Any history of a Christian dance scene must include not only the producers of the music and the DJs that spin it, but also the variety of venues, the myriad of events, and the differing motivations that exist for throwing parties – outreach, worship, the desire to kick out the jams, whatever. Dance music events are a key element of the subculture and should not be treated lightly.

Part of the reason why I have waited so long to continue this series is that I still have my own questions as to what we are doing, why we are doing it and what the end result should be. There is also division among our “leaders” in regards to what we are doing, why we are doing it and what the end result should be. All of them, in some way passionately feel that their way is God’s way. I’m fully including myself in that statement by the way. One thing that I feel we need to do is get a reality check on our position in the larger scene. Hopefully, this article will do just that.

My name is Darren, but you probably know me better on the TF boards as TranceLover. Trance music has been a huge part of my life and had a big influence on me over the past 11 or 12 years, it has been a journey, and a journey that I have really wanted to share. This is my walk with trance.

In the last issue we asked you to tell us what our number one goal should be as Christians in the EDM scene. We’ve talked a lot about this in the forums over the years and we have had many different answers. This proved to provide just as many as in past discussions. All of them fit into three categories. So, here are the summaries with some of the best quotes.

I’ll be totally honest here. This is about the tenth time that I’ve started over on this article series. You would think that it would be a simple topic, but it really isn’t. Part of the reason for the difficulty in writing an article series about Christianity and the dance scene is that there is so much to explain and so many different viewpoints and reasoning about it.

Four years ago this Christmas, I was quickly and anxiously tearing open a perfectly wrapped present and excitedly pulling out my very first Playstation along with a game called MTV Music Generator. It wasn’t much of a surprise to me because I had been nagging my parents all year for it, but it was an awesome gift; something that would help pass the time away as I eagerly waited to finish high school and move on to my life-long dream of becoming a meteorologist.

It’s probably fair to say that new wave, synthpop, and industrial bands were actually the first to produce Christian electronic music. Deitiphobia, who were then known as Donderfliegen, had already been making music for a few years in the late eighties/early nineties, and various members of that band had side projects under many different names. One of the most notable was Wigtop, a group comprised of Brent & Heather Stackhouse, who took the Deitiphobia rhythms away from the industrial sound and more towards a much dancier, synthpop sound, mainly fronted by Heather’s vocals.

Back in July, we asked basically two questions. The first was “What should we as Christians do to have an even greater impact on the electronic dance community?” The second question was “Give an example of a person who is currently having a substantial impact and what that impact is.” We received a larger number of responses this time and I hope that this trend continues. Let’s see what our readers said.

It is Tastyfresh.com’s proud pleasure to make Jamey’s Lightshine EP and final track available to you this month. Please download and enjoy and if you see Jamey on the boards here, thank him for the music. Also, please thank our own Tim Toll (Tolldog) for providing the bandwidth for these files.

It has been at least four years now since the last true article was written for and posted on Tastyfresh. Four years. Wow. In way, when Jamey Wright (the founder of Tastyfresh) stripped the site of everything but the message boards, part of Tastyfresh died. The interesting thing is that a new part of it grew out of that demise through the message boards. The boards brought the one thing that the old site lacked, community. I have often wondered how many people visited the site daily hoping that they were not the only person interested in the Christian side of dance music. Despite the fact that Tastyfresh has been without articles, news, and a music database for four years, we've come a long way.