markmathis

Listen to this song: christian schoolsDespite a rigorous homeschool experience for most of my academic life, I did go to a christian school. Charlotte,NC is a veritable hotspot for christian education and hosts a myriad of sports  teams aptly named “knights”,”crusaders”,”eagles”, etc…  I attended Charlotte Christian School for my kindergarden and 1st-grade years as did my brother until the school tuition proved too expensive. A personal “favor” allowed my dad to fix the school’s heating and air conditioning in exchange for a reduction in our tuition. I still remember rolling up to the drop off point for elementary school in our blue chevy nova - i was too young to appreciate the incomprehensible majesty of this vehicle. Why couldn’t we just have a minivan? Point is that a christian/private education is too expensive for most people and especially the ones that need it. I had great parents who wanted to give their kids the best education possible, but they just didn’t have the cash. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder personally about this, but I have observed something unsettling over the past decade. Big christian schools keep getting bigger and adding more and more bells and whistles. Consequently they get more and more expensive. The question begs to be asked: “who are these people trying to help?”  Is it the bank executive’s son who doesn’t want to be his dad and smokes a little pot - or, is it the inner city kid who doesn’t have a dad and who’s mom smokes crack?Face it. If you are building million dollar educational facilities on your church property to cater to an upper-class strata instead of “doing unto the least of these” - you are the goats and not the sheep. This is a big deal. That’s why I wrote the song and put it up in an unfinished form. That’s why I walked by a church-school addition yesterday with my wife and started thinking about this.I live in a mix of lower/middle class families and see the need every day. We need integration instead of segregation along class lines - didn’t we take care of that in the 60’s? Historically, the catholic church would go into places that no one else wanted and educate the people - for free and at risk to their lives. Many school administrators will ask - how will they pay for the facility, teacher salaries, books, etc…   I can offer some suggestions, but remind you that this is not the point. stop building new buildingsuse church funds to pay for kid’s tuitionget volunteers Lots of missionaries are doing the same thing today in foreign countries. How can we put peoples pictures on our refrigerators and not support the people in our own communities? Do work.mark   

   Last week I played one of my favorite shows ever… It was me with a guitar and piano at the muse and I got to do exactly what I wanted and the amazing part was that everyone let me. There is nothing like having a hushed room to play to - it is intense. I felt like I could breathe during that show and it honestly didn’t matter what people said to me about it, I was thrilled with it. I started with ’southern accent’ and did about 6 new songs to end with ‘when he returns’ by dylan. It’s been a week since the show, but I am still stoked on it.   I have always viewed ’starting over’ with a negative connotation. why not, right? I have started over for so long that it is depressing to think about. Here is one thing that I have learned recently from a mildly interesting eric clapton book I received for christmas. Clapton has started over musically dozens of times so far and I’m not even done with the book. He would drop a band, get a new one, go to rehab, marry, tour, relapse, drop a band, get a new band… He would never survive the cutthroat industry today where you get one chance if you are lucky AND good. But it did get me thinking in a different way as did the Tom Petty DVD. If you watch the ‘running down a dream’ series, you will see that despite the heartbreakers amazing success at staying together, Tom did a slew of other projects, cowrites, solo, and even a band(the travelin’ wilburys).  He was a complete bad a** with the record industry and stood on his principles. The doc does not go into his personal life either because it was in shambles or because tom did not want his family drug through the spotlight. We can safely assume that there were signifigant problems there as in most families. Here’s my point.Current industry thought is that you pick one thing and hit it as hard as you can - one song, one record big-wig, one million dollars. My friends, that is a recipe for failure and a short life span to put it mildly. You can transpose this to any key you would like, business world, sports, etc… To be fair, it is not that it is not a true statement, but that it is an impossible one that kills dreams. All of this is changing and there is so much great independent music out there right now, but even in that world people are too single-minded.      We were on tour with public radio and played an empty venue with a fairly popular indie band from Louisville. The band leader questioned me about how much we were touring and told me to sell everything and live on the road for 2 years because that is the only way we could make it. People will tell you things that they have done simply to validate themselves and not to help you at all. They don’t even realize they are doing it. I forgive him. The DIY mentality of ‘roughing’ it as strange sort of ritual for being allowed to pass into the ‘making it’ place is a spirituality that I do not embrace. It’s the same thing that monks did when they flayed themselves to bloody pulps to receive what they wanted from God - it doesn’t work. So what do we poor amalgamation of musicians/artists/people do to ‘make it’?    I am learning that ’success’ is built on single experiences spread throughout my life. One success was getting a job when I had been unemployed for over a year,another was getting married, and  another was the solo show I played last week. If I was waiting for success to come when I felt I had earned it - like about now - then I would have been oblivious to the other signifigant milestones of my life.I feel like I am going nowhere right now, and I am sure that a lot of artists feel the same. One thing that I have been doing is to ‘create’ without a prospective outlet at all. I am also learning to not be defined by what google or anyone else says about me. I am not disbanding ‘public radio’, but I have realized that us getting a good deal is not what will spell out success. The real test comes when our deal runs out and we still love music and  each other. My friend’s dad once said about my first band - “the hardest thing about being in a band is staying together”. Staying together means “starting over” together and it happens more than we know. 

