Category Archives: For Fun

I opened an old box of cds today and pulled out Treble Charger’s 1997 album, “Maybe it’s Me.” I am sad to admit that I forgot about this Canadian band and this awesome power pop album with an indie vibe. I listened to the first four songs; with the wonderfully whiny guitar on “Friend of Mine,” the words and happy feelings came back to me in a flood. (I had to pause when I got a request from the back seat for kids’ music great Laurie Berkner.)

As soon as I could, I looked Treble Charger up online to find out what had become of the band. I was glad to see that they had released two more albums, and I began to listen to “Wide Awake Bored,” from 2000, on Spotify. I know you shouldn’t judge an album by its title, but this one seemed suspect. As I listened, I began to wonder if I had the same band. This Treble Charger sounded more like Green Day.

I continued reading and discovered that, between 1997 and 2000, the band joined the throng of pop punk bands enjoying success at the time. The transition cost them singer/guitarist Bill Priddle, whose heart was in the music they made on “Maybe it’s Me.” A hint of that can be heard on the jangly opening and plaintive vocals of “I Don’t Know,” and the introspective ballad closer, “Just What They Told Me,” on “Bored.”

I haven’t listened to “Detox” from 2002 yet, but only because it’s after 10 p.m. I may be upping my music intake, but the times I stay up listening until the wee hours are few and reserved for live shows. I don’t want to revert to my former music snob self, but the animation-style cover art featuring cars, a scantily clad woman and men throwing punches suggests that this is more in-your-face testosterone tunes. I’ll save it for Sunday breakfast.

Yesterday’s listen to Gramercy Arms led me back to 2000 and Lloyd Cole. I may have heard one or two Cole songs before musician/producer friend and I happened upon Matthew Sweet’s tour bus in Providence, RI, where, amid awkward small talk, Sweet inexplicably gave us a stack of Lloyd Cole cds, new reissues, I think. Cole was my musical type, sweet-voiced Brit, but I was never swept off my feet.

The Negatives is Cole’s post-Commotions, post-solo outing with a new band, which includes Dave Derby (former Dambuilders, current Gramercy Arms) and Jill Sobule, who would go on to fame with “I Kissed a Girl.” After listening to this collection of songs, I feel like I just read a collection of short stories by a prolific, but shadowy author. Cole is not actually shadowy, he has an active website, www.lloydcole.com.

The opener, “Past Imperfect,” takes us through flashes of Cole’s reflections, and lost memories, to Amsterdam and LA, knit together by a nimble guitar riff. Listening to “Impossible Girl” makes me wonder if the tune was floating through Steven Moffatt’s head when he created the Impossible Girl story arc for Doctor Who, Matt Smith’s 11^th doctor, and Jenna Coleman’s portrayal of uber-companion, Clara Oswald.

Things get a bit bleak, with moody heroines featured in “No More Love Songs” (“Rather than company, I prefer cigarettes”) and “Vin Ordinaire” (“June is smoking with a vengeance/I think she wants to look like Patti Smith”). “Too Much E” is a rocker, almost hidden like an Easter egg among the rest of the musical stroll; the other songs stand like museum pieces to take in, this is a visit to a pub with a cute guy you met in the gallery, but it ends too quickly at just 2:31.

The Negatives – Lloyd Cole

1. Past Imperfect
2. Impossible Girl
3. No More Love Songs
4. What’s Wrong With This Picture?
5. Man on the Verge
6. Negative Attitude
7. Vin Ordinaire
8. Too Much E
9. Tried to Rock
10. That Boy
11. I’m Gone

I discovered Gramercy Arms in October 2014, and I am still geeking out about the lineup that joins Dave Derby on this fun collection of songs that the Wall Street Journal (who knew the WSJ likes to rock out?) calls a “testimony to the kind of clever rock and pop that prizes craft, structure and arrangement without sacrificing joy.”

The guest artists on this album fit seamlessly into radio-friendly songs and hail from bands including Derby’s former Dambuilders, Luna (swoon), Guided By Voices, and Sparklehorse. Household names include Lloyd Cole (for whom Derby has played bass—must check that out!), Kay Hanley (formerly of Boston’s Letters to Cleo), and Tanya Donnelly (Belly and Throwing Muses). A prolonged listen will reveal a hint of the “Always in Love” melody in several other songs.

