Category Archives: writing

The Boston Years Continued: Slacker Central, Part XVII

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By the end of spring, D had finished off her semester and was going to live in an apartment that was literally just across the street from Brigham’s where I worked. And given that the summer of 1994 was going to be a very hot, sticky and humid one, we realized that it might be a better idea for both of us to hang out in the air-conditioned one instead of the sweltering Shoebox.

In the meantime, we both started talking about what to do with my Nocturne idea. We were both budding writers and I appreciated that she understood where I was willing to go with this story. At the time I still wanted it to be centered around the rebel “Vigil” group I’d come up with — essentially the science fictional version of my IWN characters — but I wasn’t sure exactly how to start the damn thing. I had a few ideas, but none of them seemed to work. We spent a few weeks in May beating it back and forth, doing a bit of world building and kicking ideas about. In the meantime I’d focus mostly on Two Thousand until something came of it.

Oh, and May was also when I met comedian Steven Wright, who’d walked into Brigham’s one night and ordered a milkshake and some food to go. I remember this because the place was dead due to the fact that the long-awaited television miniseries of Stephen King’s The Stand had premiered that night and everyone was at home watching it, and he could pop into our restaurant in relative peace. Being that we were both Emersonians, I recognized him but mainly talked about the college with him. [Side note: a few years earlier, when I lived with L on Beacon Street, I learned he lived the next building over. Small world!]

Sonic Youth, Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star, released 3 May 1994. I was never the biggest SY fan, but I did like “Bull in the Heather” quite a bit, and it was a huge hit on WFNX. I still hear it every now and again!

G Love and Special Sauce, G Love and Special Sauce, released 10 May 1994. WFNX also loved this band…it wasn’t quite funk, but it wasn’t quite folk or rock either, but a mix of all sorts of things. That first album is just full of goofy fun summery funk songs, and well worth listening.

The The, Solitude EP, released 10 May 1994 (US). This was primarily released in the states due to the remake of his well-known track “This Is the Day” as if played on a cheap Casio keyboard, and heard on the Threesome soundtrack earlier in the year. It’s essentially the British version of the four-tracker of the same name plus 1991’s Shades of Blue EP (which featured the great “Jealous of Youth” single).

Indigo Girls, Swamp Ophelia, released 10 May 1994. I’ve been a longtime fan of this duo since the self-titled 1989 album, and while it took me a while to get around to buying this record I loved hearing the wonderful “Least Complicated” single on WFNX.

Weezer, Weezer (aka the Blue Album), released 10 May 1994. I remember this band was just so HUGE from the very first single. Both WFNX and WBCN played the hell out of most of the tracks from this album, because it was just a refreshing take on power pop with a slight Gen-X slacker edge, but without the heavy cynicism of most indie bands of the time. It was more goofy than ironic, and I think that’s why it did so well. It took me a few singles to get around to buying it though…”Say It Ain’t So” is what sold it for me.

The Future Sound of London, Lifeforms, released 20 May 1994. Speaking of WFNX…for most of the early 90s they had a weekend evening show in which they’d play a few hours of great electronic music, and this band was one of their favorites. As I was too broke to be picky, I never quite got around to picking up this one until I found the CD used years later, but I remember liking the single mix of the title track.

Beastie Boys, Ill Communication, 23 May 1994. They’d come a long way from their meathead rap of the mid-80s, and this was the album that shot them into the stratosphere with several singles like “Sure Shot” and the listen-only-at-high-volume “Sabotage”. It’s similar to Check Your Head in that there’s a lot of actual instrument playing here, but while that album is scattershot and experimental, this one is a lot more exciting and enjoyable.

Toad the Wet Sprocket, Dulcinea, 24 May 1994. I’d been a fan of this band since hearing “One Little Girl” back in my freshman year in college, and I’d always look for their records. I owned most of them on vinyl except this one which I found used on CD. It wasn’t quite the winner chartwise but there are a lot of great tunes on it!

Frank Black, Teenager of the Year, released 24 May 1994. His second solo record isn’t quite as wild and diverse as his self-titled first album, but it does share a lot of the same weird humor that he’s always been known for, such as the happy-yet-sad “Headache” and “Two Reelers”, a song about being a Three Stooges fan. D and I loved doing his “happy dance” from this video whenever we wanted to crack each other up.

