Steeltown

 

Big Country

Steeltown

(Mercury 1984) 

Being the fan of a band or artist who is mostly known for one song – the proverbial one hit wonder – is a different kind of fandom.  It puts you on the defensive.  You feel like you have to defend not only your good taste, but the artist that you love.  The more time that passes from that hit becoming a small part of the public consciousness, the more difficult it becomes.  The original hit song loses its meaning and becomes a cliché representing a period of time that we all can collectively reminisce about.  

Big Country’s debut album, The Crossing, in 1983 spawned the US top 40 hit, “In a Big Country.”  You know the one, where the guitars sound like bagpipes and “dreams stay with you,” and everyone wears plaid flannel shirts?  They were often presented to us as Scotland’s version of Ireland’s U2.  The music press attempting to pit these bands against each other.  “In a Big Country” would be their only US hit.  I loved it as a kid.  I wondered if there really were bagpipes – like did the band have a lead bagpiper.  Were there bagpipe solos in their other songs?  After that song seeped its way into the pop culture consciousness, I vaguely remember watching Friday Night Videos in its infancy (my small town did not have MTV yet) when they used to do the weekly Video Vote, and Big Country’s single “Fields of Fire” was featured in the competition.  Friday Night Videos would play two music videos and then allow the nation (or everyone but the West Coast) to vote for their favorite.  Big Country went against a juggernaut like Michael Jackson or Van Halen, and were never played again.  You know what though?  That twelve year old version of me, never forgot that song!  I loved it!  It had a rolling buzz to it that kept it alive in my head until I could get my grubby hands on the album.  That was when I became a fan.  I continued buying all of their records until their final album, 1999’s Driving to Damascus, before bandleader Stuart Adamson’s sad suicide.

 

That’s part of the problem with loving a band that has one well known song.  I don’t want to be that guy who chimes in about how their non-LP single “Wonderland” was a better song, or that “In a Big Country” is nowhere near the best song on their debut (“Inwards” or “Chance” for me), nor is their debut their best album, but almost no one believes me, or they think I’m being sarcastic or silly or an asshole.  Now, “In a Big Country’ is mostly thought of as just another 80s song.  For me it was a gateway to a lifetime of listening to exciting and thoughtful music by an incredible band.

 

It’s sad to me that their sophomore LP, 1984’s Steeltown, became a forgotten and disparaged collection.  It debuted in the UK pop charts at #1 building on their debut’s momentum, butbit was considered too dense or impenetrable, and quickly dropped off the charts.  I agree, it is dense, but in the best of ways.  Every song finds the band on a collective high.  No instrument is featured, instead we get a group that are so locked in with each other that forty years after I first heard it, I still discover interesting nuances.  And, yes, Steeltown has never faded from my personal playlist.  One will never hear me say “I haven’t heard that in years” about this album.   I think it’s their best LP and it is easily one of my favorite albums ever by anyone.  

Despite the name of the album, Steeltown isn’t wholly about a factory town.  The title track dwells on this subject though as UK factories were struggling and closing laying off their workers in massive numbers at that time.  The title song is about the closing of a factory and the loss of thousands of steady incomes.  It’s a caustionary tale about putting one’s life and trust only in to their work.  These factories in many cases were the identity of many small towns where families worked for generations.  The closing lyric “Here I stand with my own kin / at the end of everything / finally the dream is gone / nothing left to hang upon” vividly declares the finality of the situation.  Adamson’s lyrics here are heartfelt and vivid.  He captures the visuals of factory workers going about their final day throughout, but the third verse has always especially struck me: “all the landscape was the mill / grim as a reaper with a heart like hell / with a river of bodies / flowing with the bell / here was the future for hands of skill.”  The sadness and dehumanization of these people is stark and the waste of their talents is tangible.  The denseness of the music here too is why I think it’s a strength and not a weakness.  “Steeltown” starts like the warming up of massive machinery before rumbling into the heavy repetition of the equipment.  The chorus feels like the earth is shaking beneath our feet.  Its powerful drama is undeniable.  The penultimate song “The Great Divide” builds upon the disillusionment of “Steeltown” by realizing the folly of placing so much trust in industry “Fire away / Far away / push the token door / lie away / steal a day / make the engine roar.”  This is where Steve Lillywhite’s production for the entire album is genius.  The band is recorded and mixed with very few noticeable studio tricks, which is honestly what hampers their debut.  Gone are the heavily processed drum sounds and the bagpipe sounding guitars.  Instead we’re left with an unadorned band creating amazing sounds dynamics and drama in a more organic way.

Musically, Big Country are hard to beat.  The twin guitar attack of Adamson (building on his signature guitar sound from his days with punk band The Skids) and Bruce Watson (the sole remaining original member still touring), along with the phenomenal skills of seasoned session musicians bassist Tony Butler and busy drummer Mark Brzezicki are tough to beat.  Normally, I’m not one to marvel at extreme musicianship, as I’ve always been drawn to the DIY artists who have paved their own way to unique and intriguing sounds.  However, this collective on this LP make my jaw drop.  There’s nothing showy here as they perform well together.  Their interplay is remarkable and though their individual parts are extremely detailed and intricate, it’s the synergy of those parts that make their music so huge sounding, life affirming, and unique.

