Soteria Music

Yesterday was “Murdoch Day” in Redruth. This is the town’s festival, celebrating the inventor of gas lighting William Murdoch. This celebration involves a market through the main street, a children’s parade following behind the town band.

From my point of view Redruth Baptist has always been involved doing something as either a very obvious witness or sometimes a lot more subtle. This year we did both simultaneously, not only did we have our resident evangelists out giving out cards and engaging people in conversation, but we also did an exhibition of the Bible stories in cartoon form, cake sale, tea room, free barbecue and a live band.

Preparing for this day was a very busy week. With only 6 days to put together a band, organise some music to play and build a P.A. system when almost everyone I know who plays an appropriate instrument was already busy. Still Marc Stephens, Eddie Fletcher and I got busy figuring it all out. Eventually we had Julie on piano, Jane on flute, John and Leonie taking turns on drums, Eddie and Jenna on vocals (also later joined by Carina for the second session), of course Phil on P.A., and Marc and myself on guitars. At the last minute Roger also joined in on conga drums.

On the day we gathered early in the morning and after a quick prayer we got busy practicing and building the P.A. outside on the forecourt. From that point after the parade had gone past the church we began playing songs and inviting people to the free BBQ. From my point of view there was only one song that I was struggling with mostly just due to unfamiliarity with the piece. This was a song by Tim Hughes called “Happy Day”, otherwise known as “The Greatest Day in History”. For me and my track record of who I’ve played for this certainly was.

Before “Murdoch Day” the largest gathering I’ve played for is possibly around 150 to 200 people. Yesterday we played the music of God to the people of Redruth as they passed. We played to easily the largest number of people that I’ve ever played to, and it although it was a lot of work to get organised we all felt really grateful to our God for such a great opportunity to glorify Him in our town. And it was good fun too!

My thanks to everyone involved who helped make it happen. For all the fun, exciting and fantastic things that God has lead the likes of Phil and myself through, this certainly was the best one yet; the greatest day in S:WMD history.

Well practice for today’s Church service starts in half an hour so I better sign off and get down there.

Have a good Sunday everyone

Jon Richards

Has there ever been a moment in your life when you are simply over-awed by the wonderment of God’s creation? Have you been amazed at a time when He’s kept you from harm? Have you been stunned into silence at something so small that He’s done that was only for you to notice? I have.

I’ve been trusting in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ since I was a child and He has kept me safe through many adventures; protected me in a big car crash, defended me when people were threatening me with death, and given me insight enough to be able to help people when they need it are just some of the things He’s done for me. If I were to list all the things He’s done it would be a very long list, and if it’s this long now I wonder how long it would be by the time I reached retirement age?

You’d think there might come a time when the miracles of God would cease to be amazing but I can tell you they don’t!

That brings me around to the main subject of this blog entry; the development of S:WMD. Just like WhiteLight before it, S:WMD is growing at a rate that is totally outside my control:

When Alex Parry and I first form the guitar duo that form the basis of WhiteLight we said that we wouldn’t push to get gigs or more personnel, but we would faithfully meet every week practice and pray and leave the rest to God. For the next two and a half years with the additions of Ken Paterson and <a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=74:phil-gray-bio-page&amp;catid=36:artist-bios&amp;Itemid=54” target=”_blank”>Phil Gray</a> we played all over the county and recorded some (exceptionally rough sounding) CDs that have blessed people all over the world. Given the yearly-20s male egos involved here, it amazes me that we were able to obediently do anything let alone make a sound that actually blessed people. (Just by way of interest I still have the infamous intro to Alex’s song “God Reigns” as my mobile ringtone!)

