Thursday, December 31, 2020

Top 10 Albums of 2020

Normally, when I present these annual best of lists, it feels like a celebration of how much great music has come along during a given year.  It is fun to remember those early year albums, along with the fresh fire of an exciting late year release!  This strange year has been no exception.  So much great music has come about in 2020, despite the crushing blows received by the music industry (and so many of us) during this pandemic.  This is a small portion of what teased my ears this year and, as always, was very tough to narrow down.  The creative spirit is alive and well and though I have not found the same kind of fire, inspiration, and solace that I normally do from music, it is still my go to – no matter what.  Something always breaks through and brings about raw feelings and hope.  As 2020 winds down, it is difficult to be too optimistic, as promise of a return to normal life still seems so far away.  At any rate, please check out these fine artists, if you are unfamiliar, there’s a lot of great music here. 

 

#1. Laveda What Happens After

 


#2. Soft Blue Shimmer Heaven Inches Away

 


#3. Bob Mould Blue Hearts

 


#4. House of Harm Vicious Pastimes

 


#5. Heavy Sigh Hard to Care

 


#6. Nada Surf Never Not Together

 


#7. Sophia Holding On / Letting Go

 


#8. STAR Violence Against STAR

 


#9. Fire in the Radio Monuments

 


#10. Spectres Nostalgia







Friday, December 11, 2020

Heaven Inches Away

 


Soft Blue Shimmer

Heaven Inches Away

(Disposable America) 

For me, there has been a sound of warmth that has always drawn me to a certain kind of music.  It’s one of those elusive and incredibly difficult things to try to explain, but to me it’s very tangible.  As a kid, I remember first hearing tunes by Tubeway Army, OMD, and Depeche Mode that fit this bill.  There’s something about those early electropop bands that were comforting.  Maybe it’s the idea of an electronic instrument emitting actual warmth and light that filled my soul, along with a sound that was new, pure, and exciting.  I have found comfort in the strangest of places while seeking out this elusive feeling.  I remember when I first discovered the atonal chordings and feedback warmth of Sonic Youth in the late 80s, I found a peace inside all of their madness.  There’s something about a wall of buzzing feedback that can fuel me like a campfire.  I’m certain that a huge part of my tastes over the years have been effected greatly by this search, even if it comes in many different forms.

L.A. trio Soft Blue Shimmer are not really anything like any band I’ve mentioned above, yet they have warmth in spades.  They’ve done all the work with their debut full-length: Heaven Inches Away.  The album opens with a brief ambient sound titled “Space Heater,” which they translate as being “an intense emotion or feeling stretched over moments and sustained with lingering intensity.”  Is this what I’ve always been looking for?  There’s also an immaculate song called “Sunpools” and “Hold You in the Warm,” which all evoke this powerful need for a comforting blast or embrace of warmth. 

I immediately fell in love with Soft Blue Shimmer’s debut EP from the summer of 2019 (Nothing Happens Here), and it fast became one of my most listened to collections of the year.  The band’s name represents their sound so perfectly.  There is a softness to the way their instruments sound and meld together.  The guitars fizz and bubble and chime, the bass lines are exploratory and filling, while the drums sound unlike anyone else’s.  The cymbal work really does shimmer.  And then Meredith’s vocals are so understated, hummable, and stunningly beautiful.  She manages to squeeze out unbelievably emotive moments with a deft touch like on the aforementioned “Sunpools,” with the repeated refrain “it doesn’t mean anything” several times over.  It’s cathartic, yet in an understated way.  They are so damn musical!  The first single leaked from the LP, “Cherry Cola Abyss,” is the longest song here, has no real major hook, is a bit meandering, but it sounds like heaven!  It evokes a variety of emotions and continues to build a quiet intensity throughout.  It even comes with instructions during the instrumental peak near the end: “close your eyes & feel intensely the memory of things you felt a long time ago & thought you forgot: those lingering silent sense memories that remain…stay there for a moment.”  This is exactly why I love music so much, because it allows me to do just that with a color and verve that only certain sounds and ideas can provoke. 

They employ a cascading guitar sound on the upbeat and endlessly catchy “Emerald Bells” making for an incredibly sparkling and fiery moment simultaneously.  Even though it comes in at the beginning of the collection, it feels like a great set closer.  I really love the world weary voice of either Kenzo or Charlie here as well.  Really nice touch.  “Chihiro” scratches a similar itch as “Emerald Bells” with some more stunning guitar work and a chorus line of Meredith’s incredible voice.  “Hold You in the Warm,” which opens side two with more of those tasteful cascading guitars that reminds me of one of my all-time favorites Abecedarians, who have also filled my musical warmth needs over the years  Meanwhile, “Musubi” includes an off-kilter tempo change early on in its two minute brevity that somehow feels natural.  “Adore the Distance” closes out this album out in perfect fashion as it comes a realization that we can all move on from whatever things have been keeping us pinned down.  At some point, if we allow it, we can move on from our emotional trappings.  Or at least I hope so!  It’s a fantastic song that has repetitive detailed guitar notes that mildly evoke the glory of The Sundays, along with a memorable chorus.

 At any rate, I don’t feel like I can fully encapsulate how I truly feel about this record – this band’s sound.  It is one that, in essence, I’ve been searching for since before the band members were likely born.  It’s a strange thought, but my ears are drawn to this in such a way that I cannot love what they are doing to this point. 

(https://softblueshimmer.bandcamp.com/)

 

Soft Blue Shimmer "Cherry Cola Abyss"






Friday, November 20, 2020

Violence Against STAR

 


STAR

Violence Against STAR

(self released)

It was still days of Myspace, when I first happened upon STAR, a Chicago trio that struck with short bursts of electric energy and controlled chaos.  Like so many artists did on that platform, they offered up a few songs for free download, and download I did, which then led to the full debut CD purchase (Devastator) from CD Baby.  God I feel like a relic!  That’s what makes this sophomore LP release such a surprise, it arrives 13 years after the debut and it’s like no time has passed, even though everything feels completely different now. 

