MILES DAVIS - Kind of Blue

Miles Davis
Kind of Blue
Columbia, 1959

Dude, I'm not even going to try writing anything new about

Kind of Blue.  If you have even the faintest interest in jazz, you know it or at least know of it.  It's the best selling jazz album of all-time, and for good reason.

I'm no different from any other jazz-curious kid from the suburbs.  When I decided it might be cool if I listened to some jazz, I went to the big names.  Miles and Coltrane.  Sure enough, Kind of Blue was the first jazz record that I bonded with emotionally.  It's not over-hyped.  It's not overrated.  It's a perfect damn album.  Timeless.

Today it is comfort music.  The sky is gray.  It's cold.  I had been having a pretty awesome week before receiving some disappointing news last night.  It's a minor bump in the road.  Possibly even a detour to something even greater. Things are still leaning positive in my life.  I'm determined to keep moving forward, to keep improving, to keep living the life I want to lead.  I'll be okay.  I'll be great!

But therapy has helped to teach me that it's healthy to make space for my feelings.  If I want to be sad for a few hours on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, I'm going to be sad.  I'm going to drink my coffee.  I'm going to sigh.  I'm going to listen to one of my most familiar sad, rainy day companions.  I'm going to listen to Kind of Blue.  This is my healing exercise.

When it's over, I'm going to head into work.  I'm going to force myself to be extroverted.  I'm going to smile and be helpful to my customers.  Then I get to go meet up with a couple of my oldest friends -- a couple of the greatest dudes in the world -- at a rock and roll show.

Rinse.  Repeat.

About my copy:
CS 8163
Mid to late 1960s "two-eye," "360 Sound" stereo issue.  No idea when or where I picked it up, but thanks to Harry Petersen for keeping it in such great shape before it found me!

CALEXICO - Garden Ruin

Calexico

Garden Ruin
Quarterstick, 2006

"I don't know them.  Send me something?"

That's all it took to send me down a Calexico worm hole over the next two days.  

What would I send?  How can I, in just one song, make the perfect musical introduction to a band with such an expansive sound, drawing from so many inspirations, and with such a rich catalog?

Impossible.  It couldn't be one song.  I had no choice but to make a sampler playlist.  Ten songs, no more.  Is even that too much?  How can I even keep it to ten songs?  But I have to set a limit.  When I go in, I go all in.  This happens in so many facets of my life.  I have a hard time simply dipping my toe.  I fall in and I always end up drenched.  So, even on a small self-assigned task such as this, I had to keep this reminder constant:  check yo' self before you wreck yo' self.

I knew for certain that I would start the playlist with "Sunken World Waltz," the perfect opener from my undisputed favorite Calexico album Feast of Wire.  (Maybe that's the simple answer to "Send me something?" to begin with, but that would be making this way too easy on myself!)  I knew that the sprawling, majestic instrumental "Glowing Heart of the World" would make the cut.  But what else?

As I hopped around Calexico's 25-plus year history, this was my biggest revelation: There are a lot of fantastic songs on 2006's Garden Ruin!

My relationship with Calexico began in 2003 with Feast of Wire.  I loved the album immediately.  Then I saw them open two shows for The Shins at First Avenue.  Calexico completely blew the headliner off the stage both nights.  (To this day, I couldn't tell you if The Shins -- whose first couple albums I liked -- really were as boring as I remember.  I can tell you that after Calexico filled that room with a wall of beautiful sound, The Shins sets were hollow and empty.)

As is my m.o., I worked backward to purchase the entire Calexico catalog.  I constantly sold their records and CDs right off the stereo, via in-store play, at the record store.  I was the damn Calexico ambassador of the upper midwest for about three years while waiting for the next album.  

When Garden Ruin was finally released... it was fine.  I didn't think it was great.  I listened to it a lot.  I tried forcing myself into loving it more than I did.  It was different, though.  Following up Feast of Wire, which was vast and experimental, Garden Ruin seemed basic.  It was full of pretty three-minute indie-folk sounding songs.  Calexico was certainly capable of those previously, but spread them out around the mariachi jams and desert-landscape instrumentals (neither of which were present on Garden Ruin).

