Singers with Amazing Voices

As you've probably noticed from reading my blog, I really like listening to music. The other day, I was thinking and I was trying to figure out who my favorite vocalists are, and so I compiled a list. Not all of them are sing lead, but all of them have amazing voices, and their music is really worth checking out!

(On an extremely coincidental note, I'm watching The Five on TV and they're doing a segment on their favorite singers. Weird, right?)

Jen Ledger
Band(s): Skillet
Notable Songs: "Salvation," "Fire and Fury," "Hero," and "Yours to Hold [Live]"
While Jen isn't the lead vocalist for Skillet (John Cooper is), she has contributed her beautiful voice to many Skillet's songs. She normally plays the drums, but since she joined the band in 2008, she has sung on more than ten different songs. She is an incredible drummer as well, which is especially noticeable at Skillet's live shows.
She's also British. 

 


Stephen Christian
Band(s): Anberlin, Anchor & Braille
Notable Songs: "Alexithymia," "Self-Starter," "City Electric," and "Readyfuels"
Stephen has been the lead vocalist for Anberlin since it was founded in 2002, and for his acoustic side project Anchor & Braille since 2004. He has an incredible and elegant voice, and it's just really... mesmerizing. He's also written a book, The Orphaned Anything's, and started a non-profit
organization, Faceless International.

WinterJam 2014

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Last week was crazy. I had finals in some of my classes, which took up a lot of time. And then on Thursday night we went to WinterJam, so I never really got the chance to write! Anyways, about WinterJam...

If you've been following my blog, you know that I've gone to WinterJam the last two years (You can check out what I said about WinterJam 2012 here). If you haven't been following my blog or have no idea what WinterJam is, here's the condensed version. Big Christian music tour in the winter time. $10, ten bands. Pay at the door.

If that doesn't satisfy you, you can read this.

Anyway, this year, instead of paying $10 at the door, I went with my church youth group and got VIP tickets, so we could get in early and not have to wait in line. It was great because, well, it was freezing. And man, that line was long.

This year, the headliner was the Newsboys, arguably one of the most well-known names in Christian music. The other nine bands were Derek Minor, Love & The Outcome, Everfound, Colton Dixon, Newsong (they're always on the tour, since they're the band that hosts it), Plumb, Thousand Foot Krutch (my favorite!), Tenth Avenue North, and Lecrae.

Click the jump for more!

Thousand Foot Krutch Concert (2/22/13)

Hey everyone! Yeah, yeah, I know it's late to be blogging... but it's a Friday night, so it's all good, right? Anyway, I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you guys about the Thousand Foot Krutch concert I went to a couple weeks ago. If you don't follow TFK, here's the basic, one sentence summary: They're on their War of Change tour with bands Love and Death, The Letter Black, and The Wedding. I was amazed when I saw my town on their list of shows (this is the first concert I have not had to over and hour to), so of course I had to go. My brother, Paul, my friend Patrick (he had gone to Uprise with us), and I went together, and it was a blast! So, if you're interested, click the jump to read more!

CCM Magazines

An article about Flyleaf from the Feb '06 issue

Hey guys! I never posted about my amazing find (well, amazing to me at least), so I thought I would do that now. Anyway, I was looking through some stuff in my youth group's classroom, and I found a stack (ten total) of old CCM magazines! CCM Magazine is a Christian music magazine that used to be published physically, but they stopped doing that in 2008. You can subscribe to the online version of the magazine now, though. So obviously, my copies of the magazine are pretty outdated (the newest one is from July 2007) but it's still a lot of fun to read through them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find much about Skillet, but there is one article from the February 2006 issue that talks about Flyleaf when they were first getting started. I scanned it, so there it is on the right (you can click the image to make it bigger so you can read it). 

Five questions with Trevor McNevan.

The other thing I found interesting was a short interview with Trevor McNevan from Thousand Foot Krutch and FM Static in the December 2004 issue. It's just five questions, but it's pretty fun to read. My favorite is #4, haha.

Anyway, I thought this would be fun to post today. Enjoy the scans, and if I find anything else interesting, I'll let you know!

Note: In order to make the articles big enough to read, you can click them, which will open the picture in a sort of slideshow thing, then right click the picture and press "view image." It should then open up an a way that you can zoom in on the text :)

Sorry about that...

Hey guys, sorry it’s been a while since my last post. So… first of all, happy new year! Haha. Anyway, there hasn’t been very much worth blogging about. I went to a TFK concert and a Flyleaf concert this past weekend, and in January, we went to Winter Jam again. And uh… that’s about it. My life is just so interesting.

But the whole reason I wanted to blog right now was because I decided to start writing book reviews for some books that I’ve read recently. I’ve been going to the library every few weeks and reading a lot of books, so I wanted to start writing reviews. So I’m going to start that soon-ish… probably sometime tomorrow, or late tonight. I’ll write again soon!

