Tag Archives: 1996

Thirty Years On: July/August 1996

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I spent most of the summer of 1996 not quite in stasis but not quite moving in any specific direction, to be honest. It was more of a ‘waiting for something to come along’ that I was slowly getting used to. I’d kept my promise to myself not to once again fall prey to becoming stuck in one place I wasn’t entirely happy being in out of necessity; instead I made it a point to look for new jobs outside of the area. I’d still have to figure out travel arrangements, whether it was to borrow someone’s car or look into buying my own beater. In the meantime I stuck with the temp job at my mom’s bank until further notice and focused all my energy on job searching…and writing.

At this point in time I was still trying to figure out what to do with True Faith, which had stalled since I’d moved home. I was still interested in it because it was related to my original Vigil idea from 1993, but I kind of felt like I’d lost the plot, literally. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it, and I was constantly rewriting and revising it instead of moving it forward. It wasn’t close to my best writing and I knew it, so I was focusing on how best to rectify that. I really felt like I was holding myself back, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to break out of that either.

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Soul Coughing, Irresistible Bliss, released 9 July 1996. WHMP loved this album, especially the single “Super Bon Bon”, and so did WFNX whenever I listened to it during my road trips into Boston. My friend Chris was a huge fan highly recommended them to me, as they were less a straight-ahead alternative band and more of a poetry slam performance, complete with Mike Doughty’s weird yet captivating lyricism.

Soundtrack, Trainspotting: Music from the Motion Picture, released 9 July 1996. The movie was a massive hit everywhere (though I myself didn’t watch it until we rented it at some later point), and even the soundtrack was immensely popular, filled with such a wild assortment of music from Iggy Pop, Underworld, Blur, Primal Scream, and more. This also gave Iggy a huge boost in sales and popularity with the always great “Lust for Life” single.

Tonic, Lemon Parade, released 16 July 1996. This LA band could be seen as a one-hit wonder with the popular “If You Could Only See” single, and yet they’re still going strong today. This debut is a great record — the opener single “Open Up Your Eyes” is also a banger — and it’s worth checking out. I got to see them open for The Verve Pipe later in the year.

Chimera, Earth Loop, released 23 July 1996. I wouldn’t hear this for another few months when I finally found what would then be my dream job, and it was one of the first promo cds I’d snag. They were a sort of alternative-meets-trip-hop with a bit of shoegaze for flavor, and it’s an absolutely lovely record that became one of my favorites of the year.

Hooverphonic, A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, released 29 July 1996. This is the album that started it all — and the only one with their original name ‘Hoover’ (before they changed it for obvious reasons) — and the amazing single “2Wicky” sold me right from the beginning for this Belgian group. They masterfully took the darker edges of trip hop and added a flair of elegance and beauty to it, and they’ve been a huge favorite of mine ever since. I highly recommend pretty much everything they’ve ever put out.

Eels, Beautiful Freak, released 13 August 1996. I was aware of Mark Oliver Everett’s music under the name ‘E’ (he had a minor alt-radio hit with “Hello Cruel World” in 1992), but I was drawn to his new project with the oddly catchy “Novocaine for the Soul” single. It became a huge hit on alt-rock radio and started a long and still-strong career for him.

Failure, Fantastic Planet, released 13 August 1996. The first time I heard “Stuck On You” was when I saw the video for it on MTV one day and was gobsmacked by just how flipping brilliant it was. It wasn’t just a banger of a track that felt like a punch in the face, the video was a dead-on riff on the opening credits to the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. I bought the album soon after and my mind was fully blown. It really is an amazing record from start to finish, heavy and loud and epic as hell. This album would be one of the first on my Official Soundtrack List to the Mendaihu Universe, and I would play it constantly while writing The Phoenix Effect and then the Bridgetown Trilogy over the next several years. I highly recommend owning this one.

