Wednesday it is a listening party for the next album from Fireflight! It happens at 8 PM USA/Canadian/Mexican Central Time on Fireflight’s Facebook page. They will also be giving out some prizes.
These are the four most valid choices for what should be the Dove Awards’ 2020 “Rock” Album Of The Year category: Demon Hunter War (definitely the more hard rockin’ of the War and Peace double album release this year); Disciple Love Letter Kill Shot; Red Declaration; and Skillet Victorious.
But this is not a Rock album of the year category…it is a “Rock/Contemporary” Album of the Year.
First of all, what the crap is “Rock/Contemporary”, anyway? I miss the long-gone “good old days” when the Dove Awards had straight up Rock categories.
But, alas, this is the Duh-v Awards…and this is the “Rock/Contemporary” category.
Longtime Blasters know one of our old pieces of radio imaging said “Contemporary is a 12-letter word that we have no use for at TheBlast.FM”. So there’s that…to spew forth a ridiculously dumb cliche saying.
The fifth nominee is a cool pop band called Apollo LTD with an album called Out Of Body. They are in this category because their music is far too cool to be in an adult contemporary category. There is no category for edgier pop that is too cool and edgy for adult contemporary radio.
The Christian music industry has all but killed the Christian CHR/Top 40 format…the format that is musically in between Rock and Adult Contemporary, because the know-it-all-powers-that-be think all of the “CHR” and AC stations “should all be punching a hole through the wall in the same spot.” Ah: conformity.
Well, we will have none of that. This is why we launched Christian Hot CHR station The Blast Blender in 2014. Formatically, it lies in between Rock and where most Christian “CHR’s” and Hot AC stations are.
Incidentally, we predict that Apollo LTD will win this (mostly) Rock category. Because that is the result that will be most maddening, and make the least amount of sense.
Snarkily yours,
Colin Cruz…Program Director of TheBlast.FM
Update: our final Twitter poll results:
Amongst The Giants lead singer Brian Boyd
Collaborations and band member-sharing. There is a whole lot of both happening these days in Christian Rock, and a lot of it happened at the Kingdom Come Festival this month. Matt Baird showed up on stage to do It’s OK with Death Therapy; Marco Pera (of Amongst The Giants) played bass for Disciple; Chaotic Resemblance’s drummer John Jakway banged the skins in an emergency for Spoken; and any time you have multiple Rockfest Records bands present, the Rockfest fam comes together. Here is a snippet of Amongst The Giants in concert, with help from Zahna and The Persuaded: https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/732599020904851/
The Letter Black in concert
As a radio station that has been playing The Letter Black on the radio since August 2, 2007 when they were called “Breaking The Silence” with the song The Stand…TheBlast.FM is very excited about the fact that they have been in the studio for the last 3 days recording the first phase of the next album, which will be on Rockfest Records. They go back to the studio for phase 2 in August 2020!
The Persuaded at KCF 2020
TheBlast.FM shot a video of The Persuaded peforming Unashamed at the Kingdom Come Festival this month. Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/1178241199219061/
That’s Spoken lead singer and founder Matt Baird above pouring his heart out through song at the Kingdom Come Festival near Greentown, Indiana earlier this month. We have a video of them performing their current Christian rock radio hit The Way Back Home here: https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/2762988670602682/
GFM performing Taking Over at KCF 2020
In case you haven’t noticed, there is a LOT of buzz about this band, Gold Frankincense and Myrrh. The three teenage sisters from Florida put on a blistering set of GFM tunes at Kingdom Come Festival, and it was received by a very enthusiastic mid-Saturday afternoon crowd.
We have the video of them performing the song Taking Over here:
GFM-Taking Over live at KCF 2020
Gold Frankincense and Myrrh peforming "Taking Over" at Kingdom Come Festival 2020 (shot by TheBlast.FM)
Posted by TheBlast.FM on Monday, July 20, 2020
Jason Wisdom, lead singer of Death Therapy, is on the left, and Spoken’s Matt Baird is on the right.
They did it! The Blast’s Colin Cruz had been wondering on air for this for weeks: since Spoken and Death Therapy played on the same day at Kingdom Come Festival…will Matt Baird hop on stage to do It’s OK with Death Therapy? We asked both bands online. Normally, they answer our questions. But not this one. And…surprise! It happened!
You can hear Colin Cruz say “Where’s Matt?!” early in the song and “There’s Matt!!!” later in the song when he shows up.
We have the video for the song here: https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/202328547886148/
The Protest at Kingdom Come Fest 2020
Indiana’s own The Protest has a BIG following in the Hoosier state. They are from New Castle, Indiana, about an hour and a half away from the venue near Greentown, a village near Kokomo. Lead singer Joshua Bramlett says the band is “not a big deal in their hometown of New Castle.”
That lines up with Luke 4:24, where Jesus says “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” But in their nearby adopted hometown of Kokomo and in Greentown, and at the Kingdom Come Festival, they are huge.
Here’s how we know that: the crowd for the mid-evening The Protest concert on Saturday was larger than the crowd for the headliner Disciple. And that is certainly not a knock on Disciple…it’s a testament to how popular The Protest is in their home state.
The band left New Castle at 9:30 in the morning and didn’t finish that 90 minute drive until early evening, as their bus broke down three times in between New Castle and Greentown.
We know who didn’t want them to come, but the devil did not win. God got ’em to the fest, bus and all, and they put on a great rock show. Highlights included Welcome To The Freakshow, a rockin’ cover of Michael Jackson’s 1982 pop radio hit Beat It, and Noise Revolution, which is chronicled here:
https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/1574988186003990/
Disciple put on another amazing show, as they were the headliner Saturday night at the Kingdom Come Festival near Greentown, Indiana. There was an equipment malfunction early in the show, within the first 2 or 3 songs. Undaunted, lead singer Kevin Young did his ministry talk early in the show and encouraged people to stop being “hating keyboard warriors” online. He also revealed that the whole band works out together, and that as he is filling time, he is sharing things he doesn’t normally share with the audience. He also mentioned that they haven’t played a live show in person “Since October. That was another great band,” Kevin Young said. “Yes, it was!” our own Colin Cruz blurted out loudly without hesitation (man do we miss that band…yep, we still play them). Once the gear was back in working order, Disciple blasted through songs old and new Invisible, Dear X, Dead Militia, Cuff The Criminal, Panic Room were among those…as was their recently arranged medley of old Disciple hits. Here is the video of them performing Radical (you’ll see Marco Pera of Amongst The Giants playing bass…he does that for them whenever possible): https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/1393926340997759/
