Merry Christmas, JT style!

Seasons greetings to Troublemakers near and far, young and old! To help your Christmas be that much merrier, I am continuing the grand tradition of making rare JT music from my personal archives available to our fans ABSOLUTELY FREE for a limited time.

This year's download is a set we performed in February of 1991 at Mt. Paran Church in Atlanta, GA. as part of the Ron Hutchcraft Saturday Night Alive radio program. We were the special musical guests that week and they recorded our pre-show warm-up set. Click here and select the JT_live_1991.zip file for download. I think it's a right-click deal for you PC users and a control-click thingy for Mac people. Anyhow, please have a safe and peaceful Christmas this year! And thank you on behalf of Mark, Steve,Ron and Keith and myself for your love and encouragement that you still show us after all these years! Blessings on you and yours!

Jerry Davison

Yet another cover of 1000 Hills!

Check out this bluegrass version of "Third Day's" These Thousand Hills. :-D

Fan Mail Friday!!

Howdy Troublemakers far and wide!
It's time to open up that ol' mailbag and hear from you the fans. This week's letter comes from a guy who saw our videos on YouTube. He writes:

Jerry,
thanks for posting your videos. they bring back many memories. I had the awesome opportunity to see you guys in Evansville, Indiana many years ago at a place called, I think, the encore...
Also, I have been doing a CCM radio show since 1994 on a 50,000 watt PBS station and occasionally I will get a JT tune on.
Anyway, thanks for posting your vids, I loved seeing them.
Best regards,
Dave

Well, thankee kindly, Dave. Somebody's got to keep the dream alive! And since we don't have a radio show, it looks like it's up to you!

Have a great weekend everybody! And don't forget to get yer butt in church somewhere, you buncha postmodern, back-pack wearin' latte sippin' horn-rimmed glasses sportin' whipper-snappers!

JT gets a shout out from Third day...

My good buddy Mark Lee, guitarist extraordinaire from Third Day, gave JT a nice plug on his blog yesterday:

I had so much fun last week with Hair Metal Day that we've got to keep the party going. This week we're going to talk about our favorite old school CCM artists. I'm going to get it started with a list of 10 CCM bands. No particular order...

...3. Jacob's Trouble - Great live band - I saw them at least 20 times in concert.

Thanks, Mark! You guys are definitely in our Top Ten CCM bands that have covered a JT song! Wait, you guys are the only band to cover a JT song. Oh well...

Anyhoo, it's a cool blog post and if you want to read the whole thing you can find it here.

Behind the Scenes: "Further Up, Further In"

Here's another peek behind the curtain into the VH1-style drama that was Jacob's Trouble. I thought with all the hype around the Narnia movies I would give a little insight into our own C.S. Lewis inspired tune,"Further Up, Further In" from our second record, Knock,Breathe Shine (1990):

FURTHER UP AND FURTHER IN
I am a big fan of C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity is second only to the Bible in terms of spiritual influence in my life. During the time between Door Into Summer and Knock Breathe Shine, I had been reading a lot of Lewis. My wife and I, both fans of fantasy literature, had bought a set of the Narnia books and were reading them to each other. The Last Battle became a favorite of ours, particularly the last few chapters where Lewis deals with the Narnian concept of heaven.

The characters in the book, having all died in the Last Battle of Narnia, discovered they were in Aslan’s Country (Heaven). What I love most is that he doesn’t waste time trying to describe what Heaven looks like, so much as what we will be like when we get there. His description of the changes that come over the characters is moving and produces a longing for God every time I read it.

At one point, one of the characters calls out “Come! Let’s go further up and further in!” It becomes a sort of cry that encourages them to explore the glory of God deeper and deeper. The further up and in they go, the bigger it becomes.

As with most things that touch me deeply, it squeezed a song out of me. I wrote it down and sang it to the band one night at rehearsal. They all liked it but didn’t really know what to do with it in terms of arrangement. So we didn’t really develop it further until we took it in the studio and recorded it with Terry.

The drum loop is actually Dave Raven’s drum machine. He programmed the loop for us to rehearse with but we liked the groove so much we used it on the recording. Greg played the accordion part, I think. Randy Stonehill came in and sang harmonies. It turned out quite nicely.

Now that full theatrical versions of The Chronicles of Narnia are being made, I’d like to see if they would use “Further Up and Further In” in the soundtrack to The Last Battle. Hey, maybe I could get Third Day to record it and pitch it to Walden Media!