Better Than Ezra, Friction, Baby, released 13 August 1996. After their popular debut, this was their equally great yet not exactly popular follow-up, and yet tracks like “Desperately Wanting” and “King of New Orleans” got significant amount of play on alt-rock radio for a good couple of years there.

Reel Big Fish, Turn the Radio Off, released 13 August 1996. Yet another ska-punk band of the 90s that cluttered up rock radio and MTV at the time, it was a super fun record regardless. “Sell Out” is one of my favorite songs of the late 90s and I remember I used to sing along to this one in the car all the time.

K’s Choice, Paradise in Me, released 20 August 1996. Another Belgian band, this time firmly entrenched in that 90s radio-friendly alt-rock sound complete with (yes) a one-hit wonder, the excellent “Not an Addict” that got play all over the place, even on VH1. I picked this one up on cassette and listened to it quite a bit at the time.

Tara MacLean, Silence, released 20 August 1996. Another singer I discovered during my upcoming new job, this Canadian singer was unfortunately overlooked by US radio at the time. She’s still going strong and has put out several albums, and recently a memoir. This one got a lot of play during my writing sessions as well.

Pearl Jam, No Code, released 27 August 1996. How do you follow up the massively popular Vitalogy album, all while very publicly boycotting Ticketmaster? By putting out something even weirder! It’s all over the place, containing both wonderful radio-ready singles like “Hail Hail” and “Who You Are”, folky tracks like “Off He Goes”, and dense soundscapes like “Lukin”. It remains a head-scratcher for a lot of people for it being all over the place. It’s the album of theirs I listen to least, but only because it can be a hard listen at times. They’d bounce back with the excellent Yield a few years later.

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Coming up: The start of the HMV Years

Thirty Years On: May/June 1996

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The summer of 1996 was full of unexpected changes. The biggest one being the one other time I ever ragequit a job. The radio station gig ended one sunny morning when I was due to head over for a shift, only to be told that my hours would be cut to a few on the weekends. [For some weird reason, radio has always been like that across the board, and it sucks.] My evangelical boss didn’t just cut my hours but said I’d only been hired until she could get someone else for weekday mornings, then also refused to help me sign up for unemployment benefits (she claimed I’d never worked full time when I often worked over 32 per week). The day I quit, my replacement was there looking a bit sheepish with the boss nowhere to be found. I handed over the key and never went back.

Thankfully, my mom managed to get me a temporary part-time position at the bank she worked at, scanning older signature cards into their recently built-up database. I held that job for maybe a few months at most, just something to put in my account and help pay off my debts until something better came along. [That, of course, would arrive in early September, thanks again to my mom seeing an ad in the paper for ‘something I might enjoy’. More on that soon enough.]

This is also right about the time I really took a shine to the local road trips. I still didn’t own a car at this time, and would borrow my mom’s car for the afternoon until I had to pick her up at the end of her shift. After a few weeks I realized, hey, why not drive around town, maybe head up to the Four Corner Store in New Hampshire, just for the hell of it? I didn’t have to wait for my local friend to be available at this point, I could just…do it on my own. By the end of summer, I was constantly borrowing someone’s car to head up to Toadstool Books in Keene, or wherever. I realized I was no longer stalled out at home, doing nothing but listening to music, attempting to take my writing seriously, and wishing I was elsewhere. Even if it was just a small round trip on the back roads of New England, it was much better than nothing.

Ash, 1977, released 6 May 1996. WHMP was a big fan of this Irish band and played the “Goldfinger” single quite a bit at the time. I liked that they were grunge-adjacent, yet based firmly in the 90s Britpop scene, a mix of both genres that I enjoyed.

Butthole Surfers, Electriclarryland, released 6 May 1996. I of course knew about this band since my high school days, but I don’t think anyone, even the band, expected “Pepper” to be as big of a hit as it was. It’s their most radio-friendly song (and that’s saying something), and somehow most stations had to work around the band name, often referring them to as “BH Surfers” or just “the Surfers”.

