This is our third entry from Credential Recording’s short-lived band, Turn Off the Stars. I don’t know much about what the band members did after breaking up. Guitarist and backup vocalist Andrew Walker now leads worship at a church, but the other members don’t have much of an Internet presence. Signed to Credential Records, a home to acts like Edison Glass, Seabird, Future of Forestry, Sixpence None the Richer at one time, and Swichfoot’s Jon Foreman and his side project with Nickel Creek’s Sean Watkins, Family Fiction, the label seemed to drop most of its supported bands in the late ’00s. Some of the bands transitioned, but others, like Turn Off the Stars, folded. Now the label partnered with Jon Foreman’s label Lowercase People and only market’s Foreman’s projects other than Switchfoot.
BUT YOU DO IT TO YOURSELF. The fourth track on the moody album, “Hours and Days” is a brooding song about tediously waiting for someone to change. The song begs for the monotony of a “broken record” of a day to change. It begs for old patterns to be fixed. It begs for others to change, or perhaps the speaker is looking at himself from an outside perspective. Lately, the days have been going by quickly. Everyone seems to say that 2021 is moving so quickly. But as the calendar pages turn to the last month of the year, I think about how little I’ve accomplished. The hours are no longer endless, but they are “wicked” as they have snuck up on me and rendered me useless. I started out this year with a list of things to accomplish, most of them were concrete tasks. But my free time slipped away faster than any other year. Of course, this was the year that I decided to dedicate to writing every day. And thus far, I’ve written a post ever day. I know from reading On Writing Well this year that writing isn’t supposed to get easier. And I know that from reading that book that I am really a poor excuse for a writer because I spend so little time rewriting. But at some point, I wonder when will life get easier. At what point will I have to apply for that spectacular job? At what point will I have that I feel ok as a writer? At what point will I be able to spend the time that I want to catching up with the ones I love the most? Time isn’t too slow; it’s way too fast!
THESE RAGGED HOURS AND RAGGED DAYS KEEP ME DOWN. But maybe I’m being too hard on myself. This year was hardly back to normal, but I put pressure on myself to accomplish pre-covid levels of productivity. I imagine living in a tidy house, plenty of time to write and read, cook healthy meals, and exercise and spend the entire weekend away with my partner. But instead, work leaves me exhausted, and it’s a struggle to keep up with the evening priorities. Giving myself more grace as I realize that most days I don’t accomplish all of my goals. With one more month in 2021, it’s time to start crafting our goals for the next year. I don’t want to have “endless hours and endless days” full of accomplishments that don’t even matter. It’s time again to start thinking about who I want to be in my five, ten, and fifteen year plan, and start prioritizing choices that will make those things happen.
“Even Rats” comes from Boston’s rock band The Slip and was a featured playable track on Playstation’s Guitar Hero. Formed in 1989 and releasing their first album in 1997, the band was known for an “avant-rock” sound, often creating a jazz fusion sound. The band’s 2006 album, Eisenhower, produced by Matthew Ellard, shifted the band’s direction to indie rock. The band never got very popular. They performed on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and opened for indie rock band My Morning Jacket. Just as their indie rock career was taking off, the band went on hiatus until 2015. They released a new record earlier this year.
