A stardom just out of reach

First is Jason Martin, stand-up guy, the singer-guitarist and creative force behind one of Southern California's longest-running and most prolific rock acts. Then there's the Big Guy, acknowledged in the fine print of the liner notes, beneath the publishing credits: "All Praise and Glory to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior."

That Starflyer 59 -- after 10 albums (including "My Island," released Tuesday), a half dozen EPs and a retrospective -- is not a household name probably has as much to do with Martin and bad timing as it does any taint the marketplace attached to Christian rock acts in the band's formative years.

"I don't know that Jason's ever been surrounded with the kind of people who would say, 'Let's go for it,' " says Tim Taber, a veteran music promoter whose Uprising Festival on Saturday in Irvine (where Starflyer 59 will play) features such Christian-rooted acts as Relient K and Mae, who have crossed over to become big sellers. "Jason's all about the music. He's content with making good records and writing good songs."

Indeed, since Starflyer 59 emerged in 1993 as the second signee to Christian-oriented Tooth & Nail Records, then based in Orange County, Martin has consistently achieved poignancy and reverie in his languid voice-and-guitar sketches, without winning any more than a cult following. Known for its reverb-heavy flourishes -- "that 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' thing I do with my guitar," he says -- Martin's is the music of a man who drives a truck for a living, with musings about everyday life, friendships and family.

And, he adds with a smile, "how success seems to have eluded me."

Over 13 years, Martin has worried neither about what's in fashion -- he has made albums that could be categorized as shoegaze, metal, dream-pop and indie rock -- nor about how his music is labeled.

"Everybody gets into that dividing line" between Christian and secular music, Martin says over coffee near his suburban Riverside home. "I'm not the kind of guy who does altar calls from the stage; I'm just a Christian man who makes music."

From the early days, he made lots of it, marrying a blue-collar work ethic with an artistic bent inspired by the Smiths. But even on Starflyer's early albums, he reflected on the demands of his role as a musician, the pressures he felt to succeed and the paradoxes he faced as a family man. Much of the music felt like a soundtrack for self-consciousness, yet his unrelenting inward-looking endeared him to his core of young fans.