Believe it or not I did not listen to Revolver this time out while I did our taxes! Just…didn’t feel in the mood, I guess. But yes, everything is done and away until next year. Who knows what they’re going to look like then?
In the meantime, I’ve been revisiting some music from 2001-2002 — the Belfry Years, specifically the albums that were on heavy rotation during the writing of A Division of Souls, which I’m currently ‘remastering’. [Long story short if you don’t follow my writing blog: It’s been ten years this September since I first self-published the book, so I thought I’d do a tenth anniversary special edition. I’m currently doing a bit of revision and clean-up where needed, fixing up the cover a bit, and perhaps adding some extra bonus things. And yes, I will most likely be doing this for The Persistence of Memories and The Balance of Light as well.]
So what’s popped up that I’m enjoying once more?
I’d forgotten how much I loved Zero 7’s Simple Things! It’s a lovely record that feels a bit like Morcheeba with a hint of Air and “Destiny” is just a wonderful track.
The Chameleons UK shows up on my playlists partly because I love the track “Swamp Thing” so much, but this 2001 album was an amazing return to form after a long hiatus for the group. Highly recommended.
Big Wreck has always been one of my unsung favorites. They’re one of those bands that are absolutely amazing yet have never had a huge following. Loud and extremely melodic, they’re definitely not alt-metal, but they’re not just another 90s alt-rock band either. I highly recommend checking out all their work.
I kinda sorta liked Coldplay’s “Yellow” when it came out, but I wasn’t completely sold on their lighter sound. I even passed up picking up their second album A Rush of Blood to the Head until I heard them do “Politik” live on the Grammys in early 2003. That’s when I realized just how amazing “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” is, and how this band has a lot more going on than just radio friendly fare.
In going through the early years of ‘the Bridgetown soundtrack’ (as I’ve been calling it), specifically from 2000 onwards after I’d left HMV, I’ve been of course thinking of the Newbury Comics that used to be in downtown Amherst, just off the common and across the street from the town hall.
I’d been going there off and on since 1995 or so, but this one became my go-to on Wednesdays when I did my comic book/new music release runs after work once I started working at Yankee Candle. It became one of my favorite things to do: drive down 116 from Deerfield to the Hampshire Mall in Hadley, stop at Showcase Comics to pick up my subscriptions and check out some new titles, then drive up to Amherst Common to spend an hour or so at Newbury and pick up new releases there. I remember my old HMV boss, Tom, had become a district manager for the chain and I’d run into him every now and again. I set a weekly budget of $70 to spend there, which quite often ended up being around five CDs, given the store’s ridiculously low sale prices, often hovering around eight to nine dollars per title.
Given my work schedule by that time — 6am to 2pm — I could get this shopping out of the way and get home in time to chill for a bit, have dinner with the family, then start my nightly writing session around 6pm, where I’d work for about two hours. It was a perfect schedule for me, one I’d keep for the next several years. When I started working at my current store here in SF, I’d offered to be an opener for this exact reason: getting off shift by early afternoon provides me not only with recharge time but also enough for a productive writing session.
When I moved away from Massachusetts in March of 2005, this Newbury Comics was the last place I stopped on my way out. I figured one more time for old times’ sake was worth it. I bought cd copies of two favorite titles I’d owned on vinyl for years: Blood Sweat & Tears’ 1969 self-titled record (the one with “Spinning Wheel” on it) and Boston’s classic 1976 debut. I also bought some snacks and Pocky (that store had been my source of the addictive chocolate sticks for years) and headed out one last time on my way down to New Jersey.
The store moved to downtown Northampton a few years later if I recall, and it’s still there to this day. We’ll stop in every now and again during our visits back east, and although I don’t buy nearly as much physical music as I used to, I’ll still surf through the bins to look for interesting things.
I’ve been going through my music library for the year 2000 to revisit what I would be listening to in the Belfry, and I think I’ve figured out the point where I knew the HMV days were truly over and when the Belfry days kicked into high gear. It’s actually a surprisingly stark line that jives with when I was given the quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from my terrible boss. It’s August of 2000, and by the end of the month I’d be gone.
The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, 1 August 2000. Although I’m almost certain I bought this in my final days at HMV and listened to it around that time, I want to say this was an album I spent more time listening to in the Belfry. I wasn’t even the biggest DW fan; by this point I’d heard their earlier hit “Not if You Were the Last Junkie On Earth” for the zillionth time on WFNX and did not like it to begin with, hearing “Godless” turned the tables for me. I remember listening to this one a lot during the summer evenings and weekends while figuring out what I wanted to do with The Phoenix Effect.