I HEAR SPRING’S NICE IN CANADA. “Even Rats” is a fun grungy, guitar jamming song. After being mesmerized by the ending guitar solo when I first heard the song in college when my roommate put it on his driving mix and we listened to it every time our friends would go downtown, I started to pay attention to the lyrics. It seemed like a weird song, and it sounded political. It seems to be talking about being dissatisfied with the outcome of an election. The language of the song seems like the band has a more liberal bent in their lyrics, so perhaps the election lost was when John Kerry lost to George W. Bush in 2004, which Jimmy Eat World also wrote about in their song “Futures.” Ironically, the two close friends that I had in college were Republicans. Jim often complained about the liberal biased of celebrities. Listeners on the songs page for SongMeanings.com suggest that the song hints at gay marriage, the out of touch politicians who would improve if they “have my stereo,” legalization of marijuana, and the Iraq war. One commenter states, “Bush is sinking our battleship. The rats are always the first to know when the ship’s going down.” The album title, Eisenhower, is a throw-back to the general-turned-elected president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. According to an interview with history and grand-daughter of the president, Susan Eisenhower, the former president was raised by a mother who was a pacifist, and though he became a war hero, he always looked for the best solution that would cause the least harm. He was often criticized for getting little accomplished, but he wielded most of his influence behind the scenes. According to his granddaughter, “In [Dwight D. Eisenhower’s] mind, the middle way was the middle ground where people could come together from both sides and compose their differences and find compromises that would lead to progress.”
A LITTLE LESS JACK AND A LITTLE MORE JILL. I remember having a conversation with a former coworker when things were really bad at a school where I was teaching. She had gotten out the year before when the situation looked dire, only to find that the school where she was teaching at the time was in a similar or worse situation. Meanwhile, things were starting to work out for the school I was at the time. I said, “It’s like you jumped from one sinking ship to another.” She chortled and said, “It’s okay as long as you keep jumping.” I really don’t like that. I don’t want to think that everything seems doomed, and that I’ll be jumping ship to a better situation, but it seems that usually it’s about staying above water. The moment when I think the glory days are here, something comes to mess it up. In college, my senior year, so many of my favorite literature professors left, leaving me taking so many courses with the department chair–the intimidating Dr. Esso. When I went to work for the private institute, the glory days were long past. So often there were talks about that institute in that city shutting down, so I worked my tail off to make sure my students were happy and signing up again. There was never a moment of rest. It seems that working short staffed in Korea is the norm, and the higher-ups always want to see just how short-staffed they can run things. I say this because I wonder if I’m going to be too desensitized to see the rats running through the streets. I wonder what the final straw will be?
In 2002, when Blindside released their major-label debut, Silence, there was a lot of hype around this group. Formed in Sweden as Underfree in 1994, the band released two records in the United States through Solid State Records, Tooth & Nail’s hard music sister label. The band was heavily promoted by fellow rock bands, especially P.O.D., whose multi-platinum 2001 record Satellite solidified the hard rockers in pop culture. As P.O.D. had been helped by other bands in the scene, the group paid it forward with other bands, particularly Blindside. Blindside toured with P.O.D.; their lead singer, Christian Lindskog, appeared on the track “Anything Right” on Satellite; and the band even appeared in P.O.D.’s music video for “Boom.” In the video, Blindside appears as “Sweden” in the outrageous ping pong tournament.
WHAT IF I COULD REACH INSIDE? Silence was a rebirth in Blindside’s sound. Elements of the hardcore sound on the band’s first two albums can be heard throughout the album. However, the band started incorporating melodies. Satellite’s producer, Howard Benson, brings out instrumentals that sounded otherwise crunchy and muddled on the first two Blindside records. However, tracks like “Sleepwalking” and the band’s biggest single “Pitiful” feature Christian’s sometimes grotesque growling scream. Besides P.O.D., the band toured with Hoobastank, Papa Roach, and Linkin Park, as well as appearing on the Ozzfest line-up. The music video for “Pitiful” appeared on MTV2 and Fuse, and was a radio rock single. The band performed the song on Conan O’Brian and in the movie Grind at a skateboarding event. The band’s follow-up single “Sleepwalking” was not as big as “Pitiful.” The screaming perhaps made the song less marketable to rock radio. The band’s mainstream appeal carried over into their follow-up, About a Burning Fire, with the video for “All of Us” appearing on Fuse, but after that record, the band left their label to release music independently. They haven’t had a U.S. mainstream rock hit since then.
