THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Talk about Petra albums, songs, and concerts.
jmslick
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by jmslick » Thu Feb 11, 2016 11:55 pm

executioner wrote:Two of my favorite songs off of Not Of This World were penned by you; Were those the only 2 songs you wrote or were there more and they just didn't get used? I felt you had a lot of talent in writing those songs.
I only wrote those two songs. I probably could have developed more skill, had I stayed on, but it was not to be.
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by Dan » Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:35 am

Wow John... Just from reading that you have had an extremely colorful and busy time, there sure is nothing mundane about your time after Petra. There have been people from the band post from time to time here, but none have been so generous in sharing this much. This is a treat because I think most here would agree that we have always wondered these thing as Petheads. I was driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix tonight and listening to NOTW, that is one sweet record. I think your story shows how life has ups and downs but we get through. You know that old 80's computer stuff is extremely collectable now?
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by brent » Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:01 am

John Slick: Good stuff. Keep it coming. There are more than three people here. There are four on a good day. I thought you had a SynclavierII on the NOTW tour. If that is not what it was, what keyboard was it?

Dan. There are people still using Synclavier synths. There is a little sub culture of old techs keeping them going for sound design guys. But, In the modern studio world, you can buy almost the same thing for a lot less money, in a PCIe card, or a Mac emulation, minus some features. DEMAS is the new company, was started after NED closed shop.
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by executioner » Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:28 am

Great stuff John Slick; we all are true Petra fans and love hearing the history and behind the scenes of Petra and their members. If you have the time keep these coming, we are soaking these up.
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by pmal » Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:48 am

These are some great stories, and I'm sure the stories within the stories would be interesting as well. Thank you so much for your time!
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by Mountain Man » Fri Feb 12, 2016 8:54 am

Thanks for visiting our little corner of the web, John!

I'd love to hear more about your time with Petra. You guys probably had no idea that Petra would be remembered as the Christian rock band.

I think Petra was probably very instrumental in convincing a lot of parents that Christian rock music wasn't from the devil. I know that was the case in my house. My first ever rock concert was seeing Petra in 1985 on their Beat the System tour. Some friends and I convinced a couple of our youth pastors to take us to the show, and they were very reluctant because of their belief that rock music was inherently sinful. I think they only agreed so they could turn around at the end and say, "I told you so!" But it didn't turn out that way. When it came time for the encore, they were cheering louder than us! On the ride home, one of the youth pastors said, "I still don't like rock music, but Petra is alright."
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by Boray » Fri Feb 12, 2016 10:23 am

John Slick: Thanks for posting! I just want to say that the keyboard solo on Second Wind is my favorite keyboard solo ever. It's awesome.
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jmslick
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by jmslick » Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:02 am

brent wrote:There are people still using Synclavier synths. DEMAS is the new company, was started after NED closed shop.
More blabbering follows...

After NED folded up and I was unemployed, I went to L.A. on two different extended stays to do tech support for the then-named "LA Synclavier Users Group", which had been organized by Bruce Nazarian, aka, "The Gnome" because he was about the size of Danny Davito. Martin Royer, a former NED engineer worked with Bruce. Sean Callery, a former NED product specialist also had some involvement. I learned recently that Sean became a very successful film score composer, and did the music for TV series, "24".

Anyway, they hired me short-term just to hang out and do service as necessary. Rental car and hotel expenses were covered for me. It was great, because I lived in San Diego five of my teen years, so I could hop down there and stay at my sister's house on Point Loma.

I didn't have to do much real work during those two stays in LA (first one was four weeks, second one was six weeks).
The service calls I recall are:
- Barbara Streisand's studio to do something minor to her Synclavier; she was not around.
- Work on the Synclavier owned by a guy who had used it for a lot of sound effects on Star Trek.
- Work on the Synclavier owned by a really nice lady who had a real arrogant prick of a boyfriend. They guy sat there, impatiently drumming his fingers on the table, and with a condescending tone, asked:
"So... you know who I am?"
I slowly turned around with a screwdriver in hand, and with my most disinterested tone replied...
"Nope."
That was SO satisfying. Turned out the conceited prick owned a studio named Margarativille... and I don't remember his name.

While staying in LA, I did a lot of hotel room study of C++ programming, hoping that it would lead to a real job.
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jmslick
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by jmslick » Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:12 am

brent wrote:I thought you had a SynclavierII on the NOTW tour. If that is not what it was, what keyboard was it?
The Synclavier II didn't exist yet, and I'd never have been able to afford one. $$$$ :shock: $$$$

At first, I only owned a Fender Rhodes piano. My little Korg synthesizer was a gift from my dear friend, Bill Little. After I'd saved up enough money, I bought a Korg PolySix, which was pretty good for its day. I later sold it to a kid from Michigan, and bought a MemoryMoog.

