That Rawks!

Fifteen years ago, I was delivering pizzas for a living - and living in a tent on the beach. The job and the tent were by choice. I had no bills, I had no worries. I'd get my tip money and go home with leftover pizza, a full tank of gas a case of beer and some ice for the cooler. Breakfast usually started after 10 am and consisted of cold pizza and maybe a beer or Gatorade. I'd lift the hatchback on my '84 Dodge Colt and crank up some Metallica or Soundgarden or Rush.

While delivering pizza, I was one of those cars you hate to be next to. My car thumped. I couldn't afford a decent car stereo, so I had a boom box plugged into the cigarette lighter with two Bose 101s in the back. My whole car was jury-rigged like that.

I've always enjoyed loud, hard music. I remember in 1986 when Metallica hit the radio with Master of Puppets I said, "There's no way rock can get harder than that." I was wrong. Keyboards don't do much for me. Guitar, bass and drums. That's where it's at. Maybe a flute like Jethro Tull, but that was about it. There was nothing more soothing than watching the sun rise on Padre Island with Nothing Else Matters blaring through my car speakers.

But then I settled down and got civilized. I got married, and that meant I had to become a respectable citizen, right? So, I stopped driving around with the stereo blaring - at least when other people were in the car. 'Specially that lovely lady that became my wife. I still enjoyed listening to the "alternative" station here in Yewsten.

But on January 30, 2002 (I was going to post a blog on that day, but there was a major spew in my life that I'll cover later), I became a Christian. Wow. Five years! My body's 41 years old, but my soul's five. Cool, huh? Anyway, I became a Christian. I was ready to change my life, and God began to do exactly that. First, He removed my desire for the music I enjoyed. Not the guitars, but the lyrics devoted to secular humanism, sex, drugs and death. It just didn't do anything for me anymore. Actually, it was worse than that - I really couldn't listen to it anymore. For nearly 20 years, Rush was my favorite band. But now I found their lyrics offensive.

So, I began to listen to the Christian radio station here in town. They played some decent music, but they had a huge audience to whom they had to appeal, so they didn't play any of the raw, cutting edge rock and roll I'd come to love. I mean, there is a fairly small crowd in the secular world that listens to that sort of music (A long-time Yewsten rock & roll icon, KLOL, was recently turned into a Tejano station because the market segment for KLOL was so small). In the Christian world, the segment is even smaller - preventing a radio station from carrying it 24x7.

Well, time went on and I began to crave the driving guitar again. I tried flipping back to my stations, but with the kids in the car - let's just say there was too much going on that I didn't want my kids to hear. So I kept listening to music that was rapidly (for me) approaching quaalude quality.

Then I went to the local library and checked out a Christian Xtreme CD. There were bands I knew and bands I'd never heard of. Demon Hunter. Relient K. Toby Mac. Pillar. Something that surprised me, there are more women in Christian music that know how to really rock than in secular music. Rebecca St. James. Superchic[k]. Barlow Girl. I found my guitar. I found my drums. I found my gutteral singing. I was happy again.

Last week, I got a Skillet CD. They're one of my favorite bands. The term is, I guess (and don't forget - I'm 41. Even thought I like the music, I'm not up with the terminology!) they rawk.

So, thanks for the rawk, folks. Thanks for "rocking my face off" (as Mac Powell from Third Day would say). But mostly, thank you for rawking for God.

Adios,
Clay

(äd-s) [Spanish adiós, probably translated from French à dieu. (I commend you) to God  : a, to (from Latin ad. See ad-) + Dieu, God (from Latin deus. See dyeu- in Indo-European Roots).]