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Up next: a sudden spark of inspiration finally kicks my science fiction novel into high gear!

The Boston Years Continued: Slacker Central, Part XV

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As I’d mentioned earlier, JA played matchmaker between me and D in March of 1994. It was a strange whirlwind of a relationship and, as I’ve also mentioned in the past, we inspired both the best and the worst in each other. In retrospect we probably could have been great friends if we hadn’t hooked up. I see now that my then circle of friends weren’t the best fit for me but I was just too emotionally desperate for connection to find anyone else. Both D and JA might have had the best of intentions, but they’d also frequently pushed me out of my comfort zone when it was obvious that I needed to be there for my own mental and emotional sanity. My friendship with them was very similar to one I’d had back in the late 80s with two neighborhood kids that were also not the best influences for me but they were all I had. It was like living that constant discomfort all over again. [And this is why I’ve never completely dissed social media: nearly all my closest and dearest friends are elsewhere in the world and I’m blessed and happy that I can easily talk to them at any time.]

I’d also started that new project while Nocturne continued to simmer on a backburner. Two Thousand was to be my Gen-X coming of age story, grown out of my college friendships and how distinct our generation was from previous ones. It was full of Gen-X tropes: snark, nihilism, music, frustration, and absurdist humor. It focused on a self-inserted character name Stephen (my fallback name for years) trying to figure out what the hell he wanted to do with his life now that he was no longer a student; his circle of friends is splintering off into Real Life Day Jobs and Points Elsewhere and he’s not sure how to process that. He’s also a musician trying to keep his band from falling apart, and frustrated at how fucking hard it is to be creative and still afford to live in a city like Boston. [Stephen’s band Billow would get a cameo years later in my novel Meet the Lidwells.]

Luna, Bewitched, released 1 March 1994. Dean Wareham’s first couple of albums under this moniker sounded very similar to his previous band Galaxie 500: very quiet, almost delicate, and nearly lo-fi. By this album they’d gotten bolder and stronger in sound, but they never quite lost their delicateness.

Beck, Mellow Gold, released 1 March 1994. Beck’s big breakthrough was a huge hit, thanks to having signed to Geffen and getting a giant promotional push with “Loser”. This can pretty much be considered his first professional-sounding record as it’s cleaner and beefier than his previous indie releases, many self-produced.

Blur, “Girls and Boys” single, released 7 March 1994. My favorite Britpop band dropped a teaser single for their next album, Parklife, and it’s one of their finest moments. Addictive, danceable, and a track you need to listen to loud. Definitely a change from their moodier and lighter Modern Life Is Rubbish, that’s for sure.

Failure, Magnified, released 8 March 1994. I loved their first album Comfort, even though they’d been dismissed as Nirvana wannabees, and this one had also been unjustly ignored by most radio stations as well (partly due to the release of the next two albums listed below), even though they’d dropped a video for the single “Undone”. They’d finally achieve critical success a few years later with Fantastic Planet, but at a steep cost. I always recommend anything from this band, to be honest!

Soundgarden, Superunknown, released 8 March 1994. This album won me over immediately. This is one of those ‘they’d done their homework’ albums for me: they had a clear vision and refused to let anything stop them from achieving it, and the result is a damn fine album of brilliant alternative rock. This wasn’t grunge anymore; this was alt-rock meets epic metal with a dusting of their psychedelia roots. Highly recommended.

Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral, released 8 March 1994. I’ve posted about this one recently, in that I haven’t sat down and listened to it from start to finish for quite a few years, but at the time of its release it was on extremely heavy rotation on my Walkman. It resonated heavily with my feelings of frustration and uselessness and I was fine with letting myself simmer in those moods for a bit while this blared through my headphones.

Morrissey, Vauxhall and I, 14 March 1994. On the other side of the mood spectrum was everyone’s favorite Mancunian curmudgeon recording…somewhat of a lighthearted and fun record? It’s true, when he’s in a great mood he can be quite chipper, even silly at times, and this was a fun change of pace when I was too exhausted to continue dealing with my growly moods.

