The Incoherant Ramblings of a Poetic Compulsive: Essay: Poverty on Parade (part 1)

Poverty on Parade (for Jesus, of course):
Roadside Experiences of a Touring Independent Christian Rock Band
(…by an admittedly pessimistic guitarist’s perspective)

Part 1 – Why Would Anyone Put Themselves Through Something Like This? (Motive)

Playing in a band requires the same three elements that are needed to be charged of felony murder in a court of law within the United States: motive, means and opportunity. Ironically if enough of the people who get to decide your fate, for whatever reason, don’t like you that day, that’s enough to ruin your life as swiftly as a jury of your own peers. And they don’t listen to the closing arguments of slick, deep-pocket attorneys either.

The subtitle of this book is “Roadside Experiences of a Touring Independent Christian Rock Band”. A touring, independent, Christian, rock and roll band…notice that there are four different descriptors in that phrase, outlining with detail exactly what kind of band I’m writing about. My guess is that you (the reader) have already made up your mind about a few things regarding the particulars of these types of “bands” based on that title. I would submit to you that you’re likely wrong on at least a couple of accounts, but let’s break down that phrase anyway, shall we?

Touring. I’m too lazy to pick up a dictionary, so I’m going to point my web browser to http://www.dictionary.com/, which defines “touring,” in this context, as “A journey to fulfill a round of engagements in several places”. This definition kind of leaves the reader thinking the various dates of a tour are filled ahead of time, details are fully worked out, and the band drives around from place to place, setting up, doing their show, tearing down, and piling in the van to the next location. Which is partly correct and in a perfect world would pretty much be the way it worked. However, the use of the term “fulfill” within the definition puts the requirements of the obligation in the hands of the band. Hmmph. Perhaps whatever brain trust sits around creating definitions for that website will get a hold of my little essay here and I’ll have the opportunity realign their unfortunate misconceptions.

Independent. Ah yes, independent. This word simultaneously brings a smile and a cringe to everyone who truly understands the context in which I speak of it. The fourth definition from dictionary.com defines “independent” in this context as “Not dependent on or affiliated with a larger or controlling entity.” Kind of makes it sound like a bad thing, doesn’t it? Ironically enough, the second definition defines it as “Free from the influence, guidance, or control of another or others; self-reliant.” And that pretty much sums up the two differing views of independent musical groups. More on this later.

There’s probably thousands of different definitions for the word “Christian”. Every political party, protestant denomination, cult, philosophical book club, university frat house, and left-winged pompous, yuppie, pseudo-“intellectual” sipping a caffeinated beverage with 8 names in a capitalistic coffee house chain has their own definition. However, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll take dictionary.com’s third definition, “Manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus; Christlike.” It’s pretty hard to argue with that one.

Finally we come to the word “rock”. Rock, in this context is of course short for “rock and roll” a style of music we’re all familiar with and have our own preconceived notions about. I won’t bother defining it for you, as dictionary.com does not do it justice. Suffice it to say, it’s a style of music. You know what? If you don’t know what’s meant by the word “rock” you’ve either been living in a P.O.W. camp for the last 50 years or you’ve been stranded on a deserted island for so long if we ever find you, you’ll be shocked to discover man has actually landed on the moon, not to mention the invention of two-ply toilet paper and the sacrilegious absurdity of interleague play. Either way you probably won’t get the opportunity to read this. At least I hope not. You should join a Christian rock band and tour the world or something.

But let’s get back to those three elements you need to sojourn out around the country as part of a touring ICR Band. And let’s start with motive. I find it freakishly ironic that I’m about to tell you why I decided to go the route I did, before I tell you what that route is (though you can approximate from the title, I’m sure). Often times in this business, the “why” is all we have and logistics, such as “how” are often left at the curb. Sometimes for good reason, sometimes not.

Like most motivations, mine is almost entirely idealistic. Time warp with me for a moment, if you will. The date is July 23rd, 1992. It’s a Thursday. I’m two months away from my 13th birthday. I arrived at the massive Christian music festival, Jesus Northwest, encompassing the entire Clark County fairgrounds at about 9 or 10 that morning. I was completely oblivious to the impact that the day’s events would have on the rest of my life, as is usually the case for such days and was furthermore oblivious to just how many people were there. Several kids and youth workers from my church were already at the campsite mulling about, prepping various arrangements, setting up folding chairs around the camping area, propping up tents, etc. This year, our campsite was right on the corner. It was absolutely as close as you could possibly get to the gate in which you must pass through to get to the fairground events, rides, games, food, merchandise, and of course the enormous amphitheater-like stage and grandstands. A single teenager, bored out of his mind, sat in a makeshift booth at the small opening of the gate with his head supported by his fist and a magazine laid open on the table. He was stamping hands of people that hand proof of purchase and verifying stamps for those that had already passed through for the day. Our campsite was surrounded on three sides by adjacent campsites and we had the ‘luxury’ of the Honeybucket’s leading product line right across the gravel road which flanked us on the East. Tents and large canopies were established everywhere as far as the eye could see. We of course were on the far North end of the camp-covered grounds. Our youth pastor was Danish. And quite proud of that fact actually, so a Danish flag swayed in the non-wind of the hot July morning, as came to be our trademark within this group.