While I would never toss the "sellout" accusation at them, I always did kind of wonder if that Shins tour led to any sort of desire to market Garden Ruin to the Garden State audience.  Even the album artwork, while very pretty and not entirely off-brand, strayed from the iconic spraypaint and stencil medium of Victor Gastelum, which had become synonymous with Calexico's releases.

To be clear, I never hated Garden Ruin.  I simply never loved it as much as I hoped I would.

This morning, I went in with fresh ears.  I dropped the needle for the first time in years and spun it all the way through.

It's fantastic.

Why all the easily digestible three-minute pop songs?  Because they're gems.  Lyrically and melodically, this is Calexico at their most crisp.  It's an almost delicate record, which I intend as a compliment.  While continuing to draw inspiration from the border issues in their home base of Tucson, Arizona, and the sacrifice and freedom dreams that come with that territory, the songs here sound tender.  And often hopeful.  

Of course the real emotional gut-punch comes with the six-minute long album closer "All Systems Red."  This plea of feeling like giving up/blowing it all up, from the middle of the nightmare of George W. Bush's second term (remember that?) is suddenly striking quite a chord with me on several fronts in 2022.

"I hear you can't trust in your own

Now the grey is broken in the early morn

And the words forming barely have a voice

It's just your heart that's breaking without choice

Everything you hear is distorted in your head

Bouncing off the walls, unraveling the thread

Staying up with the blue screen glow

Forgetting everything you ever dreamed years ago"

This is why I hate the disposability of music in 2022.  It's wonderful when I feel connected to an album immediately.  It's something else entirely when it takes sixteen years to feel that connection.

I'm very excited to see Calexico again in a couple of weeks.  Fingers are already crossed that they play a couple from Garden Ruin.

The skinnier author wearing his favorite orange Calexico t-shirt nearly 20 years ago.  He hopes it will fit again by the end of 2022! 

About my copy:
qs97

Original pressing purchased probably a few days prior to its official release.

STELLA DONNELLY - Flood

Stella Donnelly
Flood
Secretly Canadian, 2022

I have been musically reawakened!

I have spent over half of my life constantly seeking new music.  That began at a pretty young age, with a boundless enthusiasm for wanting to know what all was out there and what everything sounded like.  When I started working at a record store, the new music came to me!  Endless promo CDs to check out, customers with good taste asking for something I'd never heard before, local bands bringing in their wares and flyers for their shows.  It was a glorious time!

Then, probably around five years ago, I got old.  I no longer worked at a cool record shop.  I had almost fully migrated to a suburban family life.  Toys and other kid stuff started piling up in front of the stereo and the record shelves.  Even if I did want to play my records in the evening, I could maybe get through one side of an album before it was somebody's bedtime.

Those, of course, are all excuses.  I could have listened while wearing headphones.  I could utilize new technology (er... streaming services) to seek out new stuff.  I could ask friends who were still in the know what kind of cool new shit had been blowing their mind lately.  Honestly, I think I was burned out.  Not just musically, either.  I was complacent in my comfortable, seemingly happy life.

I sank into secondary hobbies because it seemed like they were fulfilling me in the way that music once did.  Sure, I would still pick up a new record by an old favorite every now and again.  And occasionally I'd get into a new artist if it was spoon-fed to me, as with my favorite new discovery from earlier this year, Carson McHone (Merge Records signed a country-ish singer?  I had to check that out!).

My life has undergone seismic changes over the last two years.  Only over the last few months have I started feeling this awakening -- not just musically, but in nearly every aspect of my life.  But for sure musically, too.

The enthusiasm and passion I have naturally held for my entire life, but which felt like so much work for the last five years, seem to have returned!  Records are getting pulled off my shelves faster than I can play them!  Playlists and mixes are being made with frequency and inspiration!  Concert tickets are being purchased!  And new (to me) music is being found!

