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Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part V

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The very last class and exam I took for my school years was for my French class. I’d unfortunately learned a bit too late that my brain doesn’t process foreign languages correctly (I can understand them just fine once I learn them, but I can’t speak them without my brain stuttering to a halt to translate), but somehow I’d managed to just about pass it, thus giving me the points I needed to get a Bachelor of Arts degree. I handed in the test when I was done and celebrated my newfound freedom across the street by taking a seat at the Wall (more like a curb, the student gathering spot in front of 130 Beacon) and having a cigarette.

To be honest, I was kind of hoping I’d feel that freedom, but I felt the opposite: now what the hell do I do? In the words of Dave Sim, it was less of a grand finale and more of a grand finally. That’s when it all kicked in: Day One of adulthood. Now that I didn’t have school to distract me, it was time to start figuring things out.

Easier said than done, of course.

New Order, Republic, released 3 May 1993. It had been a surprisingly long number of years between albums for this group, considering they all went their separate ways to work on solo projects (Electronic, Revenge and the endearingly-named The Other Two). They came back stronger than ever with an album considered one of their best.

Blur, Modern Life Is Rubbish, released 10 May 1993. This is one of my top favorite Blur albums for many reasons. They’ve moved beyond the heady Madchester grooves of their first album and headed towards more introspective and observational themes. There are a lot of Gen-X moods going on here: poverty, emotional distraction, avoidance and ironic humor. This one has some wonderful tracks on it and I still listen to it now and again.

Aimee Mann, Whatever, released 11 May 1993. After the break-up of Til Tuesday in 1990, Mann was unable to contractually release anything for another couple of years, but the end result was a fine solo debut of sunny alternapop that proved she was still a fine songwriter. She may not have been a Boston local any longer, but WFNX played this one a ton just the same.

Wire, 1985-1990: The A List, released 18 May 1993. One of the first (of sadly far too many) albums I bought when I first got a credit card (this and the This Mortal Coil box), I knew this would get a ton of play on my headphones, considering they were — and still are — one of my all-time favorite bands. This one’s a ‘football roster’ mix of fan favorites, with “Ahead” in the obvious top spot. It’s a great collection and a great place to start if you’re curious about their mid-era sound.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Don’t Know How to Party, released 18 May 1993. Their third album was their first on a major label, it feels a bit more laid back than their usual hard-driving ska-core sound, but at the same time that helped become a great summer record for the Boston area.

Guru, Jazzmatazz, Vol 1, released 18 May 1993. Somehow I never got around to adding this (and its several later volumes) to my collection, but I do of course remember it getting all kinds of attention from both critics and fans. While the mix of jazz and rap wasn’t entirely a brand new thing by then, this album gave it a fresh new sound with its Blue Note-inspired jazz sounds — a live band instead of samples — blending perfectly with the chill rap delivery. Highly recommended.

Aztec Camera, Dreamland, released 23 May 1993. Roddy Frame’s return after a lengthy break (1990’s Stray was the previous record) had him sounding less indie/folky and more streamlined pop, but that wasn’t necessarily a band thing considering his penchant for writing wonderful songs. “Dream Sweet Dreams” is a lovely track that got a lot of play on WFNX that summer.

The Waterboys, Dream Harder, released 25 May 1993. Mike Scott’s next record was similar to 1990’s Room to Roam in that it was full of energy, but the main difference here was that the band’s sound on this one veered more towards straight alternative rock, sans the usual Irish folk influence. It would end up being the last Waterboys release for a number of years as he focused on his own solo work.

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Next Up: Now what the hell do I do?

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part IV

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By April of 1993 I realized that this was going to be the very last semester of any schooling I’d ever attend. I had no plans or reasons to look into graduate school, having finally admitted to myself that I’m more of a ‘learn by experience’ student than a ‘learn by theory and text’ student. I’d always been turned off by the idea of theoretical dissection and debate; it did nothing for me because that wasn’t how my brain worked. Mine always went in the opposite direction: I loved how things fit together. This meant that these were going to be the last exams, the last term papers, the last final projects I’d ever be dealing with, and I really liked the idea of that.

Mind you, this also meant that my road ahead was going to be hard, often lonely, and with a lot of fuck-ups along the way. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but I at least knew that was coming. I prepared myself by thinking ahead: I knew I wanted to be a writer, so that was what I was going to need to focus on most.

It would take quite a long time, but I’d get it soon enough.

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Guided By Voices, The Grand Hour EP and Vampire On Titus, released 1 April 1993. I actually knew about this band early on as one of those beloved by the critics and DJs in the know but rarely ever found in smaller record stores. I believe I’d heard “Shocker in Gloomtown” on WZBC (Boston College’s station) and maybe on WFNX one late evening.

