Coming up close to the year end, and in retrospect I can kind of see why not a lot of it remains stuck in my mind. A lot of my time was spent getting used to living in a big city on the opposite coast and starting a job I’d never done before, all while I focused on writing a vampire novel (Love Like Blood) that would end up getting trunked and still feeling frustrated by my inability to finish the Bridgetown Trilogy. And getting used to married life at that! Real Life definitely got in the way of my writing projects, and it would take me quite some time to get back on that particular horse.
Audioslave, Revelations, released 5 September 2006. The third and final album from this group may not have gotten nearly as much notice as their previous two, but at the time it did get a lot of positive reaction. Cornell would return to his solo career while the Rage members drifted through side projects and occasional rumors of reunion.
Barenaked Ladies, Barenaked Ladies Are Me, released 12 September 2006. The first BNL album after leaving Reprise, the group recorded so many songs that they ended up saving half of them for a follow up (2007’s Barenaked Ladies Are Men). While they no longer reached the popularity they’d achieved in the late 90s and early 00s, they’re still recording and still have their loyal fanbase.
Plain White T’s, Every Second Counts, released 12 September 2006. Yes, this is the album that contains the unexpectedly popular acoustic track “Hey There Delilah” that still gets played everywhere. I much preferred the single “Hate (I Really Don’t Like You)” and still quote it now and again.
Ima Robot, Monument to the Masses, release 12 September 2006. This goofball band from LA was a favorite of A’s for quite some time, and “Creeps Me Out” is a really fun single. You might know lead singer Alex Ebert better as his alter ego Edward Sharpe, whose band the Magnetic Zeroes had a quite overplayed hit with the stomp-clap alternafolk track “Home”.
Teddybears, Soft Machine, released 12 September 2006. This strange Swedish alternative band popped up on Sirius XM and Live 105 with the singles “Cobrastyle” and “Punkrocker”, the latter of which features Iggy Pop straight-faced singing the corniest lyrics about punk.
Mutemath, Mutemath, released 26 September 2006. This became one of our favorite bands after discovering them on the Sirius XM during our visit back east in October, and picked up that album at Newbury Comics while we were there. A vastly underrated and highly creative band that brings together stylish alternative rock with elements of jazz and funk and turns it into something amazing. We’d get to see them live (for free!) in Golden Gate Park a few years later! I highly recommend checking out all of their works, including their highly entertaining music videos!
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Coming up: Year end doldrums, contemplations and whatnot
If I recall, 2006 was a bit of an oddball year in terms of alternative rock. It was definitely splintering at this point, for good or ill, and you either loved what was coming out of it or you were left scratching your head wondering what was going on. I felt a little bit of both to be honest, because I was so used to the full immersion and now felt left out. It was finally moving away from the darker gloom of the post-punk era, while the more radio-friendly music was heading towards points unknown (or alternately, becoming even more mainstream). It took me a while to resonate with the new sounds out there.
Meanwhile in Real Life Stuff, my temp job at the bank was winding down, and I would soon become a full-time worker in their CD/IRA phone bank department. Same building, same hours, slightly better pay. It wasn’t the best thing I wanted and I wasn’t thrilled by the later hours, but it was what I had on hand that I could stick with for the time being. Even then I’d decided to see it as a ‘permanent until further notice’ job. I’d be there for a relatively short time, however, until I was offered a position in a different department. I’ve never been the biggest fan of phone bank work, but I did at least learn a few interesting things.
Muse, Black Holes and Revelations, released 3 July 2006. How do you follow up the huge success of a breakthrough album like 2003’s Absolution? By being even more grandiose and over the top! It’s a great but slightly weird album that contained a few radio hits, but its big one was album closer “Knights of Cydonia” with its bonkers music video that’s equal parts spaghetti western and psychotic fever dream.
TV On the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain, released 6 July 2006. Their second album was a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I felt it lacked the darker moods of their previous album (2004’s excellent Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes) was just…weird. Although I’d eventually warm up to it, especially the first single “Wolf Like Me” which still gets airplay on KEXP now and again.
Thom Yorke, The Eraser, released 11 July 2006. The Radiohead singer’s first solo album in between their long hiatus between 2003’s Hail to the Thief and 2007’s In Rainbows feels like it retains the band’s new experimental direction they’d taken in the 00s, yet melodic enough to capture the interest of their fanbase.