 


STAR consisting of Scott Cortez (best known from loveliescrushing & Astrobrite) and Theodore Beck created soundscapes of noise that teetered somewhere between the all-out stabs of noisy feedback of Skywave and Barbed Wire Kisses Jesus and Mary Chain, which were then transformed into shiny little catchy pop nuggets by singer/songwriter Shannon Roberts and her both beautiful and disconcerting falsetto.  Whatever the case, the debut was a fun listen and was able to yield any kind of different takes with each listen.  Then, they disappeared.  Devastator received a nice reissue in 2016 on the fine Texas shoegaze label Saint Marie Records, which at the time reminded me to pull out the old CD and even contemplate purchasing it on vinyl (I did not). 

Then on Halloween 2018, STAR released a roaring, in-the-red, single named “Flesh Eating Mothers.”  It’s just over two minutes of blistering noise with a killer (and I mean killer) chorus.  What a surprise!  Then, another wait.  Now two years later “Flesh Eating Mothers” is back as a track on this full length second offering from the same lineup and another intoxicating stew of memorable songs bursting at the seams with a sardonic could give a fuck attitude, along with a healthy dose of tenderness.

Right away they dazzle with three stunning songs, among their best yet.  Violence opens with the bright, open air quality of the opening cut “Angel School Anthem,” the relentless pounding of “Blonde Sound,” and the incredible guitar hook of “Noise Parade” make this LP alone worth it.  It doesn’t end their though, because the LP plays out much like a greatest hits style package.  SideTwo opens with a similar one two three punch with the buzzy “Cruel 15” that has another appealing chorus, “Cock Swan” comes on like JAMC’s “Head On” and a whole other level of noise, when more and more guitars get added to the mix as the song progresses.  “In Your Arsenal” follows with yet another astonishing chorus and a serious need for upping the volume.  Elsewhere, “White Fear” comes on like some kind of demented High School cheer with the most timely and telling line of the entire record: “This is how fear always beats out reason.”  The entire album is really enjoyable.  I know the noise isn’t for everyone, or every mood, but there’s something captivating and inviting about these brief anthems.

Sadly, and with a heavy heart, I hate to say that Theodore Beck, Shannon’s husband, developed cancer and passed away late in October.  Apparently, we have him to thank for making sure this wonderful record found its way to completion, leaving us with an amazing gift.  Thank you so much.

 

(https://star13.bandcamp.com/)

 





Sunday, November 15, 2020

Hard to Care

 


Heavy Sigh

Hard To Care

(Cult of Nine)

Okay, so I am still incredibly far behind!  This quality LP was released way back in early October and I am just now getting to it.  Not that it matters.  The best music is timeless and I rank this as some of the finest music I’ve heard this year.  I sincerely hope that there’s already a wide audience enjoying the virtues of this humble collection, but if there’s any one person that isn’t aware, whom I can convince, then I’ll have already exceeded any kind of reach that I’ve set previously.

During my older years, I have found that music takes more time to sink its way into my psyche than it used to.  I need to listen and focus more to allow everything to marinate and differentiate itself within my muddled mind.  Occasionally, one of these collections seems to get better with every listen.  Heavy Sigh’s Hard to Care is one of those.  Honestly, I liked this New Jersey five piece’s debut album the first time I heard it, but now I find myself listening to it all the time.

Not sure when the band put this all together, but the songs are incredibly perfect for these Covid / and everything ELSE times.  There is an exceeding amount apathy within these words – a strong sense of giving it all the fuck up.  Something I’m sure many of us have asked during our lives, and likely increasingly so when access to so much of what keeps us going, in every sense of the word, has been shut down: What’s the point?

For some reason, I’ve always liked it when a band is confident enough to open an album with a down or mid-tempo track and Heavy Sigh does so here with the defiant floater “No Hell.”  It’s a builder, despite its brevity.  The song showcases the band’s inherent drama with a surprising wash of invigorating trumpets and the skittering noisy repeated bridge of “do the tears burn or put the fire out?” 

For simple reference, Heavy Sigh’s sound lies somewhere between the shiny effervescence of their contemporaries Soft Blue Shimmer and the wistful melancholy pop of 90s indie band Spent.  They have a tasteful sparseness to their sound and with their words, which is incredibly appealing.  It seems like a few short lyrics along with an uncluttered sound can often evoke really strong emotional reactions.

My introduction to Heavy Sigh was via the song “Downtime, All the Time,” which could be the most fitting title for 2020, if we haven’t had to be ready for so many disasters along the way.  The song glides along pleasantly with a sweet little keyboard hook as it ruminates on the 9 to 5 workday rules so many of us find ourselves stuck in.  The rinse-repeat nightmare (“falling all the time”) that hits me, personally, very hard.  Speaking of nightmares, “Cold Throw” covers this ground by asking “why am I terrified?"


There is definitely an eternal conflict going on with many of these songs.  There’s a feeling that our narrator is not quite getting what they want out of a relationship or situation, yet seems uncertain about moving on.  There’s the promise made in “The Promise” (while still asserting “I am not a puppet”), and in the stunning “Feel Like It,” Suzy Forman “can’t say goodbye,” but yet can’t stop from acting out.  The haunting “People Pleaser” is one of my favorites.  It has a seeping quality that drains its confused and aching sentiments straight into one’s soul.  “Are you happy with me?” is one of those eternal crushing questions that no one wants to ask, answer, or have anything to do with.

“That Bad” sounds like a lost track from the Cure’s Seventeen Seconds album with a little backwards hit on the drum sound along with a gloomy re-write of the self-hating “How Soon is Now?” scenario.  OMG!  Where was this song during my high school years?!

The collection winds down with “Glare,” with a ton of resignation and defeat: “this hurt is mine / I don’t want to fight.”  It’s all incredibly sad and identifiable, but I’d like to posit that the fight in the music throughout this LP shows off an energy that is not ready to give up so easily.  “Glare” itself comes to a soaring musical peak, but instead of concluding in that blaze of stormy glory, it begins again, much as it began: quietly and determined to figure things out.

