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 18^th.  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.

Tallies

Tallies

Tallies

(Kanine)

This is the debut album from Toronto band Tallies and it feels like I should’ve been listening to this for years already.  Their brand of bright intricate catchy melodies with sharp lyrics is the type of thing I’ve always hungrily sought out since about the time I first heard The Sundays, so this new album already feels like an old friend. 

The album opens with “Trouble,” which begins with a sole drum beat fading in before it suddenly bursts into bright chiming guitars and a rumbling bass and Sarah Cogan warning us poetically that we all need to be more careful and heed signs of potential trouble.    And we’re off to the races, as “Trouble” melts right into the first single “Mother” – an impeccable tune that continues that lesson of questioning things that are going on around us and finding the right path.  Two songs on in and this album had me giddy because it evokes the greatness of the afore-mentioned Sundays (check out the huge guitar strum and bass groove of “Midnight”), The Innocence Mission, and mostly the short-lived Delicious Monster.  Cogan’s strong vocals remind me of a cross between Kristin Hersh and Rachel Mayfield, while Dylan Franklin creates instantly memorable, detailed guitar lines that make this pairing instantly crucial.  Though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the tight and versatile playing of Stephen Pitman and Cian O'Niell on bass and drums respectively.  The next two songs are maybe my two favorite songs on the album.  “Have You” has Cogan wondering if her partner is really getting her.  The repetitiveness of the “Have You” chorus works well in its building anger and frustration.  I dare you not to let it get to you as well as get it stuck in your head.  “Not So Proud” is where Cogan really shines as she belts out her words with an urgent intensity.

There are plenty of highlights to be found in the second half of Tallies.  “Eden” is a breezy sounding classic with a bridge and chorus to die for, while “Beat the Heart “is instantly addictive and another showcase of talent.  “Giving Up” shifts up the sound a bit with an almost flamenco rhythm.  The album closer, “Easy Enough,” comes out with a stream-lined wide open feel, like the band should be performing on a wind-swept cliff looming over the ocean.  A song like this makes me wonder why the entire world isn’t singing along.

Aside from the crisp sounding “Mother,” most of these songs are washed in a gauzy rainy day haze that reminds of the debut albums from The Ocean Blue and Trashcan Sinatras, which is high praise, but it makes me wonder what this album would be like without the Vaseline on the lens.  Whatever the case, this is an amazing debut and I’m pretty sure I’ll be listening to this one for years and years to come.  I encourage you to explore for yourself.  By the way, the physical versions come with a very pretty additional song “Trains and Snow.” 

(https://tallies.bandcamp.com/album/tallies)

Tallies "Mother"

Bright As Yellow

Anyone who has met me during the last 12 years or so may not believe this, but I used to play hoops nearly every day.  I played in the old neighborhood as a little kid, played little league, and all through junior high and high school.  As I went through school it started to mean less and less to me.  My competitive edge was probably not very favorable to the coaches, as I often lacked urgency, cracked jokes on the court, and hated practice.  However, in my early to mid-twenties, I began to play every day during lunch breaks at work and at various open gyms around the city a few nights a week.  It became not only a great source for cheap entertainment, exercise, and a social activity, but I gained that intensity that I lacked during the teenage years.  I’m not sure why, but I could be found diving for a loose ball on blacktop while playing 3 on 3 after work with the guys, yet in high school, there’s a good chance I would’ve avoided any such effort.  The problem with playing so much basketball and playing it so hard at that time is that my shoes were not in good shape.  There was not much I could do, because I was too poor to afford the unbelievably expensive new shoes on the market (and still keep my music inventory growing), so I clomped around in those things for years.  I specifically use the descriptive “clomp” because when I found myself in one of my (slow) sprints down the court, I sounded like a horse trotting on pavement.  I once scared a guy out of making a break away lay-up during a game, as I tried to run him down, because he was certain a horse was on his tail.  The more I wore those shoes down, the louder they became, and the more my feet would ache after each marathon session.  Finally, after a solid four years or so of constant use, I broke down and bought a new pair of high tops in 1995.  Why do I remember what year this was?  It’s because those shoes will forever be linked in my mind with the third album by the innocence mission: 1995’s Glow.

