The Petra Zone

fiendik wrote:I know that a while back I said that Lawry's music was better, but in review I find this is not true;

No need to retract that initial opinion. I'm sure that Mister Lawry was far superior in many ways. I'm just glad that it was him, and not some hack who could not have kept up. When I took my leave of absence, which became permanent, I wrote out all the parts for JL's use. I have been gratified to see that he retained most of those parts even up to Classic Petra years.

jmslick wrote:Would anyone be interested in reading a few details about various musical elements- not just keyboards- used in various songs? For example, who ever knew that there's a pipe organ playing the complete Doxology over the bridge of More Power To Ya?

John, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that you could ramble on for pages and pages if you wanted, and we'd eat up every word. We're all crazy for Petra here, and it's great to have one of our "heroes" to interact with.

I think Bob Hartman might have posted here a few times in the past, but the guy rarely writes more than 5 words in a row, so your lengthy contributions are a real treat.

dihigo wrote:So today I was listening to Not of This World, and I wanted to ask you about the interesting bass solo/instrumental break on "Blinded Eyes." That's something very unique and not heard on any other Petra album before or after. In fact, on Captured in Time & Space in 1986, everyone is given a solo except for Mark. I guess I'm asking if there's a story there.

Also, I always loved that song's use of a talk box. (Bob used one again 10 years later on "Underneath the Blood.") But again, that's very unique, and I'm wondering if you can shed some light on this song and unpack any stories for us. Thanks!

I don't know who suggested the bass solo, but I like it. I put in a few Hammond accents, but tried to stay out of the way. Mark was never one to overplay, but he had some very tasteful accents on a lot of songs.

I forgot all about the "talk box" on Blinded Eyes, which probably was a vocoder, patched in by JDB during post production.

He also took a sonic liberty with the piano on More Power To Ya, by running it through a watery-sounding phaser or something. No harm done, I guess, but that track has an annoying mid-range prominence. Maybe he purposely mixed it that way for Christian radio.

Christian radio has a habit of being annoying to me, so it worked.

John, I saw you wrote this on another thread...

jmslick wrote:Whadayamean, top 5, bottom 5 Petra albums?

I never heard of any other Petra albums but these three...
1 MPTY
2 NOTW
3 NSD

You mean to tell us that during your time in the band, especially when you guys were opening for Servant in 1982, you guys weren't playing anything off the first three Petra records?

dihigo wrote:John, I saw you wrote this on another thread...

jmslick wrote:Whadayamean, top 5, bottom 5 Petra albums?

I never heard of any other Petra albums but these three...
1 MPTY
2 NOTW
3 NSD

You mean to tell us that during your time in the band, especially when you guys were opening for Servant in 1982, you guys weren't playing anything off the first three Petra records?

No, I mean to tell you that there are only 3 Petra records, that I know of.
All others, purported to be Petra, were probably made by some guy with a four-track cassette machine doing lots of overdubs.

Sounds like you've been hanging around Brent too long!

Since this is a public forum and all - I'm thinking the Petra FB fans would LOVE to read these threads...

I DO have to ask - what IS that avatar? Maybe I'm behind the times but I can't quite figure out what that is....

sue d. wrote:Since this is a public forum and all - I'm thinking the Petra FB fans would LOVE to read these threads...

I DO have to ask - what IS that avatar? Maybe I'm behind the times but I can't quite figure out what that is....

LOL, the avatar, "Meatwad". It was the only suitable image I could find to suit the size requirements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_a_k9- ... I&index=19

Oh. That's meat? I thought it was a hairball.

I'll simply say that it doesn't look like meat.

Mountain Man wrote:I'll simply say that it doesn't look like meat.

Yeah, I guess you're right. Time for a new avatar.

I thought it was a turd! lolol

sue d. wrote:I thought it was a turd! lolol

Me too.

Turd Bob Poopy Pants

I thought it was a cookie.