Generic News and Thoughts That I Think You Should Read Even Though You're Supposed to be Working or Something

Longest title in the history of mankind. Score!

Aaaaand moving right along.

So I'm still trying to get used to the new Blogger interface... I tried to hang on to the old one as long as I could, but I guess this isn't as bad as I thought. Just... I dunno, different. But not like completely alien. It sorta has this Google Docs-ish feel to it, and I happen to use that thing a lot. But anyway, if this thing looks like freakishly formatted, that would be why.

And I'm gonna keep jumping from topic to topic because I can get away with it. I asked my friend the other day if she thinks I have ADD, and she says, "Without a doubt yes."

Next topic of discussion: Music! Yeah, so hopefully you've listened to "Call You Out" and liked it. If you did, I have good news for you! "New Horizons" (the entire album) is going to be realeased on Tuesday, October 30! EXCITED!!
And also, Thousand Foot Krutch finally released their remixes for "Light Up The Sky" and "Let The Sparks Fly"! You can download them here. And while I'm talking about TFK, I would so kill for a wristband that says "Be The Change". Note to self: write TFK an email.

Yes, I've been having an obsession with wristbands lately. I had an OCD moment the other day when I went to my friends' School of Rock show and bought a wristband there. And then I realized I could put wristbands on both of my hands. *slow, sarcastic clapping*.

So yes, there is more still! Click the jump to read it!
You know how tempting it is.
Just click it.

"Call You Out"

Okay, I'll be honest here: I was not having the best morning today. Lack of breakfast maybe, ot it might've been my PE class (I cannot do a "correct" push-up to save my life). Either way, I was feeling pretty pathetic. So I treated myself to homeroom this afternoon, which was okay. At one point, I got a bit bored and decided to check all of my news feeds on my Yahoo! page. And I'm still not a Facebooker, but I do subscribe to some of my bands, Flyeaf in this instance, through my Yahoo! page. Guess what I saw? "Listen then share our latest song 'Call You Out' from out upcoming album 'New Horizons'. What do you think?"
Yep, that made my day better :D
So here's the link to the song: Call You Out - Flyleaf
It's much heavier compared to "New Horizons", which was something I, along with a few friends of mine, had been kinda worried about. I mean, you have "New Horizons", which is a very happy and upbeat song, but what about the other "darker" Flyleaf songs? Well, "Call You Out" just reassured me that there will be some.
And it also made me happy.

Oh, speaking of music, of you haven't gotten TFK's "The End is Where We Begin", it's on sale for $7.99 or something like that on iTunes. Check it out!

Uprise Fest 2012

Did I mention this yet? No? Huh. What's wrong with me?

The main stage from our seats on the
hill. Except we were down there
standing 90% of the time. It was epic.

OH YEAH! Right. So on Saturday (Sept. 15) went on a 2-hour drive out to this Christian music concert known as Uprise Festival. And you better believe it was a blast! It was like a mini Creation Fest basically, it was Friday and Saturday, but it involved camping, so we only went Saturday. Anyway, it was me, my dad, and my friends Jess, Patrick, Libby and Zach. My dad and a bunch of teenagers. Actually, come to think of it, we really weren't all that annoying. Nobody talked on the ride there (I mean it was so early), and everyone slept on the way home. But wither way, it was an awesome time. Seeing Disciple, Thousand Foot Krutch, TobyMac, Peter Furler, Icon For Hire, and a bunch of other bands was totally fun. So um, if you want to hear more about it and maybe see some video links, click the jump.

The End is Where We Begin, Part 2

I apoligize for not posting about this sooner, my days got pretty busy. Anyways, last Tuesday (April 17) Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK) released their new album which you probably heard about if you've been following my rencent blog posts. It's called "The End is Where We Begin", and I got it the day after it came out. I dragged my family out to Best Buy to get it. It is honestly an awesome CD. It takes a little bit of getting used to the more rap style of some of the songs, but they're all great. My favorite songs are "The End is Where We Begin" (4), "Be Somebody" (7), "Courtesy Call" (9), "War of Change" (10), and "Fly on the Wall" (13). I really like them all though.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say. Oh, and I updated some stuff on my "Writing" page, so be sure to check it out! And there's more pics of the CD after the jump!

10 hours!!

So yesterday I logged onto my computer after a nice little weekend in Doswell, Virginia (Kings Dominion, if you're wondering) and I noticed this nice little announcement on Thousand Foot Krutch's Facebook wall.

So if that made NO sense to you whatsoever, here you go: on Tuesday, April 17 at 5PM Central time (6PM Eastern) TFK is gonna be having a live video chat. Pretty straighforward. So since I thought this was just pretty cool, I figured I would share it. I more than likely won't be able to watch it (going to see a movie with my friends!! :D), but if any readers of this blog take the time to check it out, please tell me about it!!

And while I'm here, as of right now, it'sonly 10 HOURS until the release of "The End is Where We Begin"!

Source: Thousand Foot Krutch's Facebook Wall