THE ENDINGS ARE ALL GOOD? Silence is a moody album and a well-produced effort. As the band had come from chaotic hardcore roots, Silence can be accurately called a post-hardcore record, and Blindside a post-hardcore band. The hard elements are still present in Blindside’s music, but those elements became calculated to give the most effect. “The Endings” isn’t one of the best tracks on the record, but it does show the Blindside sound–Lindskog moving seamlessly between singing and screaming. I wasn’t very familiar with Blindside’s songs on Silence other than their hits “Pitiful” and “Sleepwalking.” Heavy music used to scare me a bit because of the fear that it was satanic. The first heavy record I bought was P.O.D.’s Satellite and skipped the songs that were mostly screaming. “Sleepwalking” may have been one of the first screaming songs I liked along with P.O.D.’s “Set It Off.” “Sleepwalking” had to grow on me, but I worried that the rest of the band’s album would be harder than “Sleepwalking.” By 2004, I overcame the fear of satanic hard rock. Skillet’s Alien Youth and Collide were arguably heavier than Satellite, and there was something so satisfying about music with screaming in it. So I bought Blindside’s About a Burning Fire and listened to it a lot. These days, music with screaming isn’t as satisfying as it was back in the early ’00s, but the day and age of streaming services allows me to relive my childhood through the albums that shaped it. So, while “The Endings” isn’t the best Blindside song nor is it a song I often think of when I remember the band, hearing it today took me back to my living room when I would watch TVU while my mom was out, not to annoy her with the heavy music. Or worse, get a lecture about how evil that music was.
Listening to the songs on Acceptance’s 2020 album, Wild, Free, I really like them in playlists. Of course, “Cold Air” is the best track on the record. However, this album now ties with Acceptance’s Phantoms for the most songs chosen for my blog, and Acceptance follows Anberlin (11 entries) and Copeland (7 entries) with six entries for “Song of the Day,” tying with Sufjan Stevens. Getting to the end of the year, there are so many songs I still want to write about, but there are only thirty-four days left in the year. I haven’t even had a chance to talk about Acceptance’s 2017 Colliding by Design, which is a far superior album to Wild, Free.
YOU’RE MY ONLY FAILURE. “Dark Age” encapsulates the mood that Wild, Free gives. The album’s cover art and darker-toned songs offer a much less hopeful tone than the band’s previous effort, Colliding by Design, an upbeat, colorful album. Some fans rejected Colliding by Design for its late 2010s pop sound. The 12 years the band was away from the scene isn’t remotely the subject of Colliding, and it would appear that everything was fine–the bandmates were just enjoying their lives. Three years later, the band released Wild, Free, which seems to be more about the “Dark Age” during the band’s hiatus. In April when I wrote about “Wasted Nights,” I referenced the episode of Billy Power’s Urban AchieverPodcast in which he interviews Jason Vena of Acceptance. In that episode, Vena talks about how his ex-wife “didn’t want to be married any more” and filed for divorce. The band struggled with their identity as a Christian or secular band. In 2013, then former guitarist Garret Lunceford accused the band of kicking him out when he came out as gay. Other band members claimed that Lunceford decided to leave the band. Vena claims that Lunceford was “having a hard time” keeping up with his duties as a drummer due to personal problems at the time. Meanwhile, Ryan Zwiefelhofer told the band that he is an atheist. Little by little, the boys of Acceptance grew up into their own beliefs and philosophies.
