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A late-night thread, apropos of nothing.
I think a lot about the small steps in the path that led me to where I am today.
And honestly, the origin point began in a Christian Bookstore in Sayville some 30 years ago.
I think all of you know I was raised in the church. And as such, the music I was allowed to listen to was strictly limited to Christian rock.
I was on a steady diet of Petra, Michael W. Smith, Stryper, Whitecross—if it sounded like REO Speedwagon, I owned it.
But I was plagued by the idea that there had to be more.
So one day, my mom took me to the Sayville Christian Bookstore to buy some new tapes. And when I was there, I saw a magazine called Notebored. And I didn't recognize any of the bands featured in it.
"This is it!" I thought. "This is the map!" So I used my tape money to buy that issue of Notebored.
When I got home, I read it cover to cover. And there was a long feature on a guy named Terry Taylor, and band named Daniel Amos. I'd never heard of them before, but the length of the feature let me know they were Important.
Two weeks later, my mom took me back to that bookstore and, in the discount bin, for $5.00, was a cassette by the band Daniel Amos, their album "Darn Floor—Big Bite." I bought it.
I remember vividly pressing play on that tape in my Walkman on the drive home—and I immediately knew Petra would never sound good to me again.
I'd never heard anything like this. It was jagged, abrasive, difficult, warped, weird, indecipherable. "Your satellites can reach that Eskimo, he buys a suit and tie/ He styles his hair like girls in Tupelo, and sings 'Sweet By & By'"
What did that even mean? But I was hooked.
I bought every Daniel Amos album I could find. Even the weird, not-very-good country ones.
That band, in that moment, changed my life.
They changed my view of how music could sound—fuck arena rock stacked choruses, fuck evangelistic lyrics, fuck meathead blocky riffs.
They introduced me to mystery and poetry and the idea that the best art didn't give answers, it asked questions.
If I had never heard Daniel Amos's "Darn Floor—Big Bite," I shudder to think of where I would be today. They changed the entire way I think about art.
We memorialize people once they are dead. But Terry Scott Taylor is still alive, and still making music, and I would not be who I am if I had never hear his songs.
Thank you, Terry and Daniel Amos, for changing my life, for opening my mind, for changing my views about literally everything.
Here endeth the thread.
Here's a beautiful Terry Taylor song for you all to enjoy: https://danielamosboots.bandcamp.com/track/song-of-innocence
Here's another. This whole record is so good: https://danielamosboots.bandcamp.com/track/ever-after
And a final one before bed, this one for Starflyer 59 fans, as I feel like you can really hear the melodic connection between the two groups in this song: https://danielamosboots.bandcamp.com/track/one-more-time
