My local record store is a tiny cramped space, even if you’re the only customer in there. Today there were a couple of people in there when I arrived and more came when they left so it felt particularly tight. The guy who works there said there were several bins of records that they hadn’t had a chance to price yet, a big collection that they’d bought, but they were all for sale so feel free to dig through the milk crates.
While the owner does get in new records, re-issues as well as new releases, he mostly sells used stuff. New vinyl is generally too expensive for me so I stick to the used bins and hope that he has something different in stock. That new collection had some interesting records but most of them were in kind of iffy shape. Missing inner sleeves, worn out covers, some scratches on the vinyl. I passed on a number of albums that I might have thought about buying if they’d looked a little less worn out.
After flipping through seven or so dusty bins, in the last box of records, I found an original copy of the first New York Dolls album. The cover was coming apart at the seams, as was the inner sleeve, but the record itself was in good condition. Such a classic. My brother used to play it all the time when he was in high school. I think he probably still has his copy, and given how meticulous he has always been about his stuff, I’m sure it’s in excellent shape. I only have a tape that my brother made me with this album on one side and Lou Reed on the other. I decided it was worth taking a chance with this copy since I’ve never come across it (in recent years – oh if only someone would have told me to grab a bunch more records back in the day).
I paid a little more for it than I thought it was worth really, given the sorry state of the cover and sleeve, but the guy cleaned it for me and I brought it home and ordered everyone else in the house to sit still while I put the needle down. This song came screaming out through the speakers and I got a huge grin on my face. It sounded great. It looked great too, nice and flat. Not bad at all for a 42-year-old record.
New release Friday (still not used to that). Though this track was released about two weeks ahead of the album, Art Angels came out today. I have made peace with my streaming app for the car, after all it lets me listen to things like the newest releases on my way to work on a Friday morning and I’m paying $10 a month so I might as well use it.
I don’t think I could ever be a music critic because I need more time with albums before I can deliver an opinion and even then I’m more inclined to think my views are just mine, extremely subjective, and I don’t feel I have the musical knowledge to deconstruct songs the way reviewers always seem to.
I do know that this song sounded great in the car driving home in the dark this evening. Really loud. It made me want to drive much faster than is both legal and safe. In lieu of that, after everyone else went upstairs, I had a dance party by myself in the dining room. Come on over.
Sometimes I marvel at how people who are young can be so self-assured. When I think about what I was doing and how I felt about myself and my place in the world when I was the age Claire Boucher is now … well, I’d rather not. There are plenty of days where I still feel like I’m going to get caught impersonating an adult. Not that I feel childish but wasn’t there supposed to be some watershed moment that marked my passage from youth to full-fledged grown-up? You’d think marriage or having kids would have flipped that switch but in fact I think having kids just exacerbated my feeling like an impostor. I’m somebody’s mom?! Shit! I know how it happened but, how did that happen?
Is the kind of vision and will that Grimes has innate or did her parents have some really incredible skills and traits that they passed down to her? Even if her music isn’t your thing, you have to acknowledge that she’s managed to carve out a chunk of the music world and put her stamp on it. What’s the secret?
The concert season is starting to ramp up again. I have decided not to go to a show this weekend as I’ve got one next week and then a possible show about a week later. I’ve got a ticket for a show in December and a few more on the horizon that I’ll decide about closer to the night in question.
But I already have my ticket for Savages in April. That seems so far away but I’m sure it will sell out and I didn’t want to miss them a second time. Plus I can have that carrot dangling there when I need something to get through winter.
I don’t care if they sound like a cross between Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus and whatever other bands the detractors are tossing into the comments section, I think they kick ass. Each one of them is just pouring it all into every song and I fully expect the live show to be a blistering full-on assault on all of my senses. I can’t wait. Not to mention they look cool as fuck. I better start looking around now for something appropriate to wear.
Tono and the Finance Company (Anthonie Tonnon) – Timing
All the credit goes to my local college radio station for introducing me to Anthonie Tonnon. I heard two different tracks from his most recent album, Successor, on this one woman’s show on Thursday mornings. I Shazamed those two so I could look him up later on and I think you might say I’m smitten.
Take this song, for instance. That charmingly different New Zealand accent singing, “I used to go for girls with better music collections than I have, providing they weren’t musicians…” Anthonie! Where were you when I was in my early 20s (oh, probably not born yet, hmm). Then he goes on to ask,
“How long ago did you split up with your boyfriend?
Does your blood still rush when you think of him?
Do you still kind of think that one day you’ll be back with him?
Oh come on, be honest!”
Oh come on, be honest!?! Here’s where that little Twitter exploding heart might actually be appropriate. Switch the genders and you have the story of my romantic misadventures all throughout college and my 20s. And if his songs about ill-fated relationships* aren’t your thing, there’s Marion Bates Realty, or Railway Lines, or Water Underground. Or if you’re a year out of college, Twenty-Three is for you.
