OTS Benefit Concert – Warren, MI

Hey guys,

The concert was great and the committee raised over $2000 to help build a medical center in Vietnam for the tribal people. The drive up there wasn’t so much fun though. Pennsylvania took about 6 hours just to get through, and nobody likes traffic. We got stuck in a little bit of traffic in Connecticut, but overall it wasn’t too bad. The drive took about 15 hours, and I was blessed to have driving buddies to help keep me awake and to help me drive throughout the trip. Oh, and if you don’t already know, OTS stands for Overseas Tribal Services.

It was a very tiring weekend though! From day one, all we did was work. Well…at least from the moment KB and the Georgia crew arrived, then it was work time! They got in at around 2pm on Friday, and from there, we set up the stage and sound checked. That must have took like 4 hours alone! No joke folks…setting up and sound checking takes a long time…especially when we’re at a different place than what we’re used to and having to work with a room and soundboard that was not our own. We also had to work with the In-Ear Monitors. Each of us had in-ears, and getting each of our mixes into our ears took a while.

The next day started super early! We had to be at the church by 8:30AM to sound check. That was the schedule! The doors were opening at 5pm, so all of the bands and performers had to get in a certain amount of sound check time that morning and afternoon. Overall…everything went well. I think we took the longest to sound check, because our sound checks were really also practices! haha…I’m the only band member from a different state than the other guys. I needed to get in a few practices with the band because I had not played with them before this weekend. I think we had 8 songs planned for that night, and 8 songs for the next day for Sunday service (4 for Hmong service, 4 for English service). And we pulled it off!

Overall, it was an amazing weekend. I met some great people, and got to see some old friends! I wish we could have stayed a little longer. And though I do not miss the roads in Michigan at all, I do miss the fellowship shared with my brothers and sisters in Michigan. I didn’t even get to spend that much time with them because of the busy schedule. Anyway…here are a few pictures that summarize my experience in Michigan:

(KB and I with the guys of Unseen Belief from Portland, OR)

(Hanging out with a few friends during some down time we had)

(This is the group from PA called Paradigm)

(Working together with the OTS crew and Unseen Belief for a collaboration)

(Der Lor from Milwaukee, WI)

(KB Xiong and the band)

(Here I am)

(Unseen Belief)

(Houa Vang, KB Xiong, Savannah, Nathaniel, and me)

(the band with Savannah, Hlee, Manou, Maria, and Christine)

(here’s a shot of all of the performers, bands, and the entire team from the event)

Thank you to the staff and crew behind this concert for making it all possible! You guys did excellent putting this whole thing together and making it a memorable experience for us all. Thanks to my brother KB for letting me be apart of this experience. Thanks to Ningfue and my family from MI for providing us with hospitality and a place to call home away from our homes. And lastly, thanks to my buddies Houa and Tony for coming with me from RI. You guys helped me big time!

-Matt

News and Updates

Hey everybody! Glad to see you’ve found your way back here to my website. I’ve been pretty lazy in updating this, but I finally got around to changing and adding some things. I updated my gear quite a bit since the last time, so that page has all of the changes. If you refer to the headings, you’ll see a bunch of tabs to pages. I’ve created a page with how to contact me, how to request a booking for me, upcoming events, and a page about my album and how to purchase it. I’ll try to add sound clips to my songs soon.

Please leave me some feedback or contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Until next time, take care and God bless!

-Matt Xiong

My All-Time Favorite Albums

Okay, so I feel like putting together a list of my all-time favorite albums. It will not be any particular order, because I wouldn’t dare to rank them or say what is my #1 favorite album, because that would say a lot in itself about me, about that album, and about what that album means to me. And I just don’t want to do that, and I don’t know what would take that number 1 spot anyway. So here goes:

(I will number them for organization’s sake. I’ll go crazy if they’re just listed nonnumerical)

1. Hillsong United – United We Stand
I think this is where Hillsong United peaked. This is my favorite of all Hillsong United albums because the songs are still being played in churches and youth groups even after several albums more. The songs just don’t get old. The energy is there. The passion is there. “The time has come” (with the introduction), “From the inside out”, “came to my rescue”, “None but Jesus”, “Fire Fall Down”, “The Stand”, and “Hallelujah”. Come on…that’s just epic to have all those songs on the same album! Basically, the album is structured just like how I would lead worship or do a concert. This album is a powerful worship experience.

