#261 INCANDESCENT by Crumbächer (1985)

INCANDESCENT by Crumbächer (1985)
Broken Records - BRA-0301

Producer:

O-Joe Taylor

File Under: New Wave

Time Capsule-Worthy Track:

Jamie

Crumbächer was formed in 1983 as a new wave group. They recorded an EP for Calvary Chapel's MRC label with O-Joe Taylor of Undercover producing and Derri Daugherty of The Choir engineering. The label was so impressed with the group that they decided to make it a full-length LP. The result was 1985's keyboard-dominated Incandescent on Broken Records.

The song from Incandescent that sticks out in my memory is Jamie, a song that was played on our local Christian rock AM radio station in Greer, South Carolina. It was also the inspiration for a music video that played incessantly on TBN's Real Videos and elsewhere. After all, this was the 1980s...and story songs made for great music videos, obviously,  because the story could be acted out on the screen. And by screen, we're talking TV screens. No one watched music videos on phones, tablets or computers in the eighties. 

Around that same time period, there was no shortage of Christian rock songs named after girls who were struggling after making some questionable life choices. Sweet Comfort Band's Isabel, DeGarmo & Key's Addy, Steve Camp's Lazy Jane and Rob Frazier's C'mon Elaine instantly come to mind. Jamie took things to a whole 'nother level. In fact, if the quite graphic music video was shown on a college campus these days, it would probably require a trigger warning. 

After some band footage up front, Jamie is first shown as a friend (or girlfriend?) of Stephen Crumbächer, just thrilled to be riding shotgun in his convertible through the streets of Hollywood. The actress chosen to play Jamie looks a little too old for Stephen, but hey...just go with it. She wants more than anything to be a dancer (in the post-Flashdance era) but fails her audition, legwarmers notwithstanding. Disillusioned, she falls in with the wrong crowd and her life quickly spirals out of control. She quits her job as a seamstress at the dance theatre, dons a wig and starts using her legs to attract customers. That's right, our girl Jamie becomes a lady of the night. She gets brutally beaten by her pimp (played out on the screen in uncomfortably graphic detail), and just when she points a gun to her mouth and is ready to end it all...she spots a Bible. And then, miraculously, she wanders off the streets and into a Crumbächer concert. At this point, Jamie is looking like she's been rode hard and put up wet (as they say down South). And the youth group kids at this concert are looking at her like she's some kind of space alien. She walks down the aisle and into the waiting arms of Stephen Crumbächer himself. Somehow, the lead singer of Crumbächer knew this was going to happen...because he hands Jamie a pair of dancing slippers. When the video ends, she's got a Bible in one hand and her dancing shoes in the other. And then she drops the slippers but clings to the Bible.  

Almost preposterously cheesy? Yeah. 

A totally awesome 80s music video? YES. 

By the way, Jamie is said to be the first song the band ever wrote.

Other highlights from Incandescent include Infrared/X-Ray Eyes (God is following you with His x-ray eyes) and Sweet By and By which marries lyrics from the classic hymn with a new wave musical treatment.

The hyper It Don't Matter is the group's message to Christianity's critics:

They say forget about the old traditions

'Cause they were never really meant to last

Welcome to the 1980s

Where religion is a thing of the past

They treat me like I was a barbarian

For believing in original sin

They say we're all at one with the universe

So we're basically good within

Still, I'm gonna believe

The way I do

Even though everyone around me

Is saying it ain't true

Everyday they're looking for answers

Something new to add to their list

'Cause if it can't be explained through logic

Then it simply just doesn't exist

I think I'll just stay unenlightened

And carry on my own way

Besides, I'd rather put my faith in God

Than in the human mind any day

It don't matter what anyone says

I won't ever fall away from You

It don't matter what happened today

I know You're always there to see me through

Never fall away

The lyrics to this song are quite poignant, considering that the producer of this album, O-Joe Taylor later renounced Christianity.

Crumbächer later signed with Frontline Records, transitioned from new wave to dance/pop, and released three very fine projects: Escape from the Fallen Planet, Thunder Beach, and Tame the Volcano (which contained a very memorable title track). 

A 2005 reunion show

Some critics feel that Volcano was the group's best-crafted and most polished effort. But we're going with Incandescent. Somehow, Jamie is still dancing her way across our hearts.

OK, maybe not...but it was an awesome video.