Is it for Me?

Have you ever looked through Facebook’s “People You May Know” listings?  There are multiple levels of connections that come up: everything from people you may not know at all, but who have a singular “friend” connection to someone you have a hundred social media friends in common with to someone that you actually know in person.  Ed found these suggestions fascinating as he would peruse through them, surprised to occasionally see musicians from bands that he was a huge fan of as a kid being suggested, because of mutual friends.  Who would’ve thought?  He might get a suggestion for someone that he went to high school with, who is already connected to all the same former classmates that he is.  Makes him wonder why he didn’t get the friend request nod from that old acquaintance.  Did he do something wrong all those years ago?  Are they still holding onto a grudge?  He wonders why he doesn’t send the friend request himself.  Probably out of stubbornness. 

Every so often, he’ll see someone on the list that he had forgotten about and memories crash his thoughts. 

Seeing Susan hit him like a ton of bricks.  Her profile picture was mostly unrecognizable from how he remembered her.  Her style had changed significantly.  For a short period of time, she had been the center of his social world.  Now, she was a cartoonist/satirist, who also made short lo-fi indie solo recordings, AND worked as a software engineer in the Bay Area.  What he found most interesting is that she hit his “you may know” list – not because of mutual friends from their brief shared past, but because of more current shared music circles.

Ed remembered her as tall, broad shouldered, and always in control of the chaos around her.  Susan was a force of nature!  An art major who grew up on a small farm not too far from the university they both attended.  She was more forward and outgoing than anyone he had ever met, a truly magnetic individual.  Everything seemed fun for her, and she was fun to be around.  She was one of those rare people that could effortlessly connect with just about anyone.  Ed felt comfortable around her and immediately opened up to her.  He was rarely that at ease with most of his longtime friends and family.  He recalled sharing an early morning Illustration class with her one semester, and even though, he generally slept in and often missed the class, she always seemed to like him, and thankfully adopted him into her circle of friends.

Susan had lived on campus in a four-person room.  Her and her roommates: Stacy, Tina and Marcy were the best of friends. They were freshmen, and new to the school, except for Tina, but it felt like those four had all known each other for years.  Stacy, a business major, was a stunning blond girl who took an immediate dislike to Ed and completely ignored his presence, other than naming him “chump.”  He kept his distance, despite Susan’s invitations.  Tina was an art major, very reclusive, and a massive fan of both Bauhaus and The Cure.  Ed shared her music tastes, but Tina did not appreciate his penchant for singing along with her beloved songs, especially when he changed the words.  The music was all very serious to her.  She taught him that ‘Tina’ was short for ‘Christina,’ and that it could be short for a variety of names.  He had never thought about this before, always assuming ‘Tina’ was a stand-alone name.  It reminded him that he never liked being called ‘Ed,’ because no one took it seriously.  It was always treated like a joke name.  He half-heartedly tried to get people at his new school to call him ‘Edward,’ but no one did, except for Marcy.  Susan told him that she went from being a ‘Sue’ in high school, to ‘Susan’ now.  She pulled it off.  No one ever called her ‘Sue.’  Ed especially hated the nickname of ‘Eddy,’ but when Susan started calling him ‘Eddy,’ his heart would skip a beat and imaginary butterflies would spin around his head.  Marcy reminded him of Marcie from Peanuts.  It was a lazy comparison, but they kind of looked the same.  She was a care-taker.  If someone in the group was sick, she took care of them.  She took care of the group all the time.  In retrospect, Ed could see how she was incredibly underappreciated and he felt bad about that.  Most of his regrets in life stemmed from not fully appreciating people from his past.  Taking them for granted.  He wanted to be more like Susan, and always leave a positive impression on people.  Maybe more of them would him a friend request.

 

Being friends with Susan always meant you were going to be part of a group.  She grew up the youngest of many siblings.  Ed could not identify.  He had one much older brother, and craved isolation.  There were always guys hanging around this group of four young women. Because they both were incredibly attractive, Susan and Stacy drew young men like bees to honey, or moths to light.  He wondered what that would be like - constantly being sought out and getting attention.  It would seem annoying to Ed, but Susan always welcomed the attention.  Stacy did not like it at all.  She often complained about it, but she didn’t try very hard to stop it, as her audience were the guys who always hung around her.  Tina drew her own admirers, who wore black and wrote poetry, but she had a boyfriend named Jarrod.  Marcy was always busy taking care of the group.  I was not the only person who took her for granted.

Besides Ed, the usual visitors to what became known as “the Room,” were the two Dave’s, James, Dan and John, and, of course, Jarrod who took no time before essentially moving into “the room.”  Both Dave’s were tall and handsome and seemed older.  Dave B. was an outgoing black man, who had a quick wit and a gregarious personality.  Dave D. had a similar personality, was white, had long dreadlocks, and wore tie-dye shirts and ragged ropes as bracelets around his thick wrists.  Ed did not know what brought the Dave’s to college, other than to be campus legends.  James had a goatee, always wore a sweater, had an impressive deep bass of a voice, a talent for writing, and knew Susan from their theatre class.  Jarrod was a loud, opinionated, quick witted, pop culture wizard, who was a creative writing major.  Ed liked these guys, but never liked Dan and John.  He found them both off-putting.  He didn’t trust them. Ed had met them in a few of his classes that first semester.  They had all been business majors.  In fact, by the urging one of their professors, they all shared a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.  He quickly learned that he had no business being a business major, so he adjusted his academic schedule beyond that first semester.  He wasn’t sure what he disliked more – the classes or his classmates. 

Ed had always been a conscientious student growing up.  He always did his homework and tried his best, eschewing any kind of social life in favor of studying and being alone.  He didn’t like the unpredictability of other people.  He felt safe at home.  His older brother was the opposite, always out with his friends and his endless amount of girlfriends.  If he wasn’t out, girls were climbing into his second story bedroom window on a nightly basis.  Ed couldn’t figure it out, because he couldn’t get himself to talk to the girls at school.  There was one girl, named Tracy, who lived nearby, and clearly had a crush on Ed’s brother.  She somehow had the nerve to come to his home and talk to him.  He was never home, so Ed’s mom would invite her in, and she would sit uncomfortably in silence with Ed, while he did his homework, and his mom, while she did whatever the hell she did – balance the checkbook, or whatever.  His mom would ask Tracy questions about her life, and then eventually, Ed would finish his homework and he and Tracy would hang out and listen to music or watch TV. 