Steeltown begins with the timeless lesson of “Flame of the West.”  It’s a cautionary tale of falling for a false prophet of sorts.  It’s based in the darkness of colonialism.  The bright, magnetic, and charming personality that offers promises of greatness, while slitting your throat.  “He had the face of an angel / and the voice of a saint / and though they fell behind him / I knew what it was he meant / his eyes were full of demons / as he made the message clear / he strode the world like Caesar / with a trident made of fear.”  This allegory, like Bad Religion’s “The Answer” and Sleater-Kinney’s “The Fox,” has fueled my skeptical view of things that seem too good to be true for most of my life.  Adamson’s lyrics are spot on, yet it’s the music that drives this song and I’m afraid I cannot ever do it justice.  Butler’s mid-range bass guitar opens this song with a brief moment of simple clarity, before a striking rhythm guitar stabs repeatedly, and then Brzezicki’s crashing drums come in and the two six strings lay down a buzz saw of power chords.  It’s an unholy racket full of urgency and precision.  Butler’s bass is phenomenal as he effortlessly guides the song with that melodic bassline, while drifting seamlessly to the low end to emphasize the blistering chorus.  Never before has a mid-tempo song felt to energetic and lightning quick!

That is until the other side of the record opens with “Tall Ships Go.”  It’s a song that I interpret as being about someone who has disturbing desperate dreams about loved ones lost, or perhaps mistakes made (“You spoke to me of things / of the shame that years will bring”).  It has such a frenetic energy that one can feel the importance and impact of these intense emotions.  And yet the cinematic guitar lead chimes over everything offering order to the chaos that is the emergency alarm of the other guitar and a bass part that is so busy that it is almost unbelievable.  That neither of these songs were chosen as promotional singles blows my mind.  They not only perfectly highlight this albums allure, but they are two of my favorite songs of all time.  Although, a pair of dated music videos may have cheapened their power and longevity. 

Nevertheless, Steeltown’s singles are all excellent.  “East of Eden” has an interesting resolve.  Many of the songs on Steeltown find the narrator yearning for guidance and answers, while “East of Eden” bounces along noticing that despite all of his worrying about where life’s answers are and how best to live his life (“I looked west in search of freedom / and I saw slavery / I looked east in search of answers / and I saw misery”), it all really comes down to the day to day (“I was waiting / I was watching / would it ever be before me / and I found that hope and a lucky card / were all I had to walk with me.”).  The rousing “Where the Rose is Sown” feels like it should’ve been a hit anthem as it improves on the vastness of their worldwide hit of “In a Big Country” with its call to arms chorus and the earworm guitar fills.  It’s about the perils of war and using the youth and future of one’s nation as pawns (“I wait here in this hole / playing poker with my soul / I hold this rifle close to me / it lights the way to keep me free”).  The final album single is also the album closing “Just a Shadow.”  Clearly a song about finding disappointment after building a life as one is expected, not necessarily how one wanted.  “It’s just a shadow of the woman you should be / like a garden in the forest / that the world will never see / you have no thought of answers / only questions to be filled / and it feels like hell” goes the incisive chorus.  It’s a perfect closing song, as it begins with a melancholy vibe and continually builds and builds gaining an anxious momentum.  It captures the urgency of realizing that maybe your spoon fed desires were really a betrayal and you’ve made the wrong decisions.  Now it might be too late.  Musically, this track might be the band’s most straightforward rock song on the album.  Butler’s busy mid-range bass elsewhere is transformed into a very basic low end da-dum da-dum da-dum repetitive drive, plus the song closes with an incredible Adamson guitar solo that is so fiery that it’s a shame that it fades out, yet that fade out adds to the frustration of the songs message.  “Just a Shadow” foreshadows the future direction of the band, as they would go on to record music more in this basic rock style. 

One time, many years ago, I put together a 90 minute mix tape made up of all album closing songs.  You know the ones, they have a certain vibe, like the sad uncomfortable goodbyes that we experience when parting from loved ones.  They often come in at slower tempos, and are reflective, and expansive.  I wanted to make the most dramatic and emotionally hard-hitting mix tape ever!  I think about that idea every time I listen to Steeltown, because it closes with three incredible songs that all are great candidates for album closers.  So, what did they do?  They strung them all back to back to back as a suite to elevate the epic nature of this collection.  “Rain Dance” comes on with a triumphant march musically, while the lyrics feel resigned to facing a generic life.  I don’t want to belabor my love of “The Great Divide,” but I don’t think I’ve ever heard another band that can create music that sounds more invigorating.  When the chorus of “Fire away / Far away” hits I don’t think I’ve ever not thrown a punch to the air as if I’ve just clinched some kind of hard fought victory.  Then, of course, I’ve already blathered on about the wonders of the closing “Just a Shadow” – the perfect final touch for this closing suite.

Finally, I have previously skipped the slower songs on Steeltown.  These two are not my favorites.  I find them a bit clumsy.  “Come Back to Me” has Adamson taking a young mother’s perspective as she laments the loss of her man.  Did he die, or abandon the young family?  And while it fits in with the sense of betrayal from relying on others that runs through most of these songs.  Yet the helplessness of the narrator feels disingenuous.  It is kind of boring to be honest.  It feels like a breather put in place to allow the listener to recover between the intensity of “Where the Rose is Sown” and “Tall Ships Go.”  “Girl with the Grey Eyes” is the more interesting of the two slow songs, yet still feels like a letdown.  Tony Butler’s mid-range bass guides the melody for this lush sounding love song.  It is that.  A basic love song that dwells on the fleeting nature of the best of love and wanting to hang on to those feelings.   It has an undeniably catchy chorus, like Big Country always cranked out with so much ease, though it’s not enough to lift it up to the heights of the rest of the LP. 

