"Mineral: A Journey To The Past"

Today, I started looking at and listening to some of the older (when I mean older, about 12-13 years ago) music in my collection. During my perusal, I came across Mineral, a band from Austin, Texas during the mid to late 90's. If you've never heard of them before, do yourself a favor and check them out. Along with Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, Jawbreaker, The Gets Up Kids, Texas Is The Reason, Boys Life, Christie Front Drive, and numerous others, Mineral took part in the emo scene of the 90's. While that, in itself, might peak the interest of some of you reading, that' snot what I want to write about. Instead, I want to take a moment and write briefly about how the music that these individuals created affected my life. Really, what their music has meant to me.

I remember the first time I heard The Power of Failing; it was during the summer of 1998, a year after it released. During that summer, I was doing summer missions, working at weekly camps around the state of Louisiana. At one of the camps, a worker, whose name I forget, gave me a tape. She possibly gave it to me after I mentioned Sunny Day Real Estate or another band that I liked. One one side, it had Mineral's The Power of Failing. The other side carried songs by Christie Front Drive. Needless to say, as I drove my 1996 Mazda Protege, which I still have, across the state, the tape continually played, along with some Deftones, Blindside, Bruce McCulloch, and others. Quick side note, if you have never heard Bruce McCulloch's (of Kids in the Hall fame) debut solo album Shame-Based Man, do yourself a favor and find it somewhere. I remember finding this album, finally, at a Barnes and Noble in Baton Rouge. Anyways, back to Mineral.

For some reason, The Power of Failing resonated very strongly with me, and it still does. The vulnerability in Chris Simpson's voice as he sings about humbleness, failing, love, desire, heaven, a more innocent time, and other emotions combined with the music fluctuations from all out feedback with pounding drums to swooning basses and lead riffs create an atmosphere that conveys the strongest of emotions in an encapsulated package. For some reason, the nature of the recording also helps. It's less than polished sound adds a mood of urgentness that is only exasperated by the combination of vocals and instruments.

I could go through this album, song by song, and point out what each one has meant to me, or what it means to me now. I don't want to do that though. Instead, I just want to briefly mention three songs. I'll do the same for their second album.

"Slower," the third song on the album, is driven by a four chord progression that carries the listener through the verses where Simpson sings of denial and facades that people put on to impress others. Moving to the chorus, the second guitar enters, disjointed, and brutal, somehow slapping this mask off the speaker. The song carries through a second verse and chorus, still littered with the disjunction found earlier. It ends with a melodic movement that dies down before a brutal assault of feedback and crushing guitars transcend the speakers and let the listener know that things are screwed up "when you wake up in the morning with a smile on your face because you know you lied yourself to sleep to make it better." As a side note, I really like the harmonics in this song too.

"If I Could," was (note the past tense) the song of a semi-hopeless romantic. It's always been a running joke that Emo is for whiny boys who seem to have lost, or never gotten, the girl. To a certain extent, yes, but a lot of music is about this. Anyways, this song doesn't really carry the weight with me that is used to, but I still like it. Somehow, Simpson moves the focal point of the song from a guy watching his romantic interest from a far, admiring her and wanting to tell her how he feels, into a song about the ability to praise God for allowing him to "live and breathe and wake each day." You know, this sentiment still carries weight. As I get older, I do realize how much of a blessing it is to wake up and spend time with the ones you love, including Zoe. So I guess this song still carries a little weight with me.

Finally, "Take The Picture Now," the ninth song on the album, really touches the spiritual aspects. To me, it's a hymn and prayer that needs to be sung at the top of your lungs. Beginning with a melodic bass that gives way to guitars, a drum roll, and vocals, "Take The Picture Now" paints a picture, albeit, the speaker's dream, of heaven. I could sit here and ramble on and on about what these lyrics and music mean to me, but it might be wiser to just print the lyrics here.

there are blue skies in my dreams and laughter that seems unending there are green grass fields there and happiness and hope for tomorrow my cup is full and my heart spills awkward and embarrassing blood onto white-golden streets and i am unashamed of the stains my steps leave tears stream down my cheeks only to meet their redeemer and be wiped away and there is joy ah there is joy.