The Cure, Wild Mood Swings, released 7 May 1996. After a four-year wait between albums (not including their live albums), they somehow managed to split the fanbase with what is either an enjoyable and brightly produced album or an overly long and directionless mess. Unfortunately I was in the latter crowd, as it felt like the band had completely lost their way. Mind you, it does have a few great songs like “Strange Attraction” and “Gone!” but it still feels like a swing and a miss for me.

Soundtrack, Mission: Impossible, released 14 May 1996. The new Tom Cruise action flick — one of many in the 90s that mined the TV shows of old and updated them with gritty realism — was surprisingly enjoyable and well made, and the two other guys from U2 updated its well-known Lalo Schifrin theme song into something groovy and electronic.

Manic Street Preachers, Everything Must Go, released 20 May 1996. The band had just gotten over the shocking disappearance of their guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards, and had decided to soldier on as a trio. What could have been a hard road turned into a brilliant release — figuratively and literally — and earned them the Mercury Prize in 1997. The title track remains one of their best and most loved songs, and they’ve had a very successful career in the UK since then.

The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse, released 21 May 1996. After a debut that fell flat, the band came back swinging with a massively successful second record full of radio hits that still get played like “One Headlight”, “6th Avenue Heartache” and “3 Marlenas”. They may not have reached the same heights afterwards, but singer Jakob Dylan still releases new stuff under the name.

Soundgarden, Down On the Upside, released 21 May 1996. The heavy grunge band’s last album before breaking up, it was a surprisingly strong release considering they’d had to follow up the massively successful Superunknown. There are several super strong songs here like “Burden in My Hand” and “Blow Up the Outside World”, not to mention the amusing “Ty Cobb”.

Duncan Sheik, Duncan Sheik, released 4 June 1996. I’ve been mentioning this album lately, but it really is a fascinating release and a shockingly impressive debut. Again: it could have been a one-hit wonder, this time with his catchy mid-tempo “Barely Breathing” that crossed over to several genre stations, but one listen to the entire record and you realize just how brilliant of a songwriter he is. The dreamy “She Runs Away”, the mercurial “In the Absence of Sun”, the pondering “Days Go By”…the entire record is highly recommended and one of my favorite albums of the 90s.

Squirrel Nut Zippers, Hot, released 4 June 1996. You couldn’t escape the kitschy swing-jazz holler of “Hell” that summer — yes, another 90s one-hit wonder — but the album is good silly fun. They, alongside Brian Setzer and others, managed to revive the whole retro swing craze in the late 90s.

Belle and Sebastian, Tigermilk, released 6 June 1996. The birth of 90s twee chamber pop as we know it, this Scottish collective literally wrote and recorded this album as a school project for a class in music business, and yet it garnered such a huge following (thanks to BBC DJs John Peel and Mark Radcliffe) that they became a full-fledged band and began a long and successful career.

Beck, Odelay, released 18 June 1996. How do you follow up with the massively successful stoner-rap weirdness of “Loser” and Mellow Gold? By teaming up with The Dust Brothers and recording an absolutely smashing tour de force that still gets high praise years later as one of his best works. From the groovy “Devils Haircut” to the funky “Where It’s At” to the jazzy “The New Pollution”, this album might be all over the place but it works amazingly well.

Primitive Radio Gods, Rocket, released 18 June 1996. Yet another one-hit wonder with the quirky song with the unforgettable title “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” (which appears absolutely nowhere in the song itself but was borrowed from Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn), the band did not plan for it to be such a massive and memorable hit even despite its clever and quotable lyrics and an appearance on the soundtrack to the Jim Carrey movie The Cable Guy. They might have disappeared from public view, but they’re actually still around and self-releasing their works online.