 

(https://heavysigh.bandcamp.com/album/hard-to-care)

 

 

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Vicious Pastimes

 


House of Harm

Vicious Pastimes

(Avant! Records)

 

This write-up is late.  Vicious Pastimes, the debut LP from Boston trio House of Harm was released back in early September.  Unfortunately, as mentioned in my previous post (Lonely is an Eyesore), I have not been listening to much music recently.  However, this fine album has been the main attraction, as it has been essentially the only album I’ve listened to over the past month or so.  The energetic and urgent romanticism of these songs is so life affirming and exciting that it is incredibly addictive and has been important in keeping me going during the depths of this pandemic.

 There is something undeniably retro about this album, yet because of the group’s incredibly strong songwriting it is not a hindrance.  The main thing that makes it feel retro to me is the super 80s sound of the drum machine.  It’s funny, because the drum sounds on songs recorded during the 80s are often what makes them sound dated and not as timeless as they should be, but here on this modern recording it doesn’t bother me and just makes me want to get up and dance.  It doesn’t hurt that every song on this record could (or should be) a single.  The kind that would’ve (or should’ve) been club hits back in the 80s.

Vicious Pastimes opens with the insanely catchy “Isolator,” which sets the stage for what is about to come.  The Peter Hook-ish bass-line propels this mid-tempo song, while the bright keyboards sparkle and chime leading me to play my first air keyboards in years!  Listening brings to mind visions of a dark smoky club – the stage back lit, so that all we can see are silhouettes of the band on stage and the tops of the bouncing/dancing oblique hair-styled heads of the audience.  I can smell cloves.  And is that a saxophone at the end?  “Coming of Age” is even more of all of this.  Michael Rocheford’s pleading vocals match perfectly to the spacious keyboard washes of each verse as the build into the fantastic sing along chorus.  The title track is similarly incredible with its driving beat, huge chorus, and persistent passion. 

The repetitive circular guitar rhythm sets up “Behind You,” which takes the intensity up a notch, driving the ear worm ever deeper into your psyche.  The urgency ramps up after “The Sun Always Shines on TV” (A-Ha) – like keyboard wash that breaks in like a majestic sunrise, before racing to its conclusion.  “Against the Night” is likely the most postpunk style song on the album.  The song sounds angrier with its howling guitar screams and off-kilter noise and a propulsive drum beat that stutters to an uncertain finish.  Another of the darker toned songs is the excellent “Waste of Time,” which is still insanely catchy with its broken bassline and a killer instrumental chorus with absolutely lovely layered guitars.

House of Harm "Catch"

The first song I ever heard from these guys was 2019s single “Catch.”  This windswept single lands in the middle of the LP like a breath of fresh air.  It is so spacious and sinfully catchy it’s really a shame that I haven’t grown sick of hearing it all over the damn place, as it deserves to be.  This is the kind of pop perfection that the Cure used to capture with singles like “In-Between Days” and “Just like Heaven.”  The only mistake the band made for their outdoor, near the water, video, is that they weren’t perched atop a giant cliff overlooking the churning ocean.  Speaking of incredible singles, “Always” has that big sound that begs to have movies written in order to incorporate its heart-wrenching romance.  

House Of Harm "Always"

The album closes, but does not let up, with the keyboard heavy “Control.”  The song energizes like a second wind.  Just when you were getting tired from so much dancing around (I sure miss live music), this one brings you back around and leaves you wanting more.  If I haven’t made it clear, this is one spectacular album that should be a blockbuster worldwide.

 

(https://houseofharm.bandcamp.com/)

 

 

 

 


Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Lonely is an Eyesore

 


Remember the band Danny Wilson?  They were around during the late 80s and a true one hit wonder.  Danny Wilson was not a person.  It was the name of the band.  I remember that much.  I kind of remembered their one minor hit, “Mary’s Prayer.”  It was the only song of theirs that I ever consciously knew.  For some reason, one that I do not understand, I’ve been thinking about that song lately.  Sometime last week, I dialed up YouTube and looked up that music video.  I couldn’t remember ever having seen it before, but it has been 33 years since it was in my consciousness.  It had been so long that the song hadn’t found its way into my head, because I honestly couldn’t quite remember how it went.  It was simply inexplicably in my thoughts as a thing.  It turns out that it’s a pretty good song, which is surprising since I so often can’t seem to prevent songs that I do not like from repeating in my head for weeks on end (this means you Cher and your “If I could Turn Back Time” and “Believe,” Live and your “Lightning Crashes,” and your horrific “Lovin’ Every Minute of it” by Loverboy, among many others).  After watching the video, which is very fashion conscious, I crawled into the rabbit hole and watched several videos from Swing Out Sister and Alphabet City era ABC, during that period during the late 80s when the UK was pumping out endless streams of lite jazz/pop hybrid artists that were later coined as sophisti-pop.  They emerged from the shadows of the Style council, Spandau Ballet, Sade and eventually morphed into forgettable things like Curiosity Killed the Cat and Johnny Hates Jazz.  Luckily my journey morphed as well.  I stopped with ABC and veered toward the 80s Liverpool bands I loved so much back then.  As a long awaited rain fell down outside, I got chills listening to old Julian Cope, Echo and the Bunnymen, and the Wild Swans.

 


I ended up listening to all of Bringing Home the Ashes, the long awaited debut album from the Wild Swans, which was easily my favorite album of 1988, and really one of my favorites of all time.  The stunning guitar work from Jeremy Kelly is absolutely immaculate.  His clearly plucked dreamy melodies and solos are the kind that my ears still seek from music to this day.  The album is also layered with a disconcerting background howl, like the sound of a distant warning horn calling out through a dense fog or smoke.  These wonderful guitar sounds blend perfectly with band leader Paul Simpson’s romantic and poetic lyrics, which are dripping with powerful imagery, heartbreaking snapshots of life amongst the downtrodden, and yet they’re filled with optimism for a better future.  The Wild Swans created a cohesive LP that begs to be heard from start to finish and, at least in my case, listened to over and over again, as I have continued to do. 

