Category Archives: writing

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

*

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.

*

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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…?

a simple song

Posted on by
Reply

One of my favorite Sparks songs is “My Baby’s Taking Me Home”, in which said title is the near-entirety of its lyrics, barring a short spoken word passage near the end. The Mael brothers comment on it in The Sparks Brothers documentary, where the dynamics of the song are purely in its construction rather than its lyrics. Because of this, they find it one of their all-time favorite songs to play live.

Back in the 80s and early 90s I wrote a handful of Flying Bohemians songs that were similar in construction, and they were always my favorite to play because of that. One song, “She Sang to Me”, had three lines that were repeated in different ways while Chris and I played its three chords in various ways — fingerpicking, muted, augmented, and so on — until it sounded like a wondrous release of sound.

I don’t often hear that many songs like this, but when I do, quite often they’re my favorites of the band’s entire discography.

Twenty Years On: February 2002

Posted on by
Reply

I started to look for the word count list for my work on A Division of Souls around this time, but either I hadn’t started writing it down, or I’ve misplaced the calendar organizer I used. I’m going to assume the latter. Anyway, a cursory look at the timestamp on some of my old files shows that I’d started the rewrite in November of 2001 and by February 2002 I was somewhere around Chapter 6. (It’s also right around when I stopped using MS Write and finally started using Word, having gotten a copy of it from my sister.) This means that I was still early in the game but feeling much more confident about my work.

If The Phoenix Effect was me happily reveling in claiming myself an author, A Division of Souls was me taking my craft seriously and having a lot more faith in the quality of my work. And pretty much every single album from here on in was going to be a writing soundtrack.

Mistle Thrush, Drunk with You, released 1 February 2002. I’ve mentioned this band a few times in the past; they were a semi-shoegazey Boston band whose singer was a good friend of my former record store manager, and their three records are great listening.

The Church, After Everything Now This, released 5 February 2002. This record felt like a slight change from their more experimental 90s output, somewhat returning to their old-school reverb-heavy sound but minus the jangle. They remain one of my favorite alternative rock bands, even if I don’t get to listen to them nearly as much as I should.

+/- (Plus/Minus), Self-Titled Long-Playing Debut Album, released 5 February 2002. A side project of the band Versus, their sound is much more angular math-rock but retaining their high-level energy and catchy melodies and rhythms. It might sound a bit strange at first, but it really grows on you.

Craig Armstrong, As If to Nothing, released 19 February 2002. Armstrong is more known for his movie scores (and “This Love”, the song he did with Elizabeth Fraser) but every now and again he’ll drop a solo album full of gorgeous music that really should be in movies. This one got some serious play during my Belfry days!

Tanya Donelly, Beautysleep, released 19 February 2002. Donelly’s second solo record is not quite as bouncy as her Belly work and not quite as twitchy as her Throwing Muses work, but there are some absolute gems in here including the lovely “Keeping You”.

Boards of Canada, Geogaddi, released 19 February 2002. At the time, this was a band I’d heard of (I’d seen their cds at HMV during the time I worked there) but never heard, so I went into this record completely cold. A good thing, because this ended up being on my top ten releases of the year! And yes, another album on the Belfry heavy rotation.

Buffalo Daughter, I, released 19 February 2002. Another ‘heard of but never heard’ band for me at the time, this was a great introduction to the band’s semi-electronic experimentation, full of songs both wonderful and strange.

Death Cab for Cutie, The Stability EP, released 19 February 2002. A follow-up to 2001’s The Photo Album, this EP features some extremely moody (even for them) tracks including the twelve-minute epic above, and a great cover of Bjork’s “All Is Full of Love”.

Clinic, Walking with Thee, released 25 February 2002. Clinic always reminds me of those 60s garage bands with lo-fi production and weird melodies that lean towards Beefheart and Zappa, only they stay this side of outsider music. Not for everyone, but definitely worth checking out.

Alanis Morissette, Under Rug Swept, released 26 February 2002. Forging ahead and refusing to return to the angry tension of her breakthrough record, this is an album about maturity…or at least making an attempt at it. It’s very much a laid back record and there’s some really great songs on it.

*

Stay tuned for March 2002!

Mixtape: Songs for ‘Meet the Lidwells!’

Posted on by
Reply

I started writing Meet the Lidwells! A Rock n’ Roll Family Memoir during the summer of 2017, and like any other book project I’ve worked on, I created a mixtape for it. Surprisingly, for a novel that leans super heavily on music, there’s only one volume! Still, it’s not as if I could create a mix containing music that, y’know, doesn’t actually exist in real life.

Most of these songs are from the early 90s, which is when most of the book takes place, and are inspirations for songs written by the Lidwells in the book. I did choose to add a few then-recent songs as well just to balance it out, but for the most part these were all songs that I loved and listened to during my college and post-college years in Boston.

Some side notes:
–The prevalence of EMF hints at the poppiness of the early Lidwells releases, as they were more of an alternapop band at the start of the novel.
–A number of songs (and scenes) were actually pilfered from a trunked novel of mine called Two Thousand that I’d worked on in the 90s. The La’s track “Looking Glass” in particular was originally supposed to be part of the climax of that story but used instead as the “Listening” scene with Thomas talking about when they performed that song live. The remix of that Real People song (sadly not available online right now, it’s a banger) was also once part of that novel as a denouement scene.
–I added Belly and Veruca Salt to hint at what Amy and Hannah’s songs would sound like.
–The Stone Roses’ “I Am the Resurrection” is mentioned in the book as one of the main influences on The Lidwells’ first hit “Grapevine” with its stomping beat.

