The Petra Zone

Any Steve Taylor fans around here?

http://kickstarter.com/projects/2128223 ... bum-really

His Kickstarter campaign has already reached the funding goal (and less than 4 days in!) - I was fortunate enough to get in early so at least I feel like I helped.

"The Perfect Foil" (his bandmates) include Jimmy Abegg, John Mark Painter and "another longtime collaborator" (just read the description - you'll figure out who this fella is in no time, mate).

Yeah, he played Creation this year with those guys and they were great. Peter looked and souded great. Interesting to see the former lead for one of the headline acts playing drums for the first artist to take the stage at this years festival.

Back in the day I liked some of his material, but always thought in some ways it was all just a joke. For some reason I am very "serious minded" with my music, so when an artist like this comes along that I really can't take serious it seems to lose me pretty quickly.

I find that there's a serious point to his music, but you have to get the comedy, sarcasm, wordplay, and such in his lyrics. I think his work with Guardian was great. Where would Newsboys be without his help? We wouldn't have "Shine" and all the other material that eventually led to the epic hit "Breakfast". How many bands can boast of having fans carry a life size Captain Crunch box through the crowd on a chariot?
Steve also brought the brief jaw dropping experience that was Burlap to Cashmere.
"Jesus is For Losers" was a good song also.
Whether you like his work or not, I think we can agree that it is great to see the old timers finding a way to make a comeback.

Could not agree with you more, gman. Outside of the goofiness, there was some gold in the serious stuff that he wrote. I find myself greatly challenged by stuff like I Just Wanna Know, Harder to Believe than Not To, Svengali, To Forgive, and it goes on.

Ditto the stuff he did with Guardian.

Sometimes subtext is fun to dig into, and Steve Taylor was one of the first that scratched that itch for me.

Meltdown, We Don't Need No Colour Code, I Want To Be a Clone...What's not to love? He made some good statements about some of the nonsense people can come up with. I saw him in concert several times in the 80s/early 90s and he was great. Nice guy too.

Jonathan wrote:Could not agree with you more, gman. Outside of the goofiness, there was some gold in the serious stuff that he wrote. I find myself greatly challenged by stuff like I Just Wanna Know, Harder to Believe than Not To, Svengali, To Forgive, and it goes on.

Ditto the stuff he did with Guardian.

Sometimes subtext is fun to dig into, and Steve Taylor was one of the first that scratched that itch for me.

Here here.

I agree, Steve Taylor can seem at first glance to be non-serious and plain silly, but I've found his lyrics to always have a meaningful and sometimes cutting edge to them. I'm glad to see him heading back into the studio.

(PS: Did anybody see the video on the Kickstarter page? Hilarious!)

I do understand what everyone is saying, but I still feel he at times comes across as being non serious and him trying to be funny yet serious at the same time really doesn't resonate with my personal music/lyrical preference. I know its his personality and all, but it at times just rubs me the wrong way. He is a type of artist that truly is not for everyone, and he hasn't sold out to do what is in or popular so I give him kudos for that.

gman wrote:I find that there's a serious point to his music, but you have to get the comedy, sarcasm, wordplay, and such in his lyrics. I think his work with Guardian was great. Where would Newsboys be without his help? We wouldn't have "Shine" and all the other material that eventually led to the epic hit "Breakfast". How many bands can boast of having fans carry a life size Captain Crunch box through the crowd on a chariot?
Steve also brought the brief jaw dropping experience that was Burlap to Cashmere.
"Jesus is For Losers" was a good song also.
Whether you like his work or not, I think we can agree that it is great to see the old timers finding a way to make a comeback.

Newsboys lyrics were good and sometimes even great to a point, but I always felt like their music was bland and ordinary.

executioner wrote:Newsboys lyrics were good and sometimes even great to a point, but I always felt like their music was bland and ordinary.

Jonathan wrote:

executioner wrote:Newsboys lyrics were good and sometimes even great to a point, but I always felt like their music was bland and ordinary.

These cartoons Jonathan finds are great.