This album captured my ears at a time when my passion for music was growing exponentially by the week, and was a massive part in setting the stage for music as my go to companion for all occasions, especially those dark, inconsolable moments of heartache and heartbreak when it is most difficult to reach out.  Music is more reliable and present than any friend or family member ever could be, but, as I’ve learned this year, it cannot replace human companionship.  As this pandemic has continued on for month after month, I have found that not even music has been able to fully lift me up above the oppressive current of bleakness that keeps washing over all of us.  Isolation is hard enough to take, especially while still fully aware of the barrage of bad news happening to the planet, to people in our communities, people afar, and to those close to us – all while feeling absolutely helpless.

 


Listening to these songs from so long ago brought back a memory I haven’t considered since they were still fairly new.  Sometime during my high school years, I began to post excerpts of song lyrics from many of the songs that were impacting me at that time.  Making mix tapes for people, DJing School dances, babbling endlessly about music, and wearing concert t-shirts nearly every day, apparently, was not enough.  It was simple, I would take a blank sheet of paper and write out the lyric quote with blue and/or black Bic pens and attribute the words to the band, and at the start of the school day I would tape a sheet to the outside of my locker.  It didn’t happen every day, I do not remember what year it began, or how long I continued to do this.  The Wild Swans were well represented, as were the Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, the Replacements, Swans, New Model Army, the Go-Betweens, Pixies, and many others.  There was a lot of Joy Division as well – a lot of Joy Division.  I think the first one I ever posted was from Throwing Muses from their song “Fish”:

“Lonely is as lonely does

Lonely is an eyesore” 

There was no particular reason for these sheets, other than possibly a lame advertisement attempting to get my classmates curious about the sources of these cryptic words.  I think what kept me doing it is that no one really ever said anything about them.  One time, after a Morrissey quote had been set in place, Mrs. Boyden, the advanced level math and French teacher told me that she thought the words were too whiney.  Fair enough.  I’m pretty sure I replied with a chuckle and a “Yah!”  Otherwise, it was radio silence.  Often times, the posting would disappear sometime during the school day, or get damaged – torn, shredded, and stomped on, as if it (or I) rubbed someone the wrong way.  I was never alerted as to why in either case.  Again, no one ever approached me to find out what the hell I was doing.  The silence only encouraged me to continue mildly bemused, until I eventually got bored and the whole thing petered out.

Hearing those old tunes may have been an unconscious attempt to rekindle that love and passion for music (cue “If I Could Turn Back Time”) that has been dwindling rapidly from my life.  Starting from scratch.  It has helped a little.  I’ve actually turned my stereo on a few times since to listen to an album or three since that rainy afternoon last week, after going several weeks without doing so.  It’s fascinating to consider the massive fire that ignited in me back then which has burned relentlessly all of these years.  Music has taken me on many adventures, down many different roads, and has exposed me to so much. Many of my friendships have been earned through a shared passion for music.  I have learned more than I could have ever imagined.  It has expanded my very small world.  It’s difficult for me to imagine all of that in tatters like one of those lyric posters that I used to find scattered across the floor of the high school hallway near my locker.  To be honest, I don’t have a plan B.  I know a lot of us are struggling dealing with this pandemic.  Personally, I went in already really depressed.  I'm used to crawling out of the darkness through music.  Without the electric infusion I’ve always received from the music I love, I do not know how to face life.




Saturday, October 3, 2020

Hope

 


“Hope is a word that you say any day

It’s a dream and it screams in your head”

The House of Love’s Guy Chadwick croons this chorus so majestically from his band’s brilliant 1988 debut album.  This song was on repeat in my mind a lot back then.  I used to sing along, thinking that he was saying “everyday” – not “any day.”  Not that it makes a huge difference.  I have always said the word hope all the freaking time.  In 1988, though my 17 year old self may have denied it then, I had actual genuine hope.  Things weren’t great.  I was battling a lot of self-doubt, loneliness, depression and sleeplessness, but I had goals and dreams and a desire that all of these things would turn around.  There was a future.  Apparently, I did not pay enough to the conclusion of the song:

“It’s a lie on a seat of a night

When you’re bawling like a baby, so alone

Like a baby

It’s not right”

It feels true.  Hope is a liar, a charlatan, and a temptation beckoning us to keep going despite overwhelming evidence of futility and failure.  Hope creates dreams, desires, and expectations that eventually lead to disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have hope.  It’s alarming how often I say the word: “I hope you have a great weekend!”  “I hope you’re feeling well!”  “I hope you have a nice evening!”  “I hope you get well quick!”  You get the idea.  I do hope these things for the people I say them to.  I want people to thrive, be joyful, content, fulfilled, healthy, excited, and successful in whatever measure they choose.  I’d like those things for myself as well!  It’s the hope part that crushes me.  I have not figured out how to wish for these types of things without feeling completely empty for not achieving them.  

I’ve heard wise people say that life is about the journey – the search for fulfillment, etc. not so much about the achievement.    It makes total sense.  I can logically see and understand that, yet when I look back on my life, it feels like the journey has been about setbacks and frustration.  This is why I blame hope.  Every time I get one of those notions that fill me with daydreams of what could be, I get so thrilled by the idea that I have a difficult time living in the moment.  Once those grand visions start to pass, and reality sets in, my life, as it is, feels that much more distasteful.  I would rather not go through the disappointment, but I have not figured out how to twist that hope faucet tight enough to stop the drip.  If I didn’t have hope, then my stupid mind wouldn’t generate expectations, and theoretically I’d never be disappointed.  Perhaps I would find a clearer route to appreciating what I do have.

