There has been many bands that has passed through UMM.
There are some bands that many people never heard of.
Childhood Music Years
Music captures people all around the world-no matter what�s the genre! As I (Sal) try to reflect my earliest genre music I was first interested, I can remember it was a Disney-Mickey Mouse and Friend�s record album. My Aunt Toni introduced it to my brother, sister, and I at a young age to inspire us to exercise. The record album included a picture book of different Disney characters showing us how to perform different types of exercises. The music was very upbeat with different Disney Characters encouraging us with each type of exercise.
The genre of music changed as I got older-along with who, where, and when I was growing-up. Back in the old days (late 70�s-80�s), we had 8-tracks, records, and tapes. I remember the collection of record albums and some 8-tracks my dad had in our living room shelf. Mostly it was my dad�s, the likes of Eddie Fischer, >Pat Boone-"Cross & The Switchblade" star , Frank Sinatra, Olivia Newton-John, etc�
When I started attending grade school in St. Paul, we were obligated to join a music class. I remember singing Christmas songs and other�s depending on the holiday season throughout the year. We performed in front of the school, parents, and other community functions (e.g. senior citizens). My first instrument I got skilled in playing was a recorder, which I loved playing when I was younger. I would practice in and out of the classroom.
I don�t exactly remember what year I was in school, but public school field trips to music functions served as an influence. I was introduced to variety of music that I didn�t hear with friends, family, or peers. There was one field trip to the Minnesota Orchestra, which I marveled the beautifully designed Orchestral Hall. I remember sitting in these nice cozy chairs listening intently to the different musical instruments being played. This was going on while some of my classmates were just fooling around with one another. Another field trip was to the Ordway Theatre, where I witnessed my first out-of-school concert. It was this latin-band, which played the great songs of Los Lobos-including the famous �La bamba�. I think this was a start of soon to be now interest of international music-different language-despite this being one of the famous American pop songs in the past.
Teenage Music Years
Then in Battle Creek Middle School, I continued to play an instrument-a trumpet! I played for 2 years, but I wasn�t as good I now wished I could�ve been. It was because I didn�t take it seriously because I didn�t take the responsibility to motivate myself and I wasn�t challenged-encouraged. During my years here, I started getting into the MTV scene. I was highly influenced by my peers to listen to Heavy-Metal Music; sometimes Death Metal too! Likes of Metallica, Skid-Row, Poision, Iron-Maiden, and Guns-N-Roses. My siblings too had an influence by getting into the pop and pop-rock (e.g. Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Jets, Madonna, etc�) being played in music videos. I wasn�t too enthusiastic until I started buying tapes. Probably my first every music tape (recorded) was Tone-Loc (rap).
I started getting into rap slowly over the years (91�-95�) in high-school as I got away from the metal scene. I think hip-hop started to grow too during this time, where I somewhat got into MC-Hammer and other related genres. Also, Alternative-Music started to become more into the mainstream as Heavy-Metal slowly disappeared from the music-scene. The likes of Nirvana, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and then favorite-Stone Temple Pilots (�Core�).
College Music Years
The exposure of many genres of music growing-up made me open to get into all types of music during the �liberal-college� years at UMM. I somewhat heard a lot about Billy Ray Cyrus and other country favorites back in high school, but I never thought of actually listening to it! In Morris, the only home-based radio station plays country all day long! As I heard it all the time and being opened to learn more of my surroundings, I started to appreciated this genre of music. When I came to a personal relationship with Christ in 96�, I started to be curious of Christian music (pop, pop-rock, heavy metal, rap, hip-hop, and everything related to positive Christ-focussed music)! I never knew there was �positive� Christ-centered music until I was introduced to it by my new Christian friends.
Christian Music
When I lived in Clayton A. Gay Hall, a sister-in-Christ (Saundra-picture in this web page under Soneshine) borrowed me a tape �Mighty Years: Volume 2 80�-82� by Keith Green. His inspirational meaningful lyrics got me more into wanting to listen to more of this type of genre of music. As I was getting into the Bible, I was into music with biblical foundations. I was hungry for �soul-food� during a time of desperate need in desperate times of desperate growth! Another flashback memory was during my Junior year when someone (I think I know who it is, who never approached me in person to this day) put a Jars of Clay�s self titled album (95� Album with popular songs� �Liquid� and �Flood� in the mainstream) CD with a palm leaf (passover) underneath my windshield wipers of my then-Plymouth Voyageur Mini-Van. I still have it to this day and is still one of my favorites-thanks!
I continued to pursue any type of Christian Music, from�
"Day by Day"
*Note: My first CD I ever won from a radio show was a rap CD by �Ministers of the Gospel� from KCGN-Praise FM 101.5/103.9 FM when I was on-call as an RA (97�-98�) at Clayton A. Gay Hall on a Friday evening.
