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Forty Years On: Favorite Music from 1986 Part II

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I like to think of March 1986 as the point where there was a significant shift in music, at least in my personal view.

On the last weekend of February, MTV dropped Pleasant Valley Sunday, a day-long celebration of The Monkees, by playing all fifty-eight episodes back to back, much to the delight of thousands of GenXers like myself who grew up watching the show in syndication. [It proved so popular that the series became part of a regular line-up on the channel for a time, and Micky, Peter and Davy (and later Mike) soon went on an extremely successful reunion tour and even dropped a few new tunes later in the year.]

On the tenth of March, MTV also premiered the Sunday-overnight show 120 Minutes, an idea spawned by music writer and snark-extraordinaire Dave Kendall (yet not hosted by him for another few years, though he’d do the record reviews), initially planned as an AOR-heavy show but soon morphing into a showcase for the early and influential years of alternative rock. The show itself would become a cult favorite several years before the breakthrough of grunge.

Closer to home, I’d been moving away from the hard rock radio of WAAF whose playlist was veering dangerously towards hair metal, and away from WAQY who seemed happy to stay in what was fast becoming classic rock. I was listening more to the AOR and modern rock of WMDK and WRSI, though I’d still check up on American Top 40 on the weekends. I’d also been reading a lot of issues of Smash Hits (then called Star Hits here in the States), a music magazine geared more towards the hipper UK bands than the gloss of American pop. I’d been looking for a personal change for a while by then, and this avenue was certainly appealing to me.

There’s a lot to cover, so here we go!

The Triffids, Born Sandy Devotional, released March 1986. I believe I discovered this band via Night Flight on USA Network, as one of their episodes featured a focus on Australian bands. It would be long time before I picked anything up by them, but I would often hear a song or two by them on WMDK over the next year or so. This would be one of their best-loved albums by its fans.

Sonic Youth, EVOL, released March 1986. I’m pretty sure I heard of this band in passing on WAAF and through the music papers, but never really paid much attention other than seeing the video for “Shadow of a Doubt” either on an early 120 Minutes episode or on Night Flight. They were, however, a band I’d see constantly in the record shops once I actively started going to places like Al Bum’s and Main Street Music. I’m pretty sure I might have seen them at Strawberries as well.

The Go-Betweens, Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express, released March 1986. I don’t remember if this band was mentioned on that Night Flight episode, but they were another band I’d heard about. They’re a critic favorite that you just can’t seem to find anywhere and rarely hear on the radio, but I’d eventually see them (and fall in love with them) soon enough.

Dumptruck, Positively Dumptruck, released March 1986. I’d known about this band primarily because they were from Boston, and there was a great writer in the Worcester Telegram that would always highlight and push local groups. “Secrets” was played on the first 120 Minutes episode I’d tape and later watch (and rewatch endlessly). Surprisingly, it took me years to actually add them to my library!

New Order, “Shellshock” single, released March 1986. It’s funny how this was the first New Order song I’d heard, and yet I didn’t know it was them for months until I finally got a copy of the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. I wouldn’t own anything by them until late 1987 when I picked up the cassette of their Substance album, and they’d become a regular go-to in my Walkman for the next several years.

INXS, “What You Need” single, released (US) March 1986. This had already been a successful single in Australia, but it got major airplay here in the States when it was released as a later single. There was a lot of crossover here as well, having gotten play not only on MTV and chart radio, but also on heavy rock and AOR stations as well. This was a song I’d hear on WMDK quite often. It became one of my favorite tracks of that year, and it pops up on several of my mixtapes (sometimes more than once!).

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As you can see, I could not exactly pinpoint the release date of the above titles, as they’re not listed anywhere online that I could find, so I just have them tagged as “3/1/1986” in my library. Now to the dated songs!

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Metallica, Master of Puppets, released 3 March 1986. This album is why I knew about them well before their self-titled 1991 breakthrough album, as they would get a fair bit of play on the evening shows on WAAF, where they’d play deeper cuts and more guitar-virtuoso performers. It wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse at the time, though I was quite aware of them.

