Daniel Amos Message Board | Print: Daniel Amos - Darn Floor Big Bite 20th Anniversary

Posted by revrogers on 11-25-2008 at09:04:

Koko and Captain Kirk

Some of you might be interested in this Youtube clip by William Shatner as he apparently reads from his memoir recounting his encounter with Koko the gorilla who also inspired Darn Floor Big Bite.

I hope that Terry didn't have what happened to the Shat happen to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWCN8-cVLSU&feature=channel

Posted by jiminy on 11-25-2008 at14:19:

dood - whatever it takes to hit the high notes.....

Posted by me-is-e on 11-26-2008 at12:14:

WooHoo!!!!! Got mine on Monday and have got to listen to disc 1 a couple of times and the bonus disc once all the way through. This is my first time hearing any but two of the songs ever, and I will say that it has all been great with a few surprises too! The songs included on the bonus disc are an excellent contrast to the album tracks and the packaging is beautiful. Excellent job in all, I'm just really excited to have this and look forward to exploring more!

If the damb continues to favor my posting today, hopefully I'll take a stab at writing a review soon.

Posted by servantsteve on 11-26-2008 at12:53:

You may continue to post.

Posted by me-is-e on 11-26-2008 at12:57:

quote:

Originally posted by servantsteve
You may continue to post.

Thank you for your permission good sir! Smile

For some reason I can have problems with my posts being accepted here, or receiving the access denied message when I try to post. After PMing Audiori and trying a few things, it seems I need to run our AdAware program before trying to post. Then the board is very happy and kind to me!

Posted by DwDunphy on 11-26-2008 at14:58:

Okay, let's get into the changes on the CD.

First, and most noticeable is that the volume level is now up to snuff. No need to crank it to 40+ just to get to an acceptable "fun" level.

Second, because the level is now natural and not mechanical, you don't get anti-doppler (which is the wrong term but the closest I can think of at the moment). When your speakers have to work harder, it causes a degree of compression to happen. Clarity and depth get drowned out by volume, even if the original isn't at optimal level. That's why your prized CD from 1989 sounds almost like mono even though it's now barely at that "fun" volume level.

With the remastering, the speakers now have the drive to really crank, but not at the expense of the sound field. You feel as though sounds and instruments are all around you, even from just two speakers, and that is exactly what a good mix should do: put you in the middle of the widest audio aspect ratio without being gimmicky (too much pan left or right). "Darn Floor Big Bite" in specific sounds incredible in the car, which I can tell you is not an audiophile dream scenario.

Third, the bass level on the original Frontline release was as wanting as the audio level. Yes, you heard Tim's bass but you didn't feel it. Now, the bass really thumps, but not at the expense of the treble. Literally, in one song, you can differentiate Tim's bass from Greg's guitar (which sounds like he's using an e-Bow high on the neck) and Terry's three or four layers of vocals - You can actually hear distinction between Terry's tracks, which was really impressive. Often, harmony parts flatten out into this one mass sound or voice, but on this, you can almost hear space between the vocals even though they're perfectly in sync and right on top of each other.

For those out there still holding out on buying, I really mean it when I say they should give it a shot, if not because you want to have this release, then because it is a textbook case of how to remaster (or master) right. Money was spent, and you can hear every penny of it.

Posted by jiminy on 11-26-2008 at15:31:

ordered it as bookends today Big Grin

with my original that makes a Trini- er I mean three co equal copies

(gifts!)

Posted by UnderDawg on 11-26-2008 at16:27:

I finally got down to my PO Box and sure enough, DFBB was waiting on me. I popped it into the ol' CD player on the way home, and I was amazed....I wasn't even sure these were the same songs! I had (and still have) my original on a cassette tape, and the sound quality is worlds away. I'm hearing stuff that I didn't even know was there. It's as if these songs were rerecorded.

Worth every penny.

Posted by Mountain Fan on 11-27-2008 at08:26:

the alarma chronicles boxset is available for any completists looking towards a christmas gift. (no, I don't own one to sell Roll Eyes

)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0009WPT3W/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1227795078&sr=1-1

i waited a year for DFBB to come out. my guess is that within the next year there will be some people who finally hear it for the first time and think "i waited all those years to hear THAT?" and will sell their copy used. prices will be even cheaper for those with a little more patience. what's another year, after all?

