Tag Archives: thirty years on

Thirty Years On: March 1996

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By this time I’d been working not-quite-fulltime at the radio station, doing the morning shifts from 5:30am to noon, and also on Sunday afternoons to prep the religious programming on the AM station that still ran from dawn to dusk. I was on my own for the most part until the GM came in and nitpicked any slight errors I’d made. Let’s just say that she was one of those evangelicals that threw stones first and leave it at that, shall we? Anyway, it wasn’t the most exciting of jobs and as before, I was never on air, but it gave me time to play around with a few ideas. I revived my poetry and lyric writing, something I hadn’t done for a good year or so. I watched Sailor Moon on the station TV in the morning (this was when anime was finally becoming more popular and mainstream in the US instead of a niche thing). I read books and comics I’d been buying recently. I drew maps and comic ideas. Anything to get my mind moving instead of spiraling into self-pity.

This is when I’d come up with the idea of priming the creative pump, so to speak. While I was getting caught up on the Great Transcription Project, I was also playing around with various ideas longhand. We had scrap paper galore in the studio and I used it to let my mind come up with ideas. They didn’t have to go anywhere, it was just an exercise to get myself back into creative shape. I came up with about a dozen story ideas, none of which went anywhere in the long run, but the exercise did its job: I felt the creative spark reignite, and I was ready to start writing again.

I should also state that at this point, my then-gf (and cowriter on True Faith) and I had broken up though we did stay in touch, very occasionally meeting up with a few mutual friends to do things. I also met up with a few people via online New Age chatrooms and had a brief friendship with someone who gave me a lot of positive insight on my ideas that would eventually become a part of The Phoenix Effect in the future. So it wasn’t as if I’d cut myself off from the world; it was more that I felt a bit lost and trying to find my footing. These weren’t the most fulfilling of connections, but they were needed at the time and helped me stay out of that funk I’d been in a few months previous.

Lush, Lovelife, released 5 March 1996. The band’s last album before breaking up, it was also their most radio-friendly and popular, especially with the single “Ladykillers”. They still attained most of their dreampop/shoegaze sound, but it felt forced and overly polished to me, however.

Various Artists, WHORE: Tribute to Wire, released 5 March 1996. Around this time I’d started listening to my old standby college radio station, WAMH at Amherst College. I had to get used to the fact that they weren’t playing the post-punk-influenced alternative stuff I’d fallen in love with back in the 80s but was now fully immersed in indie rock that I was only vaguely resonating with. They’d play a few tracks off this one now and again, especially Band of Susan’s cover of the brilliant “Ahead”.

Stereolab, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, released 11 March 1996. I bought this one via Columbia House as I’d always liked them but never quite got around to ever buying anything from them! I’d heard “The Noise of Carpet” on 120 Minutes and that sold them for me. I still get the track stuck in my head now and again.

Cocteau Twins, Milk & Kisses, released 15 March 1996. Believe it or not, I wouldn’t own this for a good year or so! I was more of an early-era, pre-Heaven Or Las Vegas fan and felt their later work lacked the dreamlike sound I loved so much. It would end up being their final album as they would break up soon after.

The Beatles, Anthology 2, released 18 March 1996. I remember the ‘new’ Beatles single, “Real Love”, was supposed to drop on Valentines Day or thereabouts but got delayed, instead dropping a week or so before the second volume of the Anthology series. This one fascinates me, as it dials back the live and interstitial content that was prevalent on the first volume and focuses on the interesting alternate takes, like the trippy first take of “Tomorrow Never Knows”. At this point there was still a rumor that a third ‘new’ song would be on the third volume, but alas, time and technology kept that from happening.

Barenaked Ladies, Born On a Pirate Ship, released 19 March 1996. Before the hugely popular Stunt from 1998, this album opened the door much wider for this beloved Canadian band, with the single “The Old Apartment” getting major airplay on the radio over the next year or so.

Love and Rockets, Sweet FA, released 19 March 1996. Story goes that they’d recorded a significant portion of this album project when a fire consumed the studio they’d been working in. Guitars were burnt to a crisp (thus the album cover) and friend Genesis P-Orridge suffered injuries because of it, but in the end they soldiered on and came out with a sleek album that wasn’t quite a return to their psych rock origins or the techno of their previous album, and “Sweet Lover Hangover” became a radio favorite.

Tracy Bonham, The Burdens of Being Upright, released 19 March 1996. She’d become a local favorite in Boston with her indie-released The Liverpool Sessions EP, and for her major label debut she came out with guns blazing and several songs that became favorites on the local alternative stations like the blistering opener “Mother Mother”, the catchy “The One” and the oddball singalong “Sharks Can’t Sleep”. She’s still active as a musician and putting out her own works.

Superdrag, Regretfully Yours, released 26 March 1996. This band could be seen as a one hit wonder with its clever “Sucked Out” (a song about selling out, natch), but there’s a lot more going on with this band than just being a whiny Gen-Xer. They’re actually quite an excellent powerpop band worth checking out, and their amazing about-face with 1998’s Head Trip in Every Key (done specifically as an anti-“Sucked Out” album which did its job by having the label drop them soon after) is highly recommended.

Stone Temple Pilots, Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, released 26 March 1996. STP, on the other hand, seemed to be on the verge of self-immolation, as the first hints of Scott Weiland’s self-destructiveness came to the fore. This is a druggy haze of an album because of that. It’s not my favorite of theirs and a bit of a hard listen because it feels so sloppy, especially after the wonderful Purple from 1994, but it does have its finer moments like the above single that got a lot of play at the time.

Guided By Voices, Under the Bushes Under the Stars, released 26 March 1996. This is their ninth(?) album so I kind of gave up on trying to catch up with their work, but they finally resonated with me with the lovely “Official Ironmen Rally Song” single that got a lot of play not only on WAMH but on WHMP as well. I did get this song down on one of my radio source tapes somewhere, but it would be quite a few years more before I finally downloaded this album.