WELCOME TO MY HONEST EYES. The boys of Acceptance, while apart, seemed to be experiencing something similar to what Aaron Gillespie said on the BadChristian Podcast. He said that when Underoath started out, “It was like we were all the same dude.” I was struck by that comment because I think about how similar many of us try to be in middle and high school. Even if we’re part of the weird group or the individualists, we try to find others who are just like us. We find people who like the same music, wear similar styles, like similar art, and have the same fundamental beliefs as us. I’d imagine that would be the case when forming a band with some of your best friends. If you’re a Christian band, you’d all make a pact not to compromise the core beliefs of the band, but as you get out among people with different beliefs–or you’re just simply handed a beer or a joint–that can start to erode the uniformity of the band. Christians would say that the band’s message is now compromised. Acceptance, a wildly successful local band-turned mainstream-chasing act-turned defunct act, with a lead singer who would rather work a 9-5 than to use his skill at making near-perfect vocal takes, could have just been remembered as the band that reached for the stars through difficulty, only to fail miserably. However, in a act of reconciliation, the band got back together, Christian McAlhaney, no longer playing with Anberlin; Vena’s vocals sounding perfect as ever; Zwiefelhofer still an atheist playing in a band that makes music marketed to Christian Rock radio; Kaylan Cloyd on lead guitar; and Garret Lunceford on the drums, maybe the only openly gay drummer to be played on Christian Rock radio. This story about Acceptance makes me think about how time can heal so many wounds. Time makes us open to saying sorry. “From a dark age, white light set free.”
The third Thursday of every November, barring no situations like a pandemic delaying the start of the school year or an earthquake in a major city the day before the exam, South Korea holds its once-a-year College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) or 수능. Much of a Korean student’s academic future rests on the score he or she receives on the test. Unlike American SATs or ACTs, failure to get a good score means either waiting another year to take the exam or settling with a lower-tier college. The subjects covered on the CSAT are Korean language, Mathematics, English, and Korean History. There are YouTube videos in which graduates from top universities around the world (in this video US college graduates) attempt to solve the questions on the CSAT. Korea is a country that places so much importance on students’ scholastic abilities, but it comes at a cost–both financial and emotional.
IS THIS REALLY TRUE? Several dramas and films have looked at the economic inequality in the world’s eighth-largest economy. But before Squid Gameshocked viewers on Netflix, a biting satire about upper-middle-class housewives in an elite neighborhood in Seoul poked at the very heartbeat of Korean education. SKY Castlefollows the housewives who live in a luxury apartment complex called SKY Castle and who are married to some of the most successful doctors and professors in the country. With so many apartment complexes built in Korea, and new is best, English words like mansion and castle are used to make the glorified condominium sound especially luxurious. But SKY doesn’t refer to the building’s height. SKY stands for Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University–the three most prestigious schools in South Korea. Parents pay exorbitant fees to private academies in order to give their children the opportunity to score well enough on the CSAT for a spot in SKY. But money alone can’t guarantee a good score, sorry Lori Loughlin. Parents place enormous amounts of pressure on their children to study. In SKY Castle, one mother even locks her daughter in a study room for her to study. Students feel immense pressure to perform well on the exam, and sadly, the pressure can cause all kinds of mental health problems. Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pressures students feel about their future is a major contributing factor.
PEOPLE CHEAT EACH OTHER, RIGHT? Singer Hajin sang two in K-pop groups, but “We All Lie,” the theme to Sky Castle, is her biggest song. It examines the darkness all people have in them, and it fits very well with the themes of the drama. As the well-to-do ajummas are plotting and being horrible to each other, the song appears from time to time in the middle of the drama. I really should try to finish Sky Castle. I need to find a place where I can watch with English subtitles. I watched 3-4 episodes, and it was one of the few dramas that kept me engaged. The song, though, makes me think about the motives of people trying to get ahead. As a department head, I’ve seen a fair amount of fishy resumes and smooth-talking interviewees. I’ve looked at LinkedIn accounts that didn’t seem to match other sources. I’m the skeptical one questioning why you want to teach here. What are your intentions? What do you hope to accomplish here? Inflated resumes, and fabricated skills may sound nice to the person in charge of doing the hiring, but I know it’s me who has to deal with the truth when it comes out that we’ve hired incompetence. At a Christian school, “thou shalt not lie” but we’ll let bullshit slide?