Ska-Jazz
Dance-Techno
Acoustics
Michael Card
Healing Rain
-Concert:
Healing Rain, from Brazil
Friends are Forever
-Songs:
Here I Am to Worship
-Videos:
This Is Your Time
*dedicated to Cassie Bernall (victim and martyr of school shooting in Columbine High School in Colorado)
Classical
My curiosity to this new Christian music scene got me interested in checking out into Christian Music Festivals (has been going on for many years, which I never knew about!-an example of how the Gospel may not be familiar to many other people in the world out there!-Romans 12:14-16), such as:
STATE
Sonshine Music Festival-Wilmar, Minnesota
Saundra, UMM 98' Alumn, was one of several faces I knew in this big venue in the summer of 1999.
Jars of Clay performs under the beautiful stars at night. They shared about their mission trip to China.
Heart of the City-Summer Picnic in the Twin Cities
Spirit Fest Midwest-Detroit Lakes, Minnesota
*attended this event once so far, which was in 2002 with a couple of friends. We camped (slept only 2 hours) in my Chevy Blazer with mosquitoes, which I'll never every do again! (CANCELLED in 2004)
NATION
Festivals
T.V. Shows
In fact, I was gung-ho going to several booths between stages and concerts meeting these bands. The rise of Christian Music got really noticed by the media around 2002-last year-when it was in the front covers of Newsweek (have this copy).
Personal Cool Stories Here are some cool-funny personal stories:
There was one-time I was asking booking information from this racial-unified praise-gospel-worship band from the Twin Cities at one SoF in Wilmar, MN. One of the lady members asked me if I was a booking agent-laughing and responding �no�. Another one was being in front by the stage of a Salvador concert in a small stage of Soneshine one year. They were a rising latino-american band from Austin, Texas. A youth pastor that I�ve become friends with from Morris pointed me out to the lead-singer that I was the �real� Salvador, so the lead singer announced to fairly sizeable crowd for this size of stage that �Here is the real Salvador!� They were very popular because of their high-craze praise and worship latin upbeat style of music, like �Dance, like David Dance�.
After accepting Jesus� into my-life, the passion to grow in the knowledge of knowing Him got me into loving praise and worship music. I contribute this to the awesome praise and worship times at IVCF and my local church in St. Paul and Morris.
I started to purchase many CD�s of this Christian genre along with my other contemporary-gospel-hip-hop-rap music from being a member of Columbia House�s �Praise & Glory�. Below are other Christian membership groups:
Now, after doing international student ministry at the local college I used to attend, I�m now searching for international christian music. Please send me an e-mail of any good websites to be added down below=>
AFRICAN
ASIAN
-Philippines
EUROPEAN
-Britain
World Wide Message Tribe
-Australian
Below are some other Christian concerts I�ve had the opportunity to attend:
As I write this on a early Saturday morning on November 8th of 2003, I�m currently listening to KUMM-a local campus radio station. I just missed winning 2-$1 gift certificates to DQ-too bad! Anyways, I was at the station visiting a Filipino-American friend of mine the other night. He�s know as �The Orchestra�, who plays many West-Coast Hip-Hop music as he grew-up and still lives in California�s Bay Area. It was my first time at the radio station since I used to do a show during the summertime in 2002 called �GoodNews UMM-Morris Radio Show�. I was there last night to check-out his show, which his siblings happens to be visiting this weekend. They started freestyling, which has been known to be familiar through M&M�s 8 Mile. I haven�t heard this too for awhile since going-up to Atlanta, GA for a African-American focussed Christian Conference called Impact Movement. I went with two Minnesota guys to catch a Greyhound Bus to meet other Twin City folks (many from the Twin Cities �Alpha & Omega�), which they would go back-n-forth freestyling. I witnessed more Gospel oriented rap, hip-hop music, and dances at the conference�s talent show (in video!).
Rap Stereotype: �I love Rap Music� (by D.C. Talk)
I�ve heard that Rap music is always sex, violence, money (mentioned by �The Orchestra�) and many other immoral ethics. I say to them that goes with Heavy-Metal (some plant �seeds of hate� that are deceiving to one�s ears)�.
Only A Couple Examples:
Singer/Song with Backward Message
ACDC�s (80�s heavy metal) �Night Prowler�-�Listen to me! I�m from Hell! They killed me. I�m the law. I said so/Islide in evil. I�m the Lord Lucifer. White owl.�
Queen (80�s rock) �Another One Bites the Dust�-�It�s fun to smoke marijuana�-I first found this out attending UMM�s General Psychology class, where the professor played it backwards in front of t he 300+/- students at the Science Auditorium when I was a Sophomore (96�-97�)
Chapter 8 �Exposing the Deeds of Darkness� by Radziwill �Reggie� F. Santiago in �Signs of Wonders� by JHMT�s Dante Veluz, pastor I met from "Hear & Obey� Conference
and all types of music in different extremes. This gives me an opportunity to share about positive-Christian music!
Many Christian Rap or Hip-Hop in fact are �preaching� against many social-injustice (e.g. racism in our society and the world overall. For example, I was looking at my Christian CD�s that I haven�t touched for awhile, and I found this cool saying in the back of one of the covers�
Album: Erace
this is not, nor was it intended to be a singularly focussed attack on any one race of people in fact it is meant to serve as an indictment for all of us, we constantly look to blame a system for our ills, when in fact the system cannot act without its human operators, and that is the essence of why this album was made. To point out the fact that we collectively and individually are the root and derivative of all human suffering no one is exempt from their sinful human nature not the white people or black people or rich people, or poor people, nor are Catholics, or Protestants, muslims, or hindus. It�s people that hate not colors or an ideology. And once we recognize this fact, we can shift our efforts on changing one thing-ourselves, we are simply called to be the progenitors of love, yet we spawn of the color war and give our children the legs to walk away from the finger pointingthe only panacea is love and we nailed that to the cross. We have a long way to go but each step we make toward change is an important one. This is our first step. erace
�For us to focus on color in trying to solve racial injustice, would be like a doctor focusingon the symptoms of a disease rather than the disease itself, which we all know is a backwards approach to healing.�- The Gotee Brothers�
Other songs:
�Color of Love� by D.C. Talk
Good News UMM-Morris-World!
As I mentioned in the beginning of this website, all types of genres of music reach all types of people. My experienced with this gave me an idea to play my boombox when I used to do the GoodNews UMM Table both at the Student Center and Food Service (a.k.a. PFM) in 99�-01�. It�s a tool to share the Gospel in a less direct way, like preaching publicly, to the world. Several days ago, I attended ASA�s 12th annual talent show at UMM�s Student Center. As many previous Talent Show�s (example: �Eye of the Sparrow� won first place one year!) , a seed of faith was planted through the various talents�-improve drama, acousitc guitar w/vocal music (to Soldier�s �Love can wait�), and dance.
You can find this too in the national-global scene! I�ve been observing the music industry out there and if you pay attention, they are many �seeds of faith�-like �Sowing the Seeds of Love� from Tears for Fears; music out their in the popular music scene. Maybe the artists isn�t Christ-like, but who are we to judge that they are not or will be someday. Below are some examples of some of my past-current favorites:
Alternative-Rock
Rock-Heavy Metal
Rap
Hip-Hop
Acoustics
Country
Disney
Many of the Billboard�s Top 10 has been songs of love, which I realized after hearing that from a sermon-message at come Christian service I attended awhile back. Love can�t be found in materialism or any worldly thing-humans: mate, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc� because they are only temporarily and they will always dissapoint you. The real and best source of love is through a personal relationship with the Eternal Heavenly Father through His Son Jesus Christ-personal testimony.
Bands
Clubs
Choir
Talent Shows
Annual Morris Talent Show at East Side Park, every Thursdays for 4 weeks prior to the annual "Prairie Pioneer Days" in July
Articles
Artists
Music Groups
Schools
AWARDS
Books
Equipment
Miscellaneous Genres
Movie Soundtracks
Amazon
Soundtrack Lyrics Source #1
Soundtracks
-EVERYTIME WE SAY GOODBYE
1986: Romance/War. Hanks' presence adds to this otherwise average soaper-romance, about an American flyer who falls for a Sephardic Jew (Marsillach) in WW2 Jerusalem.
Director: Moshe Mizrahi. Cast Includes: Tom Hanks and Cristina Marsillach.-from moscow
Amazon.com
Margaret Fenell's, from amazon.com
Radio Stations
Talent Shows
Television Shows
Global Mixed
Missions
Mark Haugen has played a big role in helping me come to a growing relationship with Christ since I first met him at UMM. I really and still look up to him after his Christ-like leadership role in IVCF when I was a student-member back in the �old days� 1996-1999. Mark, God has really used you to use mass-media to reach the �lost� and encourage believers in their faith-especially �Matrix� dude!
Today (Wednesday, September 20th 2006), I would like to add more to this site tribute to Mark and also Anna. This couple and their 2 kids (Ellie and Tabitha) will be leaving Morris in a couple of weeks (Sunday, October 1st). Tomorrow, there will be a pot-lock blessing farewell get-together for this family at East Side Park. Unfortunately, I'll not be able to attend. Instead, I would like to share some memorable moments...
-UMM IVCF: I got to know Mark and Anna pretty good as college students through various events-Smithton Outpouring in Missouri Trip (w/Anna and others); Morris Community Church Spring Break Mission Trip to Clearbrook and Marshall; Gospel Explosion and Picnic in the Park (1st); Jericho Prayer Walk; IVCF Exec Candidates Search Prayer Committee; etc..
-UMM Alpha & Omega
-Summer Institute of Ministry Training School: I was classmates with Mark and Anna before they got married
-Many Concerts-Newsboys (Fargo, ND), Sonshine Festival-Salvador! (Wilmar, MN), One Voice (Fargo, ND), Firestarters (Perham and other cities across MN), Children 18:3 (local punk rock band), Jeremy Erickson, Heart of the City (racial and church denominations in unity for Christ in the Twin Cities)etc...
*I wasn't able to be there when Mark got on stage w/ Kirk Franklin-awesome man!
-Weddings: Mark & Anna, Dan& Crystal (2001), Prince & Patience (2006)
-Homegroup Bible Studies
-some challenges or seasons in life too!
Check out Luke Eleven Productions:
Thank you for visiting my page at Angelfire. Please come back and visit again!
