1610 Days of Summer - Mitch Hedberg ("Dogs are forever in the push-up position.")
187 on the Dancefloor - LA Symphony
1999 - Prince (Prince doesn't allow his music on Youtube. Stupid decision since there's a new generation that doesn't realize how cool and wonderful he truly is. Now he's just known as "That d-bag who won't allow his music on Youtube." O well, one of the best party tunes of the ever.)
2 Become 1 - Bill Mallonee (I didn't know he did Spice Girls covers? Jocelyn starting dancing when this song came on. Good sign.)
6th And Alverado - Pigeon John (For those keeping score, that's four Pigeon John songs if you include his roles in the LA Symph tracks. Oddly enough, the beat for this song is cribbed from the song above. Coincidence? Think not.)
911 is a Joke - Public Enemy (Get up! Get up! Get, get, get down!) (Also: Sorry, it's true.)
99.9 F - Suzanne Vega ("You seem to me like a man on the verge of burning")
!!!!!!! - The Roots
I found the Hedberg album somewhere for free. I forget where. Sorry that was no help.
I'm a bit taken aback by how many largely OOP songs aren't available for mass consumption via youtube now (which is weird and is the opposite effect of just a couple years ago, let alone five years ago when Youtube was birthed. Big ups to the site and to those who find and post the hard-to-finds, especially the concerts).
Rules: Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me. You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Repost as "my life according to (band name).
Pick your Artist: Adam Again - Obscure to many but other obscure, independent-minded, underground-ish musicians and music lovers toiling in the CCM industry (many of which I am peeing my pants that I'm so happy to fb-befriend), the late, great Gene "Eugene" Andrusco & Co. released a wonderful and neglected album called Dig. And a handful of other wonderful albums as well. But I've blogged about them again and again. For now it's just silly blog filler (until later this week when I do the same thing with other fatally-neglected underground CCM genius songwriter Mark Heard).
Are you a male or female: "Homeboys"
Describe yourself: "Hopeless (Etc.) "
How do you feel: "Relapse" or "No Regrets"
Describe where you currently live: "This Band Is Our House"
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: "Hide Away"
Your favorite form of transportation: "Sleep Walk"
Your best friend is: "All You Lucky People"
You and your best friends are: "Eyes Wide Open"
Your Pets: "Stone"
What's the weather like: "Walk Between the Raindrops"
Favorite time of day: "Morning Song"
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: "Dig"
What is life to you: "It Is What It Is (What It Is)"
Your relationship: "You Can Fall in Love"
Your fear: "River on Fire"
What is the best advice you have to give: "The Trouble with Lies"
This is a link list of all the blogs that have participated so far in the blog-a-thon on Albums by Christians that Rock. Yes, I'm aware that it's a suck-y title. But I tend to think less of "Christian rock" and I just thought I might as well go all the way clumsy (and 80's hair-metal fan sounding) if it's going to be a cumbersome title anyway.
This list will be constantly updated and brought up to speed throughout the next week or so. Hopefully, there'll be more than just these two.
Jasdye: Dig, Adam Again (12/30/07) [Yes, it's obscenely long. And no, it's not definitive. But it is a work of passion about an extremely obscure college-rock-funk band. That's gotta count for something.]
The Arachnerd: Diamonds on the Inside, Ben Harper (1/14/08) [Who does not love Ben Harper? If I didn't already have a girl, I'd want to have Ben Harper's baby.]
Uh-oh, this is starting to look like an actual marathon and more people keep adding to the fray! Watch out; it's Blogger-mania!
The Cubicle Reverend: Various CCM records, including the Adventures of the O. C. Supertones, Supertones; Take Me to Your Leader, Newsboys; Free Signal, Beanbag [a new one for me]; and 21, The Blamed. [Incidentally, I did not have an alcoholic beverage at the age of 21. Yes, a dramatically boring life.]
