My Life As a So-Called Punk: May 2015

So I just finished watching the documentary "No New Kinda Story" the real story of Tooth & Nail Records, which was amazing, I just wish it was longer. I really enjoyed this documentary, mainly because I was completely able to relate it, and I pretty much lived through it. You can read in my past blogs how I got introduced to music, but when Tooth & Nail records came out it changed my life as well as tons of other people's lives also. Before I get into on how I became a Tooth & Nail records fan, I'll give you a little back round on what the "Christian" punk/hardcore/metal music scene was like.

Now we can't mention the punk/hardcore scene without talking about one of the greatest and one of the most influential bands ever, "The Crucified" (by the way I'm planning to do a blog on just The Crucified). Okay so before the days of Tooth and Nail and Solid State Record (Solid State is Tooth and Nail's hardcore/metal label). There was not much music for kids like me to choose from, if we wanted to listen to "Christian" style of punk, metal and the music we listen to. The good bands that were out there most likely were not being signed by any labels, because to the Christian labels, they "sounded evil" while to the regular labels they were to "Christian", so they were hated in both camps. In 1992 The Crucified broke up, and to me there really wasn't any other good "Christian" bands out there. Now skip ahead a couple of years, Tooth and Nail was founded in 1993, by Brandon Ebel. But I did not discover them until 1994. So it was sometime in 1994, and my mom said she was going to the Christian bookstore and asked if I wanted to come. Now by this time I had just gotten into punk and was listening to bands like; Rancid, NOFX, Pennywise, and other bands I discovered on the old Punk O Rama CD's. So I went ahead and went with my mom, in hopes of finding an older Crucified CD, I already had Pillars of Humanity on CD but there self titled album I had on cassette. So as I went to the music section I just saw the regular lame Christian music, like Petra, Carmen, and stuff to a punk rock kid just sucked. Then there was a end cap display of Tooth and Nail Records bands. These bands actually looked cool, and not lame. I ended up being able to get 4 CD's that night, the first album I grabbed was "The Crucified" self titled album which Tooth and Nail re-released so I was super excited about that. Then they also had a band called Focused, now I had seen Focused in concert back in '92 at a place called Club Post Necular, with Unashamed (one of my all-time favorite bands), outnumbered, and The Crucified, this was one of the craziest concerts I've been to and went on to change my life (which I will write about in The Crucified blog), so I grabbed the Focused "Bow" album. Then there were two other CD's I saw that really grabbed my attention as well...

They say never judge a book by it's cover, the same can be said for music as well, but these two albums had great covers, but were even better albums, musically. So the other 2 albums that got my attention was MxPx "Pokinatcha" album and a band called Blenderhead "Prime Candidate for Burnout". Now this was the first full-length MxPx album, and the band that put Tooth and Nail Records on the map and went on to sell millions of albums and become one of the most popular punk bands and are still playing today. Both albums I thought were great, it was so nice to hear good punk rock music. Even though I like MxPx, even to this day (I have tickets to go see them on July 25, in Santa Ana), and MxPx was probably the more popular band, I absolutely loved Blenderhead a lot more. I enjoyed their kind of in your face attitude and their lyrics are what I was really able to relate to, (Blenderhead is another band I'm planning on doing a blog on), but I will share the lyrics of one song that, to this day I relate to in my own life. Now I could probably tell you about each song on the album and I how was able to relate to it, but the one song that stood out amongst the rest was; "Purgatory". Here are the lyrics to, Purgatory; "Blood sucking maggot infested media machine. Ways to be cool and ways to be seen. Tell you when to jump and when to scream, just tune in at 8:15. It must be a drag to fit in. A stupid game where nobody wins, I'd rather be myself, then blend in with all the cans on the shelf. Licking the flames of conformity hell, being a poser sure is swell. Is that really you? I can't tell. You look like every other soul for sale in conformity hell. Jimmy and Jody and Buffy and Skip all have perfect hair and perfect hips. Jazzercize, step aerobics and thigh master too. Shakes and powders and pills for you." Oh yea for you bass lovers out there this song has some awesome bass. For me this song I did and I still relate to to this day. I hate all things trendy and just like the line; "I'd rather be myself then blend in with all the cans on the shelf." I just prefer being who I am, and I don't give a crap what others think about that.

