CD release parties are supposed to be big and bold.  My wife and I were invited to one last week and I thought I would be going to a place I could hide in a relatively large, boisterous crowd.  When we got there we met about 20 people.  Some we knew; most we did not.  Turns out this was the CD release PRE-party.  “Pre” is an important prefix. 

Todd Berger sat down in front of a Rhodes organ and a microphone and explained that there were only a few people at the “party” for a reason.  “This isn’t a concert.  This is me playing a few songs I wrote for my friends in the living room.”  I know Todd, had eaten lunch with him and have heard his recordings.  I know that I am not close enough to be considered in his “top 20 friends.”  And yet we were invited.  We were enveloped by Todd’s willing friends, who knew us, if a bit vicariously.  They were a collection of refreshing personalities.  

As he played and sang, something came through to the room of friends.  It sounded a little like hope.  Not in the G/D/C progression of plastic, happy hope you might normally expect from someone who moonlights as a worship leader for a real church.  Minor chords used liberally and unexpected musical twists (not the unpleasant, reaching kind overused by Indie Rockers convinced of their own dimensions of “cool”) peppered the performance.

The album itself, & Have Not Love, is great.  Personally, I’m not into listening to worship music; too many smarmy hooks and repetitious refrains (repetitious refrains, repetitious refrains).  Most of it sounds like that ridiculous Umbrella-ella-ella-a-a-a song that was on every pop radio station a few years back.  Not Todd.  He is the Bowie of the genre.