RECENT COMMENTS RSS| 2 | Michael Jackson To Give Paul McCartney His Songs Back 5:27 pm |
| 2 | Featured Band: Justin Kline 4:50 pm |
| 21 | Katy Perry Is Immature, Single Again 4:22 pm |
| 3 | Morning Buzz: Fall Out Boy, Blender, Willie Nelson, Young Widows 4:19 pm |
| 231 | Tokio Hotel Fakes Live Shows 4:16 pm |
| 1 | Interview: Matt Daniels of Thinklab 1:00 pm |
| 3 | The Guy From Jack’s Mannequin Is Some Kind Of Author Or Something 11:52 am |
| 5 | Morning Buzz: Animal Collective, RIAA, Oasis, Death Cab 11:38 am |
| 21 | Suicide Silence Gets Back at MTV 2:21 am |
| 3 | Watson Twins Sharing Stage with Ben Kweller for February Tour 12:15 am |
| 4 | Levon Helm ‘Tours’ — Inside New York State 8:02 pm |
| 71 | Jeffree Star Kicks Travis Barker While He’s Down 8:01 pm |
| 7 | A Grand Design: Frodus 7:39 pm |
| 15 | Insane Clown Posse Sued After Throwing Faygo Into Audience 6:36 pm |
| 5 | Drowning Pool Music Used To Torture Prisoners 1:14 pm |
Remember… is paying tribute and/or making fun of bands from a decade ago or just last week. Bands comes and go, but a lot of them hold a place in our hearts for the rest of our lives. Enjoy.
Every major event in life has traditions that go with it. Getting married has its traditions of something new, something borrowed, and the classic something blue. When you’ve just finished a big move to a strange part of the country the tradition is to seek out anything familiar. It doesn’t matter how big or small, if it brings any comfort of the days of old and friends of miles away then embrace it. Upon taking the big trek of being a cold northerner to the big unknown of the south I needed something familiar, something I could feel like my world wasn’t totally alien. When I heard Zachary Gresham and Philip Brown’s new band was playing I had to be there. Sure, I wouldn’t know a single Summer Hymns song but at least the voice on stage would remind me of the days of listening to Joe Christmas in my room.
In 1995 some kids from Georgia put together an album over the course of a single weekend that was to be released on a new label from across the country in Seattle. At this time the Tooth and Nail label had quite a diverse roster of pop punk, hardcore, electronic, and even a band that fit in every category of music at the same time somehow. Despite the celebration of diversity Joe Christmas was still a band on their own it seemed.
Big fuzz bass was the first thing to stand out on their freshman LP Upstairs Overlooking, after that you couldn’t ignore the screeching and all too often sloppy guitars. Zachary Gresham vocals were nasally, but not in the radio-ready way people are referred to these dark music days we live in, he sounded like Doug Martsch of Built To Spill after having a night of mixing liquor and beer.
The two most common assumptions about Joe Christmas were they were the Christian markets Pavement, ready to be sold to the slacker kids of faith, and that the track Couple Skate off of Upstairs Overlooking was the pinnacle of the bands songs. The first assumption I can deny, I don’t know if there is a large group of burnout prayer warriors who are searching for their christianized-version of Sebadoh to merit a business idea as that. A good band deserves to be heard, even if the market for them is not presentable. I cannot deny Couple Skate as a great song, or that their video for it was the first the label did avoiding the visually boring shots of a band playing in something abandoned needing to be rocked before it’s tearing down.
It’s with their second and final album, North To The Future, which Joe Christmas got beyond both those assumptions. Much of their sound was still there but the guitars were now soft at times, and the melodies weren’t buried in the fuzz anymore. They had become timeless in their strength to stand out.
Joe Christmas in the literary world is a classically known character from Light in August, whose search was for his identity. Joe Christmas, the band, had a strong identity of their own when their story ended, but should have been heard by so many more.
I actually got into them about 3 years ago…I was too busy listening to Craig’s Brother back then to pay attention.
Remember in the mid-90’s where every Christian band was the Christian version of some secular band. I’m glad there doesn’t seem to have to be that differentiation much anymore.