Part of the reason for this blog-a-thon is that I have seen way too much good music of the last two decades + go unheralded because it was in the Christian ghetto of the music recording industry - CCM. Now that the music industry is dying a slow-death and artists are able to self-produce and release their own CD's with the ease of pushing a few buttons and opening a MySpce account, the sad poetry of this underground and embattled music legacy is lost. What's even sadder is that, with the exception of eBay, most of the recordings are long gone. Here's to hoping for a resurgence, of sorts.
The irony, of course, is that the underground CCM movement may be understood better today than ever before, even the previous DIY time, the late '70s.
Note: This essay is actually a revision of a previous and longer essay on Adam Again. Dig, by Adam Again
Whereas their previous and more jamming funk-rock band album Homeboys focused on the street level, Dig dug "Deep" into the recesses of the soul to produce a treasure worth treasuring. Although ostensibly about the divorce that frontman, singer, organist, guitarist, co-songwriter, lyricist, engineer, producer, studio owner, co-label owner and all-around profound artist Gene Eugene and bandmate, dancing dervish, vocal harmonizer Riki Michele were heading towards, the music was primarily about the emotional toll taken in the wake of their ongoing separation and the search for meaning in those dark times, not le divorce itself (which isn't atypical in the underground music scene these days). The disc is filled with enough archetypal images - digging, card playing (fate and relationships interplayed in fate and loss), water, dirt and earth - to make Carl Jung blush. It also helps to make the album universal - even though it itself is ironically hidden. It's a work of pure staggering everyman's art, taking specific, personal experiences and expressing them in an accessible language so that many can claim these opuses as their own.
And then there's the music. Gene had had plenty of experience in nearly every field of non-mainstream music as far as CCM was considered - working with hip hop, hardcore, punk, industrial (such as Mortal), post-punk, shoe-gazer, college rock, new wave, etc., etc. Gene also was deeply influenced by the great singer-songwriters: Dylan, Van Zandt, Cohen (who he referenced in their next album), and was influenced by such disparate figures as Stevie Wonder, Social Distortion, X, the Beatles and 70's rock radio.
But, at heart, I think that Gene wanted to rock and roll in a band that played the funkiest Fender Rhodes you've heard since 1976 (adapted from Homeboys). Yet the love for hard rock and punk (and even Americana) was there and pulsing through the backbeat of this band. It was a funk-rock fusion that, as said here, the Red Hot Chili Peppers would die to have - if they weren't so lazy. The main guitar was done by Greg Lawless, a monster, who could spit out tasty and crunchy riffs like Chester Cheeta with an axe and kick crazy asphalt of your chin like a face-melting Jackie Chan. The bass, as I'm told by the daughter of an avid bass-player, was laid down by Paul Valadez and is the shiz-bit, the ground you flippin' walk on. And then there's the welcome funky and foundational addition of John Knox, drummer extraordinaire, who's day job was to pound the skins for mainstream Christian rock act Whiteheart. Thank God he did extracurricular activities. The combo was unlike many others. Too bad for others.
The disc starts with a barn-stormer. "Deep" begins the theme of this album with stream-of-conscience poetry and a funky start/stop second guitar, mediating the Author into the mystery of the story. It's a story about mystery, about things not being as they seem or as we want them to be. It may also be about things not being what we envision them to be. "Girl ghost is in the stairway / She likes it when I rub my eyes... I don't want to / you don't want to / we don't want to know / And dying on the cross / for the sick and the loss / is the Lover that I long to know." Halfway in there, Jon Knox's drumming comes alive unto its own and threatens to devour through sheer force of high-hat cymbal-banging. And certainly those lyrics testify that it is also about revelation, an eye-opener that Jesus is not passive, but actively participating in our suffering through his own sacrifice of his own life. The title given to the one on the cross (you would note that not once do they refer to Jesus by name, part of the reason why they never made it big, or even moderately, in the Christian music ghetto) adds extra dimensions and says that this is not just a God or man who distances himself from us or our humanity, but loves us and yet somehow remains mysterious. Note other burning lyrics:
My days of wishful thinking Soldiers of sorrow sinking words dance beginnings riddle and in the end and in the middle deep will i dig I... see a shovel in the hand of a wild-eyed man with a mission and a goal below... I've learned of this religion but I've lost my peaceful vision
Notice also that Gene stretches out his I's. They become part and parcel of his personal vision, a sad self-reflection of a man trapped within himself, trying hard to shake himself free by self-discovery.
