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John mark works on Saturday

Working on a Saturday while Sarah does a little Christmas shopping. Trying to kill as much of this as possible before we break for Christmas.

Guitars Begin Today

Sheet of Night : Test Mix

#DayOfThunderContinues

Jon Duke plays Bass guitar all day. We might call this song "Who Is This". This has been one of our live standards for a couple years.

Day 3 of Tracking

Trophies Trains and Drums

James and Guitars

My Sweet Bari

Lee and Drums

Me... Hi

Amp

Joel


Jeremy

Sound

Colt and Stands


Jon, Bass, Amps, and Rack Gear


Tape Machine

Jon plays bass

they don't make'm like this any more

The ability to genuinely connect with a person's heart and draw them into a real-time conversation with God seems to have become a dying art form. It's just not something you can learn at a conference or program into your set. It comes from a deep well and is cultivated over years. That means it's time consuming and expensive. Maybe that's why it's become so rare. Our cheap and easy "just add water" worship programs probably serve a purpose, but I can't help but wish there were more people like this guy on the planet.

Something about this video takes me back to a time when I was less cynical. I hope one day I can make music that does the same thing for people.

your thoughts?

"Give me the making of the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes it's laws"
-Andrew Fletcher

Any Thoughts?

"They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer"— Friedrich Nietzsche

How To Play "Death In His Grave"

Lyric Of The Week

The lyric of this week is a whole song by one of my favorite writers. It's called "Tumbling Ground" by Kevin Prosch as recorded by Kevin and the Black Peppercorns for the album also titled "Tumbling Ground". I recently re-purchased this album when I played at Keven's Music Coope Festival this summer (the CD had been stolen from my car some years ago). I've been listening to it again and its even better than I remembered it to be.

I couldn't pick just one line so I had to go with the whole song.

Tumbling ground

Trying to find a place where I can hide away
In the fountain of youth inside my mind
Where old age can never find me
Please excuse me, I'm not doing well today
Trying to hide so desperately the darkness of my soul
I'm an outworn heart in a time worn out
I feel like I'm failing
I'm being tossed about
There's a hole in my trampoline
I'm falling down

And friendless near a thousand friends I stand
Who didn't have a crumb of comfort
Not even a grain
You were all too busy with my praise
The distances of loneliness how long they seem to be
Almost perfect nearly true we want to keep
I can hardly ever say my prayers
Nor can I count a Bead,
Does that mean that I am failing
They say that I am weak
And the soil of my sufferings sucked my childhood dry
Never grew the leaves of healing
Will I be left to die?

On God's rough, tumbling ground, falling down
On God's rough, tumbling ground, falling down
Falling down

Am I a prophet or a vagabond?
I am a father, not a commandant
And I grieve for the loss of all the prodicals
And fatherless near ten thousand fathers I stand
A broken little boy with a promise in his hand
Did you see the crown my momma crowned me with?
For he that made me bitter, he also made me wise
though I wrestled for the blessing
there was no love for me to find
and the world's more full of weeping
and I can never understand
I'm in the place again
where the heart gives up its dead

There is a place where tears fall but they make no sound
On God's rough, tumbling ground, falling down
there is a place where tears fall but make no sound
On God's rough, tumbling ground, falling down

The only way to get this album is here as a physical disc.

Lyric Of The Week

These lines are form The Killers song "A Dustland Fairy Tale". I've had this song in my head for a year. This particular portion always gets to me:

"Change came in disguise of revelation, set his soul on fire.
She said she always knew he'd come around.
And the decades disappear
Like sinking ships but we persevere.
God gives us hope but we still fear what we don't know."

Once again, if you don't think it's awesome, listen to it in context.

The Medicine available internationally on iTunes

UK: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Ireland: http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Spain: http://itunes.apple.com/es/album/the-medicine/id378815100


France: http://itunes.apple.com/fr/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Italy: http://itunes.apple.com/it/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Netherlands: http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Germany: http://itunes.apple.com/de/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Australia: http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/the-medicine/id378815100


New Zealand: http://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/the-medicine/id378815100


Canada: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/the-medicine/id378815100

caption please

The Medicine Releases (again) Today!

