In 1989 Steve Taylor put together Chagall Guevara with the goal of conquering the secular record charts. After a flurry of bass players they finally put out this their first album in 1991. It didn’t do great but I do remember the single “Violent Blue” getting some airplay in my market in Canada. Strangely the entry for the band in Wikipedia states “All of the band members had histories within the Christian music industry, but the band was an effort to depart from the CCM industry. Despite this, the band still performed at the exclusively Christian music festival Cornerstone, and had their music (albeit against their wishes) distributed through Christian bookstores.” This is absolutely and completely untrue. The band had signed a distribution deal with Sparrow records as well as MCA Records. Obviously they knew Sparrow would distribute it in Christian books stores as that’s the only place they distributed to. Even if Steve has encouraged this rumour it is a complete lie. This was the only album from the band and MCA obviously didn’t think the hassle of Steve Taylor was worth it. Personally I moderately like the album but I don’t think it’s very good luck to name your band after a murderous, Marxist, dictator wannabe, just saying.
Tracklist
1 – Murder In The Big House – 3:48
2 – Escher’s World – 4:14
3 – Play God – 3:43
4 – Monkey Grinder – 6:59
5 – Can’t You Feel The Chains? – 3:09
6 – Violent Blue – 4:01
7 – Love Is A Dead Language – 4:10
8 – Take Me Back To Love Canal – 3:18
9 – The Wrong George – 1:58
10 – Candy Guru – 4:07
11 – I Need Somebody – 3:33
12 – The Rub Of Love – 4:13
13 – If It All Comes True – 3:35
Credits
A&R – Paul Kremen, Teresa Ensenat
Art Direction, Design – Tim Stedman
Bass – Wade Jaynes
Drums – Mike Mead
Engineer [Additional Engineering By] – Matt Wallace
Engineer [Assisted By] – Mike Corbett, Roy Gamble, Shawn McLean, Ulrich Wild
Engineer [Engineered By] – David Bryson
Guitar, Vocals – Dave Perkins, L. Arthur Nichols
Management [Lookout Management] – Elliot Roberts, Frank Gironda
Mastered By – Bob Ludwig
Mixed By – David Bryson, Matt Wallace
Photography By – Michael Lavine
Producer [Produced By] – Chagall Guevara, Matt Wallace
Songwriter [All Songs Written By] – Dave Perkins, Lynn Nichols, Steve Taylor
Vocals – Steve Taylor
Words By, Music By – Dave Perkins, Lynn Nichols, Steve Taylor
Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – MCA Records, Inc.
Copyright © – MCA Records, Inc.
Manufactured By – Uni Distribution Corp.
Distributed By – Uni Distribution Corp.
Recorded At – The Bennett House
Recorded At – The Tube
Mixed At – Alpha & Omega Recording
Mastered At – Masterdisk
Designed At – Public Eye
Published By – MCA Music Publishing
Published By – GMMI, Inc.
Published By – Sadoshrimp
Made By – PDO, USA
In interviews at the time, Taylor said they had signed exclusively with MCA. Bands rarely sign the distribution deals – that is typically left up to the labels. Especially large labels like MCA. Taylor was also very vocal about his dissatisfaction with Sparrow before forming CG. We get it, you hate Steve Taylor and just want to bad mouth him here. But where is your proof that they “signed a distribution deal with Sparrow records”?
Actually I love Steve Taylor, I’m just not a big fan of this project. The album was even released with Sparrow as a sub-label so yes Steve signed a contract with Sparrow. https://www.discogs.com/release/1771789-Chagall-Guevara-Chagall-Guevara
A couple things:
1. This album is not a Christian album, and it shouldn’t be listed as such here. It was made by a band specifically focused on not making anything with a religious agenda; like, literally the reason the band was formed was to get away from the Christian Music world. It drives me nuts when it gets mislabeled like this, because it’s against the ethos of the band.
2. I can assure you that the band did NOT sign a distribution deal with Sparrow. MCA sold a distribution rights deal to Sparrow for the Chagall Guevara album for release in Quarter Four of 1991, very much AGAINST the band’s wishes. Basically, Sparrow approached MCA and said, “Hey, we’d like to release this album to the Christian market. We’ll pay you X-Amount of dollars for the right to do so.” MCA, who had fired virtually everyone that brought the band on board and had not done anything to promote them, was like, “You wanna give us X-Amount of dollars for the rights to something we’re not making any money off of, and we don’t have to do ANYTHING?! Where do we sign!”
The band had literally no say in the matter, because MCA owned the rights to their songs and that album. So, no, Steve did not sign a deal to have Chagall Guevara released on Sparrow.
First of all our site doesn’t just feature Christian music. We cover the music scene of Christian music fans and this album was in that scene. Thanks for your comments on the history but that’s the exact same stuff I read in an interview with Steve. Do you actually have some inside information? If you were/are an identifiable insider we’ll be happy to update the description of the album.
Oh, and the reason they played the Christian festivals, Cornerstone and Greenbelt:
Cornerstone – The band was in dire need of sales. MCA had dropped the promotional ball, and they had failed to pick it up. They had a tour with Jeff Healey lined up, and they passed on it last minute for a variety of reasons, so they weren’t out on the road picking up any new fans. They argued internally about playing Cornerstone for months, often getting quite heated, with some members being adamant that playing a festival of that nature would go against the band’s identity. Eventually, a nice payday, and a chance to get guaranteed merch and album sales caused them to agree to play, but if you watch the video of that concert, Dave Perkins is wearing Jane’s Addiction t-shirt in silent protest. If they had been making money in the mainstream, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell they would have played Cornerstone.
Greenbelt – At the time, the Greenbelt Festival was much less Jesus-y than it is today. Secular bands/artists like Cliff Richard, The Proclaimers, U2, Ed Sheeran, etc. have all played there. The band still had intense arguments over playing Greenbelt, but with Greenbelt, it was a chance to get over to England on some else’s dime, make a little coin, argue their case for having their album released by MCA UK, and earn some new fans. It worked beautifully. They ended up getting their album released by MCA UK, got a gig at the world famous Marquee club, and earned a slot opening for Squeeze on the December 1991 UK tour. I think Greenbelt probably would have happened either way, though the reluctance would still be there.