I wanted to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed reading your blog.  As you know I’ve been reading it since you started it several years ago.  I’ve laughed at some of the posts, gone out and bought cds as a result of some of the posts (Eric Reed’s Mercy and Grace project), questioned my own outlook on a number of issues…

 I’ve also the comments section of the blog as well but I’ve noticed a huge deterioration in many of the [commenters’] posts and I was wondering what your take on that is and if you have noticed it as well.  It really seems that many of posts are consistently showing a real lack of respect for the opinions of others.  Many posts start off sounding rather dogmatic and many of them end in near fistacuffs.  I guess I’m more surprised that many are so quick to react this way.  I know that if I could see many of the posts that got “edited” I would be even more surprised but it has gotten to the point that I’m actually able to gloss over many posts based on the writer (Wade, Harry etc.)  I know they are entitled to their opinions as well but they manage to offend, hurt and bring people down so quickly that it becomes a waste of time to even read it.

 I’ll always read your blog quite frankly.  I’ve enjoyed countless posts of yours and I have honestly appreciated your insight on a ton of issues.  I guess I hope for better things to come from many of the other readers/posters.

 Keep on writing, screening and editing.  The SG world needs this.

I didn’t ask for anniversary presents, but this ain’t bad as gratifying responses from readers go.

But more to the point: yeah things do seem to be getting uglier in the comments lately. Hard to say what’s going on. Maybe the proportion of boneheaded comments to original, thoughtful, and interesting ones is no different than it ever was but that the increase in comment volume (in both senses of the word) has accentuated the loudest, crudest, most anti-social voices. Could be that more people are reading (they are, if traffic metrics are any indication), and so a certain strident bloc of commenters think the only way to be heard above the crowd is to shout and hector and badger and bait. Could be fewer people are reading (or commenting) and the place has gone to the trolls, die-hards, deadenders and lifers – in which case the spike in traffic would be registering an uptick in the number of times the same people log on (from different computers?) to keep flogging the same old stuff. Maybe it’s a general direction in comment quality afflicting more sg blogs than this one (DBM discusses “stupid comments” here, though I’m not suggesting two is a trend).

I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve found myself more impatient of the numbskull posts, and more and more I have less and less trouble hitting the EDIT and DELETE buttons. I’m not sure that’s entirely a good thing, but it’s probably not all bad either. I’ve made this plea before and you see where it’s gotten me, but still … Less trolling and flaming, please. Honestly.

David Bruce Murray is about to mark his millioneth page view (congrats to him, and go over there to help him hit the mark sooner), which reminds me I haven’t done a traffic update in a while. The short answer: up, up, and up. The slightly longer answer is that we’re edging upward of 20,000 hits a day on a regular basis, which translates on the high end to 12,000-15,000 page views daily (and reliably 11,000 per day). If current trends hold, we’ll hit 1,000,000 page views in 2008 by mid June and easily surpass 2,000,000 by the end of the year. Of course I continue to be grateful. It’s all chump change by Big Blogging standards, but it’s pretty much entirely homegrown, gimmick-free success (or whatever my detractors would call it … virtual carcinogen? interweb pathogen? bunch of crap? sin?).

Less grandiosely, it finally occurred to me to change the time stamp feature so that my posts are no longer associated with UTC, which is the WordPress default. From the $2-bill post onward, all entries and comments will (at least they SHOULD) carry EST timestamps, reflecting the time zone of origin. Unless you know a way to retroactively apply this change, all previous posts retain their original UTC time label.

Finally, there may or may not be a review this week. Depends on how long I have to be gone. But judging by last week’s pyrotechnics, we might all be able to use some time between rounds.

Update: Thanks for all your emails and suggestions. With your help and Google I’m pretty sure my problem is a good one, insofar as nothing is “wrong” per se, just that my traffic is heavy enough and WP’s PHP infrastructure creates usage demands such that I’m bumping up against my ISP’s CPU limits (as opposed to data transfer limits, which hasn’t been a problem and shouldn’t be, as many of you point out). Soooo, after an evening of Googling and searching and reading deep in the bowels of virtual geeekdom, I’ve made some tweaks, namely uploading a plugin that WordPress gurus swear by (wp-cache) as a way to make my ISP’s CPUs think I’m running a static page. Ideally, this will show some results over the next few days and get me out of the leper colony and back into the good graces of my ISP. Stay tuned.