I still laugh when I think of the sign in Gift & Bible saying that The Supertones were the Christian equivalent of Rage Against the Machine
But getting back on topic. I do remember Joe Christmas but they were on their way out when I was just getting into the T&N scene so I don’t have many memories of them but I do have a few.
yeah I remember them. I used to listen to their cassettes a lot while I was in college. I wish I still had a cassette player in my car
the closest that chart ever got was saying Klank sounded like Ministry, Rackets & Drapes sounded like Marilyn Manson, and maybe that Stavesacre’s Absolutes sounded like Tool.
Hah that chart was hilarious. I wrote a more accurate one and gave it to our distro rep for the company that published that(this is when I worked in a Christian bookstore). They weren’t too keen on publishing a list that had the following:
Artist: Sounds Most Like:
Tasty Snax shit
Supertones shit
Freeto Boat shit taking a shit
just kidding…I didn’t really write it that way. Now I wish I did though…
Andy:
LOL about Tasty Snax… I used to love those guys. They stayed at my house a couple times when they were on tour. It was so funny that Dave (snax bass player) went on to become Phenoix (bass player for Linkin Park)
Joe christmas is one of my favorite bands ever.
now go back and listen to driver eight!
Tasty Snax… ha
Freeto Boat… ha
I remember Joe Christmas, but I never liked them way back them. Oops!
Both albums were amazing. I tried to buy their 7″ to hang on my wall after digitizing, T&N told me they didn’t have it anymore so I crapped on a freeto boat and sent it up the river to Ebel.
freeto boat was terrible, but tasty snax were awesome! run joseph run!
i honestly have never heard a joe christmas song besides couple skate. its an alright song. i like the video.
hey guys, it’s not tasty snax…remember? it’s just SNAX. because that makes you want to take them more seriously.
I have a couple Joe Christmas tapes. North To The Future in particular is really good!
Actually I don’t think anyone in Joe Christmas were Christians. One of my fav bands though, Summer Hymns is great too.
“North to the Future” still play that cassette now and then.
“I still laugh when I think of the sign in Gift & Bible saying that The Supertones were the Christian equivalent of Rage Against the Machine”
Meh. Somebody should’ve been slapped. Seriously.
I miss Sick of Change and E-SO (BETTIE ROCKET) and Value Pac a little bit. Anguish Unsaid. Anyone remember Paramaecium when they were a little bit bigger?
How about Precious Death, whatever happened to those guys?
How can anyone miss Value Pac? Have you tried to listen to their records lately? Egads… Precious Death, on the other hand, remain killer. I don’t know any of those other bands, aside from the Supertones. Am I incorrect in guessing that those (i.e., Tasty Snax, Freeto Boat) were shitty ska-influenced bands?
As for the spiritual beliefs of Joe Christmas, I have no idea. If it was sold in Christian bookstores, at least the songwriter would have to claim to be a Christian. I remember the days when I wouldn’t buy anything not sold in the bookstores. Then I grew to the point of buying music only if it wasn’t in a bookstore. Hahaha.
I did then and always will love Joe Christmas. It was a sad day when my acient tape deck ate my tape. Even sadder when my cd’s got stolen and all I had left of them was ripped from me. I will never stop hearing them in my head though the stereo no longer plays them! If anyone has both albums and wants to part with them, I’ll give them a good home! My toddler will love them too, as he loves every band I put on!
amazing, i used to love this band!
Wow. I just got the album after 5 years of thinking of listening to it.
I need the physical copy.
i think that chart stopped after Frodus or something took umbrage. fav ska band: B.O.B.
I actually liked Freeto boat for real. I pulled it out a couple of months ago, and it was pretty awful…what was the other band one of those guys went into?
I’m pretty sure I bought the whole Bettie Rocket catalogue.
I miss Bettie Rocket.
*sigh*
Noggintoboggan - awful name, huge MxPx ripoff, but good dudes and good live.
oh bettie rocket. makes me think of simpler times.
i remember seeing noggin toboggan once. i was 15ish or so. they had that one song about alcohol that was lots of fun.
that song about alcohol is cleverly titled “alcohol”
wasn’t everyone on tooth and nail and bettie rocket an mxpx rip off for a few years? i mean except for when they were green day or blink 182 rip offs, of course.
There were a lot of pop punk bands. I wouldn’t call them mxpx ripoffs necessarily…just because when you have pop punk it’s pretty much going to sound the same except for a few.
no, i know that, I’m just saying that MxPx kind of paved the way in the Christian market for all the others in the pop punk area…too bad it has all but vanished from the scene.