The Knife, Silent Shout, released 27 July 2006. I remember getting this one as a free CD when I subscribed to Under the Radar, a music magazine that had captured my interest at the time. They were definitely a Pitchfork band: one that got a lot of hipster notice yet rarely got any kind of airplay at all anywhere, yet it got a really good review in UtR so I thought I’d give it a go. I liked that there was a hint of that sterile industrial sound I enjoyed, yet strange enough to retain my interest. The singer Karin Dreijer is known for fronting Fever Ray these days.
Midlake, The Trials of Van Occupanther, released 25 July 2006. I think I heard this one first on Pandora or Launchcast, specifically the song “Roscoe”, and was immediately taken at how much they sounded like 70s era Fleetwood Mac to me. This was one of those rare CDs I special ordered at the Barnes & Noble down the street.
The Cure, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me / The Head On the Door / The Top Deluxe Editions, released 8 August 2006. One of my favorite 80s bands finally follows up with their deluxe reissues with three more titles, this time focusing on the 1984-1987 era when their popularity skyrocketed. All three feature home demos and live recordings as extra tracks.
Kasabian, Empire, released 26 August 2006. It took me a little while to get used to this band, but once I was on board I remained a huge fan. After the loud and dissonant self-titled first album from 2005, this one felt more approachable and melodic. I believe I bought this one at Newbury Comics when we went back east for a visit in October. By that time I’d pretty much given up on buying albums on their drop date. As much as I missed doing, that, I had to move on. [That would of course change once I started downloading everything!]
Six months into living in a new apartment in a new city in a new state on the opposite coast and we were still getting used to it. The furthest we’d gone outside of town at that point was probably down to Serramonte Mall in Daly City to buy home furnishings at Target, or me driving A down to SFO for one of her occasional work-related trips. Even driving to the west side of town felt weird, as we did once or twice to check out the beach or down to the SF Zoo. I was still getting used to navigating the roads when we drove around, trying to find the best way to the various neighborhoods when we weren’t taking public transit. We’d get used to it eventually, taking day trips north to Santa Rosa and Petaluma or south to Half Moon Bay. We’d even make the looooong trip up to Sacramento for the state fair now and again!
I was still feeling a bit lost and distracted creatively. I wasn’t writing too many poems or lyrics, my then current WIP (Love Like Blood) was moving in fits and starts, and I was heavily distracted by the internets. About this time I’d made the ill-advised foray into political blog reading and occasional online ranting, which lasted about a year and ended up being a lot of insufferable whining and echo-chambering that I’ve since taken offline. [I would soon realize that that particular avenue would serve no purpose to me other than raise my blood pressure.]
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Brian Vander Ark, Angel, Put Your Face On, released 1 May 2006. The Verve Pipe singer is looking a little scruffy here. His band had gone on hiatus, and over the next few years he’d put out multiple solo records that were more acoustic and ballady, but continued to prove that he never lost his stellar songwriting chops.
Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam, released 2 May 2006. After four years, a protracted Ticketmaster fight and a b-sides compilation, the group reconvened on the quasi-indie label J Records (really a subsidiary of BMG at the time) and released an album that sounded a lot like their early grungier years. It’s not one that gets a lot of play these days, but at the time “World Wide Suicide” and “Wasted” got a fair bit of play on Live 105.
Snow Patrol, Eyes Open, released 9 May 2006. I always get this one confused with 2003’s Final Straw because they sound very similar in tone, and both contain some of their most popular songs. This one, however, contains the evergreen “Chasing Cars” that is possibly their biggest hit in the US, and got a significant bump when it was used on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (a show which handily used the Miami Vice rules of mood soundtrack).
Gnarls Barkley, St Elsewhere, released 9 May 2006. The project of CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse offered a huge hit with the song “Crazy” which still gets play everywhere (including supermarkets). CeeLo had been known as a member of the hip-hop group Goodie Mob and had previously put out a few soul-tinged solo records, but this album gave him some major publicity, enough that he’s shown up on hit songs ever since.
Hot Chip, The Warning, released 22 May 2006. A band I knew of, thanks to the music magazines and blogs I was reading at the time, but also one that very rarely got play anywhere except online. I’d eventually hear the ridiculously fun and catchy “Over and Over” and both A and I would become loyal fans. We even got to see them at Outside Lands some years later!