2. David Crowder Band – Church Music
Okay, this album blew me away! It has to be listened from start to finish with no skipping either! Each song flows into the next in a way I didn’t think possible. The lyrics are not too impressive. They’re simple and catchy. They’re honest, and the message is clear. The melodies are unlike anything I would ever come up with. They’re original, above it all. But it’s the musical creativity that won me over with this one. I can listen to this album over and over.

3. David Crowder Band – A Collision
Okay…now this Crowder album is EPIC. I wouldn’t say it’s more epic than “Church Music”, but it paved the way for it. I admit, when I first heard this album, I did not know what I had in front of me. I didn’t know of its genius until a few listens…not saying that I didn’t like it the first time around, but it really hit me after a few listens that WOW this CD is amazing. It’s divided into a few categories, crossing genres and showing how versatile the band is. I can listen to this CD straight through and leave it on repeat. If I can do that, it’s an automatic favorite.

4. Switchfoot – Beautiful Letdown
I will brag that I bought this CD BEFORE people really knew about it. It was BEFORE they got famous. It was BEFORE people caught on with “Dare you to move”. I first heard about Switchfoot from the movie “A Walk to Remember”. I bought this CD when I was still working at Kmart. I found it there, not even knowing they had released a new album. I was loving all the songs. It was a kind of music I’d never really heard before. It was rock music, but the messages were about hope and perseverance. Soon after, “Meant to Live” exploded on the radio, followed by “Dare you to move”. Then people starting catching on to Switchfoot. I still say that this is the best Switchfoot album ever to date, even if their newers ones are pretty good too. This one is just jam packed with great songs.

5. Delirious – Cutting Edge
This album right here defined for me what worship music is. It’s a 2-disc CD too, can’t go wrong there, unless the songs are crappy. I would have to say that old school Delirious is probably the biggest influence on me when it comes to worship music. There are no Chris Tomlin albums on this list, simply because none of his albums do for me what Cutting Edge did. I still really like Tomlin songs, but none of his albums are strong enough as albums, rather only I tend to only like a handful of songs from each album. With that said, I don’t really like every single song on Cutting Edge either, but I still like all as a whole. It should be noted that the songs on this album are featured on some of their other albums too. I’m not really sure if this is the original album or what not, and I don’t really care. I like this compilation. What I love most about these songs is that they have a live feel to them. They sound like they’re being played live in worship. I don’t know if it’s a live recording or not, but I like that better for worship songs (sometimes) than songs that layered like crazy with tracks and additional instruments in the studio.

6. U2 – The Joshua Tree
I don’t have this album nor have I ever owned it. I haven’t even listened to the whole album before, but I know that this album represents ‘greatness’. That’s because it has songs like “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “With or Without You”, and “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. Yeah…it’s an oldie, but they’re still such good songs! The Edge’s guitar playing is an influence for so many worship guitarists. The lyrics are deep. This one is an automatic classic.

7. Jars of Clay – Who We Are Instead
I didn’t expect to put this one here on this list, but this is one of the most captivating albums to ever enter into my ears and into my heart. It’s different from all of Jars’ earlier stuff. I think this is where my appreciation and fascination with blue grass and roots music came from. It isn’t the type of stuff I would jam in my car or blast when friends are over. I really love a lot of their earlier work too, but this one stands out from the rest, even though all of their albums are so different from the other. I don’t even know what more to say. I just love this album.

8. Relient K – Two Left Turns Don’t Make a Right
I haven’t listened to this album in a LONG time, but I loved it. It was the most original and silly songs I’ve ever heard. But they weren’t silly in a childish way…they were just different and humorous at the same time. It’s great writing. I think this is their best album. Everything good they do after this will always be ‘after this’ one.

9. Jars of Clay – Furthermore
This isn’t really an album, because it’s mostly songs from their other albums. It’s a 2-disc album; one being an acoustic studio CD, and the other is a live CD from one of their concerts. I’ve always wanted to see Jars of Clay live too, so this live CD really makes up for it. I love the songs though. They’re well written and powerful. The guitars are amazing too. Check out “Worlds Apart” on the live CD. One of my all time favorite songs.

10. Goo Goo Dolls – Dizzy Up That Girl
Goo Goo Dolls rocks! haha…They have a TON of great songs on different albums, but this particular album is what brought them into stardom. They just put out hits. I love Johnny Rzeznik’s voice. I love his alternate tunings on guitar. I haven’t listened to any of their songs for a while now…but I’ll try to get back to it soon enough! It’s worth it.

