Free CDs: Building 429, Todd Agnew

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Eliza Marie

I got my hands on a cou­ple of Todd Agnew’s new CD “Need” and Build­ing 429’s self-titled offer­ing, and I would like to offer them up to High­er Note read­ers. I’m try­ing to get them signed by the artists when they play Cross­roads Church of Den­ver today.
Just e‑mail me at lsomers@denverpost.com
I’ll let you know if you won and will mail them out to you.

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Building 429 constructing lives through music

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Build­ing 429 will be in the Den­ver metro area Fri­day at Cross­roads Church of Den­ver as one of the head­lin­ers for the Promise Remains Tour. Also appear­ing are Todd Agnew, and new­com­ers Kim­ber Ris­ing. Tick­ets are free as part of K‑Love’s lis­ten­er appre­ci­a­tion event. Pho­to spe­cial to The Den­ver Post

“Build­ing is not a noun it’s a verb.” That’s how Jason Roy describes his band’s moniker, Build­ing 429, along with how and why the mem­bers arrived at the name.

“We had 2.5 pages of names down on paper and couldn’t come up with any­thing,” Roy said. “My wife walked in and said, ‘You should do some­thing with Eph­esians 4:29.’ And it was like it hit me right between the eyes.”

Eph 4:29: Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is use­ful for build­ing oth­ers up, as there is a need, so that your words may encour­age those who hear.

“Encour­age those who hear, wow,” Roy explained. “It made me real­ize that I need­ed to change my ‘trash-talk­ing on the bas­ket­ball court men­tal­i­ty.’ There is more to life … to encour­age oth­ers.”

Roy and Build­ing 429 will be encour­ag­ing oth­ers in the Den­ver metro area Fri­day at Cross­roads Church of Den­ver as one of the head­lin­ers for the Promise Remains Tour. Also appear­ing are Todd Agnew, and new­com­ers Kim­ber Ris­ing. Tick­ets are free as part of K‑Love’s lis­ten­er appre­ci­a­tion event.

But it was that trash-talk­ing sports men­tal­i­ty that ran through Roy’s veins that now gives the Chris­t­ian music singer/songwriter per­spec­tive. His ear­ly out­look on life gave way to “dumb deci­sions that messed up” his shot at an NCAA Divi­sion I bas­ket­ball schol­ar­ship.

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Thousand Foot Krutch’s alter ego, FM Static

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Thou­sand Foot Krutch front­man Trevor McNevan per­forms at Faith Bible Chapel in Arva­da as part of the Cre­ation Fes­ti­val: The Tour. The band has toured with KoRn and Sev­en­dust. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

If you like your rock ‘n’ roll on the heavy side with a slice of met­al — Sev­en­dust and KoRn — then Thou­sand Foot Krutch is a band you need to Google. And if that’s not your style — a lit­tle pop­pish punk alter­na­tive suits you more — try FM Sta­t­ic on for size. The com­mon threads of these two bands are singer/songwriter Trevor McNevan and drum­mer Steve Augus­tine.

It’s a case of duel iden­ti­ties, but it allows McNevan and Augus­tine to explore their musi­cal inter­ests with two cur­rent CDs — TFK’s “Wel­come to the Mas­quer­ade” and FM Static’s “Dear Diary” — that are as dif­fer­ent as a mocha lat­te with whipped cream and a dou­ble espres­so dark.

The for­ma­tion of FM Sta­t­ic in 2004 came out of McNevan’s song­writ­ing for oth­er bands that are not as jagged around the edges at Thou­sand Foot Krutch (TFK), which McNevan start­ed while in high school in Cana­da.

“FM Sta­t­ic was an expres­sion of myself,” said McNevan of the soft­er side of rock. “And Steve also likes that music so we decid­ed to explore and express our­selves in pop/rock. It’s more like sum­mer rock, the lighter side, and it’s been a lot of fun.”

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Free music: B. Reith

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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B. Rei­th, who is tour­ing with Cre­ation Fes­ti­val: The Tour, hip-hops his way on stage at Faith Bible Chapel in Arva­da on Fri­day. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

To help pro­mote B. Rei­th’s new CD “Now is Not For­ev­er” the label is offer­ing four songs for free on Amazon.com. Check it out. Toby­Mac has tak­en this young hip-hop, rock artist under his wing and has him on his Gotee Records. He raps in the style of T‑Mac, inter­spersed with har­monies and a rock beat. Right now, I’m cruis­ing with the beat on “Go On” as I type this. “Mess” reminds me of a hip Jason Mraz. For FREE click here.