The Verve Pipe, Villains, released 26 March 1996. I immediately fell in love with this album not because of the ridiculously popular single “The Freshmen” but because of their other radio/video tracks “Photograph” and “Cup of Tea”, both of which would show up on one of my favorite mixtapes later in the year. It really is an amazing album, and Brian Vander Ark’s songwriting is at its highest here. I bought this one via Columbia House and played the hell out of it over the next several years, as it became one of my all-time favorite 90s records and became a frequent go-to for my writing sessions, especially when working on The Phoenix Effect and the Bridgetown Trilogy. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.

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Coming up: The birth of the writing nook.

Thirty Years On: January-February 1996

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I remember how I started 1996: two friends and I had gone out to see Jumanji at a local theater on New Years Eve — and that, by the way, was also when I saw the teaser trailer for Independence Day for the first time and thought ‘HOLY CRAP I need to see this’ — and followed it up by heading over to someone’s house to play pool in the basement. Between the three of us, the past year had sucked major ass in varying ways. You’ve already heard the story of how I’d moved back in with my family after failing to stay in Boston. Suffice it to say, we’d been so thankful to get the hell out of 1995 that we ended up completely missing the clock ticking midnight until about a half hour after the fact. We just wanted it to be over.

I’d been lucky in that I was able to transfer from my job at Sony Theater in Somerville to the one in Leominster (although borrowing a car could be tricky), though that would only last a few months and end in late fall when I somehow had landed a job at the very same local radio station I’d worked at back in 1988. Same responsibilities: monitor the satellite feed, take the readings, play the local commercials, and play with/feed the cat that had been somewhat adopted by the station owners. And still get yelled at by the station manager when I messed up the most minor thing ever. I spent most of those slow hours working on the office PC continuing my Great Transcription Project, typing out (and in effect reliving) most of the juvenilia I’d written from my high school days up to the present. And maybe working on True Faith when I had a moment, though that one was suffering from writer’s block and massive rewrites. And somewhere in all of that, I’d get out of the massive debt I was in.

But on a somewhat positive note, I’d managed to reconnect with that high school friend who also lived in town, and we often went on road trips, mainly to drive around, smoke, listen to a lot of music, and make half-assed plans to move out to Ohio where one of our mutual friends lived at the time.

It wasn’t the best of times, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.

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Cibo Matto, Viva! La Woman, released 16 January 1996. This was an early Columbia House purchase when I chose to rejoin, partly because I thought this was a good way to keep in touch with the music I liked. I didn’t listen to it nearly as much as I thought I would but I did like the “Sugar Water” single a lot.

Radiohead, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” single, released 22 January 1996. The last single from their brilliant 1995 album The Bends — an album said friend and I would constantly listen to in the car — and the ssong seemed to perfectly encapsulate our moods at the time: it absolutely sucked that we were stuck where we were but we looked forward to the positive moments.

Tori Amos, Boys for Pele, released 23 January 1996. Tori’s music had always had that element of odd quirkiness, but this particular record really went in a strange direction, not to mention that it’s a super long one as well. Still, I did appreciate what she was doing and actually liked this one quite a bit.

Stabbing Westward, Wither Blister Burn & Peel, released 23 January 1996. I’d been a passive fan of their first album, but this was the one that really captured my interest. WHMP — the alternative station out of Northampton that we both listened to at the time — played “What Do I Have to Do?” quite heavily, enough that I ended up getting this one through Columbia House as well. This would soon become a frequent writing session album in a few months, once I finally owned my own PC and moved it down to the basement.

Ministry, Filth Pig, released 30 January 1996. I was at odds with this album, because it didn’t quite feel like the Ministry I used to love. It felt like they’d stayed in the ‘less industrial, more metal’ direction they’d explored with Psalm 69. I never played this one all that much, but I did appreciate their oddball cover of Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”.

Voice of the Beehive, Sex & Misery, released 12 February 1996. This was their last album, but it was a great way to go! They’d gone from jangle pop to Britpop-infused rhythms to sugary dance rock here, and it’s super fun. “Scary Kisses” got a lot of play on WHMP at the time.

Gin Blossoms, Congratulations I’m Sorry, released 13 February 1996. After their extremely popular debut, they came extremely close to knocking it out of the park a second time with this sophomore album. It wasn’t as popular, but it does contain the big single “Follow You Down” which still gets played a lot. I was always a bigger fan of the other single “Day Job” which seems to be forgotten these days.

Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Come Find Yourself, released 20 February 1996. There were a lot of one hit wonders in the mid 90s, and this was a big one, partly because of its clever use of sampling multiple Quentin Tarantino movies. It’s actually a fun album, and they’d show up a few years later with a banger track on the Titan AE soundtrack.

Goldfinger, Goldfinger, released 21 February 1996. I’d say partial thanks to the success of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the pop-punk-ska hybrid did really well around this time, with several bands coming up with radio hits, like “Here in Your Bedroom”. They had a couple of really great albums in the 90s that I owned.

Brainiac, Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, released 26 February 1996. This was a favorite of the friend I mentioned above, and my reaction was: what if Ween decided to sound like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion? Weird half-assed punk infused with blues and heavily filtered through distortion. It’s not an easy listen, but it is a fascinating one.

The Refreshments, Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy, released 27 February 1996. Yet another one hit wonder with the extremely catchy singalong-able “Banditos”. This one got a lot of play in the late 90s and probably still shows up on (ugh I’m old) “songs from the 80s, 90s and today” stations. Silly light-hearted fun.

Cowboy Junkies, Lay It Down, released 27 February 1996. This band had somewhat fallen off the radar for a few years after their brilliant Trinity Session album, and this was a surprising switch to a more radio-friendly Adult Alternative sound, and “A Common Disaster” was an unexpected hit for them.

Bad Religion, The Gray Race, released 27 February 1996. How do you follow up with an unexpectedly popular album like Stranger Than Fiction? By staying true to your goals like Gregg Graffin would, coming out with another banger punk album. It only got some minor airplay with “A Walk” and some of the band felt they phoned it in, but despite that it’s a fan favorite.

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Coming up: future plans, writing goals, unexpected inspirations, and the start of the solo road trips

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part XII

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So here we were, finishing up the last month of 1993, putting to bed whatever my life had been over the last several years, but having no idea what to do next. Or rather, kinda sorta knowing, but having little to no ability to reach for it and being extremely aware that I could be easily distracted and influenced? Yes, I was well aware of the mental and emotional issues I had at the time, and yet I felt I had to function with them regardless, having very few available spoons to figure them out and make them retreat.

