While I might be considered a street Christian with my coarse language and my track record of not always the most reverent guy in the room with a litany of not so holy moments, I persevere to improve and grow. To illustrate the paradoxes of my life, let me share the following. I would play clubs with my band Topaz, as we got on stage before a crowd of diners, drinkers, and couples out to hear a good band and dance. Before we hit the first note, we lowered our heads in prayer, over the cacophony of clanging plates and loud talk. Sometimes people would look up and wonder what the hell are these guys doing, many would know and first with surprise, and then with a small smile knew that this wasn’t your average band. Though ladies were openly trying to seduce us, we just wanted to engage the audience with music designed to allow couples or impromptu couples to dance the night away, make new memories, rekindle old ones, enjoying a night out. Unfortunately, some of our Christian band members succumbed to temptation. It was rare and met with rebuke by the rest of us. I, among my many sins, never allowed it to become beyond a Jimmy Carter “lusting in my heart” thing, but naughty just the same, worthy of rebuke. Then like so many of us club musicians, we got tired of the drunks and the seamier side of music and turned to praise bands for finding more meaning. It was a pretty good fit since we as a praise band segment of the musicians who had the chops and filled a talent gap that exists/existed. In contrast, we had our roots in secular/commercial music (frequently a band was measured by how many drinks you could sell versus how good you were in management’s eyes and learned this art well.
Let me digress, for a moment, into tales of night club music. A memorable moment came just before we went on a break. The crowd was packed on the dance floor, we went into our break song that was the theme to the motion picture Rocky, and a fight broke out between two inebriated patrons, who thought they were in the ring. We went on to finish the song. The dance floor cleared and left the two drunks missing more punches then they landed. It was a great soundtrack for the absurd. The fun was over when the ex-marine bouncer escorted them out, not too gracefully. Just another full moon evening at the old Merritt Island Casino when the happy drunks turned mean, and the mean ones made fools of themselves. Just for your information, this same bouncer stood in the middle of State Road 520, pulled his military 45, and shot “warning” shots at a car speeding away with a waitress’s tip money at 2:00 am. Ah, yes, they don’t make them like that anymore. Only the stupid would mess with a guy who could have been a real-life participant in the Viet Nam saga Apocalypse Now, but he always protected the innocent in a Joshua true old testament way.
Out of this rowdy environment, I and several other of my hooligan comrades were persuaded to form a praise band for my old church. My Pastor’s leadership was trying to move the church into the 21st-century, kicking and screaming, from a liberal but very traditional hymn singing United Church of Christ Midwestern/New England church to two services, one traditional, one contemporary. She was the Pastor, who married my Wife and me. With my Wife’s prodding, Pastor convinced me to jump-start the contemporary service, with ringers from the club band and me as the worship leader, I thought that was a stretch. We rocked the house and started with 15 congregants, within a year, grew to over 120. We rocked the house with good Christian music and secular music that we often changed the words to be more church-like. After a few years, I realized that we were becoming more entertainment instead of worship, as my wonderful Pastor tried to steer me. She left the church and ministry all together for reasons she only knows. But shortly after, the heavy hand of the National UCC Denomination installed an openly gay pastor in our local church and promoted all the open and affirming stuff that split our church and went against the doctrine I knew. Just a sidebar here, I have friends who are gay, and you don’t work in the arts for any length of time without working with, loving, and respecting gay people. Still, I couldn’t handle forcibly having the whole thing foisted upon me in my church (my mom and dad would roll in their graves if they knew what happened to the church they started when we moved to Florida in 1962).
Moving on, I, in addition to performing with the club band, due to economies of scale and we couldn’t afford a sound guy. I ran sound from the stage, even using a foot pedal to change the effects so that I wouldn’t have to take hands off my sax to change up the sound. After years of that, I decided to find another church (my last day at my old church that happened after a congregant dropped the F-bomb on my Wife, who produced all the video, one Sunday morning for some petty thing. We ended up at Faith Fellowship Church, and I was quickly recruited, under the tutelage of
D.W., to run sound on a 48-channel analog Mackey board. Here I learned the difference between worship and entertainment. There are similarities in mechanics and engaging with the listeners. Still, the whole Holy Spirit thing was a revelation to me. I learned that mixing sound IS worship and that glorifying God is a whole new ball game. You must be absorbed in the moment. Don’t get me wrong getting cues right, and a little show biz helps. In music, I like extremes and dynamics; when it needs to be loud, shake the rafters and make them feel it their gut with subs. When it’s soft, make them strain to hear soulful sound and intimacy of a whisper. Present the Word with clamor and loud like David clanging his Cymbal as he marched ahead of the Ark into Jerusalem. And yet hear the soft harmony of David playing his harp to soothe the troubled heart of King Saul. David was referred to as a man after God’s own heart. I’ll bet he wailed on harp!
Tales from Depression and Dealing with it. 