Posted by joey on 11-27-2008 at10:15:

Roll Eyes

Posted by Audiori J on 11-27-2008 at10:48:

quote:

Originally posted by Mountain Fan
the alarma chronicles boxset is available for any completists looking towards a christmas gift. (no, I don't own one to sell Roll Eyes

)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0009WPT3W/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1227795078&sr=1-1

i waited a year for DFBB to come out. my guess is that within the next year there will be some people who finally hear it for the first time and think "i waited all those years to hear THAT?" and will sell their copy used. prices will be even cheaper for those with a little more patience. what's another year, after all?

Its that logic that caused the original Darn Floor CD to sell for $120 later on ebay.

Get it now while its at it's cheapest and at the same time support future releases.

Posted by joey on 11-27-2008 at11:21:

Cool

that's what i meant by Roll Eyes

Posted by Brent17 on 11-27-2008 at12:44:

I got mine on Monday and have listened to it several times. The bonus disc and liner notes are more than worth the price of the disc. They did a good job with the remastering, although I did an A-B comparison with my vinyl copy and it still beats the cd, however thats more of a testament to the quality of vinyl than anything else and an example of how rotten the original Frontline mastering was.

It's just a great package, and I hope it ignites the process of future re-releases, even starting with stuff the band currently owns. Hey, I've bought the albums in the Alarma Chronicles three times now (vinyl, cd and book set,) and I'll buy them another time!

Audioris, if you're looking for a fundraiser to kick start things, I'd gladly pay $20 for a cd-r copy of the entire Cornerstone '88 set. The tracks on the Darn Floor bonus disc are awesome.

Posted by Mountain Fan on 11-27-2008 at14:31:

whatever. my anticipation was gone long ago once i converted it to MP3 CD off my cassette. i would like to hear what terry has to say on disc 2., but i can wait, and if the copies are gone ... oh well. somehow i don't think that will happen with this release. arena rock probably had to pay too much not to get a lot of mileage out of the deal to be selling the CD at a normal price.

Posted by audiori on 11-27-2008 at15:09:

I'm sure it'll be gone at some point. Hopefully not as quickly as M8's stuff, but.. eventually. Probably long before demand is totally satisfied. Its hard enough for the band to keep something it owns in print forever.. and outside companies are more likely to throw in the towel.

Posted by wakachiwaka on 11-27-2008 at18:27:

quote:

Originally posted by Brent17
I'd gladly pay $20 for a cd-r copy of the entire Cornerstone '88 set.

Considering about 50% of that set consisted of covers, I suspect such a transaction would fall under the "marginally legally suspect" category...

...not that I wouldn't like a copy of it myself. Tongue

Posted by crunchee on 11-28-2008 at22:21:

Here's J.Edward Keyes' review of the reissue at eMusic. I couldn't agree more...

Darn Floor, Big Bite
by J. Edward Keyes

Full disclosure: I am not an objective reviewer — I am the Executive Producer/Project Co-Ordinator on this reissue. Here's why I thought this record was worth reissuing:

In 1989, I walked into a Christian record store in Sayville, New York with a clutch of used Stryper, the Tuxedo Clad Megastar and Petra tapes and a mission to better myself musically. Having been raised in a religious family, my musical choices were limited to whatever arena rock pabulum was being foisted on me by various youth pastors and the occasional odd Smiths album I could sneak without my parents noticing. At a certain point I became convinced that there had to be religious music that didn't suck, and so my plan was to trade in my bad Jesus music for something a little more challenging.

The cassette I left with that day, Daniel Amos' Darn Floor — Big Bite was, from its first few notes, utterly baffling. A weird, jittery collection of nervous new wave, the album contained no huge hooks, no stacked-harmony choruses and — most notable to me at the time, no Capitalized Masculine Pronouns. A little digging gave me some backstory: Daniel Amos was a hugely popular Southern Gospel group in the late '70s, leading tent revival services for hippies who'd decided to follow Jesus — no turning back, no turning back. The band sold stacks and stacks of records and regularly packed out Southern California's Calvary Chapel, an honor Daniel Amos frontman Terry Taylor would later describe to me as "the equivalent of selling out Madison Square Garden every weekend for a month." Over time, though, they became disillusioned of the pat phrasings and turn-or-burn message being presented to new converts, and so they turned on a dime. In 1981, Daniel Amos released Alarma!, a strange, bleak record of angular post-punk that stunned their following and reduced their audience to the low triple digits. It's a bold instance of art-over-commerce if ever there was one, a band choosing to follow their muse rather than to follow the money.

The result, of course, is that Daniel Amos became even more marginalized. When Darn Floor — Big Bite was released in 1987 it sold 7,000 copies, a paltry number even by Christian music standards. It fell almost immediately out-of-print, with the few scant CD copies fetching in the low hundreds on eBay.

