Two days of Sundays

I've recently started writing about some of my concert experiences that were most memorable for me, and it looks like this might turn out to be a series of many parts.  Although I had planned to write about something else, I've had a request to detail the events of February 19 and 20, 1993.  A crew of my buddies and I saw The SUNDAYS on consecutive nights and went on a pretty memorable road trip to make it all happen. 

We were all in school at Guilford College, all radio station geeks and all really into The Sundays (I never cared for that whole all-caps thing they had).  When we saw that they were coming to the Cat's Cradle on February 19, it was a no-brainer.  They were among our favorite bands.  It was a Friday.  We were college kids.  On that night, I think it was Tim, Christian, Reid and myself.

I think I was the only one of our lot who was into Luna, who was opening for the Sundays on that tour.  I was really familiar with their first record Lunapark, and of course their single from that record "Slash Your Tires".   Sadly, I did not know at that time that Luna frontman Dean Wareham had come out of Galaxie 500.  Nonetheless, I was into this show from start to finish.  Even though I was into both bands, the obvious highlight of the show wasn't those four dudes.  It was The Sundays.  More specifically, it was the privilege of seeing a goddess named Harriet Wheeler lead that band.

Luna played a great opening set, and I was especially impressed by their cover of the Beat Happening song "Indian Summer".  That was the last song of their set, and I think that the twenty minutes or so between their breakdown and when The Sundays finally took the stage felt like an eternity.  While we were all there certainly because we loved the music, every dude in the room was really excited about seeing Harriet.

And she was stunning.  As hot as twelve suns.  I remember at some point very early in the show -- maybe in the break between the first two songs -- somebody in the crowd shouted out:

         "Harriet, you're the spawn of Aphrodite!"


which is undeniably a hilarious thing to shout out at a concert.  She wore monitors in her ears and didn't even notice, but guitarist David Gavurin sure did.  He dropped his pick, chuckled a little bit and then they got back into the next song.

The set was absolutely incredible.  As stunningly beautiful as Harriet was, her band was equally amazing on stage.  Years later, I talked to other people who were at that show and they confessed to getting teary-eyed.  This show remains one of my all-time favorites.  I was unbelievably happy during and after the show.  It was also the precursor for a really amazing road trip and another show the next night. 

After the show, my lot decided that we wanted to hang around and meet the band.  Most bands, after a show, will hang around in the broom closet they call a "dressing room" at the Cradle, or in the hallway or whatever,  making themselves somewhat available to the audience.  The Sundays, however, went straight out the back door (which is now the front door (EDIT: April 2012 -- it's now exclusively the load-in/out door) and onto their bus.  My friends and I were told by their tour manager, who was this big lummox named Scott, that they weren't allowing anybody on the bus and that they weren't meeting any fans.  It's a mystery why I can still remember that guy's name after 18 years.  Slightly dejected, but still riding the high from the show, we headed back to school.

Sometime that night, somebody came up with what turned out to be one of the most brilliant ideas ever.  I have to assume that it was Reid who came up with it.  Reid has an uncle who was living in Norfolk Virginia, working for one of the big concert promotion companies.  Norfolk was the next stop on The Sundays' tour.  Not knowing for sure if any of the pieces would fit together, Reid called his uncle who said that yes, his company was promoting that show.  Yes, he could get us into the show.  And on top of that, he could get us backstage.  We hadn't even asked for that, but there it was!   We rallied our troops early in the morning and packed two cars full of guys for a trip to Norfolk.  I feel like I'm forgetting a major participant, but I  remember for sure that it was Reid, Christian, Alex, Tim and myself.  I'm sure that there was one more person or we wouldn't have taken two cars, but I can't remember that detail.  And yet I can remember Scott's name.    

After a fun-filled road trip, we got to Reid's uncle's house sometime in the early afternoon.  We played some basketball and drank some beer (none of us were of legal drinking age) and relaxed a bit.  The whole crew of us went out to dinner on Reid's uncle's dime, and he didn't know any of us from Adam.  We spent the night in his house, and all he knew about us was that we were friends of his nephew.  And of course we got guestlisted and backstage passes.  All for nothing.  It was amazing enough that it was happening, and even better that Reid's uncle did it all out of the kindness of his heart.

The dinner that we had, by the way, included freshly caught raw oysters.  That was the first time, and it remains the only time that I've ever eaten raw oysters.  Spotting my trepidation, Reid's uncle informed me that I haven't lived until I've eaten raw oysters.  I ate quite a few, and I did like them, but I have never eaten them again.

The show was a place called The Boathouse in Norfolk.  I think it might have shut down a few years ago.  I might be making this bit up, but something in my memory tells me that the club had a chain link fence right down the middle to separate the over- and under-21 folks.  I'm making that up, right?

The show was identical to the show the night before.  Amazing.  The set list might have even been exactly the same.  It didn't matter.   It was phenomenal.

After being pointed in the direction of the backstage area, we were told to wait for a little bit before going in.  A girl who couldn't have been more than 15 years old spotted our backstage passes and handed one of our lot a package and said that we had to deliver it to Dean Wareham.

This is where it gets weird.  

The "package" was a hand-written letter on loose-leaf notebook paper that was, for some reason, wrapped around a carrot and held together with a piece of string.  This was a really strange thing, but we decided to oblige.  Once we got in the room, we found Dean, explained the situation and handed him the package.  He opened the letter and started reading.  It was, I think, two pages, but Dean didn't even read ten percent of it.  It opened with "I listen to your music every night while I'm in bed.  Your songs come to me while I'm sleeping", at which point the carrot became a really nasty thing.   He dropped the carrot and didn't say anything else.

Although we were all radio geeks and we would later conduct dozens of interviews with bands, none of us had at that point.  We didn't know what we were supposed to do in the backstage area.  We didn't even know if other people would be there.  It turned out, there were a couple of girls who had traveled from England to follow the Sundays for at least the first bit of their North American tour.  There was a 12-year old boy who had won the ticket/backstage pass on a radio station contest.  He was learning to play the drums because he loved the Sundays.  His mother embarrassed him a little bit, but after a while, he was okay.

We didn't want to hassle the band, but we definitely wanted to meet them, so we were just hanging out by ourselves waiting for a good moment.  At some point, before any of us were ready, David Gavurin walked up to me and commented on the t-shirt I was wearing.  "Throwing Muses?!  Fucking brilliant!"   Right away, we were friends.  After that ice was broken, we all hung out for a couple of hours until the band called it a night.

At some point during the night, one of us asked David about the "Spawn of Aphrodite" incident, and this became a little joke for the rest of the night. 

I had the cd booklet of Blind signed by the band, and if you enlarge the photo on the right, you can see that David Gavurin signed it to: "David.  Spawn of Aphrodite" and from: "David (Venus)".  The other signatures are "Paul (Penus)" -- that's his misspelling, not mine, "Harriet (Anus) haha" and the simple "Patrick".

I took a bunch of pictures of the band, but none of me with the band.  We were actually told expressly that they would not allow any pictures to be taken of a fan alone with Harriet.  That was fair enough, and I respected that, but I took it too far by forgetting to get one of me with the whole band.  Or any of the guys with the whole band.

Up to then, that was probably the coolest thing that had ever happened to me.  I was floating on air for a couple of weeks, and I would often search for an excuse to tell and re-tell the story.  It's been a really long time since I've told it.  

The time I showed up a little early for Mogwai

I've mentioned before that I used to go to a lot of concerts and that I used to make a point to show up very early. This is about one of the times that I showed up crazily early. I guess I was pretty excited about going to see Mogwai.  Too excited.