"It Is What It Is (What It Is)" presaged the most common answer by NBA stars, maybe in an attempt to avoid questions a la Dylan (probably about the indie rock and artistry that they would attempt within the realm of the bloated and convellent Contemporary Christian Music scene and the Christian bookstores they sold through.). "Ask a stupid question / you get a sideways quote / The reasonable would demand it." Indeed.
Sense to be made I am afraid I need to understand it. The audience is baited I got it by the throat That monumental big decision It is what it is what it is
"Dig" begins with a pulsing Fender and slowly burns. Riki adds her sweetly melancholy melody on the second verse, Gene adds another vocal harmony slightly later and towards the end they fill in with guitars, drums, and bass.
Consult the cards to measure time the earth is hard, the treasure fine... Will the eagle fly if the sky's untrue do the faithful sigh because they are so few At the sea, I'll wait on my knees
Gene Eugene has a nasal voice often though unfairly compared to REM's Michael Stipe. On this album, however, he wraps his vocals around the lyrics like a down blanket on a cold night and the additional harmonics of the Rhodes and background singer and spurned lover Riki Michele put him in a warm atmosphere, certainly in songs like "Dig." On "Hopeless, Etc." Gene stretches his vocals - some would say unconvincingly - to add dimension to the lyrics. "Hopeless, Etc." is ego-focused. Each verse begins with and expands on an elongated "I'm," holding at times for several bars and filling-out with 'hopeless,' 'useless,' and 'worthless' with a coda on the '-less.' It's a twisted worship song for the Me Generation. And it's a rocker, albeit one that also carries those song-building effects, this time starting fresh with every verse.
The oh-so meta (before meta went haywire and mainstream) "Songwork" is about the difficulty of writing that perfect song, or sometimes any song. But it is also about the difficulty of art, of - here's that theme again - the toil and sheer luck of discovering. He asks the difficult questions: which voices do I listen to, and to what end is all of this coming to? It's also one of the heavier songs musically, plodding along as if stuck in the mud. And apparently that is what happened to Gene until he decided to try a stream-of-conscience approach - which in turn greatly influenced my own writing (well, poetry. This prose stuff me no so good at).
Am I learning Patience Is my spirit restored Do I listen to the beggar Or the woman at the door
"Worldwide" & "Walk Between the Raindrops," apparently, are about the social and global ills that face us as a brother- and sisterhood. The murder of Headman Shabalala (of Ladysmith Black Mozambo) and the plight of the homeless are raised to question our incapacity to compassionately act, suggesting that if we can merely explain the situation without grieving alongside the Holy Spirit on this, we are as likely to walk between raindrops. And the jump-kick on "Worldwide" kicks butt. "Keep your holy hair in place / the wind is gonna blow / the humble and the poor keep breathing." The guitars are psychadelic wha-wha's that Lenny Kravitz wishes he could borrow with any sense of credibility. Adam Again is truly urban rock. 100% urban, 100% rock.
Rumored to be a big influence on Over the Rhine (who's brilliant Drunkard's Prayer is a beautiful counter-point to the themes on this album and who played the screeching and haunting guitar coda from this song that was in itself stolen from Hendrix) "River on Fire" is the only song that seems to speak of the ensuing separation between husband and wife - indirectly or not. The burning of the over-polluted Cuyahoga River in Cleveland serves as the self-referential metaphor. The cello plays its part to leave the song drudging slowly along, methodically pulling us to gaze at the inevitable crash and slow burn of a feral mass of water, moodily created by the Hendrix-ian coda of the guitar at the end - wailing its way to a fiery death.