Three years ago, I got the wild idea that this record should be reissued. Not only is it one of my favorite records of all-time, it seemed aggravating to me that bands like Mission of Burma and the Germs and Nick Drake had the opportunity to have their catalogs reappraised but, because Daniel Amos existed on the fringes of the fringes, they were routinely ignored. The story of how Darn Floor — Big Bite went from a vault in Southern California to record stores and online retailers isn't all that interesting. What matters, as always, is the music. What stands out to me about Darn Floor, 21 years after its initial release, is what always stood out: how the music pulls off some weird hybrid of Robert Wyatt and Brian Wilson, matching weird, loopy verses with huge, aching choruses. "The Unattainable Earth" is dizzying and majestic, a single spiraling guitar line whirling over and over and over, spinning the song into a towering refrain. "Divine Instant" is like prototype Pixies, a glassy-eyed surf number interrupted by fits of electric guitar and hefting ominous lyrics like "I see the clock on the wall/ I see the skull beneath the skin." Two decades on, Darn Floor — Big Bite still sounds utterly bizarre, like some kind of warped Martian new wave.

What also stands out is the timelessness of topics: "Return of the Beat Menace" takes to task conservatives who use fear as a weapon, manipulating the flock into submission by railing against the menace of popular culture ("He's meeting all your strange requirements/ He thinks you can't be fooled/ He'll keep the rules and laws and sacraments/ By sending checks to you"). The title track compares a gorilla's attempt to describe an earthquake with man's inability to explain the unexplainable. "Pictures of the Gone World" is a cross-eyed lament for a slowly eroding environment. Needless to say, an audience buying Amy Grant's Lead Me On in mass quantities was not ready for a record that contained the lyrics, "We saw rouge and vermillion, we walked by the water."

Daniel Amos continued to make records through the '90s and up to the present day (their 2001 ELO-channeling double-album Mr. Buechner's Dream is as wondrous as anything they released in their prime). Their music doesn't require any level of faith to enjoy it (as this severely lapsed Christian can attest). All it takes is a bit of imagination and an appreciation for the strange, the daring and the creative. Darn Floor — Big Bite has all of those, and more, in spades.

Posted by larryl on 11-29-2008 at18:51:

quote:

Originally posted by Mountain Fan
whatever. my anticipation was gone long ago once i converted it to MP3 CD off my cassette. i would like to hear what terry has to say on disc 2., but i can wait, and if the copies are gone ... oh well. somehow i don't think that will happen with this release. arena rock probably had to pay too much not to get a lot of mileage out of the deal to be selling the CD at a normal price.

i have certainly bought stuff used. i've bought illegal bootlegs. i've even downloaded music. but to just come out and say you're going to wait to buy it used...... well that's just low man.

Posted by Audiori J on 11-29-2008 at19:06:

The way I read comments like that, or the ones that say they will not buy or preorder from the website (the band), is basically like announcing 'I refuse to help support Terry and the guys.'

Thats the way it reads to me, I find the attitude really strange. Its like, I want the music, but I don't care to help them keep making it. Makes no sense.

Over the years I bought a lot of stuff directly from Stunt knowing it was going to support the band. I remember even waiting for like six months for a Vox Humana shirt in the mail. I joined the Swirling Eddies Fun Club and ended up with a couple buttons and a few newsletters drawn out over years. I bought old records and radio shows, all kinds of junk and didn't mind waiting because I knew it was going to them and I felt like in some small way it expressed my appreciation. It was support. I was a fan.

I can never wrap my brain around comments like that, or the people who like to announce that they buy the music in cost cutter bins, it's tantamount to walking up to Terry and saying your music is almost worth nothing. I am sure it makes them feel appreciated to hear how you found their work in a trash heap. Are people just mindlessly insensative or do they find a little pleasure poking somone in the eye?

Posted by James on 11-29-2008 at19:31:

quote:

Originally posted by Audiori J
Are people just mindlessly insensative or do they find a little pleasure poking somone in the eye?

Seems to be the latter with this guy. He's been making strange little comments/complaints like this for a while now. Makes me wonder why he even comes here, frankly.

Reminds me of the people who come into my buddy's record store and ask what cd a particular song is on. After searching for (sometimes for several minutes) and finding the cd for them and asking if they'd like to purchase it, they blurt out, "Oh no, that's okay. I'll just download it." I'm never sure if they're oblivious to what they're doing, or if they're that big of a jerk that they just don't care.