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2017: The Year in Review for ApologetiX
Thu., Jan. 4. 2018 1:51pm EST
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Back before information was so easily accessible on the internet, I used to love to buy Billboard Magazine's special "Year in Music" issue at the end of each year to read the recap of all that had gone on. Here's our equivalent. Of course, one big difference is that all of those songs made the charts, and none of ours did. :) But we're out to reach hearts, not charts.
In 2017, we celebrated the band's 25th Anniversary (our first concert as ApologetiX was March 27, 1992), while releasing the following four CDs: Very Vicarious, Zebraic, From Hair to Eternity, and, finally, our 50th overall, Xit Ego Lopa. With that CD, we also achieved a longstanding goal of having at least one title for every letter of the alphabet.
Over the course of the year, we released 44 new tracks spoofing 41 different artists (including 11 we'd never spoofed before):
AC/DC, Alice in Chains, Avril Lavigne, Badfinger, Beatles, Bob Seger, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Carole King, Cars, Chicago, Collective Soul, Foreigner, Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day, Joe Bonamassa, John Cougar Mellencamp, John Denver, Journey, Kinks, KISS, Live, Loverboy, Missing Persons, Night Ranger, Poison, Rainbow, Raspberries, REM, REO Speedwagon, Robert Palmer, Rolling Stones, Scorpions, Spin Doctors, 'til Tuesday, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tommy James and the Shondells, Van Halen, Vapors, and Who.
We would have released more songs than that, but we were kept busy with our 25th Anniversary Show in Wexford PA (Pittsburgh) and our 25th Anniversary Midwest Show in Green Bay WI, and all of the preparations involved. At the big show in Wexford, friends and fans came from the following 30 states and two provinces:
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, plus Ontario and Saskatchewan.
There were 19 performers on stage at one time or another during that show, including:
Wayne Bartley, Joe Cataneo, George Dorow, Abby Haynie, Keith Haynie, Sarah Haynie, Elaine Heitzer, Heather Jackson, J. Jackson, Janna Jackson, Julie Lloyd, Greg Macaluso, Tom Milnes, Bill "Moose" Rieger, Eve Tanner, Jimmy "Vegas" Tanner, Tom Tincha, Chris VonBartheld, and Todd Waites.
We recorded and filmed it for future CD and DVD release, and we've been working on those projects on the side ever since. Furthermore, we've been working on future singles. We've just released our first single of 2018, and our second single is slated for mid-January. But tracks have already been recorded (and are still being recorded) for songs after that, and lyrics are being written for parodies even further in the future.
Of course, our lives are so much more than music. Here are some cool family happenings from 2017:
ApX keyboardist Todd Waites became a grandfather. His granddaughter, Zoe Margaret, was born in January to his daughter, Brittany, and son-in-law, Patrick. ApX guitarist Tom Tincha's daughter Hannah married her fiancé, Sam, in May. Not to be outdone, Tom married his fiancée, Deborah, in November. Meanwhile, my oldest daughter, Janna, who has sung on many of our parodies, got engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Rob, in December.
Praise the Lord for His countless blessings! May God bless us all, everyone (and that means you, too) in 2018!
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