The Corners News

Tour Update

2010-07-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well, we just got back from our first extensive tour. We played churches, camps, and coffee shops as we went through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Illinois. A total of 29 days.
I viewed this trip as a kind of dress rehearsal. You know, testing the waters a bit to see if the travelling life is something that the four of us will be able to do together.
The conclusion?
It was one of the most rewarding experiences in the life of The Corners.
We were able to reach out and play in areas that we’ve never played before. We got to spread our music and Christ’s message from St. Louis to Houston and everywhere in between.

Also… director/filmographer Jordan Hosmer went along with us and documented the trip on video. We just wanted you guys to know what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. I think this little mini-doc will be a great way to convey all of that to you a little better.

Thanks to all who came out to see us and/or put us up for the night. We were totally blessed by so many wonderful folks that we met on this trip.

Andy Rhea
(The Corners)

Who We Are

2010-05-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

{We just found out yesterday that a magazine called Word and Way is wanting to interview The Corners and possibly include us in a story. This being our first press, we were pretty pumped. They wanted some info in advance on who we are so Matt (keyboards) put together a sweet little bio outlining our origins and I thought it was very well put together. I'm hoping this might help communicate our intentions and how we and even why we have such intentions.} -andy

The brainchild of bandleader Andy Rhea, The Corners synthesize the musical influence of Foday Mashburn, Daniel Rhea, Matt Assel, and Andy Rhea into a truly unique indie/folk rock sound. Launching in the summer of 2007, this ensemble of young musical artists set forth on a mission of cultural influence through musical art. For two years, Andy Rhea and His Band, as they we known at the time, traveled throughout the mid-west playing at local venues, churches, and summer camps. Their task was simple, gather an audience who will listen, and use noise and English to illustrate and describe the REAL music that happens all around us. Throughout 2008 and the early months of 2009 Andy Rhea and His Band traveled from Hannibal to Troy to St. Louis to Kansas City to Springfield to Houston, TX and even to Grindewald, Switzerland using musical art and poetry to illuminate Christ.

In October of 2009, after many ups and downs, Andy decided that it was time to take the band to the next level. This band who was accustomed to a sparse practice and performance schedule would take some risky steps to add direction and discipline to their operation. Instead of the one to two practices a month, the band began a twice a week practice schedule that was only occasionally thwarted by the unruly Missouri winter. During these practices every nuance of the musical performance and composition was heavily scrutinized—no room was left unexplored. It was also at this time that the band began putting together their debut EP “The Hardest Questions.” To this point Andy had released two albums, “This Day” in 2005, and “Seeing and Being Seen” in 2007; however, “The Hardest Questions” would stand as the first full band collaboration—a daunting task for four individuals who brought four completely different influences to the table.

The efforts of this short journey came to fruition in February of 2010 when Andy Rhea and His Band in collaboration with Producer Kevin Gates and Engaged Audio laid down the four track EP “The Hardest Questions.” With this new album came a new name—The Corners—and a new sound; however the mission remained the same—use noise and English to illustrate and describe the REAL music that happens all around us.

On May 1, 2010, The Corners released “The Hardest Questions” on Amazon.com. Within the first 24 hours they climbed to #157 on all mp3 releases, #55 on Hot New Releases, and #1 on Movers and Shakers in overall album sales. One critic raves:

“Not only is the musical composition excellent, but the lyrical composition really helps give this album some meat. The lyrics are deep, challenging, poetic, and very catchy. These songs WILL get stuck in your head.”

The Corners will spend the summer of 2010 touring this new EP and continuing the foundational goal of culture influence through musical art.

Matt
(The Corners)

website (coming soon): www.listentothecorners.com

myspace: www.myspace.com/listentothecorners

A Chuck E. Cheese Disco Ball Moment

2010-04-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

When I was like 9 or 10, I set out to earn enough Chuck E. Cheese tickets to get a disco ball. The disco ball cost about 4,000 tickets so it took a little over a year to save up. Every birthday party or special event I would only play the games that would produce (on average) the highest possible ticket return.

