Half-Life, Remembered

When I was in High School, I worked at a pizza parlor, and sometimes I made and rolled the dough.  The dough room was long and narrow and very white.  There was a small radio that sat on a ledge near the high ceiling by a row of windows that were far too high to see out.  Up on the window ledge a radio blared, far beyond its sonic capabilities, a radio station that had a penchant for late 80s Top 40 hair metal.  The white walls were decorated with beer and wine cooler posters, brought in by beer distribution sales reps.  All of them depicted attractive models in bikinis holding bottles of beer.  One, in particular stands out in my memory.  It had three models laying out on a Budweiser logo blanket, while wearing Budweiser bathing suits.  Somehow they had become Budweiser.  I used to stare at this poster for hours.  It’s no wonder I used to get a little aroused every time I saw a can of Budweiser.

 

Back then, I used to buy all kinds of posters.  None of them were beer posters.  Unsurprisingly, I bought a lot of rock-n-roll posters of my favorite bands.  I especially enjoyed those subway style posters, which were large and more graphic in design.  I was not really interested in posed band pictures, or live action pictures.  My most treasured poster was a massive New Order Substance poster with the blue flower thingy.  During those times, and into my early twenties, I began to amass quite a collection of great music posters, bumper stickers, concert flyers and badges.  For some reason, I never displayed them.  Those posters never made it onto a wall at any place I’ve ever lived.  None of those stickers were stuck on anything.  Those posters remained inside a pair of poster tubes for years, until I finally donated those tubes to charity years ago. 

 

When I went away to college, my dorm room roommate became a close friend and he immediately decorated his side of our shared space with Siouxsie and the Banshees and Iron Maiden posters.  The room became his.  I remember staring at giant pictures of Siouxsie Sioux and Eddie, while trying to go to sleep.  My side of the room remained blank, until about mid school year, when I finally put a small concert flyer for a band named Skin Yard that I had ripped off of a telephone pole.  I placed the flyer too high on the wall, and it was mildly askew.  Its meager presence only enhanced the otherwise emptiness of the walls.

 

I’ve begun wondering why this is.  I mean, I had tons and tons of artwork for coveted bands in posters that I could’ve proudly displayed, but I never did, nor did I have any inclination.  Oddly enough, I think it’s due to my health.  When I was diagnosed with Von Hippel Lindau (VHL) in 1985 as an 8^th grader, I think I began to see life and any lifestyle that I would ever choose as temporary.  I’ve mentioned it on this space before, but I was 13 when I decided to never have children due to the genetic danger of passing VHL along, but beyond that I think I began to be wary of getting involved with relationships in general, because I felt that they had no chance of lasting, I think I lost a lot of ambition due to the idea that I would constantly be side-tracked by continuing health crises, so I have a history of working at jobs, just to earn money, not to try to maximize my potential.  Ironically, I have stayed at jobs forever, again, I think it’s because I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and by “other shoe,” I mean serious surgery.  Instead of being ambitious, I just remain in place until the next surgery.  I think this notion of temporariness has affected my life on more levels than I can ever realize.  I think it is the reason why I have always been reluctant to make my home – feel like my home – something as small as decorating the walls. 

Regrets have been a huge part of my life.  I have tortured myself ever since I became old enough to make any kind of real decisions, and just now, I think I know why.  I have experienced a lot of life’s stops and restarts due to VHL and its various surgical maintenance needs, and I can attest that they are difficult and frustrating.  Yet, the fact that I have never allowed myself a sense of purpose, or home, or permanence, has been devastating.  I have short changed all of the people I’ve met along the way too.  I have a small handful of long-time friends who I grew up with pre-VHL, but I could have had more, if I ever let people in.  I think this mindset is a big reason why I have always been so slow to trust.  The more I consider this notion, the more I realize that I have lived the last 35+ years with a mentality that I cannot be a part of things, because I’ll only be around for a moment.  It’s like a life philosophy based on the idea that I don’t want to play the game at the party, because my ride will be here any minute.  It feels ridiculous, but I can honestly say that I have never made these decisions to avoid things consciously.  I have agonized over missed opportunities, due to these decisions for eons.  Looking back at my life under this new realization makes everything feel pretty damn ridiculous, but I really am that clueless!

Sadly, there’s nothing I can do about the past.  Perhaps, I can now move forward with clearer thoughts and more informed decision making, though I worry that it’s too late.  I am at that age where I should now be reaping the benefits of all of those important life decisions of the past – those decisions that I made with the mindset that I didn’t have a future to consider, nor did I believe that future me worth the bother.

