Lush – Nothing Natural

Back in the early 1990s I was living in Washington, DC, working at a museum, spending all my money on NME and Melody Maker and tickets for shows at the 9:30 Club.

I was kind of in a weird place, musically. I still loved all the music I had been listening to in college but I felt like I was becoming a little self-destructive and that I needed to branch out and find things that didn’t crush me. I loved that – the ability the music had to absolutely level me – but it wasn’t really helping me get on with life. Hence my weekly trips to the bookstores in Dupont Circle and Georgetown for the NME and Melody Maker.

Grunge was big at the time, and I liked most of those bands too, but there was something about the shoegazers that really appealed to me. This was lose yourself in the sea of people all moving in unison in the dark (still smoky) club, kind of music. Lush, Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, I saw them all at the 9:30 Club. I don’t know if most of the people there were blissed out on some drug or other but I was immersed in the music blistering in my ears.

It was a short-lived moment. I left DC in 1994 and a lot of those bands broke up not long after that so listening to this music is always a real time warp for me. It’s so completely those years of being done with college, out on your own, supporting yourself, figuring out what you’ll do next.