Still — on those quieter days and evenings where I sat down at my table and played around with a possible new universe to write in, that’s when I was most at peace with myself. That was what I wanted to do, and I would need to learn how to harness it, keep it in mind and keep it alive.

Distractions and all.

Ramones, Acid Eaters, released 1 December 1993. This was a bit of an odd detour for the band, who’d decided to release an album full of garage band influences. It didn’t get much positive attention but regardless, it’s got some really fun covers on it.

Underworld, dubnobasswithmyheadman, released 1 December 1993. I remembered this band from 1988 when they came out with the synthpoppy song “Underneath the Radar”. I did not expect them to immerse themselves so deeply into the growing techno scene. They didn’t get much airplay on WFNX except on their weekend electronic show, and “Cowgirl” was a big favorite not to mention the biggest flipping earworm ever!

Cocteau Twins, Snow EP, released 1 December 1993. I wouldn’t have expected the band to record Christmas songs like this, but they’re just as light and heartfelt and enjoyable as you’d expect them to be! WFNX used to play “Frosty the Snowman” a lot as it’s the best of the two tracks and the one that closely mirrors their own style.

Mixtape, Untitled V, created December 1993. This one’s interesting in that it mirrors two different previous Untitled mixes: one from earlier in the year, full of recent purchases that reflect my changing musical tastes, and one from 1989 where I purposely made one side loud and the other one soft. Because of this it became one of my favorite mixtapes and one I’d listen to quite a bit over several years.

Enigma, The Cross of Changes, released 6 December 1993. “Return to Innocence” was the other big hit by this band and one that would get airplay everywhere, from pop to alternative stations and beyond to several movie and television soundtracks. It proved that they weren’t just a one-hit wonder with their world-meeds-techno groove.

Deep Forest, Deep Forest, released 14 December 1993. …and on the coattails of Enigma came this group, full of ambient chillwave grooves and ethnocentric samples. This was a style that would hit its apex within a few years before sliding back into obscurity, but for awhile they were just as prevalent as Enigma if not more so. “Sweet Lullaby” was a big hit for alternative and AOR radio.

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I literally ended the year working my shift at the Coop, heading down the slushy sidewalks towards the E Line and listening to WFNX’s Top 101 of the year that started just about when I punched out. I missed maybe the first half hour of songs but made it back to the apartment to listen to the countdown and of course tape it, the first time I’d done that in years. This was also the first time I’d spent New Years’ Eve not with family, partly because of work and partly because I just wanted to see the year out on my own terms.

So what did 1994 have in store for me? Good question. Come January JA would play matchmaker whether I was ready for it or not and one of my more turbulent long-term relationships would commence. On the plus side…I’d continue writing, eventually (and finally) starting the Two Thousand project. It was slow going, but it was at least going in the right direction.

In retrospect, I see now that my dark mood during the Boston post-college years wasn’t just about being poor, directionless and frustrated…but also being acutely aware of my worst habits, tendencies and problems and having little or no way to fix them or figure them out other than through sheer fucking stubborn will. It would take another couple of years and personal events before I’d climb out of that morass and make my way into something more positive and healthy.

And also in retrospect, even though a lot of what came out in 1993 is inexorably tied with those moods, I can listen to a lot of this now and accept that there were some really great records that became not just personal favorites but major influences in my life and my writing.

So all in all…1993 wasn’t all that bad. It just kind of sucked in certain ways. But I survived, and that’s what matters most.

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part XI

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I still had a long way to go to get my act together, but I’d like to think that I might be getting there, mistakes and all. Already I was having to deal with JA’s influence — sometimes positive and helpful but just as often negative and intrusive — and learning how to set boundaries for myself. Meanwhile, my job at the Coop had changed over the course of just a month or so: I’d started out as a checker and floor help, but moved onto what would end up being one of my frequent fall-backs down the line: assistant shipping and receiving clerk. I was up back in the messy and dusty back room checking in the new deliveries and seeing out the old returns, and also doing a bit of cleaning around both levels of the store. I did most of the heavy lifting for the main receiving guy who I got along with but I think he thought I was a bit simple and treated me as such, when in all honesty I think the roles were flipped here. Nice guy, but definitely full of hubris. [I remember he also had a weirdly strong obsession with Tina Turner, partly due to the biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It having come out a few months previous.]

About the same time I struck up a friendship with a woman a few years older than myself who was a holiday temp. We got along like gangbusters and our talks sometimes ended up turning into flirtation and eventually it became a short fling. In retrospect I’m kind of sad that I let it go on the way it did because I definitely was not in the right frame of mind for a relationship. It didn’t last long and felt guilty for a long time about the way I ended it, severing a friendship in the process.

Mind you, I was about to not follow my own damn advice in short order.

O-Positive, Home Sweet Head, released 1 November 1993. This local band was always a favorite for the indie crowd and especially on WFNX. I never got around to seeing them live but I did own a few of their albums including this one with its radio favorite “Hey Dave”.

Fury in the Slaughterhouse, Mono, released 1 November 1993. This German alt-rock band had a minor alt-rock radio hit with “Every Generation” which WFNX played quite a bit. It’s a dismal heartbreaker of a track but it’s one of their best. A band worth checking out.

Cocteau Twins, Four-Calendar Café, 2 November 1993. As I’d said about the “Evangeline” single, the rest of the album had a very wintry feel, light and ethereal as always but with a bit of cold tension added. I listened to this one quite a bit during my writing sessions.

INXS, Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, 2 November 1993. This one didn’t go over well with the fans and critics as they felt it too noisy and abrasive and trying to jump on the grunge bandwagon, but they were already looking to evolve past their tried-and-true rock style. Cheesy video aside, I loved the single “The Gift” and had it as a cassette single, and I used to listen to it on headphones a lot.

Kate Bush, The Red Shoes, 2 November 1993. This album, which would end up being her last for quite a few years, was based on the story of the same name and may have distanced some fans who didn’t quite get it, like myself. It retrospect I think it’s a pretty good album and very similar to her previous records.

