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.
**************************************
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.
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.
**************************************
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.
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