Stop Press: Album Release!

Music fans, rejoice!

If, like me, you missed the Kickstarter project (in 2019!) and were too poor to afford the astronomical shipping ($75???) for the CD pre-order, Terry Scott Taylor’s This Beautiful Mystery is now FINALLY available to order from his Bandcamp page!

I have deliberately avoided listening to this album. I have not bought or streamed the digital versions of any of the songs (though they have been available for a while). I want my first listen to be alone in the dark with a hard copy, with nothing to disturb or interrupt the art. I have no idea what it will be like, but I saw the email and dropped everything to order it because I am that confident it will be worth it. I have never done that ever with any purchase in my entire life. But I will not let this one get away from me again.

Terry Scott Taylor is arguably one of the greatest songwriters to walk the earth. Full stop. He has had nearly 50 years of professional songwriting experience, and it shows. His craftsmanship is unsurpassed. If you have never heard the work of Terry Scott Taylor, do yourself a favour and get this album. Your life will be the richer for it.

It is FINALLY NOW AVAILABLE ON CD on Bandcamp here. But hurry -- it's a limited run. Once these are gone, there will be no more.

Enjoy.

Media Marathoning

Why are music marathons not a thing? We have Star Wars marathons, Lord Of The Rings marathons, Disney marathons, and heaven knows you can marathon any TV show you can think of (as long as the Netflix gods have deemed it worthy of their endorsement). These are seen as perfectly legitimate ways to either get away from it all (*cough* procrastinate) and recharge by oneself, or to have a party with friends and food and group selfies.

But why don't we do this with music? Why don't we ever invite the gang over to listen to the complete works of Steve Taylor? Why not spend a weekend listening to all of David Meece's albums in chronological order? Why not throw the entire Prodigal box set into the CD player and sit down with a beverage of choice or maybe some popcorn and listen to the whole thing straight through? Why not time travel through DeGarmo & Key's entire career? Why not listen to the complete ¡Alarma! Chronicles or Larry Norman's Trilogy on vinyl, for the heck of it?

Granted, for bands like Petra or Newsboys or the Imperials, this could get a bit long. But it's an idea worth considering.

Music Day

It's my birthday today and you know what that means... it's White Heart Month here at the Edge Of The Dream! (Provided, of course, that the iTunes Store actually has five White Heart songs that I haven't already featured.)

The other day I was listening to White Heart's Freedom album on my iPod. It's a totally different experience on the iPod -- headphones always make the mix sound better anyway, but this specific album is heaven on earth through headphones. Plus, this album just means so, so much to me -- track two, Sing Your Freedom, has gone down in this blog's history as the first piece of choreography I ever completed, Eighth Wonder holds the distinction of being the first piece of my choreography to be publicly performed, and the phenomenal opener Bye Bye Babylon was the song that catapulted White Heart firmly into the slot of 'My Favourite Band Ever Of All Time.' I listen to my CD copy of the album that I ripped from my mother's well-loved cassette at least twice a week, probably more.

I rarely listen to it on my iPod though. Usually I listen to my iPod when choreographing a specific song, and I tend to listen to full albums on CD as I'm driving places in the rattletrap.

However, Freedom is different on the iPod not because of sound quality, but because of the tracklist. As I mentioned, my Freedom CD was originally a tape. Then, several months after I created it, I found out that the original CD release of the album had an extra track sandwiched in between The River Will Flow and Let It Go, a track which I assume was excluded from the cassette and vinyl releases due to time constraints (though don't quote me on that). iTunes had the track (for once -- pause while we give sarcastic applause), but I'd already burned the CD and didn't want a perfectly good CD to go to waste. So I still listen to the cassette version but because I'm a purist, I have the official CD tracklist on the iPod.

So the other day as I was listening to the album on my iPod, I suddenly went 'holy crap I forgot about this song!'

Title: Set The Bridge On Fire
Artist: White Heart
Album: Freedom
Year: 1989
Label: Sparrow
iTunes here; YouTube here.

This is a freaking good song. Guitar, bass, keys, drums... everyone is in top form here. The interlude is one of the best I've ever heard. It's not just a standard 'insert guitar solo here' deal, every instrument gets to play. The synth, real soft and gentle (yet it manages to be stately) and then the guitar rips through and the bass and a different guitar comes in and then...

There's even a great little acoustic guitar riff at the end of each verse. The rest of the song is hardcore rock, but somehow they make that little acoustic bit work.

Even the rhythm is great -- driving, and not quite centered.

Fans often cite this as one of Rick's best vocal performances to date (along with Desert Rose, How Many Times, Dr Jekyll And Mr Christian, Sing Your Freedom, Unchain, et cetera et cetera...), and the title is well deserved. He simply soars here. It sounds so effortless.

