The Rocketboys - 20,000 Ghosts

Seven years ago, this writer packed out the 1983 GMC pick-up he inherited from his great-grandfather to trek across the great, brown nothingness between Houston and Abilene, TX. Four years of undergraduate course-work, falling in and out of love, mischief making, caught in the liminal space between the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood and the Wes Anderson films of my young adulthood, the best moments in the soundtrack of my life were provided by a little student band called The Rocketboys. Their melodies swept as wide as the sprawling Abilene skyline, all awash in the reverby glow familiar to any who have driven sun-visor down into the West Texas sunset. Their reso

nating guitar lines and sing-along choruses from their extended ambient rock anthems filled the enclosed walls of my shower. The wizardry of then-drummer Philip Ellis was tapped out between my steering wheel and gear shift, as their songs played out in my mind as a holdover between shows.

Fast-forward selector: present day. This writer is still caught in the nethe

rworld between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Life Aquatic, and still in Abilene working on a graduate degree. Meanwhile The Rocketboys moved on to Austin, TX about a year ago. They’ve been busy. 20,000 Ghosts, their first full-length album, has a late September release. The move to the “big city” noticeably affected their song-writing. Gone are the lengthy, etherial opuses I remember from the Abilene days. In their place is a collection of 11 new numbers to add a welcome edition to the growing ambient indie rock hymnal. The songs are shorter, but do not suffer for it. And there is just enough wideness and wash to remind you that, despite the album cover, this band cut their teeth in the land of no-trees and the see for miles blue sky.

20,000 Ghosts is an album for those caught in between. These are songs for the sailor lost at sea, and the sojourner who has left a comfortable, dying past for an uncertain, but living future. “I am a boat on the shore, but no wave is coming to take me home,” sings lead vocalist Brandon Kinder on “Take it From Me.” These are songs sung on the road between. For those of us who have choked out gospel songs through tear-stained cheeks (as in “Nineteen Twenty Nine”), for the prodigals calling to a god they do not know exists (as in “Islands”), for those gathering stones in attempt to construct a new place to settle (as in “All the Western Wind”). The road travelled on 20,000 Ghosts may sometimes be lonely, it is never travelled alone. I’m not thinking of the 20,000 ghosts haunting our sleepless nights in “Endings”, but of The Rocketboys themselves. These are songs of hope for the weary traveller. These are songs that dare to look at the bleak thunderstorm of the unknown and trudge on with only umbrella and a vague sense that things will work out for the good. This is gospel music, although it’s sister, the blues, never wanders too far away.

For those of us who face an uncertain future (and let’s get real, who does that actually exclude?) 20,000 Ghosts is shot full of a cautiously optimistic hope. I expect these infectious pilgrimage songs will be gracing my stereo (and soon enough, the walls of my shower) for a long time. This album is a welcome companion for this sojourner wondering where and what is next. It seems to say, maybe home is something that we can actually find again someday. Or even if we only find ourselves waiting for the elusive “by and by”, that the journey is one worth taking. Either way, this is an album you need by a band you need to know.

Don't (Always) Believe the Hype

Has it really been a year since I updated this thing?  I really like writing, I should update it more.

I got a dog.  That's something new in the year since I updated.  His name is Hank and he is mostly a menace to my furniture, but I like him.  When I got him, one thing I decided not to do was to get him all excited before I took him on a walk, or put him in or out of his crate, or fed him or whatever.  You know how some people talk to their dogs in that high pitched voice that gets their tail wagging and the dog just goes crazy?  "Does my little doggie woggie want to go on a walkie?"  "Are you hungry for a little foodie woodie in your tummy wummy?"  You know what I'm talking about.  There's usually a lot of rhyming and making up words that goes along with it.

It's not that I'm above talking to my dog.  I talk to my dog all the time.  But we usually talk politics or theology or movies.  And I'm really talking to myself.  Deep down I know this, but somehow addressing my comments to Hank makes me feel less weird about speaking my thoughts out loud.  It's not really for Hank's benefit.  Like he really needs to know what I'm going to buy at the grocery store, or my opinion on Frost Nixon (which is a fantastic movie, and not as boring as a movie about a television news interview sounds like it would be.  Ask Hank, he knows what I think about it).  It's for me.  And that's the same reason dog owners hype up their pets before walks I think.  It makes it a lot easier to go walk around the block if it seems like your dog really wants to go.  It's nice to come home and your dog gets really excited.  So we condition them to respond in the way that we like.  Then we get mad at them when they get so excited they won't sit down and let us put the leash on, or they relieve themselves all over our area rug.

I think parents might do this sometimes too.  It makes me wonder, was Chuck-E-Cheese pizza really all that fun?  Does the pizza actually taste good?  I doubt it, Little Caesars definitely isn't as good as I remember from childhood.  Aren't talking mice with a huge plastic head, always smiling, dancing on stage and screen with unidentifiable creatures more than just a little scary for a kid?  Were the games that fun?  I mean clearly the Ninja Turtle arcade game I played as a child was a fine piece of entertainment artistry, but I'm talking about the others.  Maybe it actually is a really fun place inherently.  But maybe a lot of it is the hype.  I don't know for sure.  But sometimes I think maybe going to the assisted living facility to visit Grandma could be the cause of excitement if it got the same hype Chuck-E-Cheese did.

So people talking to their dogs and "Las Vegas for Kiddos" style pizza places aren't that big of a deal.  No, they are not.  But when the same principal starts to get associated with church I get a bit more worried.  Maybe I'm stepping out on thin ice here, because I feel my opinion might be a minority voice, but some things I've seen and heard about at (mostly bigger) churches makes me scrunch my face up, turn my head a little to the side, and say, "Really!?"  One of the things is when church gets compared to sporting events.  You know, if people really loved God they would cheer and yell like they do a for a touchdown or something.  I guess i just don't quite get it.  Going to sporting events is fun, but it's also a little manic and crazy.  A lot of people seem to go to the game to lose themselves for a little while.  You can forget about your problems and just live in the game for a couple hours.  Everything else will still be there when you finish.  And to me, church seems like maybe it's kind of a different sort of thing.  But some churches seem to want to compete with sporting events.  So they get the loud speakers and bigger, louder bands, and big hype.  Video technology, too.  Then they get disappointed when the crowds move on the next big thing and they can't keep up.  Is that really what it means to worship God?  We worship God the same way we "worship" a football team?

I guess I have a different vision for the church.  Not as a place of escape, but maybe the only place where real life can truly be engaged.  Like all the ugliness, messiness, joy, mystery, pain, beauty, wonder, simplicity, and complexity of life can be acknowledged and embraced in that place.  Like the arms of Christ stretched out on the cross reach around and hold it all together.  The triumph of resurrection kisses the darkness of crucifixion, just like it always does.  And I don't think crucifixion is really something to get all hyped about.  I think to preach Christ crucified keeps us pretty grounded in the nitty gritty of real.  And joy of resurrection is less like a touchdown and more like a family being reunited, or a storm being calmed, the marginalized finding their voice, the friendless finding friendship, years of suffering being ended - the kinds of things that are hard to depict on the jumbo-tron.

 I recognize that my faith is slowly becoming something more cerebral rather than experiential, and there are others whose relationship with Christ leads more to ecstatic experience and genuine excitement.  And I don't ever want to discredit that.  I just don't really understand it.  As for me, I have a tough time sorting out the genuine ecstasy from the more manipulative and fabricated kinds of excitement I see in some churches.  So maybe I'm just boring.  Maybe that's why I attempt to discuss stories I heard on NPR with my dog instead of jumping up and down holding his leash.  Or maybe I'm not alone in this.