Do you remember in ‘i heart huckabees’ when the main character utters a statement that drops the psychologists in their tracks and it gives him time to get away from them? It’s something like - “I’m not who I thought i was”. The other day I uttered the following: “If you want to see something new - you have to go somewhere you have never been before”. This statement threw off my internal psychologist just long enough for me to have an epiphany. You see, I have always been attracted to the mystical,dark, and supernatural. My wife and I watched all 9 seasons of the x-files in 6 months. As a Christian, I have never let myself do the things like ‘warcraft’, ‘magic’, ‘d&d’, etc…, but I have always had that nagging interest in things like it. I want to see something bigger,older,wiser, and more dangerous than myself - i want to be scared into belief.
So, when this statement came to my mind - I realized that I may have to take a walk at midnight through the woods or ride the bus through a sketchy part of town to see what I have been wanting to see. If I don’t put myself in a different environment, then why the heck do I expect to see something new? Last night we played at the milestone, a dark sketchball club with an awesome manager. We saw something different, both in ourselves and the kids that were there. Some of the emotions that showed up in my heart were good and some were not. Not many of our friends showed up, we played really sloppy, and i backed the trailer into a telephone pole. It was awesome, it was new.

Everyone:
We have the two new singles available for download through snocap: You can preview them in the player below AND purchase them. Here is some background on each tune.

good to your momma:
I recently have come to realize that I do not have to be nice to everyone on the planet. Not that I go out of my way to be mean, but I realize that I have a finite measure of human ‘niceness’ that only goes so far. This song is about trying to escape ‘niceness’ that clogs the passages of true dialogue. My mom called me and was upset with me about this song so I hope that she reads this and sees its meaning(hi mom!)
‘you gotta be good to the killers and the predators’. This is the other theme of the song and speaks of giving goodness to people that do not deserve any. This is strange thing that feels strangely right - even though I can’t tell you why. Maybe it’s because they are so far from grace that to deny it to them would be to deny the very reason that grace exists. So, ‘no’ I do not believe in the death penalty. As gandalf says in Lord of the rings(paraphrased), ‘many men deserve death and many deserve life, can you give it to them? do not be too hasty in dealing out death and judgement’.

I have been out on the road a lot this summer and have had a chance to read quite a bit. One afternoon I was perusing the book, ‘the war of art’ and came across an interesting section. The book is intended to help motivate artists to actually create instead of procrastinating. It breaks it down into a lot of real-life examples of this and one such passage was about inner healing. I will not try and quote this since the book is probably hopelessly lost in my RV or in Sedona,AZ where i last saw it. I will improvise and use a “mathis-quotation” - ‘*’ which will suffice for our uses.

*inner-healing is a form of resistance to creating true art*. His premise is that seeking inner-healing is a form of procrastination and a copout from walking in our purpose as artists. It seemed very harsh to me, but I liked it because I am all about cowboying up and getting over stuff. Like hank hill says, ‘louanne, just swallow your emotions everytime you feel like crying(when she breaks up with dudley)’. That appeals to me - just drive your sherman tank over that ridge and take it!

I let those words stay in my mind for a couple weeks and talked to some friends about it. I was kind of excited about it because it was the first thing that I had ever heard so abrasive about ‘inner-healing’. I run in circles that are very pro-talk, pro-counseling, pro-inner-healing. A lot of artists I know don’t do art. that frustrates me a lot. So, question: “is it ok to not do what you were made for because you need inner-healing?”

I read a quote by Bly that was the final piece of the jenga tower for me. He said that we are wounded in a place of strength to take us out - to keep us from creating. If I have to create my art from a place of brokeness and weakness it does not mean that there is anything wrong with it or me. My friends and I talked about this issue the other night about how the best creativity comes to the surface when we are broken and messed up. Josh explained it to me that cracks in our humanity just allow the supernatural to shine through.

Show me an artist that goes running every morning, keeps his schedule organized, washes his dishes, and creates his personal best art at the same time. My grandfather, Jackson, lived in an upstairs attic(ultra-cool) with hardly any light for decades. He had rooms full of paintings, overflowing ashtrays, books and records EVERYWHERE, but he was a successful painter - because he PAINTED.

I am not saying that counseling is bad or that conversations about our problems or strengths are meaningless. I would submit that if you are creative and talk about your inability to create more than you create - something is wrong. My friend, Eric, paints for several hours a DAY - and I know songwriters that write every day. Drive your sherman tank up to the top of your emotional hill and survey your next conquest, baby.