I'm not able to pinpoint the exact date of the show, but I know that it was a Thursday. By my best recollection, it was the spring of 2000. I used to keep old Cat's Cradle schedules for this precise reason. I used to say that there would be a day, maybe eleven years down the road when I would need to know the exact date of a show I went to and who was opening and who played the nights before and after. Unfortunately, those schedules are long gone now, but I can say with about 91% certainty that it was spring 2000.

I had just gotten into Mogwai and got really pumped up about going to see them play. Maybe it's because I was going to a lot of shows back then (and had more opportunity to have my mind blown). Maybe I was more impressionable. Maybe the late nineties really were a "golden age" of indie rock and of live performance. I don't know, but it seems like a lot of the best shows I've ever been to came from a five- or six- year window just after I got out of college. I was hoping that this show was going to be one to add to that list.

I was looking forward to this show for months. I don't think I can possibly iterate the amount of anticipation I was feeling. So when Thursday rolled around, I did my normal routine of leaving town crazily early to ensure that I was the FIRST person in after they opened the doors. To this day, I still don't know why I thought it was so important to me to do that, but that was how I used to roll.

I arrived to the Cat's Cradle and they hadn't yet opened the door, so I stood around in the parking lot waiting. And waiting. As the minutes passed, other people started to show up in the parking lot and they didn't look like they were Mogwai fans. They were straight-up Rasta. Whatever, I thought. I guessed that Mogwai's appeal wasn't just to pasty white kids, and I didn't think much of it. Their numbers started to grow and I thought that it was strange that these guys were queueing up for Mogwai, but still didn't think a whole lot of it. Then some other Rasta fellows started to load some gear into the club. I thought that this was a really strange bill, with a reggae band opening for a post-rock band, but it wasn't my place to judge.

I'm not into reggae at all. For maybe about two weeks when I was in the eleventh grade, I thought that I was, but it didn't stick. Over the years, my tolerance threshold for reggae has gotten lower, and it wasn't really all that high back then, but I would have put up with 30 minutes or so from an opening act.

Then another reggae group started to load in their gear and I started to think that something was wrong. Too embarrassed to ask anyone, I casually strolled over to the front window of the club, whistling that tune that you whistle when you're trying to look like you're casually minding your own business. I pretended to be curious about the upcoming shows, but really I was making sure that I hadn't botched the date of the show. I didn't see a main calendar, so I just glanced over the placards. Oh look! Guided by Voices! I'll have to go to that. The Wedding Present? Count me in! Stereolab? Wouldn't miss it! And there was the poster for the Mogwai show. The show was on a Thursday, and there I was on Thursday.

A week early.

I was a little embarrassed and actually angry. Angry at myself for being a complete imbecile. Angry at the situation. Angry that I didn't like reggae.   A normal person would have shaken it off, gone to get some dinner and found some way to make the best of an undeniably funny situation. I could have called a friend or two and met them for drinks. I could have gone on my own for drinks. I could have found something -- anything -- to do in Chapel Hill. Instead, I stomped back to my car and drove straight to Greensboro.

I came back for the show on the correct date,  but with the wind already taken out of my sails.  After I had committed an error that led to anitclimax, I couldn't rebuild the anticipation.  I was already defeated, so I didn't get charged up.  Maybe it was my blasé attitude going into it, but  I can't say that I remember anything about the show. Except that I bought a cd copy of Ten Rapid from the merch desk.  It's fair to say that although I didn't have a lousy time, I didn't have my socks knocked off.  And now I remember my first (and only) Mogwai show not because of anything they did on stage but because of my own miscue.

To this day, whether it's a concert or a hockey game or an airplane trip or a play or what have you, I always check the tickets twice just before I leave the house. Once to make sure I've got them and once to make sure I've got the time and date right. And then I check them again. And then, later, I check them again.  And just before I enter the venue, I check them again. 

From Montreal, (or Alabama, or Wherever) with Love: Part II -- 03.08.2003

I recently told a story to a new circle of friends about my first exposure to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, how I came to love that band and how this eventually led to a bizarre trip to Athens, Georgia.  I've been urged by them to retell the story in greater detail, so it gives me the perfect excuse to be more active on this page.
The first part of the story, which I wrote here a couple of days ago, deals with the details of the very first time I ever heard GY!BE, which was when I blindly went to see them perform on my 28th birthday.

The second part of the story involves an internet romance, an epic ice storm, a massive power outage and my second and only other time seeing them perform.  Again, it isn't the concert, but rather the events surrounding it that make the story worth telling.   The date of the show was March 8, 2003, but there's quite a bit of backstory that has to be told, so I have to go back about a year.

In the spring of 2002, I decided to give internet dating a try, and I had a couple of first dates this way, but nothing special.  Sometime in the summer of that year, a girl named Jessica initiated contact with me through the dating service.  She was from Alabama, and I didn't think anything other than a friendship would come out of that.  Over the next several weeks, we exchanged a lot of emails and phone calls, and it was pretty cool.  Again, I didn't really think that anything was going on, but she suggested that we meet in person.  She pointed out that it was, after all, a dating site that brought us together and we should treat it as such.  We knew that we had very similar taste in music, and the best way would be to get together for a concert experience.

We finally decided that Jessica was going to drive up here in early December and we would hang out for a week, during which we would go to an Aimee Mann concert in Durham on December 4.  This was not, incidentally, the first time in my life that I'd convinced a young woman who I'd never met in person to travel a great distance to spend a week with me.  But that's another story.   

She arrived here on Tuesday the 3rd and was going to stay until the 11th.  Being the gentleman that I sometimes am, I offered her my bedroom while I slept on the couch.  For the first night anyway.  I had to work the next day, and she slept for most of the day.  We were supposed to go to the Aimee Mann show, but a snow and ice storm moved in pretty quickly and made travel impossible.  If I remember correctly, the interstate highways were shut down due to significant icing.  About three inches of snow fell and was topped by almost an inch of ice.  We didn't go to the show, and as it turned out, they didn't offer refunds.  We ended up getting a ride from my place to my friend Kari's, where we all played board games, ate dinner and had drinks until the wee hours.

Overnight Wednesday, as the accumulated ice caused tree limbs and power lines to fall, over a million North Carolnians lost power.  I was one of the hardest hit.  Although I have a gas furnace, it needs electricity to pump the heat, and that wasn't happening.  My water, but not my stove, is gas-powered, so we were able to have hot showers and that's about it.  The road conditions improved rapidly, and we were able to get around on Thursday, but my electricity wouldn't be restored for ten days.  That's what I mean when I say that I was one of the hardest hit.  It reminded me of Hurricane Hugo in September of 1989, when my family was without electricity for 14 days.  There's a big difference, though in being without power when it's 60 degrees outside and when it's 15 degrees.

On Thursday, we stayed at another friend's place so we could be warm, but we decided that we needed some ...um..  privacy, so we moved out in the morning.  Every hotel room in town was booked, so we had no choice but to go back to my place.  I had to go to work, and I'm not sure what Jessica did during the day, but we went to a Hurricanes game (a 2-0 shutout loss at the hands of Roberto Luongo and the Florida Panthers) that night, then came back to my icy apartment.

Saturday, by my memory, was a warmer day and again, the conditions improved.  This gave false hope that power would be restored, but it wasn't.  We went to a movie that afternoon.  She was an artist and wanted to see the Frida Kahlo biopic, so that was it.  After that, a bunch of driving around.  As luck had it, Matt Pond, PA was playing a in-store show here in Greensboro, so we went to that, then out for a few drinks, then back to my arctic apartment.

In the morning, Jessica feigned some family emergency and said that she had to cut her visit four days short.  I knew that the real reason was that it was just too damned cold in my icebox, but there's nothing I could do about that.  I felt awful that this was supposed to be a week of romance and good times, but the ice storm and the power outage weren't things that I could do anything about.  I sort of assumed that we would never see each other again.  We got along fairly well and there were some minor sparks, but with all the other factors, it was kind of a disaster.

