Pamparo in Toronto

Last week, the Persians celebrated their New Year and I had the privilege of playing bass for the service that was held at Bayview Glen Alliance Church by our Farsi-speaking community. And if you live in Toronto and know how to speak/read Farsi, you can visit their website at http://mohabat.org

I really enjoyed playing with these guys. Have a listen and even though you can’t understand the words, I hope that you will be blessed by the music. Without further ado, here are the tracks:

• Come, Now Is The Time To Worship
• Hayatee Tazeh
• I Could Sing of Your Love
• Kalaamat
• Shout To The Lord
• Rooneh Oo Dar Mast (Heaven Is In My Heart)
• Sarayeem Isa Khodavand
• Shokr Bar Nameh Isa

Many thanks to the following musicians for making my life so much easier:

Ramsin Youhanna – Vocals, Piano, Keyboards
Luis Vasconez – Guitars (Electric/Acoustic)
Zee Nasser – Drums/Percussions
Sean Pinage – Drums/Percussions

And of course, to Daniel Nasser for not only for managing the soundboard for us but also for sending me these audio tracks that he recorded using his iPod! Don’t you love technology!

Six months ago, I posted something about ending my 10-year career with a company. Tomorrow, I will be starting a “new job” with that same company. I know, it’s weird and it’s not something that happens all the time. Well, I will be working as a Project Leader which is an upgrade from my previous Senior System Admin position. I will be doing pretty much the same technical things that I was doing before plus some people and project management added to it.

I really want to say is how blessed we really feel. Even in these hard times, God is still making a way for me to have job offers. Our whole family thank God and praise Him for this blessing!

If you want to hear something different from an old-timer that seems to have re-invented himself, check out Darrell Evans’ “Nothing Less Than Everything”. For those who does not know him yet, he’s the guy who brought us the infectious “Trading My Sorrows”, “Let the River Flow”, “We Will Embrace Your Move”, “Your Love Is Extravagant”, and many more.

A lot of people have been turned off by his previous releases especially with the “Consuming Fire” live album. But what people miss is how good the lyrics on that album. Unfortunately, the sound on that album does not really appeal to a lot of people (except me). But he sure made up for that with this release, though. This album is infused with Biblicaly-sound lyrics, passionate expression of faith, magnificent vocals and great melodic arrangements that is without compromise. Most times when you get an album, there are a couple of throw-away songs or there are only a handful of keepers. Not so with this one. I have been enjoying each track ever since I bought it.

The bottom line is this — one of the few christian albums I’ve had the pleasure of listening to in a long time. And that is saying a lot!

Many thanks to the review at Worshipcity as I didn’t really know that Darrell is releasing a new album. Head over there to see what he thinks as well.

Wayne (worship leader/friend) and I, have been exchanging song ideas via email for the past month or so. It’s very good and full of fun but slowly I realize how much effort really goes into actually getting a song written and having it recorded. I guess I am just not one of those gifted individuals who would do 1-takes for a session but still … there’s a lot that goes into writing/recording a song.

Here’s a song that I have written many years ago but started working on it again. I wanted to record it to share with friends. My songs are very personal and it speaks a lot about my experiences. For this instance, I have written a song about thanksgiving because I was really thankful for what God has done in my life. Unfortunately, it is still incomplete and got ways to go …

- some parts missing, like the Bridge
- you can hear the click track quite loudly on this clip.
- does not have vocals as well. I am not a singer nor will I pretend to be.
- bass track is missing (muted actually, i need to re-record it)

Here’s the backing track: Thank You Lord
And link to the lyrics: http://odnalor.org/wp/2003/03/24/thank-you-lord.html

How about you? Have you written a song lately? Care to share your workflow and some clips?

If you have frequent this site, you will notice that I now have a logo on the header of the page. Thanks to a freeware product called Seashore.

It is not as robust as Photoshop or even Gimp itself but for simple projects, it is more than enough. And let me repeat this very important information, it’s FREE!

For a quick reference, here are some of the features of this product.

* Full support for the GIMP’s native XCF file format
* Read and write support for the TIFF, PNG, JPEG, JP2000 and GIF file formats
* Read-only support for the BMP, PICT, PDF and XBM file formats
* Layers with over 20 merging effects
* Ability to edit just the primary or alpha channels
* Thorough transparency effects including semi-transparent gradients
* Arbitrary selection regions
* Anti-aliased brush strokes
* 6 basic gradient effects with 16 variations
* Tablet support
* ColorSync support (including embedded profiles in TIFFs and CMYK previewing)
* Plug-in filters

You can get more information here: http://seashore.sourceforge.net/index.php

Have fun and make sure to share your creation