(Arthur Fhardi, Camarillo Eddy, Berger Roy Al, Prickly Disco, Hort Elvison, Spot and Gene Pool)
1989
- Jon Gibson's Body & Soul is released on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
- The Violet Burning's Chosen is released on New Breed. Rob Watson played keyboards.
January-February 1989
- Noteboard Magazine mentions Tim Chander and David Raven in their news section.
"Drummer David Raven and bassist Tim Chandler, one of the most in-demand session rhythm sections going these days, are putting together a band of their own. They are compsoing some alternative-type music, and plan to take it into the clubs and the like in the LA area. Raven, oddly enough, will step out from behind his kit and serve as the band's frontman and vocalist. Other members are being recruited at the moment. The Raven/Chandler team most recently came off the Keaggy/Stonehill national tour."
- Noteboard Magazine publishes a review of The Swirling Eddies' Let's Spin.
View Album Reviews
January-March 1989
- Tim Chandler and David Raven Tour with Phil Keaggy and Randy Stonehill.
- At a Keaggy/Stonehill band show in Florida, Tom Gulotta meets Tim Chandler and discusses the possibility of assisting with the Swirling Eddies fan club. Terry gives Tom a call sometime later.
February 1989
- Terry Taylor is featured in CCM Magazine. "Terry Taylor Stops Kidding Around"
February 14, 1989
- Frontline Records releases Fruits of the Spirit - Breakfast Serials, which was produced and written by Terry Taylor.
(Swirling Eddies Spinning Vortex and Mutual Admiration Society Fun Club Membership Card, scan courtesy of Geoff)
March 1989
- The "Guess the Eddies" contest ends. 750 people entered the contest and only 141 "guessed the Eddies" correctly. Some people guessed artists such as Wayne Watson and Russ Taff. The winner was Michael Patrick of Illinois.
- The first issue of Vertigo (at the time called "The Swirling Eddies Spinning Vortex Fun Club and Mutual Admiration Society Newsletter") is mailed out. Which contains info on ordering a cassette of Greg Flesch's elevator-music-style covers of the Let's Spin album, entitled Swirling Mellow.
View Newsletter
(Arthur Fhardi, Berger Roy Al, Camarillo Eddy, Prickly Disco, Hort Elvison, Spot and Gene Pool)
March 10, 1989
- Thad Bosley's Who Can Change The World? is released on Bellmark. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
April 15, 1989
- Benny Hester's Perfect is released on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
April 25, 1989
- The Choir's Wide Eyed Wonder is released on Myrrh Records. Tim Chandler cowrote "Someone to Hold On To", "Spin You Around", "Car, etc" and was featured in the "Choir Choir" on "Car, etc".
(Swirling Eddies Toothpaste - "Makes Your Teeth Rock Star White!")
April-May, 1989
- Terry produces the debut album from Jacob's Trouble at Mixing Lab A&B with Gene Eugene engineering.
May 12, 1989
- The Altar Boys' Forever Mercy is released on Frontline Records. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
July 1989
- CCM Magazine holds a contest to guess the unknown man on the cover of Vox Humana (See the release of Vox Humana for the answer). The contest winner will receive a signed copy of the band's Darn Floor - Big Bite.
July 11, 1989
- Morgan Cryar's Like A River is released on Reunion Records. Rob Watson played keyboards.
July 18, 1989
- Jacob's Trouble's Door Into Summer is released on ¡Alarma! Records. Terry produced and played guitar. Terry also cowrote "Awfully Familiar" with Steve Atwell, Mark Blackburn and Jerry Davison; Gene Eugene engineered; Greg Flesch played guitars, keyboards and E-Bow; Alex MacDougall played Tambourine, Maracas, etc; Background vocals on the album were provided by "The Troubling Jacobury's: Steve Atwell, Mark Blackburn, Jerry Davison, Terry Taylor, Ric Alba and Jerry Chamberlain.
Jerry Davison, on "Awfully Familiar": "I love this song and to me it's one of the better tracks on Door. We had it mostly finished when we flew out to record, except for a third verse which I was stuck on. In rehearsals I just sang the second verse twice. Terry said not to worry about it just then because we technically didn't need it until it came time to cut the vocal. Fast forward to cutting the vocal and still no third verse. We all sat around throwing out ideas but nothing seemed right. Terry sat at the console scribbling on a napkin. A few minutes later, he looked up. 'There's your third verse,' he said, smiling. He handed it to me, I went out and sang it. And that's what you hear on the CD. Greg Flesch plays a cool e-bow part on this song. That's him on the little coronet part in the bridge and during the fade out. It's actually a keyboard but it sounds authentic enough. Terry came up with the idea of adding the sounds of a rain storm to give it a little atmosphere. This brought to the surface a concern that had been growing in our minds as the recordings grew more and more sophisticated. 'Terry, we're just three guys with a guitar, a bass and drums,' we said. 'How the heck are we supposed to recreate all these guitar parts and keyboard parts and rain storms?' His answer was so simple it took us back. 'So don't,' he said. 'Who says you have to do a song exactly like the record? Do something different with it when you play live. Otherwise people might as well just stay at home and listen to the CD.' That was quite a liberating thought!."
