Music News - New Kickstarter

I was going to make this a Music Day post, but then my friend ended up in the hospital and I've been kind of a wreck ever since. This is going to be the dullest advert ever, but here goes...

The fantastic Dead Artist Syndrome is currently short of their $10,000 goal to release their 1991 album Prints Of Darkness on vinyl and CD by about 55% (over $5,000). The campaign ends on the 31st (Monday), and if it's not funded, then there's no Prints Of Darkness -- which would be the scariest part of Halloween 2017. Let me also note that this album is currently unavailable anywhere... not even iTunes. If you want this thing (like I do), this Kickstarter is your only chance.

Support the project here.

Again, apologies for not making an actual Music Day post out of this like I normally do. I'm just emotionally elsewhere. Here are a couple cuts from the album to whet your appetite...

Dancing Without Touching

Reach

Dance With Me

Amy

Time is running out, so back this ASAP! Whether you are financially able to back it or not, be sure to promote the heck out of this campaign.

Music Day - Dry Your Tears

Dry your tears, music fans. We have another opportunity to support decent music.

First, though, let me announce that the Adam Again Perfecta reissue campaign I mentioned last week has officially been fully funded!

I don't know a lot about this band. I own this, their debut, on vinyl, plus one song from their sophomore release, and I've heard that after those first two albums they jumped into the hard rock side of things.

This album basically is experimental electronic synthpop with lyrics written to the lonely soul. This song in particular is the traditional ninth-track slow song.

Honestly, I just needed this song tonight. My artist/dreamer soul is being crushed by the weight of merely existing. Lines like:

This life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
Ten thousand different people pass before my eyes
And every day another storyline begins
But every night you end with loneliness again...

...just resonate with me. I feel this. In every crevice of my wounded heart, I feel this.

But the band continues:

Don't let life be emotion taking you nowhere
Don't listen to the lies that tell you not to care...

I don't know if I can. But the point is, they plead with the listener to not harden their hearts. They validate us sensitive souls and tell us it's okay to feel. Sometimes that's all we need. And this theme runs throughout their lyrics (at least on this first album).

Title: Dry Your Tears
Artist: Mad At The World
Album: Mad At The World
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline Records.
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Behind-the-scenes footage of them recording this song here.

NEW ALBUM FORTHCOMING -- if everybody supports the Kickstarter project HERE. Apparently for this album, they're planning on working in their earlier electronic style, but for you rockers out there, they plan on making another album in their later style if this first one goes over well.

In a world where you see nothing everywhere
Close your eyes and pray
Heaven could be calling your name...

Music Day - The Fine Line

Fell in love with this song last summer. After years of hearing about Adam Again and how great they were, it was this song that finally hooked me. It's actually about drugs -- which I know basically nothing about -- but it's so funky and cynical that I love it anyway. I don't usually like blues or jazz music, but here the band blends both genres with rock and the result is so fresh and different that you can't help but be entranced by it. If we're honest, though, my favourite part is the brooding chorus vocal from Riki Michele. It adds a little bit of sizzle to an already steaming song. My next favourite part is the syncopated guitar line at the beginning of the interlude (what can I say, it's the tap dancer in me).

Fun fact: Jon Knox of White Heart fame also drummed for this band.

Title: The Fine Line
Artist: Adam Again
Album: Homeboys
Year: 1990
iTunes here; YouTube here.

The devil in black
Break your mama's back
Feeling like a maniac...

P.S. -- There is a Kickstarter campaign NOW UNDER WAY (right here) to reissue their 1995 album Perfecta on CD and vinyl. Deadline to pledge is 30 June. Don't miss out on this! I funded last year's campaign to give Homeboys the same treatment, and I have no regrets.

Your Music News Bulletin

Some notes from the bands I follow (and you should too).

The Choir is re-releasing their 1989 album Wide-Eyed Wonder on CD and vinyl AND they're recording a new album called Bloodshot... IF their PledgeMusic campaign is successful. There's only five days left and they're still 8% short of their goal. There are some pretty cool rewards for backers (including the entire Shadow Weaver album download for free), and it's also worth noting that Wide-Eyed Wonder is not on the iTunes Store -- meaning this re-release is the only way you will be able to acquire a copy. If this isn't funded, that doesn't happen. And that would be very sad.
Pledge here.
If you're not familiar with their work, you can listen to tracks from their 2014 album Shadow Weaver right on the PledgeMusic page.

