I’m getting better, guys. Swan Fungus reader Alex stopped by my place of work today and not only did I remember who he was, but I even engaged him in conversation! That’s not to say I ever want to meet any of you, and definitely don’t approach me if you see me in public. I’m terrible at small talk and most likely won’t have anything of interest to say to you. In fact there’s a pretty good chance I’ll already hate you before you introduce yourself.
Speaking of being terrible at small talk, Louise told me last night that I have horrible phone etiquette. I was driving her to a media/food event in Torrence last night (review pending…) and Steve called to ask when we could hang out. Apparently I’m prone to long, awkward silences and mumbling. At one point she offered — loud enough for Steve to hear — to take the phone from me and finish the conversation herself. That was pretty emasculating. The point is, I don’t like talking to people no matter what the context. That’s why I write. I can’t speak.
During the process of putting up all my travel stories and interviews I downloaded the Calla album Televise to use an MP3 in one of the chapters. I hadn’t heard that album in years, but as soon as I started listening to it I was transported to a precise moment in time seven years ago when I was listening to the album. Ah, nostalgia. I started to think about other songs or albums that are tied to distinct memories of mine. I figured it’d make for an interesting blog post. Here are ten albums I came up with. Feel free to add your own stories in the comments section. You won’t, but the offer is on the table.
• Stone Temple Pilots – Purple – What would a list of musical memories be without the obligatory sexual escapade? I’ll spare you all the horrifying details, but when I was a junior in college a sophomore had a crush on me. I guess I had a crush on her too. Our affection was mutual. It took me getting my license for us to ever act on our desires. I would drive over to her house, pick her up, drive around the corner to a deserted alleyway and we’d spend hours fooling around, and then drop her off and go blab about it to my friends. My car was a 1985 Dodge Daytona with a portable CD player connected to the cassette deck, and I was too lazy to swap out CDs regularly. I think over the span of a month the girl and I hooked up a dozen times, and Purple, which is a pretty short album (about 45 minutes) would play on repeat the entire time. She always seemed to increase her fervency each time “Still Remains” came around.
• Daturah – Reverie – The Summer of 2007, my first in Los Angeles, was filled with incredible times. I loved my living situation and the people I was living with. I have a ton of memories tied to music from my first six months in California (listening to Superdrag and Big Star on my first drive to Joshua Tree, stumbling upon Harry Merry at Hyperion Tavern with Sari, cruising around Sunset Boulevard blasting Honk Horn Music Of Ghana…), but this was probably my favorite. The roommates and I partied a whole hell of a lot. I didn’t have a job and Ilya, Nicci and Sari barely had jobs. Most nights we were out at local clubs or bars, but sometimes we’d stay in together and maybe drink some Strawberry Andre and hang out as a family. This record came in the mail direct from the label and first time I played it we were all downstairs laying on the floor and on the couches, all the lights were turned off and a few scented candles were burning, filling the air with different aromas. I still remember the warmth and the peacefulness of the room as the sample from Apocalypse Now kicked off the record. We did this a couple times on lazy nights, hang out and not really speak, just lay there listening to records in the dark. Laughing Stock, Tortoise…but the first time I heard Reverie was by far the most memorable for me. [Listen to “Ghostlight”]
• Tom Petty – Full Moon Fever – I still have the ticket stub at home in New Jersey, but I’m sure the date was July 1st, 1988. It was my first Mets game. Actually, I should say “games” because it was a double-header. My friend Matthew’s father drove my mom, myself and Matthew from Jersey out to Shea that night. I don’t remember much from the games other than we sat in the first row right behind first base, Darryl Strawberry was awesome, my mom had a crush on Dave Maggidan, and in between games Buddy Bell overthrow whoever was playing first base for the Astros and Matthew’s dad reached up and caught the ball. More than that I remember listening to Full Moon Fever on the drive to and from the stadium. When we got home I told my mother that I wanted her to buy me the cassette tape. I was five years old at the time, and I like to think that it was what officially made me a music fan. I’d graduated from Raffi and Sesame Street to pop music. 23 years later I’m still brought back to my first trip to Shea whenever I hear a cut from this record.