Soundtrack, Ergo Proxy opus01, released 25 May 2006. I don’t exactly remember when I first heard of this anime TV series, but I’m pretty sure it was from seeing trailers for it when we rented Funimation anime through Netflix. “Kiri” by Monoral is one of my top favorite opening themes.
Paramore, The Summer Tic EP, released 19 June 2006. I’ll be painfully honest, when their debut All We Know Is Falling came out in 2005, I let them pass by as yet another hard-rock-with-angry-female-singer band (as there were many out there at the time, and I totally blame Evanescence and their inescapable “Bring Me to Life”), but it didn’t take me long to change my mind when I realized just how fun they were. This EP was a sort of thank-you to fans while on the Warped Tour, and contained the brilliant cover of Failure’s “Stuck On You”, a band who deeply influenced singer Hayley Williams. Interestingly, she shows up on the band’s 2026 album Location Lost!
Silversun Pickups, Carnavas, released 25 June 2006. While a lot of newer bands weren’t really capturing my attention, this one did due to its unique sound and style. “Lazy Eye” was boppy and catchy and I of course loved the quiet/LOUD dynamic of it. They’d become a consistent favorite band of ours.
Grant-Lee Phillips, nineteeneighties, released 27 June 2006. The former Grant Lee Buffalo leader’s solo record of 80s covers could have been a throwaway, but Phillips shines by using tracks that translate incredibly well with his acoustic work and forlorn vocal style. This one got a lot of play on my mp3 player that summer.
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Coming up: Odd indie albums, reissues, and overwrought bombast
Even though I’d mentioned previously that I’d disconnected myself from my music listening habits, that isn’t necessarily to say that I quit cold turkey. For a brief while longer I was still listening to Yahoo’s LaunchCast (though that would be going away soon enough, like every other decent internet app in those days), still keeping tabs on new releases, and following various music blogs. And for a few years there we even had cable and would catch up with what was on the charts with VH1 and MTV.
I’d figured out a few places to buy music at the time… there was the Barnes & Noble down the street where I’d buy a few cds and dvds, the Virgin Megastore on Market (where I only went in once before it too closed like the Tower further down Bay Street), and of course the grand vastness that was Amoeba Records in the Haight, which would pretty much be my go-to from there on in. But this was around the time I started downloading more than buying physical, mainly due to storage space, and finding it easier to listen via mp3 player.
Mogwai, Mr Beast, released 6 March 2006. While I didn’t always find the time to listen closely to this band at times, I’d been a fan for a few years by then and always picked up or downloaded whatever came out. This one felt kind of like a transitional album, moving away from their longer and heavier work towards more melodic.
Goldfrapp, Supernature, released 7 March 2006. The same with Alison Goldfrapp; I’d loved her last couple of albums but I never got a chance to latch onto this one, which was very much in the style of her previous record Black Cherry; groovy, sexy, catchy, yet always just a little bit odd.
Band of Horses, Everything All the Time, released 21 March 2006. This was a band that caught my attention with the music magazines I was reading at the time, and I grew to really like their stuff. They were always in that indie folk subgenre that decidedly wasn’t the Stomp Clap Fireside Singalong genre that was getting a ton of airplay at the time.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones, released 22 March 2006. Their second album after the mega-selling debut Fever to Tell from three years previous, the lead single “Gold Lion” was a welcome return and still gets play now and again.
Daft Punk, Musique Vol 1: 1993-2005, released 4 April 2006. I’ll admit I was never the biggest Daft Punk fan — the whole indie disco/electronica think that didn’t really connect with me — but I figured that since I did actually like “Harder Better Faster Stronger” and “Around the World”, why not buy their greatest hits collection? Eventually I was won over.
The Vines, Vision Valley, released 4 March 2006. While I loved Highly Evolved from 2002 (and Winning Days from 2004 to a lesser degree), I was on the fence about this one, and I think it was because they’d started getting a bit samey in their sound. Still, I’d pick their stuff up in hopes that something would catch my interest. Sometimes it would, like 2011’s Future Primitive.
The Beatles, The Capitol Albums, Vol 2, released 11 April 2006. The second in a two-volume series which gathered most all of the numerous US album releases, complete with their distinctive alternate mixes both in mono and stereo — Beatles ’65‘s deep morass of reverb, for instance — this was of course a collection I had to pick up as this was how I’d known the albums all these years.