We continued our telephone and email relationship and at some point, there was some talk of her moving here to go to graduate school in Greensboro.  Once she started talking about that, I started to think about our "relationship" as something a little more serious.

And now, we're finally to "the story".  Jessica and I planned to have another "date" at a neutral site.  We decided to go to see GY!BE play at the 40 Watt club in Athens, Georgia.  This meant a five-hour drive for me and about a two-hour drive for her.  Not knowing the town of Athens at all, I bought the tickets to the show and booked a hotel room at a brand-name hotel that was pretty close to the club.  As it turned out, the hotel was about two blocks away from the club and was probably the worst hotel in the national chain.  It was the kind of "hotel" where people live.  The kind of place where you have to check on your car about once every 15 minutes.  The type of place where the pizza guy won't deliver after the sun goes down.  I couldn't have known this when I booked the room.  I simply trusted the name brand, even if the brand wasn't top-tier.  I knew not to expect something like the Westin, but I was expecting it to be better than the crack motel that it was.

The show was on Saturday March 8, 2003, and we decided to get to Athens a day early.  She arrived a little before I did, and was sleeping when I got there.  I think it was spring break for UGA, because there weren't many kids out and about on that Friday night, but we bounced around from one bar to the next, finally ending up in some shady below-street bar where a bad local band was playing badly. 

Saturday afternoon, we walked around a lot and found it to be a cool little town.  One bizarre moment occurred when we were out at lunch and a girl approached me and named the place where I worked in Greensboro.  I had never seen the girl before, or at least I didn't recognize her, but she obviously knew me.  It made me feel really weird.

Jessica and I had both heard that the guys in GY!BE didn't like giving interviews and didn't like photography at their shows.  I think when I bought the tickets, the website said something about "no photography", but we sort of assumed that this meant "no professional photography".   Jessica, being a  photographer, had a pretty nice camera and tried to take it into the club with her.  She got it through the door, but there were signs posted all over the place indicating that the band was quite serious about not allowing photography.  She was asked to leave, or at least to get rid of the camera.  Since our hotel was just around the corner, we took the camera back and got back to the club in plenty of time for the show.

My memory isn't perfect, but I think that it was Black Dice who opened for GY!BE.  I didn't care for them then, and I haven't warmed up to them since then.  I didn't let it ruin our night, though.

While the show in Chapel Hill on my 28th birthday was sparsely attended, this one was packed.  We weren't able to get very close to the stage, and it was tough to get drinks, but we didn't let that ruin our night, either.  I was really jealous of Jessica, because she was getting to see them for the first time.  You don't get that thrill twice.  They were still really amazing the second time, but there's still something special about the first time.  And in my case, my first time seeing them was my first time hearing them, so it was even more amazing to me.  Again, according to setlist.fm, they played a six-song set and a one-song encore.  Included in this was two of the "new" songs from Yanqui U.X.O., which wouldn't be released until the autumn of that year.

I don't remember any weird goings-on on after the show on Saturday night, but I do remember a whole lot of awkwardness in the morning on Sunday.  I couldn't wait to get on the road and get back home.  I think both of us reached a point where it was just over between us.   

I never saw Jessica (or GY!BE) again.  For that matter, I never talked to her again.  A couple of weeks later, I found myself reunited with an old girlfriend and I had a good thing going there for a while until I managed to fuck that up a year later.

From Montreal, (or Alabama, or Wherever) with Love: Part I -- 10.03.1999

We all have a handful of events in our lives that stand out in our memories.  Of course there's the big stuff like weddings and births and deaths in our families.  September 11.  I'm not talking about those.  I'm talking about littler things.  Like the way we remember where we were and what we were doing the fist time we heard a certain record, or a certain band.  The first time we laid eyes on a person who would later become our spouse.  The person who introduced us to our favorite author and which book it was that they lent us.  That kind of thing.

This is about one of those moments.  This is about the first time I laid ears on Montréal post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  October 3, 1999.  Although I definitely would have heard about them eventually, this is about how I came upon them on my own, by chance, and how they would eventually become one of my favorite bands.  In part II, this is also about a crazy adventure involving an internet date, a huge ice storm, a shady motel and a road trip to see GYBE play.  Act one of this story isn't quite as cinematic, though. 

Back in the late 1990s,  I used to go to a lot of concerts regardless of the night of the week.  If there was a band that I was even remotely interested in, I would drive from Greensboro to Chapel Hill to see them, often getting there hours before the doors opened.  I'd be there at sound check, then I'd go mull around the town for a few hours before returning to the club to be the first one to secure a spot at the front of the stage.

I made an acquaintance who did the same thing as I did for the same shows. Dozens of shows, we'd both be there in the front row.  We'd both be there trying to snag the set list off the monitors after the show.  We never really became friends, but eventually, we started to trade stories about bands we'd seen.  Somehow, this guy convinced me to do something he'd been doing for years.  He told me that he always went to a show on his birthday, and that he often went, on his birthday, to see bands that he'd never heard of.  Sometimes it worked out well, but most times, he said, it didn't.  Still, it was a tradition that he'd been keeping for several years, and he urged me to try. 

It was 1999, and there was a show on my birthday at the Cat's Cradle.  It was a band I'd never heard of, but I was willing to give it a shot.  Just for something to do.  At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GY!BE)  (or, as they were known back then, GYBE!) other than that they were not a reggae band.  I took a shot in the dark and bought a ticket.  Back in those days, you had to buy hard tickets to things, or phone in an order and get on the list.  So I picked up a hard ticket one time when I was in Chapel Hill for something else.  In those days, we didn't have the kinds of resources available to us that we have now, so it was a little more difficult to check out a band.  I didn't even own a computer back then.

Sure, I could have gone to the BBs record store (RIP) and previewed a copy of F♯ A♯ ∞, but I think there was something in me that wanted it to remain a mystery.  I wanted, for the thrill of it, to go in there completely blind.  It's a high risk-high reward proposition, but I was willing to go for it.

It turned out that my friends Steve and Amy were getting married to each other two days before that show, at the beautiful Grove Park Inn in Asheville NC.  Their wedding was on Friday night, and my birthday (and the GYBE show) was on Sunday.  It was perfect.  The wedding was beautiful, and I got to hang out with a bunch of my friends all together in one place for the first time since we all graduated college five years earlier.

If I'm honest, I don't remember much about Saturday.  I remember the lot of us (probably about 15 in all) going to some hippie breakfast place to eat some granola and whole grain pancakes.  In those days, it was impossible to find a piece of bacon or sausage links in Asheville,so I'm sure I also "enjoyed" some tofu or some shit like that.  I remember that there was some smelly hippie playing folk music on his acoustic guitar.  I guess it was "open mic morning" or something.  At some point, he asked if there were any requests from the "crowd", and my friend Doug, without missing a beat, uttered "How about the sound of silence?".  He wasn't requesting the Simon&Garfunkle song.  He wanted actual silence.  We all did, since we were a bit hung over.  That's what I remember about Saturday.  This isn't about Saturday, though.  This is about Sunday.

On Sunday morning, we all went our different ways.  In a pretty extreme fashion.  Most of us just went home.  The aforementioned Doug drove our friend Hans to International Falls, Minnesota.   This is technically quite a bit north of the actual headwaters of the Mississippi River, but this is the spot that Hans and other folks choose as the launching point for a kayak voyage on the mighty river.  Hans wanted to become the next person to kayak the entire length of the Mississippi River solo.   For the record, he didn't make it.   He switched to a bicycle somewhere near Winona Minnesota and planned to make the rest of the trip on two wheels.   For the record, that didn't work, either.