• Blur – Blur – When I was fourteen I went to tennis camp for a week at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. It was an eight week program but I was only there for a week, I arrived in the second-half of the summer, and immediately realized that I had no friends and was probably not going to make any friends. It was a really weird week. I hooked up with a French girl who barely spoke English. I hit the hardest serve of my life to that point (93 miles per hour). Before I left as a joke I shaved one sideburn and left the other really long, and didn’t realize until my fourth or fifth day at camp that I had forgotten to shave before leaving home. I looked like a fucking retard all week (which made conquering the French girl all the more improbable and amazing). The one night the campers were allowed off the college grounds we went to a nearby mall and I purchased the self-titled Blur album. Since I had no friends I basically stayed in my room all the time when I wasn’t playing tennis listening to it over and over and over. Every time I hear these songs now I remember how depressing that week was. Except for the French girl.
• Miles Davis – Sketches Of Spain – My friend Dan’s family has a house deep in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania. The area is fenced in, and half a dozen horses are free to roam the property. Dan and I went there for a night in order to move some furniture for them the next day to another property of theirs five or ten miles away. We smoked a bunch of pot and drank cans of Yuengling Black And Tan while trading stories and taking turns DJing with our iPods. The house was big enough for us to basically have a wing to ourselves, and I fell asleep blasting Sketches of Spain while the horses ran around outside my window. I decided then and there that someday I’d be rich enough to own a cabin in the middle of fucking nowhere with a bunch of horses where I could blast Sketches of Spain and drink and enjoy the absolute deadness of the world. It’ll never happen, but it’s a nice dream.
• Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days – Sub Pop sent me this CD to review when I was the music writer for the Alternative paper at my college. I kind of threw it on the back seat of my car and never listened to it because I didn’t like the sound of the one-sheet they sent along with it. I thought it was going to be some wussy shit (and, it kind of is…). One night I had to drive to Bumblefuck New Jersey for a court date (don’t ask) and as soon as I left the courthouse it began to rain. Not just rain, but monsoon rain. Intense thunder and lightning. I stood in the doorway of the courthouse hoping it would let up but it was only getting worse. When I finally gave up and ran to my car I was pelted mercilessly; my clothes were completely soaked through. And I got in my car and realized I didn’t have anything to listen to…except for the CD I’d thrown on the back seat a few weeks earlier. I don’t know how it happened, but Iron & Wine was the perfect soundtrack for driving home through that storm. In fact, a few years later when I was driving cross-country and got caught in an even more insane storm, I consciously chose to listen to this album because it felt right. I’m pretty sure the reason I haven’t sold this CD is because I’m waiting for the next horrible rain storm to come around so I can listen to it again. [Listen To “On Your Wings”]
• Ash – 1977 – I’m pretty sure I’ve written before that you never forget where you are the first time you hear “Sick Party,” the secret track at the end of 1977. For me it was in my parent’s bedroom using the family computer. I was about 13 years old and I’d gotten this CD from the BMG Music Club not knowing what it was (I picked CDs based on their covers and wound up with this and Supergrass’ In It For The Money among others I can’t remember). I loved the CD, but whenever “Darkside Lightside” ended I would just automatically go to track one again. I never even noticed there was a bonus track until one night I played the CD through the computer while playing on the Internet. I wish someone would have captured the expression on my face during that first “Sick Party” listen. I imagine it was priceless. If you haven’t heard it, I don’t want to spoilt it for you, but you’d better believe that once I discovered “Sick Party” I brought the CD around to all my school friends and made them listen to it.
• Mogwai – My Father My King – This one’s pretty straightforward. Summer vacations hanging out and drinking and getting high and playing video games with a certain professional friend of mine whose name I won’t use to protect his identity. I was already into Mogwai but I’d never heard this record before. I don’t know how many times we played it that night but I immediately fell in love with it. I’ve seen Mogwai live maybe half a dozen times and I’ve still never seen them perform it live. If you look at their setlist archive it’s criminal how they’d play it as an encore several times around whatever date I saw them and then not play it the night I was in the crowd. Now when they come to town I specifically don’t see them because I know I’m cursed to never experience My Father My King in a live setting.
