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wayneb 
Ceremonial Kernel
Registration Date: 04-24-2002
Posts: 1,296
Location: New Zealand
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And, of course, the album is just one part of a 4 album "trilogy" that needs to be examined in it's entirety to enable a balanced review. Viewed as one long album, it contains both the high and low elements of humanity....and ends with the listener safe in the arms of Jesus. Where better?
Thanks Audiori brothers, for your perfect timing in sending my order to New Zealand!!! I came home feeling ill, down and unappreciated to find an airmail package in my mailbox containing "Ananheim", "Instruction Through Film" and the 30th Anniversary CD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today, I am a changed man! (my wife appreciated this early this morning). I will order some more stuff closer to the release of the new Eddies album so you won't lose out on postage so much.
Thanks again. (please don't use the above paragraph in your advertising of the restorative properties of DA albums) 
__________________
"Don't Fight Your Own Liar..."
www.smashthatcomputer.com
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05-25-2007 18:31 |
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PuP
Moderator
Registration Date: 07-09-2003
Posts: 11,774
Location: The DAmb Home for Wayward Sons and Fragile Daughters
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| quote: |
Originally posted by wayneb
Today, I am a changed man! (my wife appreciated this early this morning)...
(please don't use the above paragraph in your advertising of the restorative properties of DA albums)
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I am probably focusing too much on the wrong sentence.
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"At times this board is a place of thought provoking discussions, but most often it resembles a not quite done Mexican taco." - Jevon the Tall
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05-25-2007 22:07 |
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Mountain Fan
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 10-09-2003
Posts: 14,224
Location: NC, Alive and Kicking, BOBD
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05-29-2007 12:38 |
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dennis
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 09-19-2002
Posts: 13,303
Location: In not-quite earth, in not-quite heaven.
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Right Here!
Doppelganger
A doppelganger is a supposed double, ghost, or wraith of a living person. It has used as a literary device to express the spiritual duality of humanity since ancient times in literature, mythology, and art. Doppelganger - Daniel Amos’ fifth album and the second volume of the Alarma! Chronicles - draws its central concept from both Dostoevsky’s The Double and Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It would seem an appropriate time for a Christian statement on the duality of life. Doppelgangers have appeared in such popular films as Superman III and The Empire Strikes Back; and similar themes have found expression in the music of the Police, Talking Heads, and Eurythmics.
Throughout Doppelganger, Daniel Amos examines the meaning of the truth that “God (has) raised us up in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,” for us in our present struggle to be found faithful in this complex world where God has called us to be salt and light. DA challenges the assumptions and accommodations of the contemporary church, as it struggles to maintain its allegiance to Christ within an illusive, yet demanding culture. Although Doppelganger is largely an artistic work, it could very well be subtitled “A Study in Christian Ethics for the Computer Age.”
Much more than just a Christian rock album “with a difference,” Doppelganger pushes ahead, continuing the band’s legacy. DA has evolved a a nurock sound that is fresh, vibrant, and unique, while avoiding any of the overly simplistic new wave categories.
“The Hollow Man” opens and closes the album. Originally recorded with three-fifths of the 1925 poem “The Hollow Man” by T.S. Eliot, the song now sports an updated paraphrase. One the truly out-there pieces on the record, the song will give backward masking fans another opportunity to destroy a stylus. However, the liner notes give it all away as an adaptation of “traeH eht fo tsohG” from Alarma!.
Many of the songs address the infiltration of materialism and the “Americanization” principles of Scripture which shape our expression of Christianity. “Mall (All Over the World)” does this most satirically by suggesting a confused correlation between air-conditioned shopping cathedrals and the eternal Kingdom.
“Real Girls” responds to Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film.” It attacks the exploitation of women that has become so normal in our media. Both “New Car” and “Angels Tuck You In” ask some appropriate questions about the prosperity doctrines of recent times. “Little Crosses,” a Jerry Chamberlain hard-rocker, looks at the fascination with Jesus trinkets.
“Do Big Boys Cry,” “I Didn’t Build It for Me,” and “Here I Am” address questions about the role of the Christian leader. The first suggests the common humanity of leaders with followers as a beginning to true humility. The second looks at the corporate superstructures of some TV personalities who double as preachers. The third continues DA’s struggle with the nature of their own peculiar ministry in the vein of Alarma!’s “Big Time/Big Deal” and “Through the Speakers.” Vinyl substitutes provide for “minimal contact,” yet the band desires to be seen and understood as people who “really bleed.”
“Youth with a Machine” is a timely piece of technophobia. Humanity has always needed God to provide meaning and understanding, but the presence of monstrous computer brains makes out need seem most desperate. “Memory Lane” prods us to move on in Christ, not resting on the laurels of past victories. It also contains a word to DA’s older fans who have trouble with the new sounds. About the old music, Terry Taylor sings, “Some of it’s a bore.”
