Live.Awake

Godward Art Series: Tree63

// May 17th, 2007 // Church Life, Music

Yesterday I highlighted a band called “The Listening” that, in my opinion, is a good example of what a Christian counter culture can do. Today I have another. The band is Tree63.

I appreciate The Listening for their complexity in sound and lyric, and I appreciate Tree63 for the opposite. This is straight ahead rock ‘n roll. Forget layers of synths and lyrical metaphors that require repeat visits to christianlyricsonline.com. This is music the old fashioned way, and I love it (and I’m a sucker for the snarling sound of a Gretsch guitar through a Vox amp…).

It’s a 3 piece band that puts together simple melodies and lyrics that somehow manage to simultaneously succeed in being deep, meaningful and timely. Their sound is clearly influenced by the British vibe (they are from S. Africa) and at times reminds me of The Police.

Tree63 is a band that has struggled to stay alive in an industry (yes, it’s an industry) that caters almost exclusively to Christians who’s highest aim in life is to successfully build a safe fortress against the world in their stained glass cathedrals arguing that the KJV is the only “Holy” Bible while listening to the Gaithers and explaining to their children why “cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Parents who dress their children like pastel versions of the Cleavers while telling them that too much bass will put you in a voo doo trance and make you hear voices telling you to “drink the cool-aid”.

In an interview with John Ellis (lead vocals, guitar) he was asked about the problems facing CCM and modern worship in general.

Worship songs have to appeal immediately to a cross-section of people that make up your average Sunday-morning church service. They can’t be too innovative or sophisticated or artsy or moody, and they have to get an important point across very simply. There’s little space for art or innovation—unless, again, you’re Matt Redman. Or Charles Wesley.

The problems creep in when everybody and their mother jump in to cash in. I’m being horribly cynical, I know, but I see this happening all around me. The songs become insipid and lame, and hey, is Jesus really honored by that song after all? It’s like Bono said at the Grammys one year: God sometimes responds, “No, please don’t thank me for that song, I had nothing to do with it, and it wasn’t written for me!”

… As a result of “modern worship,” there is less room these days for artistic expressions of faith, music that wrestles with the realities of being a Jesus-follower, with the darkness we fight day in and day out in our personal lives. Christian radio also shoulders a big percentage of the blame: It conditions people to expect a very particular thing from Christian artists. “Safe for the whole family” can sometimes mean “shielded from reality.” It’s a shame that a record as amazing as Delirious’s Mezzamorphis virtually killed them in the States. And have you noticed that there hasn’t really been a phenomenon quite like [dc Talk's] Jesus Freak since, well, Jesus Freak?

… Modern worship has become a unit-shifting genre of contemporary Christian music, and now everyone’s in on it. As a result, that worship music becomes diluted. Funny enough, some of the best at it can hardly even sell their own product in the U.S.—Matt Redman and Delirious being two immediate examples. They’re almost ignored, and yet they virtually invented the idea!

If the church continues to pump out trivial factory-line homogeneity, how can we expect to reach our world? Are we adding to the banality of our shallow pop culture or are we seeking to redeem that which has been so thoroughly stolen? Has our church culture become as shallow and flat as the pop culture around us fed by Paris Hilton and Entertainment Tonight?

Cheers to Tree63 for getting it right.

Here are 2 tracks from their most recent album.

“Great Kindness”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“Look What You’ve Done (Live)”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you are new to Tree63, I suggest looking at two albums:

“The Life and Times of Absolute Truth” and their most recent album (contains the two tracks featured here) “Worship Volume One: I Stand For You”

[tags]tree63, CCM, rock, modern worship, Matt Redman, Delirious, Jesus, Christian, culture, relevant[/tags]