Monday, January 24, 2011

Growing older every day with The Insyderz

In 1993, when I was 11, Jeff Foxworthy released a comedy album called "You Might Be A Redneck If...". My mom bought it for me that Christmas and I must have listened to it a million time on my off-brand walkman. The "You might be a redneck if..." jokes got worse with every listen but there were parts of his comedy that stuck with me over the years. The first one is was the bit about redneck abbreviations, I use g'eedyet(did you eat yet?) and yumptoo(do you want to?) all the time. But the bit that stuck with me the most was just kind of a throwaway joke about the fashion train. Jeff theorized that we're all riding on the fashion train until one day when we decide it's our stop and the train keeps going while we stay in the same spot becoming more and more irrelevant to youth culture.

I turned 29 recently and I wonder sometimes when my stop on the "fashion train" will come up. When will I draw my line in the sand and proclaim that I've had enough with all this new stuff and things were better in my day!? Will I ever be the disapproving old white guy at the conservative by everybody else's standards church.

A few years back our worship leader tried something new at church and I felt like what the old people must have when they turned down my electric guitar during worship back in college. We had just started going to Lifechurch.tv and we loved the worship. It was a breath of fresh air to find a church that sounded like the music we listened to in the car and on our iPod. It wasn't the normal setup this Sunday. It wasn't 2 guitars, drums, a bass, and some BGVs it was 2 macbooks, 2 keyboards, an electric guitar, and I think a vocoder. I stood there with my arms crossed finally relating to how those stuffy old people must have felt when I was told not to play penatonic scales in church. Sure it was wierd but I later listened to the recording of that worship set and it sounded great.

I've done my best to stay relevant. But I don't want to ever be a slave to it. Every few months or so I'll listen to the most popular songs on Grooveshark.com just to see if there are any diamonds in the rough. But most of the time I live my life in the fringe, the outer limits of what people find acceptable in music and entertainment. I used to pride myself on that when I was younger. Now sometimes I'd rather relate to people than be an oddball or a hipster of any kind.

Ska was relevant for a very brief period in the mid 90s Christan Rock scene. The Insyderz were never the best or most popular in my opinion. The one thing they had going for them was they played a genre of music that I found very enjoyable at a time when Ska was scarce. And they covered a Keith Green song. The Skallaleuia cds were the shining moments in the Insyderz discography.


I once got caught singing this version of the O Lord You're Beautiful in what was meant to be a private moment between me and GOD in our cabin at the family reunion. Definitely on my top 10 most embarrassing moments list.

I'm done with talking about Ska, I've learned I really don't like it anymore. I've grown out of all of it but Five Iron Frenzy. Tomorrow (who am I kidding lol)I'll cover songs that I fell in love with while playing Rock Band.

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