I saw the Lost Dogs in concert on Monday night. I’m aware that most people will not know who this band is, so I have to preface a review of the concert with some backstory.
Ladies and gentlemen, Terry Taylor. I took some other pictures, but they were all even blurrier than this…
In 1986 I was 13 years old. I was just starting to get “into” music, and to learn that there was Christian music which actually billed itself as Rock Music. I was raised in a Christian home, the sort that discouraged secular rock music, and as a result I didn’t listen to any; so this “Christian Rock” was a welcome new phenomenon to me. At first, my only exposure to such music was the like of Amy Grant and Morgan Cryar. You probably remember the former, hopefully you do not recall the latter. Suffice it to say that it was a pretty lame excuse for rock music. Eventually I heard such things as Randy Stonehill, Petra, DeGarmo & Key, and Mylon LeFevre & Brokenheart. This was a little better, but was still not really what I was looking for. Randy Stonehill is the only one of those that I don’t feel a little embarrassed to say I listened to.
Speaking of being embarrassed, it was soon after this that I discovered Stryper. Knowing the music that I had before Stryper, it is little wonder that I became a huge Stryper fan (keep in mind, I was 13-14 and only listening to Christian music; and, of course, Stryper’s style of hair metal was in vogue at the time). Stryper actually had guitars, and they were actually loud. The fact that practically every adult I knew disapproved of them probably didn’t hurt, either.
A couple years later, maybe 1987-88, I discovered two different streams of music that eventually made me discard my Stryper addiction. One of them was thrash metal and punk rock, and the other was the Swirling Eddies. As far as the thrash metal (and punk rock) went, this revelation came first from the band Vengeance (who had to change their name to Vengeance Rising to avoid a naming conflict with another metal band), then the Crucified, Believer, Scaterd Few and others. …But that’s enough about that, for this post.
The other band was The Swirling Eddies.
I may be one of the few people who listened to the Eddies before I listened to Daniel Amos; they were virtually the same band. The Swirling Eddies were a sort of tongue-in-cheek side project, using a silly band name and fake names for the band members. The album I heard was actually the second Eddies album: Outdoor Elvis. The title track described how Elvis had actually not died, but had retreated to the deep woods where he was hunting and fishing and hiding out. It also contained such other humorous gems as Driving in England, Coco the Talking Guitar (”That’s calculated existential angst!“), Arthur Fhardy’s Yodeling Party, and Hide the Beer, the Pastor’s Here. But beyond that, it had some insightful, occasionally biting, occasionally sentimental, tracks: Hold Back the Wind, Donna; Knee Jerk; Rubber Sky; Billy; Strange Days. All in all, it was a fabulous album.
I subsequently discovered that the Eddies were a reincarnation of Daniel Amos, so I started listening to that. I still think The Unattainable Earth is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. Also around this time, I was listening to the Seventy-sevens, the Choir, No Laughing Matter, and Steve Taylor; that is, the cream of crop of the Christian “alternative” music scene.
It would be unfair to say that Daniel Amos was great only in comparison to the relatively poor quality of your Average Christian Rock Band™. Even when I abandoned Christianity for a few years after high school, when discussing “Christian Rock” I was always compelled to point out that there were a few really good Christian bands out there — and the bands I had in mind were Daniel Amos/the Eddies, the Seventy Sevens, the Choir, uh, and Believer (totally different style, but Very Good).
It’s probably no exaggeration to say that DA/the Swirling Eddies were my “Beatles” when I was 16-17.
All this to say… the Lost Dogs is a group originally made up from the lead singers of four bands; Terry Taylor of DA, Derry Daugherty of The Choir, Mike Roe of the Seventy Sevens, and Gene Eugene of Adam Again. Gene is, sadly, no longer visiting this planet. Steve Hindalong, another member of The Choir (who are still making albums), is now in the Lost Dogs as well.
So, here’s what you were really waiting for. How was the show?
It was great.
They opened with “If you want to” from DA’s Kalhoun, and followed with the Choir’s “To Cover You” from Wide-Eyed Wonder. Later in the show, they also played a Seventy-Sevens song, “The Lust, the Flesh, the Eyes, and the Pride of Life.” Most of the rest of the set were Lost Dogs songs, though there was at least one song from Terry Taylor’s solo material; “Starting Monday”, an ode to procrastination off of Avocado Faultline. The songs ranged from sweet-sounding country ballads, to blistering foot-stomping tunes (Why is the Devil Red?)that seemed equal parts Johnny Cash and Tom Waits, but still 100% Lost Dogs.
The between-song-banter was, as you might expect if you know these bands, hilarious. They took some time to good-naturedly poke fun at each other’s song writing abilities. One of my favorite moments was when, during a particularly ethereal moment in one song or another, Mike and Terry began shouting things like “Look, we’re in a Choir album!” and “I’m floating!” I guess that’s really only funny if you’ve heard the Choir’s music, though. You shouldn’t just take my word for it, go find a Choir album. I hear they have a new one, but if you can find it, Chase the Kangaroo is still one of my favorites (yes, I’m old).
As an aside, it should be noted that Mike Roe had a large patch depicting Gir, from the modern classic Invader Zim cartoon, on his jeans. Very cool. I wanted to talk to him about it after the show, and we did talk about it breifly, but I had to leave before we could get back to it.
That was the other cool part; I was able to talk (albeit briefly) to each of the band member, and let them know I’d been a long time listener and fan. I would have liked to talk to them longer, but there were a lot of other people waiting. They were all super nice guys, and I’m sure if I had been able to hang around longer, they would have been only too happy to talk more.
To let you know the sort of awesome fans that these guys have, there was one guy, and his daughter, who had driven for over four hours, in the rain, on a motorcycle, to get to the show. In fact, all the other fans who stayed late to talk seemed really cool.
All in all, if you ever get a chance to see the Lost Dogs, or any of the guys with their own bands, you should run, not walk, to get there. Enjoy.