Which brings us, finally, to Stella Donnelly.

With as many records as I have purchased, my e-mail address has found its way onto many, many mailing lists.  99% of those e-mails get deleted immediately.  Truth be told, I didn't even open the e-mail from Secretly Canadian promoting Stella Donnelly's new record.

I can't explain what possessed me later that day to search her name and check her out while I was in my car.  I also can't explain why my reaction is so strong.  I suppose it was instinct.  Something in my soul.  Knowing nothing about her, where she was from, or what she sounded like, I just had a feeling.  Some cosmic direction was calling to me, telling her that she was worth my time.

I started playing Flood from the beginning, and it was love at first sound.  I immediately drove to the record store to purchase my own copy.  Her voice is like honey.  (And, from Nick Cave to the Go-Betweens to Alex Lahey and beyond, I've always been a sucker for Australian accents.)  The lyrics are so beautiful and so human.  The sound is familiar, yet unlike anything I've ever heard before.  I can not stop flipping the record.  I don't want to wear out the grooves, but I want to hear more and more.  It feels like there's so much more to discover with each new listen.

This isn't Donnelly's first record.  She's been around for a bit, and I'm really excited to dig into the back catalog.  Guess what?  I'm glad I didn't know about her earlier.  I feel like it was fate that led me to her at this very moment, when I needed her music in my life.  When I was ready to fully hear it. 

About my copy:
SC 432
Red vinyl pressing purchased brand new at Down In the Valley last week.

GRANT HART - The Argument

Grant Hart
The Argument
Domino, 2013

Two days ago marked the fifth anniversary of Grant Hart's death.  I stopped in my tracks and decided I was going to listen to a significant amount of Grant's music this week.  Naturally, I also wanted to write about one of his records.  More accurately, I wanted to write about my memories of him.  

I had several false starts over the previous two days.  Nothing felt right.  Memories had become less clear, yet every sentence felt reproduced, an inferior plagiarism of myself.

Thanks to today's Facebook memories, I know why.  I had already let my thoughts on Grant fly in a long post I made on my personal page five years ago.  Presented here, with minimal editing, is that post...

Friday, September 15, 2017.  2:15 AM

I was a Bob Mould fan first.

I knew “See a Little Light” and “It’s Too Late” from heavy rotation on KJ104.  Late in the summer of 1992, that magnificent station introduced me to “Helpless,” the lead US single from Mould’s new band Sugar.  Soon the video for that song attained coveted Buzz Clip status on MTV’s 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation.

During that first week of September in 1992, three notable things happened to me:

• KJ104 suddenly switched formats from modern rock to country.
• I started high school.
• Sugar’s Copper Blue was released.  I think I bought it at Title Wave.

Less than a month into my freshman year of high school, I befriended a long-haired sophomore named Matt Cronk.  He was hilarious, blunt, and slightly intimidating.  He made fun of my Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirts, and in turn introduced me to a lot of pretty great music.  He wore a Hüsker Dü shirt.  Kind of a lot.  I probably never admitted to him that, while I loved Sugar, I had never heard Hüsker Dü.  Before I would have to face up to that embarrassment, I was saved by the cutout cassette bin at Holiday Plus, where I found Candy Apple Grey (and The Replacements’ All Shook Down) for three bucks.

As I listened to side one, I realized I DID know Hüsker Dü!  I recognized “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely” and “Sorry Somehow” as songs they used to play on KJ104.  But that definitely wasn’t Bob Mould’s voice!  Huh.

By the end of freshman year, I was a superfan.  Hüsker Dü was unquestionably my favorite band.  I was always a music kid, but nothing I heard before had ever punched me in the gut like them.  There was chaos, fury, beauty, and pain.  But it was insanely catchy.  Rock ‘n’ roll was shaping a naively romanticized vision for my world.  Hüsker Dü led my inner revolution.  Soon my world was flipped upside down by my new circle of friends.  Most of them were older than me, and a great many were in bands -- and they were all heavily influenced by Hüsker Dü.

