What’s Shakin’

Description

What’s Shakin’ is a multi-artist compilation released by MRC Records in April 1984, a sub-label of Maranatha! Music. The compilation served as the opening salvo of what would be a steady flow of fresh rock from California.

What’s shakin? What’s up? What’s happening? What’s the good word? What’s new? Well quite a bit and here are ten different groups of people to tell us what’s shakin’ with them. Ten totally different bands and artists who have come together from various backgrounds and with very little in common with one big exception. Each life represented here has been radically changed and made new by the one true and living God The Rock of Ages. God is alive today and very much interested in the affairs of every life He has brought into this world. These groups have allowed God to work and move in their lives with incredible results. The outcome is an unquenchable drive to share Gods great works with others.

One of the last things Jesus did before ascending to heaven was to tell his disciples to go into all the world and preach and proclaim, or more accurately, communicate the good news to all creation. As times change, and as language and cultures change, so must our method of communication. The efforts included here are each ones proclamation of the good news that Jesus is alive, cares for us all, can change our lives and can give us eternal life. It is however communicated in language, figures of speech, music and dress that each group understands. More importantly it is communicated in a way that many young people understand. The message is still the same. It is almost 2000 years old but it is made new in each life that God touches. God has touched our lives and we want to talk about it. We’ve finally found peace and we don’t have to die – you don’t either & that’s what’s shakin’!
O-Joe Taylor

[Album liner notes by Joe Taylor, the producer of the sampler album]

Maranatha! Music, and especially their president Chuck Fromm, had an amazing amount of insight into trends, saw what was happening and decided to put the What’s Shakin’ compilation together which had ten tracks by different up and coming local acts playing “new” music, for lack of a better term. They gave me the charge of pulling that together. I can’t remember what my budget was; they paid for the studio and gave me something like a hundred bucks a song, some ridiculous amount like that. Yet you still find people talking about that record. That was the start of my becoming involved in the music industry aside from being a performer. After that, I was hired as a staff producer. Whenever Undercover wasn’t on the road, I was producing things like the first albums by Crumbacher, Altar Boys, and the Lifters. I did that for a couple of years. [Interview with Joe Taylor of Undercover. Excerpt from the book ‘First and Forgotten: The Story of Christian rock’s neglected pioneers as told by the artists themselves’ by Jerry Wilson, 2008]

This mid-80s compilation album introduced many bands, varied, but all with a sort of upbeat, teen feel, all making wonderfully disheveled music. First up is Undercover. «One of These Days», which either came from or ended up on ‘Boys and Girls Renounce the World‘, which has Bill Walden talking/singing through this unique song. Then the Proclaimers with their ’60s style British pop song, «Rejoice». Then Crumbacher, still with “Stephen” in his name, with more brilliant lyrics set to technopop.

The Altar Boys’ «Go For You» has more of a vintage Beach Boys surf sound, and Mike Stand had not yet adapted that endlessly clever moniker. Jeff Crandall’s drumming is excellent. With «Listen Children», Chris Brigandi has not yet morphed Lifters into Wild Blue Yonder, but the rockabilly influence is clearly present. Omega Band‘s «Idols» is in a new wave vein, but I lost track of that band after this album.

Randy Stonehill provides backup vocals on Sharon McCall’s «From the Grave», a fittingly goth song suited to its title, although her own voice tends toward Grace Slick. Malcolm and the Mirrors provide the brilliant «Apathy», a British new wave song that sounds like it was written today. About CIA’s «Your Choice», I’m tempted to say the Hardy Boys go punk, but Rob Hall’s vocals remind me of Pat Nobody AKA Pat Taylor.

Speaking of the Brothers Taylor, Joey Taylor wrote the liner notes blurb, produced half a dozen of these bands, and I’m thinking put the whole thing together. The excellent cover was created by a team including Alex MacDougall (credited for ‘art uncoordination’). The Ministry Resource Center label operated on a shoe string, but such was the spunky, lively, innocent, never-say-die attitude evinced by these bands that thirty years later this record remains eminently playable. [Gord Wilson, 2019]

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. Undercover – “One Of These Days” – 2:24
A2. The Proclaimers – “Rejoice” – 2:10
A3. Stephen Crumbacher – “It Don’t Matter” – 4:00
A4. Youth Choir – “It’s So Wonderful” – 1:56
A5. Altar Boys – “Go For You” – 2:14
A6. Lifters – “Listen Children” – 2:15

Side Two
B1. Omega Band – “Idols” – 2:43
B2. Sharon McCall – “From the Grave” – 3:50
B3. Malcolm and The Mirrors – “Apathy” – 4:00
B4. CIA – “Your Choice” – 2:30
B5. Stephen Crumbacher – “It Don’t Matter” (Reprise) – 1:02

Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by MRC Records.