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Author: breno
Date: 05-19-12 08:27
In another indication that the music industry is disappearing across the board, the massive Christian music festival Cornerstone is pulling the plug after nearly 30 years following this year's festival. It used to get large chunks of underwriting from labels, but surprise, surprise, it turns out that Christian kids have as little interest in paying for music as their secular counterparts and Christian labels have fallen on hard times.
Plus, Cornerstone's located on a farm in the middle of nowhere in north central Illinois about halfway between Chicago and Iowa, and with Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Festival permanently located in Chicago, even the Christian kids figure if they're going to blow wads of dough and several days at a music festival, they'd rather go to Pitchfork so attendance has been down in recent years.
Most of the great documentary Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? was filmed at Cornerstone.
I went to Cornerstone once, in 1999, just to see what it was like plus there were a heck of a lot of good bands on the bill that year. It was pretty impressive - it was pretty much a temporary city spread out over a couple of square miles with its own streets, residential districts (people camped there), a lake and sanitation system and a gigantic tent housing a record store the size of your average Tower Records where I picked up some bizarre Scandinavian Christian Industrial CDs and some weird disc with Bonnie Prince Billy performing old Jesus music.
I was be able to see:
Danielson Famile
Joy Electric
The 77s
Damien Jurado
Pedro the Lion
Sixpence None the Richer
Starflyer 59
Fine China
Eva O
Morella's Forest
The Lassie Foundation
and a bunch of other bands that I don't even remember - and that was just over two days. The thing ran for a week and there were over 300 bands playing - I think I missed the Choir and Daniel Amos that year.
What I DO remember, though, is the surprising sight of thousands of ridiculously nubile teenaged Christian girls running around in bikinis. Not something you generally see at your average tent revival.
Twenty years ago this year Mark Heard had a heart attack onstage while performing at Cornerstone, finished his show, then was helicoptered away to have heart surgery which he never woke up from and died a month later. Here's a crappy quality video of him & Pierce Pettis performing "Nod Over Coffee" from that show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcnlJ1Um89A
Post Edited (05-19-12 08:34)
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-19-12 10:01
A lot of those bands will have no place to play, at least for large crowds, once Cornerstone shuts down. That's a shame.
I need to see that documentary.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 05-21-12 11:14
Quote:
Danielson Famile
Joy Electric
The 77s
Damien Jurado
Pedro the Lion
Sixpence None the Richer
Starflyer 59
Fine China
Eva O
Morella's Forest
The Lassie Foundation
Starflyer 59 is really the only band on that list that means anything to me, and aside from the fact that they thank Their Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ on the liner notes of the albums, I've never detected even a whiff of religion in their music. Certainly not lyrically. I know that distortion pedals would have been viewed with abiding suspicion in every Protestant church I ever dozed off in ... to say nothing of musical instruments in general.
So exactly what is it that qualifies a musical act as "Christian?" Just the aforementioned shout out to Christ?
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-21-12 11:36
An awful lot of artists thank Jesus and/or God in the liner notes without being even remotely Christian in the music itself, so it's not just that.
I think for the Tooth & Nail bands (of which Starflyer 59 is one) it's more about being part of an environment conducive to one's own beliefs. None of the T&N bands I ever heard had overt Christian messages (some covert ones, sure, but U2 has done that their entire career), but they're all part of a label that shares their values.
Basically I think it's more about self-identification. But even then, an act like Damien Jurado doesn't go around calling himself a Christian act. But Cornerstone is obviously a place he feels comfortable playing, and I'm sure he's welcomed.
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Author: zoo
Date: 05-21-12 13:50
HollowbodyKay wrote:
> So exactly what is it that qualifies a musical act as
> "Christian?" Just the aforementioned shout out to Christ?
Galactic Cowboys, who played Cornerstone at least once, answered that question something like this (based on my memory of the Q&A on their website from years ago):
Q: Are the member of Galactic Cowboys Christians?
A: Yes
Q: Is Galactic Cowboys a Christian band?
A: No
I think that sums it up for a lot of bands.
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Author: breno
Date: 05-21-12 19:12
Hey Zoo - refresh my memory. What was the connection between Galactic Cowboys and King's X? Did one of King's X produce them, or were they just label/tourmates, or what? I don't remember.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-21-12 19:18
They were both managed by Sam Taylor and were frequent showmates. I saw the Cowboys open up for King's X in Houston's Tower Theater in 1990, in fact.
Taylor also managed the bands Atomic Opera and the Awful Truth, both of whom also combined heavy rock with lush vocal harmonies. AO weren't very good, to my memory, but I liked the Awful Truth album (actually a set of demos that came out just as the band broke up) a lot.
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Author: zoo
Date: 05-21-12 21:36
I saw KX and GC on the same tour in '90 in Orlando. GC called it a day after their next album and didn't tour, and KX began their long downhill slide IMO about the same time. For a time, though, in the late '90s I was really into both bands.
In addition to the connections you mentioned, both bands are from the Houston area and have had members appear on each others albums. Awful Truth featured future GC members Alan Doss and Monty Colvin.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-21-12 21:48
The Cowboys actually went indie after that second LP and released a few more that hardly anyone noticed. I never heard 'em - I didn't care much for Space is the Place and gave up on 'em.