Out of the blue...

...comes a letter of encouragement from a JT fan. I never ceased to be amazed that God continues to use a bunch of goofballs like us even long after we stop being a band. This one's from Skip in Saskatchewan:

Hi there, I was wondering if you could pass this along to Jerry:

It is the day before Canada Day, and being a Monday before a holiday, no one is here at work and I was putting some songs on my computer to listen to while I typed away. My diggin’ up bones cd didn’t have any album art coming up and so I went on line to find it and read a little article on where you and the band are now. It was really neat to hear about what went on, and what you are doing now.

I just wanted to say thanks for making the music that you did. I don’t have a ton of music in my collection. I tend to find things that I like and just listen to them over the years, and your stuff has been some of my favourite. I have the self titled one and diggin’ up bones, and I have really loved listening to those songs. You had some good words to say (sing) and I have really appreciated it. They have had an influence. I still listen to them.

When I wrote back to Skip to tell him thanks for the kind words, he responded...

You know, there was one more thing that I was going to tell you as well. Sometimes, when I am listening to those certain bands that I really like, I think “wow, these guys may have only made x number of albums (or one even), and they didn’t really go very far – from the world of music’s perspective anyway. But am I ever glad that they did what they did. And I wonder if they will ever know what a difference they made.”

So I really thank God for people like you who did (and are doing J) what they are called to. I don’t believe any art or work is done in vain if we are doing what we are called to do at that time and place. I guess I am starting to see that our job is to do what we are supposed to, and Jesus will take care of the impact of it – and most of it we will probably never realize. Even simple things, like a smile, or a prayer, or just treating our kids or wife well, let alone the “big” things. This helps me to realize that nothing is wasted when we are faithful.

Keep up your good work!

Skip

Keep them cards and letters and emails and blogposts and whatever else they come up with comin' Troublemakers. If you've got a story of how God has used the music we made to effect your life, we want to share it with the rest of our fans... all 27 of them!

New JT page on facebook

Good news, all you social networking geeks who also happen to like old Christian bands with bad mullets (and I know there are a lot of you!): My brilliant and talented son set up an official JT page on facebook. Go sign up and let your Troublemakin' colors fly high for the world to see! First 100 fans to join get a free Steve Atwell bobblehead doll (Just kidding... but wouldn't that be awesome? I'd buy one!).

It never ceases to amaze...

...the different interpretations on "These Thousand hills." My son found this incredibly caucasian version on YouTube. Thought you Troublemakers might get a grin out of this...

"Let Me Love On You" missions video

A JT fan from Georgia recently went on mission trip to the Dominican Republic and came back with some great pictures. And as if loving orphans in the name of Jesus wasn't cool enough, he put the whole in a video set to a JT song! Thanks to Joe Wright for letting us share it here with you all. Enjoy!

A slew o' new JT videos!

Hey gang!
I just posted a bunch of new (ol) JT videos from my personal archives. There are several choice live performances from Icthus Festivals 1992 & 1993 as well as our farewell concert in Atlanta from 1994. You can check them out on the player above or here.

Who the heck are these old guys?!

I ran into Steve and Mark on my trip back to Georgia recently and we posed for a photo together. Brace yourselves... It isn't pretty! The mullets are gone and the clothes are a little less colorful but it's still those same wacky ne'er-do-wells you all know and love!

New JT stuff on YouTube.com

Boy howdy rock music fans, what a week it's been for Troublemakers! Out of the blue, an old friend and probably THE original Troublemaker, Dale Suffridge, contacted me through the glory that is YouTube.com to tell me he had re-edited a music video he shot for us way back in 1993. He also sent me an old montage from our early days set to our cover of the Beatles' "Tell Me What You See" from our first CD "Door In to Summer."

So because I am the sharing type, here they are for your enjoyment....

New Interview on Banophernalia.com

I realize I haven'tposted anything in a while so here is a little nugget for all you Troublemakers enduring the long cold silence between posts. (kidding) I did an interview with a webzine called banophernalia.com. You can read it here.
In it I talk about what I've been up to lately as well as reminisce about the glory days when the music was rockin' and the mullets were flappin'! Enjoy, and don't forget to stop in at the guest book and give them a hard time for trashin' our self-titled record.