Later update: you may have trouble posting comments for a day or so while I sort out my server issues. Be patient. Things should sort themselves out soon enough.

Update: Well you’ve all been extraordinarily helpful as per usual. Two hitches: 1)I can get the favicon into the root with no problem and it shows up at http://www.averyfineline.com/favicon.ico. However, it doesn’t show up at other pages within the site, as far as I can tell. I tried opening other avfl pages in IE and Firefox. No luck. I tried newly bookmarking the page and reloading it that way. Still no dice. Hmmmm. 2)Clearly the icon is just not terribly useful at the itty bitty low-quality size necessarily for the favicon. I’ve tried cropping it down to focus only on paper-sack guy himself and not so much his computer, but you have to squint really hard and do a lot of wishful thinking for the image to be more than a bloppy glob. Which may mean …. back to the drawing board.

If you’re dumb enough to be doing it from a static IP address, I’ll notice at some point and block you from commenting. If (more likely) you’re using a dynamic IP address, there’s probably not much I’ll be able to do other than shut down a thread altogether. That would be an unfortunately draconian measure, and I hope it won’t be necessary.

Finally, on a slightly related note: the email addresses you’re required to give in order to post comments are never used for any other purpose than verification that you’re not a spambot and for me to respond to you directly if the fancy strikes me. Obviously people can (and do) just give fake emails (you know who you are … dartanyon). But just in case you’re doing it because you think you’ll be pounded with unsolicited email, rest assured that won’t be the case. And if you don’t want me or others to know who you are (a perfectly reasonable thing in this bidness), just create a real but generic email address with hotmail or yahoo or somebody like that.

As always, you can email me directly with comments, questions, tips, and tirades.

Avery, if you’re so talented, why don’t you go play in a group? If you were that great, you would still be playing, n’est-ce pas?

Well, ok. I don’t get a lot of French interrogatives, but the gist of this is a pretty common complaint from a certain kind of reader whom I hack off with something I’ve said. I usually don’t bother responding to this “comeback” because it’s a self-evidently lame attempt to discredit the person making an argument rather than engaging ideas. But for the record: as a matter of fact, I wasn’t all that talented as a keyboard player. I had a lot of natural or God-given ability, whatever you prefer to call it, that went uncultivated in any formal way until I was so reliant on bad habits and lazy methods that remediation was not exactly hopeless, but close to it.

That said, my talent really has nothing to do with why I don’t play professionally. As a teenager and young adult, I had great teachers who poured a good deal of time and energy into me, and I’m grateful to them. Had I stuck with it, I doubtless would have tried to play professionally and, I think, been modestly successful. But a career in gospel music wasn’t in the cards for me mainly because I didn’t want it. I played long enough to learn that I love gospel music but don’t really care for the life of a gospel musician and certainly don’t have what it takes - emotionally, psychologically, maybe even physically - to put myself on stage night after night. The vulnerability, the theatricality, the rigors of showmanship, the demand to make the same material new each time - for some people this is heaven on earth. For me, it was often enjoyable and regularly deeply satisfying. I would do what I did in gospel music as a performer all over again and I’m grateful to the people who helped make my time as a player possible. But ultimately it was all too exhausting and unrewarding to build a life around.

Does that disqualify me from talking about gospel music? I don’t think so, but more to the point, I don’t really care. I’m not sure where this idea comes from that one must earn one’s own thoughts. For my part, I tend to pay attention to the person who demonstrates she can listen carefully, think clearly, and write interestingly, even (or especially) if I disagree with what’s being said. Certainly playing professionally adds authority to thoughts on gospel music in some cases. But just as often, the professional’s proximity to what he or she does creates blind spots and conflicts that impede full insight and thorough discussion. There are plenty of horse’s mouths to hear from if that’s what you want (and yes, I can imagine what part of the horse’s anatomy many people have in mind for me), but frankly I find the official line from the professional class often unhelpful in its studiously crafted opacity or its incurious thoughtlessness. Thus, Gerry, do I toil on in my own talentless, unprofessional, inexperienced way.