David Bowie, Black Tie White Noise, released 5 April 1993. “Jump They Say” was a big favorite on WFNX at the time, as this was his first post-Tin Machine record under his own name again. It’s a very polished-sounding album and maybe not my favorite of his, but there are quite a few good tracks on it.

Sugar, Beaster EP, released 6 April 1993. After the brilliant Copper Blue, Bob Mould released a hard and fast six-track mini LP that melded the melodic parts of this new band of his with the noise of his previous band Husker Du. The end result is blistering and noisy fun.

Tool, Undertow, released 6 April 1993. I don’t think there was any band that sounded quite like this at the time: the heaviness of grunge, the headiness of prog, and the nihilism of metal, and somehow capturing the attention of countless critics and fans. Even the bizarreness of the video for “Sober” earned it heavy rotation on MTV at the time. More to the point, they even got my attention and they totally weren’t a band I’d actively listen to.

His Name Is Alive, Mouty By Mouth, released 13 April 1993. It took me a while to get where this band was going with their music and why they were on the revered 4AD label, as they felt more like outsider indie folk than anything else. But every now and again they’d have a song (like the above) that I really enjoyed.

Sarah Brightman, Dive, released 20 April 1993. Now this album was totally against type for me: I’d heard “Captain Nemo” on WFNX of all places one night and I was kind of fascinated by it…it had that dreamlike cinematic feel that would fit right in with my style of writing. I bought this one at Tower on cassette not knowing she was a well-known stage singer looking to pivot into pop, and I found myself really liking it. I’d play this one a lot on my headphones if I was heading somewhere on the T.

Midnight Oil, Earth and Sun and Moon, released 20 April 1993. I’d heard this one later in the summer of that year when I worked at DeLuca’s Market on Charles Street; one of the managers threw the album on after closing when we were cleaning up. I instantly fell in love with the track “Outbreak of Love” and ran out and bought it at Tower the next day!

World Party, Bang!, released 26 April 1993. Karl Wallinger’s output has always been consistently great (and he’s a super nice guy too, as I’d met him years later at Amoeba here in SF some years back). Pretty much everything he’s put out has been a mix of catchy pop and quirky indie rock.

PJ Harvey, Rid of Me, released 26 April 1993. The indie kids loved her records, and so did WFNX, because she was so hard to pin down into one genre. She could be sexy, confrontational, discomforting and funny, sometimes within the span of the same song. Her early albums are definitely worth checking out, and she’s about to release a new one very soon!

The Posies, Frosting On the Beater, released 27 April 1993. A jangly indie pop band that the critics loved, I’d hear the wonderfully shimmering “Flavor of the Month” on WFNX all the time and it became one of my favorite summer songs that year.

Porno for Pyros, Porno for Pyros, released 27 April 1993. Perry Farrell’s return to music after Jane’s Addiction’s implosion (and focusing on running Lollapalooza, which was still a traveling show at the time) was a more down-tempo record but featured some of his best work, including the ubiquitous single “Pets”.

Brad, Shame, released 27 April 1993. This was an interesting group in that it was essentially several musician friends from the Seattle area getting together to occasionally record and release music that didn’t quite fit the sounds of their own bands. This was also one of many groups headed by Seattleite Shawn Smith, who would pop up all over the place over the next several years.

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Coming up: One life ends, another life begins.

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part III

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If I learned anything about filmmaking at Emerson, it’s that I didn’t think I was going to be good at it. In fact, I was kind of terrible! I certainly had the images of what I wanted to see in my head, but there was no way I’d be able to follow through if I’d kept digging at it…especially since I’d also realized that I really wasn’t the best at networking, let alone knowing anyone who’d be interested in following through with my crazy ideas. After an extremely frustrating and unhelpful talk with my student advisor, I stepped back and realized, what is my strength here anyway, if it’s not making film?

Well, duh.

It’s writing.

So for the last couple of semesters at Emerson, I took screenwriting classes, and that was the best damn decision I’d made in my college years. It prepared me for the long haul: this was going to be a solo endeavor, and I’d be starting from the bottom, but it taught me how to get those images in my head on paper in a more coherent way. I finally knew exactly what I wanted to do as a career.

The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, released 1 March 1993. It took me a little while to warm up to this band, but when I did I loved “Linger”. The opening segment of the song to me evokes a kind of waking up. You still hear this and “Dreams” on alternative radio these days.

Living Colour, Stain, released 2 March 1993. This band’s third album before their split didn’t sell as much as the previous two, and I think it’s because this was a bit of a serious record, actually kind of an angry one. However, it’s got some really great tunes on it, well worth listening.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Ska-Core, the Devil and More EP, released 8 March 1993. Our favorite local ska-core boys dropped this record with “Someday I Suppose” as its lead track (it would show up on their new full-length in a few months), which got play on pretty much all the Boston rock stations.

