Ramones

The Ramones were, like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, a rock music band of enormous musical influence but extremely limited commercial success. (At the Ramones first major concert, ten people showed up.) To be clear, there is nothing Christian about either band but they are reflections of the worldview of many millions of people. 

The music of the Ramones is minimalist to almost absurd levels. Their songs often use only a few chords, a hard driving beat, and almost all the songs check in at under three minutes in length. The songs are very fast and very short. Many of their concerts lasted only seventeen minutes. Who were these guys?

The band was begun in 1974 by four totally unrelated men who all took the surname Ramone, wore long black straight hair with long bangs, black leather jackets, and usually wore sunglasses regardless of the weather or time of day. They basically acted as if they were nihilistic and were bored out of their minds.  As band members cane and went, they too, all became Ramones. Even women who married the band members became Ramones. Rolling Stone Magazine lists the Ramones as number 26 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time." The VH1 music television network names the Ramones as number 17 in their list  of the "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock." The original four members (Johnny Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, and Tommy Ramone) and later drummer, Marky Ramone, have all been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Much of this was a stage persona. Some of the band members were progressive in their views while others were much more conservative. The band was in constant inner turmoil with arguments, jealousies, resignations, firings, and hostilities which occasionally erupted into violence. Some of the disputes resulted in legal actions.

All of the original four founding members of the Ramones are now dead so we may never know for certain whether or not they were consciously satirizing the modern relativist culture or were merely reflecting that they were part of it.  Or both.

Their music perfectly reflects the vapid meaninglessness of modern relativistic society. The songs take vicious jabs at the facades and hypocrisy of many elements of modern western culture, exhibiting a total lack of respect for any forms of authority or societal norms, including the family. An example is the song, We're A Happy Family.

"We're a happy family

We're a happy family

We're a happy family

Me mom and daddy

Siting here in Queens

Eating refried beans

We're in all the magazines

Gulping down thorazines

We ain't got no friends

Our troubles never end

No Christmas cards to send

Daddy likes men

Daddy's telling lies

Baby's eating flies

Mommy's on pills

Baby's got the chills

I'm friends with the President

I'm friends with the Pope

We're all making a fortune

Selling Daddy's dope"

Other songs reflect the cultural acceptance of violence which can result from the dehumanizing effects of relativism. To me, Beat on the Brat With a Baseball Bat brings to mind the horrors of child abuse and the casual murders committed by the for profit abortion industry.

"Beat on the brat 
Beat on the brat 
Beat on the brat with a baseball bat
Oh yeah, oh yeah, uh-oh

Beat on the brat 
Beat on the brat 
Beat on the brat with a baseball bat
Oh yeah, oh yeah, uh-oh 
Oh yeah, oh yeah, uh-oh

What can you do? 
What can you do?
With a brat like that always on your back 
What can you (lose?)

What can you do? 
What can you do?
With a brat like that always on your back 
What can you (lose?) lose?"

One response to the utter anti-intellectual emptiness produced by the relativist philosophy is to become totally passive and uninvolved, as in I Want To Be Sedated.

"Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated

Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated

Just get me to the airport put me on a plane

Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane

I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain

Oh no no no no no

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go....

Just put me in a wheelchair, get me on a plane

Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane

I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain

Oh no no no no no

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated

Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-o I wanna be sedated

Just put me in a wheelchair get me to the show

Hurry hurry hurry before I go loco

I can't control my fingers I can't control my toes

Oh no no no no no

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go...

Just put me in a wheelchair...

Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated

Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated

Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated

Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated"

Another response seen in modern culture is boredom and the inability to form meaningful relationships. People drift from situation to situation, from person to person, and from one drug of abuse to another. Other people are seen as useful to relieve the pain. The anomy and emptiness can often devolve into lawlessness and violence.  I Just Want To Have Something To Do!

"Hanging out of Second Avenue

Eating chicken vindaloo

I just want to be with you

I just want to have something to do

Tonight, tonight, tonight,tonight,tonight,tonight

Well allright.

