 Daniel Amos - Darn Floor Big Bite 20th Anniversary  |
Dr Rich 
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During this period, the group's music took on an abrasively hard edge, while its lyrics continued to ponder theological issues with intelligence and humor. The title track to 1987's Darn Floor, Big Bite, for instance, compares man's quest for knowledge of God to a gorilla's attempt to understand an earthquake.
Unlike most Contemporary Christian music groups, Daniel Amos were unafraid to criticize their fellow believers. The title track to the 1994 release Bibleland excoriates Christians who trivialize their faith. As ever, though, Taylor's lyrics temper expressions of outrage with zany humor and a genuine love of pop kitsch.
Since the late 1990s, Daniel Amos have recorded and performed live only sporadically. Taylor, Flesch, Chandler, and McTaggert have remained the core band, working with guest players in the studio on occasion. A two-decade retrospective, Our Personal Favorite World Famous Hits, was released by KMG Records in 1998. After a five-year hiatus from recording, the band released Mr. Buechner's Dream on the Galaxy 21 Music label in 2001. This limited-edition two-disc CD found the group in vigorous form, examining questions of Christian faith in tunes like "Ribbons and Bows" and "Small Great Things" with its trademark quirky humor and sure melodic touch. Reviewing the CD, ChristianityToday.com praised Taylor's "knack for expressing timeless truths with originality" and hailed Mr. Buechner's Dream overall as "a brilliant and remarkably well-crafted Christian rock album."
Since the 1980s, Daniel Amos have been sustained by a limited but intensely loyal fan base. In evaluating his band's fortunes, Taylor takes a philosophical attitude. "It gets a little exasperating that there isn't a wider audience," he confessed to Contemporary Musicians. "But I love music so much that it really doesn't phase me or keep me from continuing to do it. I know that my legacy by and large is to my children. They're going to be able to look back on Dad's records and go, 'Here was a guy who struggled with his faith but always believed. He's left something of value and worth to us.' That's important to me."
http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-music...-amos-biography
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06-11-2008 01:51 |
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Dr Rich
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06-11-2008 01:57 |
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Dr Rich
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Monday, November 08, 2004
"Darn darn floor"
I was reminded last night that I hadn't yet explained the origin of this blog's name as I promised in my first post.
The name "Darn Floor" was inspired by the 1987 Daniel Amos album "Darn Floor - Big Bite," which was, in turn, inspired by Koko the Gorilla. Koko was taught to communicate using American Sign Language. After experiencing an earthquake, Koko described what happened by signing "Darn darn floor bad bite. Trouble trouble." Given her limited base of knowledge and the limits of her form of communication, what else could she say? "Darn floor" is as good a description of an earthquake as any.
On their "Darn Floor - Big Bite" album, Daniel Amos uses this incident as a symbol of our clumsy attempts to explain God. Given the limits of our comparatively pea-sized brains, and acknowledging the limits of our admittedly complex language, our attempts to describe the ineffable are certainly going to fall short. We resort to metaphor. God is father, friend, lover, companion. God is just. God is forgiving. God is higher than the highest heavens. God is closer than a brother. God is a consuming fire.
Illuminate my muddled heart
Sweep the shadows from my mind
So I might imagine what you are like
And understand the great design
Darn floor - big bite
You are twilight, dark and bright
Darn floor - big bite
You are beautiful, a terrible terrible sight!
For me, the process of writing is quite like that. How can I put into words things that often cannot be described, particularly if I attempt to write of the things of God? When I started "Darn Floor," it was intended to be a place where I could use my limited language skills to talk about things that are too high for me; to lofty for me to attain.
I'll pray that writing it down is part of loving you
I really didn't intend to write about politics. However, I happened to start this blog near the end of a rancorous presidential campaign, and it was the foremost thing on my mind. As we move past the earthquake of this election season (I think there are still plenty of aftershocks to come) I intend to write about other things, but I imagine I will always save room to write about politics, because the subject interests me. Even so, I expect that what I have to say on any subject will be impeded by the limits of my comparatively pea-sized brain.
Sometimes when an earthquake hits, about all you can say about it is "Darn darn floor." But even though "Darn floor" is a not-quite-perfect description of an earthquake, it still rings true. I hope that no matter what I'm writing about, I can impart the ring of truth.