Jerry Davison, on "Church of Do What You Want To": "Our original demo featured a big distorted guitar intro and an overall edgier arrangement. It was Terry's idea to give it a more Roy Orbison 'Pretty Woman' vibe. I have to say it's a drastic improvement. The weird phone message at the beginning is actually Gene Eugene's answering machine. Dan Michaels, of the Choir, was a neighbor of Gene's. They lived in a neighborhood where everybody knew each other and trusted one another so they never locked their doors or anything. So one day when Gene's at work, Dan sneaks in and changes the message on Gene's answering machine. We were taking a break from recording and Gene called home to check his messages. He suddenly started laughing out loud and we were all staring at him like 'What the...?' He redialed his number and handed the phone to Terry. 'Listen to this,' he said. 'It's Dan doing a bad impersonation of some cartoon character.' We all took turns listening to it and agreed we had to put it on the record. It's somewhat edited for the recording to leave out Gene's name. But for years after that we would have people yell out 'Rooty-Toot-Toot!' at our concerts."
- Veil Of Ashes' Pain is released on Graceland. Ed McTaggart handled art direction for the album. Musicians included Derri Daugherty, Steve Hindalong and the albums producer Gene Eugene.
August 15, 1989
- Angelica's self-titled album is released on Intense Records. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the project.
Mid-Late 1989
- The Swirling Eddies send a special limited edition "Apology" video to everyone that ordered Spittle & Phlegm, since the video wasn't finished yet. The "Apology" video included Camarillo's lipsync version of an at the time unreleased song, "Mystery Babylon".
September 1989
Outdoor Elvis
- Swirling Eddies Outdoor Elvis is released.
View Album Reviews
Album Info & Lyrics
From this album, the song "Driving In England" reached #1 on the Rock Airplay Chart, Terry's first #1 song since DA released Shotgun Angel. There were some Christian colleges that were actually upset that they weren't mentioned in "Hide the Beer, The Pastor's Here".
("Hide the Beer" ad, designed by Doug TenNapel)
Terry: "I played it fast and loose for that record. We got busy, just writing songs, and it's a cosmic thing, what can I tell you. Tim Chandler had this idea that there were these sightings of Outdoor Elvis. And the band just loves to play with these funny ideas. It's like, okay, Outdoor Elvis has been spotted fishing, but he's still got the gold cape on... and it goes on and on. So it's time to do a Swirling Eddies record and this guy Outdoor Elvis is in my head, so that's what I write about."
Terry: "We come from Southern California... ya know one of the early Beach Boys hits was 'Surfin USA'... they named places like Dohini and a lot of other surfing spots, so the whole idea there was in doing so a lot of people got excited when their town or the place they surfed came up. So, the idea of adding the Christian Colleges in the song was an afterthought, and it was sort of the Beach Boys thing of throwing these Christian Colleges out. Some Interesting things happened with that... we had a dean call us and threaten to take us to court and he was gonna call all the other deans and that sort of thing. But that was before he heard the song. He had just heard the title of the song and it kind of put him off. But he cooled off after we sent him a copy and he understood the meaning of the song and that it wasn't a slam against Christian Colleges. It was kind of a fun thing - as a matter of fact, that's the kind of comments we've gotten from College Students, ya know, 'we wait to hear our College mentioned' and some were very offended because their College wasn't in the list." (June 1990)
Terry, on "Billy Graham": "I always felt that Billy was the real deal. At heart he's a simple country preacher who has always been willing to admit he's made some mistakes and doesn't have all the theological answers. I have to go elsewhere for more weighty stuff, but Graham is The Man when it comes to a powerful, no frills presentation of the simple gospel message. Considering Swaggart's undoing, I thought at the time that a little salute to Billy was in order."
"I think with all of the things that have been happening, obviously in Fundamentalist Evangelical circles, it's sort of refreshing to see someone that continues to have integrity, a simple message and seems to be an honest person and that's just our little salute to Billy Graham. I'm sure there are hundreds of others that we could have been singing about, but we felt that to be an intriguing kind of approach to a song... something about a man who has been doing it all these years, and the press is constantly trying to turn up something on the guy and invalidate what he does and yet he still seems to be one of the honest people, sincere and he has an impact."
