Learning curves - Christian Hardcore parts I-V.

As always with these histories, there is a risk of errors and omissions.  I welcome your comments and corrections.

I.

I have started and restarted this post a few times now, spending countless hours thinking, writing, and researching (listening to old records, watching YouTube videos, etc.).

The challenge is this: I became very active in the hardcore scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  I played in bands, I put on shows, I volunteered at DIY showspaces and at a collectively-run punk rock record store.  Much like my exposure to Christianity (and its concomitant music scene), my involvement in the hardcore scene was an important and formative time in my life, and I came into that scene via the Christian hardcore bands that I was introduced to in the mid-1990s.

So I'm grateful for those bands and their influence, and for opening my eyes to the larger scene (and in this case, the word scene doesn't really do justice to what was going on in the world of hardcore punk - a world that challenged the political order, gender roles, our race and class system, and even diet), but it was that very exposure that cast a light on the limits of the Christian hardcore scene.

Mostly.  Or so I thought.  Or, the truth is, after all of this writing and thinking and listening, I have no fucking clue.

I was prepared to write a really scathing critique of the Christian hardcore scene and how they got it really wrong in a lot of cases, and while there's room for some of that honesty, I also need to be honest about the fact that, in most cases, they weren't too far off the mark of what their "secular" counterparts were doing.  Maybe the problem is that they culled, initially, from a very small pool of influences, and when many later bands visited that pool, the only additions to it had been the early Christian bands themselves.  The natural result of this is going to be a recycling of sounds and ideas, but this happens all the time, and is how regional (and other) scenes and sounds develop, and is usually not that terrible of a thing.

II.

And so in sticking with the decision to approach this with a degree of honesty, I might as well acknowledge what the real challenge is.  Hardcore punk expanded my worldview tremendously, and while for years I embraced new ideas and ways of thinking, folding them into my ever-developing faith, it was at times a challenge (though I was loathe to admit this to myself at the time).

In the end, challenges to my faith proved to be too much, and then one day, I didn't believe anymore, and realized I hadn't for quite some time.  The framework was still there, and I still liked thinking theoretically within it (when Scripture says this, it can be interpreted this social justice-y way), but the faith was gone.  I hadn't prayed in some time, or read the Bible, and I didn't feel like either was missing.  My faith, my spirituality, my connection (or need of one) to Something Beyond was gone, and has been ever since, and while I respect religious belief in others and feel that there is a wealth of beauty in it, it's something I can't get at.  Moreover, I feel absolutely at peace with this.

Of course, hardcore punk music didn't do this to me, and it is likely an end I would have found for myself anyway.  In a recent conversation, JH said that I "burned hot and bright," and maybe there was nothing left, so maybe it's no wonder my anxious, ADD personality couldn't sustain that kind of zeal for more than the dozen years that I gave to it.

And it was that very zeal that drew me to hardcore.  Who in their late teens or early twenties doesn't appreciate a very strident, cut and dry worldview?  I definitely did.  Which is how I came to be a straightedge evangelical vegan Christian with anarchist leanings, in no particular order.  It looks goofy now, and I'm sure it was to many then, but it obviously made a certain sense to me.

Even as hardcore was diverse and pushing boundaries of what the status quo could be, it did provide a sort of moral framework with which to take on the world, and sometimes that produced some narrow thinking.  Despite all contradictions, then, it isn't too hard to see where a bunch of evangelical Christians were able to carve out a place for themselves within this scene.

I was one of these, some years after the Christian hardcore scene had become more established, and in the years since losing my faith I've often reflected on this and other evangelical pursuits I was involved with, mostly wondering why I didn't just leave people alone.  This is likely the source of my disdain for much the Christian hardcore scene; ultimately I find that sort of evangelism disrespectful, and I suppose I want to alternately purge it from my memory or castigate myself for it.

Here is why this is silly of me: For starters, our band wasn't even all that evangelical, aside from being a Christian band that sang about our faith.  I'm not sure our goal was to save souls, as much as to stake out a space for ourselves.  Secondly, in researching old hardcore, I came across this video from 7 Generations, a vegan straightedge band from the early 2000s, including a minute and a half of preaching about veganism, including the emotional appeal and "you don't have to believe me, you can go home and look it up for yourself, find it out for yourself" I came to associate with altar calls as a young teen.  Basically, it's as or more obnoxious than anything I remember any Christian hardcore band doing (but don't think I won't highlight the notable exceptions).

