Dryvetyme Onlyne

Mute Math & Eisley
Warehouse Live!
Houston, TX
November 11, 2007

UPDATE!! This review can be found as a part of this week’s edition of Burnside Writers Collective. Head over there & show them your appreciation for posting my material.

I spent 6 years of my life working in an establishment that most patrons would typically refer to as a Christian bookstore. Now, we sold more than books — we sold all manner of Christian-themed paraphernalia, from the tawdry and mundane to the over-hyped and glitzy. Whether we were peddling the hot-selling pieces of cutesy plastic (affectionately named “Jesus Junk” and “Christian Crap”), promoting the latest and greatest Study Bible, or pimping the newest and hottest names in the realm of fiction, non-fiction (do the names LaHaye or Lucado ring a bell?), or Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), there hasn’t been a trend in the past decade of Contemporary Cultural Christianity (CCC) that I haven’t personally read about, learned about, or sold. And while I admittedly entered this magical world of Christian retail with the purest of intentions and gobs of naivety, a naivety that was crushed to bits long ago, I still hold this place in my heart for the people and products I served for so long.

Thus, if there’s one trend that has grabbed both CCM and CCC by their respective throats and has yet to let go, it would be the penchant for taking any and every possible marketing and style trend from mainstream culture and tweaking it just enough so that it’s safe for parents and kids to enjoy. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to make products that entire families are able to enjoy, there is something inherently shady and tasteless with stealing/borrowing/co-opting the intellectual property rights and artistic vision of another in order to clean it up and pass it off as your own. Yet, this is exactly why CCM and CCC have done for at least the last 15-20 years: see where the musical, literary, and general entertainment winds are blowing and soften them up enough to sell to Christians who are afraid to leave their cultural ghettos. Specifically, in this insane search for cheap cultural relevance, CCM has sought to promote singers, groups, and bands that, once you get past their sugary-safe lyrics, are mere shells of the mainstream acts they’re attempting to mimic. However, when one of these artists seeks out a wider audience for their music, they regularly maligned for “crossing over” and/or selling out (their soul) for money and temporal fame in the “secular” market.

Nevertheless, the past 5 years have seen a crop of artists rise from the outskirts of CCM and declare that while they are firmly Christian, they desire to make stunning music and bring that music to a wider audience, an audience that accepts their material. You see, for whatever reason — lyrics that are less overt with their meaning, a sound that’s not easily marketed on a Christian-specific radio station, or an unwillingness to play CCM’s game — these acts never found a place for their band within the confines of CCM and their fans love them for it. So, on Sunday evening, November 11th, 2007, I had the opportunity to see two of the bands that better exemplify this movement take the stage together: Eisley and Mute Math. Continue reading “Mute Math & Eisley - Live in Houston, TX!”