Look at this cover I could you not buy this album

As Tooth and Nail kept on putting out one great album after another, I just became a bigger fan of their product. Tooth and Nail released the best music in; punk, hardcore, and rock. There were so many great bands, bands like; Starflyer 59, unashamed, strong arm, the blamed, stavesacre, just to name a few. Now at this time I was really into hardcore, and my favorite band from 95-97 was unashamed. Bands like focused, unashamed, and strong arm were known at the time as Spirit-filled hardcore, and these bands had some legendary shows and would play with bands like; Strife, snapcase, and Earth Crisis.

One thing I use to love receiving in the mail was the Tooth and Nail catalog, it was usually just a small booklet of merchandise and CDs, but to me it was gold. I use to always want a Tooth and Nail Dickies jacket, but I never got it. Then out here in Southern California, there was the Tooth and Nail Festival, I think they only did this twice, I attended both of them. The first year it was at APU, this show was also the final show for my favorite band at the time; unashamed, I was upset because I wanted there set to be longer. Another band that played at this show was a band called Focal Point, which I really enjoyed, now a little bit of trivia Ryan Clark (lead singer of Demon Hunter), was the guitarist of Focal Point. now at the first Tooth and Nail Festival MxPx was suppose to headline, but some stupid ska kid (sorry I couldn't stand ska kids), got hurt during the Supertones set and Plank Eye and MxPx were not able to play. Also at the first Tooth and Nail Festival I met Bill Power (lead singer of blenderhead and he worked for Tooth and Nail Records). I remember my friend and I were just hanging out and Bill Power just came up to us introduced himself (I knew who he was, being a big blenderhead fan), and just hung out and talked, he asked us who we were looking forward to seeing the most, I said; "unashamed". By the way Billy Power has an awesome podcast you can check out on itunes called Urban Achiever, or just check out this link Urban Achiever.

The shirt I always wanted

During the early days of Tooth and Nail I would always be telling people about all the great bands on the label and I would make mix tapes for people, to prove to them that this music is good. I actually I made a mix tape for a well known celebrity. Back when I was in youth group during my Jr. and Sr. in high school an actress from the TV show "Flipper" was in my youth group, her name is Jessica Alba, yes that Jessica Alba. So after our youth group at church, we would all go out for pizza. On one particular Monday night Jessica came and sat with my group of friends (we were known as the punk rock/hardcore kids). So she started to ask us about the music we listen to, so I offered to make her a mix tape. Well I made her a mix tape consisting of all Tooth and Nail bands such as; MxPx, blenderhead, The Crucified, unashamed, focused, Plank Eye, Starflyer 59. The following Monday I gave her the tape, she gave me a hug and said; "Thank you". The following week she told me how much she enjoyed the tape. A little after this she went on to do a movie called; "Never Been Kissed" with Drew Berrymore, and we never saw Jessica again, but she went on and has a pretty good career. So somewhere in her storage she has a mix tape from the coolest guy she ever met, yeah right, but it's a cool story and it's true.

As Tooth and Nail kept on putting out amazing artists, they also began to have other branches of music labels, with BEC Recordings (contemporary Christian music), Uprok Recordings (hip-hop, not really my style), Plastiq Musiq (Electronic music, also not really my cup of tea), and my favorite label; Solid State Records (Hardcore and metal music). I absolutely loved and still love all the music that comes from Solid State. With bands like; Training for Utopia, Overcome, Soul Embraced, The Chariot, Zao, The Beloved, Underoath, and today they have bands such as Living Sacrifice (been with Solid State since the beginning), Wolves at the Gate, Haste the Day, and my favorite band Demon Hunter. So Tooth and Nail has a entire family of very diverse music, and to this day they still continue to put out great music by amazing artists.

Living Sacrifice (Circa 1997)

Demon Hunter

The Chariot (the craziest shows ever)

Now I could write so much more on how Tooth and Nail Records music has impacted my life but I will just put some videos of their music at the end of this blog. While working on this blog I decided to see how much of my music on my iPod is from; Tooth and Nail family of bands, and of the 4500 songs on my iPod almost 2000 are from Tooth and Nail artists. But in closing I just want to say thank you to Brandon Ebel for everything you've done and how this music has impacted countless lives. And a huge thank you to Brandon's grandpa for giving him the loan to start the record label (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch the documentary). Thank you for the 20 plus years of great music and lets hope for 20 more, and in twenty years when I'm 58 years old, I will still be a fan. I still have a dream of going to Seattle and going to the Tooth and Nail offices, it was a dream job for me, but God had other plans for me. Now for some music...

The first video by MxPx (they were still in high school)