Category Archives: personal

Dancing screaming itching squealing fevered feeling

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The-Cure-Kiss-Me-Kiss-Me-Kiss-Me

It was 28 years ago today that The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was released, and of course I’ve got it playing on my PC while I’m writing this up.

The Cure’s release history up to that date in the US was quite scattershot in the mid-80s…multiple labels over the course of four years (Boys Don’t Cry on PVC, Happily Ever After and Pornography on A&M, the 1982-83 singles and The Top on Sire).  It wasn’t until 1985’s much poppier and upbeat The Head on the Door showed a new and invigorated band, and their new label Elektra made sure they didn’t falter.  The 1986 singles compilation Standing on a Beach only served to push their status ever higher, and by the time Kiss Me (or “Kiss Me Cubed” as my friends and I used to call it) came out, America had finally taken notice.

This sprawling yet exciting double album came out at the same time I was asserting my individualism as a teenager.  A new circle of friends, a burgeoning record collection full of newly-found college rock, and a fresh coat of not giving a fuck anymore of what other kids thought of me.  I’d gone to see them with my sister and a friend that August in Worcester, and came back with a concert tee with Robert Smith’s pasty, lipsticked mug on the front and the lyrics to “Hot Hot Hot!!!” on the back.  I practically wore that shirt out in the ensuing months. I certainly got a lot of guff from both kids and teachers, but I didn’t care. This was the new me.  Forget fitting in, time to figure out who I was.

Kiss Me was indeed a sprawling album, but like Standing on a Beach it got a hell of a lot of play on my tape players.  I was a huge Cure fan by that time, and thanks to Elektra buying out the old contracts, their early releases were finally much easier to find.  I listened to them all on heavy rotation whenever and wherever I could.  I even predicted that “Just Like Heaven” would end up being one of their next (and best, and most famous) singles, and I was not proven wrong.

My friends and I would occasionally take road trips down to Amherst and Northampton to hang out at the record stores, and during the fall of 1987 and into 1988 this album would often be playing.  [This was back in the days before most of our parents’ cars had tape decks, so one of us, usually me, would lug along a boombox and have it playing in the back seat.  During one memorable trip when this was playing, the drinking of many sodas that evening came to its expected fruition and I urged they pulled over.  As I’m running into the woods, they pulled away, leaving me completely alone. Returning a few minutes later, they saw me on the side of the road, running after them, and slammed on the breaks, causing my radio to crash to the car’s floor in a thump! loud enough that I heard it from fifty yards away.]  To this day I still think of the winding Daniel Shays Highway and the back roads of Shutesbury when I listen to this album.

Compared to their earlier, darker albums of the early 80s and the intense frailty of Disintegration just a few years later, this album seems is so much more energetic, even a bit psychedelic.  It kind of reminds me of Prince’s Sign ‘o’ the Times, which had come out almost exactly two months earlier; it’s a beefy double album full of multiple and quite different genres, but it’s also a crowning achievement where nearly all the tracks are memorable, wonderfully produced, and leaves little to no room for boredom.  But also like Prince’s album, Kiss Me was a departure from their earlier albums, where they chose to break down the barriers, both creative and personal, to record something they would be proud of.  I kind of think The Head on the Door was a practice run, Standing on the Beach was the fanbase test, and this was the first official run; it would culminate of course with Disintegration.  It’s of no surprise that this was also the era of one of their best band line-ups, with Simon Gallup on bass, Porl Thompson on guitar, Lol Tolhurst on keyboards and Boris Williams on drums.  This particular quintet remains one of the strongest versions of the band for many older fans, as their sound was amazingly tight and inventive.

 

The Songs That Made Me

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You know I can’t let a good music meme pass me by, right?

As quoted from Nancy at Midlife Mixtape:

This week’s Rolling Stone has a cover story called “The Songs That Made Me” in which artists share six or eight songs that had outsize influence in their lives. They’re not always what you’d expect – Marilyn Manson with “Cry Me A River” by Justin Timberlake? I loved the little window into the artist’s soul, and as a writing prompt you can’t ask for much better. So here are the Songs That Made Me.

I’m quite certain I’ve done this at one point or another on my LiveJournal over the years, so some of you are not going to be the least bit surprised at some of these.

