Current mood:	melancholy
Entry tags:	meme, nostalgia, radio days, you're a what?

good morning?
URRGGHHH sudden sinus/allergy attack of some kind. I won't be going to sleep until my nose stops running. So. Um. Memetime?

Stolen from esuzumy...

Meme: Pick 10 bands. Write about each band: what moment in life or what particular thing or person do they remind you of? What is your favourite track from them and why?

1) The Echoing Green

The reason they're my favorite band of all time and I still use the related AIM SN despite going through many, many fandoms since...is because they don't remind me of merely one thing. I have memories associated with the band - like going out for coffee with Joey when I was in Albuquerque interviewing for a radio job, and getting his advice, or going to see a movie with the band one February - but their music? It's been there consistently with me throughout my young adult life. Their first CD came out in 93 when I was leaving home and going to college, and I just got Sanctuary last Christmas. Each album will remind me of whatever stage of life I was in at the time: college, and being exposed to the wider world, for Defend Your Joy; agonizing through the year of the worst roommate ever for Songs From the Ocean Picture. It's hard to pick a favorite song, I have a whole CD of them, my own greatest hits (even though Joey put together Evergreen for that purpose, lol). Although, the one that has probably been with me in my heart the longest is "Aurora."

I listen to the Echoing Green a lot, just because I like their music, but there are times when I really need a pick-me-up, when I need to be made to feel happy. Joey's lyrics are often about Hope, and even if I don't really have any hope and don't believe in it at the moment, it feels good to know that someone does believe it exists. I listen to their music when I need a shot of optimism that doesn't feel forced, fake, or hokey.

2) Code of Ethics

They remind me of my younger days when I could spend the entire concert pogoing up and and down and not be sore the next day. I remember Skippy - the keyboardist I named my plant after. Mostly I remember Barry, and questionable 80's/90's hairstyles, and Perkins runs at 1 am after the show. My best days as a friend of Barry as well as a fan of the band were the 95-98 era, the self-titled album and Arms Around the World. Musically, though, some of my most curious memories involve Visual Paradox. That album made me realize that I was a New Wave fan. Favorite song is probably "Freedom" or "Follow On," though "Satellite Babies" and "Visual Paradox" have some really quirky memory associations.

See...one of their biggest concerts in Green Bay was being sponsored by our station, and as a promotion, we held a Code "singalong" contest. We wanted listeners to call in and sing part of their favorite Code song to win CDs and tickets. The promo for it featured our music director making up wrong lyrics to the songs...like "Visual Pair of Socks." The listeners took that and ran with it. For weeks we were making wrong-lyric jokes, and some of those phrases lasted for years afterward.

3) The Prayer Chain

They remind me of Nirvana. LOL. Kidding! Actually, thinking of the Prayer Chain reminds me of Cornerstone Festival. It was my annual 4th of July pilgrimage for six or seven years, an outdoor festival in central Illinois where I could see a hundred of the most obscure rock, alternative, and indie bands ever. I've seen a ton of bands at Cornerstone, including most of those on my list, but the Prayer Chain has this odd mental association with Cornerstone even though I never actually saw them perform at Cornerstone. In fact, the only time I got to see them live was at a reunion show a few years after they broke up, in Chicago. But the Prayer Chain epitomizes the atmosphere of the festival: gritty, jangly, outsider, hardcore, subversive. I completely missed my chance to see them in 93, but as part of the press corps I was given a free sampler CD from one of the record companies that had "Never Enough" on it, from Shawl, and it was amazing. It was like nothing I had been listening to in either mainstream or christian music at the time. It really is very Nirvana-ish, circa 93, but Tim Tabor's voice is just...he goes from a plaintive wail to a low purr to a scream over the course of 6 minutes. It's still one of my favorite songs, and absolutely my favorite Prayer Chain song. I listen to it everytime I go on a road trip in homage to that CD (which was stolen from my car in 98) and Cornerstone.