Between then and the end of the month, I did pick up a handful of CDs both from the record store and from Newbury Comics — by then my weekly comic book run had started to include a quick stop there to look for things my own store might not carry (or sell cheaper).
Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain, 11 September 2000. I’d left the record store by this point and was just starting at Yankee Candle — a westerly commute instead of an easterly one, and twenty miles shorter at that — but I really didn’t want to disconnect from my weekly accumulation of music. I could just as easily buy copies of my favorite music magazines, CMJ (College Music Journal) and ICE (an industry magazine featuring news on new releases) at Newbury Comics. I think this was one of the first that I bought there after starting the new job.
VAST, Music for People, 12 September 2000. I know I bought this one the same day as the Goldfrapp album (and the Barenaked Ladies album Maroon as well). I’d been a big fan of Jon Crosby’s first album under the VAST moniker and while this one felt slightly more upbeat and less steeped in Nine Inch Nails-esque gloom, it featured some amazing tracks that got a lot of play in the Belfry.
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I actually wouldn’t start writing A Division of Souls for another year and a half, maybe early 2002 after the frustrations brought about by The Phoenix Effect and its sequel The Mihari, which I was writing at the time. The two books do have a lot of similarities to A Division of Souls, however, and it was simply a decision to stop work on both TPE and TM and completely start over from scratch. [Very similar to what I’d done recently with Theadia, actually.]
The music that inspired the project, however, started around this time when I switched day jobs. It wasn’t a clean switch of course, as I actually worked second shift for my first couple of months (3 – 11pm or thereabouts) and wouldn’t move to first shift until sometime in November. It would be around that time when my writing sessions would truly become more stable and frequent, as would my weekly trips to Newbury to pick up new music.
I said I was going to do it and I’m doing it now: I’m currently going through the albums and singles from 2000 onwards as a soundtrack to the Bridgetown Trilogy Remaster Project. I started the revisit on Monday afternoon on my day off with William Orbit’s remixed take on Barber’s Adagio for Strings, one of my all-time favorite classical pieces.
I know, this is sort of an arbitrary place to start and doesn’t really line up with the writing chronology. I’d started and finished The Phoenix Effect (the early ‘demo’ version, if you want to continue the music analogy) but hadn’t yet started writing its aborted sequel The Mihari (that would take place that summer if I’m not mistaken), but the actual day-one of A Division of Souls wouldn’t take place until late 2001 or early 2002.
So why start the relistening at January 2000? Partly because I knew my days were numbered at the record store by then. I still loved the job and wished I could stay there forever, but a) I could definitely see the downturn of the music industry happening in real time, and b) I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle the store manager without eventually ragequitting. It was also a bit of a weird time musically; grunge had long given way to adult alternative which had given way to meathead alt-metal, and pop was having a huge resurgence with its sugary overproduced electronica.
A lot of music I listened to at the time felt a bit out of place. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to listen to, because very little of it was resonating with me at a deep level, as it once had just a few years previous. That could very well be due to personal issues and changes, and at the time I was feeling unmoored.
Still, I was willing to see where it all took me. Life changes and all.
…has given me a hankering to listen to some tunes from the HMV years when I wrote The Phoenix Effect. I’ve mentioned numerous times before that a lot of the music I listened to around that time heavily influenced and/or inspired many of its scenes. But it was also when I had a lot of positive things going on in my life for the first time in ages.
So now the trick is to find some current tunage that can take its place as the writing soundtrack for MU4….I do have a few in mind that have been on frequent rotation here in Spare Oom!
I often say that 2005 was the year of major change in my life (getting married and moving twice and all, among other things), but it really started in 2004. I’d met A online and by the summer we were constantly running into each other on LiveJournal. I was writing The Balance of Light at the time and having a terrible time with it, and writing a vampire novel as a way to distract myself. I’d head to my first Worldcon that autumn when it came to Boston. I’d quit buying comics cold turkey when my go-to comics store closed up shop, and I even started thinking seriously about looking to find my own apartment. Life was changing whether I was ready for it or not.
Musically I’d latched onto LAUNCHcast, a sort of proto-Spotify site where one could curate a playlist by way of a ratings system. [And given that my house was in a radio desert, I couldn’t always listen to WHMP or WFNX at the time unless I was in the car or using my stereo upstairs.] Given my music obsessions, it wasn’t long before it provided me with the kind of indie and electronic rock I enjoyed so much.