After the guitar chord drops a chill in the spine, we are treated with a rollicking "That Hill." Lyrically, it's about the failure of success, but musically it's a funky, hard-rocking blast with an engaging melody and riffs galore. Gene sings dispassionately behind the driving funk-load, "I climbed that hill... I wanted to be on the top / I wanted to be on the top / Big deal." Turn that into a motivational poster!
Adam Again would release one more album (Perfecta, which was pretty darned good in its own right) before Gene Eugene passed in 2000. He was busy making other people's music. I wanted more Digs.
Further reading: http://www.phileasphogg.net/reviews/adamagain_chrono.html Music and myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/adamagain
I was memed by the Cubicle Reverend (yes, I know it should be the other way around. The Right Reverend Cubicle and his trusty sidekick, Deacon Desk Chair) to list seven songs I'm digging. But because I'm not particularly digging any songs right now (more going through my iPod and finding songs/records I like) and I'm constantly putting together random lists but never thematic ones:
"Dig" - Adam Again - "The earth is hard / the treasure fine."
"LDN" - Lily Allen - The debutante takes a walk around her little neighborhood and digs underneath the glossy visage to discover young men mugging old women, pimps beating their whores, etc., etc.
"Digging in the Dirt" - Peter Gabriel - "Digging in the dirt / find the places we got hurt."
"Chain Gang" - Sam Cooke - "All day long they're singing, ooh, ahh... Been working so hard." And clink and clack to underscore that. Honestly, I think the song's too pretty for such work, but it's got me and my coworkers through many a day of blue collar work back in the day.
"Dig/Dug" - Prayer Chain - I don't have this pre-Mercury album anymore. I'm not sure that's the title anymore. It was pretty much the chorus.
"Water No Get No Enemies" - Fela Kuti - I only assume he's talking about well water.
"I've Got You Under My Skin" - Frank Sinatra - Get 'em out!
So, who to tag? Of all my faithful readers, let's go for Micah (who's always compiling music lists), RC (who almost never talks about music), and - way over in MySpaceville, Timi.
First, they were Lost in a World of Time (ref), trying to find their voice. Then 10 Songs by Adam Again were released as a triumph in dance-rock of the mid-to-late 80's. The first time I had heard of this band, a mentor had retrieved me this tape from the bottom of the bargain bin and figured that I might enjoy it. Thus began my slow-burn love for this obscure, underground funk-rock band from SoCal. I was probably 14 or 15 at the time and had grave misgivings about anything related to disco. I incorrectly tossed it aside, returning to listen a couple times for the next few years before the music started to grow on me like George Costanza. It was all over the map, stylistically. But drum machines and a lyricon were de riguerin this foray, as well as the gospel group adding backing vocals and some moody confessionals. The theme of the album - but not necessarily the tone of the album - was moralistic, advising against divorce on behalf of the children - the purported main victims. It also dealt with the relational subterfuge that is "The Trouble With Lies" on, I believe, two songs. It was the "10th Song," however, that would catch \the world off-guard if it was paying attention. Regardless, Mac Powell of Third Day (probably last time I'll refer to them in my Hall of Fame) was and brought along Gene Eugene (principal songwriter, lead vox, guitar and the most wonderful keys - more on that later) to re-cut it as "I Remember You" on the worship-centered - and masterful community experiment - City on A Hill. The lyric for that song was a sparse meditation that probably should be replayed in post-modern churches everywhere during the Lord's Supper. It is enveloped in a angelic chorus provided by dancing diva and AA harmonist Riki Michele and some post-apocalyptic helicopter blades. It was all very ethereal, eerie, and mesmerizing.
