We will join our hero not in the beginning but at a very vulnerable time: high school. Last night I busted out some good old-fashioned Five Iron Frenzy. I put up with the jabs in high school for listening to Christian music but I still stand strong on my interest in the music. I can see why people poke fun at it: the stuff you hear on the radio sucks, they pigeon-hole themselves by focusing their topic/genre, the people who are die-hard about it are typically dorks. But can’t you say that about any genre of music?
I grew up in the church and was familiar with Carman’s “Who’s in the House?” (the answer is JC, by the way) but I always thought it was complete cheese. It pretty much sounded like Jock Jams parodied by a Christian “Weird Al” (which actually does exist). There was not even any sort of flattery by imitation. I think it was Carman’s goal to focus more on his message (blind following of Jesus) than to actually embrace music as a form of praising the Lord. Other artists came in his wake though that were actually good at what their goal was. DC Talk predated Carman with a “hip-hop” album laced with tons of “U”s. It was certainly better than Carman’s weak stuff but it still was whiter than Michael Tait.
DC Talk was much better at the game though. When the “alternative” thing was big, they released Jesus Freak. This album came out right at the start of my youth group days. Shit’s good. It’s cheesy and the lyrics are definitely not ambiguous enough to have become a crossover hit or anything, but to be able to listen to that album over and over on youth group trips and still have fond memories, it is definitely doing something right. I even owned the cassette. That’s right a cassette in 1996.
My musical taste to this point was the “secular” Herb Alpert and Beatles vinyls that I collected from thrift stores, the radio (107.1 Channel Z was excellent at the time), a few classical cassettes and a light peppering of Christian music. I wasn’t about to listen to K-LOVE or anything just with the hopes that I would hear a Newsboys or DC Talk song. Then came G-Rock.
G-Rock was introduced to me by some friends from school. They were the hipster/punk kind. The cool thing about G-Rock is they were the first place I was able to hear music that wasn’t broadcast anywhere else. It was my gateway to the underground scene. I could hear “punk.” I wasn’t really aware of punk much up until now because I didn’t really understand music separated into genres. I just knew I always liked the fast songs and then someone pointed out that’s what punk is.
I’d stay up late Saturday night/Sunday morning and watch and record G-Rock. Eventually I would start trusting my VCR to tape it for me. With those tapes, I made a bitchin 6 hour compilation of my favorite music from the show. Most bands or songs played by G-Rock did not have an accompanying video so they showed skateboarding videos with it. Despite no ability to skate, I’ve secretly always wanted to be Spike Jonze so this pleased me.
Like most Christian endeavors, G-Rock was cheesy too. It wasn’t cheesy because it was Christian; it was cheesy because it was punk. The production quality was pretty “punk” and they did segments with host bands that just kinda acted a-fool on camera, a shaky fisheye camera. They never seemed to own anything but a fisheye camera and the film style was a predecessor to today’s MTV “zoom in/zoom out move around unnecessarily” style.
I laugh now at the kid I was and my devotion to such a simple music but I don’t regret it one bit. Besides opening me up to bands like Jesse and the Rockers and labels like Screaming GIANT Records and Tooth and Nail, G-Rock developed a lot of my music search. I learned patience and devotion to seeking out my own music I enjoyed. G-Rock opened the door for more underground punk which opened the door for college radio which opened the door to my current taste for the newest modern rock. Something I don’t regret at all.