i used to post a lot in the usenet group rec.music.christian back in the day. sometimes it’s funny to go back through some of the stuff i wrote. on occasion i was pretty funny, if i do say so myself. (i guess it’s a good sign i like my sense of humour.) while i also wrote a whole bunch of reasoned arguments, and got into some hellaciously long-winded (and mostly fruitless) exchanges, some of my favorite stuff was the satire and sarcasm created by the persona of “reverend zechariah phool” i developed over the years.
here’s the first instance of my using the good reverend (linked from google groups):
rec.music.christian (feb 22 1994)
anyway, i decided to try and find the first time i ever mentioned creating a web site. and now…*drumroll*…here’s the reference from google groups:
rec.music.christian (nov 17 1995)
this set of pages, preserved pretty much as it was back when i wrote that message, is now available here: http://www.failure.net/tol
and just for the record, here’s the very first recorded post i ever made on usenet that’s archived in google groups:
news.groups (mar 18 1991)
…which was actually me arguing for the creation of the rec.music.christian newsgroup. (before this, i’d been using listserv mailing lists.)
and here’s my first ever post to rec.music.christian:
rec.music.christian (may 6 1991)
some of my statements and opinions made over the years in r.m.c make me cringe these days, but there is a lot of stuff in there i still agree with and/or find funny.
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failure is not an option. it's a requirement.
I look back at some of my old posts on RMC and am quite embarrassed at times. They make me chuckle at other times, and I don’t know if that’s because they were genuinely funny or I haven’t grown up yet.
Those preserved web pages… little did you know you had an excellent future in designing myspace pages!
Keep up the good work, right reverend.
Ahhh, the memories of scatered few and one bad pig…. My brother went to church in Austin with one of the members of one bad pig. I think he led the music. My brother often helped the band set up or tear down. He said it was funny to see one bad pig written on a lot of the equipment and cords.
i’m certainly not going to claim that my ongoing appreciation for some of the stuff is due to my refined and sophisticated sense of humour. 🙂
when i made those pages i was intentionally trying to make them a bit lame, but i exceeded even the level of bad design i’d intended. i hadn’t thought of the myspace thing though. if only they’d had embedded music markup back in 1995… i wonder if tom used to read r.m.c…now that i think about it his pic on myspace *did* kind of remind me of “clueless” chuck pearson… 😉
i still dig on scaterd-few. they’re nice. but i have a secret shame my blog entry sort of brought into the open — i used to like one bad pig. i was young and naive. i was just getting into the xian scene and there weren’t a lot of choices. and obp got worse with each album they released. but none of that washes away the shame i feel. i try to not think about it.
i wonder if our brothers knew each other in austin? have we discussed this in the past?
OBP… I still get a kick out of listening to “Let’s Be Frank”. “‘In the beginning God’, a fancy that would pass. I know how it began, I believe in gas!”
Never could get into Scaterd Few. I also tried Spyglass Blue and it didn’t wear off on me.
Myspace, minus the embedded music, looks just like the web did 10 years ago. I think it’s just a tool for teens to put web pages together, with all the CSS and HTML skillz they have.
Yeah, I actually liked Scaterd Few, and probably still would if I had any of my old tapes or a way to play them. OBP, I also chalk up to the ignorance of youth. They were fun for a while though, but there weren’t many choices then, were there.
I used to find a record label I liked and just looked for new bands coming out on that label. The funny thing is that I now take deliveries for one of those record labels. Tooth N Nail is located here in Seattle, and is one of our clients.
obp’s demo _a christian banned_ was their best thing, imo. followed by _smash!_ (which “frank” was on). then _swine flew_. which is also chronological. but the 2nd and 3rd are only guilty pleasures, really. i’m glad the scene and my knowledge of it got better.
scaterd-few i dug a lot. (_sin disease_ was an amazing album…nothing else from scaterd-few hit that level imo.) spyglass blue i didn’t dig as much but i still liked it. (kevin — i can probably get you a copy of scaterd-few…it’s out of print. let me know.)
with smaller/underground scenes, labels are definitely a good guide for picking music. usually they’re run by one person (or a few people) and are either dedicated to a certain scene/style or they’re picking stuff they like, so if you like one album you have a better chance of liking more on the label.
i used to really dig tooth and nail. i was so excited when they came around and starting shipping nice looking product, as they actually understood the market for that stuff. i don’t think i’ve bought anything from t&n in a long time though.