Way Before the Flood
Black Eyed Sceva (5 Minute Walk)
Commerce and the façade of ministry have muddied the waters of creativity in the Church for quite some time. When I was growing up in church, this was not always apparent to me — until I encountered Interlinc, a company that provides youth ministers with music for a subscription fee. To promote albums — and undoubtedly bolster the perception of these artists as particularly thoughtful and spiritual — Interlinc produces devotional booklets to accompany the music. It is unclear how much the artists or record labels are involved in this marketing of their products.
I remember the day Black Eyed Sceva’s Way Before the Flood arrived in my youth minister’s monthly Interlinc shipment. The tape enticed me; it looked nothing like the Steven Curtis Chapman and Geoff Moore tapes I owned. My youth minister, no doubt struggling to keep up with the deluge of new tapes that Interlinc provided, gave it to me, along with Dime Store Prophets’s Love Is Against the Grain.
It was 1995, I was in high school. At that point, I thought Charlie Peacock’s music was the best thing ever, but I also knew enough to recognize albums like Lovelife and Everything That’s on My Mind were the result of studio chicanery. By contrast, Black Eyed Sceva’s album sounded like a real rock band with minimal overdubs. I remember being impressed and thinking the band played really real music because Jeremy Post played arpeggios and quoted Bach in the liner notes. Post also down-tuned his guitars and played in 11/8, and sometimes changed time signatures in the middle of songs. My adolescent mind was blown.
I suppose Black Eyed Sceva was considered “alternative,” as that label was slapped on just about any rock band in the mid-nineties. Sure, Post occasionally sounds like Kurt Cobain (especially on “Handshake”) and the band ends “Adrian James” with a wall of distorted guitars, but Black Eyed Sceva seemed to have more in common with the Afghan Whigs or Toad the Wet Sprocket than Nirvana. Too late to be lumped in with grunge and too early for math rock, Black Eyed Sceva was unique, musically and lyrically. With both sincerity and fervor, Post grappled with justification, homosexuality, AIDS, humanism, child abandonment, and pregnancy out of wedlock. He did not seem compelled to solve all his problems through songwriting, or to neatly wrap up theological issues with ribbons and bows. He never wrote that bridge or that third verse to point the listener to Jesus, as was common in Christian music. Writing about personal struggles and doubts like this was taboo in the Christian marketplace, so Post and his bandmates had to know they would be destined for obscurity.
I do often wonder what Jeremy Post might say about his lyrics today. I know that when I look back at my own songs and journals from 15–20 years ago, I find an idealist who was slow to listen. With my nose stuck in philosophy books, I assumed I was informed enough to argue for Jesus with my lyrics. I wonder if Post has similarly reflected on his own lyrics. Does he consider how he may have been perceived when slamming a philosophical giant like Auguste Comte? I wonder if he’s ever met his father, Adrian James. Did his father ever get a chance to hear the song? Is Post still as convinced of Christ’s resurrection as he was in the song “Nailholes”? Even if he holds the same convictions, is he happy that he publicly wrestled with them?
Unfortunately, Post would only offer the world 15 more original songs after Way Before The Flood before calling it quits (five more with Black Eyed Sceva and ten more with his next band, Model Engine). We have little clue as to how his thoughts evolved on these issues.
In fact, Black Eyed Sceva is only one of many bands from Frank Tate’s 5 Minute Walk Records to have faded from any music scene. Before starting 5 Minute Walk, Tate managed underground Christian bands like The Prayer Chain and The 77’s. He signed a variety of bands to his label, most of whom lacked the sheen and polish of the mainstream Christian marketplace. While he chose a name for the label to encourage fans to spend at least five minutes a day in communion with God, his bands never really preached during concerts. He sent bands on tours in support of causes for social justice and did not always book them to play churches. After six years, most of the bands ran their course, and the label folded. Only one band (Five Iron Frenzy) has reunited and played to the nostalgic, crowdfunding market. It seems unlikely that Black Eyed Sceva, or Model Engine, will launch a Kickstarter campaign anytime soon.
Some of my first impressions of Way Before the Flood still remain. It is raw and thoughtful and kind of weird. It makes me think. It does not repulse, and it certainly does not embarrass. I can’t say this is the case with many Christian rock albums I discovered in high school. While Black Eyed Sceva sounds like few bands I enjoy, Way Before the Flood continues to be inviting.
So whenever I revisit Way Before the Flood, it’s not to recreate ‘90s charm or relive my youthful innocence, but to try again to figure out if it’s a good record. I pay attention to how the band handles time changes from chorus to verse, and I remember what it meant when I first wrestled with God and philosophy. Although I don’t always agree with him, Jeremy Post’s sincerity draws me back. I don’t see Way Before the Flood as an album that changed a music scene, or even my world, but it has drawn me back for nearly 20 years. I never experienced peer pressure from my friends to like the band, and I didn’t find it to be a record I could easily get my head around. In the end, the reason I find it important is that I have yet to decide if I like it.
