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Posted by peawinkel on 06-08-2008 at20:31:

 

Will the DFBB re-issue be available @ C'Stone?

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Posted by audiori on 06-08-2008 at23:47:

 

quote:

Originally posted by peawinkel Will the DFBB re-issue be available @ C'Stone?

I believe we're going to miss the Cstone deadline. Everyone had hoped that it would be done in time, but.. thats the way it goes sometimes.

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at05:49:

  Ich bin ein fan DA

DA, med sin frontfigur Terry Taylor, har utgitt mange underlige ting, og er stadig i stand til å overraske med uventa idear. Dei står for ein relativt eksperimentell form for rock (som det dessverre fins altfor lite av i den kristne musikkbransjen), og likar du denne stilen, vil ganske sikkert Darn floor - Big bite falle i smak. Albumet er eit temmelig heilstøpt og enhetlig produkt, både musikalsk og tekstmessig.

For den som kan litt historie, kan det virke som om Terry Taylor & Co. har platehyllene fulle av Zappa, Jim Morrison, 66-Beatles, Steppenwolf og 73/74-Lennon. Her er iallefall tydelige musikalske linjer tilbake i tida, kombinert med frisk nytenkning. Musikken er ofte påtrengande statisk, gjerne med ein panisk sirene-gitar ulande i bakgrunnen, men også stillferdig og var. Best er "Earth Household", og "The Shape of Air", der musikken og klangen maler ut luft og rom for auge og øre.

Og er du glad i Hawaii-gitar? Lytt til "Divine Instant"!

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Posted by wakachiwaka on 06-10-2008 at07:47:

  RE: Ich bin ein fan DA

quote:

Originally posted by Dr Rich DA, med sin frontfigur Terry Taylor, har utgitt mange underlige ting, og er stadig i stand til å overraske med uventa idear. Dei står for ein relativt eksperimentell form for rock (som det dessverre fins altfor lite av i den kristne musikkbransjen), og likar du denne stilen, vil ganske sikkert Darn floor - Big bite falle i smak. Albumet er eit temmelig heilstøpt og enhetlig produkt, både musikalsk og tekstmessig. For den som kan litt historie, kan det virke som om Terry Taylor & Co. har platehyllene fulle av Zappa, Jim Morrison, 66-Beatles, Steppenwolf og 73/74-Lennon. Her er iallefall tydelige musikalske linjer tilbake i tida, kombinert med frisk nytenkning. Musikken er ofte påtrengande statisk, gjerne med ein panisk sirene-gitar ulande i bakgrunnen, men også stillferdig og var. Best er "Earth Household", og "The Shape of Air", der musikken og klangen maler ut luft og rom for auge og øre. Og er du glad i Hawaii-gitar? Lytt til "Divine Instant"!

Dit dit doo.

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Posted by manskow on 06-10-2008 at13:16:

  RE: Ich bin ein fan DA

quote:

Originally posted by Dr Rich DA, med sin frontfigur Terry Taylor, har utgitt mange underlige ting, og er stadig i stand til å overraske med uventa idear. Dei står for ein relativt eksperimentell form for rock (som det dessverre fins altfor lite av i den kristne musikkbransjen), og likar du denne stilen, vil ganske sikkert Darn floor - Big bite falle i smak. Albumet er eit temmelig heilstøpt og enhetlig produkt, både musikalsk og tekstmessig. For den som kan litt historie, kan det virke som om Terry Taylor & Co. har platehyllene fulle av Zappa, Jim Morrison, 66-Beatles, Steppenwolf og 73/74-Lennon. Her er iallefall tydelige musikalske linjer tilbake i tida, kombinert med frisk nytenkning. Musikken er ofte påtrengande statisk, gjerne med ein panisk sirene-gitar ulande i bakgrunnen, men også stillferdig og var. Best er "Earth Household", og "The Shape of Air", der musikken og klangen maler ut luft og rom for auge og øre. Og er du glad i Hawaii-gitar? Lytt til "Divine Instant"!