In many ways, Big Country’s Steeltown is a lot of things that I don’t often pursue with my music choices.  Yes, it was an early favorite for my music addiction, yet it’s not so much nostalgia that has kept it in my personal pantheon.  I have fond vivid memories attached to blasting the CD in my car with friends within the past ten years.  A lot of my old favorites do not get many listens anymore.  I couldn’t get enough of Love and Rockets when I was in high school, but I’m not sure I’ve listened to any of their albums since the “So Alive” single became an overplayed nightmare during the summer of 1989.  There’s something about Big Country’s music that captures my imagination and fuels me with an unrivaled energy and I am compelled to listen to them every so often.  Steeltown specifically speaks to me, with its overriding message of rejecting reliance on institutions and encouraging taking control of one’s own path.  Not worrying about fitting in or doing what one is “supposed” to do.  It’s not so easy.  If you’re unfamiliar with Big Country outside of singing along with “In a Big Country” while doing your laundry or driving to the grocery store, I recommend sitting down, putting headphones on and carving out fifty minutes to listen closely to Steeltown.  Forget all of my gibberish.  It’s great because it’s fun as hell to listen to, because it rocks!

(https://bigcountry.co.uk/)

Big Country "Just a Shadow"

The New Stone Age

 

It’s been said that if you dream about someone it means that that person has been thinking about you.  What exactly does that mean or how it could possibly be quantified?  It’s a nice notion, isn’t it?  Even after so many years Robert still thought of her often and she occasionally starred in his dreams.  He’d always hoped that she thought of him, because the notion made him feel important.

There she was.  She sat towards the far end of the bench with her legs angled so that her heels were touching the creaky hardwood floor with her toes pointed upward.  She was mostly a silhouette from Robert’s angle.  She was backlit by the bright white sky lighting the room from the big window on the opposite side of her.  The light made him think 1980s music video: "Turn around Bright Eyes."  She was looking up at him without fully turning her head. Despite the backlighting, he could clearly see her face.  Robert had always wondered if he ever ran into her in person, would he recognize her.  It had been over thirty years and he hadn’t actually formally met her back then, yet he had never forgotten her.

 

“Did you find her?” She asked him.  Her voice both startled and comforted him.  Her eyes connecting with his was almost more than he could handle.  He could feel his body jolt just with electricity before a rush of heat blasted through it.

“I thought that search ended years ago,” Robert turned his head to see his longtime friend Brian to his right respond for him.  “Can you help him find her?” Brian re-directed, turning his forearms like a hoops referee calling travelling urging this sequence to move along.

 

Robert had found her and she was directly in front of him.  He studied her face.  She was as stunning as he remembered.  He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and even more so in his temples and down both sides of his neck.  He could not stop looking at her like he was trying to identify her as a suspect in a police lineup.  His jaw dangled as if held in place by a Slinky.  He was worried that he might pass out. 

 

“I have found her,” he blurted emphasizing his point. 

Considering the momentous amount of time that he had dreamt and imagined being close to her – at least a part of her life - he had never really known or figured out what he might say if it actually happened.  He knew long ago that it would never happen, so apparently he decided that he didn’t need a contingency plan.  There was that one time he thought he had seen her a couple of years after the brief time they had been at the same school, but that was so long ago that he finally stopped thinking that he might ever run across her in a public place. 

It was that one time when he was driving home over on the east side of town.  It was soon after sunrise.  A baked out late summer dawn.  He swore he had seen her jogging the opposite way on the sidewalk adjacent to the park fence.  She was jogging the opposite direction, so Robert slammed on the brake and cranked the steering wheel sharply and executed a 70s cop show spinout.  Actually, that’s how he’d imagined it.  Instead he drove carefully to the next block, turned his car around safely and drove back toward the park.  No one was in sight.  He had been awake for several days straight and had just spent the previous night at a 24 hour bowling alley with some friends – bowling and drinking, or drinking and bowling.  He was fully aware of the creepiness of the scenario, and chose to drive away, and ponder if he had actually seen her, or if she had been a figment of his imagination.  She was never far from his thoughts.  

When they shared a campus, he had wanted to say something – anything – but he did not.  That was the problem.  Robert never said anything to her and that seemed to be his decision, which is why he knew he wouldn’t be a part of her life.  They shared the same campus for a few months and he would see her around every so often.  He had never been drawn to anyone like that before.  Yes, he thought she was incredibly pretty, but it was more than that.  For some reason, he felt like she understood him in a way that he had he never felt before.  He did not know what it was.  Her friendly disposition made her seem like an accepting and understanding person, but he didn’t know anything about her. 

Robert didn’t take care of himself, or particularly like himself.  Yet he wanted to be there for her in any way possible.  He felt it in every fiber of his being.  This was all new to him and he didn’t know how to reconcile his thoughts and feelings.  For the first time in his life, he had the desire to allow his guardrails to lower, or so he kept telling himself this.  It couldn’t have been true, because he did none of these things.  He couldn’t even muster a passing “hello.”  His inaction being that much more frustrating because he realized that he wasn’t a draw due of his good looks or magnetic personality.  Robert needed good timing and a lot of luck.

Aside from occasionally falling into lonely teen angst stretches, he had always wanted to spend most of his time alone.  He didn’t think he could ever relate to anyone, so he knew that, though this exciting and surprising new presence was in his periphery, he would likely not try to meet her – a decision Robert had always regretted.

