By April of 1993 I realized that this was going to be the very last semester of any schooling I’d ever attend. I had no plans or reasons to look into graduate school, having finally admitted to myself that I’m more of a ‘learn by experience’ student than a ‘learn by theory and text’ student. I’d always been turned off by the idea of theoretical dissection and debate; it did nothing for me because that wasn’t how my brain worked. Mine always went in the opposite direction: I loved how things fit together. This meant that these were going to be the last exams, the last term papers, the last final projects I’d ever be dealing with, and I really liked the idea of that.

Mind you, this also meant that my road ahead was going to be hard, often lonely, and with a lot of fuck-ups along the way. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but I at least knew that was coming. I prepared myself by thinking ahead: I knew I wanted to be a writer, so that was what I was going to need to focus on most.

It would take quite a long time, but I’d get it soon enough.

*

Guided By Voices, The Grand Hour EP and Vampire On Titus, released 1 April 1993. I actually knew about this band early on as one of those beloved by the critics and DJs in the know but rarely ever found in smaller record stores. I believe I’d heard “Shocker in Gloomtown” on WZBC (Boston College’s station) and maybe on WFNX one late evening.

David Bowie, Black Tie White Noise, released 5 April 1993. “Jump They Say” was a big favorite on WFNX at the time, as this was his first post-Tin Machine record under his own name again. It’s a very polished-sounding album and maybe not my favorite of his, but there are quite a few good tracks on it.

Sugar, Beaster EP, released 6 April 1993. After the brilliant Copper Blue, Bob Mould released a hard and fast six-track mini LP that melded the melodic parts of this new band of his with the noise of his previous band Husker Du. The end result is blistering and noisy fun.

Tool, Undertow, released 6 April 1993. I don’t think there was any band that sounded quite like this at the time: the heaviness of grunge, the headiness of prog, and the nihilism of metal, and somehow capturing the attention of countless critics and fans. Even the bizarreness of the video for “Sober” earned it heavy rotation on MTV at the time. More to the point, they even got my attention and they totally weren’t a band I’d actively listen to.

His Name Is Alive, Mouty By Mouth, released 13 April 1993. It took me a while to get where this band was going with their music and why they were on the revered 4AD label, as they felt more like outsider indie folk than anything else. But every now and again they’d have a song (like the above) that I really enjoyed.

Sarah Brightman, Dive, released 20 April 1993. Now this album was totally against type for me: I’d heard “Captain Nemo” on WFNX of all places one night and I was kind of fascinated by it…it had that dreamlike cinematic feel that would fit right in with my style of writing. I bought this one at Tower on cassette not knowing she was a well-known stage singer looking to pivot into pop, and I found myself really liking it. I’d play this one a lot on my headphones if I was heading somewhere on the T.

Midnight Oil, Earth and Sun and Moon, released 20 April 1993. I’d heard this one later in the summer of that year when I worked at DeLuca’s Market on Charles Street; one of the managers threw the album on after closing when we were cleaning up. I instantly fell in love with the track “Outbreak of Love” and ran out and bought it at Tower the next day!

World Party, Bang!, released 26 April 1993. Karl Wallinger’s output has always been consistently great (and he’s a super nice guy too, as I’d met him years later at Amoeba here in SF some years back). Pretty much everything he’s put out has been a mix of catchy pop and quirky indie rock.

PJ Harvey, Rid of Me, released 26 April 1993. The indie kids loved her records, and so did WFNX, because she was so hard to pin down into one genre. She could be sexy, confrontational, discomforting and funny, sometimes within the span of the same song. Her early albums are definitely worth checking out, and she’s about to release a new one very soon!

The Posies, Frosting On the Beater, released 27 April 1993. A jangly indie pop band that the critics loved, I’d hear the wonderfully shimmering “Flavor of the Month” on WFNX all the time and it became one of my favorite summer songs that year.

Porno for Pyros, Porno for Pyros, released 27 April 1993. Perry Farrell’s return to music after Jane’s Addiction’s implosion (and focusing on running Lollapalooza, which was still a traveling show at the time) was a more down-tempo record but featured some of his best work, including the ubiquitous single “Pets”.

Brad, Shame, released 27 April 1993. This was an interesting group in that it was essentially several musician friends from the Seattle area getting together to occasionally record and release music that didn’t quite fit the sounds of their own bands. This was also one of many groups headed by Seattleite Shawn Smith, who would pop up all over the place over the next several years.

*

Coming up: One life ends, another life begins.