Various Artists, No Alternative, released 9 November 1993. I absolutely loved this compilation (it’s part of the Red Hot Organization tribute album collection) and listened to it frequently. Bob Mould’s “Can’t Fight It” is one of my top favorite tracks of ’93 and I even attempted to learn how to play it myself! It’s a wild alternative mix: Matthew Sweet, Goo Goo Dolls, Pavement, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, and a hidden track by Nirvana. Highly recommended.

Various Artists, Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix, released 9 November 1993. I loved this one as well, even though I sometimes skipped some of the tracks. The Cure’s trippy take on “Purple Haze” fits in with their glossy Mixed Up sound, PM Dawn’s “You Got Me Floatin'” is by far the funkiest Hendrix cover I’ve ever heard, and Seal’s “Manic Depression” is powerful. Also highly recommended.

Paul McCartney, Paul Is Live, 15 November 1993. Paul was a busy guy in the early 90s, not only releasing a new and popular album but also making TV appearances as well as embarking on a tour with a great backing band. He leans pretty heavily on his Beatle past here, so much so that he riffs on the famous Abbey Road cover for this one — as well as its connection to the ‘Paul is dead’ myth.

The Fireman (Paul McCartney & Youth), Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest, 15 November 1993. And that’s not all — he even found the time to work with producer Youth to create a fascinating and experimental take on ambient techno music, taking bits and snippets from his Off the Ground album and reconstructing them into something completely new. While it’s not for everyone, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Us3, Hand On the Torch, 16 November 1993. Like Guru and his Jazzmatazz project, this was similar in that it was steeped in Blue Note grooviness and laid over hip-hop beats. This one on the other hand is more upbeat and lively. “Cantaloop” was such a huge and unexpected hit that you still hear it to this day.

David Bowie, The Singles Collection, 16 November 1993. I was never the biggest Bowie fan but I eventually warmed to him via this two-record collection, which I bought mainly because it contained pretty much all of his most famous tracks in one place — thanks to the then-recent wave of Rykodisc reissues finally gathering his back catalogue under one roof. I’d often listen to this one on the way home from the job, taking the T back to Copley Square.

Ace of Base, The Sign, released 23 November 1993. Often slagged off as ‘the next-gen ABBA’ (after all, they were from Sweden and were a two-man, two-woman band that sang bubblegummy pop), they were surprisingly catchy and consistent with their output of stellar pop songs. I’d own their first two albums on cd and would throw them on every now and again just for fun.

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Coming up: End of the year, end of an era, and the start of…something?

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part X

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A few months into my stay at the Shoebox and it became apparent that I was in the same exact situation I’d been in my freshman year in college back in 1989: no flipping idea what I was doing and no mentor or inspiration to set me off in the right direction, with very little money to do it with. A classic Gen-X situation at the time, really. So I did what I’d always done to date: make it up as I go along and see what inspires me and hope for the best.

I believe it was also around this time that I lost the job at DeLuca’s. The only job I’ve ever been fired from, basically because I’d called out one day to play hooky and visit a friend that I hadn’t seen in ages who was in town. My own damn fault, but the manager really was kind of a moody ass with a tendency to take the nuclear option when he got annoyed. Still — that meant I needed to find a new job VERY QUICKLY and found it a week or so later via the Havard Coop — a chain of book and clothes stores tied in with the university with stores around the Boston area. Somewhat better pay and the possibility of benefits after six months, even if the commute was slightly further away.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d try another attempt at the Infamous War Novel, only this time I thought I’d approach it slightly differently: I’d get rid of the aging Red Dawn influence and try writing something a lot colder and more visceral. Not one in the classic pulp style, but with an ironic nihilistic-yet-hopeful Gen-X touch.

It was at this time that I realized that with my movie rentals from Tower Records, I could finally catch up with my interest in Japanese animation that had been so hard to find in the past. There were some really fun selections — early Urusei Yatsura episodes, the Robotech series, The Venus Wars and Silent Mobius (which I’d seen at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square a few years previous and loved) — and a lot of duds (horror anime is really effed up, yo)…but it was a fun way to expand my interests and influences.

Then I stumbled upon Gall Force: Eternal Story. A feature-length film with a fascinating science fiction plot that intrigued me: it’s not just a human versus alien war story but one about finding a way to coexist. Despite the hate between the races there is hope. Then I realized — there were sequels to this movie! Several, in fact, but Tower only had the second: Gall Force 2: Destruction, which takes place years later with the two races almost near extinction, and yet there too lies hope.

As I sat there at my fold-out table (which was then in front of that one window) listening to music, drinking instant coffee and smoking my Newports, thinking about how much I enjoyed this series, I had a revelation: what if I rewrite the IWN as a science fiction novel? What if I take the characters and plot ideas I had for the IWN and its outtakes and aborted sequel and place them in a futuristic dystopian setting? And what if I expanded it into a multi-story universe? I really liked the idea: a lone rebel group trying to find peace and balance in time of war. I remembered the words of my scriptwriting teacher who thought the IWN idea was crap (well, it was, but he was also an artiste with one minor credit to his name who hated high concept stories)…and thought fuck his opinion, I’m going to go for it.

And so the Mendaihu Universe was born.

Meanwhile, my listening habits didn’t change much at all.

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The Wonder Stuff, Construction for the Modern Idiot, released 4 October 1993. This would be their last outing for several years as they went their separate ways, but they bowed out with a fun and energetic record with the great “Full of Life (Happy Now)” single.

The Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen, released 5 October 1993. I remember loving how angry and intense the title track was when I first heard it and picked up the cassette soon after. They’d become a fan and critic favorite for years afterwards.

Mazzy Star, So Tonight That I Might See, released 5 October 1993. You could not escape “Fade Into You” once it came out. It was on TV, in movies, and all over the radio. It’s a song I loved, hated, then loved again, though it’s worth checking out the rest of the record for more of their quiet and brooding sound.

Lloyd Cole, Bad Vibes, released 11 October 1993. I remember hearing “So You’d Like to Save the World” at the Coop job — they had these laserdisc-sized music carts they’d play and one of them had quite a quirky setlist including a track from New Fast Automatic Daffodils. He continues to be a great songwriter to this day.

