Larry Norman Message Board

Regarding Frank Black, I knew about the Frank Black connection before I did the HM article. My friend, Mike Redmond, of Crashshop Web Design, said there was a bit on Larry Norman in a Seattle rock paper, I think The Rocket, that said Frank Black was recording his songs. I tracked down Frank's version of 666 on a CD called Frank Black and the Catholics. Black does it very differently than Norman did on, say, Bootleg. Then I went to an all ages club in the U district in Seattle called the Paradox at the invitation of my friend, Chris Estey, who was performing there. We were at an Irish pub across the street and he introduced me to Jason, who was going to Texas to be, I think, managing editor, at HM for a stint. Jason asked me what I wanted to write in the upcoming issues, and I said I wanted to interview Larry Norman.

He cleared that with editor Doug Van Pelt, also a friend and fan of Larry. Doug was also excited to learn of Frank Black's cover version. I don't remember when that issue of HM came out; it was some years back, but the article posted on alivingdog.com. It was when Larry was just releasing the Tourniquet CD, but the song line up on the final release was slightly different than the review copy I had when I wrote the article. There was also mention that Frank Black was doing a version of Watch What You're Doing, but no info as to if it made it out on CD. To bring this back around, Mike Redmond's favorite band is Modest Mouse, which he is always playing and talking about. Mike's claim to fame, by the way, is that he once got slugged by Henry Rawlins of Black Flag, but that's another story. I originally wrote A Beginner's Guide to Larry Norman, now posted on alivingdog.com, for an online mag. that Mike Redmond used to publish. -Gord Wilson, gordrw@yahoo.com, alivingdog.com