Finally, I got my disco ball. I don’t know exactly where it is right now (probably in my parent’s basement) but for years I kept it on a shelf in my room and would turn it on from time to time just to remind myself that I set out to do something and did it. Now that’s a good feeling.

Well, our EP is finally out (amazon.com… http://www.amazon.com/the-hardest-questions-ep/dp/B003JMTN8Q/).

Since last October, we’ve been biting at the bit to get this thing out to you guys and we’ve been dreaming about it l o n g before that. The culmination of about a year of developing, planning, and saving is finally about to pay off.

This EP is like a Chuck E. Cheese disco ball only on a much larger scale. We are proud of our hard work and very thankful that God has blessed us with this great opportunity.

So what about you? Is there a Chuck E. Cheese disco ball moment in your life? In my opinion, it’s ok to take pride in hard work so please share.

Andy
(The Corners)

Things Sought After and Still Waiting to Be Found

2010-04-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I will come across a particular mindset in different people that fascinates me. Makes me think about myself and what’s going on inside of my own head.
I’ll try my best to describe this mindset to you…in just a second.
First, let me touch on why and how I've noticed it.

We are all living in a crazy world. If you want to find some evil, if you are looking for some spiritual darkness, you’re not going to have to look very hard. I’ll put it this way, if we could spend selfishness and pride like money, our economy would be flourishing.
I want to say this first because I do want you to know that I’m aware of it all.

Ok, so here’s the mindset I’ve noticed:
Some folks love to notice and pick out these negative qualities in the world. These are the people who only seem to see the bad, the negative, the evil.

My questions:
What about the good?
Did you miss it?
Well, of course you noticed the bad. It’s everywhere. Hard to miss, actually.

The challenge that I’d like to issue is this:
Acknowledge the bad, don’t ignore it, but get past it. Look for the good. Look for God and His intentional presence in your world.
It’s not good to be lazy, and I just think that finding the darkness is too easy. Work hard and look for the Light. I promise you will find it.

"...Because the Darling of the universe speaks light to the one's who are willing to take off their shoes."

Andy
(The Corners)

Some Things That I Don't Understand

2010-04-25T05:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time studying up on how much of God I don’t understand. The funny thing about God is that whenever I try to study God, the majority of that time is actually spent discovering even more new things about God that I don’t understand.
Take prayer for example.
Prayer is talking to God, right? We learned this in Sunday school. But what are the dynamics of prayer? If a person asks you to pray for them, is that a favor for the person, for the request, or for God?
The more I think, study, and pray about these things, the more content I notice exists in the questions I’m asking…more work, more study, more that I don’t understand.
But right now I have to push all of that aside and just ask that you pray.
Please pray for our band as we fling ourselves out into the world and try to accomplish the things that the Lord asks of us.
Please pray for my family and me. We are going through a tough time right now and really want things to go the way the Lord wants things to go.
These are two biggies. If any of you could step up to these two requests, I’d say that we owe you.
So how can we pray for you?
I promise that if you put a request on this page, it will get prayed for by us at our next practice. We want to take the responsibility of praying for one another seriously and we ask the same from you. Peace.

Andy
(The Corners)

Poetry Vs. Meaning

2010-04-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've noticed this before: the struggle that Christian songwriters have between making a song poetic (creative and capturing the aesthetics of the language) and still contain good content that will carry a clear and meaningful message.

One thing that I've noticed is that the majority of songs used for corporate worship seem to be one or the other.

Very creative and...vague with sketchy theology or...

Very theologically sound and... dry with a lot of repetition and a rhyme scheme that's all out of whack.

In case you're reading this and haven't yet tried your hand at writing a song or poem that is worshipful, please know that it is very difficult and things usually wind up being poetic or meaningful.

I'm currently looking to expand The Corners' worship repertoire for youth camps this summer and I'm looking for those rare gems that seem to capture both. What songs really speak to you on these two levels? They could be old songs, brand new ones, famous ones, or obscure ones.

A Life Lesson that Blogging is Teaching me?

2010-04-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

This is a new blog.

I’m a new blogger.