The thing is, he found he could talk with her.  It was easy.  She was only a few years older than him, but Ed thought of Tracy as an adult.  She was still a kid to his brother, who had no time for her.  Tracy became a constant companion for Ed.  He really liked hanging out with her.  He and his small group of neighborhood friends would stop by and visit Tracy in her apartment on summer afternoons.  They would watch those teenage slasher movies from the early 80s – the ones their parents wouldn’t let them watch.  They would all be as obnoxious as they could, because they could get away with it, and Tracy would pretend to be outraged.  Ed never really thought much about those short-lived interactions with Tracy.  Never realized that she was always alone – that a parent was never around.  That there was only a trashed couch and a TV on the floor as furnishings.  He never really noticed that his mom would always cook her food when Tracy would come to see his brother.  He really didn’t notice when she stopped coming over once the next school year began.  He just remembered how fun she was to be around and how easy she was to get along with.

After sophomore year of college, almost everyone in Ed’s social circle - everyone who lived in or constantly hung around “the room” - were either gone, planning to move out of the dorms, or away.  The living on campus thing was no longer a requirement, so moving out felt like an obligation to most students.  Ed applied to become a Resident Assistant as a work study job and for free room.  He wasn’t ready to share a big home or dingy apartment with a bunch of other people.  As an RA, he would get a private dorm room.  He was used to dorm life.  Both of the Dave’s had already disappeared from school – truly becoming legends.  Tina graduated.  Stacy was from the area, so she would begin to commute to school from home.  Marcy decided to attend school closer to her home in the Midwest.  James had disappeared after freshman year.  Jarrod had set up life with some friends of his in a tiny apartment near campus and Dan and John joined a fraternity and moved into that house.  Susan, was planning on moving in to an old farmhouse on her parents’ property that summer and talked about commuting the 45 minutes to school.

That summer, Ed went back home to the small coastal town he grew up.  Went back to work his old high school job and to forget about his crumbling school life that hovered less than two hours away.  In August, he received a letter with no return address.  The purple envelope was full of funny little pictures and squiggly drawings.  Curious, he tore into the envelope.  It was a short note from Susan.  She was moving into the farmhouse on her parents’ property outside of McMinnville.  Would he be interested in helping her move?  She went on to write about her adventures (lots of rivers and lakes and campsites) and how excited she was to finally have a place of her own.  She offered that there would be beer and BBQ as encouragement to help her move.  There was a silly looking map and drawing of her new home.  She closed by letting him know that he was missed and loved.  Ed read that note over and over again. 

A week later, he was driving his parent’s car toward the valley.  It was still early, but the heat was already quite intense.  He thought about Susan.  He didn’t know when he had developed such a massive crush on her.  His previous crushes had developed quickly and he would agonize over them for long periods – beating himself up for his inability to communicate.  Susan simply started talking to him one day in class, and he surprisingly kept his end of the conversation.  Ever since then, he found himself following her around as often as he could.  She seemed to like him, which confused and confounded him.  He was not adept at reading signals.  During his high school years, he was friends with a girl from his Spanish Class.  They rode the same bus home from school most days.  They bonded over music and began to hang out a lot.  He considered her one of his best friends, but then after they went to see a movie one evening, she seemed upset with him, and from then on they stopped hanging out.  He began to wonder, if they had been dating, without his knowledge.  Had it been a real life version of Some Kind of Wonderful?  Whatever the case, his realization was too late, not that he would have known how to address it anyway.

 

Susan was different.  Not only did he feel more relaxed and at ease with her than anyone prior, but he thought she was the prettiest person he’d ever met, and he was drawn to her.  Her casual nature was contagious.  It inspired her uncluttered style.  Ed began to feel sad and disappointed when he wasn’t around her.  Now, he was on his way to visit her.  Would they be alone, or would the usual entourage be there?  Butterflies flapped intensely in his gut.  He leaned back and tried to lose himself in the music on the mix tape he had made her, and ended up flying by the turn he needed to make to get to her place.

Ed slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop.  Then he simply started up again along the empty two-lane highway.  He was embarrassed, even though no one was around on the country highway.  He continued forward until he found a place to turn around and go back. 

The side road to Susan’s house was gravel.  There was an incline up the road for about a half mile with brown cut fields on both sides.  For the next half mile, the road descended into a valley of giant oak trees, and the road curved around these before going back uphill.  Finally, the road crested a final slope into another open field.  A dilapidated one story house sat ahead under a pair of huge oaks.  An unmown brown field lay directly behind the house, followed by more trees and a forested hillside.  There were four cars parked in front of the house.  He saw someone who looked like James carrying a box from a pick-up truck to the house.

Ed pulled into the circle shaped space, trying not to block anyone in.  He climbed out and felt the hot sun on his skin and recoiled for a second.  It was so bright that even his tightly squinted eyes couldn’t keep his pupils protected.  He stretched and turned toward the house.  Standing on the porch to the old dilapidated and peeling house was Susan.  She stood tall in front of the open entrance.  She was wearing pale blue overalls, with a tight bright yellow t-shirt underneath.  Her long, straight, light brown hair was blowing smalls strands across her freckled nose and big toothy grin.  She waved and called out to him.  He stumbled his way up the two steps onto the porch and she put her arms out to accept a hug.  He obliged and held her uncomfortably tight and perhaps a beat too long.  He had recently developed a habit of leaning his head onto the shoulder of whomever he was embracing.  He did this and he did not want it to end.  She smelled like vanilla.  

She broke his embrace and directed him to the open front door.  “Come inside!  The gang’s all here!”

Inside, James was standing near the entryway over the box he had been carrying.  He waved at Ed; with a smirk on his face.  To the right was a living space that had two old couches pushed together to form on ‘L,’ framing a very large stone fireplace.  On each couch sat one of the two Dave’s.  Both were strumming and picking away at acoustic guitars.  Ed could not tell what they were playing, if anything, nor could he decide if they had each brought their instruments, which he thought was a little over the top. 

“Sup?” both Dave’s groaned in unison.  Dave B. gave him a smile and a creepy wink, before re-engaging with the fretboard.  Ed, nodded, and turned back to Susan standing in the doorway.  “What can I do?”

Susan asked James to put the box at his feet in the kitchen, which was situated behind the big fireplace.

“All that’s left is a few more boxes in the pick-up, and another truckload at my parents’ place,” she replied, before adding, “Thank you for coming!” 

