My Musical Dark Ages

We all experience dark periods in our life. Mine have come at different times, caused by different circumstances and challenges. But my musical dark period was self-inflicted and started around the time I was nineteen.

BACKGROUND

Now, my involvement with church music started early enough when my parents started listening to Keith Green and The Imperials, dragging us all to the Jesus '77 festival in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. On the heels of that experience, we were attending a Baptist church where my parents were volunteer youth group leaders and I got to hang with high schoolers when I was but a junior higher. I liked the music they liked, to fit in. But we're still not talking about my Musical Dark Ages. These kids were into Boston, Queen and REO Speedwagon. I hung with a troubled youth who was closer to my age and he introduced me to Ozzy's "Blizzard of Oz" album.

Juxtapose that with the disco-infused gospel music of The Imperials in the late 70's, featuring Russ Taff. Our church also hosted this gospel rock outfit out of Ohio who called themselves The Friends of Jesus. Their albums tended to border on Bee Gees-style rhythms, too, but I was just finding my way musically then. A friend of my parents handed me a cassette by Christian rockers, Rez Band (they'd shortened their previous name, Ressurection Band, to be more hip, less Christian-y, I guess). Rez Band was edgier than the stuff my parents listened to and was my first foray into CCM, or Contemporary Christian Music, a musical subculture that really exploded in the 80's.

I didn't go to church much during high school. I didn't listen much to that crap from the 70's, either. I befriended guys in my neighborhood and in high school who loved Rush and the other groups I was growing to love in the 80's. My connection to others was usually through the music we listened to, like my coworker, Dan, at Little Caesar's, my first job that didn't involve cutting grass, babysitting or delivering papers...and also involved coworkers. Dan was next door neighbor to a quiet kid from my school who loved early Sammy Hagar and Motley Crue. In fact, the three of us went to see Hagar in Terre Haute circa 1985. Dokken opened up for him. It was an incredible show!

Back to where this story started, in Tallahassee, age 19, still living at home and taking my first college courses at a TCC satellite campus near our apartment. Enter Preston R. Scott into the scene! Yes, THAT Preston Scott--former WTXL Sports Anchor, Tallahassee Ford spokesman and talk radio fixture. Before all of those ventures made him a local celeb, he moved here in 1987 to become the youth pastor at the church I attended. It was a heavily music-centric church where I got involved in youth ministry and music.

Now, I was attending church not so much to fit in with my peers, but to win the approval of my parents with whom I'd been at odds through most of high school. I was a misfit. I could have been in the cast of Freaks and Geeks. Now, facing adulthood, I wanted to connect with my parents and with something bigger than myself, so I poured myself into church activities, like youth and music. This was late 80's during the time rock music was on trial for lyrical content, backwards masking and corrupting our youth. With encouragement from Preston, I jumped wholeheartedly on that band wagon and burnt all of my secular music in a grand display at a youth function one night.

Enter my Musical Dark Ages.

MUSICAL DARK AGES

My musical dark ages began in earnest in 1987 and lasted about eight years. I fully emersed in the CCM subculture during that time, abandoning all of my favorite music which was "secular." (as if music itself can be inherently good or evil, secular or Christian).

All of this came to mind suddenly this morning while I was reading a Rolling Stone article on the new King's X book. King's X, one of the best power trios to ever cut their own path (akin to Rush), was once stigmatized as a CCM band, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I've been a lifelong fan of the band, but had no idea that Ty Tabor and Doug Pinnick had worked behind the scenes on some CCM albums I had, like Morgan Cryar's "Fuel for the Fire" (Pictured, left). This vocal hack was sold to people like me, hungry for secular music alternatives, as Jesus' answer to Bryan Adams. I mean, just look at the cover. The guy couldn't hold Bryan's mic cable, but the production was slick, the music catchy enough and it was markedly more cool than The Imperials and Keith Green.

