Okay, I’m on a mission.
Last night, Fran, Rhiannon and I went to see Point of Grace and Mark Schultz perform at a local mega-church. It was the second time we’ve seen Point of Grace, our first Mark Schultz concert. We went mainly for Rhiannon, who is just nuts over what she calls “Fish Music” (because the local Contemporary Christian Music, i.e. CCM, radio station is WFSH 104.7, affectionately nicknamed “the Fish”). Now, I do not mean to be a grouch when it comes to CCM; there are a few bands I truly enjoy: Switchfoot and Third Day top the list, and I was impressed with Delirious? when I saw them a couple of years back, and I can even get enthusiastic over someone as squeaky-clean as Rebecca St. James. But you know, in my opinion there are too many CCM bands that sound like U2 knockoffs, and some of the biggest names in the business (Steven Curtis Chapman, Jeremy Camp, Casting Crowns, Jars of Clay, Mercy Me) are all so honed in their midtempo rock, adult contemporary sound, that… well, it all just starts to sound the same after a while. At least to me.
Okay, I understand I’m not exactly their target demographic. I grew up listening to bands like Yes and Jefferson Airplane and Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Grateful Dead. As a matter of fact, I still listen to these guys, with the main difference being that at this point in my life I wince at how sexist or violent or angry so many of their lyrics are. But these old progressive rock/jam bands made music that was (at least, for its time) risky, gutsy, edgy, and even a tad bit dangerous. Yes may have been the least scary of the lot, but even their music broke all the rules of pop radio (on their classic albums from the early 1970s, the average song length was about ten minutes).
So last night at the concert, I thought to myself, “Self, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Since Fran and Rhiannon love the pure-pop sounds of most CCM, I cannot begrudge them the music they enjoy. But if I want Christian music with an edge, I need to go find it — and its normal habitat will not be radio stations like the Fish.”
Now, in its heyday the Jesus music scene of the 70s did produce a few artists who made unusual, edgy, or just plain weird music. The Resurrection Band (later shortened to Rez Band) could be called acolytes of Led Zeppelin, and more recently their protegé band, Seeds, has a sound similar to Crosby, Stills and Nash. Larry Norman, one of the true pioneers of Christian rock, created music that combined his 50s-rock falsetto voice with a bluesy psychedelic sound (and in-your-face lyrics). Probably my single favorite Christian musician, Phil Keaggy, is a masterful guitarist and, having seen him twice over the last eighteen months, it’s reassuring to note that he still knows how to jam. Indeed, his album Crimson and Blue is probably the single best example of improvisational Christian rock that I’ve yet run across. Among younger artists, Zehnder has a jam-band sensibility, even though none of their recordings that I’ve heard seem to be particularly improvisational.
So that’s all good stuff. But I’d like to find some new Christian jam music. Does it exist?
Last night I tweeted a request for “Jerry Garcia with Jesus” music, and people both on Twitter and Facebook rose to the challenge. One person suggested I visit www.indieheaven.com, a website that invites us to “discover the other 99% of Christian music.” You can search their site by genre, and I was pleased to see that “jam band” was among the many genres listed in their search box. So I selected that category, clicked on the search button… and had 0 results.
Ouch.
Meanwhile, other folks threw out a variety of ideas: Jesse Manibusan, Soul-Junk, Daniel Amos, Waterdeep, among others. Meanwhile, my own Googling yielded The Selah Project, which (along with Waterdeep) seems to be the most promising. I’m beginning to think that contemporary, creative, Christian music that hasn’t been put through the corporate rock blander, er, blender, does in fact still exist out there. And I suspect that there’s more of it, but it hasn’t made it onto my radar screen yet.
So, do any of my dear readers have a favorite Christian band that’s just a little too freaky to get airtime on the big corporate radio stations? If you do, please let me know.
And I should end this post by being honest and saying that both Mark Schultz and Point of Grace put on a fine show. I don’t mean to be a nay-sayer about all the mainstream Christian musicians who I am sure work very hard at their craft and their ministry. So I want to be clear that by saying “it’s not my cuppa tea” I’m not saying “it’s lousy!” Far from it. Once again: better to light a candle than curse the music that isn’t really to my taste. But before I can light my candle, I need to find it.
All religion-specific music is awful, by definition. And I would apply that to Pagan music just as much as Christian music. In fact, I bet atheist music would be awful as well. Probably worse. Though I did find the Atheist Tabernacle Choir amusing, they were still awful.