Ed turned to grab a box from the pick-up outside.  He felt eager and energetic.  He and James took turns carrying the boxes into the house, and exchanging friendly quips.  Susan directed them to various locations in the two-bedroom house to put the boxes, and the two Dave’s squealed a terrible rendition of Janes Addiction’s signature song: “Jane Says” from the couches.

 

After the boxes had all been unloaded, Susan offered everyone a beer.  She had two large ice chests full of bottles of Henry Weinhard’s beer.  Before he accepted one, he trotted outside into the sunshine to grab the mix-tape he had put together for her.  She yelped with joy when he held it out for her, and then, immediately put it into a cassette player she had already set up in the kitchen.  He had designed the tape to start out fairly quiet and then slowly build in intensity and volume.  The intensity was meant to reflect his loneliness and his internal war against his own crushing shyness, as well as his growing feelings for her.  As soon as the first song hit, the two Dave’s both started to protest and complain about the dourness of Ed’s musical tastes.  They both grabbed another beer and Dave B. began mimicking and mocking the vocals of the first song.  Ed kept his mouth shut, feeling a tinge of embarrassment, and took a long pull on the cold bottle in his hand.  Most of its contents were taken in that first drink.  He was done with being there.  He wished that she would save the tape for another time. 

Susan giggled a soft protest to the Dave’s, and then began putting together a plan for everyone to go up to her parents’ place and retrieve the remainder of her things and bring them back to unload.  She figured one more pick-up load would be enough.  After that she would BBQ up some beef patties and chicken. 

James and Ed slid into the cab of Susan’s pick-up and she drove further up the gravel drive past a big field with what looked like grape vines and toward a huge house behind them.  She pointed out that her parents were going into the wine business.  They all went inside.  There were about twelve boxes stacked up and ready just inside the door, and two big lamps with their shades lying next to them.  No one else seemed to be around.  The house was dark and very cool.  Ed liked the chill of the air.  None of the boxes were heavy and they quickly hauled everything out to the back of the pick-up.  Ed and James tried their best to tightly wedge the lamps in so they would stay upright along the bumpy gravel drive.  Susan seemed to be comfortable with their effort. 

Back at Susan’s much smaller home, Ed was relieved that the lamps survived the journey unscathed.  He grabbed the necks of each, and carefully walked them into the front room.  He noticed the Dave’s had shut off the mixtape, opened more beer, and were murdering some song that he couldn’t quite place from their off-tone acoustics.  The remainder of the boxes were brought in by Ed, James and Susan upon her direction for which room.  The Dave’s each had slowly stumbled outside, each fully adorned in work attire – Dave D. even had put on gloves – and brought in the remaining two lamp shades. 

“Thanks a lot, you turds!  I mean, my heroes,” Susan shouted at the Dave’s.  “Appreciate the help!” she exclaimed, shaking her head with a big smile on her face.  “I’ll start the coals.”  She walked out onto a back patio from a door off of the kitchen.  There was a round table out there, a few white plastic chairs, and a small charcoal cooker outside.  Ed followed her out there and asked what else she needed done.  She asked him to pour some charcoal from the giant red, white, and blue bag into the black grill.  Several of the briquettes bounced around on the ground beneath the grill.  

“I think I’m gonna head home,” Ed summoned up the nerve to tell her.  He wasn’t feeling good about being there.

“Aw, man, you don’t want to stay and hang out?” she pleaded with him, as she motioned to the grill and towards the music emanating from inside the house.  She smiled, and angled her lips to blow a strand of hair out of her face.  She looked a little exasperated and mumbled “take me with you,” as she ducked back into the house – her home. 

Ed would’ve gladly taken her with him.  Absolutely, anywhere she wanted to go.  Instead, she returned with a plate with beef patties and a couple of boneless chicken breast fillets on a plate.  She set the plate down and turned to stand in front of him.  She put both of her hands on his slumped shoulders and looked him in the eyes and said, “thank you for helping, and for the tape.”  Then she put both of her hands on his cheeks and closed in for a big sloppy kiss on his lips.  He was surprised and a little alarmed.  It was over before he knew what was going on.  Her kiss tasted like candy blueberries – not like the salty kisses he had previously experienced.  He stood there dumbfounded for a moment and then reached in to hug her tightly, before turning to head through the house.  “Take care of yourself Eddy.”

Ed felt weak at the knees, and a little blind, as he navigated his way from the bright sun of the patio to the darkness inside.  

“Catch you guys later,” he shouted as he hit the front doorway.  He heard a few voices respond with a resounding group “Yo!” 

He numbly drove back home.  It was a quiet 45 minutes or so, as he decided not to turn on any music.  He felt overwhelmingly sad and wasn’t sure why. 

 When he returned to the small beach community he grew up, he drove to a beach access, got out of the car, and huddled into a pile of driftwood bunched up as far from the ocean as possible while still being on the beach.  He hid there, protected from the vicious and chilly north wind.  He liked the beach for his meditative moments; because the beach was its own environment.  The roaring of the waves and the constant wind overwhelmed his senses.  Sometimes Ed would feel a little beaten up after hitting the beach.  It was its own world.  The fact, that he could only hear and feel the sea and its contained ecosystem, helped him focus. 

He brought a pad of paper and a pen.  He considered writing a letter to Susan, but no words came to mind.  He thought the world of her, and ached for her attention.  She was almost always in his thoughts.  Everything reminded him of her.  Ed felt inspired to be a better person in her honor.  He thought a lot about this.  He admired the way she treated people, seemingly without prejudgment, and so welcomingly.  He strove for this.  He always felt very good around her – very comfortable, but he was never sure, if this was just how she treated everyone.  Was there a chance that she liked him in a way that he liked her?  Ed was pretty sure that he was unlikeable.  He could not fathom how someone so vibrant, smart, funny and pretty could ever be interested him beyond being a portion of her constant entourage.

After the beach stop, Ed began mentally beating himself up for not writing, or even starting the letter.  He drove up and down Highway 101 cranking music as loudly as he could.  He cruised by the old high school hot hang out spots and wasted as much time as he could in an effort to squeeze out every bit of angst he was feeling, or until he was tired, whichever came first. 

That night, when he got back to his childhood home.  No one was there.  His parents were out.  He didn’t turn on any lights, and instead turned on the old television before flopping face first onto the old orange couch – the one he’d grown up watching TV from.  He turned the channel to WTBS for their weekend video show Night Tracks.