I remember you, I remember that your body was broken and I remember that your blood was spilled And I remember that you Didn't have to do it.
Homeboys
It was on Homeboys that Adam Again would emerge as a great jam band with tight songs added to their funk and R&B influences when they included Johnny Knox as their live drummer. It messed me up to learn that most jam bands don't know how to rock. I call Adam Again a jam band in the sense that they wrote and performed their music as a band. They would start from a chord progression or a musical idea, a riff or a melody, jammed on the spot and members would add parts and converse musically as it fit. But the song structure was tight and the albums did not serve as mere fodder to tide the fans over to their next performance. The concerts - as well as the albums - were few and far between so each one served as a stand-alone. Each record and show had to guarantee the biggest bang for the fewest bucks. Of course, it helped that Gene ran a much-utilized studio out of his basement, was fast-becoming a much-in-demand engineer, producer and keyboard specialist. Not to mention that he co-ran a studio that produced the biggest and best names in the early days of Christian alternative rock in Brainstorm (The truly good ones weren't gonna get any mainstream attention. Daniel Amos, the 77's, Undercover, not to mention the first-fruits of gospel rap, Soldiers For Christ, Freedom of Soul [Who guested Brainwash Projects on their second album. That's right, Pigeon John.], and Dynamic Twins as well as the country-influenced, Americana pioneering "super-group" Lost Dogs).
If my jam-band diss didn't upset you, maybe this will: Funk-rock bands tend to be a let-down (There were a few good tracks on Soulfood 76's debut, and Red Hot Chili Peppers will always be the exception to the rule - the funk-rock to end all funk-rock.) in that their funk doesn't seem to be legitimate, but rather a way to pass for some sort of White street cred. But this band has the goods without trying to exploit or flaunt them, without using funk as a novelty act would. The 70's influences were in the background, in the interplay between the rock elements of John Knox and Paul Valadez on the bass. But the spirit of '76 lived on in the clavs, Fenders, and Moogs Gene played like nobody's (Nobody's) business. "This Band Is Our House" is the best example of my inadequate description of a good jam band. Adam Again refers to itself as a house where - at the least - Gene Eugene feels at home. It all comes tumbling down (musically, that is) when Gene calls for a break-down and John mistakes that for a stop. Everything crashes before Gene laughs and explains himself. They pick up right where they left off (this is the released version, by the way) as if nothing happens. And the song is just fun rock&roll, not heavy, not necessarily sloppy, just the picture of some four guys and a girl having fun doing what they know God created them for.
"Homeboys" opens up the record as a sort of memoir of growing up in his early 70's mixed-race neighborhood, the sense of belonging ("He taught me how to write on the wall and I taught him how to play chess / Some kind of strange urban link."), and the trouble that entered and shattered their world in the form of a drive-by that killed Gene's best friend. The theme picks up half-way through with their cover of "Inner-City Blues." Not as good as the original, but really, who comes close? (And if you don't know...) On "Bad News on the Radio" they continue in that vein with a sort of gritty, urban take on an "A Day in the Life" concept with some modern jazz elements to boost. It's almost "Homeboys, Pt. 2 - What Could've Happened." Consider: "Homeboy tried to burn me / Had to give him what he had asked for... / I don't know the reason / the reason for my troubles... / I know you tried to warn me." The titular bad news concerns a helicopter chase on the expressway (I guess it's called a "freeway" out there. The interstate.) Gene would later say that after bringing in Doug Webb, who played with Miles back in the day, he asked what it was like to play with the legend. After pausing for a bit, he answered, "A lot like this." Gene must have taken that to his grave.
"Hide Away," written by the Choir's drummer and resident poet, continues in the band's confessional nature in addressing and questioning the reclusive nature of the partners within the marital relationship as well as the songwriter's own clumsy hands. The focus is on the melancholy and utter loneliness that results in her absence.