 

(image for) drawing on canvas

 

SPOOL

(image for) drawing on canvas

(self-released)

After several singles the past couple of years, Japanese four-piece, SPOOL, return with a full length at the end of 2022!  There is something special about this band, but to be honest, I have a difficult time putting my finger on it.  They are always solid.  They mine a style that is a psychedelic indie rock that reminds me of the early Teenage Fanclub, when they were more similar the Dinosaur Jr than the Byrds. 

This new LP fits right in, yet mines another adjacent style.  The songs and production here are very straight ahead and streamlined.  SPOOL have often employed a dreamier, exploratory sound, but here the basslines are tight with the massive sounding drums.  This album would’ve fit neatly into the US dominated 4AD record label years from about 91-95.  I’m talking about when 4AD began releasing alterna-rock hits by US bands like Pixies, Throwing Muses, Belly, and especially the Breeders.  I’m not implying that Spool sounds like these bands, or is copying their sound, I’m just saying that if you appreciated these artists, you might enjoy this one. 

From the tight thumping of the momentum gathering opening instrumental “fu_ka_n” to the closing melancholy “nevv song,” this album is pleasing at every stop.  The highlights for me are the vaguely Lush-like ”Somewhere,” which scratches many itches, along with the heavy and cranking “In My Head,” which includes a guitar line that sounds like a buoy beacon in the distance, and the two minute scorcher “P-90.” “Light of the Sun” is amazing too, despite ripping off the opening of Adorable’s 1994 “Vendetta” single.  What a song to steal from though!!  It becomes its own rocker by the time the first verse comes in.  The three pre-LP singles are all nice inclusions, though surprisingly, three of the quieter additions.

SPOOL, have easily earned the honor of being a band that I will continue to purchase prior to hearing new offerings.  I know that sounds silly, but I take that very seriously.  There aren’t many that my tightwad hands will ungrip for sound unheard.  It almost feels like they’re taken for granted after only three excellent albums.

(https://spool1991.bandcamp.com/album/image-for-drawing-on-canvas)

SPOOL "(image for) drawing on canvas"

Going Missing

 

For a television season or two, during the late 00s, on Sunday evenings, CBS used to air the television shows Cold Case and Without a Trace back to back.  I will not go into the quality of these shows, or a breakdown of them in any fashion.  I had consistently watched both of them prior to their pairing.  I liked them both.  I liked the idea of Cold Case and how they would pair music from the time of the unsolved murder in the flashback scenes.  I always thought that would’ve been a fun job.  Wish I had thought of it.  Without A Trace was always intriguing to me, because I have always been incredibly fascinated by the idea of going missing without a trace.

Sundays have been important days for me since I was in High School.  Back then it was my music day.  I remember doing my school work mostly on that day, while listening to my most recent music discoveries and reading books about music.  Then in the evenings, I would listen to my favorite new music radio shows, before tuning in to MTVs 120 minutes for more music.  The main thread here, is that I would spend the day alone, focusing on enjoying my interests.  They were days where I would recharge.  Ever since, I have tried to keep that tradition alive.  I am slow to make plans for activities or social things on Sundays, because of this.  However, as a mostly Monday through Friday worker bot, over the years, Sundays became a day of dread.  Here I would be dedicated to languishing in my pursuits, all while trying to ignore the building dread in my gut about the idea of returning to work the next day.  One day, perhaps I will try to explore this mindset of not living in the moment, and focusing on only the negative side of things, but that time is not now.

For about a year, my Sunday evenings would end with a double TV shot of Cold Case followed by Without A Trace.  There was something satisfying about the two shows that quelled some of that work dread and always had me feeling all kinds of things about life.  I don’t know why, but I think it was the sheer sadness that came from both shows.  Both shows always centered around investigations where each victim’s life is uncovered and we get to learn about all of the horrible shit in their lives.  All of their bad relationships, hidden pain, and their dark secrets.  I guess I found it grounding to see that we’re all effed up in different ways.  It also taught me to truly realize that everyone has their issues and to be more understanding in general. 

A few years ago, I wrote about my strange fascination with a local missing person case (Jennifer, She Said), where I touched on how I identified with her case, and I still feel it in a way that makes me a little nervous.  I don’t think I have the courage or the whereabouts to go missing.  Without A Trace was a perfect show for me. It was generally tragic and sad, it contained all kinds of unresolved emotions, and it tugged at my odd desire to go missing.  Unfortunately, the missing I want to go, is one where I am also unaware of the details, so I can enjoy the mystery. Where there are people looking at clues from your life and finding importance in them, when literally no one else ever would.

 In a sense, I have gone missing before.  There were times, during my dialysis years, where I would be hospitalized for up to a week, and would not alert anyone, besides my workplace, and even then, not always.  You know what?  It was never a big deal.  My lack of communication was mostly a case of sheer laziness, and most of the time, no one noticed.  There was no FBI investigation.  There weren’t any panicked phone calls from family or friends wondering what happened to me, or even why my car hadn’t moved from a strip mall parking lot for five days and nights. 