The Beloved, Conscience, released 9 March 1993. This band finally followed up their fantastic debut with an even sleeker beat-driven dance record, and it’s just as lovely. I really dug the single “Sweet Harmony” at the time.

Frank Black, Frank Black, released 9 March 1993. The then-ex-Pixies singer’s debut was part of what seemed to be a giant flourish of new 4AD records (alongside Belly, The Breeders, and more) that featured the label’s newer, fresher sound. Frank is still the consummate weirdo here, just like with his previous band, but there’s also a bit of retro punk to it as well.

311, Music, released 9 March 1993. This was the record that introduced me to this band, and it’s much funkier and jammier than what we’d come to know them by. I had “Freak Out” as a breakout song on the WECB playlist for a while. I’m still a fan to this day.

The Judybats, Pain Makes You Beautiful, released 9 March 1993. This band never quite got the attention it deserved, partly because they didn’t quite fit the popular mold at the time, though WFNX did give them a bit of play during the years they were together. This third record is by far my favorite: it’s got so many gorgeous songs like “Being Simple” balanced by nutty humor like “Incredible Bittersweet”. Bonus points too for being recorded at Long View Farm, which was a studio in North Brookfield MA, just outside of Worcester!

Saint Etienne, So Tough, released 9 March 1993. I knew them from their previous record Foxbase Alpha (which had the groovy cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”), but this one became a favorite of mine partly due to the above song and its amazing ability to perfectly capture retro 60s UK Northern Soul. I still pick up their records, and member Bob Stanley is also an amazing music biographer whose books you should definitely check out.

Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales, released 9 March 1993. I never followed Sting’s solo career all that closely though he did have several singles I liked. This is probably my second favorite album of his (Nothing Like the Sun gets the top spot), and I’ve always liked the above lead single. I did get to see him on this tour later on in the year.

Depeche Mode, Songs of Faith and Devotion, released 22 March 1993. This was such a polarizing album when it came out! It definitely wasn’t Violator, that’s for sure. The obvious theme throughout it is indeed faith and devotion, whether spiritual or personal. It’s a very dense and sometimes angry record, but I fell in love with it immediately.

PM Dawn, The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations of Love and Anger and the Ponderance of Life and Existence), released 23 March 1993. I didn’t pick this one up right away, but I’ve always loved this duo as well. This one proved that they weren’t just a one-hit wonder and could write some amazing stuff.

The Pursuit of Happiness, The Downward Road, released 23 March 1993. This band had fallen into semi-obscurity after 1988’s Love Junk and its silly “I’m an Adult Now”, but I really enjoyed this one.

The London Suede, Suede, released 29 March 1993. This band actually kind of turned me off at first when their first singles dropped — I thought they were a bit too glammy for my tastes — but something told me to pick up this debut record, and it ended up being one of my favorites of the year! While most other Britpop bands of the time wore their 60s inspiration (or their 80s drugs) on their sleeves, this one said ‘we’re going to be the bastard son of 70s Bowie and T Rex’ and pulled it off brilliantly. Highly recommended.

This Mortal Coil, 1983-1991, released 30 March 1993. A collective that deeply inspired my writing over several years. It took me a few months to get around to picking this up, but it was well worth it: a collection of TMC’s three records, plus a fourth disc of the originals they’d covered on them. This box set would get a ton of play over the years until it was finally replaced by the self-titled 2011 box.

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Coming up: new sounds, new ideas

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part II

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So. Slacker Central, you say? Where did that name come from? It was a comic idea I’d come up with around this time that sadly didn’t get much love or attention. It was to come from the ashes of my previous comic idea Murph, both of which featured classic Gen-X characters trying to figure out their lives, who the hell they were, and obsessing over music, and their gathering spot was a Central Perk style coffee house based on the Trident Bookstore on Newbury Street. [And yes, the “Slacker” part of it was from the Richard Linklater movie, which remains one of my top favorites from the era.] In the end I only drew maybe four or so ‘shots’ along with writing a few pages of notes, but it would later morph into the also-trunked story Two Thousand, which I’d work on about a year later.

The point here being: my life might have been in the crapper at the time, but I certainly wasn’t about to let that distract me from creativity.

Various Artists, Caution! Hot Tips!, released February 1993. This compilation from Melody Maker somehow made its way to WERS during my last year there and was a great collection of indie bands that weren’t getting a lot of attention at the time. Hum in particular was a favorite, and would get their due a few years later with the classic “Stars”.