Summer is Winter Flowers wither Stars fade away When you turn away When you hide your eyes, love Skies above become grey When you turn away When you hide away
Dig
Whereas "Homeboys" focused on the street level, Dig dug "Deep" into the recesses of the soul to produce a treasure worth treasuring. Although ostensibly about the divorce that Gene and Riki were heading towards, the music was about the emotional toll taken in the wake of the separation and the search for meaning in those dark times, not le divorce itself. The disc is filled with such archetypical images - digging, card playing (fate and relationships interplayed in fate and loss), water - as would make Carl Jung proud. It also helps to make the album universal. It's a work of pure art, taking specific, personal experiences and expressing them in an accessible language so that many can take claim these opuses as their own.
The disc starts with a barn-stormer. "Deep" begins the theme of this album with stream-of-conscience poetry and a funky start/stop second guitar, mediating the Author into the mystery of the story. "Girl ghost is in the stairway / She likes it when I rub my eyes... I don't want to / you don't want to / we don't want to know / And dying on the cross / for the sick and the loss / is the Lover that I long to know." "It Is What It Is (What It Is)" presaged the most common answer by NBA stars, maybe in an attempt to avoid questions a la Dylan (Probably about their indie rock within the bloated and convellent Contemporary Christian Music scene and the Christian bookstores they sold through.). "Ask a stupid question / you get a sideways glance." "Dig" begins with a pulsing Fender and slowly burns. Riki adds her sweetly melancholy melody on the second verse, Gene adds another vocal harmony slightly later and towards the end they fill in with guitars, drums, and bass.
Consult the cards to measure time the earth is hard, the treasure fine... Will the eagle fly if the sky's untrue do the faithful sigh because they are so few
Gene Eugene has a nasal voice often compared to REM's Michael Stipe. On this album, however, he wraps his vocals around the lyrics like a down blanket on a cold night and the additional harmonics of the Rhodes and Riki put him in a warm atmosphere, certainly in songs like "Dig." On "Hopeless, Etc." Gene stretches his vocals - some would say unconvincingly - to add dimension to the lyrics. "Hopeless, Etc." is ego-focused. Each verse begins with and expands on an elongated "I'm," holding at times for several bars and filling-out with 'hopeless,' 'useless,' and 'worthless' with a coda on the '-less.' It's a worship song for the Me Generation. And it's a rocker, albeit one that also carries thos song-building effects, this time starting fresh with every verse. "Songwork" is about the difficulty of writing that perfect song, or sometimes any song.
"Worldwide" &"Walk Between the Raindrops," apparently, is about the social ills that face us as a world. The murder of Headman Shabalala (of Ladysmith Black Mozambo) and the plight of the homeless are raised to question our incapacity to compassionately act, suggesting that if we can merely explain the situation without grieving alongside the Holy Spirit on this, we are as likely to walk between raindrops. And the jump-kick on "Worldwide" kicks butt. "Keep your holy hair in place / the wind is gonna blow / the humble and the poor keep breathing."
Rumored to be a big influence on Over the Rhine (who's brilliant new Drunkard's Prayer is a beautiful counter-point to the themes on this album and who played the screeching and haunting guitar coda from this song that was in itself stolen from Hendrix) "River on Fire" is the only song that seems to speak of the ensuing separation between husband and wife indirectly or not. The burning of the over-pollutted Cuyahoga River in Cleveland serves as the self-referential metaphor. The cello plays its part to leave the song druding slowly along, methodically pulling us to gaze at the inevitable crash and slow burn of a feral mass of water. After the guitar chord drops a chill in the spine, we are treated with a rollicking "That Hill." Lyrically, it's again about failure, but musically it's a blast with an engaging melody and riffs galore. Perfecta
Honestly, I'm going to complete this review in a couple weeks. Perhaps longer if I can secure another copy of this record via eBay. I'll periodically come back to this. I probably shouldn't have started undertaking these essays by beginning with my ultimate favorite. Peace, j.