Alison Moyet, Essex, released 21 March 1994. Alf has consistently been a brilliant singer and songwriter, and “Whispering Your Name” remains one of my favorite tracks of hers. She embraces more of the British dance beats with this album, which may have helped her win more fans in the clubs.

Collective Soul, Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid, released 22 March 1994. Sure, they were Grunge Lite with hints of hippie jam band leanings, but they were catchy as hell and this album was super enjoyable. [Noted, if you want to know what I might have looked like hair and fashionwise in the early 90s, see singer Ed Roland. Heh.]

Phish, Hoist, released 29 March 1994. These semi-local guys from Vermont had always had a strong following in New England, even though you’d rarely hear them on the radio. “Down with Disease” did get a bit of play though, and even got a rare music video out of them as well. WBCN used to play this band when they were feeling more adventurous.

Soundtrack, The Crow, released 29 March 1994. I saw this movie in the huge Loews theater that used to be on the ground floor of the Revere Hotel in Boston. I’d been a fan of the original comic book and while it didn’t quite live up to my high expectations, it was nonetheless an enjoyable film. The soundtrack was amazing, featuring songs from The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Violent Femmes, Stone Temple Pilots and more, and this too got a lot of play on my Walkman.

Pink Floyd, The Division Bell, released 30 March 1994. It took me a few years to get around to buying this record, but I loved hearing the lovely and moody “High Hopes” on WBCN. I felt it wasn’t quite as cohesive as A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which I absolutely loved, but I’ve grown to enjoy it.

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Somewhere in all of this, I ragequit a job. Not the best of ideas and I dug my own hole here, but I’d had enough. It had all come to a head one morning when we’d gotten a huge shipment in and the floor manager for the book section had gotten pissed at me that I hadn’t gotten to his stuff yet. My immediate manager — the one who thought I was simple — literally pulled a weak ‘yeah, what’s wrong with you?’ while giving me a look of better you than me. That was the breaking point and I quit within the hour.

Not the best of ideas when you’re already skint and barely making enough to feed yourself. I let myself cool down for a day or so, and started looking for another job. I’d find it a week or so later at a Brigham’s Ice Cream on Cambridge Street. A closer commute, about the same pay, and I could surreptitiously ‘forage’ (heh) as a way to subvert that ‘affording to feed myself’ problem I’d been having lately. Not the most glamorous of jobs…but one that put me in a better frame of mind.

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Coming up: A creative nudge and a return to…reading?

The Boston Years Continued: Slacker Central, Part XIV

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The other day I found a chronology spreadsheet that mentions this era and puts a few personal things in their proper order, and I see that I didn’t meet up with D until March of 1994, which makes sense. [I hear you: why the hells do you have a spreadsheet of your past? What kind of weirdo are you? Well, a) I’m a writer, and b) it was initially built up for the Walk In Silence book project and thus laid out what I wrote at the time as well as personal and public events that went on at the time. Simple as that.] It does clarify things a bit, as I know my final months at the Shoebox were just as exciting as they were tense.

ANYWAY. Things were about to change pretty soon, but not just yet. February of 1994 wasn’t entirely without incident, as I’d been focusing on multiple writing projects: more examination of Nocturne and the possibility of finally working on the long-delayed Two Thousand project. Now as then, I didn’t always start from the beginning but wrote and gathered up several notes over several days (or months, or years) to see what I could make of them. At least something was going in the right direction!

Green Day, Dookie, released 1 February 1994. The breakthrough heard ’round the world dropped almost quietly and unassumingly with the “Longview” single. It was immediately picked up by WFNX and WBCN and you’d hear it several times over the course of a week. WFNX was a bit more adventurous and would pull out some of the deep cuts as well. A few months later they’d storm the Hatch Shell and cause chaos throughout the city.

Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, released 2 February 1994. I wanted to like this band but something about their deliberatelly half-assed slacker delivery didn’t quite gel with me. Still, “Cut Your Hair” was just as ubiquitous as Green Day on the airwaves.

Cake, Motorcade of Generosity, released 7 February 1994. I wouldn’t get into this band until their 1996 album Fashion Nugget, but I do remember hearing “Rock and Roll Lifestyle” on WFNX every now and again.

