Here is a history lesson from arctic gospelrock scene which I happened to be part of. Long time ago there was a Helsinki based rock band called Onesimus. The band had its roots in 80’s Vihti church community. Originally Onesimus started as a choir but during 90’s it shaped up to be one of the hardest butt-kicking christian rock group in Finland. The band was touring with many still active Finnish gospel bands like Pro Fide and Bass’n Helen.
In 1998 Onesimus won the Finnish Gospel Championship. The winning team was Vellu Salminen (bass), Markus Lintunen (drums), Lasse Sakara (guitar), Jori Ahl (keyboards) and me (vocals, guitar).
In 1999 Onesimus releases an album which got positive reviews from secular music press as well. ”There is one aspect that makes the spirituality of Onesimus actually refreshing. Texts are missing all the trendy nihilistic cynicism which is typical in the pop lyrics of our time”, Tero Valkoinen was writing in Rumba (1.1.2000). The album was called Raketti which means rocket in English.
The rocket did not fly too far. During 2000 Onesimus was active in touring around Finland but suddenly stopped. I still remember that autumn night like yesterday. We drove all night to get back home. We were tired and hungry. We went to eat, went home and never played again. It was over.
However, September 2011 I got a call from Miia Rautkoski who told me that all the Finnish Gospel Champions are going to be released once more on a collection. They wanted to release our music on a CD after all these years. I mean, if this is not nostalgic moment what is?
Now the SM Gospel 1996-2011 CD is available at Maanalainen Levykauppa. For some reason this stuff is hard to find and get from any typical ways. For example you can’t get this from iTunes or Spotify. However, the material is good. Why not putting this to a wider distribution?
Toni Kopra 