I lose myself in his stories, sung in a voice that’s a little swoony. If you happen to live in the Los Angeles area, he’s playing at some French restaurant on Friday (11/6) and I think it would be well worth your time to check him out.
*Although, I don’t know how you can listen to a song like Skinny Jeans and not be taken in.
English majors or French students may know a lot about Rimbaud but I’m afraid my knowledge is limited to his reputation as an inspiration for musicians. I should really do something about that, I suppose, but I find that I rarely have the quiet needed.
I was recently asked what I’ve been reading and I answered that I had just finished Patti Smith’s M Train. In my circles, this is a no-brainer but it didn’t seem to register with the person who asked me. Immediately I thought about other books I’m planning to read, hoping maybe one of those would ring a bell. Probably not though as I’d really love to get my hands on Carrie Brownstein’s memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. What can I say? There are a lot of really interesting books out written by women in bands I like. I’ll get to the poetry eventually.
The first week day of Daylight Losing Time and I am definitely feeling it. Someone I follow on Twitter posted a link to a desk top light called Happy Light and said we’re all crazy if we don’t buy it. Then she posted a picture of it on her desk, so it wasn’t just a sarcastic crack at the name of the light.
I clicked the link and looked at it, read the reviews, and left the tab open all day just in case I decided I might want to place an Amazon order. I didn’t, today, but even though I talk about how much the darkness gets to me, I have never seriously considered buying one of those lights before. I never knew anyone who actually had one and I was doubtful that it would truly make any difference.
My office has very bright overhead lights but it’s in the middle of a building and I get no natural light. I do go out at lunch and often I’ll have a meeting that gets me out of my office and in the daylight but I really don’t want this coming winter to get to me like last year’s did. A lot of that was the snow, no question, but even if the Happy Light only helped a little, wouldn’t that be worth the $40?
The Smiths – Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before*
NaBloPoMo, we meet again. I was really on the fence about it but I spent a fair amount of time dithering around online today and thought of some ground rules for myself to make this possible.
The bottom line is, I really love these kind of challenges. Last year when I did it for the first time, I often felt like I was falling short. Either I had connection problems or I was too hung up on finding some perfect song to use and would end up just wasting hours in the evening. I also went to New York twice for concerts and up to my mother’s for Thanksgiving. I’ll be doing those two things again this month so I needed to find some way to make it easier or else it would stop being fun.
I don’t have any drafts in progress but there are a few posts I’ve had floating around in my head for a couple of weeks that I held off on writing in case I decided to do NaBloPoMo again. There are some shortcuts that I’ve devised as well and I’m not above using them if time gets tight. And I have decided to be less concerned about repeating bands in a short time span. Last year I was really pleased that I managed to pick songs from a lot of bands I wouldn’t normally think of. I liked them all but often when I’m thinking of a post, it’s associated with a song that I have a closer connection to than some of the ones I wound up using. That’s the whole challenge piece of this and I like that part of it but I can also go easier on myself. If I’m posting every day then the ratio of frequency will probably stay the same, it’s just compressed. Chances are high almost no one actually listens to the song anyway so it’s all just for my own satisfaction. If I’m happy with it, then it’s good enough.
So, here we go! Anyone else doing it this year?
*One day I will make it to Manchester and I sincerely hope some enterprising music fans have created bicycle tours of all of the city’s major monuments. Sign me up.
The other day my daughter asked me what people wore in the 90s since it’s school spirit week and her class is supposed to dress in that style for one day. I looked at her in jeans, a plaid button down shirt over a t-shirt, and a pair of Chuck’s, and said, “like that only, baggy.” We sure didn’t go for skinny jeans back then. I tried to think of other looks that she might be able to scrounge together. There was the baby doll dress with the clunky black shoes but she turned up her nose at the couple of flowery short dresses I found in storage.
I pulled up some videos hoping for inspiration. We checked out a couple of Nirvana videos, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill (thinking she might fancy a riot grrrl look), L7. She wasn’t biting. I found a couple of Lush videos, maybe she would favor a more British take on things. The only thing she took away was a whole lot of black eye makeup.
The more I thought about it, the more I had a hard time putting my finger on a 90s look. Personally, I went from being an occasionally employed college grad who sported thrift store chic, to someone hoping to be hip while working at a museum in DC, then a cubicle farm at an insurance company up in Maine (ever the home of function over form), a year as a grad student overseas, and I closed it out working on the 30th floor at a publishing company in midtown Manhattan. Not a lot of crossover.