The Greenberry Woods, Rapple Dapple, released 8 February 1994. This band came and went rather quickly but I remember really liking the “Trampoline” single at the time. I bought the cassette for this at Tower and would listen to it at the Shoebox during my downtime.

The London Suede, “Stay Together” single, released 14 February 1994. A single-only release that often gets overlooked, but it shows where the band was headed, already evolving away from their glam swagger and more towards heady indie rock. I remember hearing it every now and again but it really didn’t do much here in the States.

Soundgarden, “Spoonman” single, released 15 February 1994. I’d been a passive fan of this band since first hearing them my freshman year, but even with this song I could tell they were taking a detour into a style that was less prog-meets-grunge and heading into darker post-punk territory. Its super-tight production and dense tension made everyone eager for the album that would come the next month.

Stabbing Westward, Ungod, released 15 February 1994. I initially lumped this band in with the industrial-alternative genre that was certainly out there but not quite making a dent, no matter how loud they might be. And this band was LOUD. “Nothing” got considerable airplay and the album would eventually become a favorite, leading them towards more popularity in the latter half of the decade.

Low, I Could Live in Hope, released 18 February 1994. This amazing duo’s debut dropped almost without notice in the early half of the year, hidden amongst the louder and more dissonant grunge and hard rock. They were hard to pin down but they had loyal fans from the beginning.

The Grays, Ro Sham Bo, released 22 February 1994. Jason Falkner’s group after leaving Jellyfish was with Jon Brion and it was unfortunately a one-and-done project, but it’s one hell of a fine indie pop gem. It’s out of print and hard to find, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you can find it.

Nine Inch Nails, “March of the Pigs” single, 25 February 1994. Speaking of teaser singles, this was Trent Reznor’s first since the dense and angry Broken and Fixed EPs and a handful of disturbing related music videos. And it’s one hell of an introduction to his next project, considering that it was both a bit more listenable than the EPs and a bit more terrifying in its moods.

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Coming up: Disconnects and reconnects, unknowns and spirals

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part X

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A few months into my stay at the Shoebox and it became apparent that I was in the same exact situation I’d been in my freshman year in college back in 1989: no flipping idea what I was doing and no mentor or inspiration to set me off in the right direction, with very little money to do it with. A classic Gen-X situation at the time, really. So I did what I’d always done to date: make it up as I go along and see what inspires me and hope for the best.

I believe it was also around this time that I lost the job at DeLuca’s. The only job I’ve ever been fired from, basically because I’d called out one day to play hooky and visit a friend that I hadn’t seen in ages who was in town. My own damn fault, but the manager really was kind of a moody ass with a tendency to take the nuclear option when he got annoyed. Still — that meant I needed to find a new job VERY QUICKLY and found it a week or so later via the Havard Coop — a chain of book and clothes stores tied in with the university with stores around the Boston area. Somewhat better pay and the possibility of benefits after six months, even if the commute was slightly further away.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d try another attempt at the Infamous War Novel, only this time I thought I’d approach it slightly differently: I’d get rid of the aging Red Dawn influence and try writing something a lot colder and more visceral. Not one in the classic pulp style, but with an ironic nihilistic-yet-hopeful Gen-X touch.

It was at this time that I realized that with my movie rentals from Tower Records, I could finally catch up with my interest in Japanese animation that had been so hard to find in the past. There were some really fun selections — early Urusei Yatsura episodes, the Robotech series, The Venus Wars and Silent Mobius (which I’d seen at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square a few years previous and loved) — and a lot of duds (horror anime is really effed up, yo)…but it was a fun way to expand my interests and influences.

Then I stumbled upon Gall Force: Eternal Story. A feature-length film with a fascinating science fiction plot that intrigued me: it’s not just a human versus alien war story but one about finding a way to coexist. Despite the hate between the races there is hope. Then I realized — there were sequels to this movie! Several, in fact, but Tower only had the second: Gall Force 2: Destruction, which takes place years later with the two races almost near extinction, and yet there too lies hope.