Sunscreem, O₃, released 2 February 1993. I may not have been fully into the early 90s electronica scene, but there were some albums and tunes that I absolutely loved, and this was one of them. “Love U More” got a lot of play on my headphones at the time as a great emotional pick-me-up. I got to see them live opening for Inspiral Carpets at the Paradise and they put on a hell of a fun show!

Belly, Star, released 2 February 1993. There were high expectations for this album and the band more than met them with a great mix of bright and cheerful indie pop and slightly odd Muses-like meanderings. Well worth picking up.

Pure, Pureafunalia, released 8 February 1993. Another freebie from WECB, I really dug the single “Blast” and had it on the station’s rotation. They were definitely part of that 90s ‘popternative’ sound (as I would later call it), easily dropped into commercial alt-rock radio which had gotten an incredibly strong foothold at this point.

Quicksand, Slip, released 9 February 1993. A sort-of alt-metal/hardcore band from NYC, I met these guys at a meet-and-greet a month or so later and found lead singer Walter to be a super nice guy. And yes, that definitely helped me enjoy this band even more!

Jellyfish, Spilt Milk, released 9 February 1993. The follow-up to the amazing 1991 debut Bellybutton was…not nearly as hearts-and-flowers cheerful or sunshine poppy, and guitarist Jason Falkner had already left. I didn’t listen to this one all that much, but after hearing it several years later on the 2015 remaster, I’ve come to enjoy it a lot more.

Dinosaur Jr, Where You Been, released 9 February 1993. A New England band that never quite left its Pioneer Valley roots, they were always popular on several local stations and especially on WFNX. They’d lightened up considerably at this point and weren’t quite the noise-punk band they once were (especially now that Lou Barlow was out of the picture), which interestingly enough let their surprisingly melodic songwriting shine through.

Depeche Mode, “I Feel You” single, released 15 February 1993. Nearly three years after their chart-topping album Violator (and an extremely long tour), the band took a hard left turn and churned out a new track that was heavier and punchier than anything they’d ever done. This wasn’t going to be the same synth band we all knew and loved, and not everyone appreciated it, and the end result would be both intriguing and divisive.

The Rosemarys, Providence, released 16 February 1993. As I’ve said before, I kept my musical options open around this time and tended to gravitate towards Britpop and indie shoegaze and dreampop like this. This was another album that popped up during my WECB tenure and “Collide” ended up on one of my rotations as well as one of my mixtapes. [Side note: there were a few Boston bands that had this sound too, including a band called Pipes that were a big favorite with the college crowd.]

Radiohead, Pablo Honey, released 22 February 1993. ….and then there’s an album that introduced the world to a British band that would change the face of alternative rock for years to come. Even then you could tell they were different: while all the big name bands were trying to reinvent themselves and discover new sounds or jumping on a bandwagon, Radiohead was classic post-punk: moody atmospherics and lyrics, simple delivery and a brutal honesty missing from the scene. And “Creep” was everywhere. I’m proud to say I was there at their first-ever US appearance at Citi on Landsdowne Street, and it was an amazing show.

Duran Duran, Duran Duran (The Wedding Album), released 23 February 1993. They’d fallen a bit from grace for a few years there, not quite hitting the heights with 1988’s Big Thing and utterly failing with 1990’s Liberty, but this was a true return to form: stunning songwriting and a serious focus on capturing what made them so damn popular in the first place. A fantastic record from start to finish.

Grant Lee Buffalo, Fuzzy, released 23 February 1993. You could probably file this band in with the ‘slowcore’ movement, though they were more of a country/folk version of it. It’s a very sad sounding record, but the title track is absolutely wonderful.

School of Fish, Human Cannonball, released 23 February 1993. Another ‘how do you follow up a huge success’ second album that unfortunately did not sell nearly as much as their 1991 self-titled debut, but It really is a great album.

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians, Respect, released 23 February 1993. I fell in love with his music in the mid 80s and while I may not have been able to keep up with his releases (partly due to being so damn broke most of the time), I did of course pick this one up, and “Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)” is one of my favorites of his.

Goo Goo Dolls, Superstar Car Wash, released 23 February 1993. While 1995’s A Boy Named Goo tends to be the record that turned them from critics’ faves to rock radio mainstays, I see this record as the one that put that particular sound in place. They sounded less like early Replacements and more like latter-era Replacements — tighter, better songwriting, and maybe even a radio hit or two.

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Next up: wrapping up one career and starting on another

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part I

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Going back another decade to 1993 this time? Sure, why not? It’s an era of my past that I’ve kind of glossed over for varying and personal reasons, so maybe it’s time to take a look at some of the records that kept me going at the time.