Depeche Mode, Black Celebration, released 17 March 1986. I knew about this band due to their 1984 hit “People Are People”, but it wasn’t until a few months after this release that I finally broke down and started buying their stuff, starting with this one and 1985’s Catching Up with Depeche Mode. This was of course after discovering and becoming hopelessly obsessed with college radio in April, but it all fell into place perfectly for me: they’d just dropped a highly popular record on a major US label, they were getting a lot of print in Star/Smash Hits because of it, and they were one of the first bands I latched onto when I started poring through Ira Robbins’ Trouser Press Record Guide. I bought this one on cassette and it would get an incredible amount of play on my Walkman over the next three years, getting me through a lot of teen emotional turmoil and deeply influencing a lot of my writing around this time.

Hüsker Dü, Candy Apple Grey, released 17 March 1986. I’d heard of this band via that same writer in the Worcester Telegram as the band played in the area off and on, but the first time I’d actually heard them was on WAAF of all places. One of the deejays at the time was a big fan and was super excited that they’d signed to a major label, and “Don’t Want to Know if You Are Lonely” got some play on the station for a brief time. I’d end up buying this one on one of my many forays into the dollar bins over the next few years.

Van Halen, 5150, released 24 March 1986. I know this seems a little out of place here, but I’d never gotten sick of this band, having grown up with them getting heavy airplay on both WAAF and WAQY. This was an important make-or-break album for them, as David Lee Roth had exited the band and Sammy Hagar had taken his place, and no one knew what they would sound like. The teaser single “Why Can’t This Be Love” would be a major hit on rock radio and kickstart the popular ‘Van Hagar’ era with several charting singles. And yes, I did see them live on this tour in August (with Bachmann-Turner Overdrive opening)!

Joe Jackson, Big World, released 24 March 1986. I was of course familiar with him thanks to his early 80s videos getting a lot of play on MTV, but by this time he’d disappeared from the channel, only to become a favorite on AOR stations like WMDK. The bluesy “Right and Wrong” got some airtime, and the quirky yet fascinating album (three sides, all new songs recorded live just a few months previous with the audience mixed out) became a fan favorite.

Pet Shop Boys, Please, released 24 March 1986. I absolutely fell in love with the single “West End Girls” from day one and borrowed my sister’s copy of this album all the time until I finally owned my own, and it remains one of my favorite albums of that year. I loved that it was essentially a synthpop album but without the gloom of UK new wave or the disposability of chart pop; it was something in between, something I could latch onto and enjoy. I’ve been a fan ever since. “West End Girls” also kickstarted one of my works of juvenilia at the time, the next project I worked on after finishing the Infamous War Novel: a John Hughes-inspired teen comedy, and my first attempt at writing a screenplay.

Prince, Parade (Music from the Motion Picture ‘Under the Cherry Moon’), released 31 March 1986. I was a big Prince fan by this time, having utterly loved both the Purple Rain and Around the World in a Day albums and wanted to keep tabs on his releases. I remember WMDK talking about him earlier in the year: they’d mentioned that he’d been working on a quirky project of songs under the pseudonym of Camille, and that he was also working with the Revolution on a multi-disc record as well. [These projects of course would start as Camille and Crystal Ball, lose the Revolution mid-year, and eventually morph into 1987’s brilliant Sign ‘o’ the Times.] In the meantime, however, he’d kept himself busy by filming his second movie and recording its oddball soundtrack. “Kiss” was the teaser single that blew everyone’s mind, but for me it was the single “Mountains” that won me over with its infectious groove.

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Next up: Discovering College Radio and Playing Both Sides

The choice of the last generation

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So there have been a few things (memes, engagement bait, the usual) going around on Threads about GenX and music lately that got me thinking. One in particular commented on how my generation was one of the last to really immerse ourselves in our favorite music to an obsessive degree, and how the extreme prevalence of social media kind of took away the ability to slow down and connect with our favorite things for more than a few minutes at a time.