As I sat there at my fold-out table (which was then in front of that one window) listening to music, drinking instant coffee and smoking my Newports, thinking about how much I enjoyed this series, I had a revelation: what if I rewrite the IWN as a science fiction novel? What if I take the characters and plot ideas I had for the IWN and its outtakes and aborted sequel and place them in a futuristic dystopian setting? And what if I expanded it into a multi-story universe? I really liked the idea: a lone rebel group trying to find peace and balance in time of war. I remembered the words of my scriptwriting teacher who thought the IWN idea was crap (well, it was, but he was also an artiste with one minor credit to his name who hated high concept stories)…and thought fuck his opinion, I’m going to go for it.

And so the Mendaihu Universe was born.

Meanwhile, my listening habits didn’t change much at all.

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The Wonder Stuff, Construction for the Modern Idiot, released 4 October 1993. This would be their last outing for several years as they went their separate ways, but they bowed out with a fun and energetic record with the great “Full of Life (Happy Now)” single.

The Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen, released 5 October 1993. I remember loving how angry and intense the title track was when I first heard it and picked up the cassette soon after. They’d become a fan and critic favorite for years afterwards.

Mazzy Star, So Tonight That I Might See, released 5 October 1993. You could not escape “Fade Into You” once it came out. It was on TV, in movies, and all over the radio. It’s a song I loved, hated, then loved again, though it’s worth checking out the rest of the record for more of their quiet and brooding sound.

Lloyd Cole, Bad Vibes, released 11 October 1993. I remember hearing “So You’d Like to Save the World” at the Coop job — they had these laserdisc-sized music carts they’d play and one of them had quite a quirky setlist including a track from New Fast Automatic Daffodils. He continues to be a great songwriter to this day.

The Lemonheads, Come On Feel the Lemonheads, 12 October 1993. Also ubiquitous on local radio was “Into Your Arms”, which is pretty much their other famous song that still gets radio play. This album isn’t quite as solid as It’s a Shame About Ray but it is their most radio friendly.

Julee Cruise, The Voice of Love, released 12 October 1993. The follow-up to the creepy-yet-beautiful Floating Into the Night, Cruise’s soft chanteuse voice features more David Lynch-adjacent dreampop.

Luscious Jackson, In Search of Manny EP, released 19 October 1993. Their rap/funk/rock hybrid debut release was so out of place with what was getting played on WFNX that they became fan favorites with “Life of Leisure”, “Let Yourself Get Down” and “Daughters of the Kaos”.

Pearl Jam, vs., released 19 October 1993. Their follow-up to the wildly popular Ten was a moody affair but it’s a brilliant record that shows they’ve evolved into a much tighter and more inspired band. This one’s my favorite of their early releases, and “Elderly Woman” is my top favorite track of theirs. I played this one a lot on my commute to the Coop.

Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, released 22 October 1993. Her first major breakthrough, a few years before “Angel” and “Adia”, was a tense and gorgeous affair about pain and discomfort and trying to find inner peace.

Crash Test Dummies, God Shuffled His Feet, released 26 October 1993. Yes, that song with that bass-baritone voice. And yet it became a huge hit because of its weirdness. The rest of the record is great fun, though, full of offbeat humor and memorable songcraft. It’s definitely worth checking out the rest of the record!

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And to share one more picture, the first few important parts of the Mendaihu Universe came together here in the stuffy Charles Street Laundromat during this month. [The storefront has since become a high-end clothing boutique.] As I started playing around with this new approach to this writing project, I realized I could no longer let its universe evolve over time like it did in the past; this was going to need some world building, which was a new process to me. With Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing in hand (I felt that going to my personal source for the initial writing inspiration was the way to go) along with a steno notebook, I sat down while I waited for my loads to finish and started creating. It was also the first time where actively worked on my writing away from a desk or my own room, something that would also become a lifelong habit.

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Next Up: Cold winters, writing soundtracks and a new day job direction

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part IX

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Okay, so before we go any further, I have to show you this picture.

[Miraculously, I managed to find a somewhat recent picture of it online. I can confirm this is indeed 213 Beacon St #5C, the same place I lived from September 1993 to August 1994.]