The Medicine Releases today with 4 bonus tracks and 3 videos! Get it on iTunes now for $9.99

To celabrate the release, I'll be hosting a live internet broadcast July 6 at 9PM EST on livestream

and

A free show in Charlotte, NC on July 9!

Lyric Of The Week

"She Loves You", From the Gaslight Anthem


And If all was well
And your heart could find the words
Would we be for better baby
Would we be for worse
And if there was a way
To navigate your seas
If tonight my true love
Did belong to me

If you don't think its awesome, go hear it in context.

"I think it all started for me that year I couldn’t sleep and almost lost my mind."

In the Fall of 2001 I must have sat out on the porch for hours a night, sometimes with a buddy, sometimes with a few, but mostly with God, and the precarious rhythms of late night traffic.

I had nowhere to go. I’d weathered a break up that left me questioning my sanity and I’d quit my job at the Olive Garden after a woman cussed me out over the price of cranberry juice. With no work, no relationship, and my ‘89 Ford Tempo on its last legs, I found myself emotionally and, otherwise, shipwrecked. My whole world was a guitar and everything I wished I’d said.

I think it was during those months that I learned how to write a song, because that was the year I learned to be honest with God.

As a teenager, I played my first guitar chords on the loading docks behind my father’s storefront church in Pineville, NC. I guess I began playing for the same reason everyone does, to impress girls at school. Unfortunately, it was a little late in the game for an instrument to become much of a savior, but it became a friend, an outlet, a way of sorting things out.

Looking back, it made sense that I would go back to that place when I was against the ropes, and why I would end up out on that same porch almost a year later, with another set of issues and another batch of songs.

In November of 2002, I’d flown down to Jacksonville, to do some recording. While in the studio, we received a call about some friends who’d been in a car accident that left 2 of them in critical condition. Late that evening I got another call from my dad. One of my closest childhood friends was gone.

I had pages of dialog with God in the days that followed, some angry, mostly confused, but also I wrote a lot of songs. It was this time period that shaped verses like “Kiss Your Feet”, a modern vision of Mary Magdalene, and an emotional climactic folk tune called “Ashes and Flames”. The first song of that generation, much of it written the day after the accident, was the song “How He Loves”. “How He Loves” was every bit of a tribute to a friend, a cry for understanding, and the worship that resulted from it all.

The following years were characterized by an almost confusing contrast. While I lived with an ever-present stinging sensation from the loss, I was enamored with the immense joy of my engagement to a brilliant, angelic girl named Sarah Williams. We we’re married in 2004 and have been confidants, band mates, and business partners for over 6 years. In 2008 our son Jude was born to the growling vocals of Kevin Prosch singing, “Praise the Lord, Oh my soul” over a hospital radio. More than anything, it was this contrast that shaped the ideas that would eventually become “The Medicine”.

Up to that point, much of my music, though rarely void of hope, was still born out of loss. However, “The Medicine”, presents portraits of resurrection. From “Death In His Grave”, a southern, hymn-like narrative depicting the classic resurrection of Jesus, to “Skeleton Bones,” a worship song celebrating the power of resurrection life, a story of resurrection is present throughout the whole record. Songs like “Ten Thousand” illustrate the ultimate victory of life over the grave as do “Out of the Ground” and “Carbon Ribs” in more abstract ways.

More than anything, I think “The Medicine” explores the implications of resurrection in our every day lives even the dead places of our lives that need resurrecting. To his own hurt, Jesus, chose to be a part of our world. Why would we pretend that we don’t bring all our love, loss, and insecurity with us into the conversations we call “worship”? After all, we don’t serve a God who is unacquainted with grief. He is not surprised by or even unfamiliar with the darkness that can plague a human heart. In fact, he specializes at dealing with that sort of thing. That is what “The Medicine” is about and those are some of the conversations I want to help people have in worship. I want to write songs that give your heart language in the porch lights of your own reckoning; dangerous songs that give you permission to wear your heart on your sleeve before Jesus, unencumbered by the grave cloths of mindless tradition.

Live Webcast June 29 and July 6

I'll talk about my major label debut "The Medicine" due out on July 6. Join me and guests for "who knows what" live on livestream June 29 and July 6 at 9PM EST.

watch right here or at www.livestream.com/johnmarkmcmillan

Watch live streaming video from johnmarkmcmillan at livestream.com

What the Medicine is about