I HAVE A FRIEND NAMED SAM. HE IS BALD. HE HAS FRECKLES. HE SINGS.

If Jesus is the Bread of Life, Sam Billen is the Toast of the Town. Or at least a slightly charred crouton who imagines himself to be part of a larger salad. That’s what I like about Sam. He is a wellspring of creativity, enthusiasm, and life.

He has been known to text me after 10 pm, well after the wife and I have passed out with baby Evie. “Hey man! Wanna’ come over and watch The Hangover, Part VII, Chad?” My reply: “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz … (gurgle)”

I send him texts about poop, and that’s it. Nothing else.

He also invites me to lunch all the time, usually after I have just finished eating lunch. Which means we seldom get to eat lunch together. But it also means that, when we do eat together, it’s a special occasion. Getting to see the light shine on his dome is always a treat. And that beard? (That beard can’t be beat.)

This is how our friendship works.

He is recording a new solo album, titled Places, and raising funds for it on Kickstarter. If you are unfamiliar with his music, look no further than his website, which features several hours worth of free downloads.

A Word From Mr. Billen Himself:

“It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about a musical project of mine. Of course, I’ve put out some really fun Christmas projects (including 2011′s A Light Goes On, which featured CTJ), as well as some other EPs here and there over the past few years. But none come close to my new album, Places, in terms of how well the album has turned out, and how well I believe the album will be received by fans, friends, and strangers.

Places is 10 songs – some instrumental, some not, some orchestral, some acoustic, some epic, some gentle – and it’s set to be released this coming fall. This is the first full-length album I’ve released without the support of a record label in 12 years. A bit of a daunting task? Yes. At the same time though, it’s a challenge I’m happy I’m not taking on alone.

Right now I’m trying to raise funds for the album via Kickstarter. I’ve had some great surprises with the kickstarter campaign so far: getting a personal quote in the Wall Street Journal, finding out that one of the co-founders of Kickstarter backed it, and seeing it pop up on Kickstarter’s recommended list. Even with those glimpses of potential success, I need all the help I can get to reach the goal I’ve set of $5000.

Ultimately, I hope people will be compelled to donate after seeing that my Kickstarter video allows them to travel into my bellybutton (What?). Just joking. (Editor’s Note from CTJ: He is not kidding.) Seriously though, I hope people can find an interest in the project through the music. I’ve released a song from the album called “Saltine,” and for a donation of a dollar or more, you can hear two more songs from the album. For a five-spot, you get an EP of six solo piano songs as well. The rewards get better as you donate more. Every dollar counts, however, and I appreciate any support I can get, even (or especially!) when that support means sharing a link to the project on your Facebook page or in your Twitter feed.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my new project. I hope you’ll take a minute to watch the video and consider supporting!”

BACK TO CHAD, WHOSE BELLYBUTTON IS NOT UP FOR GRABS

Below is a song from his forthcoming project titled “Saltine.” The album is going to be mastered by Peerless Mastering, who has mastered albums by Bon Iver, The Magnetic Fields, and Spoon, among others.

That being said, head on over to Kickstarter and contribute.

To all four of you readers who frequent this blog to see if I am giving something away (I am not). I have recently begun reviewing things on Amazon. In the past, it made me shudder to think about publishing unpolished content anywhere, let alone on my blog, but I frankly no longer care. You know I can write better than this, and so do I. This is me, sitting down and hammering out a review in 10 minutes, and meaning every word (except for the typos). Expect more of these. That is all. 

Also, if you buy the film from my site, Amazon pays me. So you should really do that.

Film: “Off the Charts – The Song-Poem Story” (Dir. by Jamie Meltzer) ***** (out of 5)

I have been busy as of late. Too busy. Which means I have also been too tired to push through the literary logjam that is keeping my plate full and my blog empty of new content.

This post, then, is me saying, “To all three of you who read my blog, I have more stuff coming. I promise.”

In fact, here’s what’s coming down the proverbial pipeline:

1. A two-way interview with Jesse Greever, whose new publishing imprint is going to release my Nightmarriage eBook in 80+ electronic formats worldwide. I have also been revising my Nightmarriage essays for the release of the eBook, and have drafted the Foreword. It is titled “Taking the Plunge(r).” How surprising!