After many, many years of rumours, false starts, speculation and general impatience from fans, Daniel Amos is finally in the process of issuing their seminal album Horrendous Disc on CD. The project is already fully funded (in fact, they just made their second stretch goal earlier today), but if you want in on some of the rewards (or to propel them toward their third stretch goal), go pledge here. But hurry -- the campaign ends on 31 March.
This is going to be a four-disc box set with photos and stickers and other goodies. And depending which tier you pledge to, there may be vinyl copies and/or t-shirts involved.

On a related note, the phenomenal Terry Scott Taylor now has a Patreon account, where we the fans can finally eliminate the middleman and fund TST's creative endeavours directly by way of a monthly donation. In return, we get access to the new stuff he's writing -- and there's a lot of it. If your life has been touched by the music of Daniel Amos, the Swirling Eddies, the Lost Dogs, or Terry's solo output, you should very seriously consider pledging at least a few dollars to this (if you're really broke, you can commit to an amount as low as $1 a month. It doesn't feel like much, but as an artist myself, I can tell you every little bit helps).
Pledge here.

Finally, for you vinyl aficionados -- the first-ever Christian vinyl subscription service launched last month. Right now they're only shipping within the US, but it sounds like they intend to expand the service as soon as they can. Basically you select a plan and for a monthly fee, you will get two (or three, depending on the plan you select) vinyl records per month. You can customise your preferences -- they have anything from eighties rock to modern rock to hip-hop to worship/hipster music -- and give them an idea of what you already have to cut down on the potential of duplicates. I don't have personal experience with this service yet because 1. I'm not in the States, and 2. I'm a broke college student, but you better believe once they open it up to Canada and once I have a steady job, I am SO signing up for this.
You can sign up here.

Music Day - Kickstarter Alert!

Ever wanted to see Crumbächer in concert?

Or the Altar Boys?

Or The Choir?

Or Undercover?

Or 4.4.1?

If you, like me, are too young to remember the glory days of Christian music, here is your TARDIS!

See, back in 2005, these five bands did a one-night-only reunion concert. This show was filmed. Interviews were filmed. And now, eleven years later, they're putting it all together in a double-disc four-hour DVD extravaganza!

...If they get the funding. And that's where we come in.

The link to their Kickstarter campaign is here. If you're not familiar with these bands, allow me to introduce you...

Altar Boys
These guys have gone down in history as Christian music's first legitimate punk band. They were raw and gritty and honest and above all, passionate.
You Are Loved
Hearts Lost In Nowhere
Life Begins At The Cross

The Choir (Website here.)
If you're more into the mellow introspective side of things, this is the band for you. Hipster music fans, this is your entry point.
Children Of Time
Consider
Sentimental Song

Crumbächer
The true masters of '80s synthpop. With killer harmonies to boot.
Once In A Heartbreak
Jamie
Life Of The Party

Undercover
Straight-up rip-your-face-off melodic rock with one of the biggest voices EVER in Christian music (featured on the the last two links below).
Is Anyone Thirsty?
Build A Castle
Darkest Hour

4.4.1 (Website here.)
I'm not as familiar with this band, but I have played the crap out of Mourning Into Dancing on YouTube.
In The Night
In His Presence

As you can see (and hear), there's something for everyone at this concert. Maybe '80s synthpop isn't your thing. So skip the Crumbächer and headbang to Undercover. Maybe rock makes your ears bleed. Fast-forward Undercover and go hang out in The Choir's section of the disc.

All of the songs mentioned above will be on this DVD set. But this is only a small offering of what is in the footage, and even that is only a small portion of each band's total output. If you like what you hear, go buy some music from their websites or from a legal source and then go fund this thing. Immediately. If I had 45 grand in my bank account, I would pay for this entire thing myself. But I don't, so that's why we need your help.

You know you want to...

Music Day - Comedian

So guess who else has a Kickstarter going?