 

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians "So You Think You're in Love"

The first video he saw was a very generic music video for Robyn Hitchcock’s “So You Think You’re in Love.”  The song was okay, he thought, but didn’t hold a candle to the previous year’s acoustic marvel Eye, or even his pseudo commercial breakthrough Queen Elvis prior to that.  The second video was from Toad the Wet Sprocket.  It was a video for a song named “Is it for Me?”  The video featured super saturated sun-drenched images – bright for the eyes.  For some reason, he always liked that technique.  The video also seemed to depict the band as a rag tag bunch doing stuff around an old farmhouse.  The singer, Glen Phillips, is dressed very much the same way as Susan had been earlier.  He was fully enthralled in the music video for a song that he had zero interest.  It all felt very familiar and now he was pretty sure that he had developed a crush on the singer for Toad the Wet Sprocket as well.

 

Toad the Wet Sprocket "Is it for Me?"

Recovering from his trip down memory lane, which had been brought on from looking at Susan’s Facebook profile picture, Ed tried to interpret how she was doing now after all these years.  Not easy from a small picture.  She looked so different, but not so much due to the passage of time.  Her hair was now styled carefully with bangs, and she wore a lot of eyeliner.  He remembered her not wearing make-up when they were at school together, or the last time he saw her at the farmhouse.  

Ed opened up Susan’s Bandcamp page to listen to her musical offerings.  He wanted so much to like her acoustic indie pop sketches, but he decidedly did not.  He listened to most of them, which were all under two minutes each.  He wanted to become a fan and supporter of her music in the worst way, but it was not going to happen.  He went back to her Facebook profile to look at some of her cartoons.  These were interesting, thought-provoking and occasionally scathing towards her intended target.  

Nervously he clicked on the “Add Friend” button. 

Thank you to Ken Grandlund for help unscrambling my writing.

 

Song Stories: That Was Another Country

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.

-Chris G.

Please ask any questions you may have.

The very early 90s marked an intense period of loss for me.  I languished in grief for a few years over the loss of friends, loss of love, health, and potential.  It took me a long time to begin to pull out of the darkness.  In great part due to the constant flow of incredible music that I was discovering during those years, I began to feel inspired and alive again.  I think a lot of us form our tastes for things during those formative early 20s years, at least it was that way for me, especially with music.  By that point, I began to realize that I had a preference for female vocals with my “post modern” rock music, but with a few exceptions, I was not a fan of the high pitched baby voiced singers.  Sure, I could make excuses for the ones that were okay with me, but I could not truly determine why some worked and some didn’t.  I’m sure most of it came down to the music behind the voice and THE SONGS!  So, I loved and continue to love The Sundays, but most of what would often get compared to them, I never got into.  For example, when US combo, the innocence mission, were signed to major A&M Records, they were promoted as a US version of The Sundays, or the next 10,000 Maniacs.  In 1991, I received an A&M Records promo CD, which included a few innocence mission songs from their second LP, Umbrella.  No matter how many times I listened to those songs, I could not get into them.  It’s not that they were bad, it’s just that they had no hooks, or grit (even 10,000 Maniacs had some edge when they began], and Karen Peris’ baby-voiced vocals became off-putting.  However, in 1995, I began hearing the intriguing dreamy/warbly guitar sounds and high pitched vocals of “Bright As Yellow,” on our local commercial “alternative” radio station.  I could not get enough of that song.  It possessed a similar dusty, airy and exotic feel as Mazzy Star’s first single “Halah,” which, of course, drew from the timeless voice of Patsy Cline.  It was a pleasure to hear repeatedly and an increasing addiction.

As I have mentioned prior, the innocence mission’s third album, Glow, is an amazing, inspired, and powerful triumph (previous article: Bright As Yellow).  It is pretty, it contains catchy memorable songs, has great performances, is immaculately produced and contains the song “That Was Another Country,” one of the best distillations of feeling loss.  The words, seem to be looking back at joyous experiences from the past with the narrator’s full gang of family of and friends, yet as early as the first verse we are given a hint that everything may not be alright: “taking blankets to the bay / It’s the same / And he was fine / and in the first place was around.” Then we are taken down a road of the loss of innocence as in regards to life and death and that perhaps this person was in crisis.  The chorus repeats: “are you alright” in a way that does not define if the narrator was helpless in trying to save them, or if they’re regretful for not asking that question when it was still possible.  The music is wistful, full of life, and in combination with the vocals devastating in its heartbreak, yet somehow overwhelmingly life-affirming.  Its ultimate conclusion: “you are still my friend / you didn’t go out of my life” is one of comfort.  As someone who aspires to write, and I mean with talent, not in bulk like I do, I admire the ability of conveying so much emotion and tangible visuals with such a minimum of words.  “That Was Another Country” never ceases to break my heart and fill me with a spine tingling desire to truly appreciate this life we have.

I did not continue to follow the innocence mission’s later work, because it never struck me in the same way.  Glow will live on in my small pantheon of prolific artists where I especially love only one of their albums like The Darling Buds’ Erotica and The Cardigans’ Gran Turismo.

the innocence mission "that was another country"

Versions of Us

 

Lanterns on the Lake

Versions of Us

(Bella Union)

There are many contradictions in my behavior and beliefs, but one I’ve only fully realized in recent years is how I seem to have an incredibly strong sense of survival, despite often having a desire to die.  When I’ve been confronted with some pretty catastrophic health issues over the years, I fight like crazy!  When things have been touch and go, I come out gasping for air like someone who’s been under water for an extreme length of time.  Both doctors and nurses have commented on my will to live and my willingness to fight.  It’s funny to me, because they don’t see how I react at some real minor inconveniences that can and often do completely shut me down.  If I receive mail of any kind that involves forms, or when I am fumbling around too much with my hands, or wobbly on my feet, or am dropping everything I try to hold or pick up, I think to myself, how much I don’t want to keep on living.  Every time I encounter debates involving denial of facts and all reason, my response is to shut down.  I’d rather die than deal with that shit.  All of these things have become large factors in my life these days, so I am worried that my fight – my will to survive is declining.  This is why the newest Lanterns on the Lake album, Versions of Us, is so important.

Lanterns on the Lake have been a massive favorite of mine since their earliest self-released and packaged EPs, I regard their debut album,  2011’s Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, as one of the finest debuts of the 2000s, while their follow-up, 2013’s, Until the Colours Run, is an all-timer for me (2013 #1 pick - see here).  That LPs first single, “Another Tale from Another English Town” is remarkable in its cinematic beauty and quiet, yet bitter protest.