WhiteLight was very much a blessing from God to us all too, not something we created. Now Phil and I are charged with running Soteria Music, and the development of that is going no differently. We thought 2009 was going to be a quiet year and then in the last few months we end up making two albums once! Then <a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=58:james-saldivars-bio-page&amp;catid=36:artist-bios&amp;Itemid=54” target=”_blank”>James’s</a> album has come along, and last night I got my first reading of some songs that some of the kids from the <a href=”http://www.redruthbaptist.org.uk” target=”_blank”>Church</a> have written. To my surprise these lyrics weren’t half-bad, a little rough and only scribbled onto some A4 paper, but just as the WhiteLight days the kernel of some great songs were there on those pages. So I asked them to tidy them up (preferably type them into the computer), and develop the ones that need developing. Of course we’ll be there to help them should they need it.

I wondered what God might give us to do next. S:WMD is quickly gaining the reputation of making music in rather bizarre ways, from the most expensive grand piano in Cornwall to the dark caverns of Poldark Mine, from folk-guitar music to jazz-piano that if you closed your eyes you could almost believe you were back in an American bar in the 20s! So what will the next project be I wonder; might it be a children’s written album, or might God lead us to another bizarre location?

When Ronan Keating sang about life being a rollercoaster he really kidding. If life is the fairground coaster at Blackpool, then a God-centred Christian life is Alton Towers! You are really not in control and you can be both scared and amazed all at the same time.

Thank you my Lord Jesus for it all.

So as we say in Cornwall: “Dyw genes, onen hag oll!” (God be with you, one and all!)

<a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=60:jon-richardss-bio-page&amp;catid=36:artist-bios&amp;Itemid=54” target=”_blank”>Jon Richards
</a>Exec Producer
<a href=”http://www.soteriamusic.co.uk” target=”_blank”>Soteria:WMD</a>

Last night S:WMD put on a record session inside of Redruth Baptist. Originally this session was to be for James Saldivar to begin recording on his new debut album.

The session was scheduled for 7pm and at 6:25pm I thought everything was in-hand and we were prepared. By half six I found that my camera was broken that meant I quick rush out to my parent’s house in Illogan to borrow one of my Dad’s cameras for the evening. As a consequence of this unexpected trip I was late for picking up the Church keys and Phil Gray! I arrived at Ann Chapple’s house to collect the keys looking slightly out-of-breath when she told me that my rushing around was a bit pointless as James had called her and he was still stuck in Penzance (over half an hour away). I collected the keys, thanked Ann for her help and went to find Phil.

Phil thankfully was waiting on his doorstep for me, and once he was in the car I relayed to his all that had happened in the last half hour. We pulled up outside the Church and called James back to find out what was happening on his end. Eventually it was decided that Phil and I would get things ready and James would catch the next available bus to Redruth. Given that the bus wouldn’t arrive in James’ village for another half hour and then take about 40 mins to arrive in Redruth it was becoming clear that we were not likely to get a huge amount done on this occasion.

We hung up the phone and Phil came up with the idea of using the extra time to work on the other big project of the season, getting more MP3s available on the downloads section. So we could use this time to record some of our back catalogue of songs that have never been heard!

So for the next hour and a bit I stood on RBC’s platform and played though various different songs of the WMD back-catalogue, (this not only includes songs by Phil and I but also my old mates Andy Bryant, Alex Parry and a few others).

After a long time James arrived and after Phil had got him set up and I had made some tea, we were treated to some of the smoothest piano music I’ve ever heard! We kept recording till gone ten by which point everyone was too tired to carry on. James called home for a lift and while we were waiting for the lift to arrive he and I did an impromptu rendition of Phil’s song “Humble Me”. To my amazement James was able to seamlessly just slot into the music and play his piano along with me strumming the guitar with no practice at all! Phil thanked us both and said the he was “humbled”.

So the work has begun. Here we go again then.

God bless you, one and all.

Jon Richards
Exec Producer

As you might have guessed by the lack of posts to this blog; things have calmed down a bit now since Christmas.

So now that the festivities are finished, 2010 has started, and we’ve all enjoyed a good break I thought I’d be in for a busy time going back to work at Truro School, and so it was for the first two days, today however the school has closed due to the snow. So not quite as busy as I would of expected.