Tonight, tonight, tonight,tonight,tonight,tonight

Wait-Now

Wait-Now

Hanging out all by myself

Cause I don't want to be with anybody else

I just want to be with you 

I just want to have something to do

Tonight"


The answer is the total rejection of the relativist ideology. There are NOT many different relative truths. Truth is NOT determined by societal consensus. There is such a thing as absolute truth and it is, to an extent, knowable and intelligible to the human intellect. We could not have found this absolute truth on our own but we were created in such a way that we are completely capable of perceiving it. the unknowable has been made knowable.

The unknowable God has made Himself knowable to us by first preparing us through His progressive revelation of His nature to the Jewish people. He is one. He is our creator. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. He knows each of us as individuals. He is holy and expects us to be holy. He is not impressed by our political power, our wealth, or our knowledge.  He expects us to understand that we belong only to Him. He intends to bless the entire world.

After this preparation through the Jewish people, God's final perfect revelation of Himself came through the Messiah, Jesus of nazareth, who was, is, and always will be fully human and fully divine. We are to become conformed to Him.

Music Comment: Freebird

Freebird by the rock music band Lynyrd Skynyrd is one of the great classic songs in rock music history.  The extended dual guitar instrumental which ends the song is listed as number three on Guitar World’s list of the Greatest Guitar Solos in history.

Readers of this blog know that I comment on songs, books, and movies from a Christian perspective. Christian understandings can be seen in works of art, often with messages not clearly intended by the original artists.  This is sort of like using the work of art as a parable pr allegory to illustrate a deeper meaning.

Freebird is a hauntingly beautiful but ultimately very sad song.  It can be seen as a statement of self absorption.  The singer tells a woman who loves him that he has to move on because “there’s so many places I have to see.”  He tells her not to react “so badly” and that he just has to be free.  He admits that he has no intention to change.  (“Lord knows I can’t change.”) He never asks her if she would like to go with him.

Many people are frightened of, and even unable to make a commitment to another person.  They are emotionally shallow and ultimately concerned only with themselves.  A Christian understanding is that this is the very definition of the Human Problem: the elevation of Self above all else.

The extended guitar riff which ends Freebird can be seen from a Christian perspective as illustrating the world’s wildly distracting influences coming at the individual from all directions.  The distractions can seduce a person and pull them away into unknown territories.

The lyrics of Freebird are here.

 

Film Comment: The Phantom of the Paradise

At the grocery store I recently heard a little ten year old girl tell a woman, “When I’m twenty, I’m going to be rich.  I’m going to be an actress and a model.”  The child was quite serious, not realizing the near impossibility of her goal.  She certainly was unaware of the many compromises that people are willing to make to reach such a goal.

The Phantom of the Paradise (1974) is a highly exaggerated and stylized expression of the quest for success at any price.  The film incorporates influences, to name a few, from Faust, The Phantom of the Opera, The Cabinet of Dr, Caligari, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Psycho.

The film concerns a music producer who has sold his soul to the devil, a drug-addled mindless rock star who is complicit in the evil contract, and a mutilated and vengeful music composer.  The film is violent and bloody and all about success at any price. “He sold his soul for rock n’ roll.”

How much are you willing to sacrifice for your goals?  Are your goals worthy goals?

Amazing Grace by Rock Guitarists Jeff beck and Steve Vai

(Some videos will not play properly when you click on the triangle.  Instead,  click on the title line in the picture and the video will begin .  When the video is completed, close the You Tube pop-up window to return to this blog.)

Amazing Grace by Jeff Beck

amazing grace by Steve Vai

Film Comment: Rick Wakeman: Amazing Grace

Rick Wakeman: Amazing Grace (2007) is a concert film featuring Rick Wakeman (b. 1949, England), the virtuoso keyboardist best known for his work in the progressive rock music group Yes.  Wakeman began his career as a studio musician to artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, T. Rex, Elton John, and Cat Stevens.  He has produced music for over forty years (over 100 solo albums in addition to his work with Yes) in the genres of rock, progressive rock, pop, electronica, jazz fusion, classical, and Christian music, and has won numerous awards.  The instruments he uses include the grand piano, electric piano, organ, Moog synthesizer, Mellotron, and the Birotron.

The Amazing Grace concert was recorded live using a grand piano, an orchestra, and a choir.  The music was arranged and orchestrated by Wakeman.  Wakeman, in a flat deadpan voice (he is, after all, a keyboardist, not an announcer) introduces each song with a short bit of its history.  Then he does what he really wants to do, play the piano.