The Radio Dept., Pet Grief, released 12 April 2006. This was a band I’d known about via the music magazines I read, but it wasn’t until I heard “The Worst Taste in Music” somewhere, possibly on one of the many music blogs I was following at the time, that I finally grew to really like them.
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, Under the Covers, Vol 1, released 18 April 2006. Two singers steeped in jangle pop and 70s music influence putting out an album of covers? Sign me up! They’d eventually put out three stellar volumes over the years, all of them full of wonderful tracks that perfectly fit their style. Their cover of The Bee Gees’ “Run to Me” is a joy.
The Swell Season, The Swell Season, released 21 April 2006. This was an interesting side project for Glen Hansard of The Frames — who I knew from way back when he was in the movie The Commitments, named after his favorite book by Josef Skvorecky (and one that I’d read in college). “Falling Slowly” had been a minor favorite but would become a surprise hit in 2007 when featured in the movie Once and would win an Academy Award. They’ve put out a handful of albums since and they’re well worth checking out.
Secret Machines, Ten Silver Drops, relaesed 25 April 2006. This was their follow-up to the brilliant Now Here Is Nowhere from 2004 (one of my favorites of that year), and also the last album to feature guitarist Ben Curtis before he left to form School of Seven Bells. I remember giving this one quite a lot of play during my writing years at Arkham West, especially when I felt the occasional urge to attempt reviving the Bridgetown Trilogy.
Hey there, it’s been a while! I’ve been busy with IRL stuff and day job things, but over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking that it’s time for me to revive the Twenty Years On series, as it’s now entered the San Francisco Years. Yes, this means that we’ve been here in this city for just over twenty years now!
I will say that it’s going to be a bit disjointed for a few reasons…after a whirlwind 2005 of several (very positive) personal events, we settled into our new apartment overlooking a busy intersection at the tip of the North Beach neighborhood, just a few blocks away from the tourist trap that is Pier 39. While A spent several days (and months) getting things in order at the office she’d transferred to, I chose to restart with a completely blank slate jobwise. I’d get a temporary position at Bank of America (soon to become permanent), and start getting used to living on the west coast. My writing nook was now a large bay window overlooking said intersection and named Arkham West, and I was writing Love Like Blood at the time but secretly wishing I could return to the trilogy.
Oddly, it took me a while to reconnect with music. I’d somehow drifted away from what I’d been listening to at the time, partly because I no longer had my own private writing nook that wouldn’t bother anyone else, partly because I couldn’t locate any college radio stations that appealed to me…but mostly because alternative rock seemed to be evolving in directions that couldn’t quite retain my interest. The brilliance of 2002-2003 seemed to have retreated and replaced by Pitchfork-rated hipster-influenced indie. To me it kind of felt like the scene was kind of losing its vision a bit. Not that it was all bad, of course, just that it was harder for me to find something I liked.
There was also the fact that I’d gotten rid of an extremely large portion of my music collection before we’d moved. The vinyl and cassettes stayed with my family (I allowed them to do what they wished with it, including selling it off and keeping the money), and after spending the entire summer of 2005 ripping my cds, I found myself unsure of what I still wanted to listen to. I’d purposely disconnected myself from my solace, so to speak, and ended up adrift. Even despite living just blocks away from a Tower Records (which would soon shut down within the year), I’d realized that I really couldn’t spend all my pocket money on CDs as I used to. And we really didn’t have the room for my huge collection.
It would be a few more years before I’d reconnect and find sounds that resonated with me, but those musical times in the Belfry Years were definitely over.
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Morningwood, Morningwood, released 10 January 2006. I’d actually heard this band in mid-2005 during the months I lived in New Jersey. There was an intriguing cable channel called International Music Feed whose playlist was steeped in everything not originating in the US that me, A and our roommates constantly listened to. We loved their two singles from this record, “Nth Degree” and “Jetsetter”, both giddy and goofy pop gems. They only lasted a few years (as did the channel) though singer Chantal Claret followed up with a pretty decent solo career in the ’10s.
She Wants Revenge, She Wants Revenge, released 31 January 2006. I remember hearing “Tear You Apart” a lot on Live 105, the local alternative rock station that was pretty much the closest analogue to the Boston area’s WFNX that became our usual station to listen to in the car. I was of two minds about this album — on the one hand, I liked their Joy Division/Interpol sound, but on the other hand it felt a little too derivative. They’d drop an album a few years later (2011’s Valleyheart), however, that I felt was absolutely brilliant.