 


In 1990 Bad Religion released the song “The Positive Aspect of Negative Thinking,” (from Against the Grain) the title of which has become a mantra for me.  This under a minute shredder surgically cuts our cultural egos down to size and expresses utter disgust at everything that has grown too big for its britches.  Yet, it is optimistic and insightful for recognizing what’s wrong.  For one could say that theoretically we cannot correct our mistakes until we recognize them.  On a personal level, I love this notion, because it fits my dream of no expectations, no illusions, no disappointments and occasional pleasant surprises.  And yes, I am fully aware that I am writing about hoping for no hope.  It’s not lost on me.  This is simply a long winded way of saying that I am exhausted, like so many, from spending most of my time doing things I do not want to do and feeling like my entire life has been wasted.  Tired of having a broken heart full of sadness for not ever achieving any of my high end goals due to an ugly cocktail of laziness, poor decision making, bad timing, lack of ability, and uncooperative health issues.  Perhaps if I had never had dreams, I would not be so lost now.

  

 





Sunday, August 30, 2020

Comatose

 


Portland, Oregon’s Ten Million Lights are a four piece who are set to release a new EP, Shine So Bright, on October 2nd.  This past spring the band holed up, in the shadows of Covid-19 and all of the protests over social injustice, and put together this intensely personal and emotional five song EP.

Ten Million Lights create dreamy guitar pop, a la Ride, that is infused with a heartier rock-n-roll vibe, like the legendary Swervedriver, or 90s UK acts such as Midway Still or Bivouac, as well as contemporaries like Philadelphia’s Nothing, or the UK’s Wishbone.  They’ve been at this for about ten years now, with two albums and several EPs under their belts, finding catharsis along the way through their noise, energy, and heartfelt lyrics.

This Wreckage is honored to be able to premiere Ten Million Lights’ newest single, “Comatose,” as a lead up to their EP’s release.

“Comatose” is a stunning song about love in the face of tragedy.  The song opens with a burbling bassline provided by Russ Ellis, before erupting with Paul Hardie’s dramatic drum crashes, then settles comfortably into songwriter Ryan Carroll’s yearning vocals, which are complimented perfectly by Eric Block’s chiming guitar flourishes throughout each verse.  The breathtaking chorus perfectly captures the poignant feelings of witnessing the bright sun breaking through menacing storm clouds and the inherent hope that can be drawn from such an experience.

For Ryan, this was an especially personal experience.  A friend of his had been in a coma and Ryan was wrestling with the various emotions that come with that.  He was concerned over the possibility of losing his friend, as well as his friends’ partner’s well-being.  He goes on to describe the genesis for the song: “I remember sitting in my car, one of those cold winter days, and thinking to myself how I hoped she would find some peace inside herself for what was happening.  I heard the radio weatherman predict that a storm was coming and that our gray overcast skies would soon be filled with wind and snow. Just then I got word that he had started to breathe on his own and wouldn't you know it the sky parted, the sun came out, diamonds appeared all around me in the frost, I turned my face into the sun and breathed in the cold winter air all while feeling the warmest feeling in my soul.


"Comatose" will be available on September 4th, but stream it here first!

https://soundcloud.com/10millionlights/ten-million-lights-shine-so-bright-03-comatose/s-pee9fnge5Ag


https://tenmillionlights.com/





Saturday, July 11, 2020

Don't Give Up



As a kid, curvy roadways used to make me violently ill.  There’s something about the constant turning, causing the stomach to shift from side to side.  It seems like every time my family took out on a winding road trip, it would be either burning hot outside, or damp outside, so the car interior was always warm and muggy, so the nausea of the rocking back and forth - sliding a little along the vinyl back seat – unsecured by a seat belt, came along with uncomfortable sweats.  Recently, I drove through Newberg, a small town about 25 miles southwest of Portland.  I will always associate Newberg with car sickness.  When my family moved from Portland to the Oregon coast, we passed through and I asked if we could stop, because I thought that I was going to throw up.  The deep breathing my mom suggested was not working.  We stopped off at a donut shop.  It was a rainy and humid mid-morning.  A common rainy Oregon day: wet and gloomy and strangely warm and humid.  The kind where you need a jacket to keep your clothes dry, but you don’t really want to wear more layers.  The four of us sat inside the donut shop with a few plain round cake treats in the center of the table.  My dad seemed to have a thing about ordering the plainest donuts in the world.  If I think back on it, his decision was likely partially based on the fact that they were the cheapest option, but it’s just as likely that his decision was to not offend anyone’s tastes, which always had the opposite effect.  My brother and I each had a half pint carton of milk and my parents had styrofoam cups of coffee.  My stomach was mildly better, but my head was still spinning and I felt like I was burning from the inside, which I remember because my dad was getting impatient and wanted to get back on the road.  I chewed the same bite of that donut for what seemed like hours, until it became a viscous goo that wadded up in the crevices of my gums with no intention of going anywhere near my throat.  I felt like I would feel years later when I experienced my first tragic hangover and every one after that.  I stared at the milk.  I hate milk.  I always hated milk.  I was always being given milk and I could not figure out why.  My mom had opened it for me, so I was afraid I would get lectured about waste, but luckily my bother chugged it down with his strangely amplified swallowing noises.  Glug Glug Glug.  Welcome to Newberg.