Wakeman's musical style is heavily ornamental and complex.  He makes it look simple and easy, but his skill is the result of a lifetime of study and practice.  Oftentimes, the camera fixates on his fluidly moving fingers, which never miss a key, never slip no matter how quickly they move, displaying technical and artistic virtuosity.

I criticized the music and images on another Amazing Grace film for being overly sentimental and syrupy.  There is none of that here.  The video here does contain some beautiful imagery; it also contains scenes of war and natural disasters.  Rick Wakeman has lost none of his edge.  He realizes that Christians do not have to retreat into "pretty." Christians can stare evil in its face. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." James 4:7

Wakeman seems to be in the place he wants to be while playing his grand piano.  His face never changes as he plays, he is thinking of only one thing.  The one time he smiles is at the end of Amazing Grace, the last song in the concert, sung by his daughter, Jemma.  It is the smile of a proud father.



The songs in the concert film are:
Ode to Joy
All Things Bright and beautiful
O Come, O Come, Emanuel
Nearer My God to Thee
Morning Has Broken
Abide With Me
Amazing Grace
There is a Green Hill Far Away
Glad That I Live Am I
Jerusalem 
When We Walk With the Lord
All People That on Earth Do Dwell
I Vow to Thee My Country
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
The Day Thou Gavest
Amazing Grace

24 Hour Christian Internet Radio

www.Christianrock.net is a listener supported 24 hour internet radio station.  It features Christian music in four formats: Rock, Hard Rock (they really mean it), Hip Hop, and Praise Music.  The station is registered as a Christian non-profit ministry and donations are tax-deductible in the United States.

The station supports Windows, Mac, iPhone, Droid, and Blackberry devices.  There are numerous listening formats: high speed internet, low speed internet, iTunes, VLC players, WINAmp, Windows Media Player, xiialive, flycast, and four iPhone applications.

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, of their orthodoxy or lack of it, or of their actions.  Readers are encouraged to suggest persons who should be included on this list.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Leopold Sedar Senghor: (b. 1906, Senegal – d. 2001, France) Poet, politician, cultural theorist. First president of Senegal (1960-1980). First African elected to the Academie francaise. Roman Catholic.

Robin Rene Roberts: (b. 1960, Mississippi, USA) Television broadcaster and co-anchor.  Women’s basketball Hall of Fame (2012).  She says her parents taught her the three D’s, “Discipline, Determination, and “De Lord.””

Lecil Travis Martin: (b. 1931, Texas – d. 1999; aka: Boxcar Willie) Country Music Singer, songwriter, vocalist.  US Air Force pilot.  He performed, in character, as Boxcar Willie, a hobo.  He owned two hotels and a performance theater in Branson, Missouri.

Linda Susan Boreman: (b. 1949, New York, USA – d. 2002; aka: Linda Lovelace)  Raised in a strict Roman Catholic family, Linda Boreman (derided in high school as “Miss Holy Holy”)became the most well known pornographic film actress in history for her role in the 1972 film, Deep Throat.  After her retirement from the pornography industry, she became an outspoken anti=pornography crusader, saying that her involvement in the industry had been forced by her then husband, Chuck Traynor.  She later remarried, had two children, and said that “God had changed her life.”  What she meant by that was never explained.  She died from injuries she received in an automobile accident.

Richard Zehringer: (b. 1947, Ohio, USA; aka: Rick Derringer)  Musician, songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, record producer.  When he was seventeen years old, Zehringer wrote “Hang on Sloopy” for his rock band, The McCoys.  The song rapidly went to number one on the ratings charts.  Over the years he recorded with Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, Weird Al Yankovic, and Ringo Starr.  Derringer took his stage name from the first record label for which he recorded, Band Records.  Their logo was a derringer pistol.  Derringer performs in the musical genres of hard rock, blues-rock, pop music, Christian rock.

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, of their orthodoxy or lack of it, or of their actions.  Readers are encouraged to suggest persons who should be included on this list.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Clemente Vismana: (b. 1897, Italy – d. 1988, Myanmar)  WWI soldier, Roman Catholic priest, missionary to Burma.  He founded churches, orphanages, schools, and taught carpentry and mechanics.  He is creited with converting over 100 villages to Christianity and was the founder of the Christian towns of Monglin and Mongping.