Truly, I do not understand my interest in going missing.  During my last hospital stay, after a brain surgery, I struggled with hallucinations.  For a long time, I believed that I was under constant threat via kidnapping, which led to torture and likely death.  It was all incredibly real and clear that none of that stuff would be something to wish for.  None of that was real, and it was some of the scariest stuff I’ve ever experienced!  So no, I really don’t want to go missing against my will and I really don’t seem to be able to go missing on my own.  I remember one weekday morning about five or six years ago, I decided to drive to the ocean instead of going to work.  I left my phone at home, drove to a quiet, isolated beach, and sat in amongst some giant piles of driftwood with my head in my hands in an attempt to shut out the world.  It was cool and cloudy, and yet somehow, I still got a wicked sunburn, and when I returned to work the  next day, my manager asked me where I had disappeared to the day before, I told him that I needed a day away, and he was completely understanding and cool with it.  It really pissed me off! 

Maybe I want to go missing from my life as it is.  Perhaps it’s a desire to start over in some fashion – to rid myself of all of the responsibilities and obligations I feel each day.  Whenever I get asked what I would do, if I could do anything I want, I struggle to answer.  I’m not sure what I want, or I’m not sure I can allow myself to want things.  I know I want to escape from my health problems, and the constant obligation of checking up on the state of my poor health.  Instead, like so many of us, I wish for unattainable things, while trying to achieve some sort of record for denying myself any joy in life!  It’s clear that there is no reward for working those extra hours, or whatever.  No wonder I want to disappear! 

I vaguely remember an episode of Without A Trace where a woman went missing, and it turns out that she wanted to set up a fake kidnapping, so she could escape her life and start anew in some other country.  However, her fake kidnapper instead decided to really kidnap her, and it all went badly, until our TV heroes intervened just in time to save her from death.  That feels exactly right.

Maximo Park "Going Missing"

Song Stories: Changing Colors

When Wil and I started the This Wreckage ‘zine over 30 years ago now, the idea is that we would have people submit material that we would throw in each issue as is and put it out to the world.  What we didn’t realize going in is that most people do not want to actually share things like that.  We struggled in finding material to achieve our albeit ambitious goal of a monthly issue. 

However, in a small way, I’d like to float out a similar request we used to do every issue, but with more of a singular focus.  I am hoping that anyone who reads this would be willing to send some kind of story of a certain song that means something to them.  This could mean a short story, an essay, a drawing, a photograph, a poem, a few words, I don’t know.  One of my favorite things is to tie music to pretty much every waking minute of my life.  It’s a problem really.  There are hundreds of songs that evoke a lot of emotions for me for a variety of reasons based on their being nearby at the time.  I absolutely love hearing and reading other people’s stories along these lines.  I don’t care the genre or the artist, or my personal history, if any, with the song, I find these stories endlessly fascinating.

I’m hoping to encourage any and every one who might be willing to send some of their stories to me via messenger, or via email: tangledrec@hotmail.com.  I would like to share them here, on this site, if given the permission.

Please ask any questions you may have.

A few months into the pandemic, like late spring, or early summer of 2020, I remember we were all dealing with the isolation of the lockdown.  A lot of us who were fortunate enough, could work from home, most places were closed, and most people were wearing masks.  There was also very little traffic, even at those busiest of times.  Despite all of the terrible news of conflict everywhere, there were a few promising reports at the time that the lockdown might be working and that we may have seen the worst of it by that point, and that there were a few signs of how quickly the environment was recovering with so little traffic every day.  I have a distinct memory of having to drive somewhere.  It was a warm, sunny day and I had a brief flash of optimism.  I can’t believe it now, but I actually thought to myself: “This might not last much longer.”  Apparently, I was drunk, but the idea that we all collectively could actually make a difference and be willing to make sacrifices for the good of us all.  We just needed to hang in there for a little while. 

Pretty sure it was a Wednesday night in June of 2020, when I tuned into DJ Amber Crain’s fantastic internet radio show When the Sun Hits on Decayfm.com, when she played a brand new track, “Changing Colors,” by a band named Weathering.  When DJ Amber played “Changing Colors,” its wall of guitar buzz smacked me across the face.  It somehow became the best and biggest power chord I’d ever heard!  I never get tired of its wallop.  Even though it’s seemingly a heavy mass, it is still light and tuneful, instead of the heavy sludge and grinding of so many metal/industrial/noise bands that I once loved so much.  Instead it’s the sound of inspiration and energy.  I remember, years ago, trying to compare Bob Mould’s heavy solo album Black Sheets of Rain to Sugar’s Copper Blue.  Where Black Sheets’ guitars felt like actual weight that we were fighting to climb out from under, Copper Blue’s sounds were like bolts of sparkling electricity filling us with gusto.  Both styles can be great in their own way, but this…this somehow bridges both the heavy and the fire.