Why was I passing through Newberg?  I’m not really sure.  I have made reasons that take me to or through Yamhill County four weekends in a row.  This most recent trip, I took a route I haven’t used in years, after having driven back and forth through there countless times as part of that two hour trek from Lincoln City to Portland and back.  Not far from where I remember that now long gone donut shop, I turned right onto a highway I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before.  It was a narrow two lane road that immediately began drifting back and forth needlessly.  Though I no longer seem to get car sick, I still don’t appreciate these types of roads.  I don’t have a particular affinity for driving, beyond the convenience it provides, so it all feels like too much work.  Yet, here I’ve been spending parts of my weekends driving through the countryside.  I suppose it’s a way to get out of the house responsibly during the Covid lockdown.  It’s also been a place I’ve imagined as an escape over the last several years.  I explained this a couple of years ago in the post Jennifer She Said.  The rustic Yamhill County has become a wine connoisseur hotspot since those days of plain donuts and car sickness, yet it has retained its quiet rural time capsule aesthetic.  It is still sprinkled with tiny towns with broken streets often slowed down by commuting tractors creeping past small local markets, dive bars, tiny schoolhouses, and now the occasional fancy tasting room for a nearby vineyard.  The escape daydreams started popping into my head with the image of living alone in some small house, working evenings at a small local pizza shop pouring pitchers of beer for parents after a local high school game, sharing odd philosophical notions or inventing on gossip to the locals.  I’d imagine I’d spend my days writing – believing that I actually had the talent and the will, and possibly hosting a local radio trade show, trying to sell or trade off Orville’s rusty back hoe or Thelma’s old claw foot bathtub that’s been sitting out back for the past 20 years and maybe spinning Shoegaze records for the farmers to enjoy.  Of course, these ideas hinge on some alternate reality where towns of less than a thousand people would have a radio station, the pizza place was still in business, and that I could survive on minimal wages, no healthcare coverage, or a nearby massive medical staff of specialists to manage my wonderful genetic syndrome.  The alternate vision?  That one involves going out to some random field at the edge of a forest to die in that peaceful setting.  I suppose it could be considered alarming that I keep finding myself returning there every week, but I have no plan.  No plan at all.


The day before, I was at the work office when a full on panic attack struck me.  I suddenly could not catch my breath, I became light-headed, and an overwhelming feeling of alarm surged through me like a lightning strike.  I do not blame my job directly, though I’m pretty sure it was triggered by a flash flood of the usual insane vague emails I so often receive, full of demands that I rarely have not been provided the proper tools to address.  These messages tapped into the incredible weight of anxiety that is already in place and has become intolerable.  A lot of us are dealing with anxiety, uncertainty, and isolation during these past few months of pandemic lockdown, and I have not been immune.  I honestly thought when this all began to disrupt our lives, that I would manage fairly well, since I have spent most of my life in a kind of self-imposed lockdown.  I could not have been more incorrect.  I have been battling depression for the past several years, made more acute after my 2015 Halloween hemorrhagic stroke, and these past few months have absolutely exacerbated all of my greatest fears.  I have been mostly cut off from my small group of loved ones who I rely on for support and therefore am spending way too much time dwelling on the emptiness that I feel.  Consciously and logically, I know that I can make decisions to choose to see the positive, but my brain will not allow these things.  Instead, I am left terrified, hopeless, and listless – powerless to affect change.  When any additional challenge passes my way, like the work emails, the bottom drops out and I feel like I’m free falling.  The only option that is to surrender and allow the inevitable crash to happen.  

About six miles in to my journey along this recently discovered highway I turned onto, I had my window down, and I was trying to feel relaxed by the breeze whipping into my face.  The music of Russian trio акульи слёзы (Shark’s Tears:  https://sharkstears.bandcamp.com/music ) was loudly enveloping me like a mournful blanket of melancholy.  As I approached an actual fork in the road, I veered to the right and up a slope into a forested stretch – away from the open fields of the previous couple of miles.  It was there, along the roadside, at the end of a tiny gravel driveway, I spotted a plain white campaign style yard sign with block letters reading “Don’t Give Up.”  I began gasping for breath again.  Would I begin to hyperventilate like I had the day before?  I could feel blood rush into my sinuses pressing in like a punch to the nose.  The sign brought to mind memories of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Frankie Says” slogans that they so brilliantly used to promote their music back when I was first beginning to spend all of my money on records.  I’m not sure if this flashback was the cause of the sudden emotional reaction, or because the sign was so unexpected, like a cosmic message placed there along my unplanned path to put my mind at ease.  I began to think about the Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush "Don't Give Up" duet.  It was a song that I adored when So was first released.  It tugged at the heartstrings and shone like a beacon of hope.  As close as I possibly could, I identified as a young teen with the Peter Gabriel character of the song, and longed for the soothing, comforting voice of the Kate Bush character to guide me back from the proverbial ledge.  The older and more jaded I became, the less effective the song.  It was too contrived, almost to the point of pure cheese - but that bass-line is impeccable.  Sort of like Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours,” which is so heavy handed that when the life support machine sound effects come in like Darth Vader having an asthmatic attack, I can’t help but laugh, despite concurring with the song’s message that there is no such thing as fair and that there is no spiritual grand plan.  There is no plan at all. 


Soon I was back onto a bigger and straighter highway heading back to where I live.  Knowing that I was going back, pushed my thoughts far from the hopeful encouragement of the "Don't Give Up" sign, or is it an unrealistic command?  The realization that nothing is changing for the better only began to fuel my urgent desperation for escape and the inability to know how.  I began to feel completely exhausted.  The lids of my eyes began to linger against each other when I blinked.  The image of driving off the road into the strange swampy field adjacent to the road passed through my thoughts, but instead I pulled onto the shoulder, got out and leaned against the car, and was again overcome by uncontrolled panic.  Erratic breathing, nausea and pressure built up from within so quickly that I thought I might burst.  This was a new kind of car sickness.  I stayed there for a long time, as I began to calm down.  I fought off the urge to lie down on the blacktop next to the fog line and drift off to sleep.  Instead I checked my phone.  No messages.  

Why has this time now been so difficult to deal with?  I have been through a lot of challenging times, I have always found a way to battle through.  When my life has been in the balance with a myriad of emergency health struggles, I have been a fighter.  I have refused to give in.  I have never worked harder, than I do when I have had to recover from devastating surgeries and debilitating medications.  During my three years of dialysis, I was defiant and challenged myself to continue to live life as if I was healthy and wasn’t spending 4-5 hours every other day being tortured.  I was not going to give up.  Perhaps, during those times, the struggle was tangible.  I had something in front of me to deal with directly.  I had timelines and goals.  Relearning what once were simple tasks, allowed me to take heart in seeing progress.  I feel none of that promise anymore and I do not know what to do.  This is like trying to fight my own shadow.  How do people turn this around?  It does not seem possible?