“Autographs for the Sick” either suggests that we are dealing with symptoms rather than seeking to treat the disease, or perhaps it’s just a fun bit of weirdness to round out the side.
“The Double” and “Distance and Direction” deal most explicitly with the concept of Doppelganger, drawing largely on Ephesians 2:4-7 for scriptural support. It examines the struggle between a sinful nature and a nature made new in Christ, between a selfish and a giving existence. It recognizes that to be a Christian is not to have arrived as much as to begin on the path, or Way, which is Christ’s. The album stands as an admonition to continue on that Way, avoiding the sidetracks and easy short cuts to real maturity and greater compassion.
Chamberlain’s guitars and Taylor’s inspired lyrics and energetic, emotive vocals are often the centerpiece of DA’s sound. The production by Taylor and Chamberlain is DA’s best yet, with a live, gutsy guitar sound and full bass and keyboard textures. New recruit Tim Chandler gives DA its best bass moves ever. Ed McTaggart plays with a Charlie Watts-like rock ‘n’ roll authenticity.
I’m eager to hear the music DA has already written for Vox Robottica, Volume III of the Alarma! Chronicles. While I’m waiting I’ll be doing that new dance, the Mannequin. The Lord knows I’m a sucker for anything with a beat.
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I'm talkin' bout the Vinyl , the Holy Vinyl.
This post has been edited 3 time(s), it was last edited by dennis: 01-06-2008 13:33.
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01-06-2008 12:09 |
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wakachiwaka
Ceremonial Kernel
Registration Date: 07-26-2007
Posts: 1,209
Location: Glendale, CA
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I missed this thread the first time around, but now that it's been given a second life, I'd like to give a shout out to Tim (in case he ever stumbles across here in the near future):
Regarding Doppelganger, I remember noting, when I first heard a few tracks from it on its initial release back in the Bronze Age, that it contained some of the most astonishingly inventive and agressive bass playing I'd ever come across in modern music. It's a crime against humanity that your formidible talents have gone unrecognized in the mainstream.
In particular, I have to say that the walking bass on "Autographs For The Sick" is simply breathtaking, and it was a brilliant touch to have all the changes be one quarter beat out of step with the rest of the band. Did you actually record it that way in real time (if so, my hat is off to you, sir!), or was it tweaked in the mix after the fact with some sort of delay?
Okay, I'm done sucking up now. 
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01-06-2008 18:00 |
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dennis
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 09-19-2002
Posts: 13,303
Location: In not-quite earth, in not-quite heaven.
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The bass line on the intro to "Mall All Over the World" is a mind-blower as well.
Great rock-n-roll. Loud, weird and more than a little dangerous.
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I'm talkin' bout the Vinyl , the Holy Vinyl.
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01-06-2008 19:24 |
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DwDunphy
Ceremonial Kernel
Registration Date: 08-18-2003
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One of the things I really liked about Doppelganger, and one of the things the Christian press really hated, was the inference that "everything's not so great in Jesusland". At it's initial release, the prosperity movement was kicking in with 'blab it and grab it' doctrine; the idea that we could be rich, famous and powerful AND be in God's good graces was insinuating itself in the Christian mainstream.
"All this AND heaven when I'm done?" was the statement of Alarma! while Doppelganger flatly said "No". Big, negative downer, that.
What always stands out from that album is the constant reinforcement that your status on earth is not your status in heaven. God is not your banker, your game show host, your impresario in the grand Spirituality Factory. You don't get a free ride, and neither does anyone else. Roughly, you were born to die, just like Christ and, oddly, live just as well.
No wonder people hated it! This wasn't a feelgood retooling of flower power anthems for the Sunday set. It said, "Everyone's accountable, even us. Especially us."
Could you imagine Petra tackling something like that?
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01-06-2008 20:03 |
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dennis
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 09-19-2002
Posts: 13,303
Location: In not-quite earth, in not-quite heaven.
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| quote: |
Originally posted by DwDunphy
"All this AND heaven when I'm done?" was the statement of Alarma! while Doppelganger flatly said "No". Big, negative downer, that.
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Both records are a big downer on that.
In the first record Terry includes himself as being part of the problem.
There may be a small amount of irony in it as well.
Maybe.
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Big Time / Big Deal
from the album "¡Alarma!"
Words and Music by Terry Taylor
©1981 Paragon Music Corp./ASCAP
Beam it on the satellite, send it through the T.V.
