Festival of Faith & Music Friday Concert:The College Rock of Brother Danielson and Sufjan Stevens, Friday, April 1, 2005

Coming later this week: FESTIVAL GIVEAWAY CONTEST! Win a prize package of CDs from FFM artists.


Brother Danielson
As given to screaming as to plaintive sing along. That’s the music of Brother Danielson. That’s the Christian faith.

Having never seen a Brother Danielson (Daniel Smith of the Danielson Family) performance, I found I was coming up with multiple ways to describe what I was hearing, seeing, experiencing.

“I’m Right Where I Belong”
Smith is a singing, revival preacher that no one’s going to take seriously. He’s just too geeky and hyper. Then again, though, his earnestness makes it so that you can’t leave the revival tent.

A Palm Sunday Song
You figure your church made a huge mistake letting this wild, chanting man lead the children’s choir in wild, chanting songs—until he breaks into a sweet, Sunday School tune about being sons and daughters of Christ, raising our voices to the King.

“Cute Lil’ Dragon”
After watching Brother Danielson, you go back to the Sunday School committee and tell them you’ve found a new way to teach. Danielson in his tree costume, flailing on the guitar and stomping on that hidden kick drum, is a full-size, 3-D flannelgraph. Sure, Danielson’s songs put this idea in your head, because clearly they’re trying to teach Sunday School lessons. Yet, the Sunday School committee’s probably not going to go for it, because the songs are anything but clear. How will you convince them that that’s the way Sunday School should be—messy, mystery, more questions, more openness to discovery? (A thought borrowed from David Bazan’s workshop on “a posture of discovery”).

“You Are My Hiding Place”
It’s the second time I’ll use the monk comparison this weekend (see Ralston review). Here Smith leads the four-part harmony, ending with a period of silence—an uncomfortable, frozen silence, a silence difficult for some of us non-monks in the Fine Arts Center that night. Yet, Smith is our brother monk leading us in this ancient discipline.

As given to screaming as to plaintive sing along. That’s the music of Brother Danielson. That’s the Christian faith.

Beyond anything else to be said about the music, that screaming to plaintive see-saw reveals the tension and complexity of the Christian faith in a way that is not often found. “Scripture comes alive” has been applied to many works of art, but Br. Danielson actually hangs a diverse set of musical notes and rhythms on the entire length of Scripture’s branches—screaming at sin and plaintively realizing the grace of God.

That tension comes through on songs like when Smith is ranting about just wanting to stop hammering as a carpenter and start only being a songwriter. Meanwhile, his wife, Elin Smith, patiently sings the words of Christ about not worrying about what you will eat or wear. On a song about the Apostle Thomas’ doubts, Smith bursts with the need to understand his Lord, a bursting we don’t often let come to the surface like this.

So the Tree of Knowledge of Evil came into our midst—perhaps revealing more about evil and sin than we wanted to know. Yet, when God sends His Word about these things, it is when God sends Daniel Smith to sing in a tree costume, it is like God is giving us a glimpse through chain-link fence surrounding the Garden of Eden, just enough of a glimpse of the Tree of Knowledge of Good to have knowledge of salvation.

Thanks to Brother Danielson and Sounds Familyre Records.

Sufjan Stevens
Tender. That’s Sufjan Stevens. That’s his music. That’s the blend of Stevens and his friends on stage at Calvin last Friday night. That’s the heart after soaking in the wash. That’s the grace coming through the music.

Tender is the blend of guitar and banjo as on “All the Trees of the Fields Will Clap Their Hands.” Stevens’ friends who played with him as his band produced that blend. The women’s vocals on “He Woke Me Up Again” rose like a cathedral choir—even though the volume never grew beyond a strong, hushed “Alleluia.” The choir-like fullness creates an atmosphere which Polyphonic Spree has now been doing. There’s eclectic instrumentation and syllabic choruses.

Tender is Stevens. He invites you into the corner of his apartment, a timid singer, it seems, playing only for himself in the dusk-dark, lamp-unlit room. Yet, as you hear the music, you realize how much he is speaking to you, to those passing by on the street below, to anyone who would listen. Like Elliot Smith’s passion that grows from a still small space, Stevens doesn’t ever overpower you—even while you are completely cored, peeled, and sliced.

Tender is Scripture. Tender is the heart after coming into contact with Scripture. Stevens’ music can only come from thinking deeply about God’s Word, letting it tenderize, marinate, soften, sweeten, and soak the heart. This requires more than the intellectual assent found in some Christian music, preaching, and teaching.

Stevens is a mystic, a desert father aware of so much more than surfaces. He’s a prophet-poet. Songs like “Seven Swans” have a Greek chorus quality, music for the theater, a tragedy about Good Friday, which turns out not to be a tragedy in the end. Stevens lowers the deus ex machina of Christ into our presence.

For his solo encore, it became so clear that Stevens himself need that deus ex machina of grace in his own life, a song about not knowing his mother. It’s a song about those awkward moments in life—small, fleeting, but significant all the same. The song is about different awkward moment than you might have had, but the song won’t let you slip out of realizing that you’ve been there, too. You need the deus ex machina of God’s grace.

Thanks to Sufjan Stevens, Sounds Familyre Records, and Asthmatic Kitty.

Coming later this week: FESTIVAL GIVEAWAY CONTEST! Win a prize package of CDs from FFM artists.