Steve Taylor is perhaps the most controversial and most well-known figure in CCM history. He is one of those rare figures in CCM who has managed to be both controversial and well-known for longer than a year. Plenty have been controversial (Petra, post-¡Alarma!-era Daniel Amos), but are not known by today's generation of Christians -- their perceived sins were forgotten after a year or two. And plenty have been well-known (Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith), but not really boat-rockers.

Steve Taylor, however, managed to get signed to Sparrow Records -- historically one of the biggest labels in CCM -- which gave him a far bigger potential audience to start with. Add to that a few strong opinions about controversial topics, his knowledge of sarcasm as a first language, and an uncanny ability to pick just the right details and/or wordplay to infuse colour and the unexpected into a song, and you have a recipe for an infamous artist. Even after he stopped releasing solo work, he kept writing songs... my generation of CCM listeners is well acquainted with songs like Breakfast, Shine, Reality, and Million Pieces (Kissing Your Cares Goodbye), all made famous by the Newsboys.

Then the Newsboys Americanised and the brilliant songwriting of Steve Taylor seemed doomed to disappear forever.

But then, two years ago, he launched a Kickstarter campaign with the eventual goal of recording another album with himself on vocals -- his first in over twenty years (the previous Steve Taylor album, Squint, came out in 1993). Naturally, hungry fans pounced on it and if memory serves the campaign was fully funded in twenty-four hours.

This song was a result of that campaign and the resulting album.

Title: Comedian
Artist: Steve Taylor And The Perfect Foil
Album: Goliath
Year: 2014
Label: Independent release
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Now there is another Kickstarter campaign in the works. Steve and his band (which includes Newsboys alum Peter Furler on drums) intend to record an EP, so if you want more of this, go support it here.

Now -- if you're still with me after all that ancient history and the advert -- about the actual song.

I'm not even going to attempt to explain a Steve Taylor lyric because I'll probably get it wrong, so read the lyrics and form your own conclusions here. There's some really great wordplay in the first three verses though (The saints came marching in this morning / And they marched back out the door / Wholly offended...).

Musically speaking, this might be called progressive (I don't actually know, I suck at this genre-classification thing). The music is really sparse until the three-and-a-half-minute mark when the cymbals start competing with Steve's voice for first place in the mix. An electric guitar joins in about a minute later, only to drop out for the ending: a haunting synthesized half-spoken repetition of the phrase Man makes plans / God laughs... (although maybe it only sounds haunting to me because I was watching the Doctor Who episode The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances last night... the voice in the song reminds me a LOT of the voice of the kid saying "Are you my mummy?") This song is significantly mellower than the rest of the album (I very nearly featured Double Negative today instead of Comedian), so if slow songs aren't your thing -- and I don't blame you -- do check out the rest of the album, because if memory serves, this is actually by far the most mellow song on it.

Music Day - Little Crosses

(Apologies for the late post -- Internet was out yesterday.)

So the other day I was thinking, Man... I haven't seen a good Kickstarter project in a long time. Then I logged into Facebook that night and saw not one, not two, but FOUR different projects.

1. The Choir is reissuing what is widely referred to as their best album (Circle Slide) on vinyl.
2. The 77s are releasing like four of their early albums on vinyl.

3. Phil Keaggy's making a new album.
4. And Jerry Chamberlain of Daniel Amos fame is recording a solo album.

Jerry Chamberlain is perhaps one of my favourite guitarists. As I've said before on this blog, I'm not really into guitar, even as a listener. Just not my thing (plus I think it's way overused -- I'm looking at you, CCM industry). Yeah, I'm a rocker, but I listen to that for the keyboards and the bass.

But Jerry Chamberlain and his guitar have been a crucial part of Daniel Amos since its inception in the late 70's. He was a huge part in DA's shift from country to... whatever Doppelgänger actually is. He did leave the band for a time in the mid-80's (during which time his shoes were ably filled by Tim Chandler), but he returned to work alongside Chandler in the '90s sometime and I believe that's still the state of affairs in the band today.

So here's a Chamberlain-penned track from DA's seminal album Doppelgänger.

Title: Little Crosses
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Doppelgänger
Year: 1983
Label: Alarma Records and Tapes
iTunes here; YouTube here. Buy the (deluxe remastered two-disc edition) CD from the band here.