Still, it suddenly means that Kitty and I were able to do a bit of filming at the local goldfish shop for her university project and I’ve spent the afternoon catching up with editing and publishing the rather large backlog of RBC sermons from the last two months. My apologies to all listeners of the RBC Listen Again service for getting so behind with these over Christmas.

From what I can foresee I think January is likely to be quite a quiet month as far as S:WMD business is concerned, which after the last three months of extreme busyness is a welcome break. Soteria Mag however is almost ready for it’s next publication so watch out for that one.

So if you will indulge me, I’d like to use the rest of this blog entry for what blogs are for: posting random musings:

The other day I walked from my house into Redruth that means having to pass through the local of “Mount Ambrose”. As the name implies this is a relatively steep climb. As I was walking a line of a Matt Redman song came into my head:
“I’m climbing up the mountain of the Lord, toward your Holy Place, and every step is praise!”

I began to wonder can you really praise God with every step? Then is dawned on me that there could well be bases for this idea. In the NIV translation, under the title of each Psalm is usually a note about the Psalm and who wrote it. Some of these notes indicate that certain Psalms are called ‘Psalms of Ascents’. The idea went something like this:

In Jewish understanding worship does not start after you arrive at the temple and the worship leader tells you that the service is about to start. The journey of getting there was all a part of the Jewish worship experience. The temple in Jerusalem was built on the foundation “Temple Mount” a huge stone structure able to withstand the weight of such a large building. To get up to the temple these were many steps and each was rather large, it was not a staircase that you could hurry up even if you wanted to. So to focus the mind on worshipping God the Psalmists gave the people ‘Psalms of Ascents’ to praise God with while on the way up to the Temple. You would stop on each step, read one of these Psalms perhaps with an additional prayer, and then on to the next step.

They are literally Psalms to be read as you ascend to worship God!

My Church is actually down hill from my house and it sits at ground level, but I see no reason why I can’t have a good worship music CD going while I’m travelling there. That way when I arrive I will already be in the frame of mind to worship my Lord and Saviour.

Indeed, if I were to walk the couple of miles that it is to worship my God with my fellow believers, perhaps I should be reading aloud a Psalm of Ascent. Who’s brave enough for that one?

Happy new year to you all

God bless

Jon Richards

If you’ve ever seen the Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Jingle All The Way” and seem the scene with the carollers, you may well have this fanciful idea that carol singing is a good old-fashioned activity for the community, held in the snow and all looks very Christmassy…until the enflamed statue head causes a lot of disturbance!

As a child I went out on some of the street carolling around Redruth with the Church, and always dreamed that I could one day lead this activity. Well I’ve led several times around Redruth now, so much so in-fact that people sort of regard the Christmas carol sing as my ‘thing to do’. But I’ve still never been in that traditional setting.

All that changed yesterday at the retirement flats in Sparnon; I left my guitar behind and in the spirit of “Carols in the Cavern” nine of us gathered and sang the whole set with just our voices, while Rob Allwright went around to every door offering copies of said CD. Now here’s the exciting bit in the middle of one carol, all of a sudden it started to snow! I’m very grateful that lots of Christian friends and some of my closest relatives were able to come along for this one and indeed I’m so glad that my girlfriend, Kitty, could make it seeing it was, as Andrew Chapple pointed out, such a romantic atmosphere.

In Easter 2008 we put on a big Christmas pageant in the main street, in which I, as the part of Jesus, was crucified. At that occasion, while I was wearing only a loin cloth, the sky grew dark and it began snowing in the middle of the death on the cross scene. Andrew joked around last night saying that when ever I do any Christian outside activity it snows!

Altogether we gave out many CDs, many people also donated to the Precious Lives Appeal. The word of God was spoken and sung to the people, everyone had a good jolly time, and it even snowed! The only downside I can really think of from last night was that my hands went totally numb!

The festive season is now well and truly on the go. This Sunday is the forth Sunday-of-Advent so Christmas is now really close. Next Tuesday RBC takes to the streets again when we sing carols around the estate when my brother lives, Roseland Gardens, I wonder if God will send snow again?

Thank you Lord for such a great blessing last night.