Sparks, Hello Young Lovers, released 6 February 2006. I’d been a passive fan of Sparks but never quite got around to buying any of their albums, at least not until I finally took the plunge a few years later and downloaded their discography. They’re still a bit confusing to me but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Belle and Sebastian, The Life Pursuit, released 6 February 2006. Their album The Boy with the Arab Strap was a huge Belfry/HMV Years favorite of mine, and I’d put them on my ‘will buy anything they release’ list. That kind of fell apart around this time, however, mostly due to wanting save money, but at the same time I was having trouble trying to get used to their evolving sound. Their sound was no longer the bedsit twee pop I loved. I’d eventually come around, though.
KT Tunstall, Eye to the Telescope, released 7 February 2006. You couldn’t escape “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” that year, as it showed up all over the place: music video channels, AOR stations, alt.rock stations, and everywhere in between. It’s a fun album worth checking out.
Elbow, Leaders of the Free World (US Edition), released 21 February 2006. I continued (and still continue) to be a huge Elbow fan ever since picking up Asleep in the Back early in 2002, and while this album is a bit odd compared to the dreamlike Asleep or the pastoral Cast of Thousands from 2003, it remains a wonderful record. “Forget Myself” got a good amount of play on Live 105 at the time.
Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, released 21 February 2006. It’s funny — for a good couple of years I constantly mixed this band up with LCD Soundsystem, who appeared right around the same time. I think part of it was because they both embraced that indie-punk-meets-dance style that had become a big thing at the time, a style I wasn’t entirely all that interested in. I kinda-sorta liked them? But not enough to go out of my way and pick up their work? At least not until their major breakthrough, 2013’s AM.
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Coming up: getting used to the new sounds and finding stuff online
It occurred to me the other day that it’s been twenty years since I’d moved away from my hometown in Massachusetts. For some people that might be just another life event, but for me it was something pretty big. Until that day in March 2005 (the 6th, to be exact) I’d always lived in MA, five years of them in Boston, then spending just shy of ten years back at the family house getting my affairs, finances and creativity in some semblance of order. All of that changed near the end of 2004 when I started going out with A. in a long distance relationship, then turning that into frequent road trips down to New Jersey (a little over two hundred miles one way) to spend the weekend. It was a three hour drive but it was totally worth it.
All of that changed in early 2005 when we finally made the decision for me to move down there with her and her roommates. We both felt it was something I’d needed to do, and a long time in coming. I was ready for it, and had been looking to moving on for quite some time. The plan was to move down to NJ and eventually find a place somewhere near her workplace, but that ended up going in an altogether different direction later that summer.
It was a year of a lot of major life changes for me, so I allowed my writing to fall by the wayside for a bit. To wit: moving out of my old hometown, moving away from family, moving in with said girlfriend, springing the question and eventually marrying said girlfriend shortly after, visiting another country (that was not Canada, and which included acquiring a passport and flying on a commercial airline for the first time), doing office work instead of warehouse or retail for the Day Job, and eventually moving to the west coast where we’ve been ever since.
I made the above mixtape the night before I left, even though I dated it to the day I got in the car and drove away. I listened to it a few times on the way down to Jersey along with the other mixes I’d made around that time. The themes of the mix were moving out, moving on, escaping, feeling free, and looking toward the future. Little did I know just how much my life would change in just a few months, but I wasn’t going to complain.
I think it was around this time that I started running out of gas while writing The Balance of Light. [For those playing along, I’d stalled right about where Poe follows Denni and Amna up to Trisanda in Act 3. I knew how to end the book…I think I was just afraid of it this huge years-long project finally coming to an end and doing a crap job of it.] To clear my head I’d started working on the vampire novel more often.
Weirdly enough, I think I was just running out of things to listen to…? There’s this strange era between 2004 and 2007 where I’d lost interest in indie radio. It could be that I was stuck between the lingering effects of alternative metal on one end of the spectrum and indie folk that was a little too esoteric on the other, and neither were really resonating with me. That, and a lot of my favorite bands were in between albums so I wouldn’t hear from them for a while longer.