Aw, come on. By that logic, Mozart, Bach, Gregorian Chant, qawwali, and Tibetan overtone chanting are all “awful.” I just don’t buy it. I will grant you that most contemporary Christian rock is bland and uninspiring, but I think that has as much to do with the problems of contemporary Christianity as a whole (much of which is bland and uninspiring) than with any necessary relationship between religious fervor and artistic incompetence.
Well, as someone who is not particularly fond of FISH and the whole CCM scene, AND as someone who plays it most weeks in worship I have a particular perspective on this. I’m not a professional musician – strictly self taught. My style has brought a “looseness,” jam like quality to the direction of my church’s particular take on contemporary worship. My point is this – play the bass, Carl, and the music God wants you to play/hear will emerge. The homogenous quality of most Christian praise music belies a theology that says we must conform. Not the message I hear from JC in the gospels. Rather, we need to aim for Jesus’ radical inclusiveness – in our lives and our music. $0.02. Peace.
Terry Scott Taylor, the lead genius behind Daniel Amos, has other projects that I bet you would love;
“The Swirling Eddies” and “Lost Dogs” being on the tip of my tongue at the moment.
the 77′s are another group who, while aren’t exactly a jam band, are a great blues/rock group. Oh yeah, and they are “Christian” too.
For more recent music, try the outer edge of christian music like psalters and mewithoutyou, or wovenhand, danielson, soul-junk, sufjan stevens, ester drang, madison greene … But that’s still not not exactly jam band I guess…
Greetings
there is website that is run by christians called virtuosity/spiritual prog that might just give you a little taste of what you’re hungry for. It’s not exclusively prog and contains an A-Z list of prog psych. pop and killer worship music.At the risk of appearing arrogant, go to Between the Lights(Canton,Ohio)mypace page(my band).We are not a trad. jam band, we have lots of improv. and some 70s pop. Give me some feed back, we can take it. tell me what you think of Virtuosity/Spiritual prog.
Tune to live radio show 12:00 PM every Sat. night. KXMX.com. Repent Rock by Jimmy Tran, and the S.O.S. Rock and Roll band. Love to have You visit. Unblandered.
Your best bet is still some of the old live Waterdeep stuff (their newer work pales by comparison).
Hello Carl,
I too share your desire for something better in the modern Christian Music arena. From my experience, there are a select few songs that have the power to overwhelm me (Amazing Love is one of those songs), and I too am searching for a Christian jamband; though probably for a somewhat different purpose than you. I am an improvizational guitarist, and listen to alot of “jam music”, but when I hear trey anastasio play the mixolydian mode, I cry tears of joy! Jerry Garcia could make the mixolydian mode sound like angels rejoicing too! And this topic reminds me of how the great classical composers segregated music into two categories: earthly & heavenly, and there was a specific music theory behind their categorization. When one is able to follow these musical theorms & interwieve African rhythms an amazing thing occurs . . . .
Justin, perhaps you need to be the Christian Garcia.
Last week I saw the David Crowder Band perform. Not exactly a jam-band, but definitely a fun way to spend an evening.
Hey,I am an ex-psychedelic and blues guitarist whose father was a 60′s Jazz improviser and played with Coltraine and Cannonball Adderly whenever they were in Norfolk, Va. I went into the Marines and then 82nd Airborne instead of Berklee where I was already accepted. I am now struggling to get booked as a Jam band with my wife on keyboards.Almost every song is original and a mix of Americana,Jazz and Blues. I posted my website above so check us out. (and spread the word if ya like it)Thanx Slick
Oh yeah, I also want to say that although the title seems bad and the band was probably experimenting with more than music,I think I hear prophetic revival messages that maybe were rejected as they came out of heaven as musical annointing.These words are in Grateful Dead’s album “Blues for Allah” The songs are:”The Music Never Stopped” and “Franklin’s Tower”.Why can’t God’s real children channel this wavelength? ………….We Can! Slick
Oh here is the real url i forgot the dotcom.(Must have flashebacked to the 70′s and lost my short term memory for a second.)
@yewtree : Music is made of waves.All matter is made of waves or particles as determined by the observer.Music is the arrangement of sound waves into frequent patterns .The first waves in creation were sound waves,which were sped up to become light.Sound waves still have the power to create or destroy.With the human soul,this is done by emotion being manipulated or drawn out.ALL music therefore is spiritual and creates a link between soul and spirit.Or between an awareness of heaven and earth.You might still be right, this is just my hypothesis.