Having peers play original music in Robbinsdale basements changed my view of the entire world.  Hell, it became my world.  My favorite was Matt’s band God’s Date.  Matt sang a few of their early songs, but most of them were sung by Sean Peterson.  I was fifteen and Sean was nineteen when we met.  That’s a pretty big age difference when you’re fifteen.  But the fact that he could legally buy cigarettes for everyone at the 24-hour Byerly’s restaurant in Golden Valley (the official hangout for the freaks and geeks of the district) still didn’t explain how someone I personally knew could write songs like Sean could.

So, I’m a Hüsker Dü superfan, but really Bob Mould is still the hero.  I got my driver’s license early in my sophomore year, and one of the first mixtapes I made for the car was called “God Mould.”  All killer, no filler from Sugar, his two solo albums, and my favorite Bob-sung Hüsker songs.  And I just didn’t know how to react when Sean -- who is now my real-life songwriting hero -- states that he prefers Grant Hart’s songs.  I don't think I was ready to admit Sean was right.  But I couldn’t say he was wrong.  Hüsker Dü was amazing because of the rival songwriter dynamic.  

I picked up Grant’s solo album Intolerance, and I found the cassette for his band Nova Mob’s The Last Days of Pompeii in yet another cutout bin.  I liked both.  Each had a few great tunes.  Grant’s first new music since I had become a fan was 1994’s self-titled Nova Mob CD on Restless Records.  It received some reasonable airplay on REV 105, but it’s a damn shame that it didn’t receive the same attention as Copper Blue, (Paul Westerberg's) 14 Songs, and (Soul Asylum's) Grave Dancers Union.  That it didn’t only seemed to be Grant’s lot.

My favorite Grant Hart memory occurred sometime during the winter of my junior year of high school (1994-95).  On a Saturday afternoon, my high school sweetheart Shannon and I were driving around, looking for something to Dü, when we heard on REV 105 that Grant was going to be giving a free in-store performance for the grand opening of the new Best Buy store on 494 and Lyndale.

We arrived and asked the greeter where Grant Hart was playing.  No idea.  We walked through aisles of TVs, VCRs, cameras, and whatever else to the CD section -- which seemed the most logical place to hold a performance -- and found… nothing.  Asked another employee about the Grant Hart in-store.  He had no idea who or what we were talking about.  We turned a corner and ran into Grant standing all by his lonesome with a microphone and an electric guitar.  It was just the three of us.  He started playing some songs.  I think a few other people came over to see what was happening, but my memory is that Shannon and I were the only two who were actually there to see Grant.  

It was a weird scene.  He was standing in the middle of a chain big-box store playing some of my favorite songs ever written.  We were standing five feet in front of him.  Nobody else was paying attention.  At seventeen, Mould and Hart were my Lennon and McCartney.  And this was our private concert.

After a few songs, he asked what we wanted to hear.  In possibly the most romantic gesture of my life to that point, I sheepishly asked if he could play “Green Eyes.”  (Cuz, duh, Shannon has green eyes.)  It was magical.  The rest of his set was basically me nervously blurting out “Books About UFOs,” “2541,” “Old Empire,” “Never Talking to You Again,” and more, and him playing them all.  For the two of us.

I saw Grant play several times after that.  Some were among the most awkward and uncomfortable shows I’ve ever seen.  Others were bliss.  I didn’t have a personal encounter with him again, though, for another five years.

A week or two after I started working at Oar Folkjokeopus in the fall of 1999, Grant came in just before closing time.  He hit me up for money.  “Hey, can I borrow twenty bucks?”  When I told him I didn’t have twenty bucks, he asked if he could borrow it from the register.  “I’m a friend of [my boss] Mark’s.”  