Screaming Trees, Dust, released 25 June 1996. It seemed that several of the grunge bands of the early 90s were splitting up around this time for one reason or another — some reasons sadder than others, unfortunately — but Screaming Trees tried to soldier on. They were dropped by their label after this record, which didn’t come close to the same heights as their earlier records, but they did have a minor radio hit with the bluesy “All I Know” which got a lot of play on WHMP. They’d eventually split in 2000.

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Coming up: Filling in the hours and looking beyond

Thirty Years On: April 1996

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I’d like to think that by April 1996 I’d gotten settled enough back at home. I’d come to the conclusion that my plan to move back to Boston might take a lot longer than expected (what with my crippling debt and all) so I chose instead to refocus on what I could change at that point. I’d gotten the frustrations of 1995 out of my system and started looking forward. Eventually I’d get there.

April 1996 was also the first time I actually had a significant tax return! Well, it was $200, but that was big money for someone who formerly had to scrounge for a few weeks to save that much. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it: buy myself a PC.

Granted, it was a used PC bought at a chop shop that had Windows 3.1 and came with a monochrome CRT monitor, but that’s all I needed. The only games I’d play on it were Solitaire and FreeCell anyway! No, this was a long-term investment, one I’d be using constantly for my writing from here on in. I set it up on my desk in the bedroom and it stayed there maybe for about two months before I decided in early fall to move it downstairs into the basement. [Part of the decision for the move was that the PC’s fan was rather loud and would keep my family awake if I worked at night, but the main reason for it was the desire to find a writing spot where I wouldn’t be interrupted or have everyone looking over my shoulder. And where else but in the same place my dad had his work area?]

By the end of April I’d transcribed some of those recent exercise story ideas and expanded on a few more just to see where they went. I may have tried working on True Faith a bit more as well. I had no idea that I’d be working down there for nearly nine years more, but that was the beginning of it all. That was where I started taking my writing even more seriously. In another year I’d be starting in on The Phoenix Effect, which would of course be revised and rewritten as the Bridgetown Trilogy.

Cracker, The Golden Age, released 2 April 1996. Even though alternative radio had pretty much latched onto “Low” (from 1993’s Kerosene Hat) as their one hit wonder, David Lowery’s project continued on providing us with catchy yet slightly offbeat tunes such as “I Hate My Generation” which got a decent amount of play on WHMP.

Beastie Boys, The In Sound from Way Out!, released 2 April 1996. After the huge success of 1994’s Ill Communication, the band took an unexpected left turn into…groovy funk? By now we’d known that they weren’t just meathead rappers but proficient instrumentalists, but this album was such an unexpected release that it barely got any notice other than fans and those digging their jazzy side.

Semisonic, Great Divide, released 9 April 1996. Before their huge success with 1998’s Feeling Strangely Fine and “Closing Time”, they dropped their first official album that got just a little bit of play with songs like “FNT” and “Across the Great Divide”. WHMP really liked this record.

Various Artists, Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks, released 9 April 1996. This was a super fun compilation aimed squarely at us Gen X-ers who grew up watching these animated tunes during our Saturday cartoon binge. It’s full of great stuff by Blind Melon (“3 Is a Magic Number”), Better Than Ezra (“Conjunction Junction”), Pavement (“No More Kings”), and my personal favorite which I’ve posted above.

Local H, As Good As Dead, released 16 April 1996. Yet another 90s band that could conceivably be seen as a one hit wonder (this is that “copacetic” song, natch) if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re still around and recording really great noise rock, still as a duo. They’re definitely a band worth checking out.

Rage Against the Machine, Evil Empire, released 16 April 1996. I admit I was not a Rage fan for a good number of years. To me they were merely okay…I appreciated what they were about but it did nothing for me personally. I eventually came around in 1999 with their Battle of Los Angeles album. Meanwhile, you could not escape hearing tracks from this album on WHMP and WFNX like “People of the Sun” and “Bulls on Parade”.

Geggy Tah, Sacred Cow, released 23 April 1996. Now this was definitely a 90s one hit wonder, but it’s so goofy and positive and such an earworm that it’s worth hearing. Who knew that a song about a good driving experience could be such a fun hit?