This was the crux of why she had haunted him for so many years after their first encounter.  He had made no effort.  Here she was, a dream he didn’t know he had had come true, and yet he was content to be thrilled by a distant passing sighting of her once every couple of days.  He did not make an effort to try to actually get to know her.  What could’ve been the reason?  Looking back, his inaction feels an insane decision.  Sure he was terrified of being cruelly rejected and having that image he had of her burst like an overfilled water balloon, along with his strangely erratic pride.  He was also terrified of making a tragic fool of himself in all the worst possible ways – a creepy, overbearing, neurotic, desperate way, which all were incredibly accurate – except he never thought of himself as creepy, but that’s not for him to judge.

Robert had once been told that he might be afraid of success.  This had been a revelation for him.  Was he afraid of success?  Despite not being very happy with his lot in life, he was indeed afraid to take risks and threaten the protective isolative shield he had worked so many years to build.  In retrospect, he had noticed patterns, where almost any chances he had ever had of possibly accomplishing things he had worked to achieve, he would sabotage, or turn against them. 

The more he thought about it, the more he began to realize his history of avoidance and obstruction.  Robert remembered when he was offered a great job as an assistant manager for the campus station, but turned it down, because they didn’t hire his friend and dorm mate along with him.  He remembered missing the final interview for a scholarship to that engineering trade school he was about to attend and was very expensive.  After learning he was only competing with one other, he felt excited, but still assured that he would miss the final interview.   There was also that sound engineer apprenticeship he skirted at the Bad Animals recording studio in Seattle.  There was even that time in school when a very pretty girl he didn’t recognize who pulled him aside one day and asked him out and he scurried away like the frightened cat from those weird French skunk cartoons (Pepé Le Pew).  There were several more examples that raced through his thoughts like projectiles from a missile battery firework.  What the hell was he doing?  He had always been filled with regrets - not from his failures, but from the things he gave up on, or when he didn’t try.

 

The problem was, he did not know why he so often had chosen to turn away from opportunity.  There was that internship he had taken about fifteen years prior, where he was given most of each week’s new music releases all in exchange for a simple paragraph write up about each one.  It seemed like a long time dream come true, yet he remembered how quickly he began to hate music and writing – his two main passions.  Instead he chose to stick with his normal job, full of frustrating personalities, insane tasks with even more absurd deadlines.  Yet he clung to that job with an unbreakable grip, despite having little interest.

“Are you going to ask me?” Her brown eyes focused intently on Robert’s.  He dropped his head.  Feeling overwhelmed.

Robert had never spoken to her.  He had had his chances all those years ago.  She had spoken to him a couple of times with a passing greeting in her sing-song voice, but he could never quite form the words and now, over thirty years later she is still haunting his dreams.  He is not so full of himself to believe that he could’ve won her heart back then and in reality he is pretty certain that he wouldn’t have, nor had he been ready, or would ever be ready to do so.

Aside from the most extreme examples, he felt that he was living a normal life.  When opportunities had risen, he would find a way to at least try for them.  In his work life he generally found himself able to raise his stock enough to earn and accept promotions.  In addition, he had found himself actively dating and continuing his search for a long term loving romantic relationship.  However, he was not passionate about these things.  He did them because he felt like he was supposed to do them.  He felt no intense interest with his career, so none of the responsibilities he accumulated felt important.  His biggest goal with work was to not have to bring it home.  His attempts at relationships went similarly.  He often felt uncomfortable and wasn’t sure if he wanted a relationship.  He was not fully present with them, because he wasn’t with her, or his invented image of her.  It was no secret why none of his relationship efforts lasted long. 

All he wanted to know now is how to fix this.  What is it that is often said: knowing is half the battle?  It’s true that recognizing his tendencies as a problem could help him avoid these issues in the dwindling future.  It was clear that this problem of sabotaging potential success was deep-seeded. 

“My life sucks!  Boohoo!  I’m Bobby and I’m great at everything and don’t try to be!” Brian shouted as he pretended to rub his eyes with his fists. 

“That’s not what I me-,” Robert stopped himself.  “I do not assume any of those things were destined to work out, but why was I hell bent on taking myself out of or never entering the running?”

“Blah Blah Blah!”  Brian continued unmoved by Robert’s clarification.

Ignoring Brian, Robert focused his eyes on her sitting on that worn church-style pew directly in front of him.  The dusty old stained wood stench overwhelmed his senses once he took in a rapid deep breath.  She returned his stare with a slight smirk on her lips.  A flash of heat rose from his gut straight up into his face.  He began to feel unsteady and placed his hand on the back of the bench for balance. 

“What’s wrong with you?!” Brian shouted at him with what sounded like legitimate rage.  He turned his head to see a fading silhouette of Brian lurking in the shadows of the room.

“It’s more than that isn’t it?” her voice recaptured all of his attention.  “It’s not so much that you’ve been afraid of success,” she paused keeping this important wisdom from him for at least a few more seconds.  “Why didn’t you at least try to get to know me?  Are you afraid of the responsibility that success might bring?”  She closed her eyes and bowed her head, as if she were praying.  “It’s easier for you to always have me as a ‘what could’ve been,’ instead of ‘someone you blew it with.’  As it is now, I will always be perfect in your head,” she grinned and closed her eyes as she let him absorb these words.

“This dumpy chick is right, you know?” Brian interjected.

“Why are you here?!”

“You love beating yourself up.”

She looked back up at him and added, “You don’t want the responsibility that might bring success, or that success might bring.  However you define success.”

He wasn’t sure if he knew how he defined success, but he was pretty sure that it had negative connotations to him.

