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READER MAIL:
Cutting Edge Music in a Cut-and-Dried Church

The chapel is full of young people. Rebecca Sparks is belting out the opening 
notes of "Mercy Me." Greg Sparks is jamming on the guitar. The founding 
fathers of our church never anticipated that such music would be played in 
this chapel, and neither did we as youth leaders. We find it hard to believe 
it was only two and one-half years ago that we started in that same chapel of 
the Hinsdale, IL Seventh-day Adventist church with only five young people in 
attendance.

Our musical adventures began as a praise band. The youth pastor heard what we 
were doing and asked us to help out with a youth program once a month. "Prime 
Time" made its debut on a June Friday night, directly up against a Bulls 
playoff game. We had five young people and six leaders. We soon found out that 
"participating" in singing to these young people meant quietly sitting through 
it and hoping it would end. Fortunately, they liked the rest of our program 
well enough that they came back and brought their friends. In that first 
program, and every program since, we've had some sort of contemporary 
Christian music sung or played.

We soon moved the Prime Time program out of the chapel with its pews and 
stained glass to the more informal atmosphere of the church fellowship hall. 
In a typical Prime Time, the musical artist will usually do one song at the 
beginning of the program, and then one or two songs in the middle of the 
program. The program usually includes some type of skit, a media presentation, 
and closes out with about fifteen minutes of a speaker. This program is 
designed for the young people of our church to bring their non-Christian 
friends, and every month we do have some there. Regular attendance is fifty or 
sixty people every month. We use mostly local speakers and musicians, and pay 
them a nominal fee to cover their travel expenses and development costs. 

Since we are doing a program every month using local musical talent, some of 
our group formed a band. The band is now called "The Coherents" and does music 
for about every third Prime Time. Ron Cook, the keyboardist for the band, and 
Dave Ross, the lead guitarist, write many of the songs they sing. The band is 
rounded out by Todd Richardson on drums, Julie Sreckov on vocals, and a MIDI 
bass machine. They have also performed at a few other locations, and also been 
opening acts when we brought in bigger concerts. Over the past summer they 
recorded a 7-song demo tape.

We first got into the concert business by bringing our sound system to a 
larger youth rally where the Coherents were playing. Crossroads recording 
artist Brett Barry was the featured artist in a day of activities which 
otherwise was quite disorganized. His ministry captured the attention of a 
crowd which might have been impossible for a conventional speaker to reach. We 
decided that he deserved a better setup and organization, and invited him back 
to be the first artist in our concert series that fall.

Our vision for the nature of the concert series was sparked by watching some 
of the "Front Row" videos from Sparrow. These are live unplugged concerts 
before a small audience, where there is time and opportunity to minister. Our 
chapel, which seats about 200, is an ideal size for this type of concert. Our 
equipment started out with just a few lights and speakers, and has grown 
considerably from there to more than 1000 watts of sound power and several 
thousand watts of lights, with controllers. Mark Bowers, one of the 
originators of Prime Time and director of the concert series, (in his spare 
time he's an architect), designs and builds an original stage set for each 
concert, including a lighting set. Ron Cook directs the sound set-up.

It took quite a bit of work to build up the understanding among our youth 
about what a concert series could be. In addition to the Prime Time program 
monthly, we took selected youth to various Christian music concerts, and to 
the Youth For Christ "Second Saturday" program at Moody church in Chicago. As 
they saw large gatherings of people excited for Christ, they gradually become 
less like couch potatoes and more animated at our programs and concerts, and 
start getting excited about having programs like that at our church. But as 
yet, let's just say that the only stage-diving incident we've had so far is 
when one of our performers accidentally fell off of the stage!

The most goal of our concert series is to bring artists there for ministry, 
not performance. Our selection process begins with members of our leadership 
group seeing the artist in concert elsewhere. We try to get an idea how 
committed an artist is to ministry, and how well they could communicate to 
young people. Then we share the music with some of our young people to see 
whether or not they like it. If the response is favorable, we then contact the 
agents to see when the artist is available, and set up a tentative date. In 
addition to ministry and availability, we try to select artists we can afford, 
because all our concerts are free admission. Also we try to find artists who 
would not otherwise be coming to the Chicago area. In addition to Brett Barry 
(twice) and Sparks (twice), we have also had Tom Prasada-Rao and Ann Trubey. 
This spring we are scheduled to bring in Out of the Grey. Many other artists 
with national distribution are available for $2000 or less, although our 
requirement of ability to minister to youth weeds quite a few of them out. 
Among those we have thought seriously about bringing in are Two Hearts and 
Glenn Kaiser.

From then on, concert preparation is mainly an issue of communication and 
making sure concerns raised by various people are addressed. It was only seven 
years ago that the Heritage Singers, only a quasi-contemporary group, were 
banned from performing in our church because they had too much beat in their 
music. So as we developed our concert series, we had to be very careful in 
keeping important people informed about what we were doing. We send out tapes 
of the artist to many people in the church, including several members of the 
board of elders, and the senior pastor. If no significant issues are raised, 
then Russ Laughlin, the youth pastor, contacts the artist and agent to make 
sure they understand the various issues that are sensitive within the church. 
This includes respecting the church's wish that during the worship hours of 
Friday night and Saturday no merchandise is to be sold. It also includes 
explaining the type of audience we have, and our desire for a non-distorted 
concert where all the words are audible and understandable, as well as our 
desire to keep all music live--no tracks. When it comes time to sign the 
contract, Michelle Bowers (attorney in spare time) checks out the details to 
make sure we're not signing our life away.

