…has given me a hankering to listen to some tunes from the HMV years when I wrote The Phoenix Effect. I’ve mentioned numerous times before that a lot of the music I listened to around that time heavily influenced and/or inspired many of its scenes. But it was also when I had a lot of positive things going on in my life for the first time in ages.
So now the trick is to find some current tunage that can take its place as the writing soundtrack for MU4….I do have a few in mind that have been on frequent rotation here in Spare Oom!
WHOOF. It’s been too hot here in SF the last few days and I’m very thankful that I work in the cool of a grocery store now, but I’m really hoping that this heat wave ends pretty soon. I do not work well in hot weather!!
WHOOF. It’s been kind of busy at the Day Job these last couple of days as the weather has been unexpectedly hot in these parts (in the 80s and 90s and super sunny, which is VERY unlike the west side of SF). This means that we’ve been getting a lot of business, keeping me on my toes.
Alas, this didn’t give me enough time to create a decent post. So instead I’m just going to hang out with the cats and have an early night instead.
For completely random reasons, I was thinking the other day about those super extended Duran Duran videos of the day. You know the ones, where Simon would do some completely random quoting of Shakespeare, extras would be acting out some weird interpretive dance, not-quite hints of softcore porn, or something like that. So very 80s. So very Russell Mulcahy.
The seventeen-plus minute version of “New Moon on Monday” is great in that it’s just like French New Wave cinema: full of attitude, and itself. Not entirely sure what it’s about other than some vague Cold War-ish anti-authoritarian protesting? I think? It’s a bit sluggish in places but it’s definitely an experience.
“Night Boat” on the other hand contains Simon’s quoting of Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet…while the band members slowly turn into zombies? Sure, why not?
Then there’s the wonderfully bonkers “Wild Boys” that makes absolutely no sense at all other than its slight nod towards Mad Max and Barbarella.
And oh yes! I’d completely forgotten there was an extended version of “Election Day” (their Arcadia side project, of course). Oh dear lord THE HAIR.
See, this is what happens when you’re a Gen-Xer and a first-gen MTV viewer, you remember all the fever-dream stuff like this.
…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.
Did a lot of catching up this week of things I let slide last week…and alas, I ran out of time to write a post here for Thursday! Not worried, though. Some days are like that.
In the meantime, the new (and very long-awaited) non-soundtrack album by The The is an interestingly somber affair; it feels like Matt Johnson chose the theme of coming to terms with mortality for this. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, but I’m definitely loving it.
Today I’m thinking it’s time for me to get my brain back on track in terms of what day of the week it is.
Part of the issue is my Day Job schedule. The schedule itself is not the problem per se, it’s that it’s allowed me to lose track of my sense of time. I rarely work Sundays but I’ll often have a midweek day off, so the work week will be Monday-Tuesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday with some of the hours varying, just for example.
There were also other personal reasons why I let a lot of that fall by the wayside, and I allowed it on purpose: when you’ve got IRL things going on, sometimes it’s best not to adhere to a strict schedule and just take it day by day. Which is what I’ve been doing for a while now.
Thing is, I’ve been doing that for a little longer than necessary. [And yes, it’s included hitting all the new music releases on Friday, which is why I’m posting it here. One byproduct of passively letting the days go by is that I lose focus on the new music I’ve been enjoying. And I’ve already blogged about that.]
So what to do about it?
One thing I need to do is follow my whiteboard schedule more often. Right now it’s more of a suggestion than an assignment board, and that’s by design, but I feel like I’m ready to take on those assignments again. And these are simple enough: daily words at 750words.com, update one of the blogs, and get some considerable work done on my main project (which at this time is Theadia). I’m not asking for much. I’m just looking to get moving again.
What will come of this? Who knows? They’re not Best Laid Plans heading straight for a crash and burn. It’s simply a tighter and more regular regimen, that’s all. And hopefully that will help me remember what day of the goldang week it is again!
…but tomorrow we’ll be heading across The Bridge to Mill Valley to see The Verve Pipe! I’m really looking forward to this as they’ve been one of my favorite bands for ages, and Villains is one of my top favorite albums of the 90s. (And no, not just because of That Hit Song.)
I think the last time I saw them was in 1997 when they played in Boston with Tonic opening up (remember them as well?). They put on a great show then and I’ve heard their current tour is a lot of great fun too. They’ve mellowed out somewhat but Brian Vander Ark is still one of my favorite songwriters. I’m looking forward to this show!
I don’t even remember when I started paying attention to the radio. It might have been my dad listening to classical or jazz on NPR, or us listening to pop on the car radio whenever we went somewhere, or my sister’s alarm clock radio, or the family stereo. All I know is that the music bug finally bit me in late 1977-early 1978, and that’s when the obsession started. Hardly a day goes by where I’m not listening to it in some shape or form.
Radio has a very fascinating and often heartbreaking history. I’ve lost count of how many stations seen as ‘groundbreaking’ and highly beloved by its listeners end up getting swallowed by corporate ownership and turned into Yet Another Soulless iHeartRadio Station. It’s a media format that had advertising baked in as its sole moneymaker since its beginnings, and it’s a format that chose not to evolve for decades, perhaps to its own detriment. The internet upset all of that, first with its streaming and downloading and then with its digital broadcasting formats like SiriusXM — which started out embracing freeform but soon relied on music rotation programming to remain relevant to the high number of passive listeners.
Still — I do see that there’s newer generations of radio stations, both digital and terrestrial, who are not so much bringing back the old days of freeform but creating their own iterations of it. College radio isn’t just about alternative rock anymore but all kinds of music styles. Stations like KEXP are commercial-free and rely on listener contributions like most public stations have always done. [And they’re doing so well that they bought the 92.7 signal here in San Francisco, where they have a strong listenership thanks to their online streaming and excellent programming.]
To me, I feel a lot of station owners don’t understand that they’re an entertainment and a service to its listeners and its communities, and not something that can — or should — be seen simply as a business venture for making money. The entertainment field was never really built to survive like that, not without major sacrifice in one way or another. Radio stations come and go in one way or another, but the sad fact remains that several of them end up going the same way: forced programming change enforced by the corporate level to please the shareholders.
But here’s the thing. Several stations lose listenership not because listeners grow out of it; they lose it because they play that same fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers song from ten years and four albums ago Every Single Fucking Day. Listeners get bored with strict programming and give up on the station. Overreliance on algorithm programming nearly ALWAYS brings out listener boredom. I’ve seen it several times with several stations over several years. Believe me, I’ve witnessed the downfall of a LOT of stations I loved because of exactly this.
Sure, we like our favorite songs and sometimes we’re fine with hearing them a lot…but come on. I’ve heard That Same Fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers Song From Ten Years Ago on your playlist for the last six years straight. Why are you not playing something from one of their newer albums and making that song the next track to enter heavy rotation? That’s how it’s supposed to work! Y’all are stuck on the same three albums and haven’t bothered to change for decades.
*AHEM*
Anyway.
Happy National Radio Day, y’all. For those of us looking for something new and exciting to listen to, it’s out there if you’re willing to search for it. You might need to stream it online, but do whatever you need to do to keep radio alive.
One weird downside to living in the Bay Area in the summer, specifically on the west side of San Francisco, is that it’s often overcast, highly humid and stuck somewhere in the mid-50s — and there’s also a high chance of various allergens floating in the air to give me a migraine. All this adds up to me feeling sleepy and lazy most days.
So yeah, that’s my excuse for not being entirely on point with my writing, journaling and blogging recently.
Hopefully I’ll have my head together a bit more next week.
Walk In Silence 