After looking at the videos, I hauled out some CDs to see if the cover art and liner notes might be of more help. My daughter lost interest and settled on her usual clothes; she’d just try to do something different with her hair. But once I started flipping through my music I got sucked in. I picked up a tape I’d made and was transported back to the early 90s.
Perhaps surprisingly, I went through a small U2 phase back then. Let’s call it their Berlin period. It’s a little strange that the height of their fame would be the moment when I would sit up and take notice, especially since I’d had friends that were on board from day one who had tried repeatedly to get me to fall for them and I had always remained more of a casual observer. It wasn’t that I disliked them, I just felt like they didn’t need me as a fan.
They certainly didn’t need me in the early 90s either as Achtung Baby took over the world. Blame it on Berlin. I’d been so swept up in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the huge and swift changes that took place all over eastern Europe in its wake. I also had it bad for the Wim Wenders film, Until the End of the World. I saw it in the movie theater four or five times and had the soundtrack on regular rotation. In that context, the U2 song became a favorite and I wanted more. I bought Achtung Baby and listened to it almost in secret. Of course I was going to love “Zoo Station.” Berlin. Trains. What’s not to love? But I found myself liking most of the album, in spite of the radio saturation.
We had an intern at work who came from Berlin. I rented old Wim Wenders films and peppered him with questions. 1993 brought Zooropa from U2 and Faraway, So Close! from Wim Wenders. By that time, living in DC and my job were starting to get to me. I wanted a big change. I decided I was going to quit my job and go to Europe. Though my plan was to make it to Prague and try to find a job (something that didn’t seem that far-fetched at the time), I was going to start my trip in Berlin. Before I could do it though, I needed to save up money so I got a second job working part-time at a bakery and I tried to cut down on costs wherever I could.
Riding my bike to work was something I did a fair amount but once it got dark and cold, I generally took the Metro. I decided I could at least walk home from the museum job if I didn’t have to be at the bakery right after and not spend as much on fare cards. I needed music for the walk though so I made a U2 tape with what I had available; Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and I borrowed The Joshua Tree from one of my housemates. I wanted the songs that made that Berlin connection but I also wanted it to be a companion once I was over there. If my plan worked and I’d stayed over there, I was going to just have the handful of tapes I’d managed to bring with me for who knew how long. I brought it along in the car today with my Walkman/FM transmitter combo for a rare Tape Deck Tuesday appearance.
Side A:
Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
In God’s Country
Some Days Are Better Than Others
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Where the Streets Have No Name
Mysterious Ways
Lemon
Running to Stand Still
Side B:
Zooropa
Zoo Station
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Until the End of the World
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
So Cruel
Re Hill Mining Town
One
With or Without You
One Tree Hill
I took the tape with me when I finally made it to Berlin in February of 1994. Listening to it is a little bit of time travel for me.
Yesterday I went to a funeral for my former boss at my previous job. He had been really ill from cancer and honestly, if he wasn’t going to beat it (which he wasn’t) then I’m glad he wasn’t suffering any longer. But. He was only one year older than me and he leaves his wife to raise their 13-year-old son alone. His older brother had died some years earlier so there were his parents, outliving both of their children. It was all very sad and it sure made you think about how unfair and random life can be.
He was not religious, pretty agnostic I’d say, so it seemed a bit odd to have the service led by the hospice chaplain. To hear him tell it, after just two visits, my old boss had become a believer.
Maybe I’m just too cynical. Maybe everything the chaplain said was true, or if not true, perhaps it was at least comforting to people who would feel better about the situation if they thought he had come to peace with god before he died.
Not being inclined that way myself, I found my thoughts drifting while the chaplain rambled on about what awaits us in the hereafter. I can appreciate that it would be a difficult day and probably your loved ones are not in a condition to be playing the role that the chaplain did, but this is why I have my funeral playlist. There were a number of songs played at my old boss’s service yesterday. Some unconventional choices which, while not what I was expecting having listened to his music booming out from his office for the better part of five years, were at least a nod to the man everyone knew.
So I returned to the thoughts about what is a service for? My mother pointed out that a funeral, in her book an actual sacrament and religious rite, is more about sending that person off with all the appropriate prayers and solemnity one expects. A memorial service could be more of an occasion for friends and family to remember the person and celebrate their life, tell funny or heartfelt stories. More about the person, less about the death and dying.
I kept thinking, when this is over, and we are safely out of earshot in our car, I am telling my husband, do not let any service for me be like this. Do not, under any circumstances, let some priest who never (or barely) met me, stand up and tell everyone what his ideas are about what I was thinking at the end, or how I was feeling. What comes next. You take my now-renamed memorial service playlist and you hit play.
This song is on there. If it gives people comfort to think about me up in heaven (which I don’t believe in) then let it at least be a bar where the band plays my favorite song, plays it all night long.
Noisy Cats 