2. An interview with author Katherine Willis Pershey, who wrote Any Day a Beautiful Change.

3. A new IMAGE Journal “Good Letters” blog essay about introjects, Jim Henson, and more. That’s supposed to land on May 22nd, and it has been drafted. Next comes the rewrites, the handwringing, and finally, the birth of a bouncing baby essay.

4. I have embarked on a small-scale publicity campaign once again with Kansas City’s resident art superstar, Danny J. Gibson. Look for a Wikipedia entry, a press release even you can help distribute to the media, and a gorgeous press packet created by Mr. Gibson himself.

5. I am preparing to track EBow parts for a song on Sam Billen’s (solo, formerly of the Billions) new record. The song is stellar, and if it is any indication, the rest of the record will be as well.

6. I am revising an unpublished feature I wrote in October in hopes of landing it in a certain significant publication. Have had a few pairs of eyes look at it for me prior to subjecting it to my editorial scalpel. Fingers crossed. Toes and eyes, too.

7. I have to mow the yard. Done. I taught that yard who was boss last night.

8. Oh, and we have an infant. She’s still in our care. We have to feed her, change her diapers (which are heinous indeed), and love her. She seems to like us, except when she is teething. She just started crawling this week.

9. We had this flooring problem. Starting in February, our living room was jackhammered, filled in with new concrete and rebar, leveled with self-leveling concrete by Brandon Gillette and myself, and then ground down because we screwed the whole leveling thing up. After two-and-a-half months, we now have a living room floor again. Hooray for homeownership!

10. I have to use the weedeater on the yard, too. Why mow if you’re not going to trim those overgrown weeds while you’re at it? You know?

In closing, the picture above is of a new nail salon here in Lawrence, KS. It makes me laugh. My wife noticed it. And since you’re asking, yes I do. My nails are horribly ragged from all the chewing. When I get overly busy, I chew my nails even more than usual.

So hang in there. There is more to come. More for all three of you who read this blog faithfully.

My latest IMAGE Journal “Good Letters” blog essay, titled “My Own Private Garfunkel,” is available to read here. It’s largely about my good friend Mark, who was my own personal Art Garfunkel back in the late ’90s.

Here is an excerpt:

When I was nineteen and beginning to perform as a singer-songwriter, I found out that rock ‘n’ roll was not without its share of interlopers intent on shoehorning themselves into the musical action. Most of them insist they are expert tambourine players, but tend to be more adept at stealing the spotlight.

I would have welcomed a tambourine player. Instead, I had Mark, who insisted he could sing.

“Let me sing with you, Chad—I’ll be the perfect Garfunkel to your Paul Simon,” I imagine him saying. I cannot remember how the conversation actually unfolded. He lacked Art Garfunkel’s dandelion-clock hairdo but bore resemblance to him all the same.

Mark said I could share some other information about him via my blog:

1) He once memorized the entire soundtrack to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and on purpose.

2) In college, Mark and I used to obsessively watch Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and do impersonations of Brak to the point where we annoyed people.

3) In my yet-to-be-published book, The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope, I write of how Mark was the member of our Simon & Garfunkel-inspired outfit who had a drug problem. He once took a Tavist-D before we sang at my parents’ church, and that antihistamine took him to the depths of slumber. I nearly had to administer a shot of adrenaline to the heart to wake him.

4) Mark is single, ladies. Check him out on the Wheaton College website, and feel free to mob him in a Beatlemania-like throng.

Finally, if you are curious how we sounded as The Tragicomedy, our album La Femme is available for free download here.

My contribution is a companion piece to Huy Bui’s essay, which is about the game Bioshock.

The title of my essay, which does not appear on the site, is “Worshipping the Gilded Game at the 8-Bit Altar.” The game cartridge really was “gilded.” See for yourself below.

Below the cartridge are photos I shot on April 30th, 2012 in front of Game Nut Entertainment here in Lawrence, Kansas. If you look really carefully, you can see my stunning silver-blue Dodge Stratus reflecting off of the window in the background, as well as some of Lawrence’s downtown delights. In these photos, the land of Hyrule and the city of Lawrence blur together for a real-life video game spectacle. I took these photos in honor of blogger Alise Wright, who is as bold, determined, and honest a blogger as I have ever come across. She pulls no punches and, in this way, she reminds me a bit of Link himself. Follow her on Twitter here.