This was the shoebox apartment. Almost the entirety of it. What you see there is 95% of the apartment itself: a single room with a single window and a tiny loft — the photo is taken from the narrow kitchen/entryway that also included the stove, a sink and a fridge, and the super tiny bathroom is around the corner to the left. It really was that small, and it cost $500 a month. I could have looked for cheaper, but that would have meant moving to one of the outer neighborhoods and depending wholly on public transit to get anywhere. By living here I had much better and walkable access to work, entertainment and the few people I knew who still lived in town.

This is where my adult life started. This is also where my writing career started.

My plan was to start at Day One with the writing. I had my spiral bound notebooks and my typewriter, a foldout table, a TV and a hand-me-down VCR, my stereo and boombox, and most of my music collection, and that’s all I needed. I knew I had to start somewhere, so I relied on the reliable: yet another attempt at writing the Infamous War Novel, at this time called Nocturne. This must have been the fourth or fifth iteration, but the first not to explicitly take place in a small town. I also attempted a resurrection of the Two Thousand project I’d started a few years earlier in my sophomore year.

I was broke, I was lonely, I was always hungry, I had a smoking habit (Newport Light menthols at the time), and I was moody as hell, but I was also committed to writing. I wasn’t about to let that go.

I just had to keep going. I learned how to find entertainment cheaply if not freely: T rides up to Harvard Square to hang out and people-watch, walks on the Esplanade and through Back Bay, visits to Waterstones Books to read and chill, visits to Tower Records to see what they had in the listening booths and rent a few movies for a few bucks, and digging for gold in dollar bins at the used record stores.

Mixtapes, Good Grief, More WAUGH!!! Vol 3 and The WAUGH!!! That Wouldn’t Die… Vol 4, created September 1993. These two cheesefest mixes follow up on the “songs I like but don’t have in my collection at the moment” and clearly sourced from the family collections over the years with a few of my own dollar bin purchases thrown in. These were my favorites of this series and got quite a lot of play on my headphones. Noted: the Volume 3 title is a nod to the Charles Schulz Peanuts paperback I owned as a kid.

U2, “Lemon” single, released 1 September 1993. This oddball track from Zooropa got some pretty heavy airplay on WFNX. It’s my least favorite track on the album, but I’ll admit it’s catchy as hell too.

Chapterhouse, Blood Music, released 6 September 1993. I really liked this record, even though it unfortunately didn’t get much airplay anywhere that I knew of, other than hearing “We Are the Beautiful” on WFNX every now and again. It’s a much headier and heavier record than their previous one but it’s just as great. A few years later I’d discover that a UK edition had a remix cd entitled Pentamerous Metamorphosis by a duo called Global Communication added to it, which would become a Belfry writing session mainstay.

Prince, The Hits/The B-Sides, released 10 September 1993. I never had the money to buy this until years later, but it was hard to resist wanting it considering it was the first official ‘best of’ collection for him. For the time being I made do with the cassettes of his I already owned.

Counting Crows, August and Everything After, released 14 September 1993. It was hard to escape “Mr Jones” that autumn, as it was played EVERYWHERE, constantly. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the band and ended up lumping them in with the earthy-crunchy 90s hippie bands for a while, but I eventually grew to enjoy them. I did in fact like the single “Round Here”.

Morphine, Cure for Pain, released 14 September 1993. These local boys always put out fantastic blues rock with their unique bare-bones sound that sounded just that little bit boozy. I picked this one up on cassette and loved it, especially the deep cut “In Spite of Me”.

Dead Can Dance, Into the Labyrinth, released 14 September 1993. This one got some seriously heavy play in the shoebox during my writing sessions. I’d always loved their work, but this record went in a slightly different direction, sneaking out of their chamber music style and veering towards folk music but not without dropping an amazing nightmarish goth staple in “The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove” single.

Soundtrack, Judgment Night, released 14 September 1993. I remember seeing this movie with JA but I’ll be damned if I remember any of it other than the heavy-as-fuck soundtrack made up of hard rock/rap duets. Helmet and House of Pain’s “Just Another Victim” got some major play on WFNX that season.