Ha! Where did you find that one?? It is not German, as your title suggests, but rather Norwegian which is a language I have spoken since a couple of minutes after I was born (as I am a Norwegian). Here's a translation of sorts:
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DA, with frontman Terry Taylor, has released many a strange thing, and remain able to surprise us with unusual ideas. They represent an experimental form of rock'n'roll (something which, sadly, is a strange commodity within the christian music industry), and if you enjoy their style Darn Floor - Big Bite will be to your liking. The album is solid and unified, both musically and lyrically.

For those who know their history, it may appear as if Terry Taylor & Co have record shelves filled with Zappa, Jim Morrison, 66 Beatles, Steppenwolf and 73/74 Lennon. There are plenty of musical lines going back in time, combined with a healthy dose of innovation. The music is often obnociously static, with an unnerving siren-like guitar in the background, but also capable of being quiet and vulnerable. The best tracks are "Earth Household" and " The shape of air", where music and sound paint air and space for eyes and ears.

And; do you like Hawaii guitar? Listen to Divine Instant.
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Translator's note: I worked quickly and apologize for norwenglish sounding sentences. But you guys get the point I hope.

:-) Fred

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:06:

  Jeg er en fan DA

Norwegian? Whoops, sorry about that, looked German to me...

Thanks for the translation! Very cool.

I found it here.

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:07:

 

This is Daniel Amos' most creative album, spotlighting Terry Taylor's lyrical genius and the musical ingenuity of the entire group. This record has all the aspirations of Fearful Symmetry without the pretentiousness (spoken word interludes, etc.) that litter that release. Inventiveness is delivered with more class this time through. "Return of the Beat Menace" opens the disc with strange chords and catchy, rhythmic multi-layered guitars, and moves into a biting (almost threatening) rebuttal to the attacks of televangelists on popular music and culture. The title track correlates the sign-language speaking gorilla's description of an earthquake ("darn floor, big bite") with humanity's description of God ("you are twilight, dark and bright"), all to a tune that is both barbaric and tonally non-traditional. This theme of the undescribability of God permeates this disc, notably on "Half Light, Epoch, and Phase," "The Unattainable Earth," and "The Shape of Air." From beginning to end, this disc is a lyrical and musical masterpiece that improves as it ages.

Mark W.B. Allender ( AMG )
www.allmusic.com

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:08:

 

The masters of genre-jumping are at it again!
It would be very difficult for any band to follow up the four incredible DA albums in the Alarma Chronicles (Volume 1 - Alarma! Volume 2 - Doppelganger, Volume 3 - Vox Humana, Volume 4 - Fearful Symmetry, released in 1981, 1983, 1984, and 1986), but Darn Floor, Big Bite (1987) slightly edges out these gems as my own personal DA favorite.

As the album notes tell, "Darn Floor, Big Bite" is the description of an earthquake, given by Koko the famous gorilla that uses sign language and word symbols. I'm sure that this is a "concept album" but, as with many of DA's other projects, most of Terry Taylor's coded meanings go a few levels deeper than what I can interpret.

The album is kind of a mix of heavy guitars, punk / new wave, driving beat, and beautiful ethereal music (think somewhere along the lines of Enya's music) - it's amazing how DA combines these styles together and totally makes it all work! Stylistically, there is cohesion throughout the album, and Taylor uses a different vocal style ("new wave voice?") than on most of his other songs.

Favorites are "The Shape of Air" ("I can sit and stare 'til it's almost clear," a reference to God?), "Safety Net" ("You fall, you get, caught in the safety net." This one's not too hard to figure out, as it also starts with a reference to the "cradle of grace."), and Pictures of the Gone World.

I've often heard references to Terry Scott Taylor's "creative genius," and it is at full throttle on this album - I just wish he would explain more of the deeper meanings of his lyrics. Sad to say, but this album has been in and out of print, and is currently out.

You can find more information about Daniel Amos, their many offshoots (bands and solo), and their music at their great website (easily found with a search or a little imagination).