Brothers “Bear” and “Bo” Rineheart were born in Possum Kingdom, South Carolina, and raised in a church camp that their father, a pastor, managed. Forming NEEDTOBREATHE with friends Seth Bolt and Joe Stillwell, the band signed to Atlantic Records and released their sophomore record in 2007. Opening for Taylor Swift on her Speak Now Tour in 2011, winning many Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards, and receiving two Grammy nominations, NEEEDTOBREATHE has gained acclaim both in the Christian Rock and secular markets. The band’s 2016 record, H A R D L O V E, debuted at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 albums list and is the band’s bestselling record. The folksy lyrics of NEEDTOBREATHE speak of faith, love, and family.
YOU’RE THE CATALYST OF HIGH HOPES. The theme of the band’s 2016 record comes from a long-seeded rivalry between brothers Bear and Bo, which escalated in 2014 into a fistfight that ended with a trip to the hospital. The brothers reconciled and apologized to fans, saying their music was more important than their personal differences. The song for which the album is named talks about the ones who are the hardest to love and produce the best relationships. Bo left the band in 2020 and was replaced by Tyler Burkum, the guitarist from Audio Adrenaline and Leagues. “Clear” is the album’s 6:51 closer. Composed with a warm tone of acoustic guitar and finishing touches of what sounds like a piano in a wooden room, “Clear” is a beautiful romantic ballad. However, the critics don’t agree on if “Clear” is the best way to finish the record. While the album holds very high reviews, “Clear” has been called a boring song or one that overstays its welcome. The reviewers at Jesusfreakshideout.com say that the track seems out of place behind the band’s worshipful track “Testify.” One reviewer states that “Clear” sounds too much like a worship track, almost ambiguous about whether “the reason for what I’m doing” is God or his spouse. The reviewers also say that the track “idolizes [sic] romantic love.”
YOUR BODY’S DANCING UNDER THE MOON. Bear Rineheart is married to Mary Reams and the couple has three sons: Wilder, Woods, and Waters. The track was written by Bear and producer Ed Cash, a producer who is behind mostly produced CCM acts like Chris Tomlin, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Dave Barnes. The song was played at bassist Seth Bolt’s wedding shortly after the album’s release. I only started listening to NEEDTOBREATHE last year, when I heard the song “Hard Love.” I had avoided their Country take on Christian Rock, but there is something homey about them, especially because I called North Carolina home for ten years. Today, “Clear” is a love song when I’m feeling homesick on Thanksgiving day. Of course, Ex-pats, unless they work for a foreign embassy, get no special provision for special holidays when living abroad. It’s a school day in Korea, and it’s a rather hectic time of the year with grades due at the end of the week. Thinking about family and how I can never celebrate Thanksgiving together with them if I continue to live abroad makes me sad. And yet, I think about how I (generally) like my job and my co-workers, and I’m in a loving relationship. There’s a reason for doing what I’m doing. It’s just not always clear on holidays.
Opening Nick Jonas‘ latest album, Spaceman, is the etherial ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us.” Though produced by Greg Kurstin, a hit maker whose accolades include Sia‘s “Chandelier” and Adele’s “Easy on Me” and “Hello,” Nick Jonas’s 2021 album only spun two singles, “Spaceman” and “This Is Heaven.” Were listeners and critics too harsh on Spaceman? Slow pop songs with electronic atmospheres and falsetto R&B vocals and lyrics a committed, marital relationship may have left listeners who cynical from their post-lockdown breakup annoyed. It may have bored other listeners. While it may not be a masterpiece, it’s certainly worth a revisit. The moody opener of Spaceman isn’t lyrically deep, but its atmosphere opens an album that really should work.