Get it on the play list, preach it to the masses
I want the big time, it's not for everyone
I want the long line, to tell them what I've done
Give me a bullhorn, I'll help Your kingdom come
I get all this, and heaven when I'm done
Why stop with the little things, wires cross the continents
The moment of conversion, on the cover of my album
I want the big time, it's not for everyone
I want the long line, to tell them what I've done
Give me a bullhorn, I'll help Your kingdom come
I get all this, and heaven when I'm done
Heard some talk about the big big big big big deal
Can't wait, moving on, can't wait, moving on
Lawyers talking 'bout the long long long long
long long long long contract
Five years, how long?, sign here, moving on
Send a tape to Carson, got a date in Vegas
Start a church in LA., billboard off the freeway
I want the big time, it's not for everyone
I want the long line, to tell them what I've done
Give me a bullhorn, I'll help Your kingdom come
I get all this, and heaven when I'm done
I want the big time, I want the long line
Give me a bullhorn, I get all this, and heaven when I'm done
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I'm talkin' bout the Vinyl , the Holy Vinyl.
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01-06-2008 21:00 |
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DwDunphy
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If you dig into "I Didn't Build It For Me" and "Here I Am There You Are", you find Terry's still including himself.
One could infer that Terry was starting to come into a crisis period, specifically with "Here I Am..." where he might have felt his recorded self at odds with his personal self. He's making contact through music. He's making contact through church. He's making contact in person, yet in the end, he's isolated in all those aspects because he has these differing entities, doubles, and they're all representations and not "the real thing".
Again, this has often risen to the top of my favorite DA releases in part because self-examination was verboten in the early 80s CCM. Artists, up to that time, were nearly commanded to speak of personal and societal flaws as something you left behind when you came to Christ. Here was someone on the inside who had the audacity to insinuate we were still flawed.
It's a brave record.
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01-06-2008 21:50 |
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Mountain Fan
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 10-09-2003
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I'm liking Youth With a Machine the more I listen to Doppelganger. I'm not sure if it or Memory Lane is my favorite.
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Got a few miles left ...
Make sure you have heard a Kind Word! 
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01-07-2008 12:48 |
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dennis
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 09-19-2002
Posts: 13,303
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| quote: |
Originally posted by DwDunphy
If you dig into "I Didn't Build It For Me" and "Here I Am There You Are", you find Terry's still including himself.
One could infer that Terry was starting to come into a crisis period, specifically with "Here I Am..." where he might have felt his recorded self at odds with his personal self. He's making contact through music. He's making contact through church. He's making contact in person, yet in the end, he's isolated in all those aspects because he has these differing entities, doubles, and they're all representations and not "the real thing".
Again, this has often risen to the top of my favorite DA releases in part because self-examination was verboten in the early 80s CCM. Artists, up to that time, were nearly commanded to speak of personal and societal flaws as something you left behind when you came to Christ. Here was someone on the inside who had the audacity to insinuate we were still flawed.
It's a brave record. |
I like how Terry always includes himself in the problems of the Church and America at large.
He keeps his humanity fully intact. God bless him for it.
It really does begin to get good with iAlarma! and Doppelgänger.
These are the records where Terry really finds his voice.
The sad part is what was true for the early 80's is still true today.
Doppelgänger is still a brave record and it is still very edgy and more than a little dangerous.
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I'm talkin' bout the Vinyl , the Holy Vinyl.
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01-07-2008 16:53 |
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ladrtrk55
Luteous Llama
Registration Date: 03-09-2007
Posts: 365
Location: Navasota, Tx
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...for adding flesh and sinew back to the disarticlulated corpse of the church's musical ignorance.
I have some rather bad memories of the era.
But, I had no idea the drubbing you and the boys got at the hands of the Christian music establishment. There is a most special place in the kingdom to come for you guys.
I must say, at least for my part, I recieved much more criticism from some in the church than from my unsaved friends and strangers with whom I shared your music.
After lending the 'Chronicles to a couple kids in the youth group, an irrate mother wagged Vox Humana in my face and demanded how I could give her teen "satanically laced" Christian rock music.
Stupified, I asked her what lyrics she had a problem with and on the liner notes she pointed out...
"My longing:
To be brave until the end of all my days
At the neighing of the red horse,
Fearing nothing
When I break down COs of this
She sees no tears"
She said what's with the devil horse and stuff. I told her of the reference In Revelations to the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse and the role of the red horse.
All she could say was "Oh, I didn't know that. Still, I don't think my kids should be listening to that stuff".
O...K... 
Anywho, thanks to you Tim, and your merry band of provocateurs for the endless hours of fun, tears, and edification your craft has brought my family, friends, and myself.
__________________
Isaiah 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, who will go for us?"
"Here I am, send me!"
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01-07-2008 19:44 |
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wayneb
Ceremonial Kernel
Registration Date: 04-24-2002
Posts: 1,296
Location: New Zealand
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I'm still glad you didn't use my glowing testimonial to sell more DA stuff!
(if I could have thought of another word to use instead of testimonial I would have!)
