StereoTruth.net

Volunteers Needed For Jars Of Clay “Love Came Down” Tour

Rodney — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:30:50 +0000

Jars Of Clay is in need of 3 volunteers for 2 of their “Love Came Down” tour stops. These are the ONLY two shows that they need help so if you’re really interested and available tonight and Sunday night then here are the details.

Tonight in Montgomery, AL @ Montgomery Performing Arts Center
Sunday night in Clearwater, FL @ Ruth Eckerd Hall

Working merch means you are willing to show up about 30 minutes before the doors open, help Aaron (Jars Tour Manager) set up the merch table, sell merch during the show and for a bit afterwards. In exchange for your service you will receive a FREE Jars Christmas Songs CD and attend a Meet & Greet with the band.

Volunteers will not be required to purchase a ticket, although a seat is not guaranteed. If you are seriously interested, please email Joe with your name, age and contact info in the body of the email. A group of 3 is permitted. Volunteers will be chosen on a first come, first serve basis so get that e-mail out to Joe.

Is There Going To Be A Creed Reunion Tour?

Rodney — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:30:02 +0000

rollingstone.com is reporting that after 4 years apart Creed is in serious discussions for a proposed Creed reunion tour. However, a spokesperson says “There have been some talks, but it would be premature to comment on them at this time.” Since their breakup, Creed’s guitarist, bassist and drummer put out two albums as Alter Bridge with Kennedy, while Stapp released a solo record in 2005.

If the reunion should happen, and sources say an announcement is “imminent,” a tour will likely follow in 2009, meaning that America will have to carry the heavy burden of both Creed and Nickelback touring the nation at the same time.

Creed has often been labeled a Christian rock band, due to the fact that all three of their previous albums focused on questions of faith, Christianity, and eternity. Also, song titles such as “Human Clay”, “My Sacrifice”, “My Own Prison”, “With Arms Wide Open”, and “One Last Breath” contain allusion to Christian theology, however it has never been confirmed that the songs were meant to be Christian songs.

Who cares what they’re labled as by mainstream media. I’m just glad to see that they’re willing to work out thier diffeences and get back to what they do best…create great songs.

Shannon Check’s One More Thing Off Wedding List

Rodney — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:30:30 +0000

We’ve been following the wedding plans for Matt Thiessen (from Relient K) and his fiance Shannon. Well, they can check off one more thing from their wedding list. They booked their photographer! Here’s Shannon with the full update.

He’s a fabulous guy by the name of Jered Scott, and he’s based out of Southern California. Matt & I met him through Relient K: Jered’s been taking pics of the boys for awhile, and spent some time on the bus with ‘em during this last tour. When I had the chance to meet him and see his work, I was in love.

You can check out some of his other work and some of the wedding stuff he’s done, too!

Just remember Shannon you still have 261 more days before you walk down the aisle. Thanks for keeping us up to date on your BIG day.

Blockbuster To Sell Live Nation Tickets

Rodney — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:30:10 +0000

For months now we’ve been telling you how Live Nation is changing the way you’ll see concerts in the near future. Now, they’ve struck a deal to sell tickets through select Blockbustert retail locations nationwide in a report from The New York Post. The deal comes as Live Nation prepares to end its relationship with Ticketmaster in favor of launching its own ticketing business next year.

The roughly 500 Blockbuster stores where tickets to Live Nation concerts can now be purchased replaces physical retail outlets such as Macy’s, Kroger, Wherehouse, and others used by Ticketmaster. Live Nation has said it expects to sell around 13 million tickets by 2010. While more than 90% of those sales will occur online, the concert promoter said it sells about a million tickets per year, or roughly 8% of its total ticket sales, through independent retail outlets.

Terms of the three-year deal call for Blockbuster to collect what a source described as a “nominal fee” for each ticket sold. According to Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said..

this deal reinforces the continued relevance of Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar stores.

Look out iTunes… Songbird is here!

Scott — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:30:13 +0000

The long awaited, yet little known outside geek circles, release of Songbird 1.0 has occured! This open source audio player is set to become the Firefox of music players. An apt comparrison considering that it’s built on the mozilla core.