I want to thank the few folks out there who know that I am in a dark place and have reached out to offer support (I hope you know who you are).  It means more to me than I can ever express.  I also want to apologize for being a burden.  I would not have made it this far without you.  I do not wish to push my problems onto anyone and would rather be a positive part of your lives.  I’m just unsure of how to get there.  








Sunday, June 14, 2020

It Isn't Forever



Several years ago my friend Mindy offered both of us a writing challenge.  The topic was making a mix-tape for a person one doesn’t know.  We both wrote fictional stories around this notion, and even though they were fictional, I believe the seeds of both stories contained nuggets of tragic truth.  I know mine did.  Creating mix tapes, especially during my teens and twenties was a passion for me.  They were important for personal use and for connecting with friends.  Plus, they are legendarily supposed to be some sort of powerful romantic audio love letter that can and will win the heart of a crush.  It makes for a magical idea, but I’m not so sure of its actual effectiveness.  It never stopped me from daydreaming about this possibility. 

Mix tapes (or the modern equivalent – CD, or more likely, streaming playlist) were always important to me.  I have always made them. It has been going on for even longer than I’ve been buying music. They used to come along fast and furious. I could and have cranked them out for myself to listen to in the car, or Walkman or to simply catalogue a moment in time.  In 1986, on a school night, for no apparent reason, I created a tape for my own enjoyment titled October 18, 1986 (the rainy evening it was born), and it included three songs named “Shame.”  This became an annual tradition for a few years – all containing at least one song titled “Shame” (that’s a lot of shame), and then was reborn as a CD series after receiving a kidney transplant on an October 18th.  Mostly though, these mixes have been made for friends, co-workers, classmates, and relatives. I’m not sure why, other than my near psychotic need to share my love of music. What better way is there than sharing the actual music?  It’s much more effective than my efforts to write about it.  Perhaps all of this has been practice for the dream scenario mentioned above (and sadly rarely ever implemented) – the mix tape for a crush or a girlfriend.

During this Covid-19 pandemic home time, like so many, I’ve been purging junk that is taking up space around my place.  I’ve been browsing through a giant stack of old spiral notebooks, mostly dating back to 1991-93, full of writing - old record reviews, short stories, several drafts of a mission statement of sorts for the fledgling This Wreckage ‘zine, a disturbing number of lists of personal single and album rankings - my own strange version of Billboard countdowns, and a few sketched out song lists for potential mix tapes.  Unfortunately, there is no sign of a playlist for a particular mix tape that I made that has become legendary in my mind.  It’s a mix I made for a girl, where I laid everything bare.  A collection of songs that were able to break my heart and thrill me with shivers.  If only I could hear that collection again.  Sadly, I do not remember what exactly wound up on that Maxell cassette.  I have some ideas and some pretty sures, but with too much alone time on my hands, I have become obsessed with the notion of recreating this long forgotten mix.

Nineteen Ninety One was a really difficult year for me.  I had to drop out of college and move back home to the isolation of the Oregon coast, due to my mom’s serious health issues that would lead her down the road of undergoing long distance kidney dialysis (the closest clinic was at least an hour away from our home) and seriously declining health, leading to her unfortunate passing nine months later.  Plus I had my own related health problems (genetics!) that landed me in the hospital for about a month, due to a botched surgery.  Let’s just say that recovery was slow and painful.  It felt like the table my life resided on had been flipped over suddenly, leaving me blindly searching for some sort of solid ground to stand on.  So, I did what I had mostly done up to that point in life, I shoved all the pain, fear, and uncertainty down into my gut and tried to rebuild some sort of foundation to stand on.

The following year found me back at my High School-era job making pizzas, shuffling through life, creating a handful of Xeroxed ‘zines with Wil and trying to get them some exposure, and then eventually returning to a different school in Seattle that fall for three months.  Why three months?  Well, in December, I found out that I needed another surgery, so at the end of 1992 I packed everything up and moved back home, which honestly didn’t feel like much of a home anymore.

For much of my late teenage years and into my twenties, I battled depression.  I always chalked it up to the tumultuous times that young adults are always told about, you know, never fitting in, not cool enough, no love life, no taste for partying, spending most of my time alone, etc.  No big deal.  Swallow it down.  Rinse and repeat.  Hold onto my nature of being quiet and even keeled.  Yet, this time, after dealing with another major surgery, things were different.  I began to talk more, I began sharing my thoughts, and my insecurities.  I became an open book.  Once I returned to work at the old pizza joint, I remember being a 21-22 year old, working with a lot of 15-16 year olds, and I felt like a complete and utter failure.  Many of my friends were closing in on their college graduations and here I was in the local teenage hangout asking about the town gossip from a boy who was still a year away from shaving once a month.  That kid became a proxy therapist for me as I blabbered on and on about how life sucks and why.  I could no longer hide my depression - my total sense of loss.  Everything bubbled up to the surface. 

Now that I had become an open wound, a raw nerve, I began to yearn for my life from two-plus years prior.  I missed the idea of possibility, potential, and hope.  I started to reach out to the few people I knew from school, which included a young woman who, during my dark years away, had become to mean the world to me.  I couldn’t get her out of my mind.  She became some sort of ideal who inspired me to become a better person.  I can see it in those This Wreckage mission statement rough drafts I tossed recently.  There was a desire to broaden my horizons, connect with people, and to offer a place for open expression.  It was about this time the mix-tape plan hatched in my head.  I would mail it to her and it would be a compilation that laid out the story of my scrambled emotions and yearning heart and to let her know how important she is.

