I was listening to my old Live at the Strand CD recently. It’s a compilation of artists who played at the legendary Strand Theater in downtown Marietta, GA, just outside of Atlanta. It had been years since I heard the CD and only remembered a few of the tracks on there, and then this absolute banger came on! I looked through all of their albums to see which one it came from, so I could find the studio version to feature here, but I couldn’t find it.
As it turns out, “Flavor of the Month” is a cover from the mainstream band The Posies, so I’m doing two firsts for my column here: featuring a live song, and featuring a song that is a cover of a secular band. However, the Posies’ connection to the Christian indie scene isn’t that stretched. Ken Stringfellow also briefly played in Saltine, with Blake Westcott of both Bloomsday and Cush. Furthermore, the band had been long adored by loads of musicians in the chrindie scene.
Lyrically the song pokes fun at trends, and how easy they are to follow, all the while getting sucked in with no way of escape from their pull.
Can you hear it?
Does the sound remind you?
Can you feel it?
It’s gonna redefine you
The flavor of the month is busy melting in your mouth
Getting easier to swallow and harder to spit out
The lyrics work just as easily for the Christian scene as for the mainstream.
Let’s get back to My Friend Stephanie. Focusing on a highly melodic power-pop sound, the band was a sort of indie who’s who in the southern Christian alternative arena, coming to us from South Carolina. Vocalist/bassist Drue Bachmann pulled double-duty in Age of Faith, and had honed his skills in Sunday Blue. Drummer Kevin Heuer started in the regional Evan’s Dilemma and then spent a considerable length of time as the drummer for Vigilantes of Love. Guitarist Joel McCreight also started out in Evan’s Dilemma, and then after playing with My Friend Stephanie spent several years touring with Geoff Moore & the Distance. The band was rounded out by guitarist Chris Ebert.
I wrote to Drue to get some background on the song, and he proudly told me the track is “completely live” with no studio trickery or post-production tricks whatsoever. This is quite the feat, considering how infectious the song is.
No kidding….I have been thinking about this cd for the past month and could not for the life of me remember what it was called! Love at the Strand! Time to go down memory lane. Thanks!