It was not only my first Jesus Northwest festival, it was my first day as a participant in this foreign concept called a “youth group”. To my knowledge my past churches had no such groups for youth in Corpus Christi and I was skeptical at best as to how much fun its events and people could be. I grew up in the church and, at 12, thought I had pretty much seen it all. I spent the majority of my life, prior to 1992 in the Bible belt (of which Texas is most certainly the buckle). There’s little to no oppression for churches in this belt. At least none that I ever heard of or came across. In fact, let’s face it, they are the majority down there and they know it. Vocal groups of political activists hardly ever picket churches or religious causes in Oklahoma City. Men are not killed and women assaulted on public transportation and children not brutalized in school for speaking their beliefs in Omaha. I would dare not draw a correlation to the Left coast and places as hostile as, say, communist China, for instance. But let’s just say if the Christian faith had “trenches” in America, one of them would most certainly be Portland, Oregon. On this first day it took me all of an hour and a half to meet a guy, very much like me, named Dan. Dan and I, as it turned out, had more in common than anyone else either of us had ever really met prior to that time. He was only a year older, but was entering 9th as I was entering 7th. This is because the smart little bugger had skipped a grade at some point, which he only came to regret later. He also nearly went to the national geography bee. He lost the state competition to the kid who won nationals. I believe that was shortly before I met him. We spent the entire day, and later would spend the entire weekend, together at the festival. He and I both had a lot of “firsts” that sunny weekend in our home town of typically-rainy Vancouver, Washington (just across the Columbia River from Portland). But as would normally come to be the case, he had a leg up on me at this festival because he had not only heard of one of the musical acts playing, he actually owned Petra’s “Unseen Power” album. Unseen Power scores the rare total of “Five 4’s”. Pardon my rabbit trail for a second.

Rabbit Trail: I generally rate songs off of an album on a 1 to 5 scale much like the star rating system of Apple iPods. Five being an enormous hit, one being a song I will skip past every time and would rather not hear. There is of course the very rare exceptions of the awesomely stellar and the tragically horrendous which will rate the seldom used 0 (“Hats” by Amy Grant) or 6 (“Jesus Freak” by dc Talk) which have the musical impact equivalency of Penicillin on the medical community. As I said before Petra’s “Unseen Power” has the distinction that, as I would later come to realize, it was my overall favorite album they would ever put out, though the life-altering moment involving them that I am about to describe had nothing to do with it.

Various musical acts had graced the stage on and off and my attention was minimal and fleeting at best throughout the day. Acts that, at that time, would be found on what they referred to as the “Inspirational” shelf in the Christian book stores. Groups like 4Him, Point of Grace, Bob Carlisle, Michael English, Michael Card, etc. Nothing against those musical groups. I’m sure they’re well aware they struggle to maintain the attention span of a hormone-enraged pre-teen at a 92 degree outdoor festival. They weren’t my cup of tea and I was beginning to think I probably would not attend any of the musical showcases at the festival, when Dan mentioned he wanted to catch Petra that night. Everyone in the group had paid the $40 for the total event pass so we could go anywhere on the fairgrounds and see both the daytime singers and the nightly headlining bands. If my memory serves me right our group of two frequently bloated to 6 or even 10 from time to time as we perused the grounds, but for whatever reason the two of us stuck together for the entire time. Just enjoyed each other’s company I guess. 7 years later Dan would come to be the best man at my wedding. It wasn’t hard to waste an entire day just walking around, looking at stuff, people watching (a.k.a. babe watching), snow cones, elephant ears, roller coasters, petting zoos, various games, contests and attractions, etc. We met back up with the larger group for dinner that night, played a couple games, chatted, etc but interest in the opening acts before Petra was quite low. I couldn’t even tell you now who they were since we stayed at camp, but we could hear the echoing booming noise from our campsite just kitty corner from the fenced backstage area. I believe Mylon LeFevre & Broken Heart may have been one of the bands.