Spoon, Telephono, released 23 April 1996. Well before their rise to indie fame in the early 00s, this band dropped their first album that became a favorite with their fans and the hip indie crowd. To me they were a band I’d constantly hear about but never actually hear on the radio. I may have heard one or two tracks from this on WHMP or WAMH, but not very often.

Orbital, In Sides, released 29 April 1996. I fell in love with the single “The Box” as soon as I saw its brilliant video (featuring the always amazing Tilda Swinton as a time-traveling alien). I’d dub this album onto cassette in a few months when I started at HMV, and eventually buy it used a short time later. It’s my favorite Orbital album as it hits that sweet spot of electronica that I can chill to. I highly recommend it.

Dave Matthews Band, Crash, released 30 April 1996. Most alternative radio stations absolutely loved 1994’s Under the Table and Dreaming, so when this new album dropped, it was a huge success not just on radio but on MTV as well. It’s got so many of his biggest and most memorable tracks on it like the quirky opener “So Much to Say” (I love singing along to this one!), the lovely “Crash Into Me”, the weird “Too Much” and the memorable deep cut “Tripping Billies”. It’s my favorite DMB album, actually! This is right up there with The Verve Pipe’s Villains and Collective Soul’s self-titled as part of that mid-90s “commercialternative” sound (as I call it) that seamlessly crossed barriers from alt rock to pop/rock radio with records that would become long-standing hits.

Soundtrack, The Craft, released 30 April 1996. I went to see this movie at the Sony in Leominster that I formerly worked at and was pleasantly surprised that they’d actually done their homework in regards to witchcraft. Sure, it’s your classic standard 90s horror flick complete with a hip soundtrack, but it was good fun nonetheless. And like a lot of 90s horror flick soundtracks, it’s full of current bands doing fantastic covers, like Our Lady Peace doing the Beatles, Heather Nova doing Peter Gabriel’s “I Have the Touch” and Love Spit Love doing The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now” (soon to be appropriated by the similarly witch-themed TV show Charmed). It’s a fun soundtrack worth checking out.

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Coming up: Summer moods and unexpected changes

Thirty Years On: March 1996

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By this time I’d been working not-quite-fulltime at the radio station, doing the morning shifts from 5:30am to noon, and also on Sunday afternoons to prep the religious programming on the AM station that still ran from dawn to dusk. I was on my own for the most part until the GM came in and nitpicked any slight errors I’d made. Let’s just say that she was one of those evangelicals that threw stones first and leave it at that, shall we? Anyway, it wasn’t the most exciting of jobs and as before, I was never on air, but it gave me time to play around with a few ideas. I revived my poetry and lyric writing, something I hadn’t done for a good year or so. I watched Sailor Moon on the station TV in the morning (this was when anime was finally becoming more popular and mainstream in the US instead of a niche thing). I read books and comics I’d been buying recently. I drew maps and comic ideas. Anything to get my mind moving instead of spiraling into self-pity.

This is when I’d come up with the idea of priming the creative pump, so to speak. While I was getting caught up on the Great Transcription Project, I was also playing around with various ideas longhand. We had scrap paper galore in the studio and I used it to let my mind come up with ideas. They didn’t have to go anywhere, it was just an exercise to get myself back into creative shape. I came up with about a dozen story ideas, none of which went anywhere in the long run, but the exercise did its job: I felt the creative spark reignite, and I was ready to start writing again.

I should also state that at this point, my then-gf (and cowriter on True Faith) and I had broken up though we did stay in touch, very occasionally meeting up with a few mutual friends to do things. I also met up with a few people via online New Age chatrooms and had a brief friendship with someone who gave me a lot of positive insight on my ideas that would eventually become a part of The Phoenix Effect in the future. So it wasn’t as if I’d cut myself off from the world; it was more that I felt a bit lost and trying to find my footing. These weren’t the most fulfilling of connections, but they were needed at the time and helped me stay out of that funk I’d been in a few months previous.

