Tag Archives: personal

You burrowed like a summer tick

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I was just thinking earlier yesterday about how some of my music listening habits tend to be on the fleeting side these days, and how that sometimes bothers me as it feels like don’t allow myself to resonate with these songs as I once did.

It’s definitely not that I’m just not into anything new these days, far from it. My obsessive listening to KEXP (both online and its local terrestrial outlets) has me latching onto new bands and songs all the damn time. No, it’s the sheer volume of it all that distracts me from letting it burrow deep and stay in my head for months at a time. My music brain can only work one way or the other, it seems.

During my ongoing review of my Bridgetown Trilogy playlist, I noticed that may just be the case, especially when it comes to the mixtapes I made at the time. Many of the songs on those tapes from nearly a quarter century ago still play crystal clear in my mind. And why is that? Because this was stuff that got a high amount of repeat play.

It wasn’t just during my writing sessions in the Belfry, either. It was also on my commutes to and from work at Yankee Candle — an almost exact thirty-minute drive from driveway to parking lot meaning I could listen to most of side one of a mixtape or a full album on cassette. It was also during my weekend road trips around New England, whether it was my weekly visits to Boston, local bookstores, or just driving around the back roads in central Massachusetts.

Alas, this is something I haven’t really been able to do all that much these days. Mind you, I am certainly not complaining that my current commute is ten minutes/eight blocks on foot (and shorter if I take the car or bus), but that doesn’t leave me time to listen to my mixtapes or albums I want to listen to.

Instead I’ve been trying to retrain myself to latch onto songs that capture my attention and keep them there for a while. I’m essentially relearning how to listen to the music I love so much, and it’s turning into an interesting experience, to be honest. Not everything completely clicks, but a lot of it is starting to burrow in there like I hope it will.

A weekly visit

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In going through the early years of ‘the Bridgetown soundtrack’ (as I’ve been calling it), specifically from 2000 onwards after I’d left HMV, I’ve been of course thinking of the Newbury Comics that used to be in downtown Amherst, just off the common and across the street from the town hall.

I’d been going there off and on since 1995 or so, but this one became my go-to on Wednesdays when I did my comic book/new music release runs after work once I started working at Yankee Candle. It became one of my favorite things to do: drive down 116 from Deerfield to the Hampshire Mall in Hadley, stop at Showcase Comics to pick up my subscriptions and check out some new titles, then drive up to Amherst Common to spend an hour or so at Newbury and pick up new releases there. I remember my old HMV boss, Tom, had become a district manager for the chain and I’d run into him every now and again. I set a weekly budget of $70 to spend there, which quite often ended up being around five CDs, given the store’s ridiculously low sale prices, often hovering around eight to nine dollars per title.

Given my work schedule by that time — 6am to 2pm — I could get this shopping out of the way and get home in time to chill for a bit, have dinner with the family, then start my nightly writing session around 6pm, where I’d work for about two hours. It was a perfect schedule for me, one I’d keep for the next several years. When I started working at my current store here in SF, I’d offered to be an opener for this exact reason: getting off shift by early afternoon provides me not only with recharge time but also enough for a productive writing session.

When I moved away from Massachusetts in March of 2005, this Newbury Comics was the last place I stopped on my way out. I figured one more time for old times’ sake was worth it. I bought cd copies of two favorite titles I’d owned on vinyl for years: Blood Sweat & Tears’ 1969 self-titled record (the one with “Spinning Wheel” on it) and Boston’s classic 1976 debut. I also bought some snacks and Pocky (that store had been my source of the addictive chocolate sticks for years) and headed out one last time on my way down to New Jersey.

The store moved to downtown Northampton a few years later if I recall, and it’s still there to this day. We’ll stop in every now and again during our visits back east, and although I don’t buy nearly as much physical music as I used to, I’ll still surf through the bins to look for interesting things.

Dividing Lines: When the Trilogy Soundtrack Really Started

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I’ve been going through my music library for the year 2000 to revisit what I would be listening to in the Belfry, and I think I’ve figured out the point where I knew the HMV days were truly over and when the Belfry days kicked into high gear. It’s actually a surprisingly stark line that jives with when I was given the quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from my terrible boss. It’s August of 2000, and by the end of the month I’d be gone.

The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, 1 August 2000. Although I’m almost certain I bought this in my final days at HMV and listened to it around that time, I want to say this was an album I spent more time listening to in the Belfry. I wasn’t even the biggest DW fan; by this point I’d heard their earlier hit “Not if You Were the Last Junkie On Earth” for the zillionth time on WFNX and did not like it to begin with, hearing “Godless” turned the tables for me. I remember listening to this one a lot during the summer evenings and weekends while figuring out what I wanted to do with The Phoenix Effect.

Between then and the end of the month, I did pick up a handful of CDs both from the record store and from Newbury Comics — by then my weekly comic book run had started to include a quick stop there to look for things my own store might not carry (or sell cheaper).

Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain, 11 September 2000. I’d left the record store by this point and was just starting at Yankee Candle — a westerly commute instead of an easterly one, and twenty miles shorter at that — but I really didn’t want to disconnect from my weekly accumulation of music. I could just as easily buy copies of my favorite music magazines, CMJ (College Music Journal) and ICE (an industry magazine featuring news on new releases) at Newbury Comics. I think this was one of the first that I bought there after starting the new job.

VAST, Music for People, 12 September 2000. I know I bought this one the same day as the Goldfrapp album (and the Barenaked Ladies album Maroon as well). I’d been a big fan of Jon Crosby’s first album under the VAST moniker and while this one felt slightly more upbeat and less steeped in Nine Inch Nails-esque gloom, it featured some amazing tracks that got a lot of play in the Belfry.

*

I actually wouldn’t start writing A Division of Souls for another year and a half, maybe early 2002 after the frustrations brought about by The Phoenix Effect and its sequel The Mihari, which I was writing at the time. The two books do have a lot of similarities to A Division of Souls, however, and it was simply a decision to stop work on both TPE and TM and completely start over from scratch. [Very similar to what I’d done recently with Theadia, actually.]

The music that inspired the project, however, started around this time when I switched day jobs. It wasn’t a clean switch of course, as I actually worked second shift for my first couple of months (3 – 11pm or thereabouts) and wouldn’t move to first shift until sometime in November. It would be around that time when my writing sessions would truly become more stable and frequent, as would my weekly trips to Newbury to pick up new music.

Lippy kids on the corner begin settling like crows

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I’ve been a long-time fan of the Manchester band Elbow. They’re high on my ‘I will buy anything they release’ list of bands. Guy Garvey has a distinctive voice, slightly tired yet sonorous, and his use of wordplay is absolutely wonderful and I wish I could write like he does.

Every now and again I think of the series of videos they’d dropped during the height of the COVID pandemic, which they cleverly named elbowrooms, featuring the band (and sometimes guest musicians and vocalists) performing some of their beloved songs via shared video. By far my favorite is their take on “Lippy Kids” from their 2011 album Build a Rocket Boys!, featuring not only four of the five band members but a full choral section!

When I think of the pandemic years, I often think of these videos, because they were part of a time when the world was going in a strange direction and somehow communities came together, locally and otherwise, if just for a little while to remind us all that we’re in this together.

I’ll return to those elbowrooms videos every now and again, just to lift my spirits.

Revisiting music from the trilogy

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I said I was going to do it and I’m doing it now: I’m currently going through the albums and singles from 2000 onwards as a soundtrack to the Bridgetown Trilogy Remaster Project. I started the revisit on Monday afternoon on my day off with William Orbit’s remixed take on Barber’s Adagio for Strings, one of my all-time favorite classical pieces.

I know, this is sort of an arbitrary place to start and doesn’t really line up with the writing chronology. I’d started and finished The Phoenix Effect (the early ‘demo’ version, if you want to continue the music analogy) but hadn’t yet started writing its aborted sequel The Mihari (that would take place that summer if I’m not mistaken), but the actual day-one of A Division of Souls wouldn’t take place until late 2001 or early 2002.

So why start the relistening at January 2000? Partly because I knew my days were numbered at the record store by then. I still loved the job and wished I could stay there forever, but a) I could definitely see the downturn of the music industry happening in real time, and b) I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle the store manager without eventually ragequitting. It was also a bit of a weird time musically; grunge had long given way to adult alternative which had given way to meathead alt-metal, and pop was having a huge resurgence with its sugary overproduced electronica.

A lot of music I listened to at the time felt a bit out of place. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to listen to, because very little of it was resonating with me at a deep level, as it once had just a few years previous. That could very well be due to personal issues and changes, and at the time I was feeling unmoored.

Still, I was willing to see where it all took me. Life changes and all.

Reset

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Okay, so I have to remind myself that sometimes I don’t need to listen to the entire broadcast day of KEXP when I happen to have the time and access to it. It’s great background music, but by mid-afternoon I start feeling that I’ve lost the plot of what I need to get done. No offense to Larry Mizell Jr — he’s a great afternoon DJ and I pick up a lot of great tunage from him, but sometimes I really should focusing more on, say, my writing session or getting a blog entry done. And I can’t always do that when my favorite station is dropping new things that capture my attention. It’s too easy of a distraction.

This constant connection not only distracts me from my writing work, it also takes away from my ability to occasionally deep-dive into my own library sometimes. I mean, it’s not as if I’m missing out…KEXP stores their show streams for two weeks so I can always listen to that if need be. Point is, I’ve been visiting the old Songs from the Eden Cycle mixtapes and realizing there are some great tracks there from albums I haven’t played in years! I feel it’s far past time to give them another spin.