[SHAMELESS PLUG: The ebook is available at Smashwords for $2.99!]

SIDE A:

1. EMF, “Children”
2. REM, “Pop Song ’89”
3. The Real People, “Window Pane”
4. Belly, “Gepetto”
5. EMF, “Girl of an Age”
6. The Cure, “Friday I’m in Love”
7. The House of Love, “You Don’t Understand”
8. My Bloody Valentine, “Soon”
9. 9 Ways to Sunday, “Come Tell Me Now* *
10. Belly, “Now They’ll Sleep”
11. Matthew Sweet, “Time Capsule”

SIDE B:

1. Veruca Salt, “Seether”
2. The Black Keys, “Gold On the Ceiling”
3. Guster, “Barrel of a Gun”
4. Fenech-Soler, “Kaleidoscope”
5. Belly, “Super-Connected”
6. Matthew Sweet, “Girlfriend”
7. The La’s, “Looking Glass”
8. The Stone Roses, “I Am the Resurrection”
9. The Real People, “Window Pane [12″ Extended Remix]” *

* — Not available on Spotify

Mixtapes: Music from the Waystation

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been meaning to do this for ages, and I may as well start it now: I’ve been making mixtapes since I was a wee lad in the early 80s, well before I even knew what mixtapes were other than songs I taped off MTV and the radio that I liked. I usually average about six or so mp3 mixtapes per year nowadays, but back in the late 80s it would be upwards of maybe twice or even three times that.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to share my mixtape playlists with y’all for ages because I’ve always gotten a positive reaction from them. In previous posts I’ve posted them as YouTube links, but now I’ve finally started getting around to building them as Spotify playlists. [I’m still annoyed that musicians’ earnings on the site are laughable, but I’ve come around to thinking that maybe pushing these mixtapes will help put a penny or two more on their paycheck.]

SO! Without further ado, I’m going to start off with a triple-play (heh) of mixtapes curated as soundtracks for one of my current novel WIPs. I’ve been listening to these quite a bit lately, so hope you enjoy them too!

Theadia: Music from the Waystation
1. Secret Machines, “3,4,5, Let’s Stay Alive”
2. Haelos, “End of World Party”
3. Bob Moses, “Love We Found”
4. Sault, “I Just Want to Dance”
5. Pretenders, “Message of Love”
6. Throwing Muses, “Dark Blue”
7. Billie Eilish, “My Future”
8. Bob Mould, “Everything to You”
9. PVRIS, “Good to Be Alive”
10. Algiers, “Dispossession”
11. We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It!!, “Versatile for Discos and Parties”
12. Doves, “Carousels”
13. Bob Moses, “Hold Me Up”
14. Secret Machines, “Everything’s Under”
15. Haelos, “Hold On”
16. Cut Copy, “Love Is All We Share”
17. Doves, “Universal Want”
18. Secret Machines, “Everything Starts”
19. BRONSON, “Dawn [feat. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs]”

Theadia 2: More Music from the Waystation
1. Annie, “The Countdown to the End of the World””
2. Hatchie, “Sleep”
3. Pearl Jam, “Alright”
4. Georgia, “Started Out”
5. Shadow Show, “Glass Eye”
6. Field Music, “Money Is a Memory”
7. Låpsley, “Bonfire”
8. Hayley Williams, “Simmer”
9. Stone Temple Pilots, “Three Wishes”
10. Spectres, “The Head and the Heart”
11. The Cinematic Orchestra, “A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life [James Heather Rework]”
12. Phantogram, “Ceremony”
13. Georgia, “About Work the Dancefloor”
14. ADULT., “Why Always Why”
15. Caspian, “Flowers of Light”
16. Soccer Mommy, “Yellow Is the Color of Her Eyes”
17. Ultraísta, “Mariella”
18. Nicolas Godin, “What Makes Me Think About You”
19. San Fermin, “The Hunger”
20. Bob Mould, “Next Generation”
21. K/DA, “I’ll Show You”

Theadia 3: Waystation Blues
1. Grandbrothers, “Silver”
2. Roosevelt, “Echoes”
3. Flyying Colours, “Goodtimes”
4. Girlfriends and Boyfriends, “Your Touch”
5. Jane Weaver, “The Revolution of Super Visions”
6. Middle Kids, “I Don’t Care”
7. Anna Schulze, “A New Way”
8. Brian Vander Ark, “In Your Eyes”
9. Jeremiah Fraites, “Maggie”
10. Miss Grit, “Blonde”
11. Shame, “Human, for a Minute”
12. Field Music, “Orion from the Street”
13. Siamese Youth, “So Far from Home”
14. Anna Schulze, “Satisfied”
15. Grandbrothers, “Unrest”
16. Sorry, “Heather”
17. Jane Weaver, “Modern Reputation”
18. Flyying Colorus, “White Knuckles”
19. Roosevelt, “See You Again”
20. Quivers, “You’re Not Always On My Mind”

Unexpected Inspiration

Posted on by
Reply

Me: *relaxing with a bit of YouTubing at the end of the day, watching music videos*

Me: *watches K/DA’s “Villain” once again*

Brain: *poke poke* Oh hey…you know what would be a great villain idea for a sequel to In My Blue World?

Me: Oh COME ON —

Brain: I’m picturing a pirate, a woman with the ability to steal magic from multiple worlds —

Me: WILL YOU STOP THAT I’M TOO BUSY ALREA–

Brain: And she’s like, super strong and almost invincible, and Zuze needs Diana’s help in fighting her off —

Me: … *sigh* FINE. *writes 1500-word synopsis*

*

PSA: Listening to music and being inspired to write yet another novel can be hazardous to your health.