Gramercy Arms played a ridiculously early set at one of the 50 Years of Boston Music shows during fall 2014, and sadly, I missed their set, but I did see Gigolo Aunts, one of my favorite power pop bands, that night.

Top track: Always in Love

Could be a Lloyd Cole song: Beautiful Disguise

Could be in a movie: The Season of Love

The Seasons of Love

1. Season of Love
2. Winter Light
3. The Night Is Your Only Friend
4. Novemberlong
5. Beautiful Disguise
6. Always In Love
7. Yours Untruly
8. Playing With Fire
9. Say the Word
10. Thin
11. Chemical Reaction

Please bear with me as this project develops in the first few weeks. Today is an example of an ambitious listen. Or perhaps I should not read reviews like this 2003 article from Pitchfork.com, full of descriptive phrases, knowledgeable comparisons and references, and a lot of attitude.

I fell in love with Belle & Sebastian (in the 90s) because they were different and for their retro proclivities. Today I discovered that listening to 12 Belle & Sebastian songs in a row might not be such a good choice. The songs are still wonderful stories that listeners may or may not get, set against pleasant orchestration. Stuart Murdoch’s high pitch is reminiscent of a bygone troubadour, but by the time Sarah Martin sings “Asleep on a Sunbeam,” it is a relief.

I know there is so much more I could say, but frankly I’m a bit tongue tied. Like a good album, I need to find my rhythm with this project.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress – Belle & Sebastian

1. Step into My Office, Baby”
2. Dear Catastrophe Waitress”
3. If She Wants Me”
4. Piazza, New York Catcher”
5. Asleep on a Sunbeam”
6. I’m a Cuckoo”
7. You Don’t Send Me”
8. Wrapped Up in Books”
9. Lord Anthony”
10. If You Find Yourself Caught in Love”
11. Roy Walker”
12. Stay Loose”

I listen to new music. Really. I’ll actually dedicate new release day Tuesdays to new music. My 2014 favorites include Big Data, Temples (retro 60s), Tove Lo, New Pornographers, American Authors, Real Estate (singer is a sound-alike for Charlatans UK’s Tim Burgess), and Milky Chance. It is also interesting to note that many artists from the 80s and 90s released albums in 2014.

In the past year, however, I have come to suspect that, like many, I am particularly fond of the music from my teens through 30s, the sweet spot being in the 1990s. (I am also in love with music from the 60s, but that is an exception to the rule.) Is it because so much new music is bereft of character and soul and is just not that interesting? Am I becoming a geezer? (Don’t answer that second one, please.) This is excruciating for me to admit, and I hope this project will help reverse that process of decay.

The Trainspotting Soundtrack throws me back into the middle of a musical highpoint. I was a manager at Newbury Comics, I went to shows all the time and listened to tons of music. I remember seeing this tragic tale of young heroin abuse in the theatre (remember the baby on the ceiling?); Ewan McGregor, and the soundtrack were hot and exciting.

Ironically, Trainspotting provided a shot of adrenaline for Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” (1977). The manic tune also opened the movie, like (I imagine) a desperate search for a fix, followed by Brian Eno’s “Deep Blue Day” washing over you like chemicals flowing through your veins (I imagine). The tempo of the album ebbs and flows. The techno tracks from Bedrock, Leftfield, and Underworld immediately evoke a dark dancefloor packed with sweaty ravers and would provide either a path of techno discovery or a reminder of those clubbing days.

Besides “Lust for Life,” the opening melody and breathless refrains of Underworld’s “Born Slippy,” and Lou Reed’s poignant “Perfect Day” really characterize this album for me. It was also amazing to reconnect with Elastica’s “2:1” and Pulp’s “Mile End.” (I absolutely love Pulp, who, picked up the depiction of British life begun by the Kinks, but with a much dryer sense of humor, and Jarvis Cocker’s dorky swagger.) I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the beautiful, but un-Blur-like Blur track and front man Damon Albarn’s first solo track, “Closet Romantic,” which seems to have been the first glimpse of the real Albarn, if his ballad-filled 2014 release, “Everyