Hi! + The Guys + The Albums +
Our Trip to the Tour + My Favorite Songs +
Why + Guestbook
My name is Allison and I'm 16 and I live in Tennessee. I'm a junior. I sing alto (and play a
little keyboard when Matthew is sick) in the praise band in my church youth group, and I am a
HUGE dc Talk fan. My big brother got me into them when Jesus Freak came out and I was twelve,
and he's in college now so I got to keep the CD. Ha ha.
This page is about dc Talk because they're my favorite band in the world, and because they
showed me you can love God and love loud guitars at the same time. Some people at school think
Christian music has to be boring. I would like to invite those people to my page.
dc Talk started at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the late 1980s. People say
the name stands for the Washington, D.C., area, where Toby and Michael grew up, and also for
"decent Christian talk," which they kind of grew into. They started out as a rap group and turned into a rock band,
which is the coolest career move ever if you ask me.
Toby
Toby McKeehan |
He and Michael started it all, and he does the rapping. He has the most energy of anybody I have ever
seen on a stage. He's also the funny one in interviews. |
Michael
Michael Tait |
The soul voice. When Michael sings you can tell he really, really means it. He was
Toby's friend from the very beginning. My mom's favorite. |
Kevin
Kevin Max |
The high voice that sounds like nobody else, and the poet of the group. He wears the
wildest clothes. Most of the girls in youth group love Kevin. I'm not saying I'm one of them.
(I'm one of them.) |
- DC Talk (1989). The very first one. Pure rap. I have it on cassette from a church
garage sale and it sounds so old, but it's cool to hear where they started.
- Nu Thang (1990). Still rap, but getting bigger.
- Free at Last (1992). This is where you can hear them starting to rock. It has their
version of Jesus Is Just Alright, which is an old song and it is SO good.
- Jesus Freak (1995). THE album. It came out in November 1995, went in at number 16 on the
regular Billboard chart, and won a Grammy. It's rock and grunge and pop all at once. Everybody in
my youth group owns it, even the boys who say they only listen to metal.
- Welcome to the Freak Show (1997). The live album from the Jesus Freak tour. Listen with
headphones and you can hear the crowd singing. That's us!
- Supernatural (September 1998). It went in at number four on the Billboard album chart
the week it came out. NUMBER FOUR. On the chart with everybody. More mature and more rock. I
liked it more the more I listened to it, which is how you know it's good.
And this year there's a book! It's called Jesus Freaks and they put it together with
The Voice of the Martyrs. It's true stories of people all through history and today who were
willing to die for their faith rather than deny it. It's not easy to read, and I had to put it down
a few times. But it makes you think about how easy we have it here, where the worst thing that
happens is somebody at school makes fun of your T-shirt.
| + Our Trip to the Supernatural Experience Tour |
Last February our whole youth group went to see the Supernatural Experience tour. Pastor
Justin (our youth pastor) drove the church van and Sarah's dad drove the Suburban. It was a two-hour
drive and we sang the whole way there and the whole way home and Pastor Justin said if he had to
hear one more song he was leaving us at a gas station. (He didn't.)
Jennifer Knapp opened, and she was so good that Crystal and I bought her CD at the table during
the break. Then the lights went down and the stage looked like a spaceship from the future, all
metal and lights, and they came out, and I could not hear myself scream. Toby ran back and forth
the whole time. During one of the slow ones the whole arena got quiet and you could hear people
praying around us. And then Kevin sang, and Crystal grabbed my arm so hard it left a mark. I'm just
saying.
I bought the T-shirt (it's gray with the Supernatural logo) and I wore it to school the next
Monday and I got a dress code warning because it was untucked. Worth it.
Titles only! I don't put the words on here because they belong to the band, and
you should buy the CD anyway. That's how they keep making music.
| + | Jesus Freak. The loud one. The guitars at the start make our whole praise band want to quit and start over as a real band. It's about not being ashamed of what you believe. |
| + | What If I Stumble? About being afraid of letting everybody down. I think about this one before I sing in front of church. |
| + | Between You and Me. About making things right with somebody you hurt. I called a friend I'd been mad at for a month after hearing it. Really. |
| + | Colored People. About how God made all of us, every color, and we should act like it. Pastor Justin used it for a whole lesson. |
| + | In the Light. The harmonies on this one give me chills every single time. It was written by Charlie Peacock. |
| + | Consume Me. From Supernatural. It's a love song to God and it is LOUD. Our band tried it once. We are not ready. |
| + | Into Jesus. Also Supernatural. The one I sing in the shower. My little sister has asked me to stop. |
| + | Jesus Is Just Alright. From Free at Last. You can't sit still. You just can't. |
I want to say one thing that isn't about music. I've gone to church my whole life, because my
parents did. But I didn't really decide for myself until I was fourteen, at a youth retreat, sitting
by myself on a dock at night. Nothing big happened. It was just quiet, and I knew I wasn't by myself.
That's all I can really explain. Since then I've had good days and bad days with it, like anybody. I
still mess up all the time. But I know who I belong to. dc Talk didn't do that. God did. But dc Talk
made me not afraid to wear it on a T-shirt.
If you don't believe what I believe, you're still welcome here. Honestly. Sign my guestbook either
way.
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