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Skillet’s “Monster” No. 1 on AOL music

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Skil­let, play­ing at Heav­en­Fest in Brighton, is find­ing suc­cess with “Mon­ster.” Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

Skil­let, the hard-rock­ing Chris­t­ian music band, gar­nered the No. 1 ranked video on AOL Music. In case you missed the band at Heav­en­Fest. Check out the video .

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Bengals TE Utecht gets a different reception

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Ben Utecht, a tight end for the Cincin­nati Ben­gals, has just released a self-titled CD, and describes his music as a Chris­t­ian fusion of pas­sion­ate vocals (think Josh Groban) with a con­tem­po­rary side to it. Pho­to spe­cial to The Den­ver Post

Being injured is noth­ing new to Cincin­nati Ben­gals tight end Ben Utecht, who missed Sun­day’s game against the Bron­cos with a con­cus­sion. But what Utecht does know is that good things result­ed from his past injury — a sports her­nia his senior year at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta led to him being signed by the Indi­anapo­lis Colts, and because of his Indy con­nec­tions some “amaz­ing” doors are open­ing for him. Not only in foot­ball, but in the music indus­try. Utecht, a bud­ding Chris­t­ian musi­cian, recent­ly released his first CD, a self-titled soft rock wor­ship record on San­di Pat­ty’s new label, Sty­los Records. In a Q&A ses­sion, Utecht explains his jour­ney from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta to the Super Bowl to Nashville.

Q: Com­ing out of col­lege, you were not draft­ed.

A: No, not draft­ed. I was sup­pose to be from 15th to 42nd pick and I had a seri­ous injury my senior year, a pret­ty bad sports her­nia, and it took me out of the draft. It was crush­ing, and I did­n’t know what was going to hap­pen.

But it’s real­ly one of my mir­a­cle sto­ries, because two months pri­or to the draft I spoke at one of these Ath­letes in Action events with Tony Dungy. We both went to the same col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta. I remem­ber get­ting up before every­body and razz­ing him a lit­tle bit, say­ing, “You know coach, us alums have to stick togeth­er so if you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to draft me go right ahead. Feel free.” And he got up and said, “We would love to but we just draft­ed Dal­las Clark.” And this is no lie, then he said in front of every­body, “But I promise you if for some rea­son you slip through the cracks, which I don’t think you will, but if you do I’ll be the first to call.”

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“Idol” Phil Stacey’s soulful release

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Phil Stacey was a music min­is­ter at a Den­ver Metro area church right after he grad­u­at­ed from col­lege. Pho­to cour­tesy of Prov­i­dent Label Group

Yes, that was Phil Stacey you saw on the 16th Street Mall in Den­ver a few weeks ago. The for­mer Naval offi­cer and an “Amer­i­can Idol” final­ist was in town pro­mot­ing his Reunion Records debut “Into the Light” (Prov­i­dent Label Group).

Stacey, who served as a Chris­t­ian music min­is­ter for a Den­ver Metro area church right out of col­lege, teamed with leg­endary Chris­tain music pro­duc­er Brown Ban­nis­ter (Steven Cur­tis Chap­man, Amy Grant, Man­disa — anoth­er “Idol” star) to cre­ate a soul­ful, pop CD that fea­tures strong vocals and insight­ful song­writ­ing.

“You’re Not Shak­en” is a mes­sage of hope and faith for all those going through val­leys in these tough times and shows off his pow­er­ful vocals. The title track, “Into the Light” reveals Stacey’s pop side and encour­ages his lis­ten­ers to “step out and reach for God’s hand,” to “find what you’ve been look­ing for.”

The for­mer Naval offi­cer’s patri­ot­ic side comes out in “Old Glo­ry,” a song he wrote after per­form­ing at a ball and see­ing the Amer­i­can flag fly­ing on a ship in the Flori­da waters. Stacey’s key­board skills and vocal range shine in the “acoustic” ver­sion of the song that Stacey said gets the tune back to its orig­i­nal form — he wrote it while sit­ting at the piano. As he tells it, the song saw many renedi­tions (drums, gui­tars) when he was in the Navy, but this piece is much suit­ed to the bare-bones edi­tion and is sure to bring a sense of pride to many Amer­i­cans. “Her strength can’t be found in her col­ors … her col­ors are found in you and me.”

