Tag Archives: day job

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

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March of 2003 was…interesting, to say the least. On a personal front, the day job had become considerably busier due to Yankee Candle’s new deal with Bed, Bath & Beyond…while the post-Christmas months had quieted down, the volume was still more than before. But on a more serious note…the Bush II administration had chosen to go ahead with its invasion of Iraq, upselling the ‘they have weapons of mass destruction’ message as far as it could go. Those who believed in it (mainly conservatives) leaned heavy on the American Patriotism to the point of absurdity (anyone remember freedom fries?), while those opposed to it (mainly…well, a lot of people, not just liberals) protested loudly and repeatedly.

I suppose this might be part of the irritation I felt and inserted into The Balance of Light. That novel contained a lot of tension between sides that refused to acknowledge the other; the war didn’t make sense to me, and that became Denni’s focus in the third book: Why the hells are we fighting? What are we trying to achieve by it? It also became Alec Poe’s as well: This makes no sense, and it will all end in destruction. I refuse to be a part of it.

Evanescence, Fallen, released 4 March 2003. “Bring Me to Life” was everywhere that spring, having also been in a key scene in the Ben Affleck’s movie version of Daredevil. I could have easily filed this away on the alt-metal/hard rock bandwagon that was becoming rather crowded at the time, but this one stood out with some really great songwriting and production.

The Ataris, So Long, Astoria, released 4 March 2003. I was never the biggest fan of emo, but I was drawn to this band’s amazing cover of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” — quite possibly my all-time favorite cover version at that. [Bonus points for updating the bumper sticker lyric to ‘Black Flag’, heh.] I found myself listening to this one a lot during my writing sessions when I needed a good punchy soundtrack for some heavy action scenes.

The New Folk Implosion, The New Folk Implosion, released 4 March 2003. This iteration of Lou Barlow’s band is far moodier and robust than his previous versions, which drew me to it. The epic “Releast” is my favorite off the album and ended up on a few mixtapes that year.

Kelli Ali, Tigermouth, released 4 March 2003. The former Sneaker Pimps singer’s first solo album is a luscious trip-hoppy chill-out record and a perfect album for writing sessions. “Sunlight in the Rain” is one of my favorite tracks of this particular year.

Cave In, Antenna, released 18 March 2003. This New England band started out as hardcore metal but could also write some wonderfully melodic alt-rock. This was one of my favorite albums of the year and was one of the most played cds during writing sessions!

Longwave, The Strangest Things, released 18 March 2003. This too got a lot of Belfry play with its hybrid of indie emo and shoegazey riffs. Not as loud as most similar bands of the time, and definitely far more adventurous.

Zach de la Rocha & DJ Shadow, “March of Death” single, released 21 March 2003. The invasion of Iraq was not a popular move in the US, and several musicians let it be known how pissed off they were, many uploading songs for free online in protest.

Placebo, Sleeping with Ghosts, released 24 March 2003. In my opinion this is their best album ever, full of tight and driving melodies from start to finish. This was also one of my top favorite albums of the year.

Linkin Park, Meteora, released 25 March 2003. I kinda sorta liked the band at the time, but not enough to go out of my way to buy their first album…until I’d heard several of the singles off this one and realized what I was missing. This is an absolutely stellar record worth having in your collection, especially the new twentieth anniversary edition that just came out earlier this month.

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Coming up: more indie rock goodness, mixtapes and bands whose future started here.

Waking up early the next few days…

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The head bookkeeper is going on a well-earned two week vacation, which means my work schedule in his place will have me waking up before the dawn and getting me out by early afternoon. I do this on Fridays and Saturdays anyway so I’m used to it, but doing so for an entire week, five days in a row, is going to be tough. Still…I’ve done it before and I love this kind of schedule anyway, so I can’t complain.

Just saying that my music posts might be a bit loopy this next week or so if I’m a bit overtired, is all!