So I'm starting over, being nicer, and remembering a really fun time in music, and with the (decidedly non-Christian) Gorilla Biscuits in my ear: Too bad you can't see / all the good things that I see.

III.

Given hardcore punk's long history, it should be a challenge to write about Christian hardcore music while staying within the strict confines of a blog which is bound by blood oath to covering ONLY the years 1990 to 1999.

But it's not.

It's easy, and that's a shame.

In 1993, hardcore, like me, was fifteen years old (The Middle Class and Black Flag both released pioneering EPs in 1978, but Santa Ana's The Middle Class came first), and had a long history, though you'd never know it, listening to Christian music.  There were always punk bands, to be sure, but listening to Christian music, excluding the Crucified, it was as if Focused were the first hardcore band.

There was no reference within the Christian scene, musical or otherwise, to the first wave of hardcore typified by bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and the Dead Kennedys, and it was as if the youth crew hardcore of the late 1980s as played by the Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, and Bold had never even happened.

You have the Crucified, mentioned elsewhere and really deserving of some serious coverage of their own at some point.  They were a crossover thrash band, which means they had one foot in the metal camp and another in the hardcore punk camp, though I think for a lot of people they were either another metal band that they liked or another punk band that they liked, and so many people missed the connection to hardcore.  Fair enough.  At a certain point, Adam and I were saying to each other recently, pinpointing a genre gets kind of silly.

But for the sake of argument, let's at least say that the Crucified had ties to hardcore, a la Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, Hirax, et al.  They were a band until 1993 their first time around, but their final full length, Pillars of Humanity, was released in 1991.

IV.

And then, in 1993, a fledgling Tooth and Nail Records released Bow, the debut from Southern California's Focused.

Let's be fair.  When Tooth and Nail burst onto the scene, I was excited.  I bought Focused's first record and loved it.  But I didn't know the first thing about hardcore.  A portable black and white television looks like a miracle to someone stumbling out of the woods, completely unfamiliar with technology, but it's no 3-D Blu-Ray, right?  See Plato for more on this phenomenon. 

In the band's defense, there was a lot of plodding mid-tempo hardcore being played at that point, and Focused (maybe with a different singer and/or a drummer who could effectively play fast parts) might have been able to hang in there with the likes of Outspoken, Strife, or the rest of the New Age, Conversion, Revelation, or Victory rosters (indeed, if I'm not mistaken, they played shows with many of these bands).  Not only that, but next time you're tempted, like i was, to hate on the first Focused record, go back and listen to Chorus of Disapproval.  They were stylistically a little different, but from roughly the same era, and kids today still go crazy for that shit, even though it's not very good.  

But there was also a lot of interesting hardcore music being created to which the Christian scene was tone-deaf: Kent McClard's Ebullition records was in full swing, releasing emotive hardcore and post-hardcore bands like Fuel, Moss Icon, Julia, and Portraits of Past.  Bloodlink was doing similar work on the East Coast (with plenty of overlap).  Integrity were just starting to rage, Los Crudos were blazing trails in Chicago, and a million other bands were doing incredibly interesting things within the scope of hardcore.

The early Christian "spirit-filled hardcore" bands seemed more apt to follow in the footsteps of the more straightforward straightedge bands -- bands that, while in many ways awesome, were maybe not as interested in creativity or pushing the boundaries of the genre. 

If this is harsh, let it be harsh.  There are people who don't know the first thing about hardcore who make the early Christian hardcore bands sound like they were pioneers.  They weren't.  They were vying to participate in a flourishing scene, to be sure, and in many cases were surprisingly successful (getting on to bills, etc.), and that's great, but to ignore the hard work of their contemporaries and forebears is, at best, a bit short-sighted.

Anyway, here is Focused at their best during this era:

Like a sword / two-sided / the sharpened edge ... but if it's two-sided, aren't both sides sharp?

V.

Next came Unashamed.  The guitars were dirtier, shredded harder, the energy was higher, with more of a slowed-down New York hardcore approach (though they, like Focused, were from Southern California).  The drumming, though, was the worst thing ever, and pretty much ruins the record, which otherwise might have been pretty great.

