. Their songs are beautiful and simple, and are filled with the same whimsical joy that is so often associated with Sujfan Stevens. Their most recent album, "Welcome to the Welcome Wagon" is a wonderful blend of gospel and folk music.

Give them a listen!

Welcome to the Welcome Wagon!

Their myspace has a rendition of "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood" that is beautiful.

It’s a Two-Movie Saturday!

Leah and I just got home from a weekend trip to Tallahassee. We went to all of our favorite spots from college (Vinyl Fever, The Coffee Pub [now The Red Eye], Avant Garb, The Leon Pub) and checked out a great new beer-lover’s bar called Fermentation Lounge. They have tons of craft beers available in a relaxed, smoke-free atmosphere. My beer pick for the weekend was the Gaelic Ale from North Carolina’s Highland Brewing Company. For the record, my pregnant wife did not drink any beer... we love our child.

This afternoon we went to our favorite theatre, The Miracle 5, and saw Sunshine Cleaning starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Steve Zahn, and Alan Arkin. Judging by the title and the trailer, I was hoping for something tragically funny but still pleasant (the word association for “sunshine” naturally took me to Little Miss Sunshine, which also had Alan Arkin). The film was fantastic, but horrendously depressing. I would definitely recommend it, but make sure that you are prepared. Do not go to see this movie if you have any desire to smile for the following 2 hours.

We got home to our newest Netflix arrival, Man on Wire. This film won the 2009 Oscar for Best-Documentary Feature. It is the story of a Frenchman who is obsessed with daring tight-rope walking stunts. He spent most of his life preparing to attempt to walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. The story is very well told with interviews, well-constructed dramatizations, and archival footage. It is very entertaining and dramatic. This is a movie for people who generally find themselves bored by the notion of watching documentaries.

mewithoutYou Review

Album Review #2

I promise that my next review will not only be a band that is not on Tooth and Nail Records, but also a band that isn't Christian.



mewithoutYou - It's All Crazy!, It's All False!, It's All a Dream!, It's Alright!
Tooth and Nail Records, 2009

mewithoutYou has maintained a steady progression of creativity during their existence. 2002’s [A-->B] Life was a mixture of aggressive drums, heavy guitars, and Aaron Weiss yelling out in a distinct, poetic way that was dripping with passion, but parched for melody. Catch for Us the Foxes and Brother, Sister showed distinct signs of creative development. Aaron began to sing from time to time. They used guest instrumentalists on songs like “C-Minor” and “In a Sweater Poorly Knit”. These two albums set the stage for what was to come with their newest project.

The first moments of It’s All Crazy... are ripe with a new emotion for mewithoutYou: joy! This is not to say that songs like Brother, Sister’s “O Porcupine” aren’t filled with happiness, but that they don’t communicate it with their instrumentation and melodic lines. The opening song “Every Thought a Thought of You” has a pleasant melody, and is filled with positive lyrics like “the trees raise branches high like arms in church to grateful sky, every song in praise of you.”

“The Fox, the Crow and the Cookie” is the first of several songs that play out like one of Aesop’s fables. Each of these songs has an over-arching idea that that Weiss is trying to convey. “The Fox, the Crow and the Cookie” is a story about a crow that steals a piece of candy from a baker. A fox devises a plan to get the candy from the crow. The fox decides to use flattery to get the crow, who is holding the candy in its beak, to sing. When the crow began to sing, the candy falls out and the fox gobbles it up. The story here, of course, is that we should strive to remain humble, because our pride will cause us to make bad decisions.

“A Stick, A Carrot & String” is probably my favorite song on the album. It tells an abbreviated version of Jesus’ life from the perspective of different animals. As weird as that sounds, it is actually quite touching. In the barn where Jesus was born, several animals have something to say about His coming into the world. For example, a donkey says to the baby Jesus: “child, in 30-some-odd years you'll ride someone who looks like me, untriumphantly.” The song concludes with a snake being crushed in the garden where Jesus prayed “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26)

Overall the new techniques of this album are successful. However, there are a few moments that fall short of what a mewithoutYou record should be. In “goodbye, I!” Aaron Weiss’ singing voice doesn’t have enough strength or range to properly deliver the melodic lines in the last half of the song (hence why he has relied on abrasive yelping for years). “Fig with a Bellyache” has the most Daniel Smith influence. The song could have been taken straight from a Danielson Famile record. This is alright if you are looking to listen to Danielson. However, as a mewithoutYou song, it fails to communicate. They are very different bands that don’t overlap harmoniously.

The album is definitely enjoyable. When Daniel Smith was adding his touch to the mewithoutYou style, the band sounded fantastic. When mewithoutYou was sounding like Danielson, the band fell short. Fortunately the latter was a rare occurrence.
(7/10)

mewithoutYou Myspace

Documentary Project

In college, Leah and I worked on a documentary project for my final production class. I haven't been able to find a copy of it for a while, but it finally turned up. Just a warning... the video sat on a miniDV tape for 2 and 1/2 years. There are a few breaks in the audio and video that degraded the quality.

The documentary is called "Custom and Precedent" and is about the hospital desegregation in Tupelo, Mississippi during the 1960's.

You can watch it here:

Custom and Precedent from Thomas Irby on Vimeo.

