Paul Clark & Friends Good to Be Home Seed 1975

Paul Clark & Friends Good to Be Home Seed Records 1975 CAT# PSR-004

Have you ever seen the Christian rock episode of South Park where Cartman starts a Christian rock band because he can't gain a following doing a regular rock band? That's pretty much what I think about the contemporary Christian music scene...bunch of fairly talented players who couldn't come up with enough originality in their rock band so they took their ideas, inserted the word "Jesus" and throw it at the kids not allowed to watch MTV in the Bible Belt. Whit that same outlook, I put it on the Jesus Music scene of the 70's, just a bunch of washed up dudes selling their tunes to an audience short on culture.

Part of that is probably still true, but the 70's Jesus Music scene was a bit deeper than today's contemporary scene. Jesus was much cooler in the late-60's and 70's than he is now. The music kind of shows that. There are legitimate hit tunes centering around Jesus from the 70's. Today, Kayne West thinks he's special for "Jesus Walks" (and he is, that beat is insane). But beside Kayne, point is, the 70's Jesus Music scene offers some hidden gems, some of which go for a lot of money. Kansas City had a pretty substantial foot-mark on the scene.

Mainly in Paul Clark, but also Phil Keagy. Paul Clark is native to the area and released a ton of albums, many of which can be found in dollar bins across the metro. Keagy, who is featured on this album, was one of the bigger names in the scene, wasn't native to the KC area, but moved to Shawnee to record much of his output.

As far as their music, it typically sounds genuine, these guys were always super-Christian and making music was only going to be about that. It doesn't sound forced, although, if you're not Christian, the albums can get uncomfortable and preachy. But, the music is good, they're good players, it's well recorded, and it fits in line with everything else in the 70's.

Looking at this specific album, Good To Be Home, it looks like you're in some hippie-folk. However, it's more of a soft-rock affair. Similar to singer/songwriter stuff coming out in the 70's. It's got it's moments, musically...it's just all the Jesus stuff throws me off.

FULL ALBUM

Ottawa University Quartet S/T Audio House 1975

Ottawa University Quartet S/T Audio House 1975 CAT# AHS 176F75

Picking this up, I was thinking it's either going to be either really great or just really boring. The year, 1975 is about right for some killer Gospel sides. However, looking at it, there was no mention of instrumentation, which had me thinking this might not be that great. Unfortunately, it lands on the boring side, it's just the four voices accompanied by a piano, there isn't enough here, although they are good signers. There is a vocal work out on "Do You Know The Way to Jesus?" with some clever harmonies. The first track on Side 2, "I Kept on Serching [Searching] till I Found the King of Kings" gets soulful with just the minimal accompaniment. Other than that, it's really just a lot of Andre Couch covers.

The Ottawa University Quartet put this out on the Audio House label. Ottawa University is about 30 minutes outside of Lawrence, KS and not none for being hip, but hey, they're close enough to Lawrence. This group of singers actually only features one local from Kansas City, KS, two of the singers are from St. Louis and another from Pennsylvania. 

1975 Rock Chalk Revue Audio House 1975

1975 Rock Chalk Revue Audio House 1975 CAT# AHSPLM 37L75

Once, while working at KJHK 90.7, I received a call from a student writing a paper on the Rock Chalk Revue. If you're not familiar with Rock Chalk Revue, it's an annual musical theater/skit program that takes place at the University of Kansas. It was started and run by the Greek organizations on campus. A fraternity and a sorority team up, write a 15 minute act with corny jokes and music, then try out to get into the big show. Several teams are picked, they compete do their programs on campus at the large theater and a bunch of Greeks come to support it. Apparently, for a brief time, the Greeks hired out Audio House to record the skits and press a record. Likely only purchased by the Greeks that were a part of the program. The student that called me was looking for a particular year in which a LP was pressed.

What was interesting about her request is that she explained the Greek domination of the program, which I was aware of as my girlfriend was in a sorority. The reason she wanted a certain year is that apparently, one year enough students complained that about the practice of only allowing Greek organizations to enter the contest. At the student's request, there was apparently one year that non-Greek organizations were allowed to enter the contest. According to the student, art students entered the contest, were allowed to take part in the big show and blew everyone away and won. The following year, the Greek Counsel changed the rules back and never allowed non-Greek organizations to enter the contest again.

It's an interesting story and would probably make for a good record. Unfortunately, this is not that record. I wish I knew the year that did happen as I'd keep my eye out despite, never seeing these things in the first place. This record is a waste of time. Greek humor is cheap. Many of the gags were visual and don't translate to recording. The music is borrowed from musicals and pop tunes with jokes and rewritten lyrics. It does showcase some amateur talent by the Greeks, but, yeah, pretty amateur. And, I don't want to take away from their creativity...or dedication to the skit. This would require a lot of time and effort to put together, requiring marginally talented sorority and fraternity members to be lead by a house member with a goal. But, yeah, frat boys are going to be frat boys and a lot of the jokes are just cheap and land on the side of crude rather than edgy.