4) The Choir

The Choir reminds me of summer. And of loneliness. I enjoy their music greatly, especially since it's so unique and creative, and the lyrics are highly artful. But for some reason all of my favorite songs of theirs evoke a sense of great loneliness and longing in me. If there's anyone who has touched the essence of what it means to believe in something which you have no proof of and often lose the point of, it's Derry and Steve. I think of "Merciful Eyes," "Restore My Soul," and "The Warbler" as the kinds of songs I relate most to, and cling to, and listen to over and over. I fully admit part of my love for "Restore My Soul" is the 2-3 minute long guitar-driven second half of the song, but it also has such tortured and beautiful lyrics. Tortured and beautiful actually describes The Choir very well overall. Where The Echoing Green is hope and optimism, The Choir is realism.

The closing lyric of "The Warbler" never fails to make me tear up, or cry: "three hundred sixty strokes to touch heaven. It's only eleven o'clock. Eleven o'clock." I'm not even listening to it at the moment, just reading the lyrics and thinking of it makes me want to cry.

5) The 77's

It depends on the album, because their style differed so radically from one to the next. Sticks and Stones reminds me of driving, and road trips, because that's where I listen to the full album the most. Drowning With Land In Sight reminds me of the summer I spent as a camp counselor in Ironton, MO, because one of the other counselors was obessed with the 77's and got me to actually listen to their albums instead of just one song here and there. Pray Naked reminds me of that transition between high school and college, that time when I was discovering new and different and exciting things, and growing spiritually beyond the bumper-sticker phase into questioning and doubting. Overall, though, my favorite song of theirs is "Nowhere Else," from Sticks and Stones. It's so quintessentially 80's (1986) and yet timeless, and it's a friggin love song. It has nothing to do with God. The Sevens, even more than the Choir, opened my eyes to see that professed christian bands could write songs about real life and love and still be just as valid as faith-songs. And also be artistic and talented and amazing. Steve Roe has always been a rebel and is responsible (along with Steve Taylor) for helping me to see that there's more to belief than spouting cookie-cutter Jesus-per-minute statements - that question and doubt are important and thinking is required before one can call themselves a believer.

Also, they seriously fucking rock, omg.

6) Petra

All right, here's where I switch from being all into artistic bands and admit that I like a freakin cookie-cutter bumper-sticker arena rock CHRISTIAN BAND. Yeah. Laugh now, get it out of your system. Better? Okay, so, when I was in high school, this was the first band that I latched onto to give me direction. They were at their max popularity right when I became a christian, and needed the hand-holding to get me through that fledgling stage. Beyond Belief and Unseen Power were the first albums I actually wore out playing so much and had to replace. Their later stuff sort of wasn't quite as good, and eventually even I was ashamed to admit I liked them, but those two albums are so inextricably intertwined with my high school years (91-93) that I can't deny the band's influence on me. They were also one of fwe christian bands that my mainstream friends in school had actually heard of, so they were a bridging point, even if they were so blatantly in-your-face with the God thing that I couldn't really share their music with others. Even now I won't recommend them, because for one, the arena rock is really dated omg. For two, they're blatant. But that was what I needed at the time, and I will be ever grateful to them for that. They're not bad musicians by any stretch, they won Grammy awards and are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If I listen to them now, it's out of a fit of nostalgia. Sometimes even I need to be reminded that they were my anthems at some point in my past.

Favorite song, oh god...uh. I don't know, probably all of Unseen Power. I demolished that album. Heh, in later years I got to be friendly with the lead singer, even if he was old enough to be my dad. He was so inspiring and devoted and friendly. If/when in years to come I hear news that he's died, I will be genuinely sad, even if I haven't talked to John in more than a decade.

