Killing My Old Man Question

[petranite]

OK in the More Power To Ya devotional Bob states on page 12 that Killing My Old Man was left off of Come & Join Us then says the song was "re-recorded" and put on Never SAy Die. My Question is has the original ever been released and if not where is it. I think that would be a really cool find. Anybody got info on this.

[Preacherman777]

I've often wondered the same thing.

[bakersfieldpethead]

I'm friends with a guy from Word Records on Facebook. I'll ask if He knows anything about this, or if he can find out. I know Bob would know, but Word would have some insight on if they might release it one day.

[p-freak]

The original version of Killing My Old Man has never been released. Hopefully it's still somewhere in the Myrrh / Word Records archives, but I'm not sure. They managed to lose the masters for the CITAS video, so I'm not sure if the masters for Come And Join Us survive.

[brent]

Word had nothing to do with Petra back then and none of the guys involved with Petra then are even at Word now. So, that dude likely will not know. Back in the day, the multitrack tapes would have stayed with the studio and/or the producer unless the label took them, which was not common. The labels only got the two track masters, not the multitracks. Those are likely long gone. Usually if an artist or the label decides something is not worth releasing, that means there was a good reason.

Some of us were chatting about songs I would consider completely remaking into a super heavy metal tune....this one was one that I have always thought would be a contender. Shakin' The House was the other. Both of those have the lyrical content that begs for a heavy, crunching arrangement.

[brent]

The original version of Killing My Old Man has never been released. Hopefully it's still somewhere in the Myrrh / Word Records archives, but I'm not sure. They managed to lose the masters for the CITAS video, so I'm not sure if the masters for Come And Join Us survive.

They didn't lose the masters. The video production studio lost the production masters. Two different things. The audio multitrack tapes exist. I know the man who knows where they are. The video footage does not. Louie has virgin copies of the footage and the production masters as well as copies of ALL video Petra videos ever shot. He said that the video crew rehearsed shots on a couple of other concerts and the show they shot previous to the two concerts used for CIT&S were better band-wise, but could not be used because of technical issues.

[CatNamedManny]

I remember being deeply disappointed when I heard "Shakin' the House," given the title. The elements are there - the line, "everything that can be shaken will be shakin' from within" could be sooo much heavier than it is. Anyway...

The only reason "Killing My Old Man" wasn't released is because of the controversial nature of its lyrics. Paul Baker, who has written some about the early history of Christian rock, wrote about Petra for CCM Mag and apparently worked with the band on CAJU, wrote this in the War and Remembrance commemorative booklet:

When Petra came in with this album, I had some skepticism about one song that was being recorded. Greg Volz was making his first appearance on this album. This album only had nine songs on it. At that time there was quite a bit of secular "death rock" coming out, such as "Don't fear the reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult. I was working the record and I didn't think that that Petra song "Killing my old man" was a good choice for the record. But I let them record it. When we got to the test pressing stage, I listened to it and decided that I would have them pull that song off - only because and unregenerate person could listen to it and not know what it was all about. Lyrics like "I'm gonna kill my old man / And nail him to the wood" were talking about giving up the old man and crucifying the flesh, but I didn't know how many people would get that. Then the band wanted to include a live version with an explanation of the song, but I felt that radio people would just edit off the talking at the beginning of the song. So I nixed the cut.

I don't know what the "test pressing stage" is or where it falls in the overall recording process or what effect, if any, that might have on the potential availability of the original recording. I wonder if the "live version" was more speculative, or if there was an actual recording the band had in mind. Would be really cool if that still existed, but I doubt it does.

[executioner]

I've heard the song live 3 or 4 times. They played it as late as of the On Fire! Tour, but as far as I know nothing beyond that. I do remember that you could tell Ronnie enjoyed playing that song and John nailed it.

[bakersfieldpethead]

Word had nothing to do with Petra back then and none of the guys involved with Petra then are even at Word now. So, that dude likely will not know. Back in the day, the multitrack tapes would have stayed with the studio and/or the producer unless the label took them, which was not common. The labels only got the two track masters, not the multitracks. Those are likely long gone. Usually if an artist or the label decides something is not worth releasing, that means there was a good reason.

Some of us were chatting about songs I would consider completely remaking into a super heavy metal tune....this one was one that I have always thought would be a contender. Shakin' The House was the other. Both of those have the lyrical content that begs for a heavy, crunching arrangement.

The Imperials for years listed an "un-released" album on their discography after "Just Because" and before "Sail On" it was the very first album with Russ Taff that they recorded for DaySpring/Word in 1976, it was produced by Gary Paxton. When they brought it to the label, the people high up said "This is not going to be the first album you release with us" so they set The Imperials up with Chris Christian to produce "Sail On". Finaly in 2006 Word found and released the masters as "The Lost Album" it had sit in the vault at Word for all those years. I would think that there is some hope that the masters to CAJU would be sitting there.