I suppose I agree to this to some level, given that the internets have dulled my sense of glomming onto an amazing album that I listen to over and over, something I would frequently do with gusto in the 80s and 90s and maybe into the early 00s. While I don’t think social media was the sole direct reason for this, I could conceivably say that it did rewire my brain a bit to cause it indirectly. Over the last several years, I became more obsessed with the tsundoku of collecting new releases and full discographies, given how easy it is to do so these days in digital format. And in the process, I forgot to latch onto those few albums that truly change me, whether personally, emotionally or creatively. [This is something I’ve been working to correct over the last several months.]

Those Threads posts did, however, get me thinking about those years in the late 80s when my music obsessions first started peaking. And in the spirit of the “we’re the last generation to experience this” theme, I started thinking: In a way I get this, especially when I think about 120 Minutes. When I was in high school, specifically my junior and senior years, the number of kids I knew who loved music as much as I do, let alone what kind of music I listened to, I could probably count on two hands.

I wasn’t just a weirdo nerd who obsessed over dorky things like radio and records, I was also one of the VERY few kids who wore those Cure and Smiths tee-shirts to school. That was why those two years were so formative and memorable: that brief stretch from late 1986 to late 1988 were the only moments in time in my youth when I’d been able to surround myself with people of similar mindsets and musical tastes. Again, this was well before social media where I can now easily find and follow a music nerd of equal obsessiveness in about ten seconds.

Watching 120 Minutes, then, was that little bit of extra excitement and hope for me. It wasn’t just about listening to this different style of music, this ‘college rock’ or ‘modern rock’ as it may have been called, that I loved so much. I was also about connecting with an alternative lifestyle that I knew existed somewhere outside of my tiny life in the small town I lived in. For those brief two years this was something I could share with a dozen or so other kids, and they understood just as I did how fleeting this kind of thing was, back before social media permanently and constantly connected us all together. I couldn’t help but feel that bit of lingering hope that somewhere out there, well beyond the unending forests of small town central New England, were more kids like myself.

In a way, it’s like tsundoku in a social setting: knowing there are others out there, just waiting to be met, even if we never do. And that was just enough to make me feel a little less alone.

As for the title I used above, the choice of the last generation: this was a tagline at the end of one of the ten-second buffers for the show. It’s a very GenX phrase at that: one, it riffs ironically on Pepsi’s then popular culture-grab tag (“the choice of a new generation”), but also on the back end of the Cold War, when we still weren’t sure if the Soviets were going to bomb us into oblivion. Added to the fact that the visuals for the buffer were pulled from two music videos with dire themes: Laibach’s cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” (torch-bearing soldiers marching slo-mo through semi-darkness towards a village bonfire) and Killing Joke’s “A New Day” (the slow rise of the morning sun behind a ragged and bare mountain), that tagline fading in at the final moment like a stark reminder of our potential mortality at the hands of others. Heady stuff to see at 1am on a Sunday night when you’re overtired and not looking forward to another week of dealing with jocks at school and grim news in real life.

But at the same time, as a GenXer, we embraced that grim reminder because we dared to. Because there was that slim chance that it would all get better. Because it was easier to embrace the darkness than to curse the one candle that someone else inevitably controlled. Because darkness was where the more interesting, the more creative, the more alternative things hide. We knew there were alternatives out there, beyond what was being fed to us.

Sometimes I think about that, and sometimes I remind myself that this was how GenX survived the jocks and the bulllies, how they survived the Reagan and Thatcher years, how they survived the Cold War, and how they taught themselves to see life in different ways.

And these days, sometimes I hope that newer generations learn how to do this as well.

I need to revisit 80s 4AD again…

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…it’s been far too long since I’ve sat down and let myself get lost in this stuff. I mean, considering I’ve been working on reviving the Walk in Silence book, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of these albums were a huge influence on my high school years, and would fit nicely with the current iteration of this project.