 

This is where things get hazy.  I have a feeling that I opened the tape with the solo live rendition of Mark Eitzel’s “Firefly.”  I had been obsessed with that whole album (Songs of Love Live), and that song in particular for a nearly couple of years by that point.  Though, Eitzel’s sad sack “Thanks for coming” that opens the song, or the “I’m always fucking this part up” apology during his guitar bridge, have become repeated jokes over the years within the small circle of my friends.  It’s the warbles and imperfections of his soaring repeated howls over his loss (“Where did you go?”) of a loved one has made people I’ve shared it with laugh, albeit uncomfortably.  It’s a heart wrenching song that never fails to send debilitating shivers down my spine.  That temporary notion of fireflies was strong in those times, and I think I likely bookended things and closed the tape with the Magnetic Fields’ beautiful “100,000 Fireflies.”  Long before Stephin Merritt graced most of his songs with his droll baritone, and every album would be based on some sort of gimmick, his songs were sung by the folk-sounding Susan Anway, whose voice managed to infuse the words with a simple melancholy.  I purchased the 7” single for this song during the height of my love of loud, fast, abrasive music (industrial, hardcore, noise).  However, this quiet, fragile, unique sounding song about the bittersweet nature of love couldn’t have been a more perfect representation of my mindset.


“I went out to the forest and caught
A 100, 000 fireflies
As they ricochet 'round my room
They remind me of your starry eyes
Someone else's might not have made me so sad
But this is the worst night I ever had"

 

Elsewhere, I’d like to imagine that I put on something by the Field Mice whose plaintive uncomplicated songs are the type that no one is supposed to like, because it's too hard to admit their sheer vulnerability have such much emotional power. I’m afraid the spare plea for physical contact of “It Isn’t Forever” was the choice I may have made for this collection.  It’s a song that begs to be heard, while alone, late at night, when the last thing in the world you want is to be alone.  “It Isn’t Forever” alternates quiet verses of longing with loud abrasive instrumental passages that, like the title, display the all too often fleeting nature of intimacy.


 

I must have also put on the majestic and invigorating love song “Sunshine Smile” from Adorable, because it was this girl’s electric eyes that captured my initial attention, dropped my jaw, froze me in place, and placed about 100,000 fireflies ablaze in my stomach.  I cannot hear this song without thinking of her.  Speaking of which, I would’ve been remiss if I hadn’t have placed Ride’s crashing single “Taste” onto this tape.  Again, the chaotic burst of pure energy that drives the song, Laurence Colbert’s unbelievable rollicking attack on the drums, and the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ that come in about 30 seconds into the song make for the exact representation of what was going inside my mind and body every time I was anywhere near her presence, and for long after.  It doesn't hurt that "Taste" was released not long after that first time I was awestruck by her.  It became my constant adrenalized soundtrack to guide me through her presence.

 


There’s a chance I may have doubled down on the Mark Eitzel pain, when he moonlighted for a few songs as the vocalist for the creative instrumental band Toiling Midgets.  The turmoil and self-flagellation that he goes through in the searing “Golden Frog” can only end with a repeated conclusion to himself “you were weak.”  A feeling that I often felt of myself then and now.  The anthem of someone who is often too afraid to take chances in order not to disrupt whatever tiny fragments of comfort remain. 


A good balancing follow-up to that abasement could’ve been “Awesome Sky” from Boston punk rockers Moving Targets.  I'm about 87% certain that this amazing instrumental was near the end of side A of the mix.  Despite being absent lyrics, this song may have encapsulated my emotions better than all of the other soul-baring lyrical songs included.  Its restless energy, its earnest search for that glimpse of an 'awesome sky' that keeps getting momentarily obscured by something. Once we reach that triumphant sight (what a chorus!) the song reaches incredible heights like a stellar sunset poking out between clouds or over a magnificent horizon.  Yet like the sun disappearing, the song quietly runs out of steam and disappears.  Gone for good.  Leaving us astonished and inspired.


It’s difficult to know how I filled all 90 minutes of this tape.  Could I have gone for it and crammed it entirely with spirit shredding content?  Was I that willing to be exposed?  Perhaps I threw on something such as Concrete Blonde’s delectable wizened cover of Leonard Cohen’s remarkable “Everybody Knows,” to keep the thread alive but not so damn direct, or the surprisingly groovy and tender love song to planet Earth: “Living in the Rose,” from the normally political and intense New Model Army – a song that would’ve been brand new at that time.  I had to have included something from the Sundays too.  They were and are one of my all-time favorites who wrote a ton of the types of songs to fill this brand of mix-tape.  I imagine that I would’ve snuck the stunningly beautiful and brief b-side “Noise,” an ode to silence and solitude on there as a tasty set up for their second album highlight “Goodbye.”  The first single to follow up their flawless debut is indescribably pretty as it builds to a satisfying and dramatic climax, before ending with the inevitable cold send off to her now former lover.  A dose of reality crashes into the dreams of heaven.  That was it.  A goodbye wasn’t needed in this case.  It was over before it had a chance to begin.



 

These songs I’ve mentioned are merely educated guesses as to what made it onto that tape.  I remember dubbing it on a lazy music filled sunny spring afternoon.  I distinctly remember being abuzz from the emotional impact the lovelorn songs had over me after completion.  I remember feeling completely despondent, yet alive with an unidentifiable sense of accomplishment.  This recorded cry for attention was likely a terrible mistake, but I knew I had to do something.  I was bursting with love to give and utterly incapable of believing the notion that I could ever receive that kind of love in return.  I could not and still cannot imagine it, so the whole thing was an exercise in futility. 

 

By the time autumn of that year came around, I had gone back to bottling everything up.  I nearly stopped speaking entirely.  An overwhelming sense of loss and emptiness swallowed me.  A callus formed around me creating a numbness that still encompasses me to this day.  I have been smashing frustrations, disappointments, sadness, and illness into my gut for so long that there is no room for anything else.  The bubbling over anxiousness, excitement, passion, and most important, anticipation that filled that mix tape and the reason behind it stand as a symbol for everything I feel I’m missing.  I think the idea of recreating that grouping of particular songs, despite the sorrow attached to them, is a tiny spark of life buried deep within my clouded mind fighting to get out.


I’m not sure it can.