2. Bloggers should avoid commenting on their own posts. Daniel Mount has the (to me) annoying tendency of micro-responding to comments frivolously. “Fantastic” or “thanks for posting” or words to these effect are often all that Mount has to say by way of a reply-comment to some reader’s comments. David Bruce Murray is more disciplined about it and only occasionally responds to commenters with another comment. And I guess if you’re going to do it, that’s the best way. But as a rule, I never post comments to my own comments sections or other bloggers’ sites. If I have something worth saying, I make a post out of it, which not only feeds my beast but also creates a conversation of sorts. Until I rule the world, I can’t force others to follow my lead (for instance, I’ve been wishing for years now that DBM would make blog posts of his own out of many of the comments and posts he leaves at other websites, even though I understand the reasons why he doesn’t). But we bloggers take up enough bandwidth as it is, and I humbly submit that we don’t need to get into the comments bidness too. If a comment is worth commenting on, then it ought to rise to the level of its own post or an update within the original post. If not, stay outta the comments.

The other day, I found myself talking to a colleague about avfl and realized that without my really realizing it, the site has become rather meaningful to me for a range of reasons I never initially imagined or intended (and paging through the nearly 10,000 emails you’ve sent me in the last two years, I realize how many people I’ve “met” and heard and learned from). I hope that what goes on here and what continues to evolve will be similarly meaningful to readers in some way. And if nothing else, avflians can have comments flame wars now!

• Second Mile’s latest
• The Lesters new album
• Mike Bowling Group’s new recording
• Kenny Bishop’s self-titled

Not sure when I’ll work up some responses to what I hear, but there it is, for what it’s worth. What else should I be listening to, besides the Talley’s latest (which I don’t have, alas)?

Obviously the new avfl format is up and going. By necessity it will be a phased roll out: the archives are only beginning to be migrated from the old pages and URLs, so expect those to be spotty. The old search page and archives will remain open during the migration.

Some new features and other stuff about the new site:

• Categories: these headings are a way of grouping certain posts that are related thematically or topically. In addition to the general categories, content that used to be linked to on the left rail (Reviews, Bibliography, NQC, Frontlines, Letters etc) now have their own dedicated categories too.
• Comments: Though I prefer the letters pages I’ve been periodically posting, and though I don’t want to stop receiving email (and though I will continue to post some letters I receive as stand-alone posts), I’m introducing comments on a trial basis because I simply don’t have enough time to keep editing all the letters I receive and posting them regularly. Comments will be moderated for spam and flame wars.
• RSS Feeds: a note all RSS readers, you’ll need to reset your subscription link.

Finally, an enormous shout out to regular reader and generous WordPress consultant, Tom Troyer, who has given immeasurably of his time and expertise to help me set up avfl on the WordPress platform (which is really quite snazzy). Go visit him at his site, www.icedteaforever.com, when you get a chance. Tell ‘im Avery sent you.

Posted January 11, 2006 7:11 PMThe PR surrounding this project - a bunch of new songs from several different writers! - was clearly meant to suggest that My Favorite Place wasn’t some familiar hangout (like Faces was) but an innovative and new stylistic getaway for Greater Vision (though the rock-formation bench the group is sitting on in the cover at makes it look like a very uncomfortable place above all). And My Favorite Place certainly sounds different. Of course when I say different, I mean an awfully lot like SSQ’s latest project in places. Take “Everyone, Everywhere, Everytime.” Here’s the same easy-listening sound that SSQ sold its soul to on their latest album: wide, smoothie, slurpy harmonic lines balanced against extra white space between phrases and notes that would typically sustain themselves longer. Here’s also the same doo-wop BGVs, the tissue-paper tones, the gentle syncopations, the jazz-lite resolutions.