To set the mood: it was my second and last semester of my senior year at Emerson, and I was exactly where I didn’t want or need to be at. I’d just moved out — more like ragequitted — the apartment I’d lived in for a year and change after having had enough of my then roommate. Moving back to the dorms, I realized I’d lost track of several of my college friends out of my own doing, and was now hanging with several kids younger than me and feeling left behind. My grades were still less than stellar, I had no real idea what my future would be, and the last thing I wanted to do was move back to my hometown.

So yeah, I was pretty much starting from rock bottom here.

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The Wedding Present, The Hit Parade 2, released 4 January 1993. In 1992 this British band chose to drop a single a month — an original on the A side and a cover on the reverse — and it was the covers (such as a desperate version of Julee Cruise’s “Falling” and a blistering “Pleasant Valley Sunday”) that caught my attention.

Belly, “Feed the Tree” single, released 11 January 1993. After leaving Throwing Muses, Tanya Donelly surfaced a short time later with her own band that was immediately loved by everyone in the Boston area. She’d always written the less abrasive Muses tracks but never quite got rid of the classic Muses quirkiness, and it shows here.

Stereo MCs, Connected, released 12 January 1993. “Connected” (the single) was everywhere at the time, both on alt-rock and dance stations alike. I used to play this on my show on WECB and cranked the song up loud every time. It’s a really fun dance record worth checking out.

Denis Leary, No Cure for Cancer, released 12 January 1993. I know, this is a comedy record and not alt-rock, but I put it here because a) he’s a fellow Emersonian and b) he’s also a kid from central Massachusetts like me. A lot of the humor here is definitely of its time — irreverent GenX ‘fuck it, let’s go there and a bit beyond because why the hell not’ humor that’s equally ironic, biting, and daring, but you always knew there was an unspoken level of not quite being mean-spirited.

The Tragically Hip, Fully Completely, released 19 January 1993. This was the record that introduced me to this band, and it’s a hell of a fine album. I played at least three or four tracks from this record on my WECB show at the time.

Elvis Costello & the Brodsky Quartet, The Juliet Letters, released 19 January 1993. You never quite knew what EC was going to do next back in the day, his styles changing wildly from album to album. This is probably the first classical album where I finally understood what modern orchestral music was about, and that it could work seamlessly in a semi-pop way.

The The, Dusk, released 26 January 1993. Matt Johnson always took his time between albums, often two or three years at a time, and while his previous record dropped just as I was starting college, this one was released just as I was ending it. While not as angry as 1989’s Mind Bomb, it’s just as tense. This one’s about inner pain, and it shows on many of its tracks.

Duran Duran, “Ordinary World” single, released 26 January 1993. Ooof. If there was any song that encapsulated where my mental and emotional state was at this time, this was pretty much it. My long-term/long-distance relationship with T finally at its end, my less than stellar school years limping to a close, my social connections in the crapper, and my future nowhere to be found, this song saved me from falling any deeper with its constant reminder to keep going.

Jesus Jones, Perverse, released 26 January 1993. Understandably this record didn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of 1991’s Doubt, and by the time of its release, the alt-rock universe had moved on to more organic grunge rock, but this remains one of the band’s best records in my eyes. It’s a much darker and denser record and features some of their best singles and deep cuts. I highly recommend it.

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…so yeah, not the most spirited of beginnings of what is supposed to be an important year, yeah? But even though I was lost, hurting and feeling rudderless, I knew I had to keep going. By this time I’d realized that I could still use what I’d learned at this college, but in different ways: my film degree helped me understand how to write and tell stories. My connections with college radio may not have gotten me into that business but it certainly helped me continue my long-lasting love for music, as well as my constant drive to find new things to listen to.

I knew I was starting at the bottom and there was no way to go but up…and I also knew I was going to fuck up a lot along the way (and believe me, I did several times)…and ultimately I was the only one who was going to make me do it.

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More to come: songs to keep me going, and an album that blew everything else out of the water!

WIS Presents: The Boston Years XV

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It’s coming up to the end of the year and the end of the semester, and I think it’s safe to say that I was probably in a reasonably good mood at this point. I say ‘reasonably’ because I knew I’d started wondering if I’d made the right decision in going to the college I did. I was still struggling with homework — I wouldn’t realize until much, much later that I had undiagnosed focus issues since probably 7th grade — and I was just wishing I could finish up this whole education game already. I’d already made some terrible 8mm film experiments that showed that I had interesting ideas and absolutely zero experience. At the same time, however, I started thinking that maybe those interesting ideas was where my creative strengths lie. I also took some radio classes that gave me some interesting ideas as well.

In the meantime, there was still a magnificent wave of great music coming out and I was certainly spending all my money on it.

The House of Love, A Spy in the House of Love, released 1 November 1990. Yet another album with the band’s name in the title (both named after the Anais Nin novel), this time collecting several b-sides and rarities. ‘Marble’, an obscure b-side, ended up getting significant airplay and an official promo video.