Thanks for visiting Darn Floor, and I hope you stick around. (And if you like this blog, pass it on!)
http://darnfloor.blogspot.com/2004/11/darn-darn-floor.html
http://darnfloor.blogspot.com/
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This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Dr Rich: 06-11-2008 05:49.
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06-11-2008 05:46 |
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Chesterdox
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I hope the remastering really brings out a fuller sound to DFBB. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think Horrendous Disc is their masterpiece, and my only copy of DFBB is a cassette, so the sound is kind of thin and 2-dimensional.
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06-11-2008 08:04 |
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jiminy
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whether DFBB is their pinnacle is a debatable thing..
but it certainly is a great milestone in any event.
( Im a bit partial to HD as well)
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jiMinY
theres nothing to EVER put here that will please everyone-let alone anyone.
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06-11-2008 09:03 |
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Lur King
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Chesterdox
I hope the remastering really brings out a fuller sound to DFBB. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think Horrendous Disc is their masterpiece, and my only copy of DFBB is a cassette, so the sound is kind of thin and 2-dimensional. |
Cassette !!!
the CD version I have CaMe with these & sounds 3-dimensional 
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06-11-2008 11:14 |
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achentodaze
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| quote: |
Originally posted by jiminy
whether DFBB is their pinnacle is a debatable thing..
but it certainly is a great milestone in any event.
( Im a bit partial to HD as well) |
I personally don't look at DFBB as the pinnacle, but as the fulcrum point of DA's albums. On the one side you have the fun of the Maranatha!-era influenced albums (DA, SA, HD) and the common thread of the iAlarma! Chronicles quartet. On the other side of DFBB you have the remaining albums which express a deeper, yet simpler, lyrical maturity; and musical styles which tend to be more timeless and original.
DFBB contains elements from both sides (and sometimes neither) - and to me that is what makes it a great album.
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06-11-2008 11:31 |
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Chesterdox
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The reissue better come with them 3-D glasses too!
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06-11-2008 12:59 |
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Audiori J
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I always looked at it as a 'band' album more so than other DA albums. It may be a matter of perception, but I always felt like the songs seemed more equally 'band' written as opposed to a lot of the earlier albums which seemed to be individually written and band influenced.
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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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06-11-2008 13:03 |
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jiminy
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| quote: |
Originally posted by achentodaze
| quote: |
Originally posted by jiminy
whether DFBB is their pinnacle is a debatable thing..
but it certainly is a great milestone in any event.
( Im a bit partial to HD as well) |
I personally don't look at DFBB as the pinnacle, but as the fulcrum point of DA's albums. On the one side you have the fun of the Maranatha!-era influenced albums (DA, SA, HD) and the common thread of the iAlarma! Chronicles quartet. On the other side of DFBB you have the remaining albums which express a deeper, yet simpler, lyrical maturity; and musical styles which tend to be more timeless and original.
DFBB contains elements from both sides (and sometimes neither) - and to me that is what makes it a great album. |
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well - I like that thought - till you put the RAp-Sures (1987) and the first two Eddies Works on either side of the mix
Lets spin/OE and ..uhm the Rapsures rather fit in a different box all together I'd think
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jiMinY
theres nothing to EVER put here that will please everyone-let alone anyone.
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06-11-2008 13:29 |
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Chesterdox
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Don't forget Meat the Farm Beetles.
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06-11-2008 13:43 |
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sprinklerhead
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| RE: From our own Peter T Chattaway! |
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Originally posted by Dr Rich
http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/2006/08...rilla-1978.html
My kids are six and a half months old now, and they are increasingly enjoying their ability to make sounds with their vocal cords. I am also told that now might be a good time to get them started on "baby sign language". So it seemed like as good a time as any to check out Barbet Schroeder's Koko: A Talking Gorilla (197
, a documentary recently released on DVD by Criterion.
The first time I ever heard of Koko was nearly two decades ago, when Daniel Amos, one of my favorite bands ever -- then going by the abbreviated moniker Da -- released Darn Floor Big Bite (1987), possibly their best album ever. The album's title was adapted from Koko's sign-language description of an earthquake, and the album as a whole is all about the nature of communication and the inability of language to fully grasp the things it describes.