I hopped into my 1989 Honda Accord and drove back home for a few hours.  I think I did anyway. I think that I left Asheville in the mid-morning and went home for a few hours before going to Chapel Hill that night.  There's some slight possibility that I went straight from Asheville to Chapel Hill, but I'm pretty sure that I made a pit stop at the house first.  

As I said, I didn't know the first thing about GYBE, but I made sure to get there early.  I don't recall who was the opening act, and it really isn't important.  When Godspeed hit the stage with their film projectors and their eight (or so) band members, I was definitely intrigued.  It didn't take long for that sense of intrigue to turn into awe.  This is one of only a few concerts in my life when I have been absolutely gobsmacked.  This is a brilliant turn of speech that we don't use in the United States, but it means, essentially, "blown away".

My memory isn't perfect, and it was my very first exposure to the band, so I can't depend on my memory here.  According to setlist.fm, they opened with "Broken Windows, Locks of Love, part III", which is only one part of the first song from the first disc of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennae to Heaven.  That record hadn't been released yet, so almost everyone in the crowd was hearing it for the first time.  However, I can safely say that I was absolutely and completely gobsmacked within the first minute, and I knew that I'd made an excellent choice to come see this band.  By the end of the nine minute song sequence, I could barely even breathe.  There have been maybe three concert experiences that put me into this state of mind and functionality.  It was, simply put, amazing.

When the show ended, some 90 minutes (or so) later, I was in a daze.  Again, I can only remember two other shows that have left me in a daze.  I've been impressed, even amazed by a bunch of live shows, but only a precious few have taken my breath away.  I marched over to the merch table and bought a cd of  F♯ A♯ ∞, and listened to that on the drive home.  And then probably about three times in a row that night.  I became a huge fan, immediately. Unlike dozens of bands over the years, this wasn't a "flavour of the moment".  They remain, to this day, a favorite band of mine.

I wouldn't learn until much later that the band valued its privacy the way that those hippies in Asheville value their patchouli.  It didn't matter to me on this night, but it would come into play the next time I saw them perform, three and a half years later. 

Part II of this will detail a crazy road trip to Athens, GA in March of 2003, where I saw Godspeed for the second time.  I haven't seen them since, and I can't imagine that I would be able to spin a fictional tale crazier than the one that actually happened.  Hopefully, I'll get it up and running on Thursday.  

Our favorite 15 Non-Canadian albums of 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a list of my favorite 15 Canadian albums of 2010. I had a pool of about 23 new releases in my library to work from, so it wasn't too difficult to narrow it down to 15. The non-Canadian list was tougher I have about 40 in that pool of new releases. A couple were added to the pool at the very last minute, and one even snuck into the top 15 with a late entry. Some of the ones that didn't make the final cut will come as a surprise or even a shock, but it is what it is. This is the stuff that was playing in heavy rotation at my house in 2010.

Sometime in the very near future, I'll compile a composite top 15. I'll also do a quick write-up about some of the omissions (cough, cough, Sufjan Stevens, cough) from both lists.

So let's cut to the chase

15. Beach Fossils -- "Beach Fossils"
Not quite surf-rock. Not quite indie-pop. Not quite dream-pop. Not quite any of these, but close enough to draw comparisons to Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. And with enough low-fi street cred to make Robert Pollard blush. I'm not sure what draws me so much to this Brooklyn band, but this is one of those records that grabbed me with the first 15 seconds of the first song on the album. Judging from the youtubes of these guys' live performances, nobody has told them that they're not from Manchester and it isn't 1991 anymore. Still, they're clocking in at #15. Here's "Sometimes", which is the first song from the album:


14. Glasser -- "Ring"
This isn't so much a band as it is one woman with a laptop, a drum machine and a bunch of synths. Cameron Mesirow is American and that's all I know about her. Because of the diversity of influence, one could just as easily classify this as "world music", "electronica", or any mashup of the words "dream", "synth", "goth", "pop" and "weird". This woman does some seriously amazing things with her voice, and that's what makes me like this more than I probably should. That and the fact that there's quite a bit of vibraphone on the record. Here's the video for "Mirrorage":


13. School of Seven Bells -- "Disconnect from Desire"
This is the second record from this NYC three-piece, and it was my introduction to them. It's unfortunate that people often describe them as "like My Bloody Valentine" because I don't get that at all. When I listened to this record all the way through the first time, I got the impression that it was heavily influenced by "Dopplegänger" by Curve. This band is fronted by identical twin sisters, and one of them cuts her hair like Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star. She has apparently left the band and I don't know what their future holds. The standout tracks "Babelonia", "I L U" and "Windstorm" all come from what would be side A of the album, but the whole thing is really good. This video for "I L U" is really steamy:


12. Tamaryn -- "The Waves"

The recurring theme in this non-Canadian list, so far, is "it sounds like a new record that I loved in 1992", and this one is no different. In a lot of ways, this record reminds me of "Blow" by English dream-pop band Swallow. On paper, Tamaryn is pretty much a one-woman show, but has a full band on tour. She's New Zealender by birth and living in San Francisco by choice. This is her first record, and it's super-dreamy and super-awesome. The vocals are so washed out that it's almost impossible to tell what's going on lyrically, but it doesn't matter. There's a lot to like on this album, and one of my favorites is the song "Sandstone":


11. Peter Wolf Crier -- "Inter-Be"
This Minnesota two-piece is 2010's answer to Bon Iver. I don't have a parallel for this. Almost, though. In all the live videos I've seen, frontman Peter Pisano's voice sounds like Jeff Buckley's. And really, the music isn't that much different than what Buckley would have done. I'm not sure why the vocals are treated differently in production, but he doesn't sound like Buckley on the album.
Here's a pretty great live performance from South by Southwest. It's "You're So High", one of the standout tracks.


10. Sharon Van Etten -- "Epic"
This one snuck in the back door. I only got it on December 30, but it warranted multiple listenings right away and after it had time to percolate in my head, it muscled its way onto the big board. This is her second record, and it clocks in at a tidy 32 minutes and seven songs. By most standards, it barely qualifies it as an "album", but there's no reason to have a semantics debate about this extraordinary recording. She says that these songs, which are chiefly about some form of heartache, are written from experience, and were penned as if they were letters. She sounds a bit like Chan Marshall from Cat Power, and there's not much of a stylistic difference. This New Yorker, though, seems much more comfortable in her own skin. And she's okay with "sad".
Here's my favorite song on the record, "One Day", which is one of my very  favorite songs of the year.


9. Thrushes -- "Night Falls"
We're back to the 1992-ish theme with this one. These Baltimore shoe-gazers rocked my world with their first album a couple of years ago, and they got stronger with this, their second. This reminds me so much of Velocity Girl, with the heavily effected guitars and Phil Spector-esque production. Somehow, through the wall of sound, the vocals of Anna Conner take center stage. Here's the video for "Crystals".


8. Versus -- "On the Ones and Threes"
This one dropped on me like a bomb. I had no idea that, after a ten year break, this NYC indie rock juggernaut was putting out a new record. As the band members have entered their 40s and have families and all that stuff, they never quit making music. They just quit making it together. Until now. I didn't get to see them when they played in support of the album, and they weren't on the Unrest reunion show down here, but it's just great to know that they can still crank out great music. It's still all about the incendiary guitars and the great harmonies of Fontaine Toups and Richard Baluyut.
Sadly there aren't any decent quality videos of the new stuff, so here's a little interview they did for ABC News about the new record:


7. Bettie Serveert -- "Pharmacy of Love"
This is the seventh proper album in the Betties' discography and the first in six years for the Dutch indie-rock quartet. Not only was the wait worth it, but they made up for the previous LP, which was a mild disappointment. They've been making records for 18 years and they've had nine different drummers, but the core of Carol van Dyk, Peter Visser and Herman Bunskoeke has stayed intact. As much as I love this record, I love their live shows even more. I saw them again in the fall and I was completely awestruck. And as a nice bonus, the audience was entirely made up of people my age. The 9.5 minute "Calling" is my favorite song on the album, and while it takes a while to get off the ground, once it does, it's a dizzying song. The Betties don't "sound like" anybody. If you don't know them, you should. Here's another of the fantastic new songs "Deny All". For fun, look out for Peter rocking a Cat's Cradle tee-shirt in the video.