Next thing he knew, he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples.  He was lying on his back gasping for air.  She had taken over his dreams yet again.

“Do other people have dreams like this,” Robert wondered in a quiet mumble

He also wondered if these dreams had continued to recur every few months for years, because he had a masochistic need to continuously poke his most painful emotional bruises so that they would never heal.  Or maybe it’s a realization that he has avoided achieving all of the biggest goals he had ever set for himself and now it’s too late.  Unlike the previous dreams of him encountering her in the present time that he had experienced, this one was not full of embarrassment.  This felt different.  He did not wake up feeling defeated.

Bringing Home the Ashes

 

When I was a young kid, I struggled to sleep at night.  I used to lay in bed for hours tossing and turning trying to find some way to relax and get to sleep.  Sometimes I found some relief by imaging that my bed was out in a wild wind storm in the middle of an isolated place far from civilization or away from help.  In order to survive the storm, I would have to hunker down, curl up snugly in my blankets to keep warm and be protected from the imaginary deluge.  Plus I had to stay calm to be ready for any unforeseen dangers and problems.  This narrative was made more intense when our home was actually being battered by the fierce winter wind storms that occasionally ripped through our small town on the Oregon coast.  Hearing 70-110 mph wind gusts physically assault our home made everything more vivid.  The staying calm part of my waking dreams would help me eventually drift off to sleep, or at the very least I would be entertained by my pretend disaster narrative.

 

I was first introduced to Northern England’s The Wild Swans via the Sire Records compilation sampler Just Say Yes in late 1987.  I bought it because it was cheap and had a couple of songs by established favorites like Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen, Erasure, and The Smiths.  It wasn’t until the following spring that The Wild Swans’ fitting song “Young Manhood” became an obsession.  I say fitting, because I was in the midst of becoming a young man, had recently become a licensed driver, and was earning a regular income, and became responsible for managing that money and buying my own stuff (clothes, food, necessities), and to perhaps save for my upcoming college years.  I failed at money management and spent all of it on CDs and records.  What’s interesting to me is that that fruitful sampler introduced me to The Replacements, James, Throwing Muses, The Mighty Lemon Drops, and of course, The Wild Swans.  By the spring of 1988, I would skip those songs that first tempted me to this collection and would only listen to these other bands’ song and even some of their albums, such as The Mighty Lemon Drops’ excellent World Without End album, which I played constantly.  However, I could not find any music by The Wild Swans anywhere.  That summer (1988), a second Sire compilation surfaced in a similar fashion named Just Say Yo, and had another track by the Wild Swans.  This one was named “Bible Dreams,” and the lush and urgent sound of it sent chills up and down my spine.  It instantly transported me to another reality – a new reality that I desperately wanted to visit.

 

There’s a howl that leads up into the persistent drums of the opening track and that first single “Young Manhood.”  The drums feel like it is trudging up too many stairs.  It’s fitting considering the futility of the chorus: “Here it comes: young manhood / One day all of this will be yours.”  It starts out like a congratulations for reaching this milestone and now (wave of the arms) ‘here you go – deal with all of these shitty problems.’  At seventeen, that’s exactly how I felt.  I did not (and still don’t) know what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, or know how to get to any of these things, but now responsibility was slapping me in the face.  Paul Simpson’s lyrics throughout this album seem to be drawn from a post-war England perspective.  A time of rebuilding and what must have been a time of uncertainty.  How do we do this?  How do we proceed?  This reflection and doubt juxtaposed with loads of Christian references really speaks to me.  There’s a lot of perseverance within these lyrics that feel like passages from a great classic novel, yet almost every moment of triumph is tempered by failure or loss.  The brilliant title track “Bringing Home the Ashes” provides the line: “the heart in the heart of England can never die” just before the chorus begins: “Bringing home the ashes / is more than I can bear.”  The dreamy keyboards that introduce this song combined with the lovely repetitive guitar melody has always been my favorite.

 Jeremy (Jem) Kelly really shines throughout!  His guitar work is exemplary, and I believe that it’s highly underrated.  That howl I mentioned earlier is a key for me.  It kind of sounds like a muted version of a train whirring through a tunnel, or as I envisioned in my youth: a howling wind.  Most of these songs are adorned with this sound in some way or other adding to the gravity of the words and creating an atmosphere that expanded my world view and made me feel like I was privy to knowledge regarding human nature that maybe I wasn’t quite ready for.  I truly think that my fascination and love of his guitar stylings is still influencing the types of music I gravitate toward.  Kelly’s guitar work however is everything I was looking for at that time.  His ability to create those controlled feedback howls, his lithe fills and twinkling plucks of pristine notes.  He’s like a cross between the best of Johnny Marr, Will Sergeant, and the soon to shine at that time David Schelzel from the Ocean Blue. 

It’s difficult for me to highlight songs here, because every song has been a favorite at some point over the past 35+ years.  Listening to it now, I’m finding that even the one song that I never really loved: “Mythical Beast” has blossomed for me now.  Kelly’s guitar solo is so simple, so elegant, and so spine tingling!  Plus I love that whatever the mythical beast in this allegory is, once the angry disillusioned character finds power from this beast, he stubbornly refuses to share it with the world or anyone at all.  It’s a telling example of humankind’s selfishness.  The greatness never fails to inspire and entertain.  