As Da frontmman Terry Scott Taylor sings in 'Strange Animals', we "move around in a big make believe" because we rely on words to communicate -- but the things and people that we describe have realities of their own, the depths of which our words can never quite cover. A gorilla calls an earthquake a "darn floor big bite", and a human being calls God "a roaring lion and a consuming fire". Doesn't quite tell the whole story, does it? And yet these phrases do point in the right direction.
Taylor may have made at least one more reference to Koko in his music after that, in a track called 'CoCo the Talking Guitar' on the Swirling Eddies album Outdoor Elvis (1989) -- but the similarity in name may be unintentional. Still, given that the whole point of teaching Koko sign language was to prove that apes are people too, I find it interesting that the one time her name (or something like it) is mentioned in one of Taylor's recordings (and not just in the liner notes), it is attached to an object that has incredible communicative power -- but only when someone else plays it.
Schroeder's film, for the most part, follows Koko around as she interacts with other animals and the humans who work with them, especially a woman by the name of Penny Patterson. Koko's behaviour is quite remarkable, but there is some debate as to whether the gorilla should be considered a "person" like the rest of us. There is also some debate as to whether the gorilla has been unnaturally "humanized" by being taken out of its habitat and integrated into human society. At one point, the narrator asks:
In their natural habitat, gorillas live according to strict hierarchical rules. Each must obey his superior in the group strucutre. Penny would be in danger if she didn't assert, when necessary, her dominant role. Education implies dominance. How could Penny avoid transmitting her own values? Will Koko begin the first white American Protestant gorilla?
In another scene, the head of a zoo that claimed to own Koko as its property -- though perhaps not in those words -- remarks:
A gorilla, you know, is not a person. And I think maybe Koko was made to be a person. And I'm not sure that that's a-- As I say, that is an unnatural thing, certainly. For a gorilla, the word "good" and "bad" has no meaning whatsoever, no-- And of course for us it doesn't either, unless we're taught by our parents. And, you know, that's not being a gorilla. A gorilla is not good or bad, either way; no matter what it does, it's not good or bad, because it's just a gorilla and you can't impose our value judgments on a gorilla.
This raises all sorts of fun questions. If the words "good" and "bad" have no meaning for us unless they are taught to us by our parents, then where did our parents get these words from? Penny sometimes chastises Koko and uses the word "bad" to critique her behaviour -- but does that word mean for Koko what it means for us? Is Penny functioning as Koko's "parent" when she does this?
If gorillas were given the rights of a person, would they not also have to have certain responsibilities, too? Or would there be different classes of "person"? The narrator may hint at something like this when he asks, later on, "Why must human behaviour be our only standard?" But then, if we create different classes of "person" between humans and other animals, what would stop us from creating different classes of "person" within humanity?
There is a scene early on where the camera sits in a car going to the institute where Koko lives, and we pass numerous restaurants and gas stations and other corporate buildings. The narrator remarks that the names of the streets point to the fact that there used to be forests here -- forests that have been all but eliminated, except for two tall redwood trees that we happen to pass.
Presumably, this moment was added to the film to indicate how we humans have ruined nature by believing ourselves to be above it, the same way we believe ourselves to be above the other animals. But the paved desolation of those roads -- the very modern sensibility it reflects -- could just as easily reflect the tendency of science to flatten things out by dismissing their intrinsic worth. Human beings become nothing but tissue, our minds become nothing but complexes of electro-chemical reactions, morality becomes nothing but social conditioning -- that sort of thing.
Am I arguing, against the opinions of certain people in the film, that human beings are above nature, in some way? Yeah, I am. But I certainly don't believe that we are apart from nature -- and so long as we human beings eat food and leave behind our various waste products, I don't see how anyone could believe that.
The scientists in this film occasionally speak against the traditional religious belief in the unique worth of human beings, but I think that's an unnecessary step, at best. The fact that Christ became a man, and thus became a part of nature himself, does not diminish my respect for creation but, rather, enhances it. And we don't have to bring humans down to the level of apes in order to raise apes to a level above those other aspects of nature that don't exhibit any form of consciousness or self-awareness.
