張懸 (zhang (or deserts) xuan) is an artist that i have been trying to get my hands on for ages. I tried to order her album My Life Will... months ago. But yesasia gave me my money back and told me they couldn't find her CD anywhere. It took me a good 6 months of looking to finally track down a torrent. And I have to leave it up for days and days before I ever got anything. The torrent actually never finished because it had a few music videos. But I got the CD... finally.

As far as Chinese music goes deserts xuan is a breath of fresh air. It's good to have someone that plays guitar and writes their own songs. She has a great chill style with a voice to match. I'm totally excited that I finally got it!
( here's a couple videos )

Tonight Migiwa came and played at church. It was really good. She has a beautiful voice and a gift for song writing, but more than that she has a especially touching testimony. She only shared a little bit, but it was about how God took her from being 引き篭り (hikikomori) for three years. She quit going to school and stayed in her room for that time. Then she read where God told her she was precious in her sight. That changed her entire life. Now she has all this amazing music He has giver her. It was amazing.

I was especially touched because God has been directing my prayer towards 引き篭り when I pray for Japan for the last 6 months. God is so good!

I wrote a new song because salvation has been a rediscovery for me this last month. I have been praying for salvation to come to people and I have seen those people get saved. It's amazing, pray big,

I wrote a song about it and just started a vox for my music and pictures... though I fear I may move there for everything. We will see.

Listen to it.

Another reason why the Barenaked Ladies are amazing.


I'm also sick.
>.

Yeah, he's here in Okinawa doing his festival thing. After I get back from Korea may write about it more. There are several things that I don't like about the whole thing. And to be blunt if I were in control of it I would change pretty much everything. Like I said I would change a lot, but even though I think there is a lot wrong with his crusade/festival thing God still uses it. A lot of people got saved tonight. I think one of my friends parents might have too. So that's good.

One of the musicians there was supposed to be all amazing and stuff. His name is Dennis Agajanian, maybe some people have heard of him. Not me. They introduced him as "the fastest flatpicker in the world." And I was not really too impressed. He was fast, but honestly he wasn't much faster then Pastor Dave and Charlie back in York. Maybe he wasn't pushing it, I don't know. But for that introduction he should have pushed it. And also, something happened to his voice because people said he had a good singing voice but it was just bad. Maybe because he's getting old. But, whatever.

Sarah, one of the most amazing people ever, sent me a late birthday present with the new CD by mewithoutYou, a beanie she crocheted for me, and Scripture from God. It was amazing. I've only met her once in my life and she may be one of my closest friends. Strange how that works, eh? In any case, on to the original reason I am writing.

Rarely had a band actually blown me away. Lyrically that is. It's easy for people who are really good musicians to blow me away. And really good musicians aren't as rare as good lyricists. But lyrics have to be astounding for me to be surprised. Even more for this band because the vocalist for mewithoutYou is not good... in any conventional sense. He is almost never on key, he is more of a beat poet that has a band. But it works. And what is more surprising is that they are super Christian. Not to say anything bad about Christian bands, but usually their lyrics are lacking depth to say the least. You can look up the lyrics if you want, but you should listen to the band too. Just because I said so. My recommendations are "Messes of Men" and "Wolf Am I! (And Shadow)" off of their new album Brother, Sister.

Now go. Discover something incredible.

Do it, now.

I generally don't like it when people put lyrics on blogs. I have no real reason. It's probably the same reason I mark some of my friends mail as spam when they send out to many group emails, or take my friends off my friends list on myspace when they post to many bulletins. Maybe I'm just a jerk. In any case, very rarely does a song blow my mind enough to put lyrics on my blog. Sufjan Stevens continually makes songs that could make me break that rule. His older album, Seven Swans, takes many biblical stories and puts them to music in incredible ways.

This song, Abraham, blows my mind with it's simplicity. It's amazingly simple, but at the same time so profound. Find somewhere to get this song.

( Abraham )