[executioner]

Word had nothing to do with Petra back then and none of the guys involved with Petra then are even at Word now. So, that dude likely will not know. Back in the day, the multitrack tapes would have stayed with the studio and/or the producer unless the label took them, which was not common. The labels only got the two track masters, not the multitracks. Those are likely long gone. Usually if an artist or the label decides something is not worth releasing, that means there was a good reason.

Some of us were chatting about songs I would consider completely remaking into a super heavy metal tune....this one was one that I have always thought would be a contender. Shakin' The House was the other. Both of those have the lyrical content that begs for a heavy, crunching arrangement.

The Imperials for years listed an "un-released" album on their discography after "Just Because" and before "Sail On" it was the very first album with Russ Taff that they recorded for DaySpring/Word in 1976, it was produced by Gary Paxton. When they brought it to the label, the people high up said "This is not going to be the first album you release with us" so they set The Imperials up with Chris Christian to produce "Sail On". Finaly in 2006 Word found and released the masters as "The Lost Album" it had sit in the vault at Word for all those years. I would think that there is some hope that the masters to CAJU would be sitting there.

CAJU was on Myrrh Records, Word didn't come into the picture until years later. At the time CAJU was produced Word did not own Myrrh, so no telling where all the copies are.

[brent]

Word had nothing to do with Petra back then and none of the guys involved with Petra then are even at Word now. So, that dude likely will not know. Back in the day, the multitrack tapes would have stayed with the studio and/or the producer unless the label took them, which was not common. The labels only got the two track masters, not the multitracks. Those are likely long gone. Usually if an artist or the label decides something is not worth releasing, that means there was a good reason.

Some of us were chatting about songs I would consider completely remaking into a super heavy metal tune....this one was one that I have always thought would be a contender. Shakin' The House was the other. Both of those have the lyrical content that begs for a heavy, crunching arrangement.

The Imperials for years listed an "un-released" album on their discography after "Just Because" and before "Sail On" it was the very first album with Russ Taff that they recorded for DaySpring/Word in 1976, it was produced by Gary Paxton. When they brought it to the label, the people high up said "This is not going to be the first album you release with us" so they set The Imperials up with Chris Christian to produce "Sail On". Finaly in 2006 Word found and released the masters as "The Lost Album" it had sit in the vault at Word for all those years. I would think that there is some hope that the masters to CAJU would be sitting there.

The Imperials situation is different. Armond held on the masters of his stuff. He has had all of the masters in his possession, except for that one. Armond has maintained control of his music. Only the the Imperials 2-track master was found, not the multi-tracks. The Petra tune was not part of the 2-track master, so it is likely gone. Word was the distributor for Myrrh. Word did not own the music. They sold the music. From what I have heard, many of the early Myrrh titles were damaged in storage. Evidently none of the 2-track masters were damaged because every album has been released. JDB might know if the dang song in question even exists.

[bakersfieldpethead]

The Imperials situation is different. Armond held on the masters of his stuff. He has had all of the masters in his possession, except for that one. Armond has maintained control of his music. Only the the Imperials 2-track master was found, not the multi-tracks.

Armond has never had full control of The Imperials music. Armond has always stated this to me, when we've talked. They always felt like they kept getting raw deals with the labels. The Imperials would make so much money for the labels, but they never saw any money and had no ownserhip of the masters. This happened with Benson, Word and Star Song. Armond's reason for getting away with re-issuing all The Imperials albums are "Record Companies don't mind, as long as they are not mass produced for retail" Which every CD is issued in a slim case with just the front cover and titles of the songs on the inside. Everything has been restored from the LPs.

[brent]

I did not say that he owned his music per se. Obviously, if you sign with a label, you won't. He DID keep his masters. I have talked to Rick Evans about this. Armond has everything. When you order a copy of an album, you are getting a copy of the master, albeit a master originally mastered for LP vinyl. I don't know that Rick would tell me something that was not true.

If they are reselling copies of albums, it brings up a serious moral issue.

[bakersfieldpethead]

I've known Rick since I was about 4 1/2 years old, back when he was with The Crownsmen which was owned by his first father in-law. I haven't known Rick to totally lie about something.

However I know what Armond and some of the family told me. I was told that everything was restored from LPs except those that were already on CD. I have a few of the re-issues and a couple of them are pretty bad audio so who ever did the restore either didn't have a good LP to work with or just didn't pay attention to detail.

Armond said "Word and Providence do not sale the masters, we would have to lease them and that runs into a lot of money" that was also backed up by Word Records themselves. Tim Archer is having the same problem with some of The Archers stuff mainly with Providence which owns Benson and Reunion.

[brent]

I used to have ALL of the Imps stuff. I lost much of it in a flood. I too bought the reissue stuff and was a bit bummed by the quality. But it is what it is and I am still moved to tears when I hear them. I was bummed to see they were cheaply packaged CD-Rs too. Oh well. Hopefully Armond makes a little cash.