Enjoy the read, and let me know what you think. For that matter, I am curious: What video games evoke feelings of nostalgia for you, and why?

Shortly after my daughter Evie was born in October, one of my Twitter friends and followers, Zondervan author David Jacobsen, was kind enough to send me a copy of his book, Rookie Dad. I planned to review it at a time such as this, but then David derailed the whole thing by directing my attention to another shiny book.

You see, after emailing David a copy of my book, The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope, he surveyed the Table of Contents and remarked to me, “You need to check out Joel Heng Hartse’s Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll: My Life on Record. I think your books are thematic cousins.” (Actually, that last line was my interpretation of what he said, as I cannot actually remember the particulars of his comment.)

“My book has a cousin?” I wondered aloud to my infant daughter and five cats. “My book has … family?”

Being the eternally enthusiastic person I am, I sought Joel Heng Hartse out on Twitter and told him that our books were biologically related—kittens from similar literary litters. Joel was curious, but also a little standoffish. After months of online harassment, Joel finally accepted my friendship. Like a stray cat, I kept showing up at his digital door over and over, mewling and purring and marking my territory as I saw fit. As it turns out, Joel’s standoffish demeanor is one of my favorite traits of his. He reminds me of a cat in the way he is content to enjoy conversation one minute, and eager to retreat the next. People with retractable claws are fascinating.

Joel offered to send me a PDF of his book, but I bought a copy for my Kindle instead. I wanted him to know I believed his book was worth something. As I began reading it, I began sending Joel comments via Twitter. Lots of them, in fact. Enough that Joel replied, “You know, you don’t have to make comments about every page, Chad.”

But I did, Joel. I did have to comment. How could I not comment? Reading his book was like discovering proof that I had a musical brother my parents never told me about. It was as though we’d been separated at birth like He-Man and She-Ra, or Luke and Leia (although, for the sake of clarity, in this scenario I am He-Man and Luke Skywalker).

One of my other writer friends, Addie Zierman, maintains a blog called How to Talk Evangelical: An Annotated Glossary, and her site is proof that Christianese is a language that only those of a certainly cultural bent are likely to speak. In America, it is not all that difficult to find people who “speak (Christianese) fluently,” as singer-songwriter/film director (Blue Like Jazz) Steve Taylor puts it in his song “I Want to Be a Clone.” It is an altogether different thing, however, to find someone who speaks the language and loves the underground equivalent of this sub-culture’s music.

I know plenty of people who grew up listening to the “mainstream” equivalent of Christian music. Artists like DC Talk, Michael W. Smith, and Audio Adrenaline sold hundreds of thousands of records, if not millions. Joel listened to them, too, and so did I. But Joel and I dug one layer of strata deeper in the musical sub-culture and found a whole other weird world waiting beneath. It was as if we had stumbled upon an outtake from the 1959 film version of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, which featured Pat Boone playing the accordion long before he covered Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Strange stuff was happening beneath the surface of the Christian music industry, where Carman and Sandi Patti sang  for stadiums filled with people.

This Carman reference, of course, reminds me of the review I wrote of this book for Amazon. I will quote it here because this is my blog, and I am not above quoting myself. I am writing this at 5:00 a.m. anyway, running on fumes because I cannot sleep. Joel is about to become a new parent himself, and he may experience this restlessness in his own sleep as adjusts to the strange nocturnal rhythms of parenthood.

But I digress. Here is my Amazon review:

“As the son of a minister, I grew up listening to CCM as if it were the only music that existed in all the world. As a nine-year-old, earning one dollar a week in allowance, I saved up for ten weeks so I could buy Carman’s 1985 album, The Champion. I was rabid for that record.

Some years later, I discovered Nirvana’s Nevermind, and then Radiohead’s OK Computer. My little CCM world had become a bubble with a permeable membrane, and outside influences were threatening the exclusivity of my devotion to Christian music. At age 33, I recognize CCM as a musical subculture of its own, like the British punk movement of the ’70s or the shoegazer movement of the late ’80s/early ’90s. My CCM records now rest comfortably alongside my secular records, making my collection truly post-modern.