It was intensely uncomfortable for me.  I didn’t give him the money.  By that point, I was keenly aware of his addiction history and had already seen at least one remarkable on-stage meltdown.  Still, it was a profound fall-from-grace moment for a guy who I had placed on a pedestal.

Thankfully, things got much better.  Over the next sixteen years, I had many encounters with Grant at 

Oar Folk/Treehouse Records.  It slowly developed from him stopping in to look specifically for his old buddies Mark or the late, great Terry Katzman to him just showing up and shooting the shit with me, my friend and co-worker Brian, and potentially anyone else who was working or shopping.

It was often awkward, but as the years went on I guess I got used to him.  Things shifted from a kind of cool discomfort to moments and conversations that I cherished.  I don’t know if there’s a subject that Grant couldn’t talk about.  He was a smart, smart man.  He’d talk about Burroughs and the beat poets.  He’d talk about weird ‘50s science fiction magazines.  He’d talk about art.  He'd talk about cars.  He’d talk about philosophy.  He’d even talk, quite unfiltered, about Hüsker Dü.  Much of what he’d talk about was over my head, and it was often non-linear.  It was quite a few years before I realized he actually knew my name.  That was a pretty cool feeling.

A few favorite Grant memories from Treehouse:

• The first time I was behind the counter when he busted us for having a Hüsker Dü bootleg.  We had just acquired copies of a surreptitious LP called Do You Remember? and they were piled up front on the new release rack.  He picked one up and started studying the back cover.  I started shitting myself.  He said, “Tell Mark I’m taking one of these,” and walked out the door with it.  What could I do?  Call the cops and say I’ve got a guy in here stealing an illegal record of his own band?  After that I found that Grant seemed highly entertained by the various Hüsker Dü bootlegs that occasionally found their way into the store.  He would always buy them.  It was only that one time that he stole one!
• When his last album The Argument was released in 2013, he played an in-store at Treehouse.  It was really well attended and we sold quite a few records.  I’ve been to some pretty sparsely attended Grant Hart shows, so it felt so great to see a big turnout for that.  I remember not being able to hold back a big dumb grin while he’d mess with his old Hüsker soundman Terry, who was of course running sound on that day.  Definitely near the top of my list for favorite in-stores we hosted.
• Record Store Day 2013.  The Numero Group was reissuing the first Hüsker Dü single that day.  Grant stopped in a couple days before to give us a bunch of blue vinyl promo copies of his “So Far From Home” single and told us to “give them out to anyone who buys the Hüsker record… or whoever.”  Then he showed up unannounced on Record Store Day and hung out by the counter to sign copies for anyone who bought the Hüsker Dü record.  But the best was when he showed up again the next day.  He wanted to check in to see how the record did.  (It sold out.)  He was still hanging out on the other side of the counter 20 minutes later, when a hip-hop kid was intrigued by the cover of the Roky Erickson & The Aliens “Mine Mine Mind” b/w “Bloody Hammer” 7" reissue that Light In the Attic had released for RSD.  I don’t know how I can describe the amazingness of that scene.  The kid had no idea who he was talking to, but that was of no consequence.  Grant would talk to anyone about anything.  And in a few minutes, Grant had either scared or inspired  (probably -- hopefully -- both) this kid to add a Roky single to his pile of bargain bin disco and smooth jazz records.  I still wonder what that kid thought when he got that record home.  I wonder how it may have changed his life.

Anyway, that’s my Grant Hart ramble.  I really didn’t know him all that well.  But I knew him.  I can safely say I’ve never had another connection to an artist quite like this.

Thank you, Grant.

Grant Hart at Treehouse Records, August 17, 2013

“If your heart is a flame burning brightly

You'll have light and you'll never grow cold

And soon you will know that you just grow

You're not growing old”

About my copy:

Domino WIGLP318

US double LP, personally signed to me at Grant's in-store performance at Treehouse Records to celebrate the album's release.  I realize I didn't write anything specific about the album on this entry, but it's a beautiful and ambitious collection of songs, and an absolute highlight of Grant's musical legacy.