Lyrically, the song makes some good points. It doesn't beat the visual to death, but it explores it just enough to make you really think about it. Do you really want to live forever in that headspace of regretting the things you've done, the times you've messed up?


Great message. Phenomenal performance. If you only own one White Heart song, this should be a contender.

Sometimes The Littlest Things Make The Biggest Difference...

Nearly two weeks ago, at our extended-family Thanksgiving dinner, my aunt, who quite enjoys my photography, asked to see the binder that I put some of my best prints in. It was on my desk, beside where I usually use my MacBook. I've long found that space constrictive, but I had nowhere else to put that binder.

Anyway, I went to my room and brought it out for her to look at. She ordered some prints and we continued visiting.

Later, once she and everyone else had left, I brought the binder back to my room but didn't put it back on the desk immediately.

That evening I was listening to music on my computer and got an idea for a dance. I grabbed my choreography binder. At first I put it on my lap like I usually did, but then I looked at the now-empty space on the desk.

Hmm...

I pushed the MacBook to one side and set the open binder down beside it. There was just enough open space on the desk for both. (Once I moved the stacks of CDs there was even more room.)

It's crazy how much that freed up my brain for choreography. Having the binder right in front of me and the computer playing music within easy reach (for volume adjustments or checking playing times) didn't seem like that big of a difference, but in the past week and a half I've gotten a lot of formations and some sequence work done for three or four albums' worth of songs. (I used to get maybe five steps done on maybe two or three songs a day.) I haven't yet 'completed' a dance, but I have some that should get done within a few weeks, provided I keep working on them.

Once I've got a decent collection of completed choreography, the next step is getting some dancers together, teaching it to them, and actually getting it staged somewhere...

Music Day

AAAAAHH! Look what I found!

We bought this on cassette tape when it was first released just after Larry-Boy and the Rumour Weed had started to seriously take over the homes of parents with young children everywhere. I distinctly remember the first time listening to it in our little emerald-green Dodge Spirit and my mother, sister and I laughing our heads off at the Bumblyburg Groove Remix and the Superhero Slim-Down Remix as we sat in the parking lot of a gas station that no longer exists (I can't remember why we were there, but I do remember my father seeming to take forever doing whatever it was. Then again, I was a little kid. Everything takes forever when you're little).

My sister and I quickly claimed it as our favourite and even our Barbie dolls were made to dance to it as we flipped the cassette over and over (why listen to it only once when you can listen to it three times and have three times as much fun?).

Eventually though, the Spirit was totaled and replaced with a minivan with a CD player. We had cassette players in the house, of course, but I've noticed that whatever player is in your vehicle ends up being the primary music player in your possession. Whatever's getting decent rotation in the vehicle at the moment is what you listen to in the house until you get sick of it and go dig up something else.

Over the years as the CD collection grew, this particular cassette was left in a drawer and all but forgotten. Somewhere along the way, it picked up something awfully sticky that managed to get inside the cassette and attach the tape quite firmly to the casing, making it impossible for the spools to turn, therefore rendering it unplayable.

Some time later, EMI released the soundtrack album again -- this time updated with scenes from the then-recent release Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple. However the Bad Apple scenes (which weren't very good in the first place in comparison to the first two episodes according to me) were included at the expense of some of the greatest moments on the original release -- Larry-Boy's (almost) classic line about needing a doughnut, the entire introduction of and performance from the W's, Alfred's dramatic quotations of poetry, et cetera. I was sorely disappointed.

However...

Yesterday I got thinking about Bob the Tomato and VeggieTales in general and on a lark (like I have nothing better to do -- it's not like I'm trying to write a novel and prepare for a potential career in dance or anything) searched 'veggietales' on the iTunes Store. Finding nothing but their post-Jonah tripe, I searched 'larry-boy.'

And found this, the original version of the soundtrack, the one I remembered from my childhood, unadulterated by the forced stereotypical superhero flick that is Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple. Note that below is the link to the whole album, but if you're on a budget (although $6.93 Canadian is pretty bargain already), at least buy Look Who's Here To Help, Bumblyburg Groove Remix, Superhero Slim-Down Mix, It's The W's! and The Rumour Weed Song (as performed by the W's).

Album Title: Larry-Boy: The Soundtrack
Artist: VeggieTales
Year: 1999
Label: Big Idea
iTunes here.

Note: It should be blatantly obvious by the name VeggieTales (not to mention Bob the Tomato) that yes, this is about talking (and singing) vegetables. Yes, it's technically children's material. No, it's not deep and serious and talking about either how crappy life is or about some girl like 'grown-up' music does... this is just funny. No toilet humour (save the image of the plunger ears and one use of the word 'underwear' in the The Superhero Slim-Down Mix), just cheesy puns and innocent goofiness.
Let your inner child out here (Alfred even addresses the listeners as 'boys and girls'). Laugh a little. It's okay. :-)