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Is it me or does "Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace" by two of my favorite commercial country guys, BIG & RICH, sound a fair deal both thematically and melodically (or at least chordally) like "The Lust, The Flesh, The Pride and The Eyes of Life" by THE 77S? 

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Can anybody out there help a brother (me!) get a ticket or two to see MILEY CYRUS when she plays near Chicago this year? Half of me can understand her label's publicists having to restrict press to that from major dailies; you've heard how much resale ticket handlers are getting for entrances to the Hannah Montana missy's gigs, yes? Crazy, huh? The other half of me says, "C'mon Disney! Who else in the American press corps has covered one of your currently hottest profit centers from the standpoint of her faith and gotten her in this august ezine and HM Magazine for cryin' out loud?" Seriously, if you can  help me out, my email addy is at the end of this column.

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I know they've already been reissued in the 1990s as a limited edition book-styled box set for which you'll now have to pay through any given orifice to own, but considering the way their kind of protean new waveyness in which they specialized has made a comeback of influence in current bands, isn't it about time DANIEL AMOS' four Alarma Chronicles albums were reissued as they ought to have been in an at least four-CD set (one disc per album, or two discs per, with the second for bonus tracks, alternate takes/mixes, radio special material, etc.) in not quite as limited edition as they were the first time, in individual, full-color sleeves?

Had the CCM business better sense of how to keep its history alive and in print, this might be a more commercially feasible idea than the probable pipe dream I just atriculated.  Here's hoping all the same, eh? Rereleasing the rest of the band's and TERRY TAYLOR's solo catalog would do plenty of people a lot of good, too.

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Who else is excited to hear GUEST, the piano-driven pop-rock band being formed by BRANDON and BRITTANY HARGEST, the siblings comprising half of what's left of soon-to-be-gone JUMP5? Hey, their new band's moniker sounds like a pun on their own surname, too.

Here's also looking forward to hearing the solo music of NATASHA NOACK, the brunette who briefly replaced LIBBY HODGES when she left J5 before it techincally became J4. Noack's MySpace profile intrigues, down to her sassy, mature look.

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Wouldn't MARK HEARD's biography make great fodder for an indie movie that would renew interest in the music he left behind and retell his story for the same public and triple-A-radio listenning crowd that appreciated him more than a mass cCm audience and industry appeared capable of doing in his earthly lifetime?
 
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Shouldn't there have been a Christian punk band brave enough by now to have remade IGGY POP & THE STOOGES' "Your Pretty Face Is Gong To Hell"? If anyone from any such band is reading this, you could cover your church-youth-group-playing backsides by doing what DC TALK did when they sang NIRVANA's "All Apologies" and fit in a line mentioning JESUS.

"Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell Without Jesus"? True enough. STELLAR KART, we're waiting! Yes, I'm kidding a bit. About Stellar Kart, anyway.
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Were THIRD DAY frontman MAC POWELL to duet with HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH  vocalist DARIUS RUCKER, how often would one voice be mistaken for the other?
 
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What makes hip-hop-centric Youth Impact TV on JCTV (and, for all I know, also its parent network, TBN) so appealing/aggravatingly cheesy? The seemingly faux or otherwise lame street mannerisms of the hosts? The public access cable production values? The ability to hear a quote such as "First, they accept the 'fro" in a total lack of irony by monumentally bushy-headed rapper LOS 1 in reference to the ministerial value of his locks? Either way, it looks like digital cable has given yours truly a guilty TV pleasure (though the episide I first watched looks to be dated from 2004).            
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Since an  English friend has told me that KYLIE MINOGUE not only has a few Chrisitans in her road band (as of her last, pre-breast cancer tour), but has also visied the famed Hillsong Church in her native Australia, wouldn't it be cool were she to come to the Lord (no question there) and team up with DARLENE ZSCHECH for a single or-possibly better still-an entire album?
 
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Speaking again of remaking lost '70s classics, can anyone else out there imagine with me STARFLYER 59 or COOL HAND LUKE rewoking TELEVISION's "Glory"?
 
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How collectible will the Curves-branded workout music compilation tracks and sundry other pre-American Idol curios recorded by MANDISA become now that she's the umpteenth competiror on the aforementioned talent show who has scored a major label recording deal (and been more successful than some-hello, JUSTIN GUARINI-at it)?
 
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Is JAMIE ALEXANDER any funnier performing as a stand-up comedian than he is hosting campy, chintzy teen Bible trvia game show Virtual Memory? For the sale of my ever getting to see him in that context and for that of Christian-made comedy overall--especially if he's responsible for creating the witless (yet oddly compelling) characters that fill the spots on VM that would otherwise be taken up with advertising if the show didn't run on commercial-free stations--here's hoping. The guy seems talented enough even if he's not responded to either of my emails.                                                                                                                   
  
Jamie Lee Rake
jlrake@hotmail.com