Joel Heng Hartse’s book perfectly captures what it was for me to grow up as a CCM junkie. His writing is witty, insightful, and irreverent (which prompted one reader in a forum somewhere in a dark corner of the Internet to write, “Gee, I just don’t know if the author of this book is a Christian at all. He uses swear words!” Gasp!). He writes as an unwavering music obsessive who has lived a life parallel to that of Rob Gordon in Nick Hornby’s record-store-clerk manifesto, High Fidelity. The passion is palpable. The stories are personal and memorable.

That being said, if you grew up listening to any CCM whatsoever—be it “mainstream” acts like Petra or Carman, or underground acts like The Prayer Chain (my all-time favorite band as a teenager) or Sixpence None the Richer (who went on to experience a mainstream, flash-in-the-pan success that completely blinded the world to the artistic integrity of the band’s back catalog)—this is a book for you. This is a book about faith and growing up and rock ‘n’ roll and church camp and relationships and doubts and more rock ‘n’ roll and mixtapes and awful praise and worship songs that should be classified as torture on par with waterboarding.

Buy it, and follow Joel on Twitter. It is worth mentioning that he follows only one user: His wife. Go ahead and say “A-w-w-w-w” if you’re not wishing you had an airline barf bag to ralph in (although it is admittedly adorable). Joel, if you’re reading this, thank you for writing this beautiful book. You’ve made the CCM experience a little more legitimate for the rest of us underground-dwellers.”

I stand by that review.

Joel later paid my positive review forward. He and film critic Jeff Overstreet apparently both told IMAGE Journal Editor-in-Chief Greg Wolfe about my writing. Greg contacted me shortly thereafter when a writing position opened up, and now I am writing about sects, love, and rock & roll for IMAGE’s “Good Letters” blog. Joel, meanwhile, is working on his PhD dissertation, which has little to do with sects, love, or rock & roll. I hope, however, that it enables him to do what he loves. He knows I will be there at his doorstep—mewling, purring, and marking my territory once again—when he finishes his degree. I am glad he considers me a friend.

I still owe David Jacobsen a proper review as well. Maybe I will get to read all of Rookie Dad by the time my second child arrives. I will probably still feel like a rookie dad, after all. I love my daughter dearly, but sometimes I still cannot believe she is real. She is every bit as surreal as Pat Boone singing Metallica, if not even more so.

Buy it for your Kindle here.

Buy it in print here.

ABOUT “LA FEMME”:

Tracks 1-9 were produced by Scott Patterson. Tracks 10-12 were recorded live at the Nu Brew Coffeehouse in Springfield, MO by Bryan Carlstrom. Tracks 13-15 were recorded as demos to cheapo boombox by one Chad Thomas Johnston.

All lyrics and music were written by Chad Thomas Johnston except 1) “Grace” (Lyrics/Music by Michael Gerard Knott), 2) “Beloved” (Lyrics by Courtney Sly, with excerpts from Song of Solomon/Music by Chad Thomas Johnston and Alyssa Johns).

“La Femme” was released in March of 2001 on cheap CD-Rs with black and white sleeve inserts that were copied onto cotton rag paper at Kinko’s.

Artwork by Danny J. Gibson (http://cargocollective.com/dannyjoegibson). The blurry girl on the cover remains unknown. Danny took the picture, but does not remember who it was.

THE TRAGICOMEDY IS/WAS:

Vocals/Guitar: Chad Thomas Johnston
Vocals: Mark Thorne
Flute: Rebecca Boeckel Fillingham

USELESS FACTOIDS:

After taking two years of Spanish in high school, I decided I might better woo women if I learned to speak French. So I took one semester of French and passed the class, but failed to speak the language with anything like eloquence. Foolishly, I then decided The Tragicomedy’s debut EP (which then consisted in theory of tracks 1-3 and 5-8 here) would seem more mysterious if we gave it a French name.

A French name I could not pronounce, more notably.

It was originally titled L’Oubliette, which is French for “forgotten place.” I stole this word from Jim Henson’s film Labyrinth. So even though the pretense factor was heightened by the unpronounceable French title, it was probably somewhat tempered by the title’s relation to puppets.

Eventually, Mark and I saw the error of our ways and changed the title to something else French—La Femme—which I also could not pronounce properly.

“Shifting,” “Through a Window,” and “Meaning and Subtitles” are about the same girl. We went out on about three dates. One song for each date. My obsessiveness probably (i.e. definitely) scared her off. We never even kissed. That whole “wooing women” thing was not going so well for me, as you can plainly see.