Cocteau Twins, “Evangeline” single, 17 September 1993. Three years later and the trio finally release an absolutely lovely — and yes, autumnal-sounding — single preceding their upcoming new album. I’d hear this one all the time on the radio and it would make it onto one of my next mixtapes as well.

Buffalo Tom, Big Red Letter Day, released 21 September 1993. I loved this local band since first hearing “Birdbrain” a few years previous, and this record proved they weren’t going to stop putting out amazing albums any time soon. I’d hear “Soda Jerk” on the radio all the time, but my favorite track from this album is “I’m Allowed”, which I know I’ve posted here a few times already. Highly recommended.

Curve, Cuckoo, released 21 September 1993. I was so on the fence with this particular record that I ended up not picking it up for a few years, but when I did it became a Belfry staple for a good number of years. While not as tense and dense as Doppelganger (which I loved, especially “Fait Accompli”), this album is just as moody if not more atmospheric. It’s since become my favorite of their catalog.

Nirvana, In Utero, released 21 September 1993. It took me a while to grok this third album of theirs, and it still feels a bit disjointed and desperate, but it also features my favorite Nirvana song “All Apologies” which would pop up on a few of my mixtapes over the years.

Melissa Etheridge, Yes I Am, released 21 September 1993. I remember this album being a huge thing when it dropped because at the time mass media rarely provided us with such a positive message of sexual and gender self-expression. Not to mention that the glorious “Come to My Window” was one of her biggest hits ever.

James, Laid, released 27 September 1993. Yes, that band with that one song of theirs most alternative stations will ever play, and sadly it’s become my least favorite because of that. It’s a great album regardless, especially with a single like “Sometimes”.

Pet Shop Boys, Very, released 27 September 1993. It had been a good couple of years since their last studio album (Behaviour in late 1990), and this was quite a welcome return. They were still slowly moving towards the heady techno sound that would become their style for the next several years, but this one still had the feel of their last couple of albums, creating a nice middle ground.

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Next up: A chance video rental and a trip to the laundromat changes the course of my future.

Twenty Years On: Songs from the Belfry 2003, Part III

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I started the spring of 2003 in the best creative zone I’d ever been in to date. I was six months into writing The Persistence of Memories and was hitting at least a thousand words a night without fail. I was having a hell of a lot of fun planning it during the day and writing it at night. This was a novel that was about the soul growing stronger not just on its own but through connections with others, and in a way that’s what was going on in my life at the time. It remains my favorite of my books to date for those reasons.

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The White Stripes, Elephant, released 1 April 2003. After 2001’s breakthrough album White Blood Cells (and its earwormy single “Fell in Love with a Girl” and its Lego-inspired video), the duo’s sound started veering away from the lo-fi blues-garage rock and more towards slick indie production.

Ester Drang, Infinite Keys, released 1 April 2003. I’d heard this one on WAMH — I’d started listening to my once-favorite college radio station during my commutes — and really enjoyed how this band blended their sound between post-rock, slow-core and indie rock. Yet another on the Belfry jukebox.

Front 242, Still and Raw EP, released 8 April 2003. I’d always loved this EDM band but sadly it took me years to finally get around to getting the rest of their discography! This was a new release after many years of live and remix albums, to be followed the next month by a new album.

Yo La Tengo, Summer Sun, released 8 April 2003. A band that’s been around since I was a teenager (and still going strong with a new album this year!), this one was a favorite on college radio, especially the song “Little Eyes”.

Elefant, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, released 8 April 2003. This one got some seriously heavy play in the Belfry at the time! This was an NYC band that sadly kind of came and went, but it’s a hell of a fine record full of glossy, smooth indie rock with a touch of 80s sheen to it. There’s a track on it called “Static on Channel 4” that I swear is a Thomas Dolby song!

Mixtape, Re:Defined 02, created 13 April 2003. The first in this series went down so well for my commutes and writing sessions that I continued make them. This second one is a favorite of mine and contains a lot of songs I really enjoyed at the time.

M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts, released 15 April. Years before the game-changing Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, this band came out with a handful of odd yet fascinating electronic releases that leaned more towards chiptunes and glitchiness.