I always call this era of the label’s output autumnal, because a lot of it, at least for me, evokes the feeling of an impending change of seasons near the end of the year. The air growing colder, the sounds of nature growing quieter, the sky greyer. Many of these albums — most of which I had on cassette and played incessantly at night as I went to sleep — might not always invoke a darkness, but more of a sense of desolation and breakdown, and even abandonment at times. You can hear the dust being kicked up as you walk through the wide emptiness of this music.

That, now that I understand music a lot more, was the key to 4AD’s signature sound then. A clever mix of heavy reverberation with sparse instrumentation gives it that same sound that Cowboy Junkies achieved with The Trinity Session when they recorded inside an empty church. Listening to these albums with my Walkman, volume set high and bedroom darkened, I entered another world, sometimes an escape but often times a safe place. I could let my mind and creativity get lost within the music, letting it take me on a metaphysical trip somewhere.

The collection Lonely Is an Eyesore is a great place to start. I listened to this one just a few days ago. Several of its accompanying grainy 8mm and 16mm videos were shown on MTV’s 120 Minutes, which in turn inspired me later on during my college years for my film production classes.

This Mortal Coil was a huge favorite of mine, especially after hearing a few tracks from their second album Filigree & Shadow on college radio in late 1986. That particular album was one of my top favorites in 1987-88 and inspired a lot of story ideas.

Dead Can Dance was a band I’d heard of in passing but it was 1987’s Within the Realm of a Dying Sun that became my all-time favorite of theirs. Not quite chamber music, not quite alternative rock, not quite current orchestral music, this album wasn’t just one that I’d lose myself in at night, it helped me find a Zen calm right when I was at my most anxious.

Cocteau Twins was of course a major influence on my bass playing, thanks to the Blue Bell Knoll album. By late 1988 I had a good portion of their discography on cassette (and a few on vinyl) and I was constantly listening to it. The twin 1985 EPs, Tiny Dynamine and Echoes in a Shallow Bay, remain in heavy rotation after all these years alongside their project with Harold Budd, The Moon and the Melodies.

And of course, let’s not forget the surprise hit by MARRS, a one-off project between 4AD label mates Colourbox and AR Kane. While this one goes against the grain of the typical autumnal sound of the label, it’s so damn catchy and inventive that you can’t help but love it.

WiS: Points of Interest 1

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Our vacation was fruitful on many different levels, and I was able to fill in a lot of the gaps for my Walk in Silence photo database.  Here’s the first of a few posts focusing on various points of interest related to the 1986-1989 timeline of the book.  Hope you enjoy!

I used to catch the school bus from that intersection. Imagine a surly teen waiting for the moment he could pop on his headphones and blot out the inane conversations going on around him.

I used to catch the school bus from that intersection. Imagine a surly teen waiting for the moment he could pop on his headphones and blot out the inane conversations going on around him.  Usual soundtrack: The Smiths or Depeche Mode.

This was taken from the front room of my parents’ house, looking up the street.  If this picture looks a little streaky to you, it should — that was a minor five-minute flurry of snow that fell not an hour after we arrived!  But yes, this was similar to the view from my bedroom window looking north, where my desk was.  It never felt like the edge of the world, but more like a hideaway from it.  I spent a lot of time there, listening to WMUA or WAMH (or one of my many tapes or records) while doing homework, writing, or reading.

From Google Maps, as I didn’t get a decent picture:

My high school, which hasn’t really changed that much at all over the years.  A lot of memories of walking through these halls.  I still remember my locker number (103, Lower C hallway, just outside Mr. Jolly’s room).  My house was two and a half miles from here, so I took the bus (#312) and tried to avoid everyone that annoyed me.  The ride took just shy of twenty or so minutes, due to traffic and a few further stops, so I could listen to at least three or four songs on my Walkman before we got there.

