liverpudlian lady, sophisticated male

A couple of orders of business today.

Last night was horribly slow at work. It was the first Monday I've ever worked, so I didn't know what to expect. It was dreadful. I guess there's a reason that the upstairs bar has "movie night" on Mondays. It never occurred to me before that they would do that because it's so freakin slow. So I had no problems getting the Bring a Neglected Record to Work Night off and running. I selected Dopplegänger by Curve.


Good times. I had forgotten how much beauty was in there. Curve was among the most amazing shoe-gazer/dream-pop bands. On one hand it's kinda in-your-face and high energy, but it never really pushes you beyond a breaking point. It's still got rounded edges. It's sort of hard for me to break it down track by track, but I enjoyed it, and it filled me with lots of nostalgia. Unfortunately, it's one of those records that ends way before I was ready for it to end. It's not "short" by any means, but I just wanted more and more. The standout track Faît Accompli is, by itself, worth the price of admission, but there isn't a dog on the whole album. Since there isn't any track that makes my hair stand on end or leave me gasping for breath, I can't possibly give it anything in the neighborhood of 4, so I'll give it a 3.5 out of a possible 5 saute pans.

Something the other day prompted me to listen to static & silence by the Sundays. That one was teetering on the precipice of being a Neglected Record, but wasn't quite there. Although this is absolutely the "least brilliant" of their three albums, I still like it a lot. The song "Summertime" is so bleeding brilliant, that it makes up for any imperfections the rest of the album has. Listen to a full length mp3 of that song by clicking here. For the record, that song was the inspiration for the title of yesterday's post, and of today's post. It is also one of many songs where I sing along, but I've had the lyrics wrong all along. There's a bit that goes "Chinese-speaking girlfriend with big brown eyes". I always thought it went "Shiny, smoking girlfriend with big brown eyes". Heh. Oddly enough, I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing and with whom the first time I heard that song. Likewise for "Here's Where the Story Ends". For "Summertime" it was indeed summertime, and I was in my Honda (RIP) with Garrison driving back from a trip to Atlanta. Normally a CD would have been playing, but for some strange reason, I decided to put the radio on. The first station we tuned to, and the first song they played was "Summertime". It was well in advance of the album, which I didn't know anything about at the time. It snuck up on me. Anyway, that was it. For "Here's Where the Story Ends", I was laying on the floor of my parents house in the summer just before Freshman year of college. Watching 120 Minutes. I lay there in awe. I didn't buy the record right away, but I do remember buying it. Wow. Now I've got a whole pot of very specific memories about people and places and very specific events. All of them about the purchase of or first listen to a Sundays record. Then of course, there's the roadtrip....

There's a little bit of hockey news in me, so head over to Red and Black hockey if you have time or interest.

now playing:

The Sundays Static & Silence