Over all of these years, aside from the already mentioned tracks, favorites include the ‘swallow your medicine’ message of the bright sounding “Bitterness.”  This might be when I first understood the power of pairing heavy lyrics with jaunty pop music.  I cannot forget “Northern England” either.  This melodic masterpiece has always connected with me, not because I identify with northern England (never been), but the lyric refrain “while prayers go unanswered / seeds thrown in the dark” feels appropriate as I’ve always struggled with people’s faith in Christianity and ‘the power of prayer.’  Then there’s the endlessly addictive “Now and Forever” that plays as a coming of age tale and the harsh reality of unmet expectations and dashed hopes. “You want the life you can’t afford / after all that you’ve been through / soon it will be over / boy has this town crippled you.”  Joseph Fearon’s grinding bass here is a highlight.  In fact Fearon’s bass-lines are quietly magnificent throughout.  They humbly anchor these songs with a deep low end, yet they are more than that.  There’s something incredibly memorable and comfortable about the bass-lines that drive these tracks.  Bringing Home the Ashes closes with the straight-forward “The Worst Year of My Life.”  Continuing on with the notion of crushed dreams and inevitability “The Worst Year of My Life” is not as specific as it sounds.  It’s not a list of bad events from the narrator’s past year.  It feels more like a chronicling of how our beginning circumstances can predict or determine our future circumstances.  It’s an unforgiving look at life.  The second verse has always been a depressing favorite: “you were born hungry and you’ll die angry / and if life has failed you leave the cross you’re nailed to / you belong to no one and you owe nothing / there’s no golden future just an open wound there.”  At that time of my life: soon to graduate high school, it felt like a splash of reality versus the ‘future is yours’ and ‘you can achieve anything’ slogans that were being fed ad infinitum.

 

I’ve heard that Simpson disavows this album.  I can understand that he felt like he lost control of his art through the machinery of the music business, and what is up with the drums?  There’s no drummer credited.  Are they real?  Is it a drum machine?  They sound unreal and weirdly dated.  There are some strange choices.  But you know what?  I love these songs, and they introduced me to The Wild Swans’ limited catalog.  I hungrily snapped up their Peel Session EP, which includes the song “No Bleeding,” which is such a brilliant masterpiece that it never fails to overwhelm my senses, and I found their famous debut single “Revolutionary Spirit,” on a Zoo Records compilation.  As an aside, this rare and very limited original vinyl single was added to a list of requests in the Beaverton Tower Records import section every few weeks.  I’m not sure who thought this was reasonable, but they were persistent.

 

The inspiration to profess my longstanding love of this album has come from a variety of resources.  Recently, The H.I. Art on the Edge Surprise Cast has had thoughtful interviews with both Simpson and Kelly individually (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/surprise-cast/id1723695740), the next book on my que to read is Simpson’s memoir Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-punk Exorcism, along with a healthy dose of nostalgia and a need for something familiar and comforting.  Once I re-listened to the album again after several years of dormancy, I was moved to share these thoughts.  I realize that the Wild Swans have been highly regarded by those in the know, yet it seems that they are not known by enough people. 

The Wild Swans "Young Manhood"

These Things Happen

 

It was another cold, misty summer day in the coastal town of Lincoln City, Oregon.  I had recently turned twenty and I was feeling lost.  I was back in my small home town after dropping out of college.  My life was a mess.  I was trying to recover from a poorly done and ill-conceived double nephrectomy during the spring and my mom was struggling through kidney dialysis three days a week at clinic about an hour away and her condition was worsening.  I was working, but only minimal daytime hours.

I was lost.  Numb.  Listless.  Directionless.  So, what did I do?  I finished work and drove south to the lone record store in town.  Driftwood Mac.  Mike had been running the store for several years by that point, but I don’t think anyone knew how it survived.  I’m glad he persevered as long as he did.  It was a home of sorts.  Music and the records and CDs that contained that music were my comfort.  I loved the artwork, the smell, the feel, the sounds, and the information.  Mike was busy painting the walls of the shop.  He did this often, as well as rearranging the display racks.  The shop was rarely in the same position as the previous visit.  It never took long, before the old unchanging inventory would reveal itself.  Mike had a vast collection of 60s psychedelic band H.P. Lovecraft, as well as a strangely prolific stock of 80s American punk label SST’s discography, as well as imports from the arty UK label 4AD Records.  That’s what was so strange about his inventory is that it catered to a very small niche of music fans.  One might think that he would’ve stocked the current top 40 style artists and would’ve plastered his walls and displays with ephemera dedicated to the hit makers.  However he managed to survive, he did, and I am thankful. 

 

On that particular day, he slipped a CD into my hand, as I perused his strong supply of Dinosaur Jr. colored vinyl.  The CD was a record label compilation.  It had a very simple design.  White with an aqua flavored green font and picture.  It was named Glass Arcade and the record label was Sarah Records.  He had done this to me before.  He had given me a Flying Nun Records compilation named In Love with These Times that blew my mind!  Even at that point, a couple of years later, I was still learning new to me artists by referencing that CD.  I don’t remember if I purchased this recommendation, or if he gave it to me.  He simply told me that I would like it.  By the time I returned to my childhood room, the mist had become so thick and heavy outside that everything was soaked and it was difficult to see.  I put this unassuming CD into my player and shuffled stuff around my room, opened the window blinds and the window allowing the cool damp air into my bedroom.  The dimming light of the evening was shrouded by heavy clouds, yet a crack of sunlight emitted a haunting golden glow from the west horizon.   I laid back onto my bed and let the sound of The Field Mice’s “Holland Street” envelop me.