Terry, on "Elimination (The Band That Won't Go Away": "(The song) is a humorous exercise in self deprecation, while at the same time it pokes fun at some of the criticism both The Swirling Eddies and Daniel Amos received over the years from certain sensitive brethren who were more than a little unsympathetic to our approach. Oddly enough, for the first time in my career as an artist, this penchant for troublemaking created a small degree of tension and disagreement between us and our own record company. When the Frontline suits heard the word "hell" in the lyrics of 'Elimination,' they informed us that we needed to either excise it or disguise it in some fashion. Since we had first hand knowledge that our fans consisted of adults rather than children, we thought the move to censor a single word for the sake of not offending a few thin-skinned people who would probably never hear it anyway, was entirely ludicrous. Still, we didn't consider this issue important enough for us to dig in and fight over, so we graciously acquiesced, choosing to go with the second option: disguise. Eventually we presented the alternate version to the powers that be and, oh happy day, they sighed with relief and signed off. Ironically enough, the solution wound up being much worse than the original problem. In slicing and dicing up the word “hell” we actually succeed in calling attention to it. Have a listen to the original song sometime, and you'll see what I mean.
Terry, on "Hell Oh": "'Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.' (Jesus in Matthew 23: 27-28) 'Instead, we will speak the truth in love'
(Ephesians 4:15)
What we have here is a happy little stringent song cautioning us about the dangers of self-righteousness and hypocrisy, with a warning about eternal separation from God thrown in to add to the festivities! I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed the day I wrote this little number!
Christ's words, aimed at religious hypocrites, (including myself) are echoed in Hell Oh!, and since they are like bees in the bonnet of our religious pretensions and serve to make us feel more than a little uncomfortable, I threw in the line about the 'bee at your picnic.' Let me be clear; I call myself 'the bee' in the song, not because I think I'm better than anyone else and therefore immune to the charge of hypocrisy (Lord knows that, at times, I have been as hypocritical as the next guy, maybe more so), but because, in paraphrasing these particular words of Christ in song, I've now become the agent delivering the 'sting' of his words to myself as well as the listener. Or, if you're not buying this explanation, try this one: maybe I was feeling a little self-righteous on the day I wrote this song, and being the flagrant hypocrite that I sometimes am, decided to point an accusing finger at everyone else but myself! Since Hell Oh! is an old tune, and I can't possibly be expected to recall exactly what motivated me in the writing of it, I suppose you and I will just have to live with our speculations. BTW, I'm not planning on losing any sleep over this, and neither should you. What I am certain of is this: whenever we, in humility and love, point out another's failings or sins purely for the sake of lovingly restoring them to fellowship with our Lord and his body, then we are rightfully motivated and God's Spirit is not grieved. Anything less than this is nothing more than an attempt to get the speck out of our brothers eye before removing the lumber pile in our own. Instead, we 'speak the truth in love.'"
|
|
(Swirling Eddies "Ed Heads Unite" Button)
Mid-Late 1989
- DA's bassist Tim Chandler was asked to join a new band being formed by veteran artists Steve Taylor, Lynn Nichols and Dave Perkins called Chagall Guevara.
Steve Taylor: "Most of you don't know - Tim was actually in the band (Chagall Guevara) for like five days... we were talking and I think it might have been me that said 'hey what about Tim Chandler?' And of course he lived in Southern California, but they all thought it was a great idea and they all knew what a great player he was and so we flew him out. We rehearsed for a couple of days and it was just going great and he played so great and he had this great look and I was so excited.... I had to fly out of town for a couple of days, and I got back two days later and Tim had quit the band. I said to Dave and Lynn, 'what happened?' and they said 'well we were recording with him last night and we were going an hour or and hour and a half and all of a sudden, he starts swearing at us and he quits.' Well that's weird. I've known him for a while and it doesn't seem like he would do that out of nowhere. And so, I talked to Tim and he's already kind of regretting what he'd done but I said 'so, what happened?' He said 'they just started telling me what to play - like every note. I couldn't take it so I quit.' I'm thinking - who would tell you what to play? Who thought that was a good idea? So, anyway we ended up having a really great bass player, but we lost Tim and I was always bummed about it."
Lynn Nichols: "Tim came to town for a few days to hang out with us and see if Chagall was a fit. During that time we recorded a few songs that we (Steve, Dave, and myself) had already been working on. 'Can't You Feel The Chains' was the first one I believe and 'Got Any Change' (This song later surfaced - with Tim's bass track inctact - on the 2022 release Halcyon Days) was the 2nd one in my recollection. I was also thinking 'Tale of The Twister' was sandwiched in there."
September 9, 1989
- PID's Back to Back is released on Graceland Records. Ed McTaggart handled the art direction for the album.
September/October 1989
- Notebored Magazine reviews the Swirling Eddies Outdoor Elvis.
View Album Reviews
October 1989
- Australia's On Being Magazine publishes a review of The Swirling Eddies' Let's Spin.
View Album Reviews
October 1, 1989
- Bob Bennett's Lord of the Past is released on Urgent Records. Alex MacDougall played percussion.
November 14, 1989
- Writers and Commentators from the St Cloud Times in MN select their Top Rock albums of the 1980s. DA's Darn Floor Big Bite makes the list at #23. "The minor-key surrealists of Contemporary Christian music explore the shadowy, wraith-stalked world perched on the brink of hell and yet within the grasp of heaven."
- Riki Michele's Big Big Town is released. Terry cowrote "Ghost In The Rain" with Gene Eugene.
🡄
🡆
|