6. The Corin Tucker Band -- "1,000 Years"
The Sleater-Kinney frontwoman is out on her own (sort of), and made an amazing debut. She's had two babies and has described this band and the album as "middle aged mom music". Don't be fooled by that. This isn't for soccer moms. This is still very much punk rawk. Okay, if I'm honest, it's much more subdued than Corin has been in the past, and the songs are a bit more mature. She's not screaming for the sake of screaming anymore. Thankfully, she's still got that lovely tremolo in her voice. As a package, it's not as aggressive as some of the early S-K stuff, but it's still plenty of rock and roll fun. All that said, one of the highlights of the record is the closing song, which is just piano and singing. There's not a bad track on the album, and here's a video for "Riley"


5. Zola Jesus -- "Stridulum II"
In 2010, it was en vogue to compare a band to Siouxie and the Banshees, and this is one of those bands that got that. Really, it's just Nika Roza Danilova from Phoenix Arizona. With her thickly layered vocal tracks and the heavily effected guitars and the darkness of it all, it's easy to make that comparison. I heard a lot of buzz about this, got it and listened to it a few times and thought "that's quite nice". And then I listened to it on headphones and was breathtaken. This is a very good record that doesn't quite lend itself to classification other than "goth-y". It's big and dark and warm. And I love it.
Here's "Sea Talk"


4. The National -- "High Violet"
A rare appearance in the "favorite of 2010" list by a band fronted by a man. Not only is it all dudes, but this Ohio quintet is comprised of two sets of brothers. Evidently, they always dress well. Partly because they look damn sharp with their beards and their suits, and partly because they treat their band like a business. I get the sense that they don't joke around very much. It may not be very much rock and roll fun, but it sure is good. This record is on just about everybody's year-end list. A lot people are even picking "Bloodbuzz, Ohio" as their favorite song of the year. It's a great song, but it's my second favorite on the album. Here's a live performance of my favorite, "Anyone's Ghost":


3. Kristin Hersh -- "Crooked"

This album from the Throwing Muses frontwoman was released in a really unique way. You had to buy a book, which contained some really beautiful photography and a series of essays. Each of the essays correlates to a song on the album. Within the essays is a code, with which you downloaded the album from Kristin's website. Like most of her solo stuff, it's driven mostly by acoustic guitar, lush production and some pretty unusual time signature that I'm not smart enough to figure out. The last year or so has been really big for her. There was the death of her best friend Vic Chesnutt on Christmas Day 2009, the release of this, her eighth proper solo record, the publication of her memoirs, she moved twice, and she's been very hard at work on a new Muses record. The title track is one of the best songs in her oeuvre, "Glass" is another from the top drawer, and "Krait" is one her most densely layered songs with some haunting sting section instruments over her guitar. Like the stuff from "Hips and Makers" but with much much better production. "Mississippi Kite" is unbelievable, but I think it's more suited to be a Muses song. That said, here's "Mississippi Kite":



2. Frightened Rabbit -- "The Winter of Mixed Drinks"
This is the third album from the Scottish group, but I had never heard of them before 2010. It kept coming up in those RIYL suggestions on eMu and lastfm and stuff like that. The first dozen or so times, I ignored the recommendation, as I had ignored the recommendation of Bear in Heaven (it was a mistake to ignore that!), but I finally got the album, and just like I did with Bear in Heaven, I smacked myself for taking so long. The album may have been available in other parts of the world in late 2009, but not in the US until sometime in 2010, so it's good to go here. It's not particularly dark (although there's a lot of burial imagery throughout), it's not at all folky and there aren't any women in the band, so I'm not supposed to like it this much, but this record is just too darn good. The opening track, "Things", starts off with a nice warm shoe-gazy feel, and I was reeled in after that. Without being particularly awesome in any one way, every song has its own incredible hook. The song " Living in Colour" has a ridiculously infectious rhythm, and for some reason it makes me think of some stadium show where the crowd is just going nuts over the song. Like "Sit Down" by James. I absolutely lurve the song "Swim Until You Can't See Land", and the simple but brilliant video. It's just plain fun. Here it is:


1. Warpaint -- "The Fool"
People often want to compare these California gals to Mazzy Star or to Siouxie and the Banshees, but I'm not getting either one of those. Whatever it "sounds like", this record has been in uber-heavy rotation at my house since I first laid ears on it after a brilliant recommendation by a friend. I guess the Mazzy Star vibe comes from the slightly psychedelic feel to everything, but it's much too energetic and the sex appeal of the whole package is on a much more primitive level. This record was recommended to me in the same breath with the aforementioned Zola Jesus record, so I'll recommend them as a bundle. Pay particular attention to the drumming on this record, which I find to be quite nice. At one time, actress Shannyn Sossamon was the drummer for Warpaint, and her sister is still the bassist.
It's not a perfect album, and it's not for everybody, but it suits me just fine.
Here's their self-titled song:


So there it is. Those are the 15 new records that I liked the most in 2010. There are some big-name omissions, and I'll get to that at some point. Just remember that this is what it is, my tastes are what they are, and I'm no genius.

A less detailed composite list will come soon, and also a list of the biggest disappointments of 2010. Some of your #1 records will be on my "biggest disappointment" list, just as some of my favorite records will be in your "pile of crap" list.

I hope 2011 is as much fun musically as 2010 was for me. I've already got a small handful of records on my radar for the 2011 lists.

Our favorite Canadian records of 2010

At some point in the late Aughts, I stopped buying new music.  It wasn't really by choice, and it definitely wasn't any fun.  Lately, though, I've been back in the swing of buying new records.  A few years ago, I started having an obsession with Canadian indie rock, and for the first time, I'm going to make a list of my favorite Canadian records of the year.

Not much has changed in the last 20 years.  I still prefer stuff with a female front.   This Canadian list is more folky than I've leaned in the past, but it is what it is.  

Without a whole lot of ado, I'll just get to it.


15. Broken Social Scene -- "Forgiveness Rock Record"
This was probably my most anticipated record of the year, but a bit of a disappointment. I still like it, but it didn't hit me at all like their previous records did. I was doubly disappointed when they played in Raleigh on September 10 as part of the Hopscotch Music Festival. The band looked like they didn't want to be there, and it just wasn't any fun. To be fair, I was in a terrible head space at the time, but my opinion of the show was shared by music geek Bill Purdy, who is largely responsible for getting me back into the swing of listening to and buying new music. Despite not meeting my expectations, it's still good enough to have been shortlisted for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize and good enough to make my short list, too.
This video of them performing "World Sick", which is a standout song on the album, is a good example of how much fun they're not having:


14. Woodpigeon -- "Die Stadt Muzikanten"
This Calgary band is new to me this year, and I really like what I've heard. In 2009, they were long-listed for the Polaris Prize for their "Treasury Library Canada c/w Houndstooth Europa", but that somehow escaped me. They remind me of what I used to like about Belle & Sebastian. Sometimes they remind me of what I used to like about Sufjan Stevens (There. I said it. I used to like Sufjan). In some strange way, it reminds me of what I still like about Galaxie 500. Like many of the bands on this list, they're comprised of about eight core members and a few rotating members. This is their third proper album, or to hear them tell it, it's number two-point-five. Either way, it's fun and folky and rocky and I like it.