As a newb to the blogging world, I didn’t really realize how this thing was going to work until I asked my friend Kyle about it (check out his blog http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com/ he’s actually a legit blogger). See, I was under the impression that I would utilize the blog by unleashing all my wisdom and amazingness to the world and you all were to listen and be amazed. It didn’t work like that for two main reasons:
1) I am not either of those things.
2) Blogging is about community and that’s just not how community works.
BUT, if we all value what each other has to say, if we all invest in the conversations that happen from each other’s blogs, I’m sure there is so much we can learn from each other in these weird little cyber-communities that we build.
What do you say we make this happen? I’m up for it if you are.

andy

(The Corners)

Such a Tease

2010-04-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

We are really getting pumped for this new ep. It’s going to be called “The Hardest Questions” and it will release to itunes and amazon.com at the end of this month! I got restless a night or two ago and put together this little audio teaser so that you can get a glimpse of what it’s going to sound like. You can check out the teaser at www.myspace.com/listentothecorners. While you’re there, if you are a fellow myspacer, add us and let’s connect there as well. Peace.

andy
(The Corners)

Bare Feet and the Work of God

2010-04-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

Shoes are dumb. I'm not a fan.

Once a week I go out to the park and play ultimate frisbee with some friends. For me, this simply cannot be done with shoes on my feet.

{insert pic of my gross feet after playing ultimate}

This is all beside the point of the song, but I do find spending time on your own two feet a very healthy activity.

The song I wrote is actually based around a poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning:

Earth's crammed with heaven

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,

And daub their natural faces unaware

More and more from the first similitude.

The second I read those first three lines, I knew I'd write a song about it after I'd had enough time to chew it over and think about all that it means.

This poem and song are both referring to Moses and the burning bush. God told Moses to take off his shoes. God told him he was standing on holy ground. Moses' trust in God went far beyond his own understanding of how things in life are "supposed" to work.

So where has all this holy ground gone? I say, "the burning bush is still burning bright." Our society is growing increasingly skeptical of anything that a human can't understand or explain, but this doesn't leave any space for a loving Creator full of grace does it?

Church, where is your wonder?

Church, where is your awe?

Why would Christ's work here on earth have to go through our limited understanding?

My friends, lets all be more faithful to all the crazy things God can do.

andy

(The Corners)

The lyrics to our song "Barefoot" are here: http://poetrybyandy.blogspot.com/2010/04/lyrics-to-new-ep-track-1-barefoot.html

A New Something We're Working On

2010-04-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

We're working on a new song called "Cloudburst." I've posted the lyrics on my poetry blog (http://poetrybyandy.blogspot.com/). It has instantly become one of our new faves. I'll try to remember to tape a video of it at practice on Monday. If I do, and it sounds ok, I'll post that as well for you guys to have a sneak peak. Peace!

andy(The Corners)

Who are The Corners? Pt. 2

2010-04-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

At this point, we each spend the majority of our time doing non-band activities.
Some of us sit in offices,
some in classrooms,
some in car garages,
but we all have the same thing pestering us, even hindering us every once in a while from doing our work:

the future.

There is an excitement brewing between the four of us concerning the band and what could happen.
It feels like nervousness. It is used as passionate energy to complete the tasks that we need to get done in order to give the best presentation possible.
There is no doubt that this is what we want to do.
This conviction is real. This is what we want to be. This is where we want to go.

Soooo…

In your opinion, where do you think the line can be drawn between chasing your dreams and just being egocentric?
Yes, I’m asking you this question. Think about it, and get back to us when you’re ready. We appreciate it. We are just seeking balance in all this passion.

The Corners

Who are The Corners?

2010-03-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot has been happening with the band. We are all still the same people, our musical style is still...similar, but we feel that we are a BAND now. It's not just "so-and-so and his band," we are all contributers, all part of the sound. That is why our new release (coming very soon on itunes and amazon) will be under the name "The Corners."

The reason behing that particular name is this: even though we are all part of the band, none of us really want the band to be about us or anything that we do. We are aiming to be in the corners of what is happening, our efforts are to set the focus on the true catalyst.

We are aiming to glorify our Father and His truth.

So this is just a heads up. When the new ep comes out (and oh my, it's gonna sound good) we will no longer be Andy Rhea and His band, but The Corners.

Hey, we love you guys,

The Corners