Pass the Avocados, Please (Being a Compilation of Manchester, Hip Hop and Other Atrocities) mixtape, created by C Tatro, November 1990. After foisting several mixtapes on my high school friend who was now in his junior year at UMass, he sent me this one in return. It’s a curious mix of tunes that we both loved, heavy on the Madchester with a dash of deep cuts. By the summer of 1991, I’d be responding with my own ‘Avocado’ mix.

The Trashcan Sinatras, Cake, released 5 November 1990. This Scottish band came and went in the US rather quickly, but while they were here, this particular album was a favorite of both music journalists and fans. Light and jangly and full of humor, this album is a joyful listen and I really need to play it more often!

The Beautiful South, Choke, released 13 November 1990. When the Housemartins broke up in 1988, two of its members went on to form this band and have a strong and vibrant career playing lighthearted, cheeky music with a string of British hits to their name.

Lush, Gala, released 13 November 1990. The first official ‘album’ by Lush is actually a compilation of their EPs and singles to date. “De-Luxe” was rereleased to promote it, and this album became a favorite for both critics and fans alike.

Madonna, The Immaculate Collection, released 13 November 1990. It took Madonna a surprisingly long time to release a greatest hits mix, and as was typical of her career, it wasn’t just a collection of her hit singles. Several of the songs were mixed into QSound, an attempt at giving the songs an aural 3-D quality. Two new songs were also added, including the trip-hop inspired “Justify My Love”.

The Sisters of Mercy, Vision Thing, released 13 November 1990. The last new Sisters of Mercy album to date (Andrew Eldritch still tours at this time), This one feels rather glossy compared to the gloomy First and Last and Always or the damp and echoey Floodland, but it fit the changing moods of industrial and goth. It’s definitely of its time.

The Cure, Mixed Up, released 20 November 1990. While us fans were all waiting for a new Cure album (it wouldn’t come for another two years), the band followed up the mega-selling Disintegration with a…remix album? Sure, why not? It’s a wild ride, partly a collection of already-released 12-inch extended remixes and partly an experiment with handing the tapes to producers to turn into something new. And somehow it works!

Buffalo Tom, Birdbrain, released 20 November 1990. This was such a huge hit in the Boston area that you heard it everywhere: on WFNX, WBCN, college stations…I think even hard-rock station WAAF played them for a while! It’s a great album, full of punky, folky songs written by fantastic songwriters.

Happy Mondays, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, released 27 November 1990. While the Mondays’ previous albums could be scattershot and a mix between a coked-out jam session and an aural car crash, this album saw them break through internationally with tight grooves, smart lyrics, sort-of-on-key singing, and an album chock full of excellent songs. The big hit “Step On” — another Kongos cover they’d kept for themselves — put them on the indie rock map and remains their most popular track.

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Coming towards the end of the year, I started thinking about the various things that had changed in my life to date. I’d remembered entering 1990 thinking how wild it was to be entering the last decade of the last century of the last millennium, but I ended the year thinking maybe a little more close to home: writing new songs and getting better on my bass (and borrowing Jon A’s guitar now and again); approaching my creative writing in different ways; learning to rein in my rampant emotions and thoughts into something a bit more coherent and controllable; and maybe even thinking about who I thought I was versus who I actually wanted to be. It was around this time that I’d finally decided that maybe being the overly moody bastard wasn’t going to work for me for that much longer.

WIS Presents: The Boston Years III

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After some time avoiding my roommate and getting to know other people in my dorm who were more chill and less hipster — and occasionally heading home on the Fitchburg line train to get my head together and maybe meet up with T for an afternoon — I think I finally figured out where I was going. Or at least found a goal to aim for, at any rate. I may not have gotten the radio station position I wanted (that would come next semester) but I did find a work-study day job at the school that would bring many fond memories and calm moments.

The Emerson College library at the time was at 150 Beacon, a half-block up from our ‘campus’ center and the parking spot for the school shuttle. It was five floors and a basement squeezed into a former mansion — the only stairway that reached all six floors was the servant’s, where the old-school iron-gate elevator was — and it was the perfect place to hide if you wanted to study without being bothered by anyone. And down in the drafty and often chilly basement was the Media Center, which held a few classrooms, the music library, and a few a/v suites shoehorned in as well. That was my job for all four years plus two summers: hanging down there at its front desk, taking classroom reservations, setting up videos and 16mm films for the film teachers, and recording the daily newscasts for the TV teachers. It became my haven and my hiding place and one of my favorite places to be. To this day I still have occasional dreams about it, even though the building’s long been sold off and divided into condos.