“Whether we agree on pol­i­tics or not, we can agree on the great­ness of the Unit­ed States,” Stacey said in a release. Ahem.

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Seth Smith’s Christian faith shows up on ballfield

Posted on August 23, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Seth Smith relies on his faith to get him through the mine­field of pro­fes­sion­al base­ball. Den­ver Post pho­to by John Ley­ba.

A tow­er­ing home run by Seth Smith on Sun­day pushed across the win­ning run in the Rock­ies’ 4–2 vic­to­ry over the San Fran­cis­co Giants in a cru­cial game in the Nation­al League wild-card race.

But more impor­tant to Smith is his faith. When Smith approach­es the plate, DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak” blares from the loud­speak­ers at Coors Field.

“I want­ed to pick a song that peo­ple knew,” said Smith of his way of show­ing his faith while play­ing major-league base­ball. “It’s not my favorite song, but if you are a Chris­t­ian you know ‘Jesus Freak.’ ”

As a big-league play­er the temp­ta­tions are noto­ri­ous, but Smith’s strong faith is what grounds him on the play­ground of pro­fes­sion­al sports.

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MercyMe helps Rockies celebrate Faith Day

Posted on August 23, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Mer­cyMe lead singer Bart Mil­lard is a base­ball fan and has helped major-league teams in their Faith Day cel­e­bra­tions. On Sun­day, the band per­formed before a sell-out crowd at Coors Field. File pho­tos by Eliza (Liz) Marie Somers

Mer­cyMe helped the Rock­ies cel­e­brate their fifth annu­al Faith
Day today at Coors Field.

The mul­ti­ple Dove Award win­ners enter­tained the sec­ond-largest crowd at Coors Field this sea­son after the Rock­ies beat the San Fran­cis­co Giants 4–2 in a cru­cial game in the Nation­al League wild-card race.

The Texas-based band basked in the hot sum­mer evening while play­ing such songs as “So Long Self,” “Word of God Speak,” “Bring the Rain,” “Amaz­ing Grace,” and its sig­na­ture song “I Can Only Imag­ine.” A nice sur­prise was Mer­cyMe’s ren­di­tion of Tom Pet­ty’s “Won’t Back Down.” Lead singer Bart Mil­lard intro­duced the song by say­ing, “I don’t know what was going through his mind when he wrote this song, but I know what it means to me.”

Gonna stand my ground, wont be turned around
And Ill keep this world from drag­gin me down

Last year, Rock­ies pitch­er Aaron Cook spoke to the crowd about his faith. Cook, who pos­sess­es a strong faith, injured his pitch­ing shoul­der Fri­day and was unavail­able before the game.

After the con­cert, Bart com­ment­ed that the crowd at Coors was the largest the band has played at MLB’s Faith Days.

For more on Mer­cyMe check out the blog I did ear­li­er this year.

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Bar­ry Graul of Mer­cyMe.

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HeavenFest: Can you spot yourself?

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Shel­by Ben­nett, 18, left, and Michelle Archule­ta, 17, drove down from Casper, Wyo., to enjoy a week­end of music — first at Heav­en­Fest on Sat­ur­day and at the Warped Tour on Sun­day. The music fans were up front and cen­ter for one of their favorite bands, Kut­less. Pho­tos by Eliza Marie Somers

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MercyMe asks for prayers

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Mer­cyMe’s bus was involved in a fatal acci­dent this past week in Indi­ana. Pho­to spe­cial to The Den­ver Post

Mer­cyMe is ask­ing its fans for their prayers for all involved in a fatal acci­dent this past week in Indi­ana. The 19-year-old dri­ver of the car that pulled into the path of the band’s bus died on Wednes­day, mark­ing the fourth death in the acci­dent that took place late Sat­ur­day night. No one on the bus was seri­ous­ly injured.

The Fort Wayne Jour­nal Gazette has the specifics on the crash. Click here for the link.

Mer­cyMe will play at Coors Field on Aug. 23 as part of the Rock­ies Faith Day.