The Lemonheads, Come On Feel the Lemonheads, 12 October 1993. Also ubiquitous on local radio was “Into Your Arms”, which is pretty much their other famous song that still gets radio play. This album isn’t quite as solid as It’s a Shame About Ray but it is their most radio friendly.

Julee Cruise, The Voice of Love, released 12 October 1993. The follow-up to the creepy-yet-beautiful Floating Into the Night, Cruise’s soft chanteuse voice features more David Lynch-adjacent dreampop.

Luscious Jackson, In Search of Manny EP, released 19 October 1993. Their rap/funk/rock hybrid debut release was so out of place with what was getting played on WFNX that they became fan favorites with “Life of Leisure”, “Let Yourself Get Down” and “Daughters of the Kaos”.

Pearl Jam, vs., released 19 October 1993. Their follow-up to the wildly popular Ten was a moody affair but it’s a brilliant record that shows they’ve evolved into a much tighter and more inspired band. This one’s my favorite of their early releases, and “Elderly Woman” is my top favorite track of theirs. I played this one a lot on my commute to the Coop.

Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, released 22 October 1993. Her first major breakthrough, a few years before “Angel” and “Adia”, was a tense and gorgeous affair about pain and discomfort and trying to find inner peace.

Crash Test Dummies, God Shuffled His Feet, released 26 October 1993. Yes, that song with that bass-baritone voice. And yet it became a huge hit because of its weirdness. The rest of the record is great fun, though, full of offbeat humor and memorable songcraft. It’s definitely worth checking out the rest of the record!

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And to share one more picture, the first few important parts of the Mendaihu Universe came together here in the stuffy Charles Street Laundromat during this month. [The storefront has since become a high-end clothing boutique.] As I started playing around with this new approach to this writing project, I realized I could no longer let its universe evolve over time like it did in the past; this was going to need some world building, which was a new process to me. With Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing in hand (I felt that going to my personal source for the initial writing inspiration was the way to go) along with a steno notebook, I sat down while I waited for my loads to finish and started creating. It was also the first time where actively worked on my writing away from a desk or my own room, something that would also become a lifelong habit.

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Next Up: Cold winters, writing soundtracks and a new day job direction

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part IX

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Okay, so before we go any further, I have to show you this picture.

[Miraculously, I managed to find a somewhat recent picture of it online. I can confirm this is indeed 213 Beacon St #5C, the same place I lived from September 1993 to August 1994.]

This was the shoebox apartment. Almost the entirety of it. What you see there is 95% of the apartment itself: a single room with a single window and a tiny loft — the photo is taken from the narrow kitchen/entryway that also included the stove, a sink and a fridge, and the super tiny bathroom is around the corner to the left. It really was that small, and it cost $500 a month. I could have looked for cheaper, but that would have meant moving to one of the outer neighborhoods and depending wholly on public transit to get anywhere. By living here I had much better and walkable access to work, entertainment and the few people I knew who still lived in town.

This is where my adult life started. This is also where my writing career started.

My plan was to start at Day One with the writing. I had my spiral bound notebooks and my typewriter, a foldout table, a TV and a hand-me-down VCR, my stereo and boombox, and most of my music collection, and that’s all I needed. I knew I had to start somewhere, so I relied on the reliable: yet another attempt at writing the Infamous War Novel, at this time called Nocturne. This must have been the fourth or fifth iteration, but the first not to explicitly take place in a small town. I also attempted a resurrection of the Two Thousand project I’d started a few years earlier in my sophomore year.

I was broke, I was lonely, I was always hungry, I had a smoking habit (Newport Light menthols at the time), and I was moody as hell, but I was also committed to writing. I wasn’t about to let that go.

I just had to keep going. I learned how to find entertainment cheaply if not freely: T rides up to Harvard Square to hang out and people-watch, walks on the Esplanade and through Back Bay, visits to Waterstones Books to read and chill, visits to Tower Records to see what they had in the listening booths and rent a few movies for a few bucks, and digging for gold in dollar bins at the used record stores.

Mixtapes, Good Grief, More WAUGH!!! Vol 3 and The WAUGH!!! That Wouldn’t Die… Vol 4, created September 1993. These two cheesefest mixes follow up on the “songs I like but don’t have in my collection at the moment” and clearly sourced from the family collections over the years with a few of my own dollar bin purchases thrown in. These were my favorites of this series and got quite a lot of play on my headphones. Noted: the Volume 3 title is a nod to the Charles Schulz Peanuts paperback I owned as a kid.

U2, “Lemon” single, released 1 September 1993. This oddball track from Zooropa got some pretty heavy airplay on WFNX. It’s my least favorite track on the album, but I’ll admit it’s catchy as hell too.

Chapterhouse, Blood Music, released 6 September 1993. I really liked this record, even though it unfortunately didn’t get much airplay anywhere that I knew of, other than hearing “We Are the Beautiful” on WFNX every now and again. It’s a much headier and heavier record than their previous one but it’s just as great. A few years later I’d discover that a UK edition had a remix cd entitled Pentamerous Metamorphosis by a duo called Global Communication added to it, which would become a Belfry writing session mainstay.

Prince, The Hits/The B-Sides, released 10 September 1993. I never had the money to buy this until years later, but it was hard to resist wanting it considering it was the first official ‘best of’ collection for him. For the time being I made do with the cassettes of his I already owned.

Counting Crows, August and Everything After, released 14 September 1993. It was hard to escape “Mr Jones” that autumn, as it was played EVERYWHERE, constantly. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the band and ended up lumping them in with the earthy-crunchy 90s hippie bands for a while, but I eventually grew to enjoy them. I did in fact like the single “Round Here”.

Morphine, Cure for Pain, released 14 September 1993. These local boys always put out fantastic blues rock with their unique bare-bones sound that sounded just that little bit boozy. I picked this one up on cassette and loved it, especially the deep cut “In Spite of Me”.

Dead Can Dance, Into the Labyrinth, released 14 September 1993. This one got some seriously heavy play in the shoebox during my writing sessions. I’d always loved their work, but this record went in a slightly different direction, sneaking out of their chamber music style and veering towards folk music but not without dropping an amazing nightmarish goth staple in “The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove” single.

