jonnybaker

freebies

yes everyone loves free stuff. so this year for our proost promo stuff around greenbelt we are simply giving people a taster of proost new and forthcoming releases for free - a bunch of freebies including the likes of dubh, harronell, dubb along with samples from forthcoming releases from ben mcavoy, molten meditation and grace (yes over 10 years later there is a new grace album on the way). simply go to proost and follow the instructions or if you are familiar with proost go to the audio section and select freebies. and if you are a subscriber freebies is in the download area - it has a couple of tunes even you won't have heard yet.

it's two years since proost's relaunch at greenbelt 2007. since then we've managed to get new content every month uncovering some gems in the process and published a bundle of artists and writers for the first time in the process. we did a bit of counting up and worked out that there are now around 44 movies, 22 albums and 11 books all of which would add up to around £250 to download individual items. if you subscribe you get all that plus the next year's content - that has to be good value. the numbers seemed so neat we put them on our promo card...

thanks to anyone who has encouraged us in the last two years, who we have encouraged, who has created something, who has been inspired, shared their creativity, taken something from proost and made it their own in their context by giving it a different use, purchased an individual item, no longer needs proost becuase you make your own stuff, or who have subscribed. it's been hard work but we've surprised ourselves at how well it's gone.

greenbelt 09

well back from holiday in scotland yesterday and now getting ready for greenbelt. hope to see a load of you there! here's a few places i'll be...

• thursday evening - gloucester cathedral for network gathering
• friday 5pm - dropping 2 photos off at the hub to take part on the participative exhibition
• friday 10pm - proost unusual suspects evening in new forms - new talent - come and support/cheer on agents of future, dubb, andi mac, ben norton, chris goan, cntrst, harronell, ben mcavoy, and padraig
• sat 10am - following last year's postmodern doubt vs african certainty i am interviewing yemi more in depth about the experience of black majority churches in britain - in the cms venue
• sat 2pm - hosting a conversation with a few esteemed guests on curation as a model for leading worship following on from the fertile conversations on the blog - winged ox
• sat 5pm - i get to play (DJ would be an overstatement) a selection of chilled tunes for an hour in the wine bar - a new venture for me! - wine bar
• sat 9pm - proost lounge featuring 3 artists - harronell, dubh, and dubb - i can't wait. i'm guessing some of you will be tempted by royksopp but you'll be missing out - the hub venue
• sun 10:30am - interviewing guys from slot festival as part of main worship - so chuffed they will be there - main stage
• sun 2pm - so you want to be a pioneer? - with ben norton and mark rodel - hearing their stories of pioneering in mission and exploring the future for others interested in pioneering - cms venue
• sun 3pm - proost making movies - jon birch is actually hosting this with joel, mark waddington, andi mac - showing a few of their movies and sharing tips on the inspiration and making of movies - cms venue
• sun 4pm - sitting in to learn from andrew jones as he shares tales of his travels across europe and reflects on what is happening in the egdes of mission and the church - cms venue
• sun 8:30pm - be at the tiny tea tent for an act of proost impromptu performance
• mon 10am-6pm (?) - the long now - grace and other groups have joined together to create a long worship experience for you to drop in and out of in new forms. i haven't been involved so have no idea what's going to happen - looking forward to finding out
• mon 3pm - hosting a conversation on liturgy in new/emerging communities with a few wonderful guests and contributors to the pocket liturgy series on proost - winged ox
• mon 6pm - photo swap time at the hub - someone gets mine i guess and i go home with theirs - here's hoping you bring something good!!

other than that no doubt talking and drinking coffee and or beer - will try and see some of arts programme and worship which looks great - so glad i passed on the planning - it's got better! joel is DJing main stage on Sun night. cms have a great programme as ever. there is a conversation going on about the way forward for relational youthwork which is much needed - 9am sat in ymca venue - part two to be arranged from there i guess. if you have an iphone/ipod you can download an app - search greenbelt and you'll find it. or you can buy a pdf of the daily diary from greenbelt site.

