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The ¡Alarma! Chronicles Years
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1986
- Doug Doyle's 3-D Studios upgrades it's 8-track recorder to a 24-track machine.
Tim: "We recorded Vox Humana on an 8 track at 3-D, then he bought the 24 track and we did Fearful Symmetry on it."
- It was during the Fearful Symmetry sessions that the Farm Beetles project was started. They ended one of the sessions early and had some time left in the studio, so they started the project just for the fun of it. Only about 3 or 4 songs were done at this time. The rest of the CD was recorded in the mid 90's.
Tim: "I believe we did 'Strawberry Fields', 'A Day in the Life' and 'Within You Without You" first... maybe one other one, i'm not sure...
The funniest thing to me about the Farm Beetles is that one night I left the studio as Terry, Ed, Greg, and Rob were working intently on Fearful Symmetry and when I came back the next day they were, somehow, working on THAT! Ed played drums, Greg played guitar and Rob Watson played a lot of keyboards, on all the songs I think..."
- Frontline Records is founded. Frontline would later purchase the rights to the ¡Alarma!, Graceland and Intense Records labels.
- Fourth Watch's Dare To Be The One is released. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
- Rock Across America is released. The compilation, released on Shadow Records, featured Terry's "Dancing on Light" and DA's "Travelog," as well as tracks by the Youth Choir, Phil Madeira and others.
- Terry meets Gene Eugene when discussions take place about Terry potentially producing the first Adam Again album. That idea did not work out, but Gene and Riki Michele would visit DA in the studio the following year to record vocals on "The Shape of Air."
January 1, 1986
- Common Bond's Heaven is Calling is released on Broken Records. Ed McTaggart handled the cover design and layout; Jerry Chamberlain played guitar solos and sang background vocals; Terry Taylor and Rob Watson also sang background vocals. The album would also later be released on Frontline Records.
February 1986
- Tim Chandler records with the Choir at Pakaderm studios in Los Alamitos, CA for what would become the Shades of Gray EP. The project was put together quickly so that the band could have a new recording for their upcoming tour with Steve Taylor.
February 20, 1986
- Barren Cross' Rock For The King is released on Star Song Records. Ed McTaggart handled art direction and design.
February-March 1986
- Tim Chandler tours with the Choir, opening for Steve Taylor & Some Band on his "Limelight Tour".
March 1986
- Australia's On Being Magazine publishes a review of DA's Vox Humana.
View Album Reviews
April 1986
- Tim Chandler performs with the Choir on their 2 week solo tour. While on the tour the band performed in Wilmore, KY at Ichthus '86 and in Illinois at the Agape festival.
- The Choir's Shades of Gray is released. Tim Chandler plays bass on the recording.
April 1, 1986
- Bloodgood's first self-titled album is released on Frontline Records. Art Direction was handled by Ed McTaggart. The album was engineered by Doug Doyle.
Eary 1986
Knowledge & Innocence
- Terry's first solo album Knowledge & Innocence, which was dedicated to Terry's Grandfather, is released.
View Album Reviews
Album Info & Lyrics
Terry: "The solo album, was a very personal statement of mine... At times it was a very painful album to make, because It was so personal."
"Debbie had a miscarriage of our first child. I think the cumulative effect of my Grandfather's death and this incident combined to make me feel I was in the belly of the whale." (1996)
Terry, on "Song of Innocence": "We recorded the album over at Doug Doyle's old 3-D studios in Costa Mesa, and although Randy had never worked there before, he and I were very close and had worked together quite a bit already, so the atmosphere was very relaxed and informal. With Randy of course there are a lot of laughs, but when it comes time to work, we work hard. The moment I wrote this song, I knew I had to have Randy do a vocal on it. He was completely charmed by the song when I presented it to him that very day in the studio, and he went right to work learning his part. He's a quick study and he's got great sensibilities when it comes to the appropriate vocal approach to a particular song. He went with a kind of breathiness in the vocal, which captures the inherent wonder of the lyrics. His vocal on that one is very soulful and sweet. I think he played a little guitar on there too. Some people might not know that that's Bob Bennet singing the background on the closing chorus. He did a beautiful job."
Rob Watson: "Albums invariably take on lives of their own. They have personalities that grow as they're being made, and really good albums tend to "want to be made," like a child that wants to be born. Sometimes it even seems that all you have to do is follow the path that's laid out, the album has a way of telling you this, and it's a real joy. Knowledge & Innocence was that kind of project, and there was nothing ordinary about making it. Terry and I lived a few blocks from each other, and we'd sit in my little music room on the floor, or on the couch in his living room with my 4 track cassette recorder and make the album demos, and then we went to 3D Studios with my synthesizers and Terry's guitars. But there was so much deep fellowship and sharing in life, and so many moments in the studio when we'd just create something complex and beautiful, a vocal or instrumental part, without needing to explain to each other - as if we were reading each other's minds. It was truly memorable."