I'd forgotten that the Awful Truth's rhythm section became the Cowboys'. Alan Doss became the Cowboys' producer when they became an indie band.
King's X left Taylor not long after that tour. I understand them wanting their independence, but I think that's when the slide began.
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Author: zoo
Date: 05-21-12 22:43
Oh man, I goofed bad in my previous post...I saw KX and GC in 2000, not '90.
Michael, you must have thought I was nuts.
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Author: zoo
Date: 05-22-12 12:04
GC became much less "thrashy" after Space in Your Face. They got a new guitarist and slowly began moving in a heavy-pop direction without much of the metal influences of their first two albums. I still think they were an excellent hard rock band that put out some very good albums in the mid-late '90s.
KX' heyday ended w/ Dogman in '94, IMO. I really like that album, but the grunge influence was obvious. After that, it seems like they lost what made them unique.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-22-12 17:07
I'm gonna have to check out the later Cowboys records, then. I loved the first one, which seemed like a cross between the Beatles and Metallica, but was indifferent to the second one.
Agreed on King's X. I like the title song of "Dogman," but never really much dug anything I heard after it. I have a buddy who's followed them more closely, and he would argue there are some real gems in their later catalog (he's also an advocate of Ear Candy, which to me sounded like a failed attempt to recapture past glories), but I haven't bothered to stream anything to see. Though I did hear their recent live album and thought it was all right.
It should also be pointed out that King's X leaving the Sam Taylor stable was also the time they started distancing themselves from the Christian rock world. No coincidence, I'm sure. I don't know if the Cowboys eased up on the Christian messages following their split with Taylor or not.
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Author: dj45rpm
Date: 05-22-12 19:21
Actually saw the 77's open up for Julian Cope and the Three O'Clock at the Fillmore (or was it Warfield) in '87 (or '86/'88?) so they've been around for a while. Listened to some of their CDs and quite a bit of it is, um, quite message-based shall we say (they also got less 80s post-college rock and more Americana as time went on).
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Author: zoo
Date: 05-23-12 08:35
Michael Toland wrote:
> I'm gonna have to check out the later Cowboys records, then. I
> loved the first one, which seemed like a cross between the
> Beatles and Metallica, but was indifferent to the second one.
>
Spotify has Machine Fish, which is the first one after Space in Your Face. It's still pretty heavy (and looong). Really, it's the three that follow that begin to lighten up somewhat. Unfortunately, those aren't on Spotify for convenient listening.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-23-12 08:45
Interesting that you find the 77's heavily message-based. I always thought of them as one of the more subtle bands in that regard. Closer to U2 than Petra. Not that U2 is all that subtle, I suppose.
The 77's' self-titled album (the first one, not the one their record company forced them to change because the original title was Pray Naked) and the odds 'n' sods collection Sticks and Stones are their best work. Everything else is pretty uneven. And the pre-77's records have extremely dated 80s new wave production.
Post Edited (05-25-12 09:32)
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-25-12 09:31
Posted on the Choir's FB page today:
"should we play Cornerstone you think? I really want to, but it will cost is 7 or 8 hundred in gas/food/lodging. They don't have budget to pay bands. We're feeling we should though."
If a major fest has reached the point where it can't pay the bands, it is indeed time to hang it up.
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Author: dj45rpm
Date: 05-29-12 14:25
>>Interesting that you find the 77's heavily message-based. I always thought of them as one of the more subtle bands in that regard. Closer to U2 than Petra. Not that U2 is all that subtle, I suppose. >>
I think it was some of their later stuff I heard that was more message-based (when they'd "outgrown" their more modern (college?) rock (leanings). They were pretty up-front, at least on said tunes.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-29-12 14:56
It's admittedly cynical to say so, but I wonder if they were playing to an audience (mainstream Christian music fans) that's ignored them for 30 years. Their more idiosyncratic work got them a lot of critical raves, but no sales (a familiar tale) - maybe they're trying the whole "praise" thing to make a decent living. I dunno.
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 05-31-12 11:20
77s played my college, and I thought they were good. I was amazed by the sudden emergence of Carleton's mostly-below-the-radar evangelical students, but lots of other folks were there too. Their sound guy played Big Star's #1 Record over the PA before the set which I liked, and lots of their fans were wearing Pray Naked t-shirts, which must be a 77s "thing" (?).
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 05-31-12 11:54
In the late 80s/early 90s (can't remember exactly), the 77's recorded an album that was intended to be titled Pray Naked, with a similarly titled song. I think it was based on a Christian sect that believed praying in the nude brought them closer to God - fewer barriers between them and the almighty.
Anyway, the band's record company strenuously objected and there was a brief war of words between artist and company, before the band finally gave up. The record (one of their better ones) came out self-titled and the song was retitled "**********," believe it or not.
Point being: I think the "Pray Naked" T-shirts were a show of solidarity for the band, plus an easy way to mark the hardcore followers in the audience.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 05-31-12 15:00
Quote:
If a major fest has reached the point where it can't pay the bands, it is indeed time to hang it up
It betrays what a sucker I am, but if my band were offered the chance to play at a huge festival ... I'd do it for free. Of course, my attitudes date from a time when people paid for prerecorded music.
Perhaps "Christian Rock Festival" and "huge" don't belong in the same sentence anyway?
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