Unashamed were, I think, better than Focused, but didn't seem like it at the time because of the awful drumming and poor recording quality.  Thankfully, someone had the good idea to tack three live songs on at the end of Silence, their debut album, which showcased some of the band's raw energy.  On one of the songs, singer Jeff Jacquay says, "you know, we're not doing this for any other reason than to get the word of God out.  It's not about money, it's not about fame, it's about what we found true in our lives and that's Jesus Christ.  We don't mean to throw it down your throat, but we're trying to help you because we love you."  This was in a song that began with "Nevermind those scientists / with their crooked lies," presumably a reference to evolution or the Big Bang theory or global warming or some other craziness.

It seems that Unashamed's mission was to evangelize, an undertaking that can alternately be viewed as the natural product of youthful zeal or arrogant and disrespectful, depending on the vantage point of the onlooker.

At this point, the Christian hardcore scene remained largely isolated, partially due the (understandably) insular nature of these bands, partially because Tooth and Nail hadn't really yet broken out of the Christian bookstore distribution circuit, and largely because many hardcore kids had suspicions about Christianity.  In an interview, Jacquay said "I think that there was an overall acceptance of Tooth and Nail within the hardcore scene," something that's just patently untrue.  He goes on to report that "Sure, there were some who dispised [sic] Tooth and Nail but that came from a hated [sic] of all things with ties to any religion.  I think Equal Vision was in the same boat.  But generally everything was cool."

Equal Vision Records was founded by Youth of Today/Shelter/Better than a Thousand frontman, hardcore god, and Hare Krishna devotee Ray Cappo.  Initially the label released solely Krishna hardcore, diversifying their roster in the mid-nineties, and even if they hadn't, there are two major differences from the Tooth and Nail scenario: 1) While many in the hardcore community might have thought Ray Cappo's conversion to Hare Krishna an odd move, they still respected him because he was Ray Cappo.  2) Unlike Christianity, Krishna was kind of an unknown quantity at the time, and as such was often met with less skeptical eyes.

No videos on the YouTubes of Unashamed during this era.  Sorry, dudes.

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Next up: Helpless Amongst Friends, Strongarm, Six Feet Deep, Overcome, and more

Boot to Head Records Ad, circa 1998 or so featuring VERANDERUNG.

Thanks to Kyle for sending this over.  Lots of good stuff here.  I suppose Boot to Head would fall under the category of SubSubSub, inasmuch as they were putting out obscure hardcore and punk records in a Christian market in relative obscurity (as compared to Tooth and Nail, for example).  I was surprised to learn that, at least according to the website, they're still "keeping on." 

I had all but the Shorthanded record, once upon a time, but the real gem here, as far as I'm concerned, is Veranderung (German for "change").  How many Christian crustcore bands can you name?  How many times do you think Christian bands have ever been compared to the mighty Los Crudos?  Who ever thought the word Assuck would make it into an ad for a Christian record?  The hardcore scene of the nineties was diverse, but you wouldn't necessarily know it listening to Christian bands (the topic of a long-form piece I'm working on for this very blog) which is why this record was so refreshing.

Veranderung was pretty much Jim from Clay playing short brutal songs that I think he maybe recorded as a solo studio project, later adding a live band.  Maybe I'm biased because I hung out with Jim a bunch one year at Cornerstone and he and I were pen pals for a time, but this record is still in my collection so many years later, and at this point, that's really saying something.

Look for more on Blaster and Ceasefire at a later date, and maybe Boot to Head while we're at it, but in the meantime, keep these scans coming!  Oh, and you can listen to a track from the Veranderung 7" here.  If anybody's got a link to the whole record, please say so in the comments section below.

Genesis

I had always liked music.  From as early as I can remember I would go to sleep listening to the radio.  When I was very young, it was a small silver AM/FM radio that I would keep next to my bed.  I can still vividly remember how the chorus for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road would give me goosebumps (it still does).  Music affected me, it comforted me.

I didn't grow up in a religious home.  Non-practicing Catholics probably summarizes it best. I was confirmed, went through Catechism, but that was the extent of my religious upbringing.  I'm sure it helped develop some sort of ethics for me, but honestly, all I remember is watching a few film strips and sitting in the back of the class, trying to get pencils to stick in the ceiling.