There are from the Mineral lyric page at Crank Records. All of their lyrics are here. Anyways, this song leads me into their second album, EndSerenading.

This album still amazes me. The melodic vocal arrangements, time signature shifts, mood shifts, and over power that EndSerenading creates gives me goose bumps to this day. The production on this album is better, and it lets the music covey itself in a beautiful way. I don't remember when I bought this album, but I am sure I bought it, ordered it, as soon as it released. Anyways, let me delve into a few songs here to give you an idea of its feelings.

I guess I'll start off with the one that really gets me. "ALetter" is the seventh song on the album. I believe this song really gets me because it reminds me of my grandfather. Now, it hits me harder than it did when I first heard it. The speaker in the song is reminiscing about his grandfather or father. He sees a picture of the man returning home from war with a woman (wife) on his arm and a tattoo. The speaker even says that the face has been "weathered by places and days I'd never seen," and never will possibly. The song then switches to the speaker "reading and rereading the birthday card" he received when he was seven. It reminds him of the times they spent together.

I can say honestly, that this song almost brings me to tears, even now. You know it's been over ten years, and I still can't shake the fact that never did see my grandfather before he died. I remember being at my grandparent's house, being asked if I wanted to go see him, and not going. I was in college, so I should have been able to handle it, but I wasn't. On my way home from an orientation, I believe, for my summer mission trip, I had a premonition when I stopped to eat, at Burger King, in Natchitoches, LA that he had dies. When I got to my parent's house, saw a message on the machine, and listened to it, it didn't surprise me. Now, I regret all of the missed opportunities I had while he was sick.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a historical autobiography, but this topic gnaws at me more than I would like, especially now that I am getting older. I can sit here and say I would have done this, I would have done that, but would I? I don't know. Let me close this subject with one more image that have of that whole ordeal. I don't remember when this was, which time it was when my grandfather was in the hospital, what year, or any of that. All I remember is this. Sitting in a chair across from the hospital bed, I watched as my grandmother held my grandfather in her arms and stroked his head gently. At that moment, I knew what love was. They were married 50 (or 51) years, and they loved each other very much. My parents are about to celebrate 40, and I'm about to celebrate 10, in two years. Hopefully I can mature enough to grasp and experience the love they had for one another. That's not to say I don't love Melissa, but I am not to that completely unconditional stage that I have seen, felt, and experienced with my grandmother.

Ok, I'm not going to go back to the album, but I will say this. The last three songs are great hymns and praise songs, just like "Take the Picture Now."

After breaking up, Chris Simpson and Jeremy Gomez went on to form the Gloria Record, while Gabe Wiley went to Pop Unknown. I still remember buying the Gloria Record's first EP, at Best Buy or Blockbuster Music in Shreveport. I bought, went to Barnes and Noble, with my CD player (remember almost 10 years ago) and played it while reading. Once, when some friends and I saw Pop Unknown in Lake Charles, I believe, we ran into a scene kid who kind of freaked me out. Most of time, true scene kids freak me out; they get so obsessed with what they are experiencing that they take things to the extreme and act weird, even if they aren't on drugs. Anyways, this kid told us that during the dead of winter, granted it's Lake Charles, he would roll the windows down in his car, blast his A/C, and play Mineral just to really feel the music. To me, this was crazy.

Another story, after I met Melissa, we took a road trip to Dallas, actually Denton, to see Gloria Record at Rubber Gloves. Boy, was that a night. The opening band, Antarctica, ex-Christie Front Drive members, played forever, and the Gloria Record didn't play a long set, as usual when I saw them. Sometimes, it felt like a waste to travel so far to see them, but half of the fun of going to shows is the trip. Anyways, I remember driving home from the show. My friend Tim drove most of the way, from what I remember, and he left sun flower seeds everywhere. We stopped at my parent's house on the way through Bossier, we made it home to Monroe, after picking up doughnuts, and Melissa had to go to work at Sound Shop. Was it worth it? Yeah.