Help Me – song lyrics and commentary

Help Me
words & music by Matthew Xiong

I put up my walls
I push you out, I pull you in
I’m tired of dancing around
I don’t know if I can pretend

Don’t know what I want
Don’t know what I need from you
I’m living my life day to day
But I’m dying everything

(pre-chorus)
Can you even hear me?
Do you even know that I’m trying to let you in?

(chorus)
Help me to figure it out
I’ve been wasting my time
Too much hesitation
I bend and I break
But I won’t let go of you, Lord
I’m crying to you from within

I’d leave it behind
I will let go in time
I’m tired of making my mind
I don’t trust my own reasoning

________________________________________________

Before this song was written, I knew I wanted to have a song that was piano driven. I could already hear in my head how I wanted it to sound. This was probably the only song that came together musically the easiest.

I went to my church to work on it because I didn’t have my own piano to play and write the song with. I like to begin writing piano songs in the key of C, because it’s just easier. So then I began translating what I heard in my head onto the piano and out comes a sloppy version of the main piano part of the song “Help Me”. As soon as I was able to clean it up and play the whole part the way that I wanted, I went on and played everything else that I had playing in my head. Everything from the entire intro to the verses and chorus was done. Now all I needed were lyrics and a melody.

While playing the song with the piano, I had already begun humming a melody to go along with it. It was pretty close to the final version of the melody.

I actually didn’t come up with the subject matter. It was just a result of experiences I’ve encountered myself and from friends. The song is basically about broken relationships. The first few lines came out naturally.

“I put up my walls, I push you out, I pull you in”.

If you’ve been in a hurtful relationship in the past, you’ll tend to put up walls to protect yourself from getting hurt again. And if you know somebody who has been hurt, it’s likely that they have their walls up, and you’re just trying to get to know them. It’s like we start to get to know someone, but they suddenly close off on you. It’s almost like a dance, which I used in the song as a metaphor for the push/pull aspect of the relationship. But I think there lies in each one of us a desire to make connections with other people. As much as we want to close off and protect ourselves, something inside of us really wants to reach out, cry for help, and let people into our lives. There’s a need for community in each of us. We’re just afraid to let people in sometimes.

The song does an interesting thing in mirroring our relationship with Christ though. It’s start off seemingly about a relationship between people, but I believe God teaches us how to have a relationship with Him by using the relationships we have with others. The downfall to that is that when we have trouble trusting and letting people into our lives, we have the same trouble with God.

We have trouble trusting God and letting him into our lives. We put up walls. We let him in some days. We push him away other days. I don’t think we even do this on purpose. It’s like a result of our experiences with our relationships.

Sometimes we do know what’s happening though. We know that we’ve been hurt and that we’re having trouble trusting. Our past hurts are carrying over into our new relationships, and it’s affecting it. So this song is a cry out for help, because we just don’t know what to do in that situation. We feel broken and afraid.

The line that says, “I won’t let go of You Lord, I’m crying to You from within” means that we don’t want to lose our relationship with Christ. We’ve lost so much already, but that’s the one thing we at least want to hold on to. And sometimes we just don’t know how to communicate that out. It’s an inner cry out for help.

-Matt Xiong

Worship Leaders

Worship leaders…our job is to lead people from the chaos to the cross.

Psalm 100

1| Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

2| Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

3| Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4| Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

5| For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Song Writing

I’m beginning to write songs once again for future projects. I do plan to record another album, though I do not know when. My first album has been available for about half a year now, and has been getting good feedback. It is still available for purchase through iTunes or you can order your copy from me by contacting me.

In the past, I’ve been writing songs basically with one method: I come up with the lyrics, melody, and music all at the same time! It isn’t the best method, because they just don’t come together that easily. I typically have an idea of what the song will be about first, or ideas of lyrics already in mind. Sometimes I have the melody first, and then add lyrics to it. Then sometimes I have musical ideas first, and work a melody, followed by lyrics around that. Either way, those three seem to come together around the same time.

I want to try a different approach this time. I want to see if I can work on each aspect separately. I bought a journal recently, but not necessarily to journal or to use as a diary. I want to have it around to take down thoughts and ideas. I also want to write down lyrics this time. I typically open up Microsoft Word when working on songs. I don’t want to do that this time because being on the computer just opens the door to so many distractions. I am often distracted when working on songs, and then they’re never finished.

This journal will also be very helpful to take down thoughts I have when studying scripture that I read or come across. I tend to have a lot of thoughts and reflections on scripture, but rarely do I ever write about it. This will surely be helpful when song writing.