 

Glass Arcade included no dates, only a couple of murky green photographs, and the band names of song titles for the sixteen songs.  I did not know of any of these artists, or songs, but damn the first few songs not only felt like they fit perfectly together, but also fit the gloomy weather.  This was my definition of rainy day music.  This music was reflective, thoughtful, and quietly inventive.  I absolutely loved it!  

What was this?  This music was a timeless collection of songs from an alternate universe, where introspection is valued and introverts are the most important target audience.  I listened intently as every song played, and then began the disc again and then again.  I immediately began planning mixtapes to make that included a lot of these songs paired with similar things I had discovered in the few years leading up to this moment.  Some of those early Creation Records bands, some of the 4AD artists like the Cocteau Twins, and my favorite songs by The Go-Betweens.  I felt inspired by this mysterious music.

 

It would be a couple years before I learned that the occasional Sarah Records release that I would purchase were actually new and that this music was currently being made.  I hadn’t been sure if these were artifacts from another period of time.  I felt like I had been pretty knowledgeable about music, yet this entire Sarah thing had alluded me.

I’m currently reading These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story by author Jane Duffus (https://www.janeduffus.com/sarah-records).  I’ve had the book for about a year and a half, but am just now getting to it, and I am reading its finely detailed account of the label and the co-conspirators involved incredibly slowly.  It’s a well written book and completely thorough, immersive and enjoyable (for Sarah Records fans especially).  I am savoring it.  Not only am I a huge fan of the label and most of the artists who recorded for them, but I am a huge fan of the inspiration that this fandom provided me. 

It was that punk rock thing.  The Do It Yourself thing that was cool.  Not the DIY corporate sloganeering that defined home makeover design media in the early 00s, but the make the shit you like – anyone can do it idea that Punk rock first brought about.  Don’t like what you hear on the radio, then make your own music.  The music of Sarah and the way the label tried to go about things by being fair to their artists and fans by trying to avoid the sexist greed and depravity of the rock-n-roll institution was not just noteworthy, but admirable.  Sarah, along with many small indie labels such as K, Slumberland, Pop Narcotic, SpinArt, Teen-Beat, Simple Machines, and Independent Project Records, helped me feel a part of a community.  I’ve never been a scenester.  I have always been reluctant to fall in with a particular insular music scene.  Yet with artists, labels, and mail order distributers all over the western world introducing me to terrific music, it felt like my world was expanding and that somehow I was part of it.  No, I wasn’t making music, but I was helping spread the word and supporting those who did.  It was rewarding and exciting!  I was corresponding with people all across the globe on a very personal level, instead of just memorizing their names from record sleeves as I listened to their music.  Nearly every day I was receiving 7” singles, demo tapes, letters, or postcards in the mail.  This was what inspired me to start writing and to (mistakenly) believe that my voice was valid.  Even though my world was growing through this indie music stuff, it also felt smaller.  Suddenly, I fely=t important.  Everything was not so daunting.  It helped me realize that there are lost souls everywhere and we can bond over our shared sensibilities.  It wasn’t long after Mike introduced me to the Glass Arcade compilation that the idea of This Wreckage was born.   Who would’ve thought I’d be still trying to make it interesting 34 years later?  

Whatever the case, reading about how immersive the Sarah devotees were back when the label was active (1987-1995), reminded me to go back and listen to my introduction and how it made me feel then.  It still inspires me as much as the music gives me those rainy day vibes.  Yes, there’s a lot of nostalgia there, as I miss the idealism and the innocence of my own youth.  It makes me wonder if it’s not just me losing that fire with age, or if we as a whole have.  I’m savoring the book because I do want those feelings back and listening to these old songs helps. 

 

Turned to Stone

The Blue Herons

“Turned to Stone”

(self-released)

Every so often songs come into our lives that stand out from the rest.  There are many reasons for this: like it has to withstand repeated listens and be catchy, and/or it has to speak to us as individuals in a way that begs for those repeated listens.  For me, right now, that song is “Turned to Stone” by the bi-continental duo The Blue Herons.  At 2024 years’ end, I sang their praises via a breakdown of their singles compilation Go On (see review here).  And here they are picking up with a recent single that is as good as they’ve ever done, which is an incredibly high bar.

Andy Jossi’s music never ceases to astound!  He is a master of layering immaculately performed instrumentation together both in dreamy, languid, and broad paint strokes, and effervescent detailed touches that nearly always climax in satisfying dramatic crescendos.  “Turned to Stone” is the latter here and it absolutely impeccably sets an emotional foundation for Gretchen DeVault’s yearning vocals.  They’ve both so captured such a tight bond in this song, it’s difficult to believe that this was put together remotely. 

On the surface this song can be taken quite literally.  A heavy hearted plea for the seasons to change and hoping for the darkness of winter to transition to the longer, warmer, and sunnier days of Spring and Summer.  Personally DeVault’s words have hit me hard.  I am currently in a period of an intense health struggle, where I’ve been taking a chemo drug to prevent tumor growth, and the side effects of that drug are preventing me from being able to live a purposeful and enjoyable existence.  The chorus goes:

“Long days are gone

From the horizon now

The winds grow so strong

They could blow it all away” 

First of all, when hearing this song, I dare you not to get this refrain stuck in your head in the best possible way.  DeVault’s voice soars and arrests hearts with her brilliant performance.  For me, these words present the dilemma I’ve been wrestling with.  The long days could be gone if I give them up in order to feel stronger, while those strong winds could blow away the three years of hard work I’ve put in on the drug, which has indeed stopped the rampant tumor growth that was occurring in my head.  This song has helped me address this quandary and face the hard reality of my situation.  Wow!  I get chills every time I hear it, which is as often as possible!