Now, to all of you who experienced Mineral with me, you're welcome for me introducing you to them. If memory serves me correctly, I showed them to you after that fateful summer of '98. Debate me and set me straight if I am wrong.

I really wanted to add a picture of my grandfather, but I couldn't find it, until today. It is of him during WW II, sitting on a snow bank, with a drink in his hand, and a sign behind him pointing to Paradise. Here's a picture of Juliette celebrating PaPi's birthday last week.

Summer Music

Alright, I thought I would make this post semi-educational and fun. I've really been listening to good new and old albums this summer, and I thought I would share a few with you here.










mewithoutYou--It's all crazy! It's all false! It's all a dream! It's alright!

Ok, I must start off by saying that have gravitated towards about 4-5 songs on this album. That's usually how it goes with mewithoutYou and me. When I have listened through the entire album, I have enjoyed it. However, there are a few songs that truly stand out to me.

"Every Thought a Thought of You"
Really, this song really grabs me from the beginning, the keys and drums leading into the vocals. As with a lot of the band's songs, this one really hits me as a praise song. I'm not one for praise and worship music, instead, I gravitate towards songs that praise God but deviate from the Sunday morning contemporary worship songs. A great opening song.

"The Fox, The Crow, and The Cookie"
This is Melissa's favorite song on the album. It's a whimsical song that tells the story of a fox who tries to steal a treat from the baker's cart. Instead, the crow, seeing the baker traveling throughout the town, swoops down and steals a treat. He succeeds, and the baker uses "most unfriendly words, that the village children had not yet heard." The fox goes to the crow to ask for a piece of the treat because the fox distracted the baker. This plead failed, so the fox plays off of the crow's ego. He asks to hear the crow sing. The crow, being boastful, obliges and drops the cake. At this point, the orchestration really creates a vision of the fox and crow struggling for the treat. The video at the end of this section is a live performance of this song.

"The Angel of Death Came to David's Room"
Starting off quietly, with an acoustic guitar and vocals, it relays a fictitious story of Davis being visited by the Angel of Death. David, of course, tells the Angel that his time has not come, yet the Angel asks David where all his relatives and ancestors are. He says he slew Goliath, but the Angel doesn't care. What really stands out to me is the idea of this song. Even the mightiest of men will ultimately die, whether it's painful or solemn, they will die.

"The King Beetle on a Coconut Estate"
This song is my favorite one on the album. It's a fable that starts out mellow and increases to a booming crescendo. The beetles see a fire set by the workers on the coconut estate. The beetle king summons his men and asks them to travel to the "great light" and return with a report. The first volunteer is a professor, who says he will "be back both successful and proud." When he makes it back though, his wings have been burned and he has to crawl towards the king. The king, frustrated, sweetens the deal with a ring. The next volunteer, a lieutenant, steps out and says he will "earn the king's favor and one day all he [the king] has will be mine." He also returns defeated. Neither the science nor brute strength could determine what the great light is. after and orchestral interlude, the full band kicks in, and the king, at this point, becomes frustrated and says he will exam the light himself. He gathers his kids and tells them that "you've all called me your dad, but your true dad's not me. I lay next to your mom, and your forms were conceived. Your father's the light within all that you see." The light, obviously, has a relationship to God. The king, through faith, must be "utterly changed into fire." What really makes this song beautiful is the orchestration.

"Allah, Allah, Allah"
Plain and simple, a praise song. I read some reviews of this album that said some of the songs sound like campfire songs. Well, this one does. I really love this song for its simplicity and honest nature. Also, I love the fact that I can play it in the car and Juliette will sing along with it, almost word for word.