“Calendar Song,” “The Décor of a Room,” “Summer, My Fair One,” “The End Was Here All Along,” and the music for “Beloved,” were all inspired by the same girl. She was not frightened by my obsessiveness, but decided we should no longer date because God was calling her to a “season of singleness.” This “season of singleness” included her dating someone else two weeks after we ceased to date. Of course, we never really “dated” either, as Joshua Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye book was eliminating dating in Christian circles everywhere. We were together, but not officially. I would say “You know how that goes,” but the vast majority of people are fortunate enough not to know how that goes.

I wrote “Minuet in Dm” after seeing James Cameron’s Titanic, which I still own on VHS. The film had recently been released in theaters, and the backlash against it was still in the future. I still like Titanic, and I’m not sorry. I think if you initially like something, you shouldn’t stop liking it just because the world has become sickeningly saturated with it. A cultural artifact should be able to stand on its own two legs, and not be forced to try and justify its existence when public opinion reduces it to a thing of ridicule. That is all I will say about that.

Of course, “Minuet in Dm” is actually pretty awful in my opinion. It probably should have sunk to the ocean floor with the Titanic. There are parts of it that are pretty, sure. But then there is my botched attempt at replicating the sound of a record skipping with my guitar part. It probably has comedic value, which might redeem it to some degree.

“Through a Window” was titled “The Shade of a Would-Be Tragedian” before I decided that title was slightly constipated, and did away with it.

Finally, we recorded the first nine songs at my dad’s church, and recorded not onto a digital source, but onto an audio cassette. Which meant we had to figure out how to transfer the music from analog to digital media before it was easy to do so. It took two years for Mark and I to properly assemble this collection of songs, and it still sounds quite lo-fi. All the same, it documents my overly emotional collegiate days with frightening accuracy.

Enjoy La Femme. If you can pronounce it, please do. Say the words out loud to all of your friends, and point them to this collection of songs. Pass it along to your worst enemies, that they may unite with you in your shared hatred of it, and thereby become friends.

PUNISH YOUR EARS HERE:

Here is a photo remembrance of the Tragicomedy.  I touched up all of the photos on GIMP and scanned them in with my Epson Stylus.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30624000@N02/sets/72157624759032896/

]]> http://chadthomasjohnston.com/2012/04/the-tragicomedy-la-femme-full-album-download/feed/ 1 http://chadthomasjohnston.com/2012/04/the-15-minute-blog-challenge-billie-jean/ http://chadthomasjohnston.com/2012/04/the-15-minute-blog-challenge-billie-jean/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:42:21 +0000 Chad Thomas Johnston http://chadthomasjohnston.com/?p=3436 At 1:25 p.m. I posted a tweet that read “As a child, I thought#MichaelJackson was trying to convince someone that #BillieJean was not his son. Really didn’t understand. Ha! ”

This is the truth.

At 4:27 p.m. I received a tweet from @ang_merrick that read, “@Saint_Upid Can I get a blog post on that? Maybe a sketch of your perceived image of #BillieJean? (girl or boy?). #thisismenotwriting.”

So here is the blog post. I have limited my time to 15 minutes total.

Sharpie + spiral notebook paper + 15 minutes = This blog post, be it genius or crap.

The best memoirs seem to spring from the fingers of writers who have an excess of something-or-rather in their lives. This excess begs to overflow the confines of their hearts and minds, and spills onto blank pages in the form of words that feel undeniably alive.

Anne Lamott, in writing the transcendent Traveling Mercies, overflowed with rugged grace. Jeannette Walls, in writing The Glass Castle, overflowed with hard-won wit as she unraveled the tangled narratives of her family’s dysfunction. Jennifer Luitwieler, in writing The Accidental Runner and the Power of Poo, overflowed with unexpected determination as she took up running in an effort to train her dog to “doo” his business outside of her house.

It may seem that we writers do what we do because we are too timid to live—that we prefer the comfort and safety of the written word to the living of life. But I would argue that we write because our cups tend to overflow. We are human bottles of champagne that have come uncorked, and we are exploding with life in every direction.