Here's "My Denial in Argyle", from the new record:


13. Jason Collett -- Rat a Tat Tat
The Broken Social Scenester put out two full-length albums in 2010, and this is the one that people talk about. It's his sixth solo record, and I've found most of his oeuvre to be a little hit-and-miss. This one is mostly hitting, and I can keep coming back for more. Here he is, channeling T. Rex a bit with the song "Lake Superior":



12. Karkwa -- Les Chemins de Verre
This Montréal band was the winner of the 2010 Polaris Music Prize for Best Canadian full-length album. Like a few of the artists on my own list, I hadn't heard them before, but it's their fourth proper album. This was the first French-language album ever to win in the five year history of the award. I don't have the faintest idea what they're singing about, but I love the music. On some tracks, particularly "Marie, Tu Pleurs", they're so folky that it sounds just like Bon Iver. On others, particularly the title track, they're reminiscent of Broken Social Scene. On "L'Aurore", they sound like The Antlers. This is pretty good company to be in.
Here's "Marie, Tu Pleurs":


11. Hannah Georgas -- "This is Good"
It takes balls of steel to title your debut record "This is Good", but Vancouver newcomer Hannah Georgas pulls it off pretty cleanly. When you're a reasonably attractive Canadian female singer-songwriter and your record generates any momentum at all, there's going to be the inevitable comparisons to Leslie Feist. That's not a bad thing. Like Feist, Georgas' songs straddle the fence between commercial pop and indie pop, but whatever you label it, this is good. I can see almost every one of these songs ending up in an iDevice or Volkswagon commercial, prompting people to wonder "Hey, what is that pop song? I don't want to like it, but I do. A lot". On "Bang Bang You're Dead", she's dangerously close to beating Amy Millan at that Amy Millan game of indie-pop perfection. Overall, it's a bang-up effort from a rookie.
Here's an amazingly artistic and almost creepy video for "Thick Skin"


10. Rae Spoon -- "Love is a Hunter"

This trans-gender singer-songwriter from Calgary was long-listed for the 2009 Polaris Prize with "superioryouareinferior", and will most likely be listed for the 2011 prize with this album, which was released in August of 2010. This is his fifth solo record, and maybe the most beautiful. The songs are all about love, and come from different angles and different styles. There's country-western, there's indie-rock, there's eighties-style dance music, there's a lot of good. I'm particularly drawn to the song "Lighthouse", and the changing chorus "Do me a favour and take all day to build a lighthouse so I can stay out of your way/know where to stay/find you again"

Here he is with a live performance of the title track:


9. You Say Party! We Say Die! -- "XXXX"
This Abbottsford BC quintet dropped the "We Say Die" part of their name after their drummer dropped dead during a show in promotion of this album. After a few months off, they got right back to it. The album was originally released in Canada in late 2009, but the rest of the world didn't get it until early 2010, so it's eligible for this list. It's not exactly my type of music. It's too dancy, too upbeat,and "too" lots of other things. But holy shit, is this a fun record to listen to! Right out of the gates, I was smacked by the lead track "There is XXXX Within My Heart", and I was completely sold. It could easily be on the mind-numbingly good record by Warpaint (I'll get to that in a few days), and it's hard to even let track #2 play since I wear out the "replay" button. Happily, the second track "Glory" keeps me interested with its spot on send-up of Blondie. Overall, it's just too damn fun. Here's a video of "Dark Days":


8. Land of Talk -- Cloak and Cipher"
This is the second full-length record from the Montréal trio after their self-titled debut was long-listed for the 2009 Polaris. It was produced by Besnard Lakes mastermind Jace Lasek, who forced frontwoman Lizzie Powell to take a different approach. She had a bit of a scare a couple of years ago when, due to overexertion and stress, she developed polyps on her vocal chords. She didn't have surgery, but she did reevaluate the way she exerts herself. The result is that she's found herself and her role as the frontwoman of the band. Nothing seems forced. I was a big fan of the last album, and I like this one almost as much. Here's the standout track "Swift Coin":


7. Kathryn Calder -- "Are You My Mother?"
The first solo record from New Pornographers and Immaculate Machine collaborator Calder is a pretty good debut and was met with warm reception across the board. Incidentally, both this record and the New Pornographers' "Together" were dedicated to Calder's mother, who died from ALS while Calder was recording this album.
On the lead track, "Slip Away", it starts off with very simple single piano notes and an egg shaker. Slowly, it builds until it reaches a full-band crescendo and a stunning chorus of non-vocal singing. It took a little while, honestly, for this record to take hold with me, but once it did, it was a big hit. It's mostly low-tempo with sparse instrumentation to accentuate her wonderful singing voice, and in a weird way, this makes me think fondly of Ida. I think the bigger songs are a bit forced, but I can't find a song on the album that I don't like.
One of the standout tracks is "Arrow", and I'll highly, highly recommend that you view this live acoustic performance of it here as well as the official video below:


6. Forest City Lovers -- "Carriage"
This is another one that I didn't find until very, very late in the game, but it skyrocketed up the charts in my house and nestled into the #6 spot. It's the third release from this Toronto band, but it's all new to me. The pop goodness oozing from this record is sort of like if Club 8 and Camera Obscura were having a party on the front lawn. And then Leslie Feist showed up unexpectedly. You know... To make it Canadian. I'm a grouchy old curmudgeon, but this record makes me really happy.
Here's a video for the standout song "Tell Me, Cancer". It looks like they had a total blast making this video. Stick with it to the end because the last 1:15 of the song (and video) is the fun part.


5. Dan Mangan -- "Nice, Nice, Very Nice"
There's not much male representation on this list, but here's a dude from Vancouver. Like a lot of the stuff on this list, he's pretty folky. And sad. I think I might be cheating a bit here, because this record came out in 2009, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't available in the US until sometime in 2010. Either way, it was shortlisted for the 2010 Polaris. This (specifically the song "You Silly Git") should find a place in the catalog of Andrew Bird fans. A lot of the stuff on the record is themed around leaving home and dealing with that trauma.
The video for "Road Regrets" is directed by the same dude who did that Kathryn Calder video, and it won the 2010 Leo Award for best Canadian music video.


4. Stars -- "The Five Ghosts"
This is another record that I anticipated for a long time. Unlike the new one from BSS, this didn't disappoint at all. It wasn't met with warm reception by the press, but I'm a big fan of the dark dark theme and the tidier production. There's no doubt that Torquil Campbell has the charisma, and if you've seen them live, you know that he relishes the spotlight and knows how to put on a show. However, while he's the brawn, Amy Millan is the beauty and the brains of the outfit. With this album, they seemed to get that. When they toured with it, they missed it a little bit, though. The show was really big and extraordinarily well-lit, and as full of feathers and bubbles and flower petals as a Flaming Lips show. This sort of contrasts the death theme running through the new album. I Think "Fixed" falls short as a smash single and doesn't sit on level footing with songs like "Elevator Love Letter" or "The Night Starts Here" or "Ageless Beauty", and that's because this record is probably designed to be listened to in one big chunk rather than dissected. While those big, anthemic songs are great, I've always appreciated full albums more than individual songs.
All that said, here's the big single "Fixed":


3. The New Pornographers -- "Together"
Again, a highly anticipated record. I stubbornly refused to listen to leaked versions and early sneak previews, waiting for the release date. I was, without hesitation, impressed. I can't say that it's my favorite album by the Vancouver supergroup, but it's still dang good. Kathryn Calder joined this band a few years back as a touring member, and her role is pretty significant on this record. I can dig that. Neko Case's role has been diminished slightly, and it's getting harder to identify which songs are hers. The first half of this album is all stand-out tracks, and it loses a bit of steam somewhere in the second act, but it builds back up to a nice album closer in "We End Up Together". I got to see them in the summer and I enjoyed the show very much.
Here's my favorite song from the album, with a Busby Berkely-themed video. "Crash Years"