Bob Bennett: "Always happy to have played a background vocals role on a couple of songs. There isn't a more overused adjective than 'genius,' and I expect Terry might wince at that... but folks, if the 'artistic shoe' fits, you're kind of stuck!"
(Terry's early sketch for the cover of "Knowledge and Innocence")
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May 1, 1986
- Wild Blue Yonder's self-titled album is released on Frontline Records. Terry Scott Taylor produced and sang backing vocals. WBY also covers DA's "Only One" and Ed McTaggart handles the art direction.
Terry: "In the mid-80s, I became a house producer Frontline Records. One of my first projects was the debut album by Wild Blue Yonder, an up and coming Southern California group who boasted the 15-year-old phenom Crystal Lewis as the band's lead singer. Crystal left the group two years later to pursue a solo career in Contemporary Christian Music, which she succeeded in achieving with great success. Because of WBY's rather eclectic style (some have described it as 'rockabilly cow punk influenced by The Stray Cats and Lone Justice') I felt a song in the Phil Spector Wall of Sound vein, if done right, would gently expand the group's musical palate without sounding out of place on the record. I was a huge fan of Spector's style, and one of my most prominent musical heroes, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, utilized the Spector sound to create what is today considered to be one of the greatest records of all time: Pet Sounds.
I submitted 'Only One' (previously only recorded by DA as a demo in 1980) for Wild Blue Yonder's 1986 debut self-titled album. Ironically, 'Only One' turned out to be an accurate prediction of the group's humble discography; their first album would indeed be their 'Only One.' No doubt I was influenced to submit 'Only One' because of how incredibly impressed I was with Crystal's powerful vocal skills and range, especially coming out of the mouth of such a diminutive, sweet, and relatively quiet young lady; I thought, 'if anyone can pull off a Ronnie Spector-style vocal, it's Crystal.'Among my most vivid memories of that period was the young Crystal, seated in a chair next to the microphone in Doug Doyle's 3D studio room, diligently working away at her high school homework between vocal takes.
That same year, I would bring Crystal back into the studio to do a cameo backing vocal on Daniel Amos's 'When Moonlight Sleeps (On the Frosted Hill)' for our Fearful Symmetry album. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to work with the emerging CCM super star again, but I'll always remember her as an unassuming and incredibly gifted young lady. 'Only One' was revived (with yours truly singing lead vocal) for 1990's Dr. Edward Daniel Taylor's Miracle Faith Telethon and released yet again on my Terry Scott Taylor 'best of' CD, 1999's Glimpses of Grace.
- Crumbacher's Escape from the Fallen Planet is released on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handled the albums art direction and design.
May 16, 1986
(Knotts Berry Farm Photos courtesy of Dave Hartung)
- "Terry Taylor & Friends" perform at Knotts Berry Farm as part of Frontline Music Celebration '86. Other performers include Leslie (Sam) Phillips, Bryan Duncan, Larry Norman, Crumbacher, Wild Blue Yonder, the Altar Boys, Jon Gibson, Benny Hester Band, Morgan Cryar, Bloodgood, Lifesavers, Geoff Moore, Oden Fong and Common Bond.
Mid 1986
- DA's 1986 NewsLetter is mailed out to members of the "Doppelgang".
View News Letter
June 15, 1986
- Frontline Records reforms DA's ¡Alarma! Records brand as one of their labels.
- The Altar Boys Gut Level Music is released on Frontline Records. Terry coproduced the album with Rob Watson. Ed McTaggart handled the art directon and design.
- The Lifesavers A Kiss of Life is released on ¡Alarma! Records. Ed McTaggart handled the Art Direction and Layout for the album.
June 17, 1986
- Tonio K's Romeo Unchained is released on What? Records. Tim Chandler played bass guitar.
Tim: "I was then and remain to this day, a big Tonio K fan! I love the man, and we try to hang whenever he comes through Nashville. He's the greatest and way underrated."
July 1, 1986
- Frontline Records releases D.O.X.'s self titled debut album which was produced and arranged by Terry Taylor. Terry also wrote "(In My) Dream of Heaven" and "The Hungering Dark/Light Ship" and sang background vocals; Tim Chandler sang background vocals; Rob Watson played keyboards and sang background vocals; Ed McTaggart provided the layout.