Katherine Willis Pershey‘s memoir, Any Day a Beautiful Change, released in March through Chalice Press, is the work of a writer who has an excess of meaning to glean from her own life as a wife, mother, and pastor. She uncorks her life in these pages, and does so in slow motion so we can savor the celebratory spray.

Pershey’s prose is a mix of elegant and colloquial at the same time, and this approach keeps her pastoral musings earthy and intelligible for the layperson. Throughout the book, she proves herself to be a grounded pastor whose beliefs find traction in everyday life. She is not in the business of inflating theological hot-air balloons and floating away on abstract, academic voyages. She is a human being, and she is well-acquainted with her faults, but also with her triumphs. Above all, she is grateful for who she is and who she is becoming.

Any Day a Beautiful Change takes its title from the Innocence Mission song, “Beautiful Change,” which is the fourth song on the band’s 2003 album, Befriended. My vinyl copy of this album is framed, and hangs in our guest room. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I esteem the Innocence Mission simply because Karen and Don Peris and Co. know how to wrest meaning and poetry from everyday existence with ease. Pershey’s book does the same thing, so its title is fitting.

Sitting with this book for hours is akin to becoming acquainted with its author, her husband, and their daughter Juliette. It is intimate, modest in its approach, and serves helpings of humor and heartfelt realization to hungry readers in equal portions. Formally, it is comprised of a series of essays that offer the reader access to the author’s life both at home and in the pulpit. As she preaches while recovering from childbirth, as in the essay “The Hemorrhaging Woman,” it becomes apparent that the roles of mother, pastor, and wife overlap in unexpected ways.

At times, her realizations are downright revelatory. In the chapter, “Sending the Love Inward,” she realizes that the difficulty she experiences in attempting to bond with her indwelling, unseen baby is not unlike the difficulty she experiences in attempting to develop intimacy with her indwelling, unseen Lord.

This revelation is met, comically, with the response, “Oh my God. … No, not quite. More like: O my God!” There is a thin line between worship and blasphemy here, and it works well. Surely it sounds like blasphemy to some ears when we talk of our immortal God taking on corruptible human flesh.

Another favorite passage of mine is a meditation on communion. As my church’s resident communion coordinator, I deal with an abundance of body and blood. I probably handle more carnage than Dexter, Showtime’s beloved serial killer of serial killers. In the process, I become completely desensitized to the meaning of the Lord’s Supper altogether.

When reflecting on communion, Pershey relates the sacrament to her own experiences in breastfeeding her daughter. She sacrifices her own body for Juliette, giving her milk in both pleasure and pain, in the daytime and in the sleepy stupor of the night. She writes:

Long after I first wrestled with those doctrines in classrooms and chapels, I’ve finally learned that there’s no way for the bread to be broken and the wine to be spilled without someone’s body taking the hit. It isn’t that the pain is redemptive. It’s that the pain is redeemed. Take and eat, my daughter. This deluge of milk is called forth by you, and given for you.

Like any good memoirist, she combs through the minutiae of her life, and finds the stories that make her who she is, and also the ways those stories relate to one another. Her pastoral life speaks to her life as a mother, and her life as a mother speaks to her life as a wife. It is as though she is her own trinity, and she is in constant communication with the different selves who comprise her being.

My sole criticism is this: Any Day a Beautiful Change is too short. It is, according to my Kindle, roughly 130 pages. I wanted to keep reading. Thanks to her blog, I can. Katherine, her husband Ben, and their daughter Juliette all spring to life in full color there, reminding the reader that the “characters” who populate Any Day a Beautiful Change are quite real.

There is an excess of life in Katherine Willis Pershey’s book, presumably because there is an excess of life in her life as well. I am thankful she was willing to uncork her life and christen the world with her story.

In 1990, when the New Kids on the Block were so popular that Walmart carried sleeping bags with the band members’ faces emblazoned on them, I joined the masses and bought the band’s second album, Hangin’ Tough.

It felt good to be at one with the masses. Up to that point, I listened almost exclusively to Christian artists, and none of my sixth-grade classmates knew who they were. When I mentioned Petra, Christian rock’s best-selling act at the time, my peers reacted like I did upon first hearing the band’s name: “Who’s she?”

Talking about my favorite Christian artists was like was publicly referring to imaginary friends only I could see or, in this case, hear. NKOTB was a band everyone could see, and its members sang songs everyone could hear.