There is a positivity that runs through Versions of Us that strikes like a kick to the ass to get in gear and live!   We’re not talking about saccharine messages of hope, but a well-worn reaction earned in the face of serious darkness.  It’s striking, and I’m here for it.  I, for one, am tired of all of the negativity.  I need to turn things around and build up that life affirming resiliency again.

This sense of positivity is important, because singer Hazel Wilde is reminding us that we can all collectively and individually learn from our previous poor habits and assumptions and do better.  “The Saboteur” spells this out in a very straightforward way, in a very memorable chorus, which is heightened by Paul Gregory’s soaring guitar work: 

“Gripped to the past til our fingers bleed

Habit of a century

We’re going to turn this thing round like you wouldn’t believe.” 

The first pre-LP single, “The Likes of Us,” opens the album with a plea for positivity acceptance.  It’s like Wilde is working out her new strategy by accepting that she’s a “wreck,” but asking for all of us fellow down trodden folks to let her have this, “all of these cynics and nihilists couldn’t stop me from feeling this.”

The second single, “String Theory,” finds solace in the idea of a multiverse.  The notion that there are an infinite number of us progressing through time pleases her, knowing that at least one of those versions is having a great time.  It’s kind of funny, but there’s an urgency to this song that is incredibly infectious and hopeful, like witnessing an especially epic sunrise. 

Lanterns on the Lake, with their swelling surges of sound, have always had the ability to create spine-tingling moments that tap into hidden and unspeakable emotions that make one’s face contort to hold back the flood.  This album is no exception, and here we find them perhaps more accessible than ever before.  The previously mentioned singles are upbeat, concise, and with a driving beat from Radiohead’s Philip Selway, songs like “String Theory,” sound crucial and exciting.  Elsewhere, “Real Life” is as close to a catchy pop song that they’ve ever attempted, and it creates an especially spine tingling moment during the bridge, once Gregory’s guitar melds with Angela Chan’s searing violin.  I honestly cannot get enough of it.  “Rich Girls” is another stunner with its warm buzzing organ hum, low end bass, a stuttering beat, and the rousing chorus that absolutely soars, as Wilde clings to her goal of positivity, even if she has to fake it.

Hazel Wilde’s lyrics have always been excellent.  Here they feel more conversational than ever before.  Perhaps she’s writing these affirmations to herself, yet they come off more like an evolving conversation with an old friend.  There’s a humor and humility (“And your guru tries to help / Keeps telling me to love myself / But he can’t stand me either”) here that is familiar and trusting.

This fifth album is already one of my favorites!  Increasingly, with each album release Lanterns on the Lake unveil, there are stories about how the making of that new album almost didn’t happen, because of various issues.  They have continuously lost members through the years, yet they keep on going and remaining remarkably vital.  I am thankful that they remain steadfast and keep this amazing music coming.  Whenever I hear someone say “there’s no good music anymore,” I think of artists like this, and laugh to myself about how ridiculous that notion is.

(https://www.lanternsonthelake.com)

Lanterns on the Lake "String Theory"

Unreadable Communication

 

He sat down on a chair off to the left side of the room, hoping not too many people would stand in front of his view of the stage.  He could no longer stand for hours on end at concerts, now that he was older - probably the oldest person in the room.  He was getting used to that fact, but it didn’t really bother him.  It was simply an observation, though sometimes it did make him feel old.  He always found it fascinating to overhear some of the conversations in the small club.  His favorites were when an old song from the 80s or 90s would be played pre-show, listening to some young guy explain the history of that song or the artist to his bored date.  Sadly, he knew the history, because he was that kind of music nerd and had lived it.  He sometimes had to resist the urge to bore both of these youngsters with the actual facts.  This was getting increasingly rarer.  He didn’t care anymore about that stuff and isn’t sure why he ever did.  He could hear his droning voice sometimes spouting statistics about such and such and it was hard to believe how fatiguing it made him feel.

 

When he was coming of age in the early 90s, he always wanted to belong to something.  He always felt he lacked conviction.  He would read Maximum Rock-N-Roll and a ton of punk ‘zines.  He learned all about straight edge, and how pretty much everyone is a “sellout.”  In a way, he wanted to believe all of the punk dogma, or ethos that was in vogue at the time, so he could lose himself in the scene.  He desired a cause.  He was outraged by a lot of things, but saw too many things in greys as opposed to blacks and whites.  Instead, all of the rules and regulations bemused him.  It all felt like the same kind of thoughts that they were supposedly rebelling against. 

In the 80s and 90s, selling out was a massive betrayal.  The thing about lesser known music, is that the early consumers become very attached to their music.  If said artist achieved any notoriety outside of their original small scene, it was considered a money grab and a complete betrayal.  It never made sense to him.  He would try to muster up outrage when a Husker Du signed with a major label, but their music was still essentially the same and most people still didn’t know who they were.  The rules seemed random to him and counterproductive.  Did these people (or scenesters) really not want their beloved bands to succeed or earn money?  Did they really want them to live in poverty eternally?  As we know now, signing to a major label or licensing a song to an ad campaign does not ensure a financial windfall, or even a reason to quit a day job, and with the evening of the playing field due to technology, almost no one can actually earn money selling music.  Sellout is no longer a thing.  Younger people now consider all past music the same, while some of us older folks still hold grudges against Top 40 bands versus our underground favorites.  To a 25 year old, there’s no difference in streaming a song by Florida punk band Spoke, or Glenn Fry’s “You Belong to the City.”

He was always regular.  Though he was fluent with all things goth, punk, industrial, noise, post-punk, and college rock growing up, he never gravitated to a particular scene.  He never adopted the regulation costume, or changed out his friends based on their music tastes.  Probably the closest he came to a look, was by being his record nerd self and wearing old Levi’s and cheaply made concert T-shirts almost exclusively.  His hair was a wreck – stringy and in the way of his face – a little like Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, but he was built more like Black Francis from the Pixies.  However, neither of these things were conscious choices – it just happened, because all of his time and money went into finding new music, working to earn money to buy music.  He never had the drive to try to become a full on punk rocker or anything else, because he liked too much of the other stuff and the punk culture at that time (late 80s – early 90s) didn’t allow for outside interests.  You needed to look and live like a punk, not just listen to punk.  He wasn’t aware of a music nerd scene, until he reached his mid-twenties, but soon discovered that that scene horrified him most of all!  There was just as much a feeling of superiority within.  A lot of these people reminded him of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.  They were the type who would look down their noses at others who were unaware that Australian band, The Church, had had five albums before having a hit single in the US in 1988, for example.  It was a club of one-upmanship, and often times about collecting and not about the actual enjoyment of the music.