Happy Mondays, Hallelujah EP, released 1 November 1989. This, I think, was my official introduction to what would soon become known as Britpop. I remember hearing this on WMDK one evening when I’d gone home for a weekend break, and the DJ was super excited about the ‘new sound’ coming out of England that was steeped in club grooves but still maintained its rock swagger. I instantly fell in love with its psychedelic grooviness and that it was just so out there, totally different from the moody post-punk college rock I’d been mainlining for the last few years yet not flippant and lightweight like most dance pop was at the time. While most alt-rock stations were looking westward towards Seattle, I was once again looking eastward towards London.

The Stone Roses, ‘Fools Gold’ single, released 13 November 1989. Soon after the Mondays came another Manchester band, one I was more familiar with from its debut album released just a few months earlier. (I didn’t initially lump them in with the Britpop sound as they felt more like a post-punk/garage band hybrid to me at the time.) I instantly fell in love with the nine-minute 12″ version of this song for its blissed-out groove jam as well as its janky drum loop. This one often reminds me of my years working at the college library, as WFNX would play it quite often.

Morrissey, ‘Ouija Board, Ouija Board’ single, released 13 November 1989. Out of all his between-album singles of the time, I probably liked this one the best because it was just a simple quirky oddity squeezed in between the political ‘Interesting Drug’ and the overindulgent ‘November Spawned a Monster’. It’s a throwaway, but it’s a fun throwaway.

The Primitives, Pure, released 14 November 1989. This band’s second album lightened up slightly on the sugary flower-pop sound and leaned a bit heavier on the rock that drove their initial hit “Crash”. There’s some really great deep cuts on this album and I don’t listen to it nearly enough as I should.

Ministry, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, released 14 November 1989. The album between the college radio favorite The Land of Rape and Honey and the breakthrough Psallm 69 gets overlooked a lot, and I think it’s partly because it’s a ‘more of the same’ record, but it’s got some great tracks on it that got some major radio play on WFNX at the time. I tended to listen to this one on my headphones whenever my roommate was pissing me off too much.

Duran Duran, Decade, released 15 November 1989. Their first official greatest hits record was absolutely perfect collection of their hit singles in chronological order that proves just how amazing this band was throughout the 80s. Even if you had every album and single they’d put out, you wanted this because it was such a great mix.

The Creatures, Boomerang, released 22 November 1989. Siouxsie and Budgie’s side project away from the Banshees always focused more on the musical styles that their main band couldn’t (or wouldn’t) quite pull off, and this one delves deep into a lot of different styles like jazz and even a bit of flamenco. I got to meet the two of them at Newbury Comics in Harvard Square when they did a signing!

Severed Heads, Rotund for Success, released 22 November 1989. This was one of my most favorite finds during my freshman year, picked up used at Nuggets in Kenmore Square. They were one of those bands I was familiar with (thanks to 120 Minutes) but never owned anything as I could never find their stuff. I bought this only on the strength of having heard the single “Greater Reward” at some point, and I completely fell in love with it. This became one of my Walkman go-tos when I was heading home on the train for the weekend. The band isn’t for everyone, but this record certainly is, and I highly recommend it.

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More to come — when the end of the year brings hope for change, however desperate it may be.

Favorite Albums: Think Tree, ‘eight/thirteen’

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I never really got along with my freshman year roommate in college for various reasons and we rarely had anything in common except certain tastes in music. We both leaned heavily towards college radio and things alternative. He was quite a bit more into the indie scene than I was — he went to all the shows whereas I was just fine sitting alone on my bed with the headphones on listening to it — but occasionally our paths crossed and we introduced each other to different bands.

Think Tree was one of his favorites that he foisted upon me pretty early on, and I loved them immediately. They were a local Boston band that defied any easy description; they seemed to embrace the same gloomy semi-industrial sound of Nine Inch Nails (but without the apocalyptic nihilism), the off-kilter humor and weirdness of Butthole Surfers (but without all the body-horror jokes) and maybe even a bit of the musical ubernerdiness of Wire (but without getting too arty about it).

“Hire a Bird” was their first official single, dropped at the tail end of 1989, and it was a huge favorite of the college radio stations, as well as both WBCN and WFNX, who had always gone out of their way to champion any local band with pride. It’s definitely a weird song but it’s catchy as hell. Singer Peter Moore delivers his vocals with an affected hillbilly grampaw lisp (something he’d do for most of their first album and live sets), over a bed of Will Ragano’s acoustic guitar, Jeff Beigert’s popping percussion, and the samples and synths of Paul Lanctot and Krishna Venkatesh. The resulting din is so off-kilter yet weaves around itself so perfectly that it works. And surprisingly, the song is a highly poetic sermon about the dangers of environmental disaster, with a semi-hopeful ‘at least we’re trying to fix it all’ chorus. The final sample that ends the song, lifted from the football game scene in Robert Altman’s MASH and taken completely out of context to underscore the song’s theme (‘we are our own enemy’), was the icing on the cake.