And then there are the horns … my Gosh, the horns.

On the album’s title track, a straight-ahead countrified gospel tune sounds like it was ambushed by a marauding band of tenor sax players roaming the countryside during the offseason at some Atlantic City hotel bar … oh yeah, and one lone guy with a steel guitar who seems to be taking the place of a pianist who didn’t show up for work the day the studio tracks were laid down. The vocals suffer from a similar lack of focus. Whatever makes GV distinctive vocally - something in the timbre and the mix of voices, the force and vigor with which material is sung - has been extracted from this tune and a few others like it. It’s not that GV has forgotten how to sing like themselves (they do so on bridge of “My Favorite Place” when an old hymn, “At the Cross,” pops up, for instance). But for much of the time they seem to have traded their real voices for a generic breathiness, the same bubble-gum gooeyness that so depersonalized SSQ’s latest project.

The common denominator in both cases is, of course, producer Lari Goss, who I’m beginning to think just rediscovered his Kenny G collection out in the garage. Goss seems to have left behind the sweeping cinematic style he worked in for so long and exchanged it for the menthol cool of smooth-jazz horns and pianos played like xylophones (to get a sense of what this does to the style of gospel music, try this exercise: imagine a tenor sax being played anywhere you hear a piano on “Calvary Answers for Me” or GV’s own “There is a River”). Whatever else this new Gosslite sound is or isn’t, GV’s and SSQ’s latest projects are what Baptist lounge music would sound like.

It’s curious thing to hear - classic Rodney Griffin material getting accessorized with the earrings and patent leather and nail polish and cufflinks of upscale smooth jazz … curious to hear Goss’s attempts, some more successful than others, to make eight typical Rodney Griffin tunes SOUND like they were much fresher and newer and not-so-typically-RG than, on the whole, they actually are (which isn’t to say they aren’t quite good at times).

This is, of course, a smart move strategically. And often it works stylistically. The folk/ bluegrassy/country tune that the group was singing from the stage of the NQC last year, “Paid in Full Through Jesus, Amen” is nauseatingly jingly, the kind of song that embeds itself in your head against all exertions of your will. But of course this will likely make it a solid success, nevermind that (like regular reader RF) my mind instinctively wants to end the song’s chorus with “thank god I’m a country boy!”

“All is Well” is one of my favorite songs from MFP because, unlike too many other numbers on the project, it SOUNDS like GV. The voices are fuller (that is, they are themselves), there’s more breath support behind the singing, the gait is unapologetically opened up and hasn’t been hobbled by horns where a piano and hard driving trap set and bass guitar ought to be (and, thankfully, are here). Yes, I realize the irony (heading toward hypocrisy) of wanting GV to do something different and then praising one of the most traditionally GV-sounding songs on the album as among my favorite. But the extent to which I want to have it both ways takes the measure of how much (and often) the songs on this album mistake twee arrangements or instrumental eclecticism for the more comprehensive reimagination of a group’s style - that thing about a group that is easy to recognize, difficult to define and impossible to imitate.

“Far More” comes closest to succeeding in that reimaginative vein (and I’m not holding against the song the fact that it contains the line “a being that I’d like to know,” a phrase that seems to have been written for Martians). For one thing, I haven’t heard a modulation as unique as the one in this song since First Love’s debut single “What a Day.” I don’t like this one as much as I did First Love’s, but it’s a brilliant bit of musical thinking. What I like most about the song, though, is that it accomplishes what I wish the entire project could have pulled off: retaining Griffin’s signature sound and GV’s signature style (think “Just Ask” or “Just One More Soul” here) while infusing that sound with a renewed sense of stylistic flare (indeed, my complaint about “Just Ask” was that it aped “Just One More Soul” a bit too shamelessly). Here, the song’s success turns on the phrase “All that I longed for,” especially the passing tones sung across those last two words. That’s it …and it’s everything. An enviably efficient way to work, reminding us why we wait in line to hear GV, why we strain over the high set of blue hair in front of us to see them, why the trio doesn’t (or oughtn’t) need any Kenny G imitations to make their stand.