We seemed to have instinctively known when Petra was taking, or had taken the stage. Dusk had developed into full blown darkness as we made the 1/8th mile, mostly uphill trek to the crest of the amphitheater. After we showed the gatekeepers the blurry ink stains from that morning’s initial , we turned to the right and walked slowly up the small hill lined and scattered with folding chairs, families and couples on blankets, many standing and peering through the chain link fence. The crowd beyond the small hill I could not see but it began to be clear to me the entire populace of the festival had gathered there. No one was missing this concert. The stage lights glittered and danced on stage. They changed colors from soft blues to soft yellows, greens and reds as a palm muted clean electric guitar riff bounced up and down the scale accompanying John Schlitt’s tenor vocals. My saunter turned to a jog as my intrigue was sparked, and then I reached the pinnacle of the amphitheater’s bowled outer edge and looked down on what I later learned was tens of thousands of people. In a matter of seconds from my reaching the top and ascending on the scene about 80 yards as the crow flies from the front corner of stage right, Louie Weaver’s stick crashed upon the head of the snare drum and the light picking of the clean guitar riff turned into a roaring thunderous overdriven chord strum. The flood lights beamed in perfect rhythm with the drum hits and chord strums and illuminated the entire dust bowl showing off the crowd of thousands, all fist-pumping in unison and screaming out the same two words in magnanimous vernacular, “Beyond Belief, Beyond Belief!” The blood rushed from all over my body to my head, my eyes locked in gaze at the entire scene, my ears straining to catch every little nuance as the distorted guitar rolled through the post-chorus mantra and the bass thumped in time with the kick drum in a pulsating pattern of pure perfection. The entire display was like watching the gears of a well-oiled antique clock methodically tick along. Seeing the crowd react to the music, the musicians, and seeing those on stage react in kind to the emotional overtones that flowed from the grandstands, from those in the woodchip-covered pit down below and those closest to the stage reaching out. It was more than surreal. It was euphoric. Better than any drug I’ve ever had to this day. I finally discovered a music that touched my soul deep down in a place no art had ever penetrated before. I had not only discovered one of the greatest friendships that I would carry through junior high, high school, college and into my adult life that day; not only discovered the joy of belonging to a group of fellow believers from my own church were my own age and lifestyle, but I discovered rock and roll as it stylistically manifested in the late 80’s and early 90’s for the first time and immediately fell in love not only with the music, the genre, the band and the song, but the very art of creating it struck me at that very moment as an endeavor I wanted to cultivate and be a part of. But beyond this, gazing at the thousands, I learned that I was not alone. There were Christians here, that were proud of what they were and who they were. And as they chanted “Beyond Belief” at 117dB it was a moment of serenity and peace that my heart had never experienced. These were kids. Kids my age. Loving rock and roll and able to take it home to their church-going parents and not have them burn it in effigy.

Something inside me stirred that night. I sat in awe for the next couple of songs until I snapped out of my comatose-like state and ran down the amphitheater’s bowled edges, into the barkdust-covered, mostly fenced off dirt pit that engulfed the most fanatical 5% of the throng and proceeded to work my way up to the front of the stage or as close as I could get to it. I dismissed both the remarks and dirty looks I got from people scared I would try to somehow “cut in front” of them, block their view or obstruct their kids’ line of sight from the demigods on stage. Dan and I later joked that at one point it seemed a drop of sweat or spit from John Schlitt had landed upon my forehead and justified my lack of showering for the weekend. Truth be told the shower waters were about 34 degrees Fahrenheit and even in the heat of a nearly-100 degree day my body convulsed at the idea of sharing my frozen edification with dozens of burly, hairy, male thrill seekers. That night after the Petra concert and their encore, I ran (literally ran) to the mobile covered Christian book-tent containing hundreds of CD’s from Christian artists of every genre. I had never really taken a close look at the selection before this point, and for the life of me, I can’t quite ascertain why. Dan and I stood in a rather long line as I waited to purchase my first cassette tape copy of Petra’s “Beyond Belief” album.

When we got back from the store I found my youth group huddled around a propane high-powered lantern in lawn chairs getting ready to sing worship tunes and listen to the crazy antics of the in-house “Weird Al” guy (whose improvisational skills both with a guitar and with a quick wit have never been matched in my opinion). After what turned out to be a very long night of singing and laughing, enjoying the company of my peers and new friends, we retired to our tents, at which point I stayed up another two hours memorizing the lyrics and every musical nuance to the song Beyond Belief with a walkman and a flashlight. It was just about the best 24 hour period of my life that I had ever experienced thus far. I went to sleep with the nagging feeling that perhaps I should learn how to play the guitar, maybe even join/form a band some day. Beyond Belief remains one of only half a dozen songs that rate a “6” in my book. Quite possibly my favorite of all time, due as much to the experience I had, as its musical contributions and impact upon the Christian contemporary music scene at the time.

Bazooka-Joe made it so at 9:46 AM

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Monday, August 01, 2005

Essay: Poverty on Parade (part 1)

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