I’m spinning circles

Like wheels in my eyes

I’ve been changing colors

All my metal oxidizing 

I went absolutely cold.  Shivers cascaded down my spine.  A giant lump welled up in my throat.  Water pooled up in my eyes.  Not only did these words hit me with a ton of bricks, as that super power chord transitioned into a luxurious, nearly orchestral space for the vocals, but it was that voice.  There are times that certain voices affect me emotionally, and I do not know why.  But this voice, provided by Elinor Carbone, reminded me of Emma Pollock’s voice the first time I ever heard The Delgados on their jaunty single “Everything Goes around the Water,” which quickly became one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums ever.  They have voices that crackle with emotion and endless tunefulness.  I can’t get them out of my head!  Their phrasing keeps me humming their vocal refrains over and over, like a puzzle I can’t solve, but keep making the same efforts to try.  Those words too.  As I grow ever older, I constantly fight the notion that I’m spinning circles – getting stagnant, but I feel like it’s a constant battle.  I desire stillness and quiet.  I mostly want to be left alone.  I want to wrap myself up into an isolated cocoon and shield myself from the madness and needs and expectations of others, but those tendencies are exactly what leads to the rust build up.

The Delgados "Everything Goes Around the Water"

Watch me kick the dust up

Don’t like it settling settling down

These words hit hard and act as a reminder to shake off the oxidation and fight to stay relevant or at least feel like I’m trying.  This is inspirational to me, yet it is an ever increasing challenge as I age and as my health quickly declines.  Those leaves change colors no matter what.  This past October was like summer, where it was well into the 80s and dry nearly the entire month, but dammit, those leaves still began to change from green to yellow and so on.  Ready to fall.

I can act so restless

Take care, you carry me home

It’s so strange to be loved

When I insist on being left alone 

In recent years, I have had to face the very real notion that I may not be able to take care of myself.  Currently, I struggle to cook, clean, shower, and on certain days: everything.  Yet my lifelong need to be independent and mostly alone has put me in a very real crossroads.  How do I accept help?  How do I handle the idea that there are people willing to help, and are simply waiting for the call.  How do I handle such things without feeling useless and embarrassed?  However, that heavy guitar instills me with life, especially when that killer guitar melody sits in atop the fuzz, it is a perfect example of why music is Goddamn important.  Plus, the song ends abruptly with a sharp snare drum smack and hi hat tap, like a lot of Bad Religion songs, which always leaves me wanting more.  Don't get me started about my general dislike of fade outs.

😭

This is not much of a story.  The reality is that I was sitting over my laptop with my headphones on, sitting in the dark, yet I will not forget that moment.  “Changing Colors” is the whole package for me as far as a song is concerned.  It’s exciting and fun to hear, to play air guitar to, to sing along with, and it makes me feel things – a lot of things.  When I hear it, I get inspired, I get sad, and I want to hear it again.  The song is powerful and defiant, and yet sad and reflective.  During each airing of When the Sun Hits, there is always a coinciding live chat about the songs on Facebook and initially, during that particular airing, all I could do was put in a crying emoji.  My heart was racing, as I was overcome with an intense emotional and physical reaction to this song, and of course, my collector nerd need to purchase it kicked in like a panic, which I did!

Weathering "Changing Colors"

Top 10 Albums of 2022

2022, I think, has been a difficult year for many of us.  I cannot imagine how difficult the past few years have been for musicians with the closures and shut downs taking away essentially every opportunity to perform and share their art or even create it.  My goal in sharing the music I love with as much gusto as I have is to celebrate it!  Not just those that I champion here, but all of it.  I admire the effort and passion to not only have the talent and creativity and vision to make music, but to also bring it to the public for those of us who struggle to make things happen.  Considering all of the obstacles, 2022 has been as vibrant and exciting as any other year in music.  These choices below are an approximation of what I believe my most listened to albums of the year have been.

1.  1.   Just Mustard Heart Under

 

2.   2.  Basement Revolver Embody

 

3.     3. Alvvays Blue Rev

 

4.     4. Soft Blue Shimmer Love Lives in the Body

 

5.     5. Stars From Capelton Hill

 

6.     6. The Haunted Youth Dawn of the Freak

 

7.   7.   Fresh Raise Hell

 

8.   8.   The Beths Expert in a Dying Field

 

9.    9.  Soft Kill Canary Yellow

 

1    10. COLLAPSE Black Sheep is Still Dreaming