As I’d mentioned earlier, JA played matchmaker between me and D in March of 1994. It was a strange whirlwind of a relationship and, as I’ve also mentioned in the past, we inspired both the best and the worst in each other. In retrospect we probably could have been great friends if we hadn’t hooked up. I see now that my then circle of friends weren’t the best fit for me but I was just too emotionally desperate for connection to find anyone else. Both D and JA might have had the best of intentions, but they’d also frequently pushed me out of my comfort zone when it was obvious that I needed to be there for my own mental and emotional sanity. My friendship with them was very similar to one I’d had back in the late 80s with two neighborhood kids that were also not the best influences for me but they were all I had. It was like living that constant discomfort all over again. [And this is why I’ve never completely dissed social media: nearly all my closest and dearest friends are elsewhere in the world and I’m blessed and happy that I can easily talk to them at any time.]

I’d also started that new project while Nocturne continued to simmer on a backburner. Two Thousand was to be my Gen-X coming of age story, grown out of my college friendships and how distinct our generation was from previous ones. It was full of Gen-X tropes: snark, nihilism, music, frustration, and absurdist humor. It focused on a self-inserted character name Stephen (my fallback name for years) trying to figure out what the hell he wanted to do with his life now that he was no longer a student; his circle of friends is splintering off into Real Life Day Jobs and Points Elsewhere and he’s not sure how to process that. He’s also a musician trying to keep his band from falling apart, and frustrated at how fucking hard it is to be creative and still afford to live in a city like Boston. [Stephen’s band Billow would get a cameo years later in my novel Meet the Lidwells.]

Luna, Bewitched, released 1 March 1994. Dean Wareham’s first couple of albums under this moniker sounded very similar to his previous band Galaxie 500: very quiet, almost delicate, and nearly lo-fi. By this album they’d gotten bolder and stronger in sound, but they never quite lost their delicateness.

Beck, Mellow Gold, released 1 March 1994. Beck’s big breakthrough was a huge hit, thanks to having signed to Geffen and getting a giant promotional push with “Loser”. This can pretty much be considered his first professional-sounding record as it’s cleaner and beefier than his previous indie releases, many self-produced.

Blur, “Girls and Boys” single, released 7 March 1994. My favorite Britpop band dropped a teaser single for their next album, Parklife, and it’s one of their finest moments. Addictive, danceable, and a track you need to listen to loud. Definitely a change from their moodier and lighter Modern Life Is Rubbish, that’s for sure.

Failure, Magnified, released 8 March 1994. I loved their first album Comfort, even though they’d been dismissed as Nirvana wannabees, and this one had also been unjustly ignored by most radio stations as well (partly due to the release of the next two albums listed below), even though they’d dropped a video for the single “Undone”. They’d finally achieve critical success a few years later with Fantastic Planet, but at a steep cost. I always recommend anything from this band, to be honest!

Soundgarden, Superunknown, released 8 March 1994. This album won me over immediately. This is one of those ‘they’d done their homework’ albums for me: they had a clear vision and refused to let anything stop them from achieving it, and the result is a damn fine album of brilliant alternative rock. This wasn’t grunge anymore; this was alt-rock meets epic metal with a dusting of their psychedelia roots. Highly recommended.

Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral, released 8 March 1994. I’ve posted about this one recently, in that I haven’t sat down and listened to it from start to finish for quite a few years, but at the time of its release it was on extremely heavy rotation on my Walkman. It resonated heavily with my feelings of frustration and uselessness and I was fine with letting myself simmer in those moods for a bit while this blared through my headphones.

Morrissey, Vauxhall and I, 14 March 1994. On the other side of the mood spectrum was everyone’s favorite Mancunian curmudgeon recording…somewhat of a lighthearted and fun record? It’s true, when he’s in a great mood he can be quite chipper, even silly at times, and this was a fun change of pace when I was too exhausted to continue dealing with my growly moods.

Alison Moyet, Essex, released 21 March 1994. Alf has consistently been a brilliant singer and songwriter, and “Whispering Your Name” remains one of my favorite tracks of hers. She embraces more of the British dance beats with this album, which may have helped her win more fans in the clubs.

Collective Soul, Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid, released 22 March 1994. Sure, they were Grunge Lite with hints of hippie jam band leanings, but they were catchy as hell and this album was super enjoyable. [Noted, if you want to know what I might have looked like hair and fashionwise in the early 90s, see singer Ed Roland. Heh.]

Phish, Hoist, released 29 March 1994. These semi-local guys from Vermont had always had a strong following in New England, even though you’d rarely hear them on the radio. “Down with Disease” did get a bit of play though, and even got a rare music video out of them as well. WBCN used to play this band when they were feeling more adventurous.

Soundtrack, The Crow, released 29 March 1994. I saw this movie in the huge Loews theater that used to be on the ground floor of the Revere Hotel in Boston. I’d been a fan of the original comic book and while it didn’t quite live up to my high expectations, it was nonetheless an enjoyable film. The soundtrack was amazing, featuring songs from The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Violent Femmes, Stone Temple Pilots and more, and this too got a lot of play on my Walkman.

Pink Floyd, The Division Bell, released 30 March 1994. It took me a few years to get around to buying this record, but I loved hearing the lovely and moody “High Hopes” on WBCN. I felt it wasn’t quite as cohesive as A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which I absolutely loved, but I’ve grown to enjoy it.

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Somewhere in all of this, I ragequit a job. Not the best of ideas and I dug my own hole here, but I’d had enough. It had all come to a head one morning when we’d gotten a huge shipment in and the floor manager for the book section had gotten pissed at me that I hadn’t gotten to his stuff yet. My immediate manager — the one who thought I was simple — literally pulled a weak ‘yeah, what’s wrong with you?’ while giving me a look of better you than me. That was the breaking point and I quit within the hour.

Not the best of ideas when you’re already skint and barely making enough to feed yourself. I let myself cool down for a day or so, and started looking for another job. I’d find it a week or so later at a Brigham’s Ice Cream on Cambridge Street. A closer commute, about the same pay, and I could surreptitiously ‘forage’ (heh) as a way to subvert that ‘affording to feed myself’ problem I’d been having lately. Not the most glamorous of jobs…but one that put me in a better frame of mind.

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Coming up: A creative nudge and a return to…reading?