2. The Arcade Fire -- "The Suburbs"
The Montréal band blew everybody away with "Funeral" in 2004, then took a big dump on us in 2007 with the disappointing "Neon Bible" (which amazingly was shortlisted for the 2007 Polaris). I, like thousands of other people, had written them off. It was a very pleasant surprise when "The Suburbs" was an incredible record. I was a little worried that they were going to head down a dirty path that Bono has been on for the last 17 years -- one of self-aggrandizement and off-putting ego. Instead, they bounced back with an earnest, breathtaking album. Like "Funeral", it's much better when listened to as a whole, and I don't like separating songs from the whole work, but "Half Light II (No Celebration)" is probably my most favorite of many favorites on the record.
I think it's safe to say that this is already a prohibitive favorite to win the 2011 Polaris, even with five more months for new releases to qualify.
Here's the amazing video for the title track, directed by Spike Jonze:


1. The Besnard Lakes -- "The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night"
This record socked me in the jaw and knocked me down. The Besnard Lakes are a band I'd heard about, and maybe hundreds of times they'd been suggested to me by real people and by electronic "you might like this" means. But since their critically acclaimed "...Are the Dark Horse" came out during that period of time when I wasn't buying new music or taking on new bands, I never got it. It took me a few months to finally come around after "...Are the Roaring Night" was released, but when I finally got around to it, I was amazed. I like everything about this record. I like its crunchiness. I like its chewiness. I like the tartness and the sweetness. And, yes, the sexiness. Make no mistake. These are not sexy people, but their music is sexy as all get out.
Like "...Are the Dark Horse" in 2007, "...Are the Roaring Night" was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize this year. It was a tough decision to put this one in the #1 spot, but at the end of the day, it got the upper hand. Remember... This isn't science. This is just one man's opinion.
Here's the fantastic video for "Albatross"


So that's it. Those are my favorite 15 Canadian records from 2010.

At some point in the not too distant future, I'll do a similar write-up for the "non-Canadian" albums, and then a composite list. With any luck, by the middle of January.

It's so much brighter than the sun is

Today, September 18, is (at least in the United States), the 20th anniversary of the initial release of "Heaven or Las Vegas" by ethereal dream-pop trailblazers Cocteau Twins. It's arguably one of the best and most influential records of the 1990s, across all genres, and one of my "desert island albums". If you own a copy, listen to it today. If you don't, you should buy, borrow or steal a copy immediately.

First, enjoy the videos for "Heaven or Las Vegas" and "Iceblink Luck". Then read my commentary on the album.

Heaven or Las Vegas:


Iceblink Luck:



I'd like to say that on September 18, 1990, I waited outside the record store for the doors to open that Tuesday morning. However, I don't think that would be true. On that day, I probably didn't know about the Cocteaus well enough to anticipate the new album. I'd heard "Carolyn's Fingers" (from the 1988 album "Blue Bell Knoll), but that was about it. I can't be sure when I bought my first copy of "Heaven or Las Vegas", but I know that over time I've bought at least three hard copies of the original recording. I've given at least one away and had at least one stolen. It's the kind of thing, though, that makes me happy to buy another copy if it means that someone else in the world has one of mine.

There's an important distinction here. I specifically mentioned "hard copies" of the album. Anyone can download a digital copy of original or even the 2003 re-mastered version. They can get the fancy lossless files so it's "just like the album". But it's not. In the 1990s, it was a real treat to buy an album on the 4AD label. The jacket artwork was always amazing, and worth the price of the album itself. The liner notes were usually pretty minimal, but who needs a lyric sheet, a photo of the band and a list of acknowledgements when you've got a stunning piece of jacket art? I'll admit that I have started buying digital downloads of music, but I still buy hard copies because I refuse to let go of certain things. It may be juvenile, but I get a rush out of tearing open the cd wrapper and holding the jewel box in my hand as I listen to the music for the first time. I like to admire the artwork and look for the connections between the artwork and the music within.
With digital downloads, we're seldom even aware of what the album cover looks like. And downloading the pdf version of the artwork isn't the same. It doesn't have the smell and tactile feel of real liner notes.

I could go on a tangent about how ebooks and digital downloads are horrible for our local economies, but I'll leave that for another day. I could also go on a tangent about the parallels between 4AD records and Factory Records, but I'll leave that for another day as well.

To get back on track... "Heaven or Las Vegas" was a smashing success for the Cocteaus. It reached #7 on the UK charts and #99 in the US. It was their sixth proper album and by far the "cleanest" to that point in time. The first three records were dark, muddy and dense. They were great, but they were definitely born out of goth and post-punk. The next three, starting with 1986's "Victorialand" started to get that "lighter than air" feel, the production was cleaned up and the overall vibe was getting a bit brighter. Still, there was always a deliberate use of confounding "lyrics". With rare exception, Liz Fraser's singing bordered so much on glossolalia that people wondered if there actually were lyrics. Since the liner notes were sparse and we didn't have internet for that kind of thing, we were left to assume that it was all part of the mystery of the Cocteaus.

The common (mis)conception about "HOLV" is that, for the first time, we could discern the lyrics. They still didn't make a bit of goddamned sense, but at least we could assume that it was English that she was speaking. I've listened to that album probably 2500 times in my life, and I can safely say that I can only pick up about two dozen words in the whole thing. I'll dismiss the claim that the lyrics are more clear. Even using a lyric finder cheat sheet, I still can't pick anything out. What is clear, though, is that the music was getting better. I would argue that "Blue Bell Knoll" (1988) has more lush production and cleaner sound. I would also argue that the "lyrics" are more discernible on that album than on "HOLV". There's still a noticeable shift to something bigger and better. Anyway, "HOLV" was the album that finally put a record in the top 100 in the US and got them on MTV (even if it was only on 120 minutes with Dave Kendall).

At that critical time, 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell, who was notoriously difficult for bands to work with, decided to go in a different direction. Despite the success of "HOLV", he and the band both cited personal and artistic differences, and it was the last 4AD record by the Cocteaus. They made two more records, which were both much more commercially accessible before they themselves called it quits in 1996.

The Cocteaus may or may not have been the most profitable band on the 4AD label, but they're absolutely the band that defined that label. Watts-Russell would later say that "Heaven or Las Vegas" was the best album his label ever put out.

It remains in my desert island list, and it always will.

The snoopy snow cone machine

It baffles my mind sometimes when I think about the things we were allowed to do when I was a kid and the things that we were forbidden. I guess this thought was fueled when I was playing an arcade game version of lawn darts a week ago. The real thing, of course, has been banned in the United States and Canada since the 1980s, but this is the kind of toy that children were allowed to, and even encouraged to play with when I was a kid.
This is absolute lunacy. Give a handful of kids some sharp metal pointy projectiles, and it's only a matter of nanoseconds before they're throwing them at each other. It doesn't matter whether the object is a lethal weapon or a nerf ball: kids throw things at each other.

I never had lawn darts, but one Christmas I got a pub darts board and a ping-pong table. I resisted the urge to throw the darts at my sister, but within a couple of days, the ping-pong table was perforated by dart hits. Intentional hits. My mother, being the both the disciplinarian of the family and a very crafty person, proceeded to give me a well-deserved beating with one of the ping-pong paddles. It, too, had taken on more dart hits than the dart board had. Her preferred weapon of choice was a wooden spoon, and she broke more than a few administering punishment on me. Her instrument in this instance, though, was the ping-pong paddle. The significance of that deliberate choice was lost on me at the time, but it was brilliant.