THE CURE - The Head on the Door

The Cure
The Head on the Door
Elektra, 1985

Help!  I have been slandered!

Here's the background.  For about three years in the late '80s/early '90s, my across-the-street neighbor and best friend was a funny kid whose family had just moved from the Cincinnati area.  His name was Tommy Segura.  We became best friends.  Then he moved away.

Around ten years ago, we reconnected via social media.  He was a touring stand-up comedian and had a show coming up at Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis.  So I went, I laughed, and we hung out at the bar for what seemed like hours after the show.  It was so awesome to find that after not seeing each other for over 20 years, we were able to pick up right where we left off as thirteen-year-olds.  So basically, we're buddies for life.

A decade later, Tom Segura is one of the most successful and hard-working comedians and podcasters in the world.  I haven't seen him now for about five years, when we had a romantic date full of bourbon and tasty meats at the Butcher and the Boar after one of his shows.  But I have continued watching and listening when I could, and I am so proud of one of my oldest friends.

So, you might be asking, what does this master of human observation, insane storytelling, and masturbation jokes have to do with The Cure?

Fair question.

I am mentioned a couple of times by name in Tom's recent New York Times bestseller I'd Like To Play Alone, Please.  It's hilarious, and it's an honor to have my adolescent exploration of my own body preserved in print for all time.  Except for one part.

The SLANDER* comes in this passage:

Dan was a year older than me.  Here's a nine-year-old that would play the Smiths, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and at the time a good bit of hair metal too.

I would never play The Smiths.  I have been an devoted hater of The Smiths for nearly as long as I have known who the The Smiths were (which certainly wasn't at nine years old... probably closer to thirteen.)

I'll chalk up the age inaccuracy to the interesting role memory plays in art and storytelling -- something that I am planning to cover in a future post.  But outing me as a Smiths fan is unforgivable, Tom!

My best guess is that in digging back for a thirty year old memory, Tom simply confused The Smiths and The Cure.  And that makes sense.  Because for me The Cure was a big bridge away from that hair metal and into "cool" music.  I'm pretty sure my cassette of The Head on the Door made its way into the driveway boombox for a couple games of basketball with Tommy before he moved away.  (Because who doesn't like to hoop it up to "The Baby Screams?")

Here's where things come full circle.  While The Cure was an important band for me in the early '90s, I eventually lost my way.  Outside of the Staring at the Sea compilation CD (required for including "Jumping Someone Else's Train" on countless mix tapes), I think I inexplicably purged most of the Cure CDs and tapes from my collection by the end of the '90s.

At some point in the last ten or fifteen years, I re-bought The Head on the Door when I found a used vinyl copy.  It was my first and favorite Cure record that I could remember, and I felt like I should have it.  A few years ago, I added the Japanese Whispers singles collection when I found it in the wild.  But that's the extent of my Cure vinyl library.  It feels much too thin.

Here I am now, at 44 years old, and this brilliant, sad, strange (and often ridiculously poppy!) music is starting to hit me harder than I can ever remember.  I'm not sure if it's nostalgia, the cumulative effects of a tumultuous year, or if this is simply the journey I needed to take to fully anoint myself as a fan of The Cure.  Today is a gray, rainy day.  Seems like the day to do it.

So here I am.  I'm on a binge and I need more.  It certainly seems that Tom Segura falsely outing me as a Smiths fan has had the unexpected result of me outing myself as a Cure fan! 

Victim and slanderer, about ten years ago, reuniting for the first time in twenty years.

*I love you, Tommy!  Don't worry, I'm not going to sue you!

About my copy:
Elektra 60435-1
Original US pressing.  Well loved with corner and ringwear showing on the black cover.  The wax sounds great!

PIXIES - Here Comes Your Man

Pixies
Here Comes Your Man
4AD/Elektra, 1989

This is more about soundtracks than maxi-singles.  But it should work on both fronts.