Finally, “Far More” (along with “All is Well”) are among the album’s better examples of the project’s unifying lyrical theme: bringing significance to the everyday life of faith. This has long been a preoccupation of Griffin’s, and/but My Favorite Place might well be described as an extended meditation on the contours of ordinary religious experience, punctuated as it is by glimmers from a spiritual world in which we do not (because we cannot) consistently live. These songs explore what the ongoing human attempt to reach heights of glory, failing yet supported and born on by the glimpses of grace and redemption that are given in the otherwise unilluminating one-thing-and-then-anotherism of regular experience. Mixed in with this kind of reflectiveness, the enormous anthem “I Will Glorify the Lord” (one of the three non-Griffin tunes on the album) gives the album - from a thematic angle - a nice sense of balance and poise (and “I Will Glorify” is a faster-moving number that will sell like gold at those Bailey Smith conference dates GV works).

At times, the project tries to hard. Exhibit A here being “Heaven’s Hero.” Written by Phil Cross (and the second non-Griffin song on the album; the third being a Gaither-impersonating-Gaither number, “We are So Blessed”), the song shamelessly props itself up with the fame of Cross’s big hit, “Champion of Love.” And yes, “Champion” gets predictably reprised in “Heaven’s Hero.” Someone needs to tell Cross that though “Champion” was huge, maybe even cosmic (maybe even it’s transubstantiated itself: the liner notes read: “Heaven’s Hero, featuring Champion of Love”), the bigger the hit, the more carefully its legacy must be tended, lest its performance turn into a kind of parody - or as the case turns out to be here, self-parody.

[Sidebar: And here is probably as a good place as any to say that none of the co-writers on the project have anywhere near the clout or success that Griffin has had (including Cross, I’d wager, who co-writes two songs with Griffin in addition to writing “Heaven’s Hero” himself). The conspicuous disparity between Griffin and the writers he works with here taints all the hype about the project’s variety of writers with the air of gimmickry, a way to pretend the project was full of fresh material when in fact less-successful writers being invited to write with Griffin must rather be like an invitation tell the queen what you think of her new dress.]

Of course Griffin himself turns in a few stinkers all on his own. Namely, “God’s Got a Bigger Thing Going On.” I’m not sure what David Bruce Murray was listening to when he talked about the “excellent writing” the song exhibited. There are many things one could say about the writing on a song whose hooks is “God’s got a bigger thing going on than these little bitty eyes can see.” But excellent isn’t exactly what springs to mind. Instead, one imagines Griffin, struggling through an off-day, trying to pad out the line with an adjective that’s an antonym for BIG. Tiny? No. Smallish? No again. LITTLE BITTY! Yeah, plus it’s insipid and sing-songie. DOUBLE SCORE!

Ok, I’m being ungenerous, but I do wish there was someone around who could tell the emperor when he’s got no clothes. You’d think that job might fall to an A&R director. But though Daywind’s Norman Holland has that title on this project, there’s not terribly many convincing signs that GV got its money’s worth outta him. At least he would have seemed like the guy who shoulda said NO when the idea came up for Griffin to try to carry a MORE THAN FIVE-MINUTE ballad on his own, entirely, without one single back-up or background vocal at all - this on “The Voice I could Not Resist” … aside from the weepy-cry-talk thing that he used most recently in “Faces,” Griffin’s not got enough vocal tricks or force to pull off such a demanding task. It was a good idea, but one that needed Wolfe’s talent to succeed, one that didn’t quite live up to its possibility.

And in the end maybe that’s the take-away truth of the project. Still there are worse things to do than try too hard or go wide of the mark (just as it’s not always possible to get candid advice from your label when you’re the second-biggest grossing artist on the roster). And Greater Vision’s history and prominence deserve a good deal of deference, the benefit of the doubt that the one-off unevenness of MFP’s arrangements and production are the ambient noise of a mighty sound being tuned up before the curtain rises on the next act for Greater Vision.