1. The Church, “Under the Milky Way”.

OH HEY BIG SURPRISE THERE.  Heh.  I’ve contemplated as to why this is my all-time favorite song, and I realize it’s because it was one of those songs that hit me right at the perfect moment, at the perfect time.  Spring 1988, when my closest high school friends, nearly all of whom were a year ahead of me, were graduating that next month.  I was torn between excitement that I too would be leaving my small town (albeit a year down the road), frustration that my closest circle of friends was vanishing way too quickly, and determination that I’d try to spend as much time as I could with them before they left.  This song fit the mood perfectly: a sadness for things ending, a wishful thinking for things yet started, and the stasis of waiting in between.

2. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, “All I Ask of Myself Is That I Hold Together”.

Note: This song must be listened to as loud as possible.  Summer 1995, in which I’ve got a day off from my job at the multiplex up on Somerville. Earlier that year I decide that, despite my lingering emotional and financial depression, I’m going to kick my own ass and get this writing thing started already.  I’m switching between WFNX and WBCN on the radio dial during those summer afternoons, windows open, while I hammer away on my girlfriend’s low-end PC (running on Windows 3.1!).  A lot of transcription of old work, but also many words on completely new projects as well.  A consistent writing habit is formed.

3. Led Zeppelin, “How Many More Times”.

Late 1987, In which I hear this song and realize I need to buy myself a bass.  I soon find a very cheap Arbor Stiletto for $50 at the local music store, which stays with me until I finally retire it in early 2012.  I teach myself how to play it by listening to Led Zeppellin’s first album, and expanding to Cocteau Twins, Wire, New Order and Joy Division, and going on from there.

4. Takako Shirai & Crazy Boys, “Cosmic Child”.

The ending theme for the anime OAV Gall Force 2: Destruction.  Late 1993, watching anime because I’m too broke to do anything else.  The anime that changed my writing from feeble attempts at straight fiction to science fiction and fantasy, and the series that partly inspired the Mendaihu Universe in the first place.  I later use the lead singer’s name for a pivotal character as a gesture of thanks. [The video here is a great rip, but I really dislike the English dub. I started it a little before the song to set the scene. Unfortunately the subtitles aren’t coming up…the lyrics to the song are basically a ‘thank you for giving us (spiritual) life’.]

5. Semisonic, “She’s Got My Number”.

Sometime in 2004, in which I get hints from various people that a certain someone might be interested in me.  That certain someone later informs me that one of her favorite bands is Semisonic, and puts this particular song on a mixtape (ok, a mix cd) for me.  Ten happily married years later and I’m pretty sure she was trying to tell me something there.  She knows me better than I know myself sometimes.

6. Gerry Rafferty, “Baker Street”.

Considering I was a little kid in the 70s, that decade is a bit of a jumbled mess for me in terms of music and memory.  However, I distinctly remember hearing this song on the scratchy AM radio during our family roadtrips.  If we had a bag of Bugles in the car, my sisters and I would grab a few and imitate the sax solos.  Decades later in 2014, and I’m winding my way down Baker Street in London, this song firmly stuck in my head.

7. Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show theme song, “This Is It”.

Yeah, I was totally a diehard Looney Tunes fan as a kid.  I’ve finally warmed to Disney to some degree, but I’m still a dedicated WB fan.  To this day, whenever A. and I head to the opera or the symphony, my recognition of the pieces will still often be “Oh, that piece.  The one where Elmer and Bugs…”

8. The Beatles, “Hey Jude”.

It was hard to pin down exactly which Beatles song to put here, but I chose this one.  My mom introduced me to this song when I was first getting into the band.  This is the video I shot while in the middle of the crowd — and let me tell you, turning around and watching a football stadium-sized crowd sing along to the last half was pretty damn epic.

9. Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”.

Okay, I’ll totally cop to stealing Michael Mann’s ‘music video treatment’ method for Miami Vice when I first started writing seriously in my teens.  My first complete novel (aka the Infamous War Novel) was outlined using a specific playlist, each chapter inspired by music, including this track.  The IWN is rather painful to read now, but on the other hand I’d like to think it was a successful exercise in long-form storytelling for me.

10.  Pretty much any given new release date.

It’s probably no coincidence that I didn’t see this meme until today…New Release Tuesday.  I used to passively follow release dates until late 1996 when I started working at HMV…and I’ve been faithfully keeping track (and purchasing on or near drop date) ever since.  For the record, today’s purchases included the new albums from Hot Chip, Tanlines, The Helio Sequence, Faith No More, and Brandon Flowers!

Life Soundtracks

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Last week on the KSCU radio show The 80s Underground (podcast here), the DJ decided to play songs from the Top 25 albums of 1988 per a readers’ poll at the great college rock-themed blog Slicing Up Eyeballs.  And you know me, I couldn’t resist.  I just had to listen in.