One last thought for writing songs for my next project is that I want it to be organized and structured in a certain way. I want to have a track amount pre-established. I want to have themes fulfilled. I want to have a well balance of slows songs, medium paced songs, and fast songs. I want my songs to be able to appeal to a variety of people and congregations, yet I also want them to be personal.

These are my goals and mindset as I approach this new year and new project that lies ahead somewhere in the unknown future. We shall see how it unfolds. God bless!

-Matt

2009

So 2010 has arrived. Where did 2009 go? It’s gone, but it was just the other day…

I have found myself unable to get a good night’s sleep for a while now. I stay up very late, doing nothing. I wake up, to have nothing to do (most days). What have I done this past year? What did I accomplish in 2009? It seems I’ve actually done a whole lot, but never really took the time to reflect back on it all. This will be my reflection. Hopefully, after this I will be able to get some sleep and move on with my life.

Okay, so January 2009 was a very interesting month. I wrote a handful of songs in early January, something I’m hoping to do also this year. I think it was the fact that I didn’t have much to occupy my mind, time, and energy with. I just devoted a bunch of time for creativity. I’m sure it also had a lot to do with my inspirations and what God was communicating to me and through me. It was a great month. I also became very good friends with somebody during this time. It is unfortunate that for unexplained reasons, our friendship became basically nonexistent shortly afterwards.

Skipping ahead to May, because nothing really stands out from February to April. In May, a lot of busyness began. My sister’s wedding was in June, so the preparation for it involved tearing apart the backyard lawn only to plant and grow new/better grass. This also involved the construction of a shed in the backyard. After that was completed, it was time to begin work INSIDE the house. I don’t really remember, but we took out all of the carpeting in the house and replaced it with hardwood flooring. We installed Central Air Conditioning in the house ourselves. And I turned my room inside out. Everything was moved around or thrown out, and then I repainted the walls (they were yucky). My personal goal for my room was for a fresh start. So all of this basically consumed the month of May.

June…My sisters wedding was awesome! I loved it. Decorating was a pain in the butt, but once it was done, the fun began. Family and friends from all over the country poured in. I got to wear a tux and be apart of a wedding party. That’s always fun! I also sang a song by request from my sister and my brother-in-law, Michael. Then by another request, I sang a song TO MICHAEL from my parents, which was absolutely awkward because I had to face him and look at him as a sang it. I will never do such a thing again. The wedding was a blast though.

June was basically an amazing month. A week after the wedding, I went down to Georgia with my brother and his family, which is where they live. I was heading down to record my very first CD. The original plan was to record an EP, which is 4-5 songs only. I had only prepared 5 songs initially, that I wanted to work with. Once I got to working, my brother and I decided, why not just do a full length album? I was only supposed to go for 2 weeks, but because of this, I would have to stay for 2 months! Not that it took that much longer, but because I wanted to take my time with it and not rush it. I learned so much during the recording process. My musicianship had to be taken up a notch. My tempo had to be right on. I had to perfect everything as much as possible. Perfection had never been a personal standard before, but it was required. The thing is…having perfection as the standard doesn’t make it sound perfect…rather…it only gets you by. Being the studio, nothing can be allowed to slip in that doesn’t belong or doesn’t sound right. I really learned the most AFTER recording wrapped up. hahaha…a lot wasn’t explained to me as I locked myself in the studio. It really was a learning process though, and I’m still very proud of the work that was accomplished.
Oh right…so since I only had 5 songs “prepared”, I had to dish out another 5 songs to complete the album. I dug deep to find songs I’ve written a few years ago. I found 3 songs that I had previously written a few years ago that I really liked and wanted to work with. I wrote one one day when I was in the studio, looking for a ‘call to worship’ type of song. The 5th song came to me in the studio too, but it was really from the past as well. I had composed a simple piano part a few years ago, and was playing around with it in the studio. This was during one of those nights where I was just fried, and needed to just remind myself of my passion for music. I recorded the piano part, looped it, added, added, and added to it. I added a shaker, bells, xylophones, electric guitars, bass, and drums. It became my “Interlude”.
If I am to consider myself a musician, then it really isn’t necessary to have lyrics or singing. “Interlude” did not. It was just music. People were a bit puzzled, but as a ‘musician’, I can communicate or express myself with notes, patterns, and compositions. The purpose of this piece of music is to provide space and time after the first track, “Help Me”. It’s like a waiting time of anticipation and expectancy, with the response to help following the Interlude. That’s sort of how I structured the album. It’s all supposed to tell a story or represent a certain path. It takes you from a cry out for help, to a response from God, to our response to God, to the celebration that follows, and the tragedy and pain that is inevitable, to our surrender, and ending with the proclamation that there is no one like our God, and that He is everything to me…which is a response…which is worship. That’s the way I set up the album. I had a song called, “Smile” too, which I initially planned to be apart of the album, but I could not do it in a way that still told this story and carried the theme of the album. It was out of place, and unnecessary for this project.