Soundtrack, Judgment Night, released 14 September 1993. I remember seeing this movie with JA but I’ll be damned if I remember any of it other than the heavy-as-fuck soundtrack made up of hard rock/rap duets. Helmet and House of Pain’s “Just Another Victim” got some major play on WFNX that season.

Cocteau Twins, “Evangeline” single, 17 September 1993. Three years later and the trio finally release an absolutely lovely — and yes, autumnal-sounding — single preceding their upcoming new album. I’d hear this one all the time on the radio and it would make it onto one of my next mixtapes as well.

Buffalo Tom, Big Red Letter Day, released 21 September 1993. I loved this local band since first hearing “Birdbrain” a few years previous, and this record proved they weren’t going to stop putting out amazing albums any time soon. I’d hear “Soda Jerk” on the radio all the time, but my favorite track from this album is “I’m Allowed”, which I know I’ve posted here a few times already. Highly recommended.

Curve, Cuckoo, released 21 September 1993. I was so on the fence with this particular record that I ended up not picking it up for a few years, but when I did it became a Belfry staple for a good number of years. While not as tense and dense as Doppelganger (which I loved, especially “Fait Accompli”), this album is just as moody if not more atmospheric. It’s since become my favorite of their catalog.

Nirvana, In Utero, released 21 September 1993. It took me a while to grok this third album of theirs, and it still feels a bit disjointed and desperate, but it also features my favorite Nirvana song “All Apologies” which would pop up on a few of my mixtapes over the years.

Melissa Etheridge, Yes I Am, released 21 September 1993. I remember this album being a huge thing when it dropped because at the time mass media rarely provided us with such a positive message of sexual and gender self-expression. Not to mention that the glorious “Come to My Window” was one of her biggest hits ever.

James, Laid, released 27 September 1993. Yes, that band with that one song of theirs most alternative stations will ever play, and sadly it’s become my least favorite because of that. It’s a great album regardless, especially with a single like “Sometimes”.

Pet Shop Boys, Very, released 27 September 1993. It had been a good couple of years since their last studio album (Behaviour in late 1990), and this was quite a welcome return. They were still slowly moving towards the heady techno sound that would become their style for the next several years, but this one still had the feel of their last couple of albums, creating a nice middle ground.

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Next up: A chance video rental and a trip to the laundromat changes the course of my future.

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part VIII

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The summer was ending and I knew the last thing I wanted to do was move back home, so I had to do some quick thinking: who do I know that can help me get an apartment in Boston? JA of course. He managed to hook me up with the same rental agency that owned the brownstones on Beacon right down the street from Emerson. [This was well before many of them were bought and given some serious renovation and became overpriced condos, mind you.]. By the end of the month I’d found what would become known as The Shoebox Apartment, one building over from where I’d lived with L just over a year previous.

It was going to be hard and I’d be living from paycheck to paycheck, but I stubbornly refused to give up this easily.

The Pogues, “Tuesday Morning” single, released 1 August 1993. Their latest minus their longtime singer Shane MacGowan, this was a radio favorite on WFNX (on Tuesday mornings, natch). KEXP likes to play this on Tuesdays as well!

The Juliana Hatfield Three, Become What You Are, released 3 August 1993. The ex-Blake Babies singer gives herself a slight band name change for her second solo release and has a huge hit with “My Sister” on alternative radio. This was on heavy rotation on both WFNX and WBCN that summer.

Sheryl Crow, Tuesday Night Music Club, 3 August 1993. Sheryl’s debut knocks it out of the park with an interesting blend of blues, alternative rock and maybe even a bit of country, and manages to pop up not only on MTV and VH1 but also WFNX and WBCN and other indie and commercial stations. “All I Wanna Do” ends up getting played everywhere and you still hear it to this day.

Swervedriver, Mezcal Head, 5 August 1993. Another band whose music I loved but never quite got around to purchasing (I had to be extremely picky considering how frequently broke I was), I was always fascinated by their odd blend of PNW grunge and British shoegaze.

The Breeders, Last Splash, released 8 August 1993. Everyone loved the odd and quirky Pod from 1990 but this one was miles better and more radio friendly. You could not escape “Cannonball” even if you tried. There are several other great tracks on here as well, including the boozy ‘Saints”, the bluesy “Do You Love Me Now” and the very Pixies-like “Divine Hammer”. It is indeed a great record.

Paul McCartney, The Paul McCartney Collection wave two, released 16 August 1993. Sir Paul’s next rollout of catalog rereleases focuses on the late 70s-to-late-80s albums that may or may not have seen him at his best but it did contain several of his most memorable singles of the time.

The Sisters of Mercy, A Slight Case of Overbombing: Greatest Hits Volume One, 23 August 1993. At this point the last Sisters of Mercy release (not including the remasters of their three albums from 2006), it also includes their last single to date, the intense and alluring “Under the Gun” featuring Berlin’s Terri Nunn. This one got a lot of play over the next couple of years during my writing sessions.

Nirvana, “Heart Shaped Box” single, released 23 August 1993. Two years on and the famed grunge trio release a new single that feels not only harder and angrier but more desperate. There were several rumors that Kurt was already feeling the strain at this point, and it truly shows in their music of this era.

Cracker, Kerosene Hat, released 24 August 1993. David Lowery’s follow up to their wonderful self-titled debut may not have seen the same popularity, but it did offer the bluesy “Low” single that was indeed a huge hit on both alternative and rock radio, and still gets played on it to this day. There’s also a fun and goofy hidden track on this one called “Euro Trash Girl” that is also a fan favorite.

Unrest, Perfect Teeth, released 24 August 1993. TeenBeat is an interesting indie label in that it’s full of jangly indie pop bands — some twee, some punky — as a sort of response to other indie labels that release the hardest punk ever. Unrest were also signed by 4AD as part of their move towards a new indie sound. They’re one of those wonderful Bands You’ve Never Heard But Should, and this one’s a perfect place to start.

Stereolab, Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements, released 24 August 1993. The band’s second album and the first with a full band (and the first released in the States) features the single “Jenny Ondioline” which got considerable play on alternative radio. They’re definitely in a field of their own, but they’ve attracted a major fanbase from the beginning.