When the choir is practicing in the next room down from us and we are bringing 
in a contemporary group, there are bound to be some eyebrows raised, 
particularly if the artist is from a different denomination. We have found 
that the rigorous review and approval process gives us something to point to 
in this case. We have the support of the board of elders and some very 
generous donors to keep on doing what we are doing. Even those who do not 
appreciate the type of music see the positive effects in the young people and 
respect what we are doing.

We still face challenges in our ministry. We are still trying to develop local 
talent within our youth group. We are also trying to add a praise and worship 
program to our youth Bible study. We recently tried our first Christian rock 
"party." The group of youth that has been the most enthusiastic attenders of 
our Prime Time and concerts is growing up and going away to school, and we are 
now trying to attract a new generation with mellower musical appetites. But we 
have seen God's leading in remarkable ways all the way through this ministry 
and are confident that He can lead us through the changes. 

--Steve Timm

"Beginner's Guide to Electronic Music"

Sure, first you spend too much money on things that are already obsolete 
because your local salesman wants to move last year's stuff out before the 
new stuff comes in but he doesn't bother to let YOU know what he's doing, so 
he can still charge you full (or nearly full) price.

Then you take the stuff home and lose many hours reading and re-reading 
manuals which were originally written in Japanese or Korean and only loosely 
translated into English, simply to find out how to get one synth to make any 
kind of sound at all when you're playing another one.

Then you complain to the salesman, who tells you, "Oh, the new stuff is a 
lot easier to use.  You should trade your stuff in."

Eventually you take to late-night wandering the information highway (the 
electronic BBSs and Internet newsgroups) trying to pickup tidbits that you 
can use.  You find a few people who are very helpful and a few others whose 
response to your questions is always, "You bought one of THOSE?  You poor 
slob."

Eventually, from sheer trial and error, you get your new toys to play nicely 
together and learn how to make music that satisfies your basic requirements. 
 You play it proudly for a friend, who says, "Oh, that tine piano (or 
whatever) patch is so overused; as a matter of fact, none of the sounds on 
this synth (or sampler or whatever) are really up to snuff by today's 
standards.  So, you're thinking, I need more sounds just to get people to 
listen to my stuff.  That's okay, though, because the next day you run out 
of voices and you can't add that sax solo without taking out something else, 
like the drums.  "Oh, no problem, the salesman says, "The new model XXX has 
twice the polyphony."  You put your (barely used or understood) toy on the 
market for half of what you paid for it, and eleven guys flame you saying 
that "Sam Ash just blew these out BRAND NEW for half of what you're asking. 
 Man, you're trying to rip us off."

You get frustrated and decide not to sell it.  Instead, you sell one of your 
children or go without food for a year.  Then you buy the "next toy," only 
to find out its manual is in "Janglish," too, and you're rapidly becoming a 
linguist, programmer, computer technician, and networking engineer, when all 
you wanted to be was a musician.

By the time a year or two goes by, you'll have the hang of it, you'll figure 
out how to get consistently good sounds out of your stuff, you'll figured 
out that 90% of the people telling you you're doing it all wrong don't 
really know any more about it than you do, and you'll figured out how to 
swap, trade, barter, buy and sell used, and otherwise exchange the gear you 
have for gear that better suits your needs without selling your soul anew 
every six weeks.

In the meantime, your demos will sound better, but so will everybody else's 
because they're all using the same toys and tools.  And sometimes you'll 
just get your acoustic guitar or saxophone or whatever out of the closet and 
play the bejeebers out of it because you like to have one thing in your life 
that doesn't have "In, Out, and Through" printed on the back.

--Paul Race

Review: JIMMY A, SECRETS (LIQUID DISC)
"This ain't no perfect world!" Jimmy A. exclaims in the chorus of the
first song on this album.  Indeed, in a perfect world, Abegg would be
recording more interesting music.  Too much of this album is full of the
sort of pedestrian pop suitable for the local supermarket or Adult
Contemporary radio:  sure, it's not going to actually hurt anyone--and
the lyrics are uplifting if not especially insightful--but it doesn't
make my pulse quicken, either.  To borrow a phrase from Douglas Adams:
Mostly Harmless.
 
Still, it is only MOSTLY harmless.  The opening track explores the
difficulty of loving one another in a fallen world--not a subject that
hasn't been explored by greats like Mark Heard and Bruce Cockburn, but
while Abegg doesn't add much of interest here his words ring true and
the music is interesting.  The only drawback is that the sprechstimme he
employs in the verses sounds so much like Lou Reed that I can't shake
the feeling that it is no more than a slavish imitation.  A few other
tracks are both interesting and original, though, and given the
professionalism of the performance and production, worth listening to.
Listeners unfamiliar with Abegg's previous work will get more for their
money in the CD re-release of Vector's first two albums (MANNEQUIN
VIRTUE and PLEASE STAND BY, available from gaga records) or the limited
edition cassette release Vector is currently floggin;  those already a
fan of Abegg's understated-but-tasty guitar work and his ENTERTAINING
ANGELS, though, will neither be surprised nor disappointed by this album.
--Rob Szarka


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