It's a brilliantly sarcastic jab at Christians' tendency to put measure their spirituality (or even our very salvation) with pictures of crosses at sunset and flowers after the rain and mustard seeds as necklace pendants and pewter fishes on their bumpers. There's a delicious inversion of Matthew 6:20 in the first verse. And it's set to rock music, so really, what's not to like?

Music Day - Album Review

Preamble: So when I said this would be up 'next week,' (*cough* several weeks ago...) I apparently forgot that I was doing NaNoWriMo, a full college class schedule, a book report, and rehearsing for/participating in a musical which ran four times over three days. So, obviously, this review was not real high on the priority list there for a while. But it's here now. I still feel it doesn't do the album total justice, but if I wait till I have time to really listen to it another four or five times, we'll probably be into mid-February. So here you go. Enjoy.

Remember John Schlitt? The voice of Petra since 1986's Back To The Street? Yeah, well, his new album came out a few weeks back -- a Christmas album.

I have to be honest: though I supported the Kickstarter campaign, I wasn't entirely sure if I would like this. I've heard Christmas rock music and so far it has all sucked. Remember the band formerly known as Newsboys? tobyMac? Yeah... some artists/bands just weren't cut out for Christmas music. I doubted John's gravelly voice could take these stalwart carols and not take something away from them. Rock is one thing, Christmas is another.

What first struck me when I got the advance download was the track list. This is not your run-of-the-mill Christmas album. No Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree, no Jingle Bell Rock, not even Joy To The World or Angels We Have Heard On High or Away In A Manger. (Can this legally be sold in Christian bookstores?)

Nope, he went way back to the beautiful old Christmas songs that are familiar but, by and large, haven't been bludgeoned to death yet by hundreds of mediocre CCM arrangements. In addition, there are two original songs (That Spirit Of Christmas and What Christmas Needs To Be).

And now, for the track-by-track fangirling *cough* I mean breakdown of John Schlitt's The Christmas Project.

Hallelujah Chorus -- The following is my word-for-word reaction to hearing this song for the first time: 'HOLY DEUCE WHAT THE CRAP WAS THAT AMAZINGNESS THAT MY EARS JUST WITNESSED?' (Seriously.) This. Is. Perfect. This may border on sacrilegious, but I think I like this version better than the original Handel arrangement (though that may be because of my predetermined taste for rock music). It opens with John singing And He shall reign forever and ever a cappella, and then repeating the phrase again and again, singing the different parts and then they start to be layered. Even if he had done the whole song like that, that would have been lovely enough. But it gets better.
As he sings those parts, some kind of harpsichord or something fades in (it's all very Christmas-y), and then suddenly the rocker voice all Petheads know explodes through the speakers: King of kings! and then the electric guitar and the drums come in behind the choir parts. (Also, I'm a soprano and I'm a tiny bit jealous of the notes he hits here. Simply impressive.) Then it becomes a solid rocker of a song, fancy electric guitar work, rollicking drums, stuff that will get you headbanging.
Phenomenal opening song. Ladies and gentlemen, make way: The Christmas Project has arrived.

Do You Hear What I Hear? -- Then with the sound of barnyard animals, we hear a juvenile voice reading the classic Luke passage. Then turns into an upbeat rock sort of thing. It feels quite current, actually (though I'm not exactly on the cusp of current music, CCM or not, so I may be completely out to lunch on that assessment). I've never really liked this song (lyrically) to begin with, so I'm finding it hard to judge this version objectively. But it's easy to move around to and it does feature a pretty decent guitar solo (and the verse right after that is backed by only drums, which is cool, and then a little bit of bass work).

Little Drummer Boy -- This is perhaps the most mainstream song used on the album. Yes, it starts with a drum roll. And the drumming continues with a nice open feel to it, and a melancholy keyboard (or perhaps it's strings), and the vocals come in low and gentle. The song is done faster than most artists do it, and it actually works rather well. After the second verse, it builds a little and yes, there's some guitar, but it's not as in your face like most rock versions of this song. The focus is John's versatile powerhouse voice. Does it top the White Heart version? No... but it's pretty darn good.