Eve’s Plum, Envy, released 31 August 1993. A band named after the actor who played Jan Brady, their lead singer was one Colleen Fitzpatrick, who was not only an actor herself (she played Amber Von Tussle in John Waters’ Hairspray) but would also release glossy pop gems in the late 90s as Vitamin C. This first of two albums of their short career are definitely worth checking out for their blissfully perky alt-rock.

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Next up: the Shoebox, the bad habits and terrible decisions, and a sudden change of employment

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part VII

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Living with my senior year roommate on the Symphony Road sublet was an interesting couple of months. For one, it was an easy commute to DeLuca’s on the E Green Line to Arlington Street and a quick walk through the park. It was a relatively short walk to various places where I could buy groceries or buy cheap take-out. And of course it was a short walk to Tower Records (and other local record stores). I had a tiny room that just about fit my bed and the meager possessions I’d brought to Boston, with a single window that looked into an extremely echoey lightwell.

Somehow or other I’d managed to reconnect with JA, the guy I’d met my sophomore year and had quite the love/hate friendship with — hey, when all your other friends leave the city, you take what you can get — which in retrospect was probably not the best of choices. Meanwhile, I’d inherited my parents’ old VHS player and gotten an account to rent movies and whatnot from Tower, and that soon became my summer distraction from being as broke as I was. I could afford the two-dollar rental every now and again to keep me entertained and creatively inspired.

All I had to do was survive this summer, find a new apartment at the end of the season, and perhaps find a job that paid just a little bit more…? Easier said than done, of course. Especially when the local economy seemed to be flagging at the time.

Chapterhouse, “She’s a Vision” single, released 1 July 1993. It took a few years for this great Britpop band to follow up, but it was well worth the wait. Unfortunately anything they did was overshadowed here in the states by the proliferation of Grunge at the time, but it was out there.

Mixtape, Son of WAUGH!!! Vol 2, created July 1993. The second volume of this cheesefest focuses on records I had in my collection that were 80s favorites of mine that I wanted in one place when I wanted to listen to them on headphones. This one got a lot of play especially during my commutes to and from work.

Various Artists, Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams, released 6 July 1993. This benefit album got a lot of play on WFNX, especially Pearl Jam’s loose and boozy take on “Crazy Mary”. You couldn’t escape this album that summer!

U2, Zooropa, released 6 July 1993. I was of two minds on this album: on the one hand, it feels like Achtung Part Two: The Outtakes, but on the other hand it stands alone as a strong record continuing the band’s foray into futurism. It’s kind of weird and maybe a little disjointed but I love it despite all that. This tape got a ton of play on my Walkman.

Matthew Sweet, Altered Beast, released 13 July 1993. This album feels so much darker than his more cheerful Girlfriend from a few years previous, but that’s part of its charm. “Time Capsule” is a weird song with a weird video but it’s one of my favorite songs of his.

The Smashing Pumpkins, “Cherub Rock” single, released 13 July 1993. It had been awhile since we’d heard from this band as well — Gish was such a fantastic record that everyone loved — and this song was a hint at what we’d expect on their new album: less psychedelia and more blistering guitar, less obscure lyrics and more crafted pop.

Bjork, Debut, released 13 July 1993. The Sugarcubes had split up sometime ago, and we were all wondering what would come next from its oddball pixie-ish lead singer. I didn’t quite expect her to lean towards dance beats and deeper experimentation at first, but it fit her style perfectly. An auspicious start to a very strange and fascinating solo career.

Tribe, Sleeper, released 13 July 1993. One of Boston’s best local bands ever sadly bowed out after this record, which didn’t quite hit the same heights as their Abort record (which was essentially a collection of previous singles with a few new tracks sprinkled in), but it’s got a lot of great tracks on it like “Supercollider”.

Candlebox, Candlebox, released 20 July 1993. One of the first bands I can recall that wasn’t quite grunge and not quite hair metal but somewhere in between and easy on the commercial rock radio ears, their debut helped the alternative scene expand into commercial territory. Say what you will, it really is a good album.

Catherine Wheel, Chrome, released 20 July 1993. This band’s follow-up to the weird yet fascinating Ferment was hard to digest for some but it’s earned its place as a solid record with several great deep cuts on it, as well as the radio favorite “Crank”.

The Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream, released 27 July 1993. This is probably my favorite Pumpkins record as I feel it’s their most cohesive and best written. There are a few filler tracks, but for the most part it’s got all you need: the swirliness of their trademark guitar sound, a number of big radio hits like “Rocket” and lovely ballads like “Disarm”.

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Coming up: The end of summer and the start of the shoebox apartment.

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part VI

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So. Out of college, working at minimum wage for an overpriced market in a tony neighborhood, and cutting financial corners wherever and whenever you could? Well, not yet. There was a slight problem in that I had to wait a couple of weeks between leaving the dorm on 6 Arlington and moving into the sublet on Symphony Road for the summer. I borrowed the apartment of a friend of my sister’s up in Lowell and took the train in for about two weeks first. I remember staying up late, watching MTV and thinking about how I was literally starting at the bottom rung while most of my somewhat more financially secure fellow college students had it a bit easier. I pretty much experienced that rich vs poor dichotomy from day fucking one. Not to mention being disconnected from friends and family because this was well before social media and email were easily available, let alone personal computers being affordable.

Still — despite being a moody bastard most of the time, I wasn’t about to let it beat me down. I’d survive somehow. And I certainly wasn’t going to give up on the writing.

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U2, “Numb” single, 1 June 1993. So how do you follow up a genre-defining album that completely rearranges your sound and style? Well, in the case of this band, you write and record new songs while still on the road and in between tours. Those who thought Achtung Baby was a weird album had no idea how to parse this single, but alternative stations like WFNX was all over it.

Sun 60, Only, released 1 June 1993. A sunny breezy summer song about Christmas? Sure, why not? “Mary X-Mess” was a favorite of the alternative stations and got a ton of play, even though they weren’t a band anyone these days remembers all that much. Still, it’s a record worth checking out!

Slowdive, Souvlaki, released 1 June 1993. The genre-defining shoegaze band’s second album is a lovely and relaxing record and one of my favorites (and it’s the first one of theirs I’d bought, though a few years after release). They sound stronger and more cohesive on this one.