Eugene Chizik: (b. 1961, Florida, USA) College football coach.  National championship in 2010 at Auburn University.  Raised as a Roman Catholic, now is a non-denominational Evangelical.

Theodore Anthony Nugent: (b. 1948, Michigan, USA, aka: Uncle Ted, the Nuge, the Motor City Madman) Rock music guitarist, vocalist, hunter, conservationist, political activist.  He has sold over 30,000,000 records. Roman Catholic.

Bernard Kincaid: (b. 1945, USA) Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama 1999-2007. Methodist.

Albert Burton Boutwell: (b. 1904, Alabama, USA) Attorney, politician.  Alabama State Senator 1946-1959, Lt. Governor of Alabama 1959-1963, Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama 1963-1967.  Methodist.

Barlow Girl

I have to admit that I don't follow contemporary Christian music.  My tastes in music run to guitar-heavy instrumentals (Joe Satriani ), classical music (Wolfgang Mozart , Erik Satie ), and electronic music (Isao Tomita , Kraftwerk ).

I learned of the beautiful music of the three member group known as BarlowGirl  from "The Walk," the blog of Glen Cantrell , a bivocational Southern Baptist preacher in Sikeston, Missouri (USA).  Bivocational pastors work for small churches which choose not to, or are financially unable to, support a full-time pastor.  Though they work full time away from the church to support themselves, most end up working full time at the church also.  They are a special dedicated breed.

BarlowGirl  consists of three sisters (Alyssa, Rebecca, and Lauren Barlow) who produce beautiful three-part harmonies in what is defined as Christian Rock Music.  They have been nominated for ten Dove Awards.

What They Think Of Us: John Lennon

"Christianity will go.  It will vanish and shrink."
John Lennon

Queen in Ukraine

Recently (10-10-10), on the 101 Network on DirecTV, I watched a replay of a concert given by the rock group, Queen, in Kharkov, Ukraine which took place on 13 September 2008.  It was an outside concert and that was a good thing because 300,000 people showed up.  300,000!  That's 21% of the city's population of 1,461,300.

When I told a Chinese woman about the Gospel, she almost immediately lit up and said, "We did not have this in China."  She had found a treasure.  Now, she and her daughter regularly attend church and she smiles all the time.   And her parents, new converts because of her, took the faith back to China with them.

When I thought of her and the people in Ukraine, I thought of the hundreds of thousands, including many Christians, who were persecuted and killed in their countries' pasts in an attempt to create socialist atheist worker's paradises.  The Christian faith survived in Ukraine (where regular church attendance stands at 10%) and in China (regular church attendance at 9%).

At 10%, of the 300,000 at the concert in Kharkov, those who attend church would number 30,000.  Of the 1,461,300 people in Kharkov, 10% means that only 146,130 go to church with regularity.

Before we in America pat ourselves on the back, our percentage of regular church attendance is only 44%.  That means that 56 Americans out of every 100 do not attach any importance to church attendance.  Compare that with Nigeria at 89%.

Go to the link below to see a listing of the rates for 53 countries.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_chu_att-religion-church-attendance

What They Think of Us: Ronnie James Dio

"Early on, in my life, I decided that religion was stupid.  I didn't believe the things they told me about some guy that was crucified.  What we have are two things: good and evil.  There aren't many people in between and they are such broad subjects to write about.  I hope I'm not one of those people on their deathbed who goes, "God forgive me!"  Ronnie James Dio (Ronald James Padavona, b. 1942, New Hampshire, USA - d. 2010) American heavy metal vocalist, songwriter, producer, and instrumentalist.

What They Think of Us: Alice Cooper

In the December 2009 issue of the Canadian horror film magazine, Rue Morgue (yes, I read several movie magazines), Robert Amacker of Poplarville, Mississippi decries the fact that the magazine has covered the work of the shock rock musician, Alice Cooper, but not of King Diamond, a horror themed rock musician.

"...while I respect all of the contributions Cooper has made to the worlds of music and horror, at least Diamond hasn't tarnished his legacy by taking up golf and Christianity."