It took nearly a full year for the band to finish off and release their first album eight/thirteen, but it was highly anticipated by the local fans and stations. Record delays are always a dangerous thing, because when they are finally released, the scene that the record would easily fit into often no longer exists in that form. There are so many excellent albums out there that never quite reach their full potential due to fans having moved onto the next sound or scene. [This, alas, would happen to Think Tree themselves when they spent nearly two years between this and their second album Like the Idea, which is great on its own yet failed to find interest in a scene now obsessed with grunge and Britpop.]

The songs of eight/thirteen feature the best of their live set of 1988-90, hitting all their heights and highlighting their car-crash style. Sometimes it’s serious and gloomy, other times it’s funny and poppy, sometimes it’s both at once. Songs like “The Lovers” are goth dance, while songs like “Memory Protect” hint at the sample-heavy clang of Einsturzende Neubauten or Test Dept.

I got to see Think Tree a few times live during my college years, and I firmly believe that was their best platform, as they put on a raucous, hilarious, and completely bonkers show every single time. You never knew what was going to happen, or what the hell Moore was going to sing or chant about next (he had a brilliant ability to riff a wild fire-and-brimstone sermon like a demented Elmer Gantry, especially on songs like live favorite “The Word”). They would sing about prehistoric monsters (‘Iguanodon’), strong women of the wild west (1992 single ‘Rattlesnake’) and the strangeness of religions (‘Holy Cow’, another live favorite with its wonderful chorus “you worship the thing that goes moo!”) and whatever else they could think of and make it sound both freakish and fun at the same time. It was like watching a band that would have fit perfectly on The Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Album closer “The Moon” (formerly the b-side to the “Hire a Bird” single) is a perfect example of this.

Moore has recently dropped a few Bandcamp releases from the band over the years, with two live rarities albums in 2020 and a demos-and-b-sides rarities album this year (fittingly, all of them dropped on August 13). eight/thirteen is still available for streaming and downloading elsewhere, though Like the Idea is still a bit harder to get due to it having been released on Caroline Records. Most of their songs are available on YouTube, alongside a few interesting rarities like a Dutch TV appearance. Moore would continue his musical career (and his musical oddness) under the name Count Zero and even popped up as a bandmate for Blue Man Group! This album does remain quite the oddity but it’s still one of my favorites from my college years.

The taste of youth, the taste of you, dear

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Okay, I’m finally going to take the plunge.

Next week will be the first of many entries for the Walk in Silence blog series…and of course, I’ll be letting you know all about that over the next week and a half.

But that’s not the plunge I’m talking about.

When I was first planning out the WiS project, I always had the timeframe in the back of my mind: should I focus just on my own personal connection with college radio (1986-1989)?  Should I talk about its history (197? – 199?)?  Or should I just come up with an arbitrary time?  Eventually I chose the third entry, that way I could focus mostly on my own personal history, but also include the time before I connected with the genre, thus 1984 – 1989.

The plunge I’m thinking of now is the college and post-college years.  They weren’t exactly the happiest years of my life, for various reasons, but they were interesting musically.  College rock, at least with American radio, gave way to grunge and Britpop as it became more popular, and changed genre names numerous times before deciding on the all-encompassing ‘alternative rock’.  A schism grew: those who felt alternative rock was selling out and followed the most obscure bands possible, and those who really didn’t mind either way, as long as the prefabricated crap currently in the charts went away.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a sequel to Walk in Silence for quite some time.  There’s no name to it yet, nor is there any concrete schedule or plan for it at this time (all my focus is currently on posting WiS and publishing the Bridgetown trilogy), but I do have a few ideas floating around…it’ll focus mostly on the years from late 1989 (when I left for college) to late 1995 (when I left Boston and moved back home).  And it will most likely continue the WiS theme of both personal story and music history.

Some albums from that era still get heavy airplay on the radio: you’ll still hear tracks from Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Loveless and Definitely Maybe and Achtung Baby and Violator and so on.  But there are so many more albums I’ve ignored for one reason or another, forgotten about or couldn’t make myself listen to for personal reasons.  Songs that radio let pass into history, even forgetting to play them on Throwback Thursday.  But as with Walk in Silence and the 80s, it’s been nigh on twenty-plus years for most of these.  It’s well past time to revisit them again.

So starting today I’m going to start listening to some of these albums in my collection, give them a once-over they haven’t had in quite some time, and see where I can go with it.

Should be an interesting ride, to say the least.