As Brian Scroggins a.k.a. Prophecy of P.A.N.I.C. was tearing down his gear after his performance at this year’s Cornerstone festival, a man approached him and after saying he was bummed that he had missed Scroggins’ set, made the off-hand observation, “you know, your setup reminds me of a guy called Prophecy of PANIC.” Scroggins, who had made acquaintance with the man the previous evening, smiled and replied, “Yeah, that’s me.” “Dude,” the shocked festival-goer said, “why didn’t you tell me?” The subject of Scroggins’ musical persona had never come up in their earlier conversation. That’s par for the course for Scroggins, who has much experience with the double-edged sword that is humility – talk yourself up too much and you come off as conceited, but don’t do enough promotion and you don’t get recognized at all. Not that Scroggins doesn’t have anything to be proud about. As one half of Prophecy of PANIC, he joined the roster of the infamous N*Soul Records in the early 90s, releasing the ravey-gravey Manic Panic in 1994 and the epic double album Soul:Reactivator in 1995. After partner Daniel Somboonsiri left the group in 1997, Scroggins continued POP as a solo live act, and has the distinction of being one of the few producers in the “Christian scene” to put out vinyl (1998’s Activ8 EP) at a time when the thought of pressing wax was a pipe dream for many. Scroggins gained indie cred with his releases on Patchpoint Muzik in 2002 and dropped a remix or two for artists including Sheltershed and Redsavior. Prophecy of PANIC is also a longtime Cornerstone electronic music mainstay, performing in 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2002. This year was to be a homecoming of sorts for Scroggins, a ten-year anniversary. It almost didn’t happen. “Cornerstone was a humbling experience for me this year,” Scroggins admits. “I had got it stuck in my head that name recognition alone would be enough to get me in the Dance Barn, but it came down to whether or not I was trusting God or just resting on my laurels.” Scroggins arrived, gear in tow with no firm gig nailed down. He found that his minimal efforts to get into the Dance Barn came to nothing, even as performers cancelled and were replaced by other participants. “I was like, ‘why am I here?’ I had to step back and say, how arrogant of me to rely on my own abilities. I submitted to God and said, ‘whatever you’ll have me do.’” Scroggins eventually found a spot on the One Life Radio/Gospel for Asia generator stage, where he played two performances during the festival. Scroggins realized that he had to change his attitude. “I had to show myself as a servant. God uses servants, not those who are haughty and puffed up,” Scroggins said of the shift in his approach to self-promotion. “There’s so much pride in this scene. What I really need to do is seek first the Kingdom of God, and then all these things will be added. I need to take promotion more seriously, get demos out, getting more connected while still maintaining a servant’s attitude.” The One Life Radio generator stage isn’t the first experience Scroggins has had outside the mainstream Cornerstone experience. “The dance tent used to be the main event, as everything else closed and the rave started at 10PM and went until 6AM the next morning. It was phenomenal, the thing to go to on the last night,” Scroggins reflects on the changes the scene has undergone over the years. “There was a different attitude about it then. A lot of secular ravers would come because it was so big, and lots of complaints flowed around there about drug use,” Scroggins says about the 1995 rave night. “There was no rave in 1996 because of that stigma.” There were many other opportunities to get down outside of the official rave night. “What was cool was that there were renegade parties every night until the Saturday. We would set up decks and a small PA system inside an empty merchant tent and just do it. It was so rebellious. It migrated every night to unused tents.” Scroggins has also watched the Dance Tent evolve from a label-supported venue to something more independent. “There’s a lot of expressiveness in the dance tent that I didn’t see at other stages,” Scroggins observes. The dance music venues aren’t the only thing that’s changed over the years, as the Prophecy of PANIC live setup has undergone many revisions since their first Cornerstone performance in 1995. The live show started as MC-ing over DAT backing tapes and now is a full on ‘studio-on-stage’ performance setup, with various pieces of analog gear scattered about and nary a master sequencer or DAT machine in sight. “The show in 1997 was pivotal. Daniel had left the duo just months before and people did not know what to expect. It was then that I exposed the crowd to a whole new brand of live PA. I broke out a bunch of my drum machines and synths and did it live, and people had an astonished look on their faces because they had never seen anyone do that before in the Christian scene.” POP has also moved from playing back identifiable tracks from official releases to true live improvisation. “I never know how my set is going to sound,” Scroggins says of his technique, which involves the preprogramming of patterns into individual sequencers in an open-ended playback setting. “There are weird live transpositions and a lot of improvisation.” Scroggins’ secret weapon is the underrated early-90s Kawai R-100 drum machine, which he refers to as a ‘techno machine.’ “I could do a whole set with just the R-100 and a TR-909,” Scroggins claims. “The R-100 can make metallic sounds far removed from the usual set of drum tones one would expect to find, and it records pitch changes. It doesn’t sound monophonic like a regular drum machine, it’s more polyphonic.” The melodious nature of Scroggins’ One Life Radio stage performance, with metallic drum sounds rushing past synth arpeggios that rise and fall like electronic stairways to Heaven, is a function of the two-year break he took from producing and performing that allowed him to approach his live set with a fresh perspective. A regular live performer until 2003, Scroggins’ career was interrupted by an act of God. Scroggins’ home was threatened by the LA wildfires of 2003, and he had to be prepared to evacuate his house with his family and priceless collection of analog machines at a moment’s notice. “It was a pretty traumatic experience,” Scroggins recalls. “I had to rush to get everything into my truck, tearing out cables and throwing them in bags. When we got back to our house the studio was such a mess, I decided that I had to redesign everything.” Scroggins also had to focus on providing for his family as his wife finished school. Working and running two businesses on the side, his priorities were such that music took a back seat. “I think I had to reassess just what I was doing this for,” Scroggins says. “I had to make sure my heart was right.” As his family situation stabilized, Brian found himself easing back into the world of live production as he prepared for his Cornerstone performance over the past few months. “I took a long break, but it was just like riding a bike. I worked on some new stabs and Detroit-sounding techno, pretty far removed from my earlier stuff,” he says. “Being involved in worship at my church has made me want to be a little more emotive and polyphonic, being in harmony and on key, when before I wouldn’t have cared. I don’t know if that’s a natural progression or just my tastes changing.” One change Scroggins didn’t make was any radical reshuffling of his legendary collection of gear used in his live shows. “I’m still using the same gear but I’m feeling it differently.” Scroggins remains outspoken with regard to recent developments in the live PA scene, particularly the proliferation of laptop performers. “I believe people gave up on gear too fast,” he confesses. “There are still so many possibilities with gear, and I’m less and less impressed with a lot of laptop shows. There’s so much untapped potential. I’m still digging into my gear and I’ve yet to hit bottom.” Scroggins holds the opinion that a gear-based live show is still more entertaining than a laptop event, but recognizes talent when he sees it. “I’m kind of biased, but I’m the type of person who can hear quality in something even if I don’t like the music. You can have a discerning ear without being a total snob.” Scroggins wishes that more Cornerstone Festival attendees were as open-minded. He witnessed several embarrassing displays of anti-electronic music sentiment by a few “knuckleheads” during the festival. “It makes me sad to see Christians make fun of others, mocking them for the kind of music they listen to. People were being idiotic this year, forming conga lines, intentionally dancing around like idiots while they were on their way somewhere else, and mocking it. There was no respect.” Scroggins says this ignorance in Christian circles is nothing new. “The world is still more accepting of what I do than the church.” Scroggins believes that with the slow acceptance of dance music in the church, the scene needs to cast its net outward. “Let’s be honest, the place that people need to be, as long as they’ve got prayer support, is out in the world. Any Christian who wants to be sheltered and make dance music just for Christians is kidding himself.” One of the shortcomings of the Christian scene was that it was trying to create a subculture that would bring people in and foster a bubble protecting its participants from the perceived ills of the rave scene while many times there were worse things going on inside the Church. “A new day is dawning,” Scroggins claims, “people are being more prepared for ministry than for edifying believers by getting music into Christian bookstores.” Scroggins sees resurgence in the scene and hopes that God will raise up people to be an effective witness and make quality music in the name of Christ. “There are a few of us, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. A lot of the old timers who had their hearts in the music for the right reasons are going take the scene by storm and be effective.” Scroggins plans on shopping some ‘interesting, trippy minimal’ tracks in the near future. He’s got upcoming gigs this summer alongside the likes of Frankie Bones, Adam X, and Heather Heart and has his eyes set on Detroit as well. Scroggins hopes that at next year’s Cornerstone he’ll be able to share his music with a larger audience. “There’s nothing more I love doing than to play live. It’s way more fun than sitting in the studio. I like to interact with people in front of a crowd like a Benihana chef serving it up.” <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Brian+Scroggins">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.