Songbird will play just about anything - including iTunes songs! Songbird supports MP3, FLAC, and Vorbis on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM on Windows; and AAC and Fairplay on Windows and Mac. What that really means, is if it makes noise, and you can download it from the web, Songbird will probably play it.

Other features include: Automatic import from your hard drive, or iTunes, built in web browser, smart playlists (built as you listen), automatic updates and a great set of sorting/filtering/organizational tools.

I’ve been using Songbird in beta for a while now and it’s easily one of the best media players I’ve run across. If you’re one of those folks that doesn’t look at alternatives to iTunes or Windows Media Player, I highly recommend the 11mb download! - Why not get it?

Exclusive Interview With The Wedding

Robin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:30:39 +0000

Coming from the deep south of Fayetteville, Arkansas, The Wedding shows that it’s not all about country music in the south. With their energetic live shows that just pulls you in and their meaningful and honest lyrics, they are a band to keep an eye on. If you haven’t had a chance to go see them live, DO IT! You will not be disappointed. They defiantly give you a show. The Wedding pulls in the crowd and make you feel like you are all a part of the show, not just a crowd watching some band. Their new EP is called The Sound The Steel and it has an old train on the cover of it. For their live show they have these two flood lights on each side of the stage to make it look like headlights coming at you. They flicker throughout their set and at the beginning of their set you hear a loud train noise that shakes the room and makes you really feel like you are standing right by a train as it passes you at high speeds. It is an experience I think everyone should see at least once. Even with a badly broken collar bone, they rock the stage like no one else. I got a chance to see them play more than a couple times and yet every time I watched their whole set and still wanted more. I got a chance to sit down with to Matt Shelton, the lead singer and pick his brain about being in The Wedding, touring, the meaning of all the trains on their EP, pranks, and his past musical career with Letter Kills. Check it out below.

ST.net: You guys are all from the south right? What’s your favorite thing about being in the south?

Matt: Southern gentlemen for sure! Probably the people and the food, trust me, we play all over the U.S. and there is a difference. Plus it’s home.

ST.net: Matt, I read somewhere that you were the lead singer of Letter Kills. Explain how different it is to be touring with Christian bands such as Wavorly, Disciple, and Falling Up instead of touring with secular bands such as The Used, My Chemical Romance, and Story of the Year?

Matt: Well as far as touring with Wavorly, those guys are our close friends so nothing beats that, but there really aren’t many other differences. I loved touring with a lot of the secular bands, I have a lot of friends over there, plus the music was so good. And being out there really was great being a part of spreading the Kingdom of God. Both are great but different, yet all for the Glory of God.

ST.net: Any interesting stories from touring?

Matt: More than you know ! haha. Well, recently we were at a festival in Maryland, we all tried to fit in a two man canoe, not a good idea, everyone bailed, the canoe went wild, and I ended up in freezing cold water. Covered head to toe.

ST.net: During tours everyone does “band pranks”. What’s one of the best pranks you guys have pulled so far?

Matt: Wedding vs Wavorly. We chained all their luggage together, and locked it in their trailer along with all of their van benches, and changed the locks on their trailer so they couldn’t get in. We hid the keys in a tiny stuffed monkey in their van, and left them a code that led them to the keys. Then filled up their van with black balloons just for fun. And all before they finished their set.

ST.net: Your new EP called The Sound, The Steel EP has trains on it and in your live set you guys give the feel of being right next to a train as it passes by you. Can you explain where you got the title of the EP and the meaning behind all the trains?

Matt: The “Train” is a fence to God, Powerful, and always moving forward on a track laid out before time. The Sound The Steel, is my thought that We are the sound the steel makes as God is moving among us.

ST.net: Trevor is one of the only original members in The Wedding. He also writes a lot of the music right? Tell me what it is like getting to work with him and write with him?

Matt: Well, Trevor is awesome first of all! haha but We all write probably just as much as each other. We are all very much involved in the writing. No one does more than the others. the Only thing different, is I write all the lyrics by myself, mainly because I believe if I am to sing something or tell someone something, I want to be as honest as i can. We work great together.

ST.net: I am guessing that you guys sometimes stay at random people’s houses after shows instead of paying for a hotel. Any weird stories from staying at someone’s house?