When I first heard “Bright As Yellow,” the stellar pre-LP single early in 1995 on the fledgling 94.7 KNRK Portland’s “alternative” FM radio station (arriving shortly after the odd DJ-less AM station “The Beat” was abandoned – “the beat the beat the beat!”), I fell in love.  The song evoked the lazy hazy twang of the best Mazzy Star crossed with the rainy day atmospherics and nervous chiming of The Sundays (both favorites).  It was a must have.  I tracked down the four song EP as soon as I could and played it constantly.  I could not get enough of the beautiful warbled guitar sound and how the bass drops in as a low rumble about 15 seconds in.  It took me a bit to adjust to Karen Peris’ unique voice, but once I did, I fell for her warm and friendly vocals.  The EP also included another track that would be on the forthcoming album titled “That Was Another Country,” which soon surpassed the big single in my world with its dramatics.  The tapping ride cymbal and lightly pounding drum gives way to a spine tingling opening guitar line before breaking into a sweeping dreamscape reminiscent of The Sundays’ wonderful first LP closer “Joy.”  The heartfelt lyrics really got to me too.  While “Bright As Yellow” is a simple desire to live life openly, honestly, lovingly and brightly, “Country” finds Karen painting a picture of memories of picnics by the bay and parties with paper lanterns with someone who is no longer around.  It is a sad and touching lament that tugs not only at the loss of loved ones, but also of the passing of innocence that comes with it.  The two non-LP songs are also both good songs more akin to what I had heard from the band previously.  I had a few of their songs from their 1991 second album on a label sampler that I liked, but never found myself returning to.  This new material though was really exciting.

I kept that EP close by at all times for several months, so I finally decided to break down and buy their album once it came out.  While visiting my brother in Seattle during the summer of ’95, I remember doing my best attempt to impersonate Karen’s voice on a sunny stroll down

Mercer Avenue

on my way to Tower Records to buy the album because I could not shake the few songs of their newest material I was now addicted to.  The purchase was worth it, as immediately two new songs entered the contest for title of my favorite by the band: the skittering “Speak Our Minds” and the quietly anthemic “Everything’s Different Now,” which gave me similar chills to the way Mazzy Star’s “Halah” first did during the spring of 1990.  This song should’ve been a second single.  Amazing!  Lyrically, all over the album, there are many images of universal childhood moments with family and friends and a continuous theme of the Mary’s and Harry’s and Juni’s and Georgia’s that dot our lives and are no longer with us any more for whatever reason.  The opening track “Keeping Awake” captures what could be the memory of an exciting evening at home where the family camps out in the backyard during a hot summer night, setting the stage for the evocative real life moments of joy and sorrow that lie ahead.  This is timeless music made by relatable people.

Then it was time to see them perform these songs in person.  They came to Portland and played an incredibly relaxed show at the now closed Berbati’s Pan in Old Town.  The sizable crowd gathered around the low stage all seated casually on the floor and took in the band’s understated grace.  Their gentle and likable stage demeanor was refreshing and comfortable.  The detail at which they performed their music was immaculate.  Everything was in place, but did not feel overrehearsed.  They were honestly glad to be playing for the eager crowd.  Meanwhile, my group had found our usual spot in the front on the right hand side facing the band.  At a minor break in the music, I jumped up to use the restroom over beside (and a little behind) the stage to the left.  When I came out, the band was just getting into the meat of slow-building “Brave,” so I stayed back and watched from the side of the stage so as not to become a distraction by stumbling my way back to my place in front.  Turns out Ox spotted me over there, thinking that I had jumped onstage.  I have no idea what he saw but he still brings up how seeing me grinning next to the bassist at that show haunts him. 

So, what does any of this have to do with basketball and new shoes?  Well, nothing obviously.  But by the time autumn turned into winter, I found myself travelling from Portland to Salem with my father to spend a weekend at his new home.  I had finally purchased some fancy basketball shoes and had them with me on the trip.  The weather was cold and damp and grey and we listened to Glow on the drive down.  He never told me what he thought of it, but I sure enjoyed how the music on the album seemed to change and adapt with each season, bringing about a new way of hearing the words and music of each song.  So, we hung out for a few days.  Ate some food, watched some movies and football games and I fended off the constant advances of his overly affectionate and strange cat Demando.  All in all, it was a nice visit, yet with an underlying sense of melancholy, as we had not yet found a common ground of communication since my mom had passed away.  We were making slow progress.  By the next weekend, Portland had an early snow storm, which I was worried would cancel the acoustic in-store performance the innocence mission was due to perform at the also now defunct downtown Border’s Bookstore.  Since there was no word, I threw on two layers of clothes, and my new basketball shoes – the only shoes I owned not full of holes, tears and major gaps – and headed out into the slowly melting snow.  I met up with Wil and we found a place again on the floor and listened to the band strum their way through about eight highlights from the album.  While sitting there, I noticed a strong horrific odor emanating from nearby.  It smelled like pee, but not like the piss stained sidewalk pee from the downtown sidewalks during the roasting summer months.  This was a different kind of pee.  I looked at Wil and he smelled it too, but we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.  I smelled it again on the bus on my way home later that afternoon, but smelling pee on the bus isn’t all that unusual.  When I got home and took off my brand new shoes, I realized with a sudden blast of pungent odor, that my feet were the source of the smell.  It was cat pee.  Demando had marked my shoes the weekend before and the dampness from the slush and the sweat from my feet trapped in the leather shoes created a stew of foulness that makes me gag just thinking about it.  The piss shoes were born and now I had to decide between wearing those or the threadbare horse shoes when I played hoops.  

*the timeline for this story may be wildly inaccurate...