I know, I know…I’ve been talking about doing this listening habit reset for years and never quite doing so. But considering my decision to make this year about Following Through, perhaps now is that time. Even if it means I have to work out a schedule to create some kind of stability (hey, that’s what my whiteboard schedule is there for). That might not be a bad idea, considering I’ve been feeling the urge to get back to Doing All The Things. Not just the writing projects, but revisiting the 750Words site as well as returning to my drawing. I have the drive and the inclination, I just have to, y’know, do it now.

So let’s reset and follow through, shall we?

Words are blunt instruments, words are sawed-off shotguns

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It’s been quite some time since I’ve actively listened to Radiohead, especially during my writing sessions. During the Belfry days, The Bends and OK Computer would get a lot of play, but the last time I played them a lot while writing was back in 2016 when A Moon Shaped Pool came out. [Has it really been that long since their last album?]

I think part of it is because I was working on different projects at the time. In Rainbows came out when I was writing the trunked Love Like Blood. I’d just started working on the multi-year revision work for the Bridgetown Trilogy when The King of Limbs dropped, but by that time I was obsessing over several other bands and Radiohead kind of fell by the wayside. The ever-increasing gap between albums caused a bit of a distance for me as well.

Now that I’m working on the ADoS remaster, however, I’ve been tempted to do another revisit of those albums. I’ve been a longtime fan literally since “Creep” dropped here in the US in early 1993, and I’ve picked up most of the members’ solo releases as well. Perhaps this is the perfect time!

Something’s Got to Give

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I mean, yeah, I’m trying not to be overly (or overtly) political here on this site, but sometimes extenuating circumstances call for it. Heard this Beastie Boys track other day on KEXP, one you rarely hear on the radio these days as it’s a rather downbeat track and not one of their Big Hits, but I remember hearing this a ton on WFNX when Check Your Head came out in early 1992. It’s my favorite Beasties album and this is my favorite track of theirs.

Anyway, the KEXP deejay the other day pretty much said what I’ve been thinking lately: this second go-round is mask-off. They’re not even trying to hide it this time. And as A said a few days previous, we knew what happened last time so we’re ready for whatever bullshit he brings along this time out. We’re far more prepared to fight back, and more decisively at that.

They can call us names and spew and inspire hate towards us, and it still hurts just the same. But something’s giving this time. They’re ignoring it at their peril.

I’ve seen better days than this one
I’ve seen better nights than this one
Tension is rebuilding
Something’s got to give
Something’s got to give

Nothing’s going to change my world

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That Fuckin’ Guy might have returned to Washington, but he’ll do the same as he did last time: a lot of noise, a lot of hate, a lot of bigotry…but very little to show for it. He can write up executive orders but they’re as powerful as a letter to the editor these days.

We can be aware of what he’s doing and stop him when necessary.

But he’s not going to change our world.

Dust & guitars

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My friends circle on Discord has come up with something nifty as an alternative to the dreaded New Year’s Resolution that never seems to stick. Instead of declaring I will quit a bad habit or I will learn a new craft or I will lose weight or what have you, the idea is to come up with something you already like (or love!) to do but don’t always give yourself a chance to do it for one reason or another. Do it once a week for fifty-two weeks simply for enjoyment!

I got to thinking about it and I thought: I have four guitars collecting dust because I don’t pick them up all that often. I’d even bought new strings for the two six-strings (one acoustic, one electric) about six months ago but never got around to putting them on! So I figured, why not? Once a week I’ll pick up the guitar and either learn a new song, or write a new one! I do enjoy doing both, I’ve just not given myself the time over the last few years.

Sure, I’ve mentioned how annoyed I am with myself guitar-wise because when I do pick them up I end up playing the same handful of songs, and that gets boring really quickly. My dad used to do that on his piano and he enjoyed it, but I also really enjoy the creativity of learning or writing a new song and I haven’t done that in a LONG time. I want to do more than just play the same songs, I want new sounds to surface, just like when I write my novels!

So for the first two weekends, I allowed myself a related option: let’s start by putting on those new sets of strings. The acoustic was relatively easy, but restringing the Gretsch electric (see above, and pardon the dirtiness of the frets) was a bit of a chore, given that they’re held on there via the Bigsby bridge (aka the built-in vibrato bar) and a lot of tension, but it got done and it sounds great!

And just to make sure it was in tune, I taught myself the basic chord progression to REM’s “Radio Free Europe”, inspired by having just finished reading Peter Ames Carlin’s biography The Name of This Band Is REM. Learning that Peter Buck is self-taught and figured out his style by playing along with records — exactly how I did it — gave me the inspiration to keep going with this.

The aim here is not to be professional, or even release anything on Bandcamp or whatever (although I won’t rule it out if it sounds halfway decent), but just to revisit what I loved best about playing with The Flying Bohemians and jeb!: the pure enjoyment of musical creativity. Anything more than that will be a bonus.