Recommended Listening – The Album Leaf




You could probably lump The Album Leaf in with every other post-rock band to come out of the 1999-2004 explosion of the genre. However, I would say that they are one of the better acts. They are not orchestrated to the point of potential boredom like Godspeed! You Black Emperor. They are not thunderous and stomach-rattling like Mogwai. Their music is beautiful and ambient and takes cues from Sigur Ros and Explosions in the Sky, but adds several personal elements to create music that is peaceful, but keeps your attention.

The Album Leaf is the brainchild of Jimmy LaValle. On his first several albums, he recorded each instrument himself and had a live band that he toured with to perform the material. The last two records (which are very good) are called In a Safe Place and Into the Blue Again. Both are available from Sub Pop Records. He just started recording a new album that will be out at the end of 2009. The new album will be the first to feature a full band performing their own instruments, rather than LaValle playing himself.

As Cities Burn Review

Album Review #1

As Cities Burn - Hell or High Water

Tooth and Nail Records, 2009

As Cities Burn has developed a reputation for reinventing themselves. They have gone through line-up changes, genre changes, and label changes… all in the course of three albums. On their first album (2005’s Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest), the band slipped into anonymity among every other Christian hardcore band that constantly regurgitates the same formulas. At that point, they were fronted by the yelps and screams of T.J. Bonnette.

However, that record produced one gem. “The Widow”, which was written and performed by T.J.’s brother, Cody Bonnette, struck a beautiful chord among the clanging mediocrity of the other songs. It is, in my opinion, one of the best songs ever written about a dysfunctional relationship with a father. The beauty and honesty of this song sets the stage for everything that As Cities Burn was to become.

The band’s next record, Come Now Sleep, was their first step in the right direction. Cody became the lead singer and drove the group into a sound that successfully mixed their hard-rock edge with the ambience and peacefulness of post-rock bands like Sigur Ros, and The Album Leaf. However, like many other Christian/alternative records that have come out in the last few years, Come Now Sleep, was fettered by a need to fit into a “sound” (call it the “Tooth & Nail Records sound”) and fell short of the band’s full potential. During the recording process, Cody’s vocals were layered with a suffocating amount of distortion and effects that hid his unrefined passion. Now, two years after Come Now Sleep was released, the band had to struggle to make a musical transition while still holding on to their previous fan base.

Hell or High Water is the record that many As Cities Burn followers have been waiting for them to make. Starting from the beginning, the album is a relentless assault of creativity, lyrical brilliance, and raw energy. “84’ Sheepdog” kicks off the record with a grungy synthesizer lead and Cody belting out “They fixed your brain when you were young!” From that point, the record rarely lets up intensity.

“Errand Rum” is an interesting jam that reaches its climax with trumpets pounding out a melody over gang vocals. I interpret the song to be, at least partially, about Cody’s distaste for playing the aforementioned song, “The Widow” because he reconciled his relationship with his dad after the song was released. “No I won’t play that song, to hear you singing it back. It is all wrong”.

“Made Too Pretty” is probably the best song on the album. Its powerful lyrics paint an intense picture of the struggle for humans to control their own situations. “We bear your name, and you let us say you are something that you're not. As if you were made after we saw our own faces, and knew we were gods enough. I think we were made too pretty.” A pulsing bass line carries the song from its quiet beginning to its powerful conclusion. All the while, the guitar continues to provide a common thread between the As Cities Burn of the past and the As Cities Burn of the present. Cody has a very distinct style that utilizes the entire neck of the guitar and relies heavily on hammer-ons and counter-melody.

Other high points of the album include “Petty”, which is a self-aware jab at Cody’s own pride (and, upon interpretation, all of our own pride) “You're gonna be dethroned. You're gonna shed your pride. It keeps growing” and “Pirate Blues”.

“Pirate Blues” has the feel of sea chantey. He begins the track in story-telling mode: “Before you, your mom and dad used to smoke in the Texas sun. They were young once too.” As the story unfolds, he begins into an observation of the Christian views on mortality. In the final moments, he belts out “Oh, I want to find out I’m wrong and every road leads us home.”

Post-Modern Christians, like myself (and I suspect Cody) constantly battle with the modern agnostic argument that “every religion is basically the same, isn’t it?” If you believe that the bible is wholly true (which I do), it is impossible to take that position. (John 14:6 says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”) However, there is a longing in a lot of our hearts to empathize with the billions of believers of other faiths. I feel like the lyrics of this song sum up a thought that I have on a regular basis. I would love to find out that I’m wrong and that all basically good people can make it to heaven.

The main weak point of the record is the final track, “Capo”. Robert Chisholm from Jonezetta sings the on the chorus. I have read a lot of internet speculation that the song was thrown together at the last minute, possibly by the record label. This wouldn’t surprise me, as it lacks passion, lyrical insight, or any sign of being written by As Cities Burn.

All in all, this record is a wonderful piece of passionate art. The band found their stride and dipped into their internal creativity. I can officially say that Tooth & Nail Records now has two bands that I like.

(8.5/10)

the beginning

About two weeks ago I decided to start blogging.

I have a tendency to compose record and movie reviews in my head and never write them down. This is my anecdote.

This blog will mostly be my personal commentary on music, film, faith, and technology (as it relates to the previous three).

I would like to apologize in advance for any frustrating promotion that I do. It will happen from time to time.

Much love to you. Thanks for reading.