O Holy Night -- This one is really pretty. Nice and gentle. John has quite a nice not-rock voice, though the processing it's given in the 'chorus' of this song seems a bit unnecessary. This is a guy who actually can do the full-on screaming rock songs (Mine Field with Petra being perhaps the best example) and the gentle Christmas carols and be equally powerful on both fronts. That takes more skill than I think a lot of us realise. This song doesn't stand out as 'holy crap this is spectacular,' but it is exactly what this song should be (unless you're in the Christmas musical that I was a part of this past weekend, where we did this song with dancers and a full orchestra and a hundred-ish voice choir and there may or may not have been fireworks involved). Gentle but quietly powerful, building a little, now softening a bit, the dynamics just naturally following the contour of the lyric. This is a great song/version of it for just sitting and staring out the window on a clear winter night and looking up at the stars (or at the Christmas tree in the front window of the house across the street, as the case may be). And it even closes with the sound of distant church bells. What more could you ask for?

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen -- It starts out as what could be called a brooding rock song, but with more energy and a deceptively light and airy vocal. You just know it's going to explode, and it does after the first verse with guitars and strings and drums and it's beautiful. This feels a lot like his previous album The Greater Cause. This song actually works well as a rock song. The strings in the background take it from mere 'rock song' to 'symphonic energetic Christmas rock song.' Then with one last cry, the song screeches almost but not quite to a halt and fades out as daintily as the snowflakes dancing in the night.

Good Christian Men Rejoice -- Ah, yes, traditional jingle bells opening the song. But then it turns into a great rollicking, toe-tapping, hand-clapping song with some pretty nice guitar work weaving through the background. The choreographer in me would like to add that this has 'tap dance' written all over it.

That Spirit Of Christmas -- Then we take it down a notch with a mellow, almost bluesy sort of tune (disclaimer: I know exactly nothing about blues). It reminds me of the filler tracks from Petra's mellower years in the late '90s. It's probably a good sitting-by-the-fireplace-with-some-hot-chocolate kind of song. Decent, but not my proverbial cup of tea.

We Three Kings -- The piano riff that starts this is beautifully warm and haunting. It makes me think of the cold winter nights with the clear sky in a wide expanse above a snowy landscape. Nice moody electric guitar work. And, of course, the strings in the interlude. I can't put it into words, but the instrumentation is just perfect for the song (until the last chorus, when it somehow feels a little harsh, but then it melts back into that pretty piano riff again).

What Christmas Needs To Be -- It just sounds happy and fun. I like the guitar riff. Not so much the backing vocals. I don't know why, they just don't work for me.

What Child Is This? -- More pretty piano! I've never heard so much piano on a rock album (or even some Christmas albums). It's really nice. It builds subtly in the chorus -- subtly but powerfully. For the third verse, everything stops and then John's gentle voice comes back in with only a little piano, which makes the final chorus stand out more

Overall, this album far exceeded my expectations. Finally, another Christmas album that won't wear out within one year of purchase. (The list of year-in/year-out classics is almost devastatingly small.)

Buy the album on his website here (you can also preview the entire thing on that page). Available on iTunes here.

Steve Taylor News

This needs to happen.

This NEEDS to happen.

Yes, fans of obscure music, a new Steve Taylor album -- the first in twenty years. And it's up to us. Pledge by Christmas Eve.

Let's make this happen.

(For the curious... concert footage here.)

Your Obscure Music Digest

Well, since there's a lull in DA and White Heart stuff, I am now featuring stuff from The Choir. Observe.

From the list linked above, I've only heard four songs -- Beautiful Scandalous Night (and that was only in part), Between Bare Trees, Midnight Sun, and That Melancholy Ghost. They're all lovely; however, those of you who know me as a rocker will be surprised -- these tracks (at least those four) are slow and the instrumentation is sparse. If it wasn't for the writing, I probably wouldn't listen to them at all.

The link is included on the page linked above, but if you're too lazy to read through it, here's the link directly to their Kickstarter campaign to make a new studio album and a live album. They've already met their funding goal, but you have until the end of the month to join in.


Metalheads, take note: Bloodgood and Stryper have both got new albums going out in a few weeks (November first and fifth, respectively). Word on the street (that is, Facebook and random album reviews) says the Stryper one is worthy of the Stryper banner... haven't heard too much about the Bloodgood one yet.