~Dwight Blubaugh

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:13:

  From our own Peter T Chattaway!

http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/koko-talking-gorilla-1978.html


My kids are six and a half months old now, and they are increasingly enjoying their ability to make sounds with their vocal cords. I am also told that now might be a good time to get them started on "baby sign language". So it seemed like as good a time as any to check out Barbet Schroeder's Koko: A Talking Gorilla (197 , a documentary recently released on DVD by Criterion.

The first time I ever heard of Koko was nearly two decades ago, when Daniel Amos, one of my favorite bands ever -- then going by the abbreviated moniker Da -- released Darn Floor Big Bite (1987), possibly their best album ever. The album's title was adapted from Koko's sign-language description of an earthquake, and the album as a whole is all about the nature of communication and the inability of language to fully grasp the things it describes.

As Da frontmman Terry Scott Taylor sings in 'Strange Animals', we "move around in a big make believe" because we rely on words to communicate -- but the things and people that we describe have realities of their own, the depths of which our words can never quite cover. A gorilla calls an earthquake a "darn floor big bite", and a human being calls God "a roaring lion and a consuming fire". Doesn't quite tell the whole story, does it? And yet these phrases do point in the right direction.

Taylor may have made at least one more reference to Koko in his music after that, in a track called 'CoCo the Talking Guitar' on the Swirling Eddies album Outdoor Elvis (1989) -- but the similarity in name may be unintentional. Still, given that the whole point of teaching Koko sign language was to prove that apes are people too, I find it interesting that the one time her name (or something like it) is mentioned in one of Taylor's recordings (and not just in the liner notes), it is attached to an object that has incredible communicative power -- but only when someone else plays it.

Schroeder's film, for the most part, follows Koko around as she interacts with other animals and the humans who work with them, especially a woman by the name of Penny Patterson. Koko's behaviour is quite remarkable, but there is some debate as to whether the gorilla should be considered a "person" like the rest of us. There is also some debate as to whether the gorilla has been unnaturally "humanized" by being taken out of its habitat and integrated into human society. At one point, the narrator asks:
In their natural habitat, gorillas live according to strict hierarchical rules. Each must obey his superior in the group strucutre. Penny would be in danger if she didn't assert, when necessary, her dominant role. Education implies dominance. How could Penny avoid transmitting her own values? Will Koko begin the first white American Protestant gorilla?
In another scene, the head of a zoo that claimed to own Koko as its property -- though perhaps not in those words -- remarks:
A gorilla, you know, is not a person. And I think maybe Koko was made to be a person. And I'm not sure that that's a-- As I say, that is an unnatural thing, certainly. For a gorilla, the word "good" and "bad" has no meaning whatsoever, no-- And of course for us it doesn't either, unless we're taught by our parents. And, you know, that's not being a gorilla. A gorilla is not good or bad, either way; no matter what it does, it's not good or bad, because it's just a gorilla and you can't impose our value judgments on a gorilla.
This raises all sorts of fun questions. If the words "good" and "bad" have no meaning for us unless they are taught to us by our parents, then where did our parents get these words from? Penny sometimes chastises Koko and uses the word "bad" to critique her behaviour -- but does that word mean for Koko what it means for us? Is Penny functioning as Koko's "parent" when she does this?

If gorillas were given the rights of a person, would they not also have to have certain responsibilities, too? Or would there be different classes of "person"? The narrator may hint at something like this when he asks, later on, "Why must human behaviour be our only standard?" But then, if we create different classes of "person" between humans and other animals, what would stop us from creating different classes of "person" within humanity?

There is a scene early on where the camera sits in a car going to the institute where Koko lives, and we pass numerous restaurants and gas stations and other corporate buildings. The narrator remarks that the names of the streets point to the fact that there used to be forests here -- forests that have been all but eliminated, except for two tall redwood trees that we happen to pass.