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Skillet “melts” fan’s face off

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Skil­let lead singer John Coop­er and the band high­light Heav­en­Fest with an ener­getic per­for­mance not seen since Toby­Mac came to town. Pho­tos by Eliza Marie Somers

Skil­let rocked the house this past week­end at Heav­en­Fest at North­ern Hills Chris­t­ian Church in Brighton, enlist­ing a cel­loist and vio­lin­ist for its lat­est gig and show­ing the crowd clas­si­cal string musi­cians can head-bang with the best.

The Ten­nessee-based band lit up the crowd of close to 40,000 fans with “Comatose,” “Whis­pers in the Dark,” “The Last Night” and its new sin­gle “Mon­ster.” Key­boardist Korey Coop­er, who took up the gui­tar only a few years ago, stole the stage by show­ing off her true rock­er side with wild licks on the axe while danc­ing around the stage. As one young fan said, “She rocked so hard she melt­ed my face off.”

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Korey Coop­er

Lead singer and bassist John Coop­er took it down a notch with a pow­er bal­lad with Dis­ci­ple’s Kevin Young as they sang Bon Jovi “I’ll Be There For You.” Drum­mer Jen Ledger took a break from behind the skins for a lit­tle solo work and gui­tarist Ben Kasi­ca was no slouch fir­ing up the left-side of the stage with his skill.

Not since Toby­Mac hit town with his Win­ter Jam tour last Novem­ber has Den­ver’s Chris­t­ian music scene been stood on its ear.

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40,000 at HeavenFest

Posted on August 9, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Fans con­verge at Heav­en­Fest at North­ern Hills Chris­t­ian Church in Brighton on Sat­ur­day. Offi­cial num­bers will not known until lat­er this week. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

Heav­en­Fest in Brighton drew close to 40,000 fans this week­end, accord­ing to a Brighton police offi­cer at the site. The Chris­t­ian music fes­ti­val at North­ern Hills Chris­t­ian Church exceed­ed orga­niz­ers’ expec­ta­tions so much so they enlist­ed the help of a neigh­bor­ing farmer, who allowed over­flow park­ing on his land. If not for his kind­ness orga­niz­ers said they would have had to turn away fans.

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Third Day headlines HeavenFest

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Mac Pow­ell and Third Day are back in town at Sat­ur­day’s Heav­en­Fest in Brighton. Tick­ets can be pur­chased at King Soop­ers or heavenfest.com. Pho­tos by Eliza Marie Somers

Gram­my Award win­ners Third Day will head­line this week­end’s Heav­en­Fest at North­ern Hills Church in Brighton. The fes­ti­val fea­tures 80 bands on eight stages along with inter­ac­tive areas. Below is a sto­ry on Third Day when it played a char­i­ty event for Cher­ry Hills Com­mu­ni­ty Church.

Faith and fame. That’s what Third Day has accu­mu­lat­ed in near­ly 18 years of per­form­ing in front of small church groups to large are­na and sta­di­um audi­ences. But it’s not the fame and mon­ey that has kept this three-time Gram­my-win­ning band togeth­er.

“Friend­ships” is what acoustic gui­tarist Mike Lee says is the glue to this band that has its roots in Atlanta.

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Former addict fronts Seventh Day Slumber

Posted on August 4, 2009 by Eliza Marie
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Joseph Rojas, cen­ter, tried to com­mit sui­cide while a cocaine addict. Today he is the lead singer for Sev­enth Day Slum­ber, which will per­form at Heav­en­fest on Sat­ur­day at North­ern Hills Church in Brighton. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers, The Den­ver Post

Alco­holics, drug addicts, liars, rob­bers, peo­ple who aim­less­ly wan­der the streets. We all have known some­one like this, and if not, we’ve hur­ried­ly walked past peo­ple beg­ging in the shad­ows of our exis­tence.

Joseph Rojas, lead singer for Sev­enth Day Slum­ber, was one of those peo­ple. By age 14, he was using cocaine, and by the time he was 22, he had a $400-a-day cocaine habit. That habit put him on the brink of death. This is his sto­ry, a sto­ry he will bring to Heav­en­fest on Sat­ur­day (noon-10 p.m.) at Brighton’s North­ern Hills Church, and it’s much bet­ter sto­ry in his own words.

“I’m a work in progress,” said Rojas, 35. “I make a lot of mis­takes still, and I’m not where I want to be in my rela­tion­ship with God, but I’m nowhere near where I was.”
Where he was, was on his mother’s floor hav­ing a heart attack, try­ing to com­mit sui­cide.

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