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I heard DA for the first time when I was in 9th grade. (This was
around 1982.) I was at youth retreat and I went to the class about
Christian rock music. The leader was playing songs from different
groups to give us an overview of the kinds of music that were available.
(I definitely did NOT like Rez Band!) But he played DA's "New Car"
and "Real Girls." I was hooked. However, I lived in a small
town with one Christian bookstore, and they thought that David Meece was
pretty racy, so it was a few more years before I finally found any DA music.
In 1986, I went to Kentucky Christian College for a year. I heard
this "totally awesome" song on the college radio station that went "My
hair points to the sky, the place I want to be." Well, the rest,
as they say, is history. Over the next few years, I acquired Vox
Humana, Fearful Symmetry, and Darn Floor-- Big Bite.
My mother HATED the music and was constantly bugging me about it, but I
felt like DA was the only group I could identify with. (On a side
note, my now-17-year-old sister listens to Howard Stern and Nirvana--go
figure...) I didn't like flowery junk like Twila Paris and
Amy Grant. Groups like Petra and Sweet Comfort Band were good, and
their "no compromise" lyrics were uplifting and thought-provoking, but
they didn't speak to the depths of my soul the way DA did.
Around 1988, I ended up back in school at the local branch of my state's
university. Really small! I had a fantastic American lit teacher
who allowed me to write a paper comparing Emily Dickinson to Daniel Amos!
(Click here to read it.) And, much to my
surprise, she even had a DA album! I was estatic when she let me
borrow her copy of ¡Alarma!, on vinyl. :-) I was
anxious to hear, once again, the two songs that I had heard back in 9th
grade.
Well, needless to say, I was very disappointed. At that time, I didn't
know that Dopplegänger even existed, or that it was the album
I had heard almost a decade earlier. However, the Alarma album
had the first set of The ¡Alarma! Chronicles, announcing that
the next installment would be called Dopplegänger. So
I began a quest to aquire the album. About a year later, I was finally
able to obtain a copy of the album from an old friend who worked at the
KCC radio station. I was overjoyed, though I felt somewhat guilty
for bootlegging a copy, even though the album was not in print at the time.
(I redeemed myself by purchasing the album as soon as it came out on CD.)
Unfortunately, my long-awaited copy nearly met with an early demise.
You see, my friend Bill, the radio d.j., had given the tape to a friend
of his to pass on to me. No one was home, so his friend just left
it, with no note or label, in the mailbox. My mom found it. Oops.
Later, she handed me the unmarked tape that had mysteriously appeared in
our mailbox. She and my dad had listened to it, trying to figure
out what it was. They thought that it sounded Satanic or something
(!), and thought that someone was playing a sick joke on us or something,
but then they heard something about angels and decided that maybe it was
"supposed to be" Christian music. They asked me if I knew anything
about it. She said there was a song about real girls or something,
and I was estatic! I finally had Dopplegänger!
My parents were, of course, less than pleased. Too bad that Bill
didn't label the tape. It almost ended up in the trash!
A few years later, when DA began to re-release their old stuff onto CD,
I was finally able to (almost) complete my collection. There are
a few albums that I don't have yet, but at least they're mainly the newer
ones. I do have two interesting items in my Da et al collection.
The first is a bootleg copy of a compilation album called Rock Around
the World, which features an alternative version of DA's "Home Permanent."
I also have Swirling Mellow, an elevator-muzak version of Let's
Spin. It is, um, truly bizarre. You can hear some of it
on Miracle Faith Telethon. And of course, I'm anxiously awaiting
the release of Horrendous Disk onto, well, disc.
But how did I come to love the band so much? There have been many
times over the last 15 years or so of my life when I've felt completely
alone. I've questioned God and His divine ways. At times I've
felt that I couldn't trust anyone, and that no one loved me or cared about
me. I've made mistakes that have come back to haunt me. And
yet I could always take comfort in the music of DA. No matter what
my situation, God directs me to a particular song or album to give me comfort.
During a particularly bad time of my life, for example, "Love has Open
Arms" became my life's theme song. And A Briefing for the Ascent
has helped me, time and time again, to deal with the loss of several
loved ones.
But DA has also been there during the good times. There were all-nighters
in college with Vox and Fearful keeping me awake, joking
with friends about certain lyrics, the sheer amusement of watching the
faces of people when they hear "Arthur Fhardy's Yodel Party" for the first
time, road trips with DA or the Eddies in the tape deck. And, most
recently, having "Happily Married Man" permanently imbedded in my brain,
and my sister's ruthless teasing when I played it for her!
DA seems able to express my innermost thoughts and feelings in a way that
I can not. In the good times, there are songs to express joy and
provide amusement. In the bad times, there are songs of love and
support. DA is not the only band I like, of course, but they are
the only band that seems to speak to my heart and my soul. I am forever
grateful for "the band that won't go away."
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