Danger Mouse & Jay-Z, The Grey Album, early April 2004. Looking at my mp3 collection, 2004 was the peak of the initial mash-up wave, and this one is bonkers fun: DM’s decision to take Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ white album and create something new could have been terrible but instead it’s surprisingly enjoyable and highly amusing. Allegedly both Jay-Z and Paul McCartney thought it was great!
Ambulance LTD, LP, 6 April 2004. This band sadly came and went too quickly, releasing only two EPs and a single album, but it’s all worth checking out. I played the hell out of this record in the Belfry at the time, especially the great opener “Yoga Means Union”.
tweaker, 2am wakeup call, 20 April 2004. Chris Vrenna’s second album remains one of my favorite albums of that year, and it got all sorts of play the entire summer. It features vocals from Robert Smith, Hamilton Leithauser and David Sylvian, and a hauntingly gorgeous instrumental track featuring Johnny Marr that I’ve embedded above. Highly recommended.
Prince, Musicology, 20 April 2004. In between all the funk-heavy NPG Music Club albums he’d dropped for the last couple of years, this was a surprise mainstream hit that got considerable airplay both with the title track and “Cinnamon Girl”. It felt like a record on par musically with Sign ‘o’ the Times for me.
The Beta Band, Heroes to Zeros, 4 May 2004. Their last record’s title may have hit a bit too close to home considering they were no longer indie critic darlings at the time, but that didn’t seem to bother them any with this oddball collection.
The Magnetic Fields, i, 4 May 2004. The fun thing about Stephin Merritt and his many projects is that you can never really take him all that seriously, even when he’s writing breakup songs. Between his basso profundo voice and his quirky and self-effacing lyrics, you can’t help but like him. “I Thought You Were My Boyfriend” was a college radio favorite.
Mission of Burma, ONoffON, 4 May 2004. Their first new album in multiple decades, three of the four original members come back with a loud and blistering record that successfully captures their chaotic post-punk sound that influenced so many others. The fascinating thing is that there’s also an element of quietness here as well, inspired by the members’ time in much calmer bands.
Secret Machines, Now Here Is Nowhere, 18 May 2004. This was another favorite of the year, and an album that got a ton of play during my writing sessions for its deep dive into hard rock tinged with eclectic prog and maybe even a bit of psychedelia. This one earned them a small but highly loyal fanbase that remains to this day and even spread to the side project School of Seven Bells. Highly recommended.
The Fall, 50,000 Fall Fans can’t Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats, 8 June 2004. A near-perfect sampler of a band with a convoluted discography on several different labels and an always-shifting membership. It’s oddly missing songs from I Am Kurious Oranj however, the 1988 album that helped them gain considerably more popularity in indie circles.
My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, 8 June 2004. You either love this band or you hate them. For me, they were a band I disliked at first but heard “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” and “Helena” so much on WHMP that they grew on me. Not quite goth, not quite alternative metal, not quite emo, but somewhere in between.
The Killers, Hot Fuss, 15 June 2004. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this band at first, and the breakthrough single “Somebody Told Me” just kind of bounced right off of me as too glam and too alt-rock-goes-disco for my tastes, but the more I heard the other singles the more I liked them, and finally bought it when I heard “All The Things That I’ve Done” which remains one of my favorite songs of theirs.
The Cure, The Cure, 29 June 2004. I’d mentioned this one earlier when I blogged about the band’s 2000s-era releases, and at the time I really wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I liked it, especially the darker-edged songs like “Lost” and “The End of the World”, but its sound was just so unlike them that it was a bit of a hard listen.
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).
Not too many releases to speak of at the end of the year (which, y’know, par for the course at the time), which meant I spent most of my writing sessions listening to all the cds I’d accumulated over the past year or so. In retrospect, 2003 was indeed a stellar year for alternative and indie rock, even though it did kind of feel like a year of change…while there were very few mind-blowing albums or songs that sank deep into my psyche at the time, that’s not to say they weren’t bad per se. Just an interesting mix of bands and sounds changing and evolving. And I always think that’s a good thing, even if the sounds didn’t quite resonate with me.
I did spend a lot of the time listening to releases from 2002 as well — in particular, I’d gotten into Beck’s Sea Change a bit later than its release but it soon became one of my top writing session albums (and still is to this day). Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head was another that I got into quite late. I was very curious to see what the next year would bring.