Matt: There is one, but I am afraid i can not be the one to tell it. haha Ask Matt J, and Adam Thron.

Adam: hahaha ok, well here goes…it was a dark and stormy night…just kidding…ok really, Matt Jameson and I were in another band called the Gentleman homicide (myspace. com/tgh) before The Wedding. We were on tour in December 2006 and we played this show in Oklahoma City. After the show, a kid offered us a place to stay. When we got there everyone was partying and the only place to sleep was on the floor. So we were like man this kind of sucks and then all of a sudden (dun dun dun duuun) a kid named Andrew Thompson offered his house to stay at instead because his parents were out of town and there were beds and guitar hero and other fun stuff .. so we were like sweet - we’re going! We get to his house and sure enough it was a great place to stay. We say thanks for letting us stay here and asked where his parents were at. He said his parents were split up and his mom was living somewhere else and that his dad was in NigeriaKansas City, MO and we get a phone call from a girl that had been at his house too and she’s bawling her eyes out .. so we’re like what the crap is going on … and she says Andrew was arrested today after a 5 hour police stand off…They tear gassed the house and found him in a crawl space in the attic. so we ask her what happened and apparently ten days before we stayed the night there Andrew got in an argument with his dad. He stabbed him multiple times, chopped him up with an axe and hid his body in a deep freezer. So his dad was in the freezer while we stayed there.

well. that about covers it. kind of creepy… sorry if you have nightmares… but it’s all true. there’s news articles online about it if you’re interested in reading more. That’s the craziest tour story hopefully any one of us will ever tell.

ST.net: You guys seem very close with your fans. Any life changing stories you have about fans or any people that you have meet on tour that have really impacted your life?

Matt: YES. Our fans mean the world to us, because that is why we are here. Not to have fans, but to help people in any way we can. So when someone shares in some way how our music or lives have helped them and shined some light in their world, and we get to see what God has done….It’s the best.

ST.net: So far, what has been one of your favorite bands to tour with and why?

Matt: Wavorly. They are the best. That’s it.

ST.net: Lastly…Matt, you broke your collar bone about a week ago? How are you holding up?

Matt: Well. I hurt. haha. But God is so good, even though I am so bad, he chooses to let me be a part of his work. And He is holding me up just fine.

ST.net: Thanks so much Matt for giving us a little insight to The Wedding!

Matt: Thank you!!!!!

Purchase their new EP “The Sound”, “The Steel” EP or other Wedding merchandise.

KJ-52 “Like Father Like Son” Devotional

Rodney — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:30:31 +0000

KJ-52 checks back in after a week off due to a heavy touring schedule. This video devotional is called “Like Father Like Son” and based on something he saw last week on stage. Grab your Bible and get it set on John 1:12-13 for the scripture on how you too will want to know everything about Him!

Video Wednesday: The Afters “Never Going Back To OK”

Rodney — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:30:14 +0000

A few weeks ago we took you behind the scenes for The Afters new music video “Never Going Back To OK”. Well, the director Gavin Booth sent us an e-mail yesterday with the completed video. Check it out!

Matt Maher Writes For The Washington Post

Rodney — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:30:31 +0000

Matt Maher has been very active in the Washington Post’s On Faith community with 11 articles being published to date. On Faith is a website that encourages informed, eclectic and respectful conversation among specialists and generalists who devote a good part of their lives to understanding and delineating religion’s influence on the life of the world.

He is also featured on the cover of the December issue of “Breakaway” and the November issue of “Christian Single.” In “Breakaway” Matt discusses the “Art of Making Music,” while in “Christian Single” he talks about “Breaking Down Denominational Barriers.”

Underoath Featured On MTV2’s Headbanger Ball

Rodney — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:30:41 +0000

Last week Underoath released the deluxe edition of their new project “Lost In The Sound Of Separation”. The original project came out on September 2nd. This new version features the original CD, a 40 plus-minute DVD about the making of the record, a 56 page black cloth covered book, two sawblade die-cut 10-inch vinyl LPs, a deluxe four-fold box to hold it all and autographs by everyone in the band. Plus, this past Saturday they were featured on MTV2’s Headbangers Ball.

They talked about the recording process for this new project. Here’s a snap shot of what they had to say to MTV2.


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