The subject of great soundtracks came up yesterday during a conversation with a friend.  I accurately named The Harder They Come as my very favorite soundtrack album.  But after listing some other favorites, I also made note of how mind-blowing the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack was to my impressionable adolescent sensibilities.  I don't own that soundtrack on vinyl (and just now discovered that vinyl copies of it sell for well over $100), so this is Plan B.

First, the backstory.  If you don't remember, Pump Up the Volume was a 1990 teen-drama starring
Christian Slater -- fresh off of his star-making turn in Heathers and in full young-Nicholson mode -- as a painfully shy high school student by day, and a pirate-radio rabblerouser by night.  I saw it in the theater with my good friend Chris for what must have been his 13th birthday, as we were right on the precipice of seventh grade.  (I was still about six weeks away from officially becoming a teenager.)

The combination of awesome music and high-drama anti-authoritarianism immediately made it the greatest movie in history.  Citizen Kane?  The Godfather?  Fuck that!  I wanted my own pirate radio station.  I wanted my own library of otherwise unattainable albums copied onto Maxell cassettes.  I wanted to make out with Samantha Mathis.

But here's the lasting impact of Pump Up the Volume.  It opened up a musical galaxy for me.  The soundtrack -- one of the first compact discs I ever owned -- was the very first place that I heard Sonic Youth, Concrete Blonde, Bad Brains and Henry Rollins (together! covering MC5!), Cowboy Junkies, and Above the Law (not entirely notable on their own, but the song "Freedom of Speech" was unknowingly my introduction to gangster rap and Dr. Dre production).  The film also introduced me to Leonard Cohen, Descendents, and Ice-T -- none of whom appeared on the soundtrack album.  

For a twelve-year old with eager ears, that movie and that soundtrack truly set me on my course.  In that regard, it might have been the most significant album/soundtrack of my life.

My favorite song of all was the very first Pixies song I ever heard.  "Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)."  

In contrast to the original poppy indie-rocker version of the song on Doolittle -- a desert-island album of mine, to be clear -- the UK Surf version, emphasizing Kim Deal's bass and the great Joey Santiago's hypnotic surfy-strumming, is slower and otherworldly.  To this day, its haunting beauty leaves me in a trance.  

[An aside for DJs, mixtape-aficionados, and playlist-makers -- "Wave of Mutliation (UK Surf)" is a wonderful follow-up to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," if you want to keep a certain mood going!]

When I sent this song to my friend, they made their own association.  One that I never would have considered.  I realized again that so much about music is association.  Time, place, people, events.  All music can be a soundtrack.  Think about it.  For me, Arches and Aisles by The Spinanes is going to Lake Superior's North Store with friends for the first time at age 20.  Man or Astro-Man? is staying at a stranger's house in Fargo after my band played to fifteen people in an arcade.  George Jones is the smell of my dad's Old Gold cigarettes colliding with the fresh air from a cracked window in his Suburban.

"Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)" is the end of summer with my friend, not yet knowing what new celebrations, tragedies, and people we were about to face during the oncoming year.  It's a timestamp of days and places so far gone, but still so vivid in my memories.

It has also held up as a truly timeless song that I still love 32 years later.

"Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)" originally appeared as a non-album b-side on the Here Comes Your Man 12" maxi-single.  I suppose I should write about the rest of that record?

Well, the title track is one of the singles from Doolittle, and an all-time crowd pleaser.  "Into the White" is an all-too-rare Kim Deal lead vocal.  It rocks pretty hard.  "Bailey's Walk" is complete filler, and perhaps the least memorable original-era Pixies songs ever put to tape.  Provided the band went to the trouble of recording it, it's the exact kind of song that belongs on a maxi-single if it had to be released at all.  Oh well.  Three out of four ain't bad.

About my copy:
4AD/Elektra 0-66694
Probably a used purchase from the store I managed.  I really can't remember.  All I know is I had to have this song on vinyl!