dubb - debut album rhythm and poetry

i am very excited to announce that dubb's first album rhythm and poetry (rap) is out. dubb is none other than harry baker who crafts words that are fun, poignant and high energy. the album is 9 tracks mixed by jon birch, the godfather (well his godfather!). the beats are provided by the human beatbox tyte who if you haven't come across is brilliant. it's available to download from proost for only 4.99. it includes be yourself and the legendary superman shoes which you may have heard before. you can have a listen to samples of the album in the media player (right window on proost). i am of course totally biased but it is a wonderful debut.

our other release this month is espresso scriptures from ben norton, a collection of short reflections on scriptures. here's what i wrote for the foreword...

Ben’s a surprise! When you meet him you think he can’t be a vicar in the Church of England. He doesn’t seem the type with his tattoos and piercings and spiky hair of whatever colour it happens to be that week. But then you find out he is one of these new pioneer ministers who get to create something from nothing, to share the Christian faith with people who aren’t in church. The church has realised that business as usual works for insiders but there are whole groups of people for whom church is like another planet, a different world. And it is going to take some different people to go on an adventure of the imagination to connect the Christian story with their stories in a way that makes sense. So Ben hangs out chatting to people, sharing the faith whether at school gates in the pub, on youtube online or out surfing gently growing a spiritual community or two that doesn’t require visiting another planet called church.

Espresso scriptures has naturally emerged out of that – framing the scriptures as a daily short reflection that is sent via e-mail to people who are interested in spiritual things. They are straightforward, direct and creative – perfect for the morning to get you going for the day. It’s Proost’s first bible reading book I guess though it doesn’t quite feel like a set of bible study notes in that sense. It’s also Ben’s first book, the first of many we are sure.

So make yourself an espresso, rip out a page and digest it as you go. We’re delighted Ben brought it to us as an idea and now the idea has legs.

maybe the poet - review of big chill 09

there's something about poetry that is close to themes of justice, truth, liberation and 'maybe the voice of the spirit'. it's true of art in general that it has that strain but somehow i'm beginning to think that the poet gets to it quicker or more intensely. maybe because it's just words or maybe because it's more marginal or maybe because you have to say something... i am so convinced about this that i have decided that if you move to an area and want to connect with people into spirituality and justice find the local poets and it won't be far away. i chatted with a guy in lancaster earlier this year about exactly this theme and idea.

this year at the big chill i spent a few hours in the words in motion tent once more hearing the astonishing jean binta breeze. she is the closest i have met to what i imagine a full on prophet/ess to be. and ursula rucker was also inspirational and equally hard hitting. but what amazed me in the tent once again was how many of the poems touched on deep themes from everybody even in the open mic slots... when i was at school poetry was inaccessible - i just didn't get it (how does school manage to make music and poetry a turn off?! weird). but now i'm thinking that walter brueggemann's thesis that it is the language of the poet that we need to hear to voice counter imagination  is more directly about poetry than i was thinking before. i had thought of it as a tone of speech. but no - unleash the poets in your midst or seek them out. if anyone has any favourite poems or poets do add a comment - i'm keen to expand my ignorance.

all that is by way saying a highlight of the big chill was the poetry/spoken word - words in motion. i have added a few photos (i really didn't take many this year) to flickr of this year's big chill. it was a treat to see david byrne - surprisingly i have never seen talking heads. two discoveries were erik truffaz and the white tree - both of whom i'll be seeking out some more music of. listening to laura b play on a stage in the enchanted garden whilst sitting in a hammock was sublime. lamb, norman jay, hexstatic, bonobo, orbital, basement jaxx and so on was all wonderful. seeing a few thousand people dressed as zombies for a film shoot the night before the festival was fairly amusing and harry and joel duly obliged. mr scruff's tea tent proved to be a great hang out with 'music for grown ups' as he described it and great tea - music for the old folks?! seeing sky lanterns going up in droves was also typically magical big chill. but mostly it was nice just to unwind, enjoy glorious unbroken sunshine, hang out with jen for our 22nd wedding anniversary at her first visit to the chill.

