Petra

I'm trying to get a whole raft of bands/artists in but I can't find a connecting link.

The key band I want in is Petra, a long-lived Christian music group that's got ties to several other groups. Here's some links I know:
John Schlitt of Petra was in Head East for a long time as their frontman. Mike Somerville of Head East played in the Somerville/Scorfina Project with Steve Scorfina of Pavlov's Dog. Hooray! Except that that project never released an album :(. They did record a six-song demo, which you can order from Stephen Scorfina on CD-R, but it seems to have no title and I'm not sure when it was made or whether it would qualify as a release for the DB.

Failing that, Peter Furler played drums on Petra's latest album (though whether he's a "member" or "studio musician" is arguable... he also produced the album, though), and he's a member of the Newsboys. The Newsboys have solo artists like Phil Joel as members but I'm not sure about hooks into other bands.

OK, try again. Lonnie Chapin was in Petra as a member for at least one album, and he played in Tait with Michael Tait (a member of dc Talk, which spawned multiple bands/solo careers... the distinction is arguable since all three members formed projects named after a variant of their own name) and Pete Stewart, who was also a solo artist, a member of Grammatrain and is also in The Accident Experiment with Marcos Curiel of P.O.D. But again I don't have links beyond that.

Other former members of Petra like Greg X. Volz have had solo careers but I'm not sure about other band memberships.

One seemingly false link is that allmusic.com reports that Petra member Mark Kelly (who played bass in the early 80s) was in Marillion. But I don't think Mark Kelly, famous Marillion keyboard player, is the same guy. I don't really have proof either way, just a strong suspicion that he wouldn't have been playing and touring with two different bands, on different instruments, at the same time. Everyone on the net who cites the link (not very many people) seems to trust allmusic.com on it, but I don't.

Incidentally, another Christian band I wouldn't mind getting in is Whiteheart (a.k.a. White Heart... that's going to be fun to argue about), which had Dann Huff of Giant as a member. But I don't have a link in to the db for Giant either (haven't looked as hard there).

Lots of interesting Christian rock/metal bands out there, and it's a scene which I know at least a little about, so I'd like to get more than just Impellitteri and a few others into the database. Help appreciated.

Funny, I was just thinking about this band last night: Somerville-Scorfina had 1 track on one of those radio station 'local band' samplers that were so popular in the early 80s.... good luck finding all the details!
[www.head-east.com] http://www.head-east.com/somerville-scorfina.html

Well, [www.zeus.ia.net] http://www.zeus.ia.net/~bwestpha/hardpunk.html gives me "Sweetmeat Records 8101" as the label/catalog number. Since [cgi.ebay.ca] http://cgi.ebay.ca/Homegrown-Sweetmeat-Records-1980-Awes-L-P_W0QQitemZ4770802261... lists a Sweetmeat release with # "8001" as a 1980 release I'm betting "8101" means it was Sweetmeat's first 1981 release.

[pavlovsdogband.tripod.com] http://pavlovsdogband.tripod.com/pavlov9.html gives a members list and confirms the release year, though it gives the radio station itself as the label. The radio station's current homepage, [www.kshe95.com] http://www.kshe95.com/ , says at the bottom that "Sweetmeat" is a trademark of the station so I'm betting that's the real label title.

And [cgi.ebay.com] http://cgi.ebay.com/KSHE-95-SEEDS-VOL-II-LP-ST-LOUIS-HOMEGROWN-ROCK-N-ROLL_W0QQi... gives cover art (sort of). Score!

I'll try and add this to the queue soon. Any Photoshop wizards out there want to turn that eBay listing into some clean cover art? Shouldn't be hard if you know what you're doing, I'd think...