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