 

By the late 90s, not much had changed.  He lived in a shitty apartment and paycheck to paycheck, but his costume had not changed.  Some of the old T-Shirts were still in circulation - holes and all!  His supervisor had taken him aside one time to urge him to start dressing in more appropriate office attire.  He struggled to do that too.  He didn’t fit in anywhere!  He was himself, but was looked down upon when he went to see most of the bands he liked, as well as at his job, or at places like golf courses.  He nearly always felt like a walking contradiction.  When he was in his 40s, he went to see The Jesus and Mary Chain perform a best of set, and was wearing a brightly colored golf shirt, while everyone else had teased hair, creepers, and black clothing.  He felt awkward, and judged, but he imagined that he was one of the only ones there who knew and owned the Mary Chain’s entire catalogue and had been a fan since before they were included on the Some Kind of Wonderful soundtrack.

 

His inability to commit to anything extended into every aspect of his life.  He wanted to feel faithful to something spiritual, or to a cause, and especially to a significant other, but was never able to genuinely do it.  It wasn’t in him.  He felt that he was incapable of change.  He had seen his friends change completely when falling for someone romantically, when they were all young, and it never felt right to him.  Although most of his closest friends did find fantastic partners eventually.  When someone would commit to a band or genre in his teen years, all others would become off limits.  Back in the 80s, for whatever reason, no one was allowed to cross music allegiances.  This is not really true, but there was always the risk of being labelled a sellout or be outcasted by your friend group, if you were a Christian Death fan and then started listening to Metallica, and wearing their gear. 

He was often mystified by his attractions.  He encountered beautiful girls/women every day, but he could only conjure up a few in his memory that made him especially attracted, conflicted, nervous, itchy, and bonkers.  He could never quite figure out that rare allure.  It had to be something more than lust, but what else could it be, he wondered?  He remembered early crushes going back to his first memories.  He used to have dreams about his first grade teacher, and he remembered watching West Side Story with his Mom on TV as a toddler, and making fun of the movie, but going silent every time Natalie Wood was on screen. 

 

During the late 90s, his favorite record store, Ozone, where he spent hours on end, over five or so years, nerding out over their inventory.  This was the place that he would pick up all of those essential early 90s UK shoegaze EP releases.  He would load up on US indie 7” singles from labels like Slumberland and Pop Narcotic, as well as punk singles and compilations – looking for the next Husker Du or Jawbreaker to fill that void in his life, or the latest Sarah Records releases.  They had it all!  And by 1998, they had an employee who reminded him of a little of Natalie Wood.  He could never forget walking into Ozone Records on a Saturday and seeing the newest single at the time from long-time favorite Buffalo Tom, “Wiser,” which she was playing loudly in the store and dancing and singing along behind the counter.  He nearly fainted on the spot.  Could there possibly be a woman for him?  Someone he wouldn’t have to give up his identity for?  Someone who he could play records with and have it be meaningful for both? He felt his knees buckle.

 

“Shoegaze” was a derogatory term created by the British music press, indicating that the bands lacked any kind of stage presence.  However, these bands were varied and exciting to him!  These bands all seemed to be music fans.  Their music elicited all kinds of differing greats from the past and were infused with an energy unlike anything he had ever heard.  He appreciated that they seemingly weren’t bands made up of cocky bastards.  What the press disparaged them for, he felt was a strength.  A lot of these bands excited his imagination as they somehow merged all of the things he loved about music into affordable and frequent four song EPs.

The first band had finished their set.  He decided that they had been pretty good, and reminded him of the Lo-Fi indie singles he started buying in the mid-90s.  They were apparently local.  He briefly thought back to the old Portland music scene, which he rarely found inspiring, but commonly offensive.  His favorites were generally brought to his attention via indie labels from elsewhere.  This band had brought a devoted following of friends and family.  He was happy for them, despite being a five-piece stuffed to a small portion at the front of the stage.  The other two bands’ equipment was ready to go behind them.  He considered standing up to buy something from the merch table or a beer at the bar, but instead chose to stay in his chair.  The danger of losing it was too great.  This was his first post Covid show.  Everything felt strange, but it was great to see live music again.  There’s an anger to live rock-n-roll that always fed him in a way he didn’t understand. 

The floor in front of the stage opened up.  In his younger years, pre-Covid, he would’ve made his move to be close to the stage, but now, despite his back and butt hurting from the terrible chair, he stayed there.  He knew that standing would likely lead to him collapsing.  He was already embarrassed enough by his appearance or existence, and he was there by himself. 

There she was, he thought, as a chill rushed through his entire body.  Across the room.  He would never forget her, even after all of these years.  In a black dress that draped down to her knees.  She had dark hair that still didn’t quite reach her shoulders.  Seemingly only a few years older, while the past 25 had been rough on him.  He looked like a grizzled world war veteran and grandfather, who ate all of the leftovers, all of the time.  She still looked like a young woman who could be in a new band or working in a hip record store.  She was swaying back and forth to a song, over the PA, he didn’t recognize, but that reminded him of an eighties synth duo.  A younger version of her stood in front of her sipping from a pint of beer.  Her daughter looked like a teenager, but must’ve been over twenty-one.  He remembered how he used to sneak glances at her over the top of the records he was holding up for further inspection, while trying to drum up the nerve to talk to her.  He always hoped that one of his amazing purchases would spark a connection.  He began to wonder what her life had been like over the last lifetime.  He assumed that it had been much better without him in it.

Buffalo Tom "Wiser"

Promised You A Miracle

 

He flopped back over onto his left side and let out a loud frustrated groan.  He thought he had gotten past getting pissed off when trying and failing to sleep.  After not being able to sleep for most of his life, he had finally let it go and accepted it.  He had learned to get out of bed, instead of fighting sleep, and try to be productive, or just zone out to the overnight news broadcasts to try to relax.  It was the spiraling thought.  It was his biggest sleep enemy.  Some sort of dreadful anxious notion that would repeat in his mind endlessly, keeping him from sleep and making him agitated.  Generally, when he was younger, these were about trying to solve some problem at school – not wanting to fall behind, or having to deal with a classmate for some reason.  Then it became work shit and sleep became that much more difficult – especially having a job that was never resolved – just a constant continuing cycle of chaos where no sense of accomplishment could ever be felt.  Yet, he had begun to feel better, once he realized that if he just accepted sleeplessness as a part of his life. 