God bless you one and all

Jon Richards

Today is a good day in S:WMD’s history. Although perhaps not the celebration we were hoping for but we give thanks to God none the less as today we have sold more than 100 copies of “Carols in the Cavern”; this makes that album officially the biggest selling CD produced by Phil Gray and myself.

While I pray that those who have received a copy will find it of blessing, we do still have several more boxes of them just waiting to be sold to raise cash for the Precious Lives Appeal. So we still have a lot more blessing to give to you. If you’d like one of these or indeed any other S:WMD title, then please do fill out a CD Request Form at the S:WMD website, many of these CDs are even free of charge!

Don’t forget there is still lots of free MP3 downloads available too. Phil and I are planning on a substantial increase to the library of podcasts in the new year.

In other news the Soteria Three are meeting again this evening to decide the content of the next issue of Soteria:Mag, and tomorrow Redruth Baptist take to the streets again in the form of quite a traditional carolling sing-song. 6pm we’ll meet at RBC to go and sing around the Sparon Flats area.

In the mean time, God bless you all

Jon Richards

Finally, we’ve finished.
I’ve been so wrapped up in the making of “Carols in the Cavern” for the last two months that it seems like it has been going on for ages. Yet last night a group of willing (and exceptionally enthusiastic) helpers gathered in the lounge room of Redruth Baptist and assembled the remaining 941 copies of S:WMD’s seventeenth album.

Just to explain a bit, printers always over-print any given order, they also sent us extra cases just in case we broke any. But with only a few breakages and glitches meant we were able to assemble 1011 fully presentable albums. We also had several discs left over, so we’ve got some clear plastic CD sleeves, put the discs in them, and we’ll sell those too for about £1 each; a fully working CD but without the fancy covers. This makes a grand total of 1033 copies of “Carols in the Cavern” have been made.

Phil Gray and myself would like to offer a big thank you to everyone who helped last night, from the youngest child to even the Elders everyone had a very good and productive time, and thank you for your sterling efforts. Indeed now as our attention turns to preparing the mine and then the climatic event itself on Saturday, can I offer a hearty thank you to everyone who’s helped:
• The choir
• Phil
• Clive
• Andrew
• Redruth Baptist Church congregation
• The West Briton
• Donna and all at BBC Cornwall
• Nick and everyone at Farfield Records
• The marketing and IT depts of Truro School
• The guys at Poldark Mine

Indeed a really big thank you to Ann and Sue from RBC last night for making the tea for everyone.

Andrew commented in prayer last night that this was the biggest evangelistic event he’s ever been involved with. Indeed this does now have the feeling of something huge, that we are about to do something that will go down in local history.

My prayer now would be that a lot of people turn up to the event itself and we sell all the CDs to raise money for the Precious Lives Appeal, and more-over that Jesus will be glorified in that place on Saturday.

May God bless you all, enjoy the album.
Jon Richards

Well that’s it! I’ve realised a dream this morning.

As a young teen you can get many wild ideas about some of the things you’ll want to do with your life; play a rock concert, date a pretty girl, drive a fast car, etc, etc. However when you get a little older you realise that some dreams just might not be possible. When you dream about serving God in ministry you sometimes have to let go of those dreams, particularly when that ministry is using skills you might have been able to use in the secular world.

Yet God is compassionate. If you sacrifice something important to you for His sake He will undoubtedly reward you in some other way. Today that happened for me…

As a producer of records and a musical artist I would have wanted to get a record contract and air-play on the radio. That teenage dream has always lurked in the background but one I was now in no hurry to achieve as I have learned that serving God is far more important than getting my own music published and promoted. As the Biblical instructions for prayer say that when you pray don’t pray out-loud in the street but go into your room, close the door, and pray then God will reward you (Matthew 6:6).

I don’t think a record contract would ever have come my way as frankly I’m far from the best guitarist, so instead Phil Gray and I set up S:WMD and began making other peoples music.

Today though, BBC Radio Cornwall played the first track of the 2009 Soteria Christmas album “Carols in the Cavern”! Phil and I didn’t just sit in out make-believe office and produce this one, we were actually there 30 feet underground with the singers from Redruth Baptist Church; the singers holding sheets of music, Phil surrounded by wires and computers, and me frantically waving my arms around trying to conduct a choir (first time for everything).

Donna Birrell was our DJ on the Sunday Breakfast show today and was very excited about the whole Poldark Christmas project. She gratefully received the CD that I placed on her desk the moment Andrew Chapple and I walked into her studio. And she played out loud enough for all of Cornwall to hear “O Come All Ye Faithful” from the CD after interviewing Andrew and I.

Donna’s comments about it was that (in a very excited voice) “you can hear the drips!”, which you certainly can hear the quiet dripping of water in the mine though-out the album. She was also very impressed with the photographic look of the album (thanks Dad), and was stunned to hear that we’d pulled together a really professional sounding album from scratch in only two months.

My thanks to the BBC for such a pleasant and welcoming time at the radio station this morning. The experience at the radio station today was worth the licence fee alone!

God bless you one and all

Jon Richards

Yesterday after the evening service at Church, Andrew Chapple came bounding over to me and said that he’d like me to join him on the radio next Sunday morning…on the 7:30AM show!

This is to promote the Christmas at Poldark event and the publication of the Carols in the Cavern CD. However, Radio Cornwall is in Truro about half an hour from Redruth so it’s going to be a really early start for Andrew and I on the 6th December. But on the other-hand we will be wide awake for Church come 10 o’clock! Not only has the Sunday Breakfast show offered to chat with us but we’ve also sent them an advance copy (that means one without the fancy artwork) of the CD and they’ll play a track for everyone to hear. This will be the first time that one of the S:WMD series has got some radio play, it’s quite exciting.

The finished artwork is now visible on the Soteria Music website, and the CD has been sent to the printers. As we’ll be using the “pack-it-yourself” option it means that come early next week (or hopefully the end of this week) we’ll get a few boxes turn up with all the raw materials for a printed CD and we’ll then need to assemble it.

Now it was about this time last year that “DaySpring” came out. That that took about a half-dozen of us most of an evening to put the limited run of 100 copies together. This time round we’ve got the same amount of time, a more pressing deadline, and 1000 copies to make! Oh the pressure! Hee hee. So in the world of pure mathematics we’d need ten times more people. So the plan is over the next week drum up as much support locally as possible and then on Wednesday 9th Dec we completely take over the downstairs room of Redruth Baptist and set up an assembly line. I might need to bring along several mugs of cocca for them all.

My thanks to everyone who’s helped to make this project work; to all the singers, the guys at the mine, the chaps running the paperwork, those who’ll join in the assembly line on the 9th, the local media for promoting it, my good buddy Phil, and of course the Lord Jesus for His mighty blessings on not only the CD but the entire project.

Exciting times aren’t they? God bless you one and all!

Jon Richards

Hi,

Last night the final recording of the singing for the “Carols In The Cavern” CD took place in Poldark Mine. The last four carols, which included old favorites like “While Shepherds Watch”, were sung beautifully by the Redruth Baptist Chamber Choir and captured in the natural and haunting ambiance of the Holman Cavern!

Everyone was belightfully happy and to mark the joint birthdays of our photographer and our sound tech the choir gave up two rousing rounds of “Happy Birthday”.

The next phase includes recording the readings and mastering the whole CD.

Our thanks to the guys at Poldark for letting us in and of couse lending us all hard-hats! And of course a big thank you to everyone who’s joined in with the singing; Helen Allwright, Kitty Hill, Sarah Thompson, Ann Chapple, Sandra Richards, Jane Gray, Brian Edgeler, Derek Bartlett, Darren Osborne, and Tim Bodman. Photos of the group singing will be issued shortly on the image gallery. Thanks also to Clive Richards for taking all the pictures.

We’ll keep you all posted for progress updates.

Happy bonfire night in two days time.

God bless

Jon Richards