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Hooverphonic, Sit Down and Listen to Hooverphonic: The Live Theater Recordings, released 1 December 2003. I actually didn’t get around to acquiring this one for a while, which is surprising considering my love for this band, but I mention it here because all of their previous albums were still on heavy rotation in the Belfry, including most of the tracks found on this one. Still one of my favorite bands!
Various Artists/Soundtrack, Live Forever: The Best of Britpop, released 2 December 2003. If you’re curious about the Britpop movement of the 90s, this is a perfect collection to start off with. While some mixes lean heavily on obscurities or label-related releases, this one was inspired by the documentary Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, which I highly recommend, and focuses more on several popular groups and bands at the time. This one still gets plays here in Spare Oom!
Mix CD, Re:Defined…The Best of 2003, created 30 December 2003. The second year in which my end-of-year compilation is CD-only — I’d bought a CD drive for my older PC late in 2002 and managed to somehow have enough hard drive space to rip songs from my collection then burn them. This was the first end-of-year mix using my new PC, and I think it shows that I’d gotten the hang of making a disc mix, after having made 45-minutes-a-side mixes for the last twenty or so years! I’m quite happy with how this one came out, actually.
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So what would 2004 bring…? I’d continued my weekly runs to Newbury Comics and would continue to do so until further notice, and I’d start writing The Balance of Light soon enough — as well as a vampire novel idea that would pop into my head, serving as a secondary project when I’d started having trouble with TBoL. After three-plus years of writing the Bridgetown Trilogy, I was starting to burn out.
And then at some point during the summer, one of my close friends would hold a get-together with several friends from all around, during which I’d meet for the second time a friend of a friend from New Jersey…
I finished The Persistence of Memories in one marathon session on 11 November, having realized I’d started it exactly one year earlier. That’s not something I normally do, but considering that it had been my first novel to be finished in under one year I wanted to see if I could pull it off. It was Veterans Day and I had the day off from work, and if I’m not mistaken it was an extremely lengthy six-hour session (my longest ever to date, with the occasional break for food and whatnot, as well as a few FreeCell games to keep my eyes from crossing).
Thankfully, clearer heads won the day and I didn’t start Book 3 until early January 2004!
Lamb, Between Darkness and Wonder, released 3 November 2003. This duo’s last album before going on an extended hiatus (and not returning until 2011) is a quiet and somber affair, more about contemplation and comfort than their previous experimentations in electronic pop.
P.O.D., Payable On Death, released 4 November 2003. Their follow-up to their mega-selling Satellite may not have been able to reach the same heights, but it certainly had its share of great alt-metal tunes.
Guided By Voices, The Best of Guided By Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates, released 4 November 2003. I’d known about this band for ages thanks to my HMV years but never got around to picking any of their albums up, primarily because they seem to drop four or five records a year! I figured this was a good place to start. And yes, there were a few “oh, that song!” moments upon first listen.
Explosions in the Sky, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, released 4 November 2003. Another post-rock band to add to my collection, this one got some considerable play during my writing sessions when I needed background but not necessarily mood.
Loveless, Gift to the World, released 11 November 2003. A Boston group comprised of singer Jen Trynin and members of Expanding Man and Letters to Cleo, their one album is full of crunchy fun indie pop.
Mixtape, Re:Defined 07, created 16 November 2003. This is an interesting one as it’s more of a ‘favorites so far that didn’t make it to previous mixes’ tape than one of new songs. Still, it’s another one of my favorites.
The Beatles, Let It Be…Naked, released 17 November 2003. An interesting compilation that kind of flew under the wire, it’s pretty much all the major songs from the 1970 original minus most of Phil Spector’s, er, mishandling by overproduction. Mostly released for completists like myself, it also contains a twenty-minute bonus track of chat and soundbites from the sessions.
Blink-182, Blink-182, released 18 November 2003. The meathead-punk band of the 90s seems to have chilled out a bit on this record, writing some surprisingly intelligent and straightforward tracks, a few of which have become radio favorites.
Various Artists, Feedback to the Future, released 25 November 2003. A single-disc collection of shoegaze and Britpop I discovered on the pages of CMJ and had Newbury Comics special order for me. This is only a small sampling but it’s a great mix nonetheless. This one got a lot of play in the Belfry.
+/- (Plus Minus), You Are Here, relesased 25 November 2003. The band follows up their fantastic EP with a full record of twitchy indie rock that’s kind of hard to pin down into one style yet worth multiple listens.
Walk In Silence 