• BC Christian News • JANUARY ISSUE 1999 • VOL. 19 #1 • Formerly "Christian Info News" •

Taylor does it all -- from surf to country
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By Peter T. Chattaway

• Various: Surfonic Water Revival, KMG, 1998.
• Terry Scott Taylor: John Wayne, KMG, 1998.
• Terry Scott Taylor: Neverhood Songs, DreamWorks, 1997.
• The Farm Beetles: Meet the Farm Beetles, Stunt, 1998.
• Daniel Amos: Our Personal Favorite World Famous Hits, KMG, 1998.

IS THERE anything Terry Scott Taylor hasn't done? As the front man for Daniel Amos and the Swirling Eddies, two legendary (if obscure) Christian bands, and as the producer of many other artists, Taylor has worked in just about every genre imaginable. Country, new wave, roots rock, industrial, rap -- he's done it all.

Now, with a little help from his friends, he's devoted an entire album to surf music. Taylor wrote all but four of the 17 tracks on Surfonic Water Revival, and the album boasts an eclectic set of tunes and interpreters, from the Beach Boys balladry of Chuck Girard to the skankin' ska of the Insyderz and the O.C. Supertones.

Taylor himself sings lead vocals on just two songs, lending his ethereal falsetto to 'Into the Deep' while chasing the brash and noisy waves on 'Pay for Surf.' But the best tunes are those he farms out to artists like the Smalltown Poets with Paul Johnson (whose energetic 'Wave Perfect' lives up to its title), and especially Plumb.

Imagine the Beach Boys' "will you love me?" as a proposal from God, and Plumb's 'Surfer Girl Replies' becomes a perfectly hopeful, humble, yet understandably apprehensive response to that altar call by the beach.

The party is crashed, to some extent, by the Forefront artists. Rebecca St. James sounds almost seductively sultry on 'Gold Coast,' but the half-baked lyrics pale next to Taylor's compositions. Skillet's 'Last Day of Summer' would be a fine tune on just about any other album; here, its crunchy-buzz alterna-rock just feels out of place.

Surf music aside, Taylor pays tribute to other Californianisms -- such as orange groves and cowboy movie stars -- in the much-delayed John Wayne, his first original solo album in over a decade.

The project sounds more like a Daniel Amos album than Taylor's previous solo outings; instead of introspective musings on death and the afterlife, it offers the sort of slice-of-life portraits, tongue-in-cheek humor and clamorous choruses that one normally associates with his group efforts.

Still, the album is an admirable showcase for Taylor's musical versatility, from the Dylanesque 'You Told Them Exactly What I Didn't Say' to the melancholy ballad 'You Lay Down' and the yodelling-cowboy campfire anthem 'Ten Gallon Hat.'

Lyrically, it's a rich and typically brilliant portrait of fallen humanity and graceful hope. 'Writer's Block' kicks off the album with a humble recognition that art, in and of itself, cannot save a person's soul; the song is also, ironically, a powerful start to an album full of artistic and spiritual truths.

Not everything Taylor does is so deep and serious. Lately, he's composed theme music for a number of animated and computer-based projects by Doug TenNapel, including the Saturday-morning cartoon Project G.e.e.K.e.R. and the upcoming independent feature film Mothman.

The joint project with the highest profile is probably TenNapel's claymation computer game The Neverhood, distributed by DreamWorks, and Taylor's soundtrack -- which has already won a Murphy Award from PC Games -- is a kooky, absurdist delight.

Available on CD as Neverhood Songs, the mostly instrumental music sounds like an insane retro mix of Combustible Edison, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Spike Jones and the like. If you have really young kids, beware: they may want to hear nonsense songs like 'Homina Homina' and 'Potatoes, Tomatoes, Gravy and Peas' over and over again.

Nonsense is nothing new to Taylor, who once released a merciless satire of Christian pap -- er, pop -- under the title Sacred Cows. His best nonsense album to date, however, may be an affectionately irreverent set of banjo-fueled country-hick Beatles covers, Meet the Farm Beetles. The album is extremely short, fitting nine songs into about 20 minutes, but it's definitely worth a listen.

Still not convinced that Taylor's got range? Our Personal Favorite World Famous Hits collects 17 of the better tracks spanning the full history of Daniel Amos, from the mid-1970s country lite of 'Ain't Gonna Fight It' to the mid-1980s new-wave madness of 'Darn Floor Big Bite' and the mid-1990s inspirational pop of 'Grace is the Smell of Rain.'

There's nothing new here, except for some quirky cover art by TenNapel and a so-so bonus live track ('Twilight Love'), but it's a fine introduction to Taylor's music for anyone who's just beginning to get acquainted with this weird and wonderful artist.

Some, but not all, of these albums are available at Christian bookstores. The rest may be ordered through the Stunt Records web site: http://members.aol.com/StuntRec/Stunt