The Crystal Method, Legion of Boom, 13 January 2004. I’d completely forgotten there was an album between this one and their mega-selling Vegas (the one with “Busy Child” and “Trip Like I Do” on it), so I thought I’d try them out again. This one got a bit of play in the Belfry during my writing sessions.
Air, Talkie Walkie, 20 January 2004. This band is on the ‘I will buy anything from them’ list, and this one became a huge favorite of mine that year, getting a lot of play all around, not just during writing sessions but my occasional road trips as well. I loved that it retained the dreaminess of their Moon Safari album yet sounded futuristic.
Stereolab, Margerine Eclipse, 27 January 2004. Another band I was woefully behind on in terms of collecting at the time, I liked playing this one on the weekends when I had my hours-long writing sessions.
Yes, The Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection, 27 January 2004. I’d always been a huge fan of this band, though everything I owned of theirs was on scratchy used vinyl, having acquired them over the years in dollar bins, heh. This was a great full discography-so-far collection that was quite a pleasure to listen to.
The Walkmen, Bows + Arrows, 3 February 2004. Long before Hamilton Leithauser showed up on indie radio with his solo and collective projects, he was the lead singer of this great indie band that got a ton of play on LAUNCHcast and college radio with the song “The Rat”. Highly recommended.
Incubus, A Crow Left of the Murder…, 4 February 2004. Sure, you hear those same two or three hit singles from this band on alternative rock radio these days. Back when this came out, the singles “Megalomaniac” and “Talk Shows on Mute” got a ton of play on alternative radio, but sadly this album tends to be forgotten for the most part. It’s one of their most tense and dense records though, and well worth checking out.
Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand, 9 February 2004. Yes, that band with that song! They’ve always been a bit of an oddball band that slid between arty post-punk and groovy glam and somehow made it not just fresh and new, but made it irresistibly catchy as well.
Junkie XL, Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin, 10 February 2004. One of my favorite records of the year, this is a two-cd collection of electronic rock and house mixes and a thrill to listen to. Released just a few years before Tom Holkenborg focused mostly on film scores, this one’s highly recommended.
Audio Learning Center, Cope Park, 26 February 2004. This not-quite-grunge rock band from Portland were big on the moodier pockets of the genre, leaning a bit more towards emo and post-rock in some places. They only dropped two albums (this is the second) but they’re well worth checking out. This one got a lot of play in the Belfry.
TV On the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, 9 March 2004. I picked this one up mainly due to the fact that every music critic out there were getting their minds blown by this record, and they weren’t wrong. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this band at first, considering their sound back then was a bit difficult to describe. But the track “Dreams” was just so emotionally dire that I knew then that this was a record I’d enjoy.
The Vines, Winning Days, 21 March 2004. Their second record after the critically acclaimed Highly Evolved was a bit of both ‘more of the same’ and ‘heading further into psychedelia’ and while it wasn’t as popular as their debut, it was just as enjoyable to listen to.
The Standard, Wire Post to Wire, 23 March 2004. I latched onto the track “Even Numbers” via LAUNCHcast and I picked this one up soon after I’d heard it maybe twice. They were another Portland band made out of former members of other local indie groups, and this was their third and most popular album. This one got a lot of play in the Belfry as well.
Jem, Finally Woken, 24 March 2004. This quirky British singer had a minor hit with the trippy “They” single that got a lot of play on the local indie rock stations and kind of labeling her as a one hit wonder in the process, but the rest of this album is well worth checking out. To me she was like Alison Goldfrapp only a lighter and trippier.
L’arc~en~Ciel, Smile, 31 March 2004. I’d been a fan of this band since hearing “Spirit Dreams Inside” at the tail end of the 2001 Final Fantasy movie, but alas they were always super hard to find unless I was willing to spend thirty dollars on Japanese imports. This was one of their first American releases and featured one of their best hits and their most popular, “Ready Steady Go” (which at the time was also the opening theme for the anime show Fullmetal Alchemist).
As I’ve mentioned before, I allowed myself a month to stew in anger and frustration. I was pissed off that all my plans to stay in Boston had crashed and burned in epic fashion, and that I had to completely start over. On the other hand, living at home would allow me a bit of leniency by chipping in on the family bills and errands instead of a large monthly rent-sized chunk coming out of my paycheck, which would definitely help me get out of debt. And while I might have been emotionally in a much better place than my immediate post-college years, mentally I still had a long way to go. This was the era of reading New Age books as a way to force myself to think in alternative ways, and the era of giving my creativity a bold rethink. I was obviously getting nowhere there, and it was time to send it in a different direction.