Rancid--Let the Dominoes Fall

Nothing beats a good punk album during the summer. There's not much that I could say about that band that probably hasn't been said before. So, I will just provide a quick anecdote. Recently, I've been listening to the CD in the car with Juliette, sans the songs with cursing. One day I told her that we were listening to Rancid. Since then, she recognizes the song, "L.A. River," and any other Rancid song I put on. Two days ago, Melissa, Juliette, and I were driving somewhere. I asked Juliette who was playing, she said, "Rancid." Then, I asked her if she liked Rancid. She said, "I like Rancid." Well, Melissa just cringed. This is coming from the three year old that like The Showdown at two.

The album has some really good songs: "Last One to Die," "Up To No Good," "Disconnected" (a good metaphor for the U.S), "New Orleans," "Civilian Ways" (about Tim's brother), "The Bravest Kids," "Skull City," "L.A. River," and all of the rest. The album is great. If you've never listened to Rancid, check em out. If you love a good bass player, you really need to check them out. Matt Freeman is one of, if not, the best I have ever heard.


It's getting late. I'll try to post a few more albums tomorrow.

It's Been A While

Well, it's been about 9 months since I have posted anything, if anyone has read what I've posted so far. Right now, I think I'm going to turn this blog into a mixture of different things.

1. My work for graduate school. While I'm reading, I will post my thoughts and ideas here.

2. A place to keep you up to date on my music with Via Delarosa.

3. My family and happening with them. For more in depth discussions on this topic, go here (Melissa's blog).

Well, I completed mixing a rough version of a new song tonight, cut the yard, and am about to start reading A Lesson Before Dying. Tomorrow, I will have a more in depth post.



Juliette helping me mow the yard. Now if the little plastic toy would only cut grass for real!

The past few times we've been to Wal Mart, Juliette has pointed out this little lawn mower, that supposedly blows bubbles while she mows. We haven't experienced the joyful flow of bubbles, yet. Anyways, on our last family trip to the big blue box, Uncle Chad came with us. While Melissa was filling a prescription, we decided to take Juliette to the toys. Once we made it to the back of the store, she looked around, as usual, and I pointed her towards the $45 Little Tikes basketball goal. Her friend in West Monroe has one. I told her, "If you can carry the goal to the front of the store, Mommy and I will buy it for you." Well, she jumped at this proposition and preceeded to try and remove the oversized box and its contents from the shelf. I helped her place the box on the ground then restated my proposal. Uncle Chad, seeing Juliette struggle with the box, advised her to push the box. She tried, and failed. Then, Chad showed her how to push it forward. Needless to say, a few minutes later, we arrived at the front of the store, with the goal. However, when Mommy arrived, she refused to buy the goal, and I had to return the goal to its proper place on the store shelf, at the back of the store. Mommy did allow Juliette to buy the lawn mower though, and she was happy.

You can purchase our debut EP here.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Here, you will find an essay I worked on last summer. I tried to get it published; how ever, I did not have any success. At some point, I will go through and rework it to hopefully resubmit it to a journal again. In a week or two, I will post an essay on The Blood Brother's "The Salesman, Denver Max" and its relationship to Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" For now, enjoy this essay on O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."

Equality in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

During my first reading of O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” I struggled with the ubiquitous nature of sin, from the children’s disrespectful nature to The Misfit’s blatant killing of the family, which pervades the work. The grandmother’s “minor” missteps that undercut her grasp of true salvation puzzled me the most. While she continuously laments the fact that good individuals have become few and far between and perpetuates the belief that she, in fact, lives a good life that will see her into heaven, she reveals herself as one of the “soul[s] in this green world of God’s that you can [not] trust” (122). Obviously, one could argue that she receives salvation and entrance into heaven at the end of the story: she “half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky” (132). However, the crux of this salvation really comes from the fact that the grandmother, while putting on airs, does not attain salvation until seconds before she dies. Her sin causes her death, and her salvation does not come through her hypocritical ways.