I HEAR YOU CALLING WHEN I’M HERE ALL BY MYSELF. Maybe it’s the original cover of the album, but I can’t help but think about kids pretending to be astronauts. But as we grow up, we may ponder the “Infinite Abyss of Space.” We may have looked to the stars when we were little, but going to the stars would mean risking isolation from the ones we love. The concept of Spaceman is also echoed in COIN‘s “Sprite.” The lyrics of today’s song have very little to do with space, but Jonas pulls threads of the motif in other songs on “Spaceman” and the music on the track is rather spacey. The singer of the song is convincing a lover not to give up on their relationship. He’s pining for her. In December of 2018, Jonas married Bollywood-turned-Hollywood actress Priyanka Choprain. Jonas married the Indian American actress when he was 26 and she was 36. The youngest of the Jonas Brothers’ marriage at 26 has, in recent years, overshadowed his status as a sex symbol in his early 20s. Though he still aims to be a bit provocative, a married Nick Jonas is contrasted with his early 20s, posing shirtless for various publications including Attitude and modeling for Calvin Klein.
ARE YOU LOVING SOMEONE ELSE? One of the problems that albums of love songs have is the lack of conflict. Break up albums are fun to listen to as we can either relate to them or we listen for salacious bits of gossip as we make sense of the words. An album primarily made up of love songs needs conflict. And if an artist continues to make album after album of love songs, listeners get bored. It may be easy for Taylor Swift to write a song about the beginning of a love affair. She’ll write about the break up. But what’s difficult is to write songs about a long-term stable relationship. “Don’t Give Up on Us” never gets specific about a real conflict in a relationship. What did the singer do to make the listener give up on him? Are there flaws at play or is the singer just a victim? But again, how does Jonas write about the love of his life? “This Is Heaven” is a pretty good song, but how do you fill a full album with love songs? Many of us cynical music lovers may consider the “in love” album the stalest in a discography. Even Ben Gibbard considered his Zooey Deschanel album one of his least favorites, and Codes and Keys isn’t considered a classic in Death Cab for Cutie’s discography as much as their older, more down-on-luck and love albums Plans and Transatlanticism are. “Don’t Give Up on Us” is fine. It’s atmospheric. It attempts conflict. But if Nick Jonas wants to stick around, he’s going to need some new material for the next record.
In March, I wrote about the track that comes directly before “Typecast” on Hidden Hospitals‘ 2018 album Liars, “Pulling Teeth.” Liars is the second LP by the Chicago-based progressive rock band. Singer Dave Raymond started in a short-band called League in 2004 before joining a band called Damiera, a math-rock band which evolved into another band called Kiss Kiss. Finally in 2011, with member changes, Hidden Hospitals was ready to release their debut EP. The band’s co-founder, guitarist Steve Downs departed before the band recorded Liars. With only Raymond left on guitar, the band experimented with synthesizers throughout the record.
TELL ME A STORY I’VE HEARD BEFORE. “Typecast” picks up the pace from “Pulling Teeth,” which is an engaging song too. The heavy guitar of “Typecast” and the somewhat irregular drumming sound like they are playing competing rhythms, yet somehow when Raymond sings his quiet lyrics within the layers of sound, the song seems to even out. Like “Pulling Teeth,” “Typecast” works in several metaphors, cliches, and mental images that take a bit of listening to make sense. The meaning of the term typecast refers to actors who are only cast as a particular role, often because of their excellence portraying that role or the actor’s performance is so culturally linked to that role, the actor cannot be cast in any other role. However, the song seems to do little with acting. What we have instead is a singer who lucidly tell his faults as a lover. The tone of the song is so sharp and biting that it seems that actually the partner of this lover or even an outside perspective is pretending to be the singer. “Typecast” sets up a truly toxic relationship in which the singer wants control to the point where he even controls the level of spontaneity his lover is allowed to bestow. He says, “A scripted romance is half full of heart.” He tells his lover to “Tell [him] a story [he’s] heard before / One where [he] knows the ending.” The lover is instructed: “Show me the moves I’ve loved you for, but nothing else.” The singer can’t help but admit that “I’ll leave us broke[n] beyond compare / Terrorize your safest thoughts / I’m not the one you think you love.”