For now, though, it was time to give my head and heart a bit of a long overdue reprieve. At least for a little while. I borrowed my mom’s car and went on a lot of drives around the area, the start of a very long-standing habit of weekend roadtrips on the backroads of central Massachusetts and frequent visits to used record stores and book stores. It was time to find myself, outside of the rat race I’d fallen into.
And to figure out what my next steps would be creatively.
The Jesus and Mary Chain, Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll, released 1 September 1995. A third compilation of b-sides, standalone singles and rarities gets some minor play on WHMP, the Northampton station I’d latch onto now that I was out of range of WFNX and WBCN. The title track would get a bit of play now and again.
Seven Mary Three, American Standard, released 5 September 1995. “Cumbersome” was everywhere when it dropped; they were sort of an American countrified Nickelback in a way (no offense meant, really) with a lot of radio-ready alternative bar-band rock. This ended up a one-hit wonder for them but one that still gets play now and again.
Various Artists, Help: A Charity Project for the Children of Bosnia, released 9 September 1995. I picked this one up maybe a few days after it dropped, which is an amazing turnaround considering the songs had been recorded only four days previous! While some charity albums can be a bit of a disconnected mismatch of hits and filler, this one is solid from start to finish. Trivia: this is the first appearance of Radiohead’s “Lucky” which would show up two years later on OK Computer. I played this one a lot at the time.
Blur, The Great Escape, released 11 September 1995. I may have recently mentioned that I felt this album was a bit weak compared to their earlier work, but that’s not to say it’s not bad…just a bit light on the energy. Although there are several great songs on it like the lovely and peculiar “The Universal”.
Lenny Kravitz, Circus, released 12 September 1995. In between the ridiculously overplayed “Are You Gonna Go My Way” from the same-titled album in 1993 and the overplayed “Fly Away” from 1998’s 5 album, there was this high charting but largely forgotten fourth album with the killer single “Rock and Roll Is Dead”. It’s a bit of an angry album for him but it’s worth checking out.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, One Hot Minute, released 12 September 1995. This was also a largely forgotten album stuck in between two huge successes (1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik and 1999’s Californication) and during a highly unstable era for the band (musically and personally). This is the one with the light and airy “Aeroplane” and cheerful “My Friends” but it’s also got the whirling tempest of album opener “Warped”. The album is a bit of a mess but it’s still enjoyable.
Eve’s Plum, Cherry Alive, released 19 September 1995. The second and last album from this bouncy power pop band featuring Colleen Fitzpatrick (aka Vitamin C), it’s a super fun record worth checking out, just like their previous release. WHMP would play “Jesus Loves You (Not As Much As I Do)” and the title track quite often.
Son Volt, Trace, released 19 September 1995. The other half of Uncle Tupelo that didn’t join Wilco became this band that continued the excllent alt-country sound they’d perfected in their previous band. “Drown” was a hit on alternative radio and the rest of the album is just as good.
Skunk Anansie, Paranoid and Sunburnt, released 21 September 1995. I’d find out about this band via the movie Strange Days which would be released quite soon (they make a major appearance near the end of the film) and I fell in love with their chaotic and angry energy, an outlet that was sorely lacking at the time for me. Sadly they never got any airplay Stateside, but I’ve always recommended them to anyone who likes kickass hard rock and alt-metal.
David Bowie, Outside, released 26 September 1995. Bowie has always been the one to reinvent himself with pretty much every new project, and this one was definitely an unexpected turn from the classy and clean Black Tie White Noise and the curious Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack. This one’s a tense and dense futuristic concept album that caused quite a lot of headscratching, but still managed a minor hit with “The Hearts Filthy Lesson” (which at the time reminded me a lot of Wire at their most adventurous).
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories, Tails, released 26 September 1995. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous “Stay (I Missed You)” which appeared on the Reality Bites soundtrack appears on Lisa’s first major label record here, and it’s a huge hit on both alternative and commercial radio, and still gets play to this day.
Sonic Youth, Washing Machine, released 26 September 1995. This album was a bit of a headscratcher as well, as it’s much longer and more meandering than their blistering earlier sound or their early-90s compactness. It feels a lot like they’re a jam band here, which they always were to some degree. Interestingly enough the twenty-minute closer “The Diamond Sea” was the song chosen as a single, chopped down to a much quicker five.
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Next up: More changes to come, whether I’m ready or not.
Walk In Silence 