On a macro scale, I also feel like this song is a perfect distillation of our times now in a post-Covid (or post-fll in the blank here) world.  We are all a few years out of the intense lockdown, but I’m not sure that many of us have really recovered.  It seems like there are many scars left that have not yet healed, even if unacknowledged or recognized.  Perhaps I’m paranoid, but it feels like there’s a lot more mistrust in our society that is not only between individuals and institutions (government, corporations, media, etc.), and more troubling between us as individuals (neighbors, friends, family).  These are things that have always existed, yet it seems now like they are conflicts that our unplanned isolation has driven an insurmountable wedge into our lives.  Our “heavy hearts have turned to stone.”  I believe that this song is a plea as well as a wish or an instruction for us to get over all of this shit and let optimism and cooperation back into our lives.

If only this song could be heard by a lot more people. However one interprets it for themselves, it is an incredible four-plus minute song worth more than notice and acclaim.  This is a truly affecting piece of art that I feel privileged to listen to.  I hope to see you all waiting “for the sun to rise again.”

(https://theblueherons1.bandcamp.com/track/turned-to-stone)

 

 

the blue herons "turned to stone"

 

 

immediately and without hesitation

 

rocket rules

immediately and without hesitation

(self-released)

One of the joys I get from music is that I never know what might come along and sweep me off my feet.  Sometimes it’s a long time favorite releasing new music that rivals their previous best going back decades, yet sometimes those don’t always pan out.  Sometimes it’s an artist that never clicked with me suddenly becoming a new obsession.  Most often, it’s a new artist that comes along and re-ignites the ole’ pilot light.  Melbourne’s two piece, rocket rules, have released their second EP, only six months after their debut self-titled EP, and they have me typing up a bunch of nonsensical words urging a non-existent audience to check out this music!

“add up all the chances” opens these three songs and immediately whooshes in with the effervescence of Spain’s Linda Guilala with the catchy pop tunes of Sacramento’s Soft Science.  It’s seriously addictive.  I cannot stop repeating “add up” every time I listen.  It’s that unholy merging of chiming guitars and keyboards that heavy hands its way to the front of the song giving it a rushing momentum that breathes new life into these old lungs.  The sing-along words too hit in the right place.  “Everything has changed but feels the same” feels especially poignant as this song reminds us that our time is limited and to make the most of it and to protect our sanity.   The chorus asks us “Will you know, the day you break?”  Good question right?  The likelihood seems like ‘no,’ because we’re broken, which may be the point.  Stay vigilant!

That electric thrust of sound energy pulsates through the heavy “the weight.”  In this case it provides the song with a certain gravitas and drama, foreshadowing dark clouds brewing on the horizon.  But you know what?  That dominating sound never fails to catch my attention.  The song could last forever and it would never get old.  The thumping slow beat of “draynor village” provides a reflective mix of conflicting emotions.  The crashing cymbals during the chorus are perfectly placed as the narration debates their level of trust in this situation. It’s surprisingly brief close to a great short player.

It’s difficult to believe these songs are ‘bedroom’ recordings, because this EP sounds live and alive in every way.  Rach and Bax have definitely stepped up their musical game from their solid debut. 

(https://rocketrules.bandcamp.com/album/immediately-and-without-hesitation)

rocket rules "add up all the chances"

And Finally . . . In This Space and Time

 

Sophie and Me

And Finally . . . In This Space and Time

(Self – Released digital)

Wowza!  This three song single kicked off 2025 in spectacular fashion and it’s a soothing balm in the face of 2025 otherwise starting off like a tragic nightmare.  These songs have created a melancholy orchestral drama to help guide us through these rough times. 

I became aware of Sophie and Me late last summer via a four song B-side collection named Who Cares B-Sides, which is so great that it amazed me that these dream poppers would share them almost as an afterthought.  These are fully developed excellent songs.  They’ve released a few more singles since, and the quality remains high.  They are quickly becoming a favorite!  This newest release, the digital single on Bandcamp And finally…In This Space and Time, is described as forgotten unfinished tracks.  However these three songs are all epic emotional vistas.   

The nearly seven minute “We Are One (Part I & II)” opens this with an incredibly dramatic journey that takes us through lows and highs of a relationship as the music swells and builds into buzzing guitars and crashing drums, while a comforting keyboard hook soothes us back into a quiet reflective finale, where Sophie Brightman’s sweet voice finds solacby assessing the situation through a lens of being in the moment, and realizing that those highs and lows all can balance out.  It’s a remarkable journey and a brilliant timeless song.

“Change the World” is the pop song of these three with its piano led breaks between choruses.  It’s a hopeful and positive message and a fun listen.

Lastly, “When I Go Back” is another quiet drama whose instrumental buildup (with keyboards that remind of Pink Floyd’s keyboardist Richard Wright on Dark Side of the Moon) pays off with a meandering beat and a restless reflection of the inherent conflicts with returning to a former home.  Javier Manriquedelara’s instrumentation is a revelation, as everything is in its right place.

When I purchased this, I did so unheard.  The quality of the previous release earned them that, so when I first listened, I was floored by its excellence.  The emotional depth of the songs here is achingly beautiful.  Once you hear them, you’ll know what I mean.  My silly words do not do these songs any justice.  This has to be listened to. 

(https://sophieandme.bandcamp.com/album/and-finally-in-this-space-and-time)

Sophie and Me "We Are One (Parts I & II"