- The Revelation is released on Frontline Records. The album contains a remixed version of the classic side two of Shotgun Angel, as well as the new song "Soon!" and narrations by Calvary Chapel Pastor Chuck Smith. Terry and Rob Watson also created new instrumental music for the collection to accompany the narrations.
Album Info & Lyrics
Summer 1986
- Common Bond's Heaven is Calling is rereleased on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handled the cover design and layout; Jerry Chamberlain played guitar solos and sang background vocals; Terry Taylor and Rob Watson also sang background vocals. The album was released earlier in the year on Broken Records.
September 15, 1986
Fearful Symmetry
- DA's Fearful Symmetry is released.
View Album Reviews
Album Info & Lyrics
Terry: "In preparation for writing songs for the Daniel Amos album Fearful Symmetry, I was reading a number of romantic poets at the time such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Byron from whom I borrowed bits and pieces of imagery and blended them into my own thoughts concerning transcendent states such as the afterlife, beatific visions, revelatory dreams and the like, for which metaphor, inadequate in many ways as it may be in explaining these things, is the closest we are going to get to the truth and heart of the matter."
Terry: "I believe it was Wordsworth who wrote about 'the strangeness in beauty' - that's the spirit this record captures. You're not going to be able to compare it easily with any existing record, Christian or secular. And that's satisfying to me. That's the edge. That's what DA stands for, musically and again creatively. It's music with risk. I think it's a ferociously original piece of work, I haven't heard anything quite like it - but this is definitely DA."
Terry, on "Shadow Catcher": "I have no recollection of the writing session in which Tim Chandler and I wrote the music for this song. If I had to make an educated guess I would say that Tim probably already had the basic structure of the music when we started, which I then altered slightly over the coming days in order to accompany the lyrical direction I was taking; adding chords, extending or truncating measure lengths, and so forth. This is how Tim and I usually worked when writing together. I believe from the beginning we both saw this as a studio production piece; that is, Tim and I had only a bare-bones sketch for a song... its strength, i.e. its 'strange beauty,' we believed, was a treasure trove yet to be mined. We had a minor keyed, somewhat dark, almost dirge-like, composition, but our heads were overflowing with ideas for making the song a richly surrealistic, dreamlike soundscape once the band got ahold of it inside the studio."
Ed: "The music is quite unlike anything heard before. But it's melodic. There are real strong hooks and melodies, and the lyrics are insightful and thought-provoking The musical ideas are quite unique - the listener might have to adjust a little, but the album is quite accessible - in a strange sort of way."
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- Jerry Chamberlain and Sharon McCall's band Boy-O-Boy records "She Makes Love With Her Eyes", which was later released on the compilation No Sense of History in 1992.
October 1, 1986
- Idle Cure's self titled album is released on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handles the art direction and design.
October 3, 1986
- Terry's Grandmother Thelma Borthick passes away in California. Terry spent a lot of time with his grandparents as a child and Thelma would be the primary source of inspiration for A Briefing for the Ascent released the following year.
October 15, 1986
- Carson Cole and RU4's Mainstreet is released on Frontline Records. The album, which was produced by Terry Taylor, also included the song "Kingdom Come," which was written by Terry, and "Serenity," which was written by Terry and Chris Brigandi. Ed McTaggert handled art direction & layout; Tim Chandler played bass; Greg Flesch played lead guitar.
- Jon Gibson's On The Run is released on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
October 24, 1986
- Daniel Amos begins the Fearful Symmetry tour in Riverside, California at the Municipal Auditorium. The Choir opened the show.
Set List: Walls of Doubt, Endless Summer, Travelog, A Sigh for You, As the World Turns, Strong Points Weak Points, The Pool, Memory Lane, Mall (All Over the World), William Blake, Incredible Shrinking Man, I Didn't Build it For Me
October 27, 1986
- The Choir's Diamonds And Rain is released on Myrrh Records. Tim Chandler played bass guitar and cowrote "Fear Only You" and "All That is You." Jerry Chamberlain sang background vocals.
October 31, 1986-December 31, 1986
- Tim Chandler tours with The Choir.
Derri Daugherty: "The Choir played a few years at a winter festival in Germany called 'Christmas Rock Night'. It was a great weekend festival in a small town . We were always excited to go to Europe to play. So we're at this festival and it's indoors. We're hanging out with some friends of ours who are in bands playing and we're in the green room. There's an extension cord that’s plugged into the wall. People kept tripping over it. Tim Chandler was getting really annoyed by it. The band playing onstage I will not name but it wasn't good. Tim at one point got so mad at this extension cord that he yanked it out of the wall. All of a sudden the sound onstage went from this huge sound to mostly vocals and drums. Someone came running in and plugged the cord back in. Yelling at Us for unplugging it. It turns out the band was playing to tracks. We sat for awhile and then decided to leave because we had already played. As we walked out we got to the sidewalk and Tim said to 'hang on for a second.' Then he went back in and came running out and yelled to run for it. He had unplugged the cord again. That's the Tim I remember!"
November 2, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in San Fransisco, California at Wolfgang's. The popular San Francisco club had hosted shows by artists such as John Hiatt, Romeo Void (which included Aaron Smith of the 77s and the Ragamuffin Band on drums), Lone Justice, Blue Oyster Cult, Roger McGuinn, James Brown, Midnight Oil, The Alarm, Cheap Trick, Spinal Tap, Ronnie Spector, Bourgeois Tagg, Los Lobos, Warren Zevon, and many others.
November 7, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Milwaukee, WI.
November 8, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Champaign, Illinois at the Universtiry of Illinois.
November 9, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in DeKalb, Illinois at the Norhtern Illinois University.
November 10, 1986
- Daniel Amos performance in St. Louis, MO at Mississipi Nights was canceled.
November 12, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Bloomington, Illinois at Illinois State University.
November 13, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Springfield, OH at Wittenberg University. The Choir opened the show.
November 14, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Elgin, Illinois at the Larkin High School Auditorium. The Choir opened the show.
November 15, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Valparaiso, IN at the Valparaiso University. The Choir opened the show.
November 16, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Holland, MI at Hope College. The Choir opened the show.
November 17, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Fort Wayne, IN at Blackhawk Baptist Church. The Choir opened the show.
November 19, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Lexington, KY at the University of Kentucky. The Choir opened the show.
November 20, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Cincinnati, Ohio at the University of Cincinnati. The Choir opened the show.
November 21, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Cleveland, Ohio at John Caroll University. The Choir opened the show.
November 22, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in York, PA at the York Suburban High School. The Choir opened the show.
November 23, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Boston, MD at the Club Paradise. The Choir opened the show.
November 24, 1986
- Randy Stonehill's The Wild Frontier is released on Myrrh Records. Jerry Chamberlain played guitar and sang bgv's; Rob Watson and Tom Howard played keyboards; Alex MacDougall played percussion. Other musicians on the album included Tonio K., Peter Case, Dave Perkins, Rick Cua, Mike Mead, Jerry McPherson and Chris Harris.
November 28, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Richmond, VA at the FloodZone. The Choir opened the show.
November 29, 1986
- Daniel Amos and the Choir perform at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA at 7:30 p.m.
Jerry Davison (from Jacob's Trouble): "(DA) played at a tiny auditorium in Atlanta. My best friend George and I were front row dead center and Tim and Greg were hurling themselves full force into each other trying to knock each other on their butts and Tim staggered at one point and fell into the mic stand which proceeded to come crashing down onto my friends head with considerable force. (They) were very apologetic as I recall but it was all good to us. Hey, it ain't rock and roll unless somebody's bleeding!"
December 5, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Tulsa, OK at Oral Roberts University. The Choir opened the show.
December 6, 1986
- Daniel Amos performs in Dallas, Texas. The Choir opened the show.
December 31, 1986
(Frontline Poster courtesy of Dawn Wisner Johnson)
- Daniel Amos performs at Frontline Records "New Years Eve Alternative Celebration" in Buena Park, California at Knott's Berry Farm. Other performers included The Choir, Steve Taylor, Crumbacher, Lifesavers, Wild Blue Yonder, Mad at the World, Jon Gibson, Tramaine Hawkins, Common Bond, the Altar Boys, and Idle Cure.
Late 1986-early 1987
(Rob Watson)
- Rob Watson (keyboards) leaves DA.
Rob: "Toward the late 80's I became a pipe-organist / music director / composer-in-residence for First Christian Church of Pasadena, CA and joined The Surfaris- the '60s surf band that wrote and released "Wipeout", "Surfer Joe" and "Point Panic". Other members of note in the Surfaris are David Raven of the Swirling Eddies, Jay Truax of Love Song, and Paul Johnson from the Belairs and the Packards.
Since those days I've become a composer/conductor for film and tv music. I've been called on to ghost-write for a couple of series, I've scored 7 feature films, 4 short films, and am currently working on my 8th feature and 5th short. I've guest-conducted the orchestra for Alf Clausen on The Simpsons and am slated this season to do the same for Jay Chattaway on a Star Trek session." (March 1999)
New Sound Magazine reviews Fearful Symmetry
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Unknown Date 1986
- Fearful Symmetry is reviewed by Cornerstone Magazine.
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