Presumably, this moment was added to the film to indicate how we humans have ruined nature by believing ourselves to be above it, the same way we believe ourselves to be above the other animals. But the paved desolation of those roads -- the very modern sensibility it reflects -- could just as easily reflect the tendency of science to flatten things out by dismissing their intrinsic worth. Human beings become nothing but tissue, our minds become nothing but complexes of electro-chemical reactions, morality becomes nothing but social conditioning -- that sort of thing.

Am I arguing, against the opinions of certain people in the film, that human beings are above nature, in some way? Yeah, I am. But I certainly don't believe that we are apart from nature -- and so long as we human beings eat food and leave behind our various waste products, I don't see how anyone could believe that.

The scientists in this film occasionally speak against the traditional religious belief in the unique worth of human beings, but I think that's an unnecessary step, at best. The fact that Christ became a man, and thus became a part of nature himself, does not diminish my respect for creation but, rather, enhances it. And we don't have to bring humans down to the level of apes in order to raise apes to a level above those other aspects of nature that don't exhibit any form of consciousness or self-awareness.

Compared to other Criterion titles, Koko: A Talking Gorilla is surprisingly bare-bones; there is just the film and a short interview with Schroeder, in which he looks back on how the film was made. Considering that almost three decades have gone by, and many of the personalities involved are still very much alive -- including Koko, who has her own website -- you would think they could have touched on what has happened in her life since then.

At any rate, the film is definitely worth a look. But there are times when I wonder what a director like Grizzly Man's Werner Herzog would make of this material. In fact, I am reminded of Herzog's documentary Echoes from a Somber Empire (1990), which ends with a shot of an elderly chimpanzee smoking a cigarette.

posted by Peter T Chattaway at 12:21 AM

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:56:

 

DA's post-punk masterwork and heaviest, most guitar-based album. The concise electric guitar solo on "Return Of The Beat Menace" is wiry and downright warped, and the title track is one of the heaviest Christian songs of the pre-grunge era, with a big, meaty beat and flat, deadpan melody that almost prefigures grunge. Other tracks like "Strange Animals" show a heavy slightly psychedelic sixties pop influence, perhaps recalling Cream or "Lady Madonna/ Revolution" Beatles.

Side one is rock solid, but side two sees a couple of songs less than distinctive in some parts. Still lots more nice moments though. Also a curious reminiscence of early sixties surf music at times. Once again a lovely finish with "The Shape Of Air" which is the most left-field genuine Christian worship song I've ever heard. "Pour cement round things/ let it dry/ Break away things/ see the design." This was DA's last good album, but all up, one of the six or seven best bands of the eighties for sure - especially if you throw in Terry Taylor's two fine solo albums. You really should get into this band.

~SandyMc

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:58:

 

This is my favorite Daniel Amos album ever, surpassing even the Alarma Chronicles - way ahead of its time
~MichiBlue

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at17:59:

 

Terry Taylor's masterwork. A reworking of traditional Christian themes in a startling new language and imagery. The rest of DA rise to the challenge; providing an innovative and sympathetic backing. Simply put, the best album you've never heard.

~MC900FT_Elmo

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at18:01:

 

DFBB on Ebay!

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Posted by wes berlin on 06-10-2008 at18:05:

 

"it's freeking great!"

-wes berlin

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at18:10:

 

I remember Monty posting way back in the old days that Brian Quincy Newcomb told him when he got the disc in the mail, he called Frontline and said it was "Great F**king Noise!"

Good times!

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Posted by DwDunphy on 06-10-2008 at20:31:

 

quote:

Originally posted by Dr Rich This was DA's last good album ~SandyMc

Yeesh. That's harsh!

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at20:35:

 

quote:

Originally posted by DwDunphy quote: Originally posted by Dr Rich This was DA's last good album ~SandyMc Yeesh. That's harsh!

Yikes! I missed that part of the review!

Yes, it's very harsh and also untrue!

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at21:59:

I love this review; it was my intro to DA!

