Daniel Amos: Preachers From Outer Space (1978/1994)

Tracks:

1. Shotgun Angel
2. Abidin'
3. Happily Married Man
4. Salvation Wings
5. Hound of Heaven
6. Secret Scripts & 3D Glasses
7. Horrendous Disc
8. Posse in the Sky
9. Mary Baker Eddy
10. I Love You #19
11. You Always Run Away from Love
12. As Long as I Live
13. I Get Around

Imagine this:  You're a Christian rock band that started out playing country music, but you write lots of songs that aren't country, and you're chomping at the bit to play these rock and pop songs and evolve musically.  But you can't just jump in a phone booth, ditch the cowboy hats and Western shirts and emerge as modern rockers.  So...you go through a slightly awkward transition.  And that's pretty much the story for Preachers from Outer Space, a long out-of-print live album from 1994 that documents some of the live shows that Daniel Amos performed during 1978, which puts them right in the middle of the interim between Shotgun Angel and the soon-to-recorded but not-so-soon-to-be-released Horrendous Disc.  The shows give us a glimpse, at least sonically, of the band in mid-phase between Country-Rock and Early New Wave.

The set list displays the evolution, as the band starts off with some of the numbers from the year-old Angel, as well as the boogie-woogie number from their debut, "Abidin'."  The band do a pretty good job of high-stepping through the song without running out of breath, although it takes them about a minute to get the engine revved up enough to take off.  Chamberlain leads the band through "Shotgun Angel" and Taylor sings on a previously-unreleased country song "Salvation Wings," which would have fit nicely on side one of Angel.   

Then things start to shift as the newer songs come out.  "Hound of Heaven" makes its debut here, in its slower Horrendous arrangement, and it does feel somewhat awkward after half an hour of country, as the band gets through it, but it fits about like a new pair of cowboy boots, and needs breaking in.  Ditto for the Chamberlain-sung "Horrendous Disc," which has an even weirder fit, and the heretofore unreleased "Secret Scripts and 3D Glasses," both of which Taylor introduces as part of an "expose of religion."  
These first eight tracks are recorded from a March '78 show in Anaheim, and the crowd sounds enthusiastic--almost too enthusiastic, as in it sounds edited and "enhanced", but what's a live album without a little post-production trickery?

"Mary Baker Eddy" and a second version of "Secret Scripts" date from a May concert in Pennsylvania, and the new songs seem a little more comfortable, but still have that new leather smell.  The former song is another never-released track, a critique of the founder of the church of Jesus Christ, Scientist.  It's a pretty decent pop number with some Abbey Road-ish harmonies, and feels like a more humorous take on "Jesus is Jehovah to Me," featuring the great opening line, "I read a book tells me death doesn't really exist/The author died years ago, I think that is rather a twist."  I guess you can take the cowboy out of the preacher, but...

"I Love You #19" makes its debut here, also, in a demo from later that year that shows the band starting to feel more comfortable in their rock and roll shoes.  Hearing these songs which would not be properly recorded and produced until the following year--and not see the light of day until two years after that--is kind of like viewing an x-ray of a chrysalis.  Although I have to admit the "cowboys/caterpillars" and skinny tie guys/butterflies" analogy seems a bit strained.