Lush, Lovelife, released 5 March 1996. The band’s last album before breaking up, it was also their most radio-friendly and popular, especially with the single “Ladykillers”. They still attained most of their dreampop/shoegaze sound, but it felt forced and overly polished to me, however.

Various Artists, WHORE: Tribute to Wire, released 5 March 1996. Around this time I’d started listening to my old standby college radio station, WAMH at Amherst College. I had to get used to the fact that they weren’t playing the post-punk-influenced alternative stuff I’d fallen in love with back in the 80s but was now fully immersed in indie rock that I was only vaguely resonating with. They’d play a few tracks off this one now and again, especially Band of Susan’s cover of the brilliant “Ahead”.

Stereolab, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, released 11 March 1996. I bought this one via Columbia House as I’d always liked them but never quite got around to ever buying anything from them! I’d heard “The Noise of Carpet” on 120 Minutes and that sold them for me. I still get the track stuck in my head now and again.

Cocteau Twins, Milk & Kisses, released 15 March 1996. Believe it or not, I wouldn’t own this for a good year or so! I was more of an early-era, pre-Heaven Or Las Vegas fan and felt their later work lacked the dreamlike sound I loved so much. It would end up being their final album as they would break up soon after.

The Beatles, Anthology 2, released 18 March 1996. I remember the ‘new’ Beatles single, “Real Love”, was supposed to drop on Valentines Day or thereabouts but got delayed, instead dropping a week or so before the second volume of the Anthology series. This one fascinates me, as it dials back the live and interstitial content that was prevalent on the first volume and focuses on the interesting alternate takes, like the trippy first take of “Tomorrow Never Knows”. At this point there was still a rumor that a third ‘new’ song would be on the third volume, but alas, time and technology kept that from happening.

Barenaked Ladies, Born On a Pirate Ship, released 19 March 1996. Before the hugely popular Stunt from 1998, this album opened the door much wider for this beloved Canadian band, with the single “The Old Apartment” getting major airplay on the radio over the next year or so.

Love and Rockets, Sweet FA, released 19 March 1996. Story goes that they’d recorded a significant portion of this album project when a fire consumed the studio they’d been working in. Guitars were burnt to a crisp (thus the album cover) and friend Genesis P-Orridge suffered injuries because of it, but in the end they soldiered on and came out with a sleek album that wasn’t quite a return to their psych rock origins or the techno of their previous album, and “Sweet Lover Hangover” became a radio favorite.

Tracy Bonham, The Burdens of Being Upright, released 19 March 1996. She’d become a local favorite in Boston with her indie-released The Liverpool Sessions EP, and for her major label debut she came out with guns blazing and several songs that became favorites on the local alternative stations like the blistering opener “Mother Mother”, the catchy “The One” and the oddball singalong “Sharks Can’t Sleep”. She’s still active as a musician and putting out her own works.

Superdrag, Regretfully Yours, released 26 March 1996. This band could be seen as a one hit wonder with its clever “Sucked Out” (a song about selling out, natch), but there’s a lot more going on with this band than just being a whiny Gen-Xer. They’re actually quite an excellent powerpop band worth checking out, and their amazing about-face with 1998’s Head Trip in Every Key (done specifically as an anti-“Sucked Out” album which did its job by having the label drop them soon after) is highly recommended.

Stone Temple Pilots, Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, released 26 March 1996. STP, on the other hand, seemed to be on the verge of self-immolation, as the first hints of Scott Weiland’s self-destructiveness came to the fore. This is a druggy haze of an album because of that. It’s not my favorite of theirs and a bit of a hard listen because it feels so sloppy, especially after the wonderful Purple from 1994, but it does have its finer moments like the above single that got a lot of play at the time.