I became a regular at The Christian Bookstore on Thomasville Road and bought up every CCM album on CD* I could stomach, ranging from Amy Grant to Stryper. But even before Preston had convinced me to devote myself wholly to this "more wholesome" rock music, the previous youth pastor, who fronted a house band called Don Carr and Sold Out (they sold me on going to church at Christian Heritage in '86), brought in a real rock star to perform at our church.

*Remember, the 80's was the dawn of the compact disc (CD) and I didn't buy my first CD player until we moved to Tallahassee in the mid-80's. I think Whiteheart's "Don't Wait for the Movie" might have been my first CD purchase.

Rick Cua, former bassist for The Outlaws, had just released his rock anthem "Wear Your Colors" and he brought his band of big hair, big amps and an even bigger double-kick drumkit and transformed our sanctuary on North Monroe near Lake Jackson into a concert hall. I ran a spotlight for that concert and became a big fan. In fact, Cua's touring drummer, who's name escapes me, was the first who taught me to twirl my drumsticks! Anyway, Cua and Carr had singlehandedly convinced me how cool being a Christian rockstar could be. This was right before Stryper became darlings of MTV.

By the time I destroyed all my old music, I was following bands from the CCM subculture like Whiteheart, the Allies (whose frontman, Bob Carlisle, would later score a mainstream hit with "Butterfly Kisses," I know, gag me!) and Petra. All of these groups was trying so hard to mimic their secular counterparts. I'll never forget hearing the opening lines of Allies "Long Way from Paradise." The Butterfly Kisses guy could belt some blues-laden rock-n-roll--"WE GOT LOUD GUITARS AND A ROCKIN' BAND!" and the Allies launch into a Led Zepplin-esque romp! I was hooked. But that was the kitschy way they won over hungry CCM fans like me.

Now, I'm not dogging all of these musicians/bands. In fact, some of the music, very little of it, has stood the test of time and I still enjoy it today. Some of the bands had VERY talented artists! Take the drummer from Whiteheart--Chris McHugh--for example. He has been Keith Urban's musical director and drummer for years! That guy still rocks! His bandmate in Whiteheart, Gordon Kennedy, penned the smash hit "Change the World," for Clapton. So it wasn't all kitschy Christian crap...but much of it was. And I was listening to it exclusively, largely missing out on the Grunge music period of the early-mid 90's.

I know.

Enter King's X, bringing us full circle. A friend of mine handed me a cassette copy of their first album, "Out of the Silent Planet." He was a church friend, one of my first from the Don Carr and Sold Out days. He'd gotten the cassette but didn't care for it much. Like most of the music industry, he didn't know what to make of them, telling me they were a new Christian rock band. I was blown away by what I heard. Looking back, I think they were the drop-D precursor to all that followed in the 90's, like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Nirvana. In fact, they opened for Pearl Jam in the mid-90's, and no they were not a Christian band.

I wore this cassette tape out on many road trips to Atlanta in my black Pontiac Fiero. The dischordant guitars backdropped against beautiful, Beatles-esque harmonies was like nothing I'd ever heard. These guys were groundbreakers and I was hooked from the first song on the album!

Thankfully, I'd get a chance to see King's X live at the Cow Haus in the early 2000's and hung with them after the show. I absolutely LOVE Doug Pinnick, their frontman and bassist! All three of them are cool, laid back and mega talented!

Anyway, this probably began my metamorphasis and slow drift out of my Musical Dark Ages. I eventually gave most of my CCM collection to my brother and sisters. I began collecting 70's music first, the stuff like Wings and Stevie Wonder that always transported me back to my innocence and childhood. Eventually, I made my way back to hard rock and metal, and even gave myself a crash course in grunge music. I never returned to the artistic deprivation of my musical darkness. That period still haunts me to this day.

Reading that King's X article this morning was a revelation of sorts. Once I learned that Pinnick and Tabor collaborated on the Morgan Cryar album, I looked up the opening track, "Pray in the USA." Hearing that song on YouTube sent me right back to 1986! I remembered owning that album on CD, how it made me feel at the time and how deep in the musical darkness I was.

Thanks for indulging me on this musical foray into my dark period.