Daniel Amos
Darn Floor-Big Bite



Harvest Rock Syndicate Winter 1987/88
5 points out of 5
by Mark Eischer
Darn Floor, Big Bite is an exercise in discovery a moody, magnificent album which defies easy description. Each listening brings new insights, impressions building up like the coats of lacquer on a Japanese jewel-box. Maybe this shouldn't even be called a 'review.' A review is after the fact, past-tense a summation. I'll be frank-I'm still in the process of absorbing Da's newest record. Chalk it up to the weakness of language, I guess.
Greg Flesch continues to amaze as Da’s resident mad scientist of Guitar and Attendant Technology. His innovative, angular guitar effects complement Terry Taylor's provocative lyrics. Tim Chandlers dissonant bass lines crawl like big lizards through the underbrush of engineer Doug Doyle's mixes. Ed McTaggart again contributes excellent artwork and of course, Big Drums.
The album's basic idea is that all human attempts to describe God fall short and fail. A thought Which - has probably never creased the brow of Chris Christian, it is basically just another variation on the "now we see as through a glass darkly" theme.
Taylor adds a new twist by relating humanity's futile attempts at grasping the Divine to the story of Koko the Gorilla, a primate some scientists taught to 'sign" simple words. The gorilla's best attempt at describing the experience of an earthquake came out as 'darn' floor, big bite.' Terry Taylor apparently read that line in National Geographic, a little light went "Sproing!" ' and the rest is history, as the animal kingdom provides its richest literary alussion since Lassie, Come Home.
Calling the Koko experiment "sign language” is itself a faulty description, as I discovered when I tried to explain the album to a friend of mine who works as an interpreter for the deaf. She didn't really see much humor in it in fact, she was rather offended by the whole Koko idea, as though it were somehow a putdown of deaf people. So it goes.
"The Unattainable Earth" continues the communication-as-distortion theme, propelled along by some of the album's most memorable hooks and- a looping guitar riff reminiscent of the Beafles' Revolver period.
Da fanatics looking for their newest cult Classic need look no further than the opening track, "Return of the Beat Menace." Terry Taylor takes on the Baton Rouge Bomber with this account of a backwoods ayatollah gone hog-wild. The song is not so much about rock-bashing, though, as about clashing cultures and media manipulation. At the downlink end of the televangelist's satellite network sits an eskimo "He buys a suit and tie/re-styles his hair like girls in Tupelo/and sings 'Sweet Bye and Bye." It's too real to be funny.
In "Strange Animals," Taylor applies the theme to human relationships: "If I were to give you/an animal's name/Could I keep you locked/in a (age in my brain?" Taylor will probably win few friends among Biblical Inerrantists, thanks to the implications of this albums theme. Yet, for all its dissonance and angularity, its tribalistic Techno-Primitive rage, Darn Floor, Big Bite is ultimately a prayer for deeper understanding. The title song sums it up: "Illuminate my muddled/Sweep the shadows from my mind/so I might imagine what you are like/and understand the great design.”
"The Shape of Air" seems to quote the melody of Amy Grant's 'I Can Fly. " Whether the reference is intentional or not, it helps create a sense of innocence and wonder which concludes the record.

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Posted by Dr Rich on 06-10-2008 at22:02:

 

The only part of the review I am not sure about is the Amy Grant crap at the end!

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Posted by Phalanges Sandwich on 06-10-2008 at23:01:

 

quote:

Originally posted by Dr Rich This was DA's last good album........of the 80's

There, fixed that for her

Now, while I admit that I'm not too big a fan of their mid-90's work (Songs of the Heart/Bibleland.....both kinda left me with an "ehhhhh" feeling after the first listen), I think that Kalhoun and Motorcycle rank right up there with the absolute best of anything they've done (yes, even Beuchner and DFBB), the latter more so even. I pretty much hold Motorcycle and Darn Floor on an even top-rung, at least compositionally; they're both beautifully and impeccably crafted. I swear, not a week goes by that I don't listen to both of those masterpieces at least 4 times apiece. Needless to say, I'm PSYCHED for this remaster.

Also, SotH and Bibleland both made my Zune list cut, so they can't be all THAT bad, now can they?