The Moog was 8-voice polyphonic and programmable, so I set up all my necessary preset sounds. Moog has always been known for a very "fat" sound...
Visions (The Doxology):: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qkw9ginez4&t=1m06s
The entire recording was MemoryMoog, with lots of different tracks.

Chameleon to Angel of Light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWCOC71BdfY&t=2m0s
I'd forgotten all about that transition, but I really like the in-your-face pipe organ sound.
When I played the weird church organ stuff (mish-mash of Bach and Chopin) at the end of the Chameleon recording, JDBrown joked, "That's where the chameleon died." :lol:
Last edited by jmslick on Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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jmslick
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by jmslick » Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:40 am

I want to very much thank everyone here for putting up with my rambling posts.

I have not talked much with anyone about my Petra days, and relating little stories now seems to be therapeutic.
Leaving the band was extremely painful for me, I have always felt like a pariah, probably not realistic, but that's how I've felt.
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by pmal » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:48 pm

jmslick wrote:I want to very much thank everyone here for putting up with my rambling posts.

I have not talked much with anyone about my Petra days, and relating little stories now seems to be therapeutic.
Leaving the band was extremely painful for me, I have always felt like a pariah, probably not realistic, but that's how I've felt.
Thanks again for posting. I am very appreciative of the band and its members, both past and present, even if I do show favoritism towards certain members. I guess that is just in our natures and a product of when we came along in the Petra scene. However, I personally have come to believe that each "era" of Petra was used by God to reach a certain group of people. I know it may seem corny, but I know in my case that He used Petra, Mylon Lefevre, and others as a way to keep me away from a lot of the secular junk. I was under 10 years old when you were in your heyday with the band. I didn't really listen to the studio version of the songs of your era until I picked up the "War and Remembrance" box set that Star Song released on CD. I had heard good things about the band from a friend in school but hadn't really heard the music yet except for a couple of samples on the live tape. In fact, I bought a Pioneer CD deck (which I still have) for my dad's stereo just so I could listen/buy the CD version of that box set, and I was blown away by the diversity of the earlier works and finally knew why Petra had such a following. So, I hope you realize what an impact your work, even if you consider it tiny, has had on my life and how much it means to me, enough to still be posting on a message board about a band that officially retired in 2005!

--Phillip

PS. Did you ever move from C++ to C#? I'm a computer programmer as well and started with Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS in college (1998) and have eventually now migrated over to Visual C# at my job that builds/sells an accounting system.
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by brent » Fri Feb 12, 2016 1:41 pm

jmslick wrote:I have always felt like a pariah, probably not realistic, but that's how I've felt.


You felt like a fish? Oh wait. You didn't say piranha.
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jmslick
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by jmslick » Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:13 pm

pmal wrote:I am very appreciative of the band and its members, both past and present, even if I do show favoritism towards certain members.
Nothing wrong with having favorite this or that!
pmal wrote:Did you ever move from C++ to C#? I'm a computer programmer as well and started with Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS in college (1998) and have eventually now migrated over to Visual C# at my job that builds/sells an accounting system.
I started with C, then C++, then Java, then C#, then Java, also have done a fair amount with PERL, Javascript, jQuery, etc.
When I went to work at the engineering firm in Boston, it was enlightening to hear a guy say some like "...it's just another language, so what?" Point was: you can always adapt.

I always liked the MS IDE's because they're very well designed, and had thorough features and support via MSDN. I like C# too, and used to study it a lot, but have been all Java for the last 8 years.
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jmslick
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by jmslick » Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:15 pm

brent wrote:
jmslick wrote:I have always felt like a pariah, probably not realistic, but that's how I've felt.


You felt like a fish? Oh wait. You didn't say piranha.


Good pun. Reminds me of Bob Hartman, who always was very quick witted.
Once I mentioned that acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol.

Bob replied, "A set of mini-fins?" :lol:
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Re: THEY OWNED THE STAGE!!

Post by fcollazo » Fri Feb 12, 2016 4:46 pm

Hey John, just curious. Could you tell us how guys came up with the concept of the Petra sound and set up as we know it now. I am asking because Petra did not have a defined sound until you arrived. PeTra even sounded a little Disco just 2 years before Never Say Die in 1979. Do you know what I mean?
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