okay..it's saturday, i have a house full of company (a total of 5 kids in our house aged 6 and under, and my very sanity on the brink of utter destruction), so i don't have any time/energy for anything more than the following saturday song. this song is by a guy named greg x. volz. in the early 1980's he sang for a christian band called petra. then, in 1985 or so he left petra and went solo. i had his 1986 album called "the river is rising" on cassette. remember those? the clear plastic credit card-sized contraption of joy, mysteriously embedded with wicked gnarly 80's tunes? do you remember the smell of one of those cassettes, newly opened? heaven. but i digress....
anyway, in 1986-7, you would have found me next to a tape player with this album on. as soon as the side hummed then clicked to an end, i flipped it over and listened to the other side for 4,593rd time. i loved greg x. volz. i mean, we shared the same name, and his middle initial was x. that was enough to make him my here right there. then, the fact that he was singing christian music that didn't sound like psalty's songbook? awesome. looking back, i recognize that these songs aren't instant classics, and that my own sense of nostalgia colors my hearing of them, but i still dig greg x.'s mid-80's aweseomeness. i don't expect any of you to listen, but in case you want to imagine yourself watching little 11-year old me, with very light brown curly hair, playing with star wars toys and listening to some of the best that christian rock had to offer, have a listen. break out of the trance.
anyway, in 1986-7, you would have found me next to a tape player with this album on. as soon as the side hummed then clicked to an end, i flipped it over and listened to the other side for 4,593rd time. i loved greg x. volz. i mean, we shared the same name, and his middle initial was x. that was enough to make him my here right there. then, the fact that he was singing christian music that didn't sound like psalty's songbook? awesome. looking back, i recognize that these songs aren't instant classics, and that my own sense of nostalgia colors my hearing of them, but i still dig greg x.'s mid-80's aweseomeness. i don't expect any of you to listen, but in case you want to imagine yourself watching little 11-year old me, with very light brown curly hair, playing with star wars toys and listening to some of the best that christian rock had to offer, have a listen. break out of the trance.
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