My week at the Gospel Music Association |
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| Mark Gersmehl, Whiteheart | ||
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| Brian White & Justice |
As we were visiting with Mike from Justice before the luncheon, I received a bit of unintentional spiritual
wisdom. As we talked about how a little overwhelming this whole
week was, he said, "This isn't real life. Real life starts tomorrow
when I go back to fixing copiers." The kingdom of God is not so
much in the highs and spiritually exciting (like this week), but
truly in the sometimes humdrum everyday life of work and relationships.
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| Billy Smiley and Heather Miller | ||
Heather Miller, just signed on KMG Records, is young exciting new solo artist, who's soon to be released first album entitled, Once Upon A Time, include the singles, "Lovely Jesus" and Do You Know."
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| The Normals |
The Normals (Andy Osenga on lead vocals and guitar, Clayton Daily on bass, and Mark Lockett on lead guitar) hail from Normal, IL (duh!). (Interestingly,
their road manager Cason Cooley is from Wichita.) There new Forefront CD due out next August (tentatively titled Better Than This) will attract fans of Jars Of Clay, Toad The Wet Sprocket, etc.
We entered the Ryman Auditorium for the Word Distribution (Myrrh) concert tonight not expecting what greeted us: a card on which was written the lyrics for three songs from the _Jesus Record_, fastened to a cassette tape of those same three songs, all cuts from the project. And then we saw it, the last thing on our program but not mentioned at all in our GMA schedule booklet, "Special Performance from the new Rich Mullins project, the _Jesus Record_, by Ashley Cleveland." The program began and rapidly progressed through some excellent acts (outstanding performance by BURLAP TO CASHMERE), and included some of the songs from Michael W. Smith's new project, _Exodus_, which is a collection of praise songs, some of which were written by Michael, and performed by various artists. As this portion of the show came to an end, Michael came to the microphone alone with his guitar. He said that as he was finishing up his project he had been trying to decide which song HE would like to perform on it, and was having a hard time. He said he was going down the road and decided to listen to some music of a friend of his--at this point he began wiping away tears, and said he hoped he could get through this--he said he was listening to "I See You," and felt he should end his project with that song. He began playing his guitar and singing, and crying, and after what seemed a very long time everybody else joined in. (We also joined in the crying.) (see Wednesday/Exodus for related info) When the song had ended, he gave a short introduction about the _Jesus Record_, and then called Ashley Cleveland to the stage. Tom Howard, who directed the orchestra which was behind a screen on stage, came forward to play the piano. Ashley simply said, "This is for Mitch McVicker," and sang what must have been very difficult to do, but was beautifully performed. All of us are moved, are awed, are made more aware that God's story is so much greater than our own. We miss this man, but God's presence is felt so strongly here in what he has done that we can only say with Ashley, Jesus - write me into Your story whisper it to me and let me know I'm Yours -S-
Sandy also wanted us to know about the Monday evening edition of Late Night at GMA...
Attempting to attend the This Train showcase last night given at the Ace of Clubs, I handed my friend the map from the GMA booklet and say, "Find out where we're going." She says, "Park here." We get out and start walking, and she says, "I think it's down this way." This is a creepy part of town. It is getting creepier as several blocks walk by. "Something isn't right," I say, "what's the cross road? Let me see the map again." She goes, "Oh, I left it in the car." We are late. We are in a hurry. We don't know where we are going. I am looking at several creepy blocks that stand between us and our map which my friend "left in the car." She sees my face and says, "Don't even start with me! Besides I prayed they wouldn't be playing until we got there, and what's those drums I hear, that's them, I would know those drums anywhere!" The sound of energetic, pounding drums leads us as we approach a building which appears to have no door open to the public. At last, on the far side of the building that faces away from the street and into a narrow alley, we encounter people and sound spilling into the night. We are relieved to see Mark's tall form above the heads of the crowd, bending over the bass as he ends a song we didn't catch. Mark states that the next song was obviously written before they were 'signed,' and starts into "We're Getting Nowhere Fast." This is followed by (although I am not exactly sure of the order!) the song Rich wrote with them, "A Million Years." Mark's bass acrobatics and dry wit are thoroughly entertaining as usual, and he asks 'dancers' to fill the 'go-go' cages for his next number, "Mimes of the Old West." What a sight! these burly guys interpreting for us in cutting-edge 'dance' Mark's music and words written in sympathy for the mimes of history. All this ends, of course, with a rollicking rendition of Mark's very touching love ballad, "Monster Truck..." -S-