In high school I met a pastor's kid.  We hit it off, he invited me to church.  At first, I felt out of place at church.  Not because of any of the people there, but just because the whole act of "church" was so foreign to me.  I slowly felt more relaxed, but I was doing this all without the comfort of my parents being by my side.  I was always a little nervous.  Even as my comfort grew, and even as I started to enjoy my time at the church, I still felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.  At the time I was really into metal.  Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura... I definitely had found a genre that I grabbed on to.  I figured my new friends would eventually have a little talk with me about my musical choices but that never happened.  Instead, I was introduced to new music I was never aware of.

It started with the Christian metal bands.  Living Sacrifice's first album had just come out.  I was floored.  I was never really a big Slayer guy, but that self-titled album was a better version of anything I had heard from Slayer.  It was great.  I wanted more.  Then it was Mortification, then it was Believer (still a favorite to this day).  The metal bands slowly gave way to other bands in the Christian scene.  Then Tooth & Nail showed up and helped usher me towards shoegazer and indie rock.

The 90's was a golden age in both the Christian music scene and the secular one.  And while no one was coaxing me to stick with the Christian bands, it's where I focused a sizable amount of attention.  The easy explanation was because of the people I was hanging out with, but I think it was more than that.  The Christian scene was dealing with real issues and real emotions.  It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.  Looking back, some of those bands were actually pretty bleak. For a brooding teen, what more could you ask for? You were given the emotional struggle we all felt at that age, but sprinkled with hope and purpose.

The morning I first talked to DL about possibly starting something chronicling our musical choices as teens, it was born out of a sense of nostalgia.  But the more I thought about it since, there really was a wealth of great music from that era that largely went unnoticed simply because it was Christian.  Most of the people that will stumble across this blog will probably do so out of the same nostalgic feelings, but maybe there will be those music loving souls that will have their eyes opened to a scene that silently passed them by.

Personally knowing the guys involved in this project, I can comfortably say that we were serious about music.  Age and life slowly shift priorities and the passion with which we once searched for new music has waned but that doesn't diminish the impact music had on us.  So we plan on giving you a cliff notes version -- a best of, if you will.  You'll recognize some, but I have a feeling we'll surprise you with some of the gems we unearth from our personal collections (we listened to some weird crap).

I mean... just wait until Adam and I start talking about Saviour Machine...

"Call the Fire Department!" - The Unusual Genius of Breakfast with Amy

Blonde Vinyl Records was a revelation to me as a young teen.  There were plenty of Christian record labels with which I was familiar, some even with alternative imprints, but Blonde Vinyl seemed the zaniest and the furthest afield.  This is likely because it was run by the incredibly creative, prolific, and beautifully misanthropic Michael Knott.  More on him at a later date. 

After three short years, Blonde Vinyl had to shut its doors forever in 1993, which many have speculated was the fault not of the label but of shaky distribution deals in the Christian bookstore circuit.  A sophomore in high school, I remember being fairly saddened by this news, even going so far as to try to explain to my friends (to no avail) the importance of this record label.  I would miss that zaniness and irreverence.

Perhaps no band demonstrated these qualities more than Breakfast with Amy.  There were elements of surf rock, some Violent Femmes worship, psychedelia of all sorts (some songs incorporating a sitar and sounding like some of that weirdo British folk), 70's glam androgyny, some weirdness that reminded my wife of Iggy Pop, other songs that sounded very much like contemporaries Jane's Addiction, and a whole lot of samples, snoring, and other sounds that played right into my love of all things Monty Python.  Oh, and some Sonic Youth.  

Sadly I don't have any of their records anymore.  How does that happen?  YouTube only has a small sampling, but it's enough to give you an idea.  For a band that always seemed content to exist on the fringes, Breakfast with Amy also enjoys a colorful but tiny presence on the edges of the internet.

I never did find out what their name meant, and this is a band that maybe wouldn't make it back into regular heavy rotation even if I could find all of their old records, but I'll always appreciate them for embracing the bizarre, for championing a creative spirit that asked, whether anyone was listening or not, "why can't it be like this?"

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Chris Colbert from Breakfast with Amy on someone else's website talking about the band, dadaism, and subsequent projects. 

Here is "Mermelstein and the Disappearing Sink."  Again, no idea what the title means, but I love all of the stilted Christian social jargon, and the music reminds me of Circus Lupus or Nation of Ulysses, two DC bands playing at roughly the same time:

But then there's this, "Fashion Gal" from 1991's Tuck in Your Love Gift (I think I know what that means, but I wish I didn't).  There are elements of Nirvana here, I don't care what anybody says:

If you can find a song from the Vonnegut-titled Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt that still endures, please post the link below in the comments.  I couldn't.  - DL

* It should be noted that Breakfast with Amy were a band about which one could write volumes.  The above is not intended to be anything more than a remembrance by way of surface exploration, and/or an introduction.  Thank you for your understanding.