KICKING A DEAD HORSE THAT KICKS BACK. I’m reading a book called Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park (박상영), and the toxic relationship in this song reminds me of the relationship between the protagonist and an older man who is extremely controlling. The protagonist says of this man, “He saw me as someone to teach and change.” How doomed are relationships based on trying to change a partner. How toxic they become when manipulation enters the equation. When someone isn’t allowed to be him or herself, when you have to hide aspects of yourself to get your partner to love you. When you can’t express your love in a way that is natural to you, only in a way that pleases your partner. When you become a typecast actor or actress to please your director, it’s a scripted romance that’s only “half full of heart.” In the early phases of a relationship, we are on our best behavior. We spend money like there’s no tomorrow. We dress up, keep well groomed, don’t eat anything that gives us gas. But at some point, when things get real, we can no longer control ourselves, and we shouldn’t have to. Yet, some may find themselves in a “scripted romance” longer than natural. But a partner who scripts the romance is especially dangerous to the actor’s wellbeing. “You’re looking for a ghost, you gotta give it up” and get out of that situation through couple therapy or just leave.
I wrote earlier this year about Number One Gun, particularly about This Is All I Know. The band from Chico, California, would only become one member–Jeff Schneeweis. The other members went on to form the band Surrogate and work with other bands such as Emery. There was a lot of controversy surrounding Number One Gun’s last album, related to the late fulfillments of crowdfunding. Schneeweis, the only member left in Number One Gun, declared the band to be finished and started releasing music under the moniker Leal. This Is All I Know is the end of a Christian Rock era: a band that stuck despite never being anyone’s favorite band.
HEAVY IS UPON US. Just as Anberlin had announced their farewell in 2014, several other bands called it quits. In 2017 the band Yellowcard, along with Anberlin drummer Nathan Young, recorded their final album and gave their farewell tour. After Anberlin ended, Stephen Christian was busy first in Nashville as a songwriter then as a Worship leader in New Mexico. He released a worship project titled Wildfires and an Anchor & Braille project titled Songs for the Late Night Drive Home. He also offered guest vocals on Fireflight’s “Safety” and Number One Gun’s This Is All I Know including today’s song. I’ve talked a lot about the shift in the music industry, particularly on rock/emo/punk bands in the late ’00s and early ’10s, but I think I remember seeing it first hand in the summer of 2008 at Cornerstone. In 2007, the economy was good, Cornerstone was packed, and everyone was buying merch. But in 2008, in the middle of the Banking crisis, gas prices skyrocketed. The concert goers dwindled and fewer people bought merch. There was grumbling in the camp among the underground scene as to why the festival had to pay the main-stage bands so much. Rumors of paying P.O.D. $1 million to play in 2010 and flying Blindside over from Sweden to a record low turnout was a sign of the end. While festivals were losing out on money, bands were bearing the brunt of the changes. Record labels dropped underperforming bands, and it seemed like everyone was underperforming.
HATE IS OVERRATED. One of the reasons I started this blog was to indulge in the stories of disappearing artists. Sometimes bands get a farewell tour. I remember watching Anberlin’s farewell tour around this time in 2014 on Yahoo!’s concert series. Of course Anberlin was one of the successful acts that not only had a farewell tour, but subsequent “welcome back” tours. Anberlin determined that being an independent act works because they have fans that will go along with whatever they do. Smaller acts didn’t always have that luxury. What about bands that recorded one or two albums only to be dropped from their record label. Sometimes we got a press statement. Sometimes we got a “we’re looking around for another label.” Most of the time casual fans aren’t scouring the Internet for an article about whatever happened to Acceptance or Edison Glass. Thanks to podcasts, I’ve been able to become more connected with my music, but still there’s a lot of MIA bands left unaccounted for. And how long does it take us to recognize a band as missing? While the pandemic has been a time of great innovation for bands with large, established fan bases, we may be asking ourselves whatever happened to their opening acts? As rock radio stations disappear, the stations that are left contain bands that can’t crack the top 10. Without an active fan base, the big bands will stay big, and the smaller bands will, well, disappear. Is it survival of the fittest? No, it’s truly a battle of the bands.