• Calla – Televise – The summer of 2004 was a weird time for me. I had one of the most heart-wrenching crushes of my life on a girl who I’d met from a neighboring town, we’d hang out every single day (because I didn’t have a job and I’d basically stalk her at hers) and then at night I was talking Italian classes at County College of Morris so I could earn enough credits to graduate on time (slacker!). Whether by fate or by choice this was my soundtrack for the summer. The CD never left my car so whether I was driving to see the girl or driving to and from night school this was always playing. I’d speed down Columbia Turnpike, pass the Morristown Airport all the way to Headquarters Plaza and back. And I’d either put “Strangler” or “Astral” on repeat and blast it as loud as I could. It was probably the most “Emo” time of my life. [Listen to “Strangler”]
• Godspeed You Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists… – When I started at the University of Vermont in the summer of 2001 the whole post-rock thing hadn’t quite hit yet. I was keyed into Explosions In The Sky and Godspeed by Ian, who was slightly ahead of the curve being at school up the road in Montreal. There was a particularly frigid day in Burlington when I was feeling especially depressed. I hadn’t eaten in days and I called my mom to complain about how I felt like shit and she told me to walk down to Church Street, get myself a hamburger and treat myself to a new CD. I told her it was like, negative two degrees outside and she said just bundle up and go outside. Being outside would make me feel better. So I went to Pure Pop and picked this album up (I already owned Slow Riot… because the first Godspeed track I ever heard was “Moya” and I was obsessed with it). Then I walked over to some pub and ate a burger. It wasn’t until I started my trek back to the dorm that I started to feel better. As I trudged uphill, “Storm” began to slowly build towards its crescendo. As the strings continued to rise towards that beautiful climax I felt myself growing stronger and happier. It’s kind of hard to explain (and more than a little queer when you think about it), but that first time I heard “Storm” and its powerful evolution from melancholy to triumph was unforgettable.
• American Analog Set – The Golden Band – And I’ll end on a silly/funny note. It was 2002. I went with Ian and some friends to check out Sonic Youth in Central Park. I drove into the city. We met a female friend of mine for dinner at a sushi joint on the upper west side after the concert. It was a female friend I wanted to hook up with even though I was in a relationship at the time. At the Japanese restaurant everyone except for me got hammered doing saki bombs. I still remember my face growing red in anger as I tried to calculate the bill while everyone was giddily drunk and too careless to worry about paying the tab. Afterwards we went back to the girls house for a few minutes. Some of Ian’s friends were beyond wasted. After some time we piled back into my father’s car to begin the ride back to New Jersey. I told everyone I’d left my phone inside and went and made out with the girl for a couple minutes before returning to the car. (By the way I broke up with my girlfriend of the time about 8 weeks later so I don’t consider that to be cheating.) With four people crammed in the back seat loudly, drunkenly conversing about who knows what, I put on The Golden Band and started out towards the Lincoln Tunnel. And, of course, the exact minute we entered the tunnel someone in the middle of the back seat started throwing up. The kid couldn’t get to the window because he was surrounded by bodies, and I couldn’t stop and pull over because I was in the tunnel. I still remember his projectile vomit hitting me in the back of the neck while I was trying my best to keep composure and get out of the fucking tunnel. It was so awful. It stank. I had vomit running down my back, soaking my shirt, I was freaking out…it was horrible. And when we finally made it into New Jersey I pulled off the road and made the kid clean up his mess. I angrily threw my shirt at him and told him to use that to clean everything up, and when he asked what to do with the shirt I told him to throw it the fuck away. I was incensed…but it was kind of funny. And I refused to listen to The Golden Band for years because he threw up all over the CD case and I was afraid to touch it. Germaphobia is a bitch.