Compared to other Criterion titles, Koko: A Talking Gorilla is surprisingly bare-bones; there is just the film and a short interview with Schroeder, in which he looks back on how the film was made. Considering that almost three decades have gone by, and many of the personalities involved are still very much alive -- including Koko, who has her own website -- you would think they could have touched on what has happened in her life since then.
At any rate, the film is definitely worth a look. But there are times when I wonder what a director like Grizzly Man's Werner Herzog would make of this material. In fact, I am reminded of Herzog's documentary Echoes from a Somber Empire (1990), which ends with a shot of an elderly chimpanzee smoking a cigarette.
posted by Peter T Chattaway at 12:21 AM |
I read that and I can't help but think, "Take your stinking paws off me, you d.amned dirty ape! "
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I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
And I'm wondering where the lions are...
I'm wondering where the lions are...
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06-11-2008 14:41 |
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Dr Rich
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Audiori J
I always looked at it as a 'band' album more so than other DA albums. It may be a matter of perception, but I always felt like the songs seemed more equally 'band' written as opposed to a lot of the earlier albums which seemed to be individually written and band influenced. |
Yes, exactly!
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06-11-2008 16:23 |
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Dr Rich
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Chesterdox
I hope the remastering really brings out a fuller sound to DFBB. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think Horrendous Disc is their masterpiece, and my only copy of DFBB is a cassette, so the sound is kind of thin and 2-dimensional. |
DFBB sounds best on the vinyl version!
It sounds pretty good on CD too! 
DFBB is the first DA I ever bought, and it will always be my favorite.
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06-11-2008 16:57 |
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Dr Rich
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Dr Rich
| quote: |
Originally posted by Chesterdox
I hope the remastering really brings out a fuller sound to DFBB. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think Horrendous Disc is their masterpiece, and my only copy of DFBB is a cassette, so the sound is kind of thin and 2-dimensional. |
DFBB sounds best on the vinyl version!
It sounds pretty good on CD too!
DFBB is the first DA I ever bought, and it will always be my favorite.
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I am maybe a little bit obsessed with this album.
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06-11-2008 18:04 |
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Dr Rich
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Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Darn Floor, Big Bite
I don't listen to much "christian" music anymore, haven't for a long time. Even in my evangelical, charismatic days I thought so much of it had become vacuous and shallow. One of my favorite bands, however, was (and is) Daniel Amos. Always probing, always questioning, never settling for the "christian" status quo, their music usually asks more questions than it answers. The main man of the band and principal song writer, Terry Scott Taylor, is often rumored to be Orthodox, but I have never been able to track down a truly definitive source on that. At any rate, one of my favorite albums and songs is "Darn Floor, Big Bite". It's based on a couple of things, first of all an incident involving a gorilla that had been taught sign language. During an equake, the gorilla signed "darn floor bad bit, trouble trouble". The refrain of the song changes throughout, but one incarnation is:
Darn floor -- big bite
You are earth, water and light
Darn floor -- big bite
Can I ever hope to
Get it right, can't get it right
The implication, obviously, is that when it comes to God we speak of that which we cannot comprehend just as the gorilla spoke of the earthquake.
Another source for the song is the poetry of Lithuanian born poet Czeslaw Milosz, who was reared in Poland with a Roman Catholic education. The opening lines of the song are based upon Milosz' "Unattainable Earth":
You touch my hair and cheek sometimes
Feel in yourself this flesh and blood
My poor flesh and blood
My poor flesh and blood
God had to become man for us to even begin to have a real concept of Him and the only way we truly can come to know Him is in and through the Son Who reveals Him to us. On the way to Orthodoxy, Daniel Amos helped raise the right questions and even shed a little light.
Darn floor -- big bite
You are love
Fire and light
Darn floor -- big bite
Can I ever hope to
Get it right
Can't get it right
Darn floor -- big bite
You are twilight
Dark and bright
Darn floor -- big bite
You are beautiful
A terrible, terrible sight!
Peace!
posted by Jonathan David, a sinner (1/14/2004 08:33:00 AM)
http://philalethia.blogspot.com/2004/01/...r-big-bite.html
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06-11-2008 18:16 |
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Strange Animal
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06-11-2008 18:16 |
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