Guided By Voices, Under the Bushes Under the Stars, released 26 March 1996. This is their ninth(?) album so I kind of gave up on trying to catch up with their work, but they finally resonated with me with the lovely “Official Ironmen Rally Song” single that got a lot of play not only on WAMH but on WHMP as well. I did get this song down on one of my radio source tapes somewhere, but it would be quite a few years more before I finally downloaded this album.

The Verve Pipe, Villains, released 26 March 1996. I immediately fell in love with this album not because of the ridiculously popular single “The Freshmen” but because of their other radio/video tracks “Photograph” and “Cup of Tea”, both of which would show up on one of my favorite mixtapes later in the year. It really is an amazing album, and Brian Vander Ark’s songwriting is at its highest here. I bought this one via Columbia House and played the hell out of it over the next several years, as it became one of my all-time favorite 90s records and became a frequent go-to for my writing sessions, especially when working on The Phoenix Effect and the Bridgetown Trilogy. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.

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Coming up: The birth of the writing nook.

Thirty Years On: January-February 1996

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I remember how I started 1996: two friends and I had gone out to see Jumanji at a local theater on New Years Eve — and that, by the way, was also when I saw the teaser trailer for Independence Day for the first time and thought ‘HOLY CRAP I need to see this’ — and followed it up by heading over to someone’s house to play pool in the basement. Between the three of us, the past year had sucked major ass in varying ways. You’ve already heard the story of how I’d moved back in with my family after failing to stay in Boston. Suffice it to say, we’d been so thankful to get the hell out of 1995 that we ended up completely missing the clock ticking midnight until about a half hour after the fact. We just wanted it to be over.

I’d been lucky in that I was able to transfer from my job at Sony Theater in Somerville to the one in Leominster (although borrowing a car could be tricky), though that would only last a few months and end in late fall when I somehow had landed a job at the very same local radio station I’d worked at back in 1988. Same responsibilities: monitor the satellite feed, take the readings, play the local commercials, and play with/feed the cat that had been somewhat adopted by the station owners. And still get yelled at by the station manager when I messed up the most minor thing ever. I spent most of those slow hours working on the office PC continuing my Great Transcription Project, typing out (and in effect reliving) most of the juvenilia I’d written from my high school days up to the present. And maybe working on True Faith when I had a moment, though that one was suffering from writer’s block and massive rewrites. And somewhere in all of that, I’d get out of the massive debt I was in.

But on a somewhat positive note, I’d managed to reconnect with that high school friend who also lived in town, and we often went on road trips, mainly to drive around, smoke, listen to a lot of music, and make half-assed plans to move out to Ohio where one of our mutual friends lived at the time.

It wasn’t the best of times, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.

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Cibo Matto, Viva! La Woman, released 16 January 1996. This was an early Columbia House purchase when I chose to rejoin, partly because I thought this was a good way to keep in touch with the music I liked. I didn’t listen to it nearly as much as I thought I would but I did like the “Sugar Water” single a lot.

Radiohead, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” single, released 22 January 1996. The last single from their brilliant 1995 album The Bends — an album said friend and I would constantly listen to in the car — and the ssong seemed to perfectly encapsulate our moods at the time: it absolutely sucked that we were stuck where we were but we looked forward to the positive moments.

Tori Amos, Boys for Pele, released 23 January 1996. Tori’s music had always had that element of odd quirkiness, but this particular record really went in a strange direction, not to mention that it’s a super long one as well. Still, I did appreciate what she was doing and actually liked this one quite a bit.

Stabbing Westward, Wither Blister Burn & Peel, released 23 January 1996. I’d been a passive fan of their first album, but this was the one that really captured my interest. WHMP — the alternative station out of Northampton that we both listened to at the time — played “What Do I Have to Do?” quite heavily, enough that I ended up getting this one through Columbia House as well. This would soon become a frequent writing session album in a few months, once I finally owned my own PC and moved it down to the basement.