I don't mean, even for a second, to paint my mother out to be some beast like Joan Crawford. On the contrary; my mother was and is a wonderful woman. This was, after all, the 1970s, when it was perfectly fine for parents to beat holy hell out of their children when they were acting like little assholes. Even in the middle of the Big Star grocery store. It's not like we were hit with lead pipes or barbed wire, but it's not like we were put in "time out" either. Punishments were fair and just. Sometimes, I even learned a lesson. Most often not, though.

That's not the point here, however. I'm supposed to be talking about the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine. And I'll get there. Trust me.

Parents were allowed by cultural standards to issue physical punishments to their children. Children were allowed to have toys that could easily become deadly weapons. We were encouraged to play tackle football in the street. We were encouraged to play around on open construction sites. Kids didn't wear helmets when they rode their bicycles. Somehow, most of us survived childhood unscathed.

For all the things we (and I've been using "we" in the editorial sense) were allowed to have and for all the things we were allowed and encouraged to do, it sometimes blows my mind what my sister and I were not allowed to have.

My sister, who is almost four years older than I, really really wanted an Easy-bake Oven. All little girls did. The modern easy-bake oven uses different technology and lots of safety features. It's pretty much foolproof and accident-proof. Back in the early days, though, this was a dangerous toy. The original oven resembled a real oven, but used a high wattage incandescent light bulb instead of a heating element. Although the light bulb as heat source was marginally less dangerous than a heating element, there were no safety features. This meant that a clumsy, uncoordinated, or overly-curious little girl had a very good chance of putting her hand directly onto the hot-burning 100-watt light bulb. My mother forbid Laura to have one, saying "If it can cook a cake, it can cook your hand". Again, the modern oven has a tiny slot into which the cake pan is shoved and a tiny slot to pull it out; there's no chance of coming into contact with the heat source. I'm pretty sure that even today, my sister, now aged 42, would be excited about getting an easy-bake oven. If for no other reason, than for the sake of nostalgia.

I usually got what I wanted, and I never really wanted much. Footballs, magic kits, digital watches. Things like that. Although there wasn't really a safety issue (maybe there was, but I can't remember), I wasn't allowed to have a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine. I was obsessed with Snoopy for a while, and while I got things like Snoopy dolls and Peanuts books and Snoopy lunchboxes and Snoopy Halloween costumes, I never got the one thing I wanted the most.

While other kids were getting expensive birthday presents like a trampoline or an Atari 2600, I just wanted a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine, which probably retailed at $7.95. I know I liked the commercial:


Apparently, the folks at Hasbro were merely cashing in on the late '70s pandemic that was Snoopy Fever. They already had a similar snow cone machine in the market with a similar ad campaign. It looks like they simply rebranded it with an iconic namesake. Check out the Snowman Snow Cone Machine commercial:


Until I started writing this post, I'd never heard of the Snow Man Snow Cone machine, and I probably wouldn't have wanted one of those. Proof that this toy is all about the celebrity name. In any case, I never got the machine, and there was never any parental commentary like "If it'll crush ice, it'll crush your fingers". There was just flat refusal. I spent the better part of my late childhood and adulthood resenting the fact that I never got the sought after piece of cheap plastic.

It's come to my attention that I was far from being alone there. Whether they've been re-introduced to the toy market or they never left the market, you can still get them. I've seen a few youtube videos of adults my age unboxing their very first Snoopy Snow Cone Machine and making their delicious treat. All with lukewarm reception. I think this one is a fairly good example of a grown man actually struggling to get the thing to produce one paltry cone.


If it takes that much work from a 30-something man, I hate to imagine how much effort it would require from a seven-year old kid. And now I'm glad that I never had one.

Instant karma

By popular request, I've opted to at least temporarily reactivate this dusty old blog. We'll see how it goes.

I've often thought of myself as a bad (fill in the blank with your choice of: lay, friend, neighbor, son, brother, uncle, boss, boyfriend, writer, customer, etc. etc. etc). I don't usually think of myself as a bad person as a whole package. Yesterday, though, I had one of those moments where I thought that I was a terrible person. And karma came to bite me on the ass. And she came pretty quickly.

For those of you who don't know (and assuming that anybody at all is reading this after more than a year of inactivity), the bar&grill that I manage in on a university campus. From what I've heard, we are the only bar that is actually on the campus of any of the seventeen schools in the University of North Carolina system. Thousands of students pass by our door every day. Some, but not many, are in wheelchairs. Even more, but still not many, are deaf. Some, but not many are blind.

Yesterday, during a moment of downtime, I observed a blind girl who had wandered WAY off the sidewalk and into our parking lot. She kind of walked around in circles for a little while, then went back in the direction she came from. Then she stopped when she almost ran into an ATM machine and did another 180. She continued to walk, off course, though our parking lot, then ran into the fence that separates our patio from the sidewalk and parking lot. She was using a cane, and using it very badly. I was watching her through a window, just feeling sorry for her, but at the same time thinking "she's almost doing that so badly that it can't be real". Still, I just stood there and watched. I could have easily walked out and at the very least guided her in the right direction if not walked her all the way to her destination. Instead, I just watched. Instead of using this opportunity to do something thoroughly unselfish, I only watched her and thought "wow, I hope she doesn't get hit by a car". Eventually, a couple of people did stop to point her in the right direction, but nobody walked with her. Over the years, I've seen a lot of blind kids walk past, and I've never seen anything quite like the way this girl was struggling just to stay on the sidewalk. I kept thinking that it was too ugly to be real.

But who would do that? Who would pretend to be blind and lost? Unless this was some sociological study intended to prove that people don't help strangers or people with disabilities, the answer is that nobody would do that. This girl really was blind, and she, for whatever reason, couldn't keep herself on the sidewalk. And I watched the whole thing as she hopelessly and helplessly meandered around.

I got sort of an instant karmic payback last night. Not anything huge, but a little nibble on the ass.

Late last night, I had to get something from my car, which was parked on the street. I noticed a small dent in the front left fender. A fresh one. Someone clearly backed into my parked car or in some other way gently hit it. The damage isn't enough to make me go out and get it repaired right away. It's so insignificant that I might never get it repaired. It's not much, but it's an unsightly blemish.

Perhaps coincidence, perhaps a karmic message. I dunno. All I know is that I felt rotten about myself after I had time to reflect upon the situation with the blind girl, and by the end of the day, I had something unfortunate happen to me.

A challenge

I want to present you, dear readers, with a challenge. I challenge you... I dare you.... I double dog dare you to get this song out of your head. The R&B/B&R video of the day: "My Year in Lists" by Los Campesinos!.


Seriously, try to get it out of your head. You can't do it. Sure, you might be able to shake it for right this second, but maybe later today, maybe sometime tomorrow, there it'll be. In your head.

I'm a fiend for all the stuff on the Arts & Crafts label, and although I don't own anything by these guys, I like what I've heard. And this damn song, which is just under 2:00, won't leave my head. I can't help but laugh, though, at the fact that they're trying so very hard to look emo, or twee, or whatever you wanna call it. I mean, nothing screams "I am twee as fuck" quite like an office green zippered hoodie. Except maybe a yellow t-shirt under a purple hoodie with a yellow badge pinned to it (especially if it's a badge of your own band). Oh, and a girl with a star tattoo on her wrist playing the bass for you. Oh. And self-reference. They've got that in spades. The only thing that would make this band more twee is if they were all wearing black-rimmed, tiny-lensed glasses.

Another thing that I think is funny about this video is that the drummer, Ollie Campesinos (wearing the green t-shirt in this video), looks alarmingly like a circa 2003- Eric Staal.

Anyway, enjoy the video. Try to keep the song out of your head. Good luck.