Fun stuff. Used a new 50mm lens and edited with no effects in Final Cut Pro.

That’s me playing What Sarah Said by Death Cab - one of like 3 songs I actually know how to play on piano.

I’m really looking forward to making this camera my best friend…

In modern worship we did a mixture of music and video and kerner and his crew set up the light trusses we usually use at the green room and did some really sweet architectural projection.

With the help of 8 volunteers, I put together a video of people telling the story of Christmas as it was seen in the book of Isaiah. It turned out pretty good - i’ll post it in a bit.

There was also a video for Financial Peace University - a class for people who are (oddly enough) trying to find peace with their finances. You can see that video down yonder.

Here’s the set from this weekend:

Joy To The World - arr. by us
Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
Do You Hear What I Hear? - arr. Third Day
Born in Bethlehem - Third Day
Tear Down the Walls - Hillsong United
I Celebrate the Day - Relient K
Silent Night - arr. by us
Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
Freedom is Here - Hillsong United

Financial Peace Video:

Let God Arise - Tomlin
Angels We Have Heard on High - arr. us in a punk rock disguise
The Stand - Hillsong United
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - arr. Jars of Clay - you can listen to the recording from the 9:45 service on our Purevolume site.
All We Need - Charlie Hall

Thoughts:

What an awesome, awesome congregation we have. The worship team was very low on energy before both Saturday Night and the 9:45 services, but seeing how ready the peeps were to praise, we woke right up! Special thanks to those who showed no fear at the 9:45 service during the offertory song by standing with your hearts abandoned. How un-methodist of you all! Remember, for that hour nothing else matters - we are here to worship the One who has saved us! Forget about yourself. Forget about those around you. Give…God…everything… don’t you think He’s earned it?

I Want A Love - Zach Reeves & Schweitzer High School Band no. 2
Song of Hope - Robbie Seay Band
You Hold Me Now - Hillsong United
I Celebrate the Day - Relient K
Run - Hillsong United

Thoughts:
The youth band was incredible and was inspiring to hear them worship with a song they wrote themselves. I challenged myself by leading I Celebrate the Day from the Grand Piano, and I think it went okay.  The pastors asked me to call the offering which generally leads to me getting frustrated that we even have to ask for people to give a little. Also had a couple people comment that I need to drink less coffee in the mornings - apparently i was bouncing around more than usual, but hey someone has gotta do it (hint hint people who come to worship our creator and stand with your arms folded and dont smile and dont sing).  Fitz did awesome as usual leading You Hold Me Now, and the addition of the Boosta Grande and a DD6 to go with my DD20 delay pedal really makes it fun to play lead every once in a while. Also, the M48’s (and the inherent ability to pan and add reverb) is really freeing us up to concentrate on playing and not on what we can and cannot hear.

It’s in 4:3 because that’s how it was presented in the sanctuary on our 4:3 screens.

Music: “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” by Death Cab for Cutie

a lot has happened since I last posted…let’s catch up:

1) I graduated from MSU (yes I have since used my student id to save $.50 at a movie theater…bruno was stupid by the way)
2) I was hired full time at the ol’ sumc with the title “Media Coordinator and Modern Worship Leader” which basically means I’m going to coordinate media and lead modern worship. I am amazingly blessed with this opportunity and extremely thankful to be employed, especially by such great people.
3) I turned the empty room in my house to a home office/studio which has caused productivity to SKYROCKET.
4) I’ve been reading more (currently: The Irresistible Revolution and Watchmen)
5) I bought a mower and mowed the grass like twice.

That should be all. I’ve been blessed with having quite a bit of work to do. Currently we’re working on recording our first in-house cd at the church. It’s going to be great - more on that later. Also we’ve been experimenting with the layout of the platform in our 50 year old sanctuary along with making videos and writing music. Again, more later.

Tonight, however, I’m going to share with you a video from my final production class at MSU. The assignment was to make a music video, so we put this thing together. The scruffy wannabe in this is my good friend Brian (whom if you are  reading this blog I’m sure you are familiar with (that interjection made no sense)). Brian also plays in the worship bands at Schweitzer and he’s a generally all around good guy.  Too bad he isn’t talented.  Also there is a cameo appearance (redundant?) of someone you may or may not recognize.

Anyway, props to Chris Wright for editing this bad boy and Matt P. for working on it as well. Enjoy. More to come. -zak

An Endless March of Two Hearts [short] from Zak Lampert on Vimeo.

This picture was taken at the Green Room, a worship service we do on the MSU campus at 9pm every sunday night. Now, I’ve always been a fan of British gear, but one problem is that they make everything really freaking heavy and don’t build wheels on them. That deck got me by, but I really wanted something that would also protect my investments.

After reading around and talking to people at various music stores in town, I came to the realization that the cases were going to cost a lot. So, I looked up plans on how to make these suckers. This idea ended quickly because I have zero to no talent at building things, plus the parts are pretty expensive anyway.

Then, about 3 months ago, I found Affordable-Cases.com, and (even though they have a really ugly site) they seemed to be the best deal. I read some reviews on a few music forums and decided I’d go with them.

It took about a month to get someone to call or email me back, but once they did, the ball began to roll really quickly and smoothly. They didn’t need to know the dimensions of any of my gear, I just told them what style of cases I wanted and if I wanted recessed hardware, etc.

For my orange 2×12 cabinet, I went with a “Live-In” 1/4″ plywood case. This thing rocks:

The back has a little latch that you just open up to plug stuff in, so you don’t have to take off both sides. I had them put locking casters on the corners and they seem to work really well.  Nothing too special about this cases, other than they did a great job building it and fitting it precisely to the size of the cab.

Now for the Vox, I went a little crazy. This case has a 3unit shockrack on top of the place for the amp. In that rack is a steel locking drawer to store cables, mics, footswitches, etc. This case has lids that come off both sides for access plus locking casters.

All in all, I’m really happy with the cases. The biggest problem is I can’t lift the amp case by myself (neither could you). The Vox is already insanely heavy, then when you add all the hardware and wood and make it freaking huge, it makes it impossible to carry. This presents a pretty big problem, because I need to be able to lift stuff in and out of my car by myself. So, I’m debating whether or not I need to see about getting a smaller cases, perhaps without the depth of the drawer, to keep the weight down.

Either way, I’m really excited to push stuff around and not worry about getting scratches and stuff. Oh, and I definitely recommend Affordable Cases, they’re based out of St. Louis, and they’ll custom build you a case for anything you want.

Anyway, now my gear looks like this:

Bye!

However, I still reserve the write to talk about strange things that interest me: such as television (see the yellow dude), film (how did Frost/Nixon win no oscars?), technology (omgzz@#!! apple is so amazing), and much much more!

And let me just say one thing: my writing skillz are below average and I tend to talk like a “gangsta” or a “nerdzors” out of nowhere, so be ready/looking forward to that.

See ya around!

-Zak