7) All Star United

Their music reminds me of a singular moment involving the band - having Ian, Patrick, and I think two others of the band crammed into my tiny 1984 Toyota Corolla in order to drive them from a concert venue down to a bookstore signing in Appleton. It was hilarious. They were goofing off the whole way, and Ian was moderately impressed that when I was singing along to the radio, I was singing the harmony parts. When we got out at the mall, they all went around my car (btw it was affectionately named "Stickermobile") to critique the band stickers plastered across the back. Ian was pointing to a bunch of them, saying "broke up, broke up, broke up...I don't think I want you to have our stickers on your car, all the bands you have on here break up!" Fortunately, I think ASU lasted longer than Stickermobile.

They also remind me of the prime of my radio days. My heyday. I was there when they were formed, I helped (well, our station helped) to break them, and we supported them. Our listeners made them love coming to our neck of the woods, for some real blistering, mayhem-inducing concerts. They're just a happy rock band that wails real loud. Favorite song is probably "Smash Hit." So indelicately snarky and sarcastic while being bouncy and loud.

8) Iona

Hello, random Celtic-inspo band. If their spirituality wasn't so obviously tied to a particular religion they'd be labeled New Age. Iona's music reminds me of Beth. My friend Beth, who I've grown a bit apart from but still seems to be closer than any of my other friends, who's been my friend since I started at Q90 and beat me to moving down here and plays Ring Game and...yeah. Even though we share a LOT of similar musical tastes and favorite bands, and her taste tends toward Stavesacre and heavier metal bands while I prefer rockier stuff, we also both really like Iona. A lot. We got to see them at Cornerstone twice. We share an interest in Celtic artwork and mythology and such, she used to carve Celtic knotwork patterns into wood (furniture and items) and I drew/painted them on fabric. Individual Iona songs remind me of lots of things, depending on where I was when I heard them or a singular moment tied to the song, but the band's music generally makes me think of Beth.

Except for the Book of Kells album. That reminds me of my first-year college roommate, because we listened to that album a lot. I don't have any one favorite song, because the mood and flavor changes so much from song to song and album to album. "Chi-Rho" is no less amazing than "Beyond These Shores" or "Journey Into the Morn."

9) PFR (Pray For Rain)

Their music reminds me of the years I was in radio, and college. There isn't any one event or moment to tie to them, they were just quietly, patiently there the entire time, and broke up shortly before my career in radio ended. Or around that time, I don't remember exactly when they called it quits. They're the exact kind of pop-rock that epitomized our format, and the renaissance of christian rock music between 93 and 98. They weren't bland or uninteresting, though, they were creative and quirky. They were sort of the They Might Be Giants or Barenaked Ladies of that time/genre. They were also one of the first bands I got to meet and hang out with via my radio career, and I was friends with Mark Nash for a while. I wish I had their first album on CD, because I would still be listening to it repeatedly. "Pray For Rain" was so progressive at the time. They were lightyears ahead of Jars of Clay, yet people only know of/remember Jars now instead of PFR.

10) Geoff Moore & the Distance

This band was to me what every shonen-friendship anime is today. Honestly, they're like the musical embodiment of Yu-Gi-Oh's themes. I was, for quite some time, friends with Geoff (and Geof and Roscoe), so maybe that's why their music makes me think of YGO and friendship and fluff. I used to listen to "Good To Be Alive" every spring on the first day I would open up my windows and let the warmth and fresh air in. It's less hokey than some of their songs, so it remains a favorite even if I don't hold that tradition anymore. If there's anyone from the music biz that I miss and wish I could talk to again, it's Geoff.

Heh. And I finish writing at the time "The Warbler" comes on. Guess I'm about three minutes away from tears.


Yeah, most of my answers are related to my radio days, and the bands, but that's okay. That was a part of my life I enjoy writing about, even if I'm not the same person these days. I miss some parts of it, but I don't think it's something I can ever recapture. It's long gone. As the lyric just said, "fade away into oblivion..."

Still not sleepy, but maybe now I'll cry myself to sleep.