Crowdsourcing

We're putting out the call.  If you have any old catalogs or advertisements, particularly those that contain "recommended if you like" (RIYL) suggestions based on "secular" counterparts, we'd love to have those scans come our way.  They'll help make this blog more awesome, and specifically aid a crazy giant project we're working on.  Thanks!

My formative relationship with "christian music" Part 2

Looking back, the exposure to alternative, independent music, via christian alternative, independent music was the most defining season of my adolescent life. My experiences in that sub-subculture helped shape my worldview, values and ethics.

I had already done a musical one-eighty towards pop music upon entering junior high, now, having discovered alternative christian music, I did another one-eighty, and concluded that, because of the sheer number of christian bands, I could easily be musically satisfied exclusively by that subculture. I don't remember whether my youth pastor explicitly blessed or condemned christian rock music, and I don't remember feeling any pressure not to listen to "secular music" from my parents, but I've always felt confident to make my own decisions anyway.

In 1993, Tooth & Nail Records appeared and started putting out records from the southern California, and later, Seattle christian music scenes and the sounds of heavenly hardcore and distortion reached my ears and my christian bookstore's shelves. As their catalog quickly expanded, many of their CDs came with a fold-out merch catalog which included thumbnail images of all their current releases with tag lines like, if you like Smashing Pumpkins or Helmet, you'll like this Tooth & Nail band. For me, and I think, for many thousands of evangelical-raised kids around the U.S., Tooth & Nail Records was the gateway drug for secular music. In the fall of 1993, I started high school, 10th grade. This was another transformative year for me: I started listening to secular music again.

My high school years were, generally, full of positive experiences. Many of them were related to music: listening to it, buying it, endlessly discussing it, frequently going to see bands live (many times in nearby cities or states), helping set up local shows, playing in short-lived punk bands. Two and a half junior high schools fed my high school, so my sophomore year was really a new beginning for me. There were many like-minded kids who were also into alternative music. The problem was, almost none of them knew about all the cool christian bands I'd been listening to for the past year and a half. I'd say, "You haven't heard of Mortal?!" And they'd say, "You haven't heard of Ministry?!" I'd say, "You haven't heard of LSU ?!" And they'd say, "You haven't heard of All?!" I came into high school and soon realized I was really quite (punk, metal, alternative) musically preliterate. I made friends who were in punk bands. It was great. I bought a crappy car from my great aunt and started going to local shows at small all-ages venues in the Fox Cities. Shows set up and run by 16 year old kids. Looking back, I was extremely fortunate to have such an active music scene in my relatively small hometown.

For awhile, I was living in two mutually exclusive musical worlds: christian music, with all my youth group friends, and just...music, with my high school friends. I don't know how long the distinction between music and christian music stayed in my brain. I remember that in the alternative christian scene there was quite a debate raging about the difference or lack of difference between a christian band, and christians in a band. It's a subtle point, and a ridiculous point to the uninitiated, but it was a real struggle for even the emerging alternative christian music community. I guess at some point during that school year, it really didn't matter to me any more. Luxury was awesome. Nirvana was awesome. Roadside Monument and Jawbox both blew my mind when I saw them live for the first time in 1994. Good music was just good music. Good art was just good art. I continued and continue to appreciate good music, whether made by people who publicly identify themselves as christians through interviews or lyrics, or not. It really isn't something I consider when listening or seeing a band live. But that was a big mental shift for me when I was 16.