Okay, that was the bit about the recording of the album. I forgot to mention that I suffered a bit of anxiety the first few weeks. I could not sleep until like 5am because I just couldn’t stop thinking about and worrying about recording and doing things ‘perfect’. It was so tedious too. I had to do parts over and over and over. Singing was super hard too. I realized how much I suck. haha…it’s true. And if I couldn’t sing a song the best that I could, I had to wait for another day, because by then my voice wouldn’t be at its best anymore. It’d sound worn out after singing over and over. I hated it. haha…

So yeah…I spent June 10th-August 10th in Georgia. It was a different kind of experience. It was especially difficult, being broke and without a job. I had to depend on my brother, which was humbling, but I gotta admit…they spoiled me too. I was treated to meals and other extravaganzas much too often, and I deserved none of it. Nonetheless, I am grateful and in so much debt with nothing to offer in return at this point. I love my family.

During my time in Georgia, I also met a ton of new people, and saw a lot of friends. That’s always a great thing! I spent every weekend at Hmong New Hope Alliance Church, played sports with them in 100 degree weather, and swam in the local pool with my nephew. I have far too many memories, and I don’t think anyone’s even reading this, so I’ll skip ahead.

After Georgia, I went home for about 2 weeks only to take another incredible journey out west. I was invited to lead worship at a single adults retreat in Portland, OR. The event was only about 2-3 days, but my entire week there was pretty amazing. I would love to visit again! It’s really green there, and I got to see this AMAZING waterfall called Mt. Multnomah. I’ve got pictures if you want to see. I also got to see Lincoln Brewster in concert for the first time. AWESOME! I also made some new great friends!

After Portland, I flew down to Sacramento, CA where another journey would begin. I spent the night there at Keng Yang’s house, then met up with my buddy Fucha the next day. It was like a mini-Nyack reunion. I could write SO MUCH about the previous few sentences of this paragraph, but that would just be unnecessary. Hahaha…
Anyway, Fucha meets me in Sacramento, because he’s my ride down to Fresno! On the way to Fresno, I had to meet up with a few friends in Stockton first. Behold, Tabitha’s Song & company! ahaha…yep…met up with a few Stockton buddies for dinner, and then took off with Nou V’s electric guitar, Seth. Well yeah…I needed to borrow a guitar for the God Rocks concert in Fresno that weekend. So then after dinner, Fucha and I head down further towards Fresno for my final destination.
So I ended up at Pastor Albert’s house, where more extravaganzas begin. Well actually, I slept first. Skipping ahead a bit…I get feverish for a few days, KB and Savanah arrive from Georgia but not before Matt Lo, we meet the intern Phillip, we eat REAL AMAZING MEXICAN FOOD (see KB, Pastor Albert, or Phillip for details), we practice for two nights considering the 4 of us (KB, Albert, Matt Lo, and myself) have never played together with this arrangement before, and had never played the songs we had prepared before together. It was tiring, it was hot, it was good. Oh yeah…I’m still feverish at this point, but feel 95% better the morning of the God Rocks concert. Praise God!
Ok…funny story. Before God Rocks, we’re super hungry because it’s past lunch time, and we hadn’t eaten yet. So have Nou V take us to the closest In-N-Out for some burgers. On the way back to the church, we get pulled over by a police man, because the people in the backseat did not have on their seatbelts. It was lame…the police man was somewhat of a jerk…Matt Lo got a ticket (he was in the backseat).

Anyways…God Rocks was AMAZING! I loved every bit of it! Oh yeah!…A HIGHLIGHT: I see my CD for the very first time in its completed form with the cover and everything in Fresno on September 4th, and sell it for the very first time ever! It was at this point where I felt most accomplished about the CD.

After God Rocks, I spent a few more days in Fresno, hung out with some very cool and fun people (Khambye, Zua, Lisa, Maly, Emily Vang, etc.), and then headed back up towards Sacramento with Fucha. We stopped by Modesto first for lunch, where Fucha accidentally locks his keys in the car, and we’re stuck in Modesto longer than expected. Some Hmong people magically get it out for us, and we’re back on our way. We spend the night at Marco’s in Sac, and then I was off back to Providence the day after.

That was my summer.

Something Better

Coming Soon!!!