Interestingly enough, hearing my favorite college rock year outside of the normal context (read: my ridiculously large mp3 collection) kind of put things in a different perspective.  I purposely didn’t look up the poll they’d done a year or so ago (which I of course took part in), so I was pleasantly entertained by not exactly knowing which song would come next.  It was a little jump back in time to my years listening to WAMH.

Back then, I used to have a lot of life soundtracks.  Certain albums or compilation tapes I’d listen to during certain times of the day, or certain radio stations and shows.  I often do the same thing while I’m writing; lately I’ve been listening to Beck’s Sea Change and Morning Phase during my Spare Oom couch sessions.

Thing is, I don’t have nearly as many of these as I once did, and I suppose in a way that’s a good thing.  I always have the radio or some music going during the work day, but I’ve long past grown out of attempting to forge a mood from the music being played.  I now listen to KSCU (a college station) as much as I listen to Radio BDC (an internet station) or KFOG and Live 105 (terrestrial stations).

Do I miss those days, giving myself a soundtrack as if I were the living embodiment of a Miami Vice or a Grey’s Anatomy episode?  Well, not really.  I just grew out of attempting to find the perfect sound to complement whatever I was doing.  It had gotten to the point where I was forcing the mood, and that’s no fun.  I’m still an active listener, mind you–certain songs will hit me just the right way and I’ll pounce all over them, like I did with that TV On the Radio track a few months back.

Life soundtracks are more of a passive thing now.  I let them pop up organically, by serendipity.  Just like life itself–sometimes it’s more fun to see what life (or in this case, a radio station) throws at you rather than trying to pigeonhole it into something it’s not.

Connection

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No, this post is not about Elastica stealing the opening riff of Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba” from Pink Flag.  I’ve already made my peace with that.

This is about social connection.  I was just thinking about this earlier this morning…I’ve had this nagging feeling for ages that there was an actual reason behind my wasting so much time refreshing my Twitter feed.  The obvious answer is that I like staying in touch with all my friends, especially now that they’re all on the east coast and I’m on the opposite side of the country.  But there’s got to be more than that.  I’m usually on top of my stupid occasional timewasting addictions — playing with my mp3 collection, watching YouTube videos, looking up what’s playing on the station I’m currently listening to — and I know that my threshold is about fifteen to twenty minutes before I automatically start guilting myself into getting some actual work done.

But what is it with Twitter that I keep wanting to update the feed so frequently?

I think I figured it out, and I wrote it down in my personal journal: Twitter today is lunch period back in high school.

It’s definitely got to do with staying in touch with my friends back east, there’s no denying that.  A lot of these friends are connected to my circle of friends from my junior year in high school, either directly or indirectly.  And back then, back when I was a spotty nerd weirdo wearing Cure and PiL tee shirts and having given up on trying to fit in with the popular cliques, the lunch period was the primary time I could hang out with said friends when we were in school.  I really looked forward to hanging with them, even if it was just for twenty minutes a day.

Sure, we’d cross paths in the hallway, or meet up during a study hall.  The occasional after-school get together and the weekend trips down to Amherst were a bonus.  Back then we didn’t have the instant gratification of social media on the internet — hell, my family didn’t have DSL until 2000 or so — so we made do with the moments we were given.

We never quite lost touch in those pre-social media days, even when we were no longer nearby and some of us were too broke to stay with AOL, let alone make a phone call.  We emailed, even snail-mailed each other occasionally, and I would even make a few roadtrips out their way on my vacations.

Live Journal changed that, when I reconnected with a large number of them on a social media level.  Then, a few years later, Twitter and Facebook made the contact more immediate, and it’s been like that ever since.

This social evolution took so many slow and deliberate steps that it’s just like anything else I do over a long period of time.  I don’t always notice the subtle changes and the current level I’m at.  So it’s not as if I’m stalking all my friends or have no IRL of my own…we’ve just been connected at a consistent level for so long, I don’t always notice why I keep refreshing the feed.  Passive addiction.

This lends itself to the ‘stupid timewasting addictions’ I spoke of earlier…I get into a habit of doing certain things that I don’t immediately notice if I’m overdoing them.  This is why I’ll also speak of ‘unplugging’, where I’ll just back away cold turkey for a while.  It’s not always due to the occasionally frustrating online conversations that pop up, or what have you; it’s just that it’s the only way I know that I’ll break those addictions and reset my life.  Plus, it’ll give me more free time for contemplation and working on the projects I need to work on.

I do find it interesting how, in this age of instant and continuous connection, the lesson we should really take out of it is moderation.