Mixtape, Untitled IV, created June 1993. The first post-college tape was made at that Lowell apartment as a mix of my favorite tracks that had been released during my senior year, so while it’s a great and fun collection, it had a certain melancholy baked into it. It got a lot of play on my headphones during work commutes, but it was also a stark reminder of a time that was over and past.

Mixtape, WAUGH!!! Vol 1, created June 1993. The second post-college tape was originally planned as a collection of songs my sister’s friend owned that I wanted in my collection but didn’t have the money to buy. Named after a Monty Python line (from the ‘Argument Clinic’ sketch), it was my take on the ‘cheesefest’ of 70s and 80s retromania going on at the time.

Tears for Fears, Elemental, released 7 June 1993. Curt Smith had left the band by this time so this was essentially a Roland Orzabal solo record, but it’s got some great tunes on it like the big single “Break It Down Again”, which I still hear every now and then.

Urge Overkill, Saturation, released 8 June 1993. By far their most radio-friendly record at that point, this album divided fans who felt they were selling out and others who were happy for their success. Little did they know that an obscure EP track of a Neil Diamond cover would become their biggest hit ever in about a year…

Paul McCartney/Wings, The Paul McCartney Collection reissues, released 8 June 1993. It took me quite a few years to get around to picking these up, but they were easily available at the bigger record stores like Tower. These were lightly remastered with several b-sides and would become the choice collection until Sir Paul started his major remaster project years later.

The Verve, A Storm in Heaven, released 15 June 1993. A good few years before the ubiquitous “Bittersweet Symphony” plagued the airwaves, this band introduced themselves with a strange yet perfect mix of shoegaze, psychedelia and Britpop and garnered fans almost immediately.

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, released 22 June 1993. At the time I lumped Phair in with PJ Harvey, an indie woman songwriter with no fucks given, and it took me a bit of time to get used to this record, especially with its majestic length and its curious nod to the Stones record I felt (even then) was a bit overrated. It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely an interesting listen.

The Flaming Lips, Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, released 22 June 1993. Yes, that band with that song that finally put them on the indie map. They’d always had a loyal fanbase, but this was the record that expanded it considerably. To this day this is most likely the one of maybe three Lips songs you’ll hear on commercial alternative radio.

Billy Idol, Cyberpunk, released 29 June 1993. I remember this coming out and being fascinated by the concept, even as critics and fans alike dismissed it as a terrible and misguided album. The fascinating thing is that Idol really did do his homework on this one and a lot of the songs do tie in with the burgeoning SF subgenre that wouldn’t catch on in the mainstream for another couple of years. He still plays “Shock to the System” in his live shows!

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Coming up: The Gen-X story continues: the trials and tribulations of not knowing what the hell you’re doing.

Thirty Years On: Slacker Central, Part V

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The very last class and exam I took for my school years was for my French class. I’d unfortunately learned a bit too late that my brain doesn’t process foreign languages correctly (I can understand them just fine once I learn them, but I can’t speak them without my brain stuttering to a halt to translate), but somehow I’d managed to just about pass it, thus giving me the points I needed to get a Bachelor of Arts degree. I handed in the test when I was done and celebrated my newfound freedom across the street by taking a seat at the Wall (more like a curb, the student gathering spot in front of 130 Beacon) and having a cigarette.

To be honest, I was kind of hoping I’d feel that freedom, but I felt the opposite: now what the hell do I do? In the words of Dave Sim, it was less of a grand finale and more of a grand finally. That’s when it all kicked in: Day One of adulthood. Now that I didn’t have school to distract me, it was time to start figuring things out.

Easier said than done, of course.

New Order, Republic, released 3 May 1993. It had been a surprisingly long number of years between albums for this group, considering they all went their separate ways to work on solo projects (Electronic, Revenge and the endearingly-named The Other Two). They came back stronger than ever with an album considered one of their best.

Blur, Modern Life Is Rubbish, released 10 May 1993. This is one of my top favorite Blur albums for many reasons. They’ve moved beyond the heady Madchester grooves of their first album and headed towards more introspective and observational themes. There are a lot of Gen-X moods going on here: poverty, emotional distraction, avoidance and ironic humor. This one has some wonderful tracks on it and I still listen to it now and again.

Aimee Mann, Whatever, released 11 May 1993. After the break-up of Til Tuesday in 1990, Mann was unable to contractually release anything for another couple of years, but the end result was a fine solo debut of sunny alternapop that proved she was still a fine songwriter. She may not have been a Boston local any longer, but WFNX played this one a ton just the same.

Wire, 1985-1990: The A List, released 18 May 1993. One of the first (of sadly far too many) albums I bought when I first got a credit card (this and the This Mortal Coil box), I knew this would get a ton of play on my headphones, considering they were — and still are — one of my all-time favorite bands. This one’s a ‘football roster’ mix of fan favorites, with “Ahead” in the obvious top spot. It’s a great collection and a great place to start if you’re curious about their mid-era sound.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Don’t Know How to Party, released 18 May 1993. Their third album was their first on a major label, it feels a bit more laid back than their usual hard-driving ska-core sound, but at the same time that helped become a great summer record for the Boston area.

Guru, Jazzmatazz, Vol 1, released 18 May 1993. Somehow I never got around to adding this (and its several later volumes) to my collection, but I do of course remember it getting all kinds of attention from both critics and fans. While the mix of jazz and rap wasn’t entirely a brand new thing by then, this album gave it a fresh new sound with its Blue Note-inspired jazz sounds — a live band instead of samples — blending perfectly with the chill rap delivery. Highly recommended.

Aztec Camera, Dreamland, released 23 May 1993. Roddy Frame’s return after a lengthy break (1990’s Stray was the previous record) had him sounding less indie/folky and more streamlined pop, but that wasn’t necessarily a band thing considering his penchant for writing wonderful songs. “Dream Sweet Dreams” is a lovely track that got a lot of play on WFNX that summer.

The Waterboys, Dream Harder, released 25 May 1993. Mike Scott’s next record was similar to 1990’s Room to Roam in that it was full of energy, but the main difference here was that the band’s sound on this one veered more towards straight alternative rock, sans the usual Irish folk influence. It would end up being the last Waterboys release for a number of years as he focused on his own solo work.

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Next Up: Now what the hell do I do?