COMET GAIN - Broken Record Prayers

Comet Gain
Broken Record Prayers
What's Your Rupture?, 2008

In the unlikeliest of places -- walking around the absurd spectacle that is the Minnesota State Fair with my two kids, watching them have the time of their lives while reacquainting themselves with their homeland's signature event -- I allowed my mind to wander for just a few minutes.  Maybe not even that long.  They were burning through Midway/Kidway tickets, and I can't even remember which ride they were on when I began to briefly overwhelm myself with the emotional rollercoaster I have been on for the last year.

When I snapped out of my daydream I had managed to do one of my likeliest things -- I pulled a song that I probably hadn't listened to in a couple of years (or more) out of thin air and lodged it in my brain for the rest of the day.  But why this song?  Why now?  Why here?

"You Can Hide Your Love Forever" by Comet Gain is a great tune, and catchy as hell.  It is exactly the type of song that frequently does this to me.  

Hours later, the kids and I were sore and fully exhausted when we returned to a house in a state of massive upheaval.  The kids rushed in, leaving me to pick up the mail, grab the garbage can from the curb, and haul in our bags.  By the time I got in the door, my son was already on the basement couch, stripped down to his undies, watching TV.  My daughter had retreated to her bedroom, closed the door, and was already on a call with her best friend (whom she hadn't been able to speak with for an entire nine hours).

It was already past my son's bedtime, but I decided to myself, "Fuck it.  It's the last week of summer
vacation.  He can sleep in tomorrow.  I've gotta listen to Comet Gain."

I had to actually hear the song that had been in my head all afternoon and evening.

Even though I have the "You Can Hide Your Love Forever" 45, it was way more convenient to pull out Broken Record Prayers - a compilation of singles, Peel Sessions, and other obscurities.  I listened to the entire first record (both sides), in awe of both Comet Gain's greatness and how I felt like I had forgotten about Comet Gain's greatness.  I didn't exactly dismiss searching for any subliminal significance to "You Can Hide Your Love Forever" coming to me earlier.  I simply forgot that was my reason for putting the record on in the first place.  I nudged the volume up a notch with each song because, dammit, this sounded like it was probably the best record in the world.  (It's not, but I love how at any given time, any record I love can have that feeling.)

Every single song on the first LP of this two-record set is a gem.  The one that severely cut into me, though, was "Beautiful Despair," the first song on side two.  When the song was over, I picked up the needle and dropped it back at the beginning.  The following day while driving to work, I played it again.  And again.  Then again on the way home from work later that evening.  It was beginning to feel like "You Can Hide Your Love Forever" was the guide to get me to "Beautiful Despair," which is the song the really captured my feelings at that exact moment.  "Beautiful Despair."  My new theme song.

This morning I decided it was time to resurrect this blog after two years away.  I did what I did for a couple of months in the spring of 2020.  I dropped the needle on the record, began listening, and began writing.

Guess what?  "Beautiful Despair" is a hell of a noise-pop jam!  So are "If I Had a Soul," "Love Without Lies," "Young Lions," and so many more tunes on this set.  But I think "You Can Hide Your Love Forever" really is the song I thought it was.

It's a warning.  

Interpreted literally, the song is irrefutably relatable to me.  It's the story of keeping hope alive... by keeping your feelings to yourself.  It may as well be about my youth.  But surely I've moved past that.  For a long time now, I have thought of myself as someone who does not hide his emotions.  Someone who wears his heart on his sleeve.

But I have learned that's not really the case.  How we see ourselves can be so different from the how the world sees us.  I hadn't realized how much I had become Mr. Stoic Scandinavian Minnesotan.  (Had become?  Or didn't realize I already was?)  I think I know who I want to be.  I've been working pretty hard on getting to know myself.  If you're someone I know and care about, I want to see you soon.  I want to tell you how important you are to me.  If you're someone new, I'm excited to listen to records with you.  We can even listen to Comet Gain.

About my copy:
WYR? 0408
Purchased brand new upon release.  I'm a longtime fan.