Ministry, Filth Pig, released 30 January 1996. I was at odds with this album, because it didn’t quite feel like the Ministry I used to love. It felt like they’d stayed in the ‘less industrial, more metal’ direction they’d explored with Psalm 69. I never played this one all that much, but I did appreciate their oddball cover of Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”.

Voice of the Beehive, Sex & Misery, released 12 February 1996. This was their last album, but it was a great way to go! They’d gone from jangle pop to Britpop-infused rhythms to sugary dance rock here, and it’s super fun. “Scary Kisses” got a lot of play on WHMP at the time.

Gin Blossoms, Congratulations I’m Sorry, released 13 February 1996. After their extremely popular debut, they came extremely close to knocking it out of the park a second time with this sophomore album. It wasn’t as popular, but it does contain the big single “Follow You Down” which still gets played a lot. I was always a bigger fan of the other single “Day Job” which seems to be forgotten these days.

Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Come Find Yourself, released 20 February 1996. There were a lot of one hit wonders in the mid 90s, and this was a big one, partly because of its clever use of sampling multiple Quentin Tarantino movies. It’s actually a fun album, and they’d show up a few years later with a banger track on the Titan AE soundtrack.

Goldfinger, Goldfinger, released 21 February 1996. I’d say partial thanks to the success of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the pop-punk-ska hybrid did really well around this time, with several bands coming up with radio hits, like “Here in Your Bedroom”. They had a couple of really great albums in the 90s that I owned.

Brainiac, Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, released 26 February 1996. This was a favorite of the friend I mentioned above, and my reaction was: what if Ween decided to sound like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion? Weird half-assed punk infused with blues and heavily filtered through distortion. It’s not an easy listen, but it is a fascinating one.

The Refreshments, Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy, released 27 February 1996. Yet another one hit wonder with the extremely catchy singalong-able “Banditos”. This one got a lot of play in the late 90s and probably still shows up on (ugh I’m old) “songs from the 80s, 90s and today” stations. Silly light-hearted fun.

Cowboy Junkies, Lay It Down, released 27 February 1996. This band had somewhat fallen off the radar for a few years after their brilliant Trinity Session album, and this was a surprising switch to a more radio-friendly Adult Alternative sound, and “A Common Disaster” was an unexpected hit for them.

Bad Religion, The Gray Race, released 27 February 1996. How do you follow up with an unexpectedly popular album like Stranger Than Fiction? By staying true to your goals like Gregg Graffin would, coming out with another banger punk album. It only got some minor airplay with “A Walk” and some of the band felt they phoned it in, but despite that it’s a fan favorite.

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Coming up: future plans, writing goals, unexpected inspirations, and the start of the solo road trips

Favorite Albums: Duncan Sheik

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Just before i started my job at HMV in late 1996, a new record popped up that hit the airwaves of both alternative rock and pop stations; even though it was primarily filtered down to Adult Alternative for its easy and melodic sound, the songwriting was so unexpectedly tight and adventurous that it got picked up everywhere. It was not the bombast of Collective Soul’s self-titled record, or the earnestness of Live’s Throwing Copper; it was simply a lovely album to listen to.

But that lightness is betrayed by darker, gloomier lyrics. James Hunter of Rolling Stone likened Sheik’s music to Talk Talk and The Smiths, perhaps for that reason: the musicianship is top notch from start to finish, the melodies are wonderfully creative but not overly complex, and the songs definitely get stuck in your head.

If you’ve only heard “Barely Breathing”, I suggest you check out the rest of the album — it’s definitely worth it.

Bonus Track: A year and a half later he popped up on the Great Expectations soundtrack from early 1998 with another fabulous track, “Wishful Thinking”, which got a lot of airplay at the time.

His later albums unfortunately did not get the attention they should have — partly due to changing tastes and partly due to the late 90s industry shake-ups — but they too are well worth looking for. He’s also kept busy since the mid-00s by writing and scoring music for multiple stage plays and musicals, his best known being Spring Awakening.