Watch the official video for Stryper's No Hell To Pay here. Watch the official video for Bloodgood's Lamb Of God here.


Also, after announcing a Kickstarter campaign that was supposed to launch last week, PFR is unexpectedly calling it quits. For good? Who knows -- this is PFR. They've quit and reappeared at least twice. But it's safe to say they're out of commission for a few more years at least. They have asked for prayer for the guys -- no more information has been given.


Lecrae's dropping a mixtape, Church Clothes 2, on 7 November. The last one was released on Datpiff, so I assume CC2 will be the same. (For those of you keeping score, that's three new albums in the first week of NaNoWriMo. Can you say 'jackpot?')


Also, this. This is awesome on so many levels. I love the DA/Choir/TST/etc. fanbase so, so much, and this is a great example of why. Name me another fanbase that will even think of something like this, never mind actually give it a shot.

Music Day - Grace

Yesterday it rained. Actually, it rained harder than I've ever seen in my life -- and consistently. Back home it'll pour rain for maybe five minutes, and that's all you'll see all year. Yesterday it was pouring rain when I woke up at 8.30, and it poured rain consistently for the entire day. If my academic day hadn't sucked, I would have been dancing around the building.

But walking to the academic building in the pouring rain to the 12.25 class, without a complete assignment in my hand, knowing that by making this walk without that paper, I was forfeiting 20% of my grade... suddenly, randomly, this song was in my head.

I'm not expecting grace. This is college. I'm not going to get away with not turning in a major assignment on time, no matter what the reason, no matter how hard I may have tried. But this song began to softly weave its way around in my head, adding that perfect poetic melancholy to the rain and that walk over the brick path to the building.

Title: Grace
Artist: The Choir
Album: Speckled Bird
Year: 1994
Label: R.E.X. Music
iTunes here; YouTube here.
You can buy a set that contains this album from the band here (it's near the bottom of the page).

You know, I didn't really like The Choir when I first started hearing stuff from them. It wasn't bad, but it didn't capture me.

Then, of course, I discovered Daniel Amos.

Daniel Amos and The Choir mix together in so many ways I can't keep track of them anymore. They play on and produce each other's albums (Tim Chandler is actually the official bass player for both bands), and members from both bands are involved in the Lost Dogs. Thus, my love for Terry Taylor's poetry has helped illuminate that of Hindalong and Daugherty.

I first heard this song in particular on the Cephas Hour a while back. I was hooked at Screaming at the newsman...

I love the orchestration. It's sort of reminiscent of DA's Dig Here Said The Angel (though lyrically it feels more like Prodigal). It has a slow swirling underwater-murky feel throughout, with so much ominous restraint in the low end. In the third verse, for about two lines, there's this sound in the background -- it defies description, but it sounds so cool.

It's the little things in the arrangement that make this song so startlingly melancholy. It's so different to hear a song start with the vocal right away. And then, when the lyrics have all been sung, the song ends. No goofing around with superfluous lyric repeats and high-falutin' guitar solos. They say what needs to be said and then shut up so you can think about it. I know I already said this, but it really is Prodigal meets Dig Here. It's beautiful. It's real. It pulls no punches.

It is the perfect rainy day song.



By the way: they're launching a Kickstarter program next week... and there's a free online concert on Tuesday. Check out their website for details.

And Now, A Commercial

(Note: It's not an actual commercial -- no money's changing virtual hands here. I'm just a fan.)

Since I'm a Kickstarter supporter of the new Daniel Amos album, I just got to hear a rough mix of one of the songs on the upcoming album.

I won't get into too much detail (because I'm not sure how much I'm 'allowed' to share), but listen up, people -- you need this album. End of story. Whether you support the Kickstarter project and get it as a reward or whether you wait till it comes out and buy it then... you need this album.

I would seriously be content with that mix -- the 'rough' mix -- being the final mix on the record. Seriously. It's that good. There is nothing -- nothing -- that will be released this year, in fact, nothing that has been released in the last fifteen years (or more) that can touch this thing. And I've only heard one song.

But until that gets released (eventually...), you can check out a few of their live shows over the years here. (I particularly like the Through The Speakers 1981 show, but the 2011 Phoenix show is pretty good too... "3.5 million songs and the guy wants Sprinkler Head...")