+/- (Plus/Minus), Holding Patterns EP, released 15 April 2003. This side project of the band Versus could be alternately experimental and full of sugary indie pop, but their song “Trapped Under Ice Floes” nails it with its driving beat, catchy melody and excellent midsong breakdown. Props for their video that’s a direct homage to The Cure’s video for “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”.

Blue Man Group, The Complex, released 22 April 2003. A group known more for their live (and often messy) performances, they would occasionally drop an album of the songs they did for their shows, often with the guest singers that would show up. This record features the vocals of Dave Matthews, Tracy Bonham (who would tour with them for this album), Esthero, and Gavin Rossdale.

Goldfrapp, Black Cherry, released 28 April 2003. After her adventurous and experimental first album, Alison Goldfrapp chose to go sultry, sexy and groovy with this second outing, and absolutely nailed it with a record full of great songs. This one’s a super fun listen!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell, released 29 April 2003. This NYC band had been around for a bit, but this was their official debut album and what a hell of a record it is! I admit it took me a while to get used to it, but once I heard the brilliant track “Maps” it all clicked for me.

Soundtrack, The Matrix Reloaded: The Album, released 29 April 2003. After a four-year wait, the second Matrix film dropped in early May, with the third in the trilogy (The Matrix Revolutions, both filmed at the same time) released that November. The unconventional soundtrack featured both the rock/electronic tracks and the score rather than them being released separately.

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Up next: another mixtape, a long-awaited release from an all-time favorite band, and more!

Fly-by: brb, trying to get back to writing work

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I’m not entirely sure if it’s my weird work schedule last week that threw me off, or that I’m just trying to avoid doing the hard work needed to get through this frustrating patch, but I’m having trouble focusing on MU4 again lately. And that needs to be fixed. I’ll hopefully have something up on Thursday!

Fly-by: Returning next week

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Oh hi there! Don’t mind me, just listening to the new remaster/reissue of New Order’s 1985 album Low-Life while working out the second chapter of MU4. I’ve been creatively busy these last couple of weeks and I’m happy to report that things are going well so far, at least as far as scrappy first drafts of first chapters are concerned. Exactly where I need to be right now.

I’m planning on returning to the blogosphere next week, so I’ll see you then!

Fly-by: brb, starting a novel

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Hey gang! Apologies for the lack of blog entries lately, as I’ve been a bit busy. As of 11 January at 7:04pm PT, I have officially started writing MU4! I’m focusing as much creative energy as I can on it for the time being which means that the blogs and the 750Words entries have gone by the wayside for a little bit.

Which is fine! The important thing is that I am writing a novel again.

The aim here is for me to ensure that I give myself enough time and space to work on this without putting more stress on it than necessary. As much as I love writing these blogs and working on the 750Words exercises, right now I think I’d be wearing myself a little thin by partitioning too much. Once I feel I can handle the extra work, then I will be back. I’ll still post here and at Welcome to Bridgetown now and again…I just won’t make it a priority until then.

See you again soon!

On Returning to Songs from the Eden Cycle

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Technically, this next volume of Songs from the Eden Cycle would be volume nine, given that I’d started to make volume eight a few years ago but only got as far as nine tracks before abandoning it. But I digress.

As I start the actual writing of this new version of MU4, I’m thinking about what music I’d like to listen to this time out. As I’d mentioned previously, I’m trying to break out of the habit of hyperfocusing on new releases, so pretty much anything that catches my ear and/or gets me in the mood for the story is fair game. As you may have guessed, I’m currently writing this entry while listening to Wire’s 154, their third album from 1979 and my favorite of their Mark I era. “On Returning” is the first song to officially be added to the SftEC v8 mix.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve purposely done a deep dive into my music library to search for writing session music to this degree, so I’m sure two things will happen: one, I’ll default to some mainstays from the Belfry years (Blue Wonder Power Milk, Sea Change, And You Think You Know What Life’s About, and the usual 1997-2004 albums, soundtracks and compilations) when I can’t think of anything else to listen to…and two, I’ll rediscover some absolute bangers I’d completely forgotten about over the years. Add this to the new release which I promise I won’t obsess over, and I think that soon enough I’ll have myself another official soundtrack list. And maybe I’ll even post a few of them here as they surface…?