Recently I have come to accept that I do not have to be nice to people. I am a southern gentleman by nature and as kind and considerate as a lemon wedge in a glass of iced Luzianne - however, things are changing. This summer I was on the road for 7 weeks with 300 people doing music and came to a stunning realization. You cannot be nice to 300 people for 7 weeks. Sometimes we are relieved of burdens that we are carrying by a gentle voice and sometimes an inescapable landslide wipes us on our face and carries it away. My experience was the latter.
I had to ignore people. I had to run from people. I had to stop monologues that would not stop themselves. Thank God for text messages. Not only this, but I had to be confrontational with some. I had to track people down. I had to say some unpopular and hard things to kids and adults that needed to hear them. In short, I had to be a leader.
Coming home, I had to come out of a passive/aggressive style of leadership and into a genuine one. I have learned to avoid responsibility that is not mine. i have learned to say, ‘no’, and in saying it have found excellence in my real duties. I guess 27 is old enough to start learning this stuff, right? So what am i trying to say? i am not popular - or nice - i feel great.

I recently bought a house - i love it! It is 100 years old with a huge front porch and a railroad track behind it. I was so excited about it - until another house showed up on the market with a similar appearance and the price was half as much as i paid.

A strange knot began to form in my stomach and worked its way up into my throat and slowly began to eat me from the inside out.

We looked at this house and the reason it was half-price became apparent. I was cool, until the same thing happened a couple months later… This time I tried to fight the feeling by giving all of my friends the address to see if they wanted it - since I couldn’t get it myself.

This feeling is called in its primitive form as, ‘jealousy’. In its more advanced stages it is called, ‘jaelousy’. A subtle difference…

I freak out when someone else gets a better deal than I got. Why is that?

I can remember when I was 15, all the guys wanted to be the center of the girls attention. If there were 5 girls in the room, we wanted every girl to be paying attention to us - even if we weren’t attracted to them or we already had a girlfriend. I suspect it was for the same reason. We couldn’t stand to be ignored while others were being paid attention to…

My friend, Aswan, is teaching me how to break this by example. He has amazing deals being offered to him by record labels, but he is bending over backwards to help others first before he jumps. He is so secure in his identity that he is helping others be secure in theirs.

Insecurity is why I get jealous. You see, it’s not about whether I get the best deal - it’s whether I get a better deal than the next guy. If I don’t know about it, then it doesn’t bother me. As long as my identity is based on comparison, I get eaten alive…

Whether it is music, money, ministry, etc… this applies. Know who you are, it is contagious, my friend.

I have people telling me what I should do with music ALL THE TIME.

“stay independent”
“go on tour”
“make another rock album”
“release your demos”
“do another worship album”
etc…

Since I am a people-pleaser, I say, “sure!”. Then I slowly sink into melancholy and don’t do anything. It is a time-tested and true fact that you can’t please everyone, and I am proof of this. Recently, I have been thinking about getting signed and bounced it off some friends. Some were receptive and some were not. I was amazed at how noone said, “Mark, it’s your deal - you need to decide”.

Everyone has an opinion and I am blessed to have people that care enough to speak into my life. My wife Jessie slapped me around a bit and told me, “You can’t let this rob you of your happiness, people are always going to have an opinion. it’s just an opinion…”. This is dog simple, but it is true. Don’t let other peoples opinions about what you should be doing take the wind out of your sails and rob you of purpose.

do what you love and love what you do. the rest is just details.

mark

i have a problem with size - or maybe my perception of it. what was fine for me a year ago is not anymore. what was big then is small now and i am learning to handle both big and small in the same space. this is the hardest mental exercise that i have ever done, being diligent and faithful with the small and totally overwhelmed with the big. it would be like chris martin going around doing shows for 5 people in little coffeehouses and then being expected to perform for 5000 the next night. one of the shows is going to suffer - because big and small do not require the same from us. the performance for 5 is much different than for 5000, because performing for 5 suggests that noone knows who you are. I know people that are good at one of these but not both, i would be interested in hearing from people who can balance these.
they say in the music industry that you have to play each show the same whether it’s big or small, but i think that’s only partly true. maybe the problem comes in when people who are supposed to be small try and go big or vice-versa? am i always supposed to go big or go home, or is that just what culture tells me. i have some friends in europe that are impressed/disgusted with america because EVERYTHING we do is big. big cars, food portions, money, houses, etc… may i suggest that there is no reason to go to cosco to buy stuff if you are a single person with a cat? is that heresy?
still as petty says, ‘running down a dream - never would come to me’. sometimes you do have to run it down and search that path out. when i come to the end of mine, i want to be like paul, ‘content in plenty and in want’.
i do want to go big, though. god, i want to go big.