Listening Habits, 2023

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I don’t necessarily hate it, but it’s annoying: the customer that comes up to the register with their earbuds on and completely ignores me when I say hi or ask if they need bags. It’s kind of rude, to be honest. [And yes, I will admit I was that same person back in my college years.] On the other hand, I am a bit curious as to what they’re listening to. I want to say it’s most likely a podcast or an audiobook, as those tend to be the most popular non-music thing people listen to with headphones. Still…at least pop one of those buds out so you can hear me, yeah?

Anyway…I’m trying to think of the last time I listened to music with headphones, and I’m pretty sure it was our flight to and from New England last year. We haven’t gone to the gym in months (although we have that on our 2023 resolution lists…), and I’m not counting the brief sessions in which I wanted to hear a new release in uninterrupted detail like the Revolver reissue. It’s been quite some time, really.

I mean, I could do what I used to do back in my high school days and listen to my mp3 player on the way to and from work (all of ten minutes) and during breaks, but again…kind of rude to anyone else that comes through the break room and I’m not up for that kind of short-session listening just yet. Maybe at a later time.

Still…I’ve been thinking about how to adjust my listening habits lately, and it’s a lot more to think about than I realize. Not just about headphones, but what I’m listening to (I mean, other than KEXP in the morning when I have a midshift). I’ve talked about missing out on listening deep-dives and connecting with music in general lately and wanting to fix that. And there is of course the fact that I’m about to embark on a Huge Writing Project that will demand a soundtrack mixtape or five.

I’m curious as to what will change in the coming months, if anything. Or if I’ll return to old habits that work. We shall see…

Listening at Work

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I’m actually kind of surprised here.

Most piped-in music at retail stores are feed subscriptions of mostly innocuous pop tunes that are enjoyable but not anything that’ll distract you from your shopping moods. (I say ‘most’ because our local Trader Joe’s seems to have cornered the Gen-X mood of 80s alt-rock faves and cool retro stuff instead.) At my store I can easily file our feed into three distinct formats:
–early 80s MTV (Thomas Dolby, Men Without Hats, Tears for Fears, etc.)
–mid 90s alternapop (Deep Blue Something, Dishwalla, Vertical Horizon, etc.)
–adult pop from about 5 years ago (Kelly Clarkson and so on)

The other day however, I heard this one song that I hadn’t recognized and pulled out the Shazam app. It happened to be the new(ish) 5 Seconds of Summer song I posted above, and thus the surprise: I was so used to hearing the same music loops day in and day out that hearing a new song was quite unexpected. I kinda like it, too! Just goes to show that the subscription feed we have does actually get updated now and again.

It reminded me of one of my other retail jobs, at the Longwood Coop in Brookline, where the loops were actually sent to us in this huge plastic cart that looked like a mutant cross between a laserdisc case and a radio station cartridge, and carried a couple dozen songs. Each cart had a different musical mood, and, you guessed it, I’d try to sneak on the one that had the weird alternative songs, one of which was a New Fast Automatic Daffodils track that I’m sure no one in the store had ever heard of. And during my HMV days, we had a set collection of promos we’d play in store, but on days where I was floor manager I’d throw on some wildly obscure imports instead.

Sure, I don’t have any say in what gets played at this job, but I’m not going to complain about it. Most of it’s enjoyable, and mostly already in my mp3 collection anyway. But it is fun to have that occasional surprise song that trips me up!

Headhunter

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Getting a job during the pandemic has been an interesting job in itself, to be honest. I know I’m not the only one looking for remote work, and I know I’m not the only one who’s getting up there in years looking for work, either. And in the meantime, I’ve been honing my creative skills to open up that market just a little bit more.

I’ve been getting the occasional employment agency reaching out to me, whether by email or by phone, to offer various positions. Some of them have been tempting but not in the direction I want to go…and some have been a hard pass (I’m looking at you, “the hours would be 7PM to 6AM PST”). And some have been tempting but end in “we’ve chosen someone with a bit more experience”.

Still — it does feel good to get a positive connection and potential position every now and again.