What the whole gamut of the explosion of ideas that was the alternative music scene of the early 90s taught me was that music was a community. It was a pre-internet, do-it-yourself world where anyone, even you, a 16 year old kid, if you had the will, could get a couple bands together, rent a space, find a sound guy with a PA, cut and paste together a flyer, stick it up all over town and hand it out at school, and gosh darn it, if 150 local teenagers didn't show up at the VFW on a Friday night. Local, punk, DIY music. What a great alternative to drugs, drinking and trouble making. That's what it was for me anyway. I had grown up hearing Just Say No at school, at home, and especially at church. I was able to do that because, firstly, I really wasn't that interested (primarily because I saw it as a waste of money and it was illegal, for my age), but more so because I was involved in a musical community for whom that wasn't a high value. It wasn't the christian music scene, or even straight edge ideals that kept me off that path. It was the community. I'm not saying that kids in my local music scene or national christian music scene didn't use drugs, of course they did, but they were both subcultures that valued the art and the community around the art far greater than any high. Creating and experiencing new music, that was the real high. Music is transcendent, that's a given. It taps into something we can't articulate. It's primal. It's physical. It's natural and real. It is truly one of the few things that brings people, of all types, together. That was and still is the attraction for me.

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Some of the alternative christian music from the 90s still holds up for me. Some of it doesn't. There were christians who just made great music. Period. And there were plenty who didn't. There's much more to say, and I'm sure the contributors to the blog will be exploring it all.

My formative relationship with "christian music" Part 1

In 1994, when I was 15, I remember telling my friend, while we were listening to Weezer's first record, "I don't think I'll spend any money on secular music when there's so much good christian music out there." This was probably the apex of my narrow thinking about and loyalty to christian music. I changed my mind that very summer when I discovered the burgeoning post-hardcore and emo bands/genres. More on this another time.

Growing up, I was exposed to basically three types of music at home: children's music, church music/popular christian music, and 'the oldies'. If you had talked to me when I was 11, I knew every word and note of The Beach Boys Endless Summer record, but not a single The Police song; sung happily along with The Imperials Sail On while washing dishes with my brother and sister, but only knew one Michael Jackson song (Beat It); was familiar with just about every single song from Disney animated movies, but had never even heard of U2.

My first independent foray into christian rock was in 1990. I was 12, almost 13. I rode my bike over to my local christian convenience store bookstore and bought, with my own money, my first christian rock tape. I cannot remember the band or record, although I can still see the cover image in my mind: two men, twins or maybe brothers, in their late 30s, long permed brown hair with big bangs, wearing loose black tank tops revealing plenty of chest hair, one holding a guitar, the other a bass. It was a holdover of 80s hair-metal. The music was mediocre at best. I can't remember a single song today, although maybe if I heard them again, it'd feel familiar, comfortable, laughable.

I started 7th grade, junior high, in 1990 and like most kids, was trying to find my place; acceptance into a group or clique was paramount and the phrase 'peer pressure' was an understatement. This was a pre-internet world, and the fads of my locality were king. Very quickly, I abandoned listening to christian music, other than at church and youth group, and jumped on the popular culture bandwagon. Wearing headphones in bed, I listened to Casey Kasem's top 40 countdown on Sunday nights, staying up too late, feeling bleary on Monday morning. I started buying pop rap; Young MC, MC Hammer, Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch, enjoying everything from love ballads, like Extreme's More than Words, to a crazy mix of rock bands like Spin Doctors and Scorpions--whatever the radio offered. I got my first drum set in 1991, and learned the basics of coordinating my limbs by drumming along to these songs in my basement, wearing headphones listening to mix tapes. I stayed on the pop music wagon until 1992.

In the summer of 1992 I was 14, and via church youth group friends, was introduced to two bands that simultaneously shattered and expanded my musical understanding and palate: Mortal, and The Crucified. I also heard whispers about a glorious music festival called Cornerstone, where I could see these bands play live. I instantly felt a connection to the music, the style, even the ethos. I couldn't get enough of this harder-sounding music. And they were christians! It was a double win: good music, good message. They weren't singing about chasing girls, but about chasing God (whatever that meant). Even if my parents disliked the music, they could read the lyrics and give their blessing, which, thankfully, they did. Almost overnight, I stopped shopping at the mall, and started shopping at my local thrift stores. I quit my cross-country running team mid-season and bought a skateboard. I turned off the radio. I started buying lots of christian alternative/punk/industrial/goth music with money I'd earned from babysitting and copied friends' tapes. The following summer I attended my first show and made my first pilgrimage to Cornerstone music festival. I had begun a lifelong journey.

Looking back, the exposure to alternative, independent music, via christian alternative, independent music was the most defining season of my adolescent life. My experiences in that sub-subculture helped shape my worldview, values and ethics.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Arise Skates

I turned 13 in the spring of 1991, which is also when I became a Christian.  I was excited about this newfound sense of purpose, but hadn’t considered that I would need to give up the “secular” music I was listening to (R.E.M., Metallica, and who knows what else).  Almost instantly, the pressure was on from my friends.  I received rationales, lectures, guilt trips, and, on at least one occasion, free music.