the only downer was chris cunningham - the man is a film genius no doubt technically but his opening music video was an assault on the senses so violent and abusive between a man and a woman that i felt physically sick and left - what is going on his head to create that kind of a narrative i have no idea. i looked on the big chill forum and several people cited him as a highlight which i just found bizarre - maybe it got a lot better or maybe i turned into mary whitehouse overnight - i hope so (that it got better) and i hope not (the mary whitehouse part). if anyone in the audience had experienced violence or abuse i dread to think what they felt. there are a lot of families with kids there at the festival - it just wasn't in keeping with the spirit of the festival imho. but hey - we left and recovered though the images have haunted me a several times since...

love the chill. thanks to the organisers who know how to create the most amazing festival. it all ended with a huge zombie bonfire - the purging of demons or something?! this was my fifth year in a row so i guess i'm a regular now...

simon who came with us along with joel and harry has posted a review here

flaming zombie and other big chill photos

flaming zombie, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

i have added a set of photos from the big chill 2009 . this is the huge bonfire of a zombie that had been built in the run up to the festival and looked totally amazing...

if you e-mailed me over the last two weeks...

i have lost the e-mails. i know it makes for a dull blog post (the second of the day!) - sorry!

i basically have spent the day trying to rebuild databases etc all to no avail. i can't tell you how happy i am to have finally been able to see something looking like an e-mail albeit two weeks ago which was the last time i backed up - note to self back up at least once a week! a few people have expressed quiet glee that a mac has failed (i can tell from the pc glint in the eye) but i blame microsoft anyway!!! maybe i should switch to mail...

anyway if you remember e-mailing me or are expecting a response from me to something and haven't got it it may be because i am behind on everything or it may be because you sent it in a two week gap in my digital life and it has slipped into the void. please resend. i may still not answer as i am off on holiday later in the week but i will get round to it eventually i am sure.

this could become a series of really dull blog posts - and before anyone else makes the quip - what's new?! ;-)

post festival

the big chill was wonderful - such a great festival. it was my fifth year in a row so i guess i'm a regular now! 

i got back to my e-mail not working. when i click on any folder entourage can't find it. so if you have e-mailed me recently and i haven't or don't reply that's why! i'm hoping that rebuilding the database today will sort out the problem - we'll see. but it didn't help that when i tried that last night half way through it stopped because i didn't have enough space on the disc presumably to copy the database elsewehere... ho hum. so i'm now trying again. amazing how much of my work/proost/life flows through e-mail. i can resort to a backup but would lose two weeks stuff. why am i telling you this? i have no idea. 

emergent psalter and agents of future podcast

isaac everett has written an emergent psalter - no mean feat! this is an example for me that shows that many in the emerging church are looking to re-connect with and improvise out of the tradition rather than move away from it. he is also running a podcast that takes a pslam from the lectionary and interviews someone about it playing related tunes. the latest podcast features an interview with todd and angie fadel of agents of the future including a track from their min album which is on proost . you can link to the book and listen to the interviews from the emergent psalter page. i am looking forward to agents of future being at greenbelt this year! isaac of course also has two albums on proost...

i am a happy man...

this is the outlook for the big chill right now...

that makes me happy :-)

if you're wanting a musical warm up, there's a playlist growing on spotify made up of artists who are playing. and there's a thread on the forum with links to download set times

purple radio set by cntrst

a few people on the big chill forum are involved in purple radio. well joel/cntrst played a set recently that you can download - the set list is over at pipedown. i have recently been getting a few tunes for this summer from joel on my ipod - very much liking the sounds of this summer...

he's in a good mood

asbo jesus has reached no 767 - it's a totally brilliant site. jon's cartoons are always poignant. though judging by the latest jon is getting in touch with his happy side!

big chill 2009

looking forward to the big chill festival next weekend. the line up looks great. hoping the weather will be kind!