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"Don't Fight Your Own Liar..."
www.smashthatcomputer.com
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01-11-2008 04:32 |
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MarkyMark77
Woolly Eggwhisk
Registration Date: 10-11-2002
Posts: 512
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It's really hard to believe the disconnect on all this stuff.
Any cursory read of the Psalms or Lamentations (or many of the prophets) deals with the real stuff of life. What about Hosea marrying a prositute? It can be in the Bible, but you probably dare not write a song about it, even though it's in the Bible! A lot of what Terry has written seems to mirror Old Testament prophets in their calling out of sin and stupidity.
The good news is that the uptight church has mellowed some on this nonsense. There are still big problems in regard to art in the church, and a lot of churches are actually doing art well, which is something that I wondered if I'd ever see.
The examples just in this thread show me an unfortunate pattern in the church that's been going on for centuries, probably since they (we) burned Gallileo. It seems that faith is enough, and all intelligent thought (scientific, artistic, etc.,) be darned. What's up with that? There is no critical thinking, logic or self scrutiny. Like I said, I think it's getting better. But thinking that "red horse" automatically means Satan? It seems that some people are just looking for bad because that has an air of holiness to it, like thinking that the more we reject, protest and complain, the more holy we are because we're pushing the world away from us. Blech!!!
A lot of it, I believe, it igorance of Scripture. It people really understood the full scope of God's word, really read it instead of regurgitating proof texts and snipets they heard from their pastor, a lot of what the church does would probably be repented of!!!!!!
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01-11-2008 09:23 |
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dennis
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 09-19-2002
Posts: 13,303
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| quote: |
Originally posted by MarkyMark77
The examples just in this thread show me an unfortunate pattern in the church that's been going on for centuries, probably since they (we) burned Gallileo. |
Nobody burned Gallileo, he recanted and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition.
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I'm talkin' bout the Vinyl , the Holy Vinyl.
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01-11-2008 17:15 |
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dennis
Ubique Epoque
Registration Date: 09-19-2002
Posts: 13,303
Location: In not-quite earth, in not-quite heaven.
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To the top!
Doppelgänger (Daniel Amos album)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Doppelgänger is the title of a 1983 album by rock band Daniel Amos, released on Alarma! Records.
Doppelganger was a much darker, more haunting album than the album that preceded it, ¡Alarma!. The album starts with the eerie backward sounds of "Hollow Man" (inspired by T. S. Eliot's poem, The Hollow Men). Taylor's lyrics to "I Didn't Build it For Me" and "New Car" were sharp attacks on televangelists, that actually predate the Jimmy Swaggart/Jim Bakker/Robert Tilton scandals by nearly a decade
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I'm talkin' bout the Vinyl , the Holy Vinyl.
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02-17-2008 17:49 |
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Ritchie_az
Ceremonial Kernel
Registration Date: 07-02-2008
Posts: 2,139
Location: Arizona
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| quote: |
| Listen to the whole thing. Then put on Farrell and Farrell's Let the Whole World Know, John Fischer's Dark Horse or anything by Phil Keaggy. To be fair, don't be critical of musical styles as you listen to the albums. Ignore the words. Now to take the experiment further, put on I Exalt Thee by Phil Driscoll, Hymns by Craig Smith or anything by John Michael Talbot. I'll predict that - if you're honest - you can observe a significant mood shift. |
Growing up, we had Phil Driscoll's I Exalt Thee album, which was released the same year as Doppelganger. The author is correct, if I listened to all of Doppelganger, then put on the Driscoll album, I could observe a significant mood shift.
It would go from this:
To this: 
Richard Nakamoto hasn't a clue.
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So I can type anything I want here? No?
My Photography Blog
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Ritchie_az: 08-15-2008 06:01.
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08-15-2008 05:59 |
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colorblind
Mind Peach
Registration Date: 03-05-2008
Posts: 247
Location: in the freezer
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In a strange way...I usually find negative reviews the best kind. I tend to really check out an album if a review tries to slaughter it. Nice and safe reviews are just too common to come by.
I thought the review in question was funny!
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Nue Welt Ordnen
31 * 12 * 99 songs for the new west
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08-15-2008 10:21 |
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MarkyMark77
Woolly Eggwhisk
Registration Date: 10-11-2002
Posts: 512
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| quote: |
| Nobody burned Gallileo, he recanted and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition. |
Hmmm...I'm sure I was thinking of Giordano Bruno or some such person. All that church history in college sometimes bleeds together!
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08-15-2008 11:05 |
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Audiori J
Administrator
Registration Date: 11-27-2004
Posts: 7,728
Location: "Clowns to the left of me! Jokers to the right! Here I AM stuck in the middle with you." - Stealers Wheel
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Usually negative reviews are funny in that they either usually miss the point completely or just show a lack of understanding the material.
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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." ~ Robert Frost
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08-15-2008 13:48 |
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Here is a good review!