  

A well-intentioned friend gave me a copy of the soundtrack to Andre Walton’s “Arise Skates” video, and it blew me away.  I don’t think I had any preconceived notions of Christian music at this point, mostly because I was 13 and hadn’t ever thought about it, but as introductions go, this compilation really did its job.  

The Crucified’s “Your Image” kicked things off with some seriously catchy skate thrash about the dangers of hell (When you wake up in hell / ask yourself / was your image worth it are you proud of yourself? / You had a chance to be saved / to be a believer / but you turned your back on God to be a crowdpleaser).  I didn’t know anyone who was listening to any kind of skate thrash at this point, and I loved it.  I still love it.  Lyrics notwithstanding, the Crucified is a band that definitely stands up to the test of time and will definitely be covered more in depth in later entries.

Seventh Angel’s “Tormented Forever” covered similar ground lyrically, which I suppose makes sense for a band whose name comes straight out of the book of Revelation.  They played thrash, too, but in place of the Crucified’s punk rock sensibility was a thicker doom metal approach.  Again, at this point, I didn’t really care, as long as it was heavy.

I should stop here, though, to mention that there were some clunkers on this thing as well, most notably Stephen Wiley’s nerdy youth pastor rap, “Attitude,” Bride’s weird southern hair-band hard rock song “Everybody Knows My Name,” and D.O.C. (Disciples of Christ)’s accidentally suggestive hip-hop/R&B anthem, “Deeper” (pretty sure I ended up buying all three albums). 

     
But even so, you get two songs from the Crucified, a strange and punky introduction to Scaterd Few (later infamously associated with cannabis, controversy, and being courted by H.R. from Bad Brains), and two songs from S.F.C. (Soldiers for Christ), who took their place in what would later be called hip-hop’s Golden Age, bringing a bohemian sound that borrowed heavily from the likes of De La Soul and seemed to foretell what Del the Funky Homosapien would do just a few years later.  (I know JR will have plenty more to say about SFC).

The Arise Skates soundtrack is the album that introduced me to Christian music in its myriad forms, and for that reason it will always be somewhat important to me.  Oddly enough, I still haven't seen the skate video for which it was a soundtrack, save for a few YouTube clips, but I guess it's only been 21 years.  - DL

            

           

Opening missives: the living word.

Like faith, music, and life itself, I imagine this blog as something fluid, ever-changing, never fixed or static.  We are four old dudes reminiscing on our formative years.  Of course, we’re not that old after all, but live in a world that stretches adolescence as far as it will go.  At least one of us, let’s face it, has a serious Star Wars fixation.  We’re in our thirties, dads, some of us with many more creative pursuits behind us than before us.  And I think it’s safe to say that we are all at different stages on the faith spectrum, with at least one of us altogether absent.  That’s not so much the point.

The point is that JH, perhaps with the understanding that as a new dad, I would be awake, texted me at seven-something on a Saturday morning to tell me that he was listening to Luxury, drinking coffee, and thinking back to a time in our teens when he and I first met.  These moments are sweet, and happen with increasing frequency the older I get.  This text exchange soon became an informal exploration of which Christian bands from our youth still hold up, at least musically, two decades later.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.  Christian alternative music.  A subgenre of a subgenre, or of a subculture, and so often subpar in so many ways.  A very specific subset: the nineties.  Many of us listened to it because we thought we were supposed to, that in doing so we glorified God, and to listen to non-Christian, secular music, was to wade into some dangerous waters.  We rightly understood the power that art can hold, but lacked an understanding of our own power to negotiate it.  Or something.  Maybe we were just some dumb kids that went along.

At any rate, these bands were everything to us at one point, and now that we’ve grown older and expanded our horizons, we know what we’ve always known — that we were on our own when it came to these bands.  Our peers had no clue what we were talking about, and knew better ways to buy hardcore punk records than standing behind an old woman buying Precious Moments figurines at a Christian bookstore.

It’s kind of a weird club, and maybe this blog can be the secret handshake.

So the word is alive is the word.  There are four of us, AK, DL, JH, and JR, and I imagine bios will be the next order of business.  Opening words from the rest of the pack will likely follow below. - DL