First appearing in 2001, Lovedrug released their eponymous EP in 2002 and their RocknrollEP in 2004 before releasing their debut record, Pretend You’re Alive, in June of 2004. Selling over 20,000 records soon after the record was released, the band was signed to Columbia Records and their song “Spiders” was intended to be marketed as a radio hit. But rock star grandeur was never really in Lovedrug’s reach, as the label dropped the band in the middle of restructuring. Lovedrug was a hard-working band, touring with acts such as The Killers, Robert Plant, Sam Phillips, Switchfoot, and Copeland. They would enjoy some success with their follow up record, Everything Starts Where It Ends, but would continue making music until 2020, although they are probably best remembered for their first two records.
SEARCHING ON A WIRE FOR A WIRE. The Militia Group was a record label founded by former Tooth & Nail Records employee Chad Pearson. Pearson founded the label in 1998, and some of the artists that were in Tooth & Nail’s sphere signed to The Militia Group. Pearson who grew up overseas in Papua New Guinea in a missionary family had discovered Christian rock through Tooth & Nail Records. Pearson curated a group of artists who were ambiguously faith-based or ambiguously agnostic. Lakes (Watashi Wa‘s Seth Roberts‘ band post-Eager Seas’ failure on Tooth & Nail), Waking Ashland‘s Jonathan Jones‘ We Shot the Moon, and Denison Witmer all called The Militia Group their home along with groups like The Beautiful Mistake, Copeland, The Rocket Summer, Quietdrive, Rufio, The Summer Set, Acceptance, and their most successful act, Cartel. At one point, they almost signed Fall Out Boy. In this context, Lovedrug signed to The Militia Group. They toured with fellow Militia Group acts and played at Cornerstone, which led many fans to think that they were a faith-based band. However, in a 2011 interview with IndieVision, the interviewer is awkwardly shut down when guitarist Jeremy Gifford explains that the band is not Christian, though he doesn’t claim to speak on behalf of every one in the band’s beliefs. In fact, Christian media, back in the late ’00s were keen to include bands with any kind of faith into the fold. Jesusfreakhideout included Lovedrug’s Everything Starts Where It Ends and Paramore‘s Riot!on their best of 2007 list.
CONNECTED TO THE OTHER END OF THIS TWISTED FREQUENCY I’VE SPUN.Joan Osborne asked the question “What If God Was One of Us?” Plumb tells us that “There’s a God Shaped Hole in all of us.” Both of these songs were on the Bruce Almighty
soundtrack, a movie that was both praised and condemned by Christians for handling the lesson that no human could do a better job than God. Or Morgan Freeman for that matter. When an overtly religious song evokes God, there’s a theological agenda. Sometimes a Christian band tries to be cool, singing about girls and nonsense for fourteen songs and tacks on a ballad about being lost without any direction until finding God. This track is either in the center of the album or attached to the end as sort of an epilogue to the album, either to be skipped or included to fulfill a contract. Sometimes, the band feels that this inclusion–no longer having to meet the j’s per minute quota of the ’90s–is the real purpose of the album. They would usually give a 15 minute speech toward the end of their set, saying something like, “You know guys, our band believes that you are here for a reason” or something like what Roma Downey said on every episode of Touched By an Angel. Using God in a song, though, whether by an evangelical band or by one that is agnostic immediately triggers a confirmation bias in listeners’ minds. “But God doesn’t it feel so good?” Paramore declares in their breakthrough hit “Misery Business.” “I’ve found God,” The Fray declares in “You Found Me.” And hundreds of examples would make the band palatable to a Christian audience. When Michael Sheppard imagines “If God (or god) was on the radio,” listeners at Cornerstone, at the Copeland tour, at the Nothing Is Sound Tour with Switchfoot heard what they wanted to hear. God was on the radio, speaking to them, telling them exactly what they already know. Funny how that happens.
Mixtapemotions 