Oh, and if you’re curious, this was my standard attire during my junior and senior years, as displayed on Spare Oom couch:

Not the originals -- the first duster and Smiths tee bit the dust from overwear. Duster 2 was from a friend, and I found the Smiths tee on eBay.

Not the originals — the first duster and Smiths tee both bit the dust from overwear by 1990. Duster 2 was given to me from a high school friend around that time, and I found the Smiths tee on eBay last year.

A tatty green duster (my grandfather’s) and a tee shirt showing the cover of the “William, It Was Really Nothing” single (bought at MSM and cherished as one of my favorites) was all I needed to wear to show my unique weirdness — no need for mohawks or nose piercings in my small town, not when I was already known as the resident college rock geek.

On our recent trip we also made a point to stop in Amherst and Northampton on one of the days, for varying reasons.  One was to meet up with a few friends from the area, but it was also to revisit some of our old haunts.  I’d been heading down that area since the early 80s when my family would shop at the malls down in Hadley; A. is a Smithie from the early 90s and knows the area as well.

Amherst Common

Amherst Common, where we would often congregate

The Five College area is one of my favorite places in the state.  In high school my friends and I would frequent this area all the time, hanging out not just at the mall but on the commons and in the various stores and cafés, talking and laughing and listening to great music.

Panda East - my first taste of Chinese food

Panda East – my first taste of Chinese food

Panda East was a Chinese restaurant we used to frequent back in 1987-88 (and yes, I am a bit surprised that it’s still there after all these years), often for dinner before or after we did our shopping or going to a movie.  After we ate we’d hang out in this little courtyard in the foreground and talk about all sorts of things.  I remember listening in on a conversation about college plans and silently wishing I could be a part of it.  Alas, I had one more year to go.

The former Bonducci's across from the common

The former Bonducci’s across from the common

Almost directly across from Spring Street on the common was a café called Bonducci’s. It was where that Veracruzana Mexican restaurant is now, in that right corner spot.  It was your typical collegiate café that served coffee, sodas (I always used to buy the Snapple vanilla creme, back when they used to make sodas) and pastries.  This was often our last stop of the night, but it was also where we’d often have the more serious conversations. Some of us would trade gossip, others would talk about philosophy (as one did when we tried to pretend we were being all deep and academic).  I would often be the one to initiate the conversations about music, of course.

One picture that didn’t quite come out is of the small strip of stores on North Pleasant Street.  Here’s the Google Maps version:

That corner spot where Zanna is now, used to be where Al Bum’s was back in the 80s (and I think into the very early 90s).  My dad brought me here probably around 1985 or 1986, as it was one of the few record stores I knew of that carried Beatles bootlegs.  A year later when I discovered college radio, it became an important and expected stop for finding the punk, college rock and industrial sounds that I couldn’t find at the malls or department stores.  When my friends and I headed down here, we’d almost always stop for an hour or two and dig through the bins.  Al Bum’s played a significant part in my music collecting during that time; what I didn’t buy at Main Street Music in Noho, I bought there, with a very minor percentage bought at the music stores at the Hampshire Mall.

[As an aside, there was a satellite store for Faces (more on that in part 2) that was partially hidden behind that Mobil gas station next door.  Within that was a mini-store that sold cassettes and cds called For the Record.  I bought a handful of tapes from there between 1987 and 1989.  It’s since become a dilapidated and empty warehouse.]

Holding our breaths

Holding our breaths

Lastly, a picture from our trip back in 2012.  There’s a stretch of Route 202 in New Salem that cuts through a tiny corner of Shutesbury for a few hundred feet before popping back in.  I was always amused by this little bit of ten-second town-hopping, and sometime around 1985 or so I got into the habit of holding my breath between the two town signs.  I got all my friends to do the same, so when we headed back home from an afternoon or evening from the Valley area, we’d always do this.  Thirty years on and I still do it every time I come back and visit.

Coming Up: Views of Northampton and maybe a bit of Boston as well!