I could have just concluded with the message of salvation coming “through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). If I placed the story aside and left it, I would have missed the more important point: sin, no matter the severity, causes death. Upon first reading, I did not grasp the equality of sin in relation to death. When I discovered Sufjan Stevens’ song, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” I started to realize that I had missed a deeper meaning hidden within O’Connor’s story. Stevens constructs his song from the Misfit’s point of view, until the final stanza, which comes from the grandmother’s. Placing both characters’ points of view in the same song, sung in the same voice, Stevens’, lead me to reexamine the story with his lyrics in mind.

Stevens’ song opens with a stanza told from The Misfit’s point of view. He sings, “Once in the backyard, / she was once like me,/ she was once like me.” Here, the Misfit compares the grandmother to himself, and he goes on to say, after he murders the family, that “they were once like me,” thus saying the same about the rest of family. The second stanza continues in the same way, describing the murder itself: “Hold to your gun, man,/ and put off all your peace,/ put off all the beast.” The second stanza, in closing, repeats The Misfit’s sentiment that “[s]he was once like me.” As the third stanza opens, Stevens switches perspectives to the grandmother. She says, “I once was better./I put off all my grief./I put of all my grief.” Of course, this matches with the grandmother’s attitude in O’Connor’s story. She perceives herself as a superior individual to those around her, even saying she cannot trust anyone because no good individuals remain. At the end of the song, Stevens’ grandmother goes to hell, not heaven. Of course, Stevens does not make this the central argument. He makes it abundantly clear that part of the message he receives from the work, and the one that he wants to convey, centers on the biblical teaching that “all have sinned and fall[en] short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Tied in with this idea, O’Connor also presents the reader with the message from Romans 6:23: “the wages of sin is death.”

Upon rereading O’Connor’s story, with this new focus, I discovered the same idea. The Misfit, while a dubious character, speaks truthfully in his conversation with the grandmother, especially when it comes to the idea that all have sinned and require punishment. When the grandmother asks The Misfit about his incarceration, he responds by telling her, “I found out the crime don’t matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it is you done and just be punished for it” (130-31). Through this statement, The Misfit draws a concrete correlation to both passages in Romans. In saying that “the crime don’t matter,” he tells the grandmother that “all have sinned.” When one becomes “punished for it,” his or her sin causes death. Before the grandmother’s ultimate demise, The Misfit poses one final question to her. He asks, “Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain’t punished at all?” (131) By asking this question, he restates the same ideas proposed earlier, and he causes us to view his sins as a criminal and murderer and the grandmother’s minimal sins as equably punishable by death.

Ironically enough, O’Connor presents us with more correlations to Romans 6:23, in the most unlikely place: the children’s names. O’Connor places the number six throughout the story, five to six graves, six columns on the house, and six family members. She also gives us the numbers twenty, “twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city” (118), and three, men in the car and shots that kill the grandmother. However, these numbers do not correlate into a reasonable pattern. The only pattern that works presents itself in the children’s names. To begin with, John Wesley contains both six and twenty three in his middle name. Wesley contains six letters, and “w” is the twenty third letter in the alphabet. While this may appear to be a coincidence, it gains more credibility when compared to June Star’s name. June, of course, is the sixth month of the year. During June, John the Baptist’s birthday is observed, on June 24^th. Part of this celebration also takes place on Midsummer’s Eve, June 23^rd. June’s middle name, Star, relates to the thought that John the Baptist represents a morning star to Christ. He came before Christ to prepare the way: “I [John] am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him. . . He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:28-30). It could also be added that John the Baptist relates to John Wesley through their respective names.

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor presents us with two extremes of sin. On one hand, the grandmother, according to our hierarchical ranking of sin, appears to be good, or at least a minimal sinner. The Misfit, on the other hand, commits murder, one of the highest ranking sins on our scale. However, O’Connor informs us that neither one of the individuals, no matter the difference we may see in them, can escape the punishment of sin. She shows us that death comes to a liar the same as it comes to a murderer.

Works Cited

Life application Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997.O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,

1971. 117-133.

Stevens, Sufjan. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Seven Swans. Sounds Familyre, 2004.