The futility of it all is what made him so upset.  It all reminded him of his past experience with the Pain Management Clinic and the resulting overnight sleep study.  The bizarre study that took place on a Friday night one summer, where he was expected to go to sleep at about 7 in the evening.  They hooked about 500 wires to him and left him in a lightless room, with nothing to do.  According to the unbelievably handsome doctor who he consulted with the following morning, he did actually sleep some, but stayed in the first phase of sleep the entire time.  This is a phase, where the sleeper’s mind is still semi-conscious and they have incredibly vivid visions or dreams.  This phase normally lasts for less than ten minutes, but he laughed as he told Charles that he stayed there much of the night and never delved into the next phase.  He said, that it’s actually more tiring than not sleeping, again with a chuckle, as he looked to be practicing his golf grip on the pointer in his tan hands.  That was it!  Charles didn’t ask any questions either!  It was like six am on a sunny summer Saturday morning, he probably had a tee time too.  The good looking sleep doctor wrote him a prescription for Ambien, which Chuck had tried in the past and for which it had long lost any effectiveness.

Charles laughed to himself as he thought about the old Pain Management Clinic.  It had all started when his normal headaches were becoming so intense that he was struggling to function.  It was a few months after his kidney transplant, and his transplant doctor thought the PMC might be able to help him.  The clinic was designed to address chronic pain from different angles.  A patient was set up with a medical doctor to direct each case, a physical therapist, and a psychiatrist.  I met my team and they immediately referred me to a headache specialist who looked way too much like the early Law & Order detective Lennie Briscoe.  It’s amazing how little we as people know about the brain.  Treating sleep and headaches at that time was to prescribe a series of formerly antidepressant medications, of which none of them helped my headache nor my sleep, so, after a while Dr. Jerry Orbach sent me back to the PMC.  The four people I interacted with there was the receptionist, who was clearly in charge of the entire clinic and who was a voluptuous blonde named Jenna Jameson, who seemed oblivious that she shared the same name as the most well-known porn star at the time.  Charles would save the phone messages from her regarding upcoming appointments – hoping his roommates would listen to them.  His doctor was Dr. Miracle, who was eerily similar to the Orbit Gum spokeswoman with her sharp British accent and early 60s fashion sense, the psychiatrist was a creepy guy who reeked of cigarettes, had a tiny cramped office, greasy hair, and tons of cassette tapes which he had recorded of him saying things quietly over the sounds of a babbling brook or some such.  Chuck’s first and last session with him took place in a tiny windowless office crowded with stacks of file boxes, after it seemed the shrink had inhaled a tuna sandwich.  They were in facing desk chairs only a few feet apart.  Charles was incredibly uncomfortable, while the psychiatrist diagnosed him as needing sleep, so gave him a few of his homemade relaxation tapes.  Lastly, Charles would see a physical therapist each visit, who would generally employ Craniosacral Therapy on him, which would make him incredibly woozy for the rest of the day, and unsurprisingly, she was the one who diagnosed and solved his headache issues. 

 

He was now dreaming.  He could tell, because he was about four or five years old and there was his mom walking behind him.  She was wearing dark sunglasses.  Beside him was his childhood friend, Jon, whose family lived across the street in their old neighborhood.  They seemed to be at a carnival of some sort.  Dried and pressed grass beneath their feet, twirling rides all about, the smell of burned grease and oil.  He was wearing sandals with white socks and blue shorts.  He had a t-shirt on underneath the green cardigan sweater his grandmother had knitted him.  He was also wearing a blue bucket hat, which he had loved.  He spotted another kid nearby with an ice cream cone shoved up underneath his nose.  He immediately thought about asking his mom for one, but decided against it, when he realized that he was carrying something.  He had a scrapbook in his hands.  Within the context of the dream, he knew that it was his.  His soon to be Kindergarten teacher and his mom had started this book for him.  Inside were projects for him to work on.  It contained reading assignments, art to draw and color, things to read and places to write about various things.

His mom had not been around the family for a short while, and had taken this book with her, but now she was back and the book had some new pages.  The carnival seemed to be near the Hollywood District in Portland.  They had likely walked down the hill from their neighborhood to get there.  It seemed to be themed around movie and TV characters who were based in Portland.  There was a ride/exhibit that featured odd random characters from the old primetime cartoon the Flintstones, who were apparently Portland born.  Strange, but very Portland.  Our inferiority complex runs deep.  Our local news will report about an earthquake in Istanbul or somewhere and relate it to our quake readiness for “when the big one comes.”  They always find some reason to find a NW connection – no matter how loose – to any news positive or not

This was different from any dream he had ever had with his mom.  The only dreams she ever showed up in were the occasional dreams where she would re-appear in his life, such as it is now.  She hadn’t died.  Instead she had gone into hiding for all of these years.  In other words, she had chosen to leave.  These were disturbing, hurtful and very realistic dreams that he hated.  Over the years, he had worked to try to control his dreams, but in this light state of sleep, his influence generally just woke him.  In the case of disturbing dreams like these, he was okay with that.

His mom used to discuss various controversial subjects with him.  The first one he remembered was when Oregon passed a mandatory seatbelt law, but he remembered long discussions regarding hunting, clear cutting forests versus preserving them, the death penalty, abortion, and even daylight savings time.  She would let him come to his own conclusions, would never raise her voice or try to sway his decision, but would play devil’s advocate to test his newly found stances no matter the side he had chosen.  He learned a lot and always appreciated her approach.  It made him feel important.

He sat next to her on a park bench.  Jon, and his older sister Michelle, were waiting in line to ride a Merry-Go-Round made up of Portland based cartoon dinosaurs.  He was looking at his scrapbook.  His mom had added some pages about accepting death.  He turned to her and asked her what these were for, and she said that it was time to get back home.  All of us kids were due at our elderly neighbor’s house, the Kimberly’s.  The childless elderly couple often took care of the young kids in the neighborhood and they spoiled all of us.  We were always welcome to come in for cookies or candy, or play basketball in their driveway, or watch their television.  They were super nice.  He tried to ask his mom again regarding the death pages in the scrapbook.  His semi-conscious self wondered if these were a warning years too late?  This was before his grandmother had passed and all of the dying began.  Were they preparing him for an upcoming loss of someone close in his life now?  Were they for his own life?    His attempt to control the dream stirred him to wake up and feel more exhausted than before he laid down.

Bother

 

None of us want to be a bother, yet we all have differing ideas of what that actually means and likely apply it differently to those around us.  Trying to not be a bother has played a huge roll in my life and I’m not exactly sure why.  When asked why I’m so afraid of being a bother, I generally resort to an answer involving not wanting to be the center of attention or a nuisance, which is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.  Much like my recent realization that much of my decision making throughout my life has been made with a very temporary mindset, me realizing that I worry too much about being a bother to others has hindered my growth.  In both cases there’s nothing I can do about the past, but I can try to recognize it going forward and potentially do better going forward.

Abecedarians "They Said Tomorrow"

In 1990, I first heard the amazing song “They Said Tomorrow” by Abecedarians, which has a repeated line about the singer trying to build up the nerve to approach a someone he is drawn to: “If I bother you/please tell me to go away/I don’t want to bother you/but it’s not for me to say” and it hit me at the time like a ton of bricks.  It encapsulated so much of what I’ve always felt.  I’ve always felt like my presence alone is an unwanted intrusion.  I do not have a ready reason why this is and I don’t think it’s particularly important.  What I do know is that feeling this way has prevented me from trying a lot of things.  In that song “They Said Tomorrow,” it displays the other definition of ‘bother,’ which is to not try something period.  The narrator of that song keeps putting off this supposed urgent need, instead saying to himself “I’ll try it again tomorrow.”  This other side of the coin is intriguing me today, because it calls to motivation.  Have I been more concerned about disturbing others, or does it have to do more with me not wanting to disturb myself?  Did I not ask the girl out on a date, because I was afraid of bugging her, or was it because I was afraid of her saying yes?  It cannot ever have been about rejection, because that was pretty much my expectation.  After missing a week of school as a little kid, and falling woefully behind in math, did I not ask the teacher for help, because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, or be a burden, or because I didn’t want to do the extra work to catch up? 

Not sure any of these questions are answerable in a definitive way, or if they’re even relevant.  The important part is to recognize, going forward, when I am about to use ‘bother’ as an excuse, I need to consider the response further.  If the past week has proved anything to me is that I am not far from needing to be taken care of to survive.  During the past week or so, I have fallen in public, which is scary because there’s little chance that I will be able to get up again on my own, I have found it nearly impossible to climb out of bed, I am struggling to eat or prepare food or even obtain groceries, I struggle to focus to fill out or even read health insurance paperwork, I canceled a doctor’s appointment, because it was too much effort to get there.  I will have to be a bother.  This cannot go on.  It’s depressing as hell.  I don’t know how to ask for help.  Perhaps, ‘bother’ to me, has always meant ‘burden’ – a heavy load to be dragged around.  I am trying my damnedest to get through this.  I wish it were a switch I could flip off.  

I have been blessed with family and friends that want to help, but I honestly don’t know how to accept it.  I do not feel like I deserve it.  It’s not so much that I don’t want to be a bother, it’s that I don’t think I’m worth the bother.  Perhaps that is where I need the most assistance – help to find the ability to accept assistance and accept it gracefully. 

The Sun is in Our Eyes

 

UJU

The Sun is in Our Eyes

(Melt)

There is some kind of scientifically enhanced surgery going on with how precisely this collection of songs tugs at my heartstrings.  The Sun is in Our Eyes is melodramatic and depicts the romanticism of past love in a very unreal light.  I know we’d all like to believe that from our past there’s the one perfect match that got away, but the reality is generally far different.  There’s commonly a very good reason they are no longer a big part of our life.  Yet, for some reason, it’s very powerful to look back into our pasts and overly romanticize a stolen kiss at summer camp and the delightful innocence of it all.

Firstly, I need to thank DJ Krissy Vanderwoude for this, because she played a song by UJU on her radio show, Drowned in a Sea of Sound. a couple of weeks ago.  I cannot contain my enthusiasm for this album!  This is one of those: ‘was this made for me?’ sort of albums.  Okay, I have to slow down.  UJU is from the Philipines and The Sun is in Our Eyes is their second album.  I do not have much prior experience with Filipino bands, other than going nuts over Julie Plug’s sparkling bright debut Starmaker way back in 1998/99.  UJU do share Julie Plug’s incredible pop sensibilities, but instead of the overt chiming pop rock of JP, UJU explores a dreamier approach.  In fact, the first few songs remind me heavily of the quiet approach of that first EP by The Arrogants.  There’s a simplicity to the songs that really helps set a particular reflective mood.  Much like the power of Robert Wratten’s songwriting, and more specifically, during the brief Northern Picture Library period.  There’s an ambient atmosphere combined with nakedly emotional lyrics that pretty much wins me over every time 

Early single, “Promises,” borrows the guitar melody from New Order’s amazing “Leave Me Alone,” (full overly melodramatic disclosure: pretty much any evening during my high school years, I was probably listening to “Leave Me Alone” with an intense desperation wanting everyone to leave me alone, despite the fact that they did - especially the girls.  Of course, it isn’t until the spectacular sixth song, “Anywhere, Everywhere,” that a burst of Adorable’s “Sunshine Smile” type guitars sprawls out like a splash of bright color.  The album takes a much more shoegazey turn, sound-wise, the rest of the way, especially, the epic crashing wave that is the title track..  There’s a foggy atmospheric haze to many of these songs that reminds of Singapore’s motifs, or Australia’s Lowtide.  However, Leeju Jung’s vocals are an entirely different game here.  She does not blend her voice in like another instrument like so many shoegaze artists.  She really sings, but she does not fall into that dreadful American Idol-style of oversinging.  Instead, songs such as the bouncy, “We Should’ve Walked, but We Ran,” feel like something sung by Rachel Mayfield’s former band, Delicious Monster. 

There are so many great songs here that pull those emotional strings!  “Summer’s Gone and so Are You,” I mean C’MON?!!  Then there’s the intensely exciting instrumental “Was it the Sound of a Car Crash, Broken Glass, or the Moments I’ll Never Get Back?” which paints a dramatic picture, where words would be too much.  The closing “I’ll Be Alright (I’m Still Here)” is repetitive, but undeniably pretty and reassuring and romantic as hell.

Yesterday morning, after listening to this album over and over about a half dozen times, and deciding that I wanted to write about it, I learned that UJU is now taking a “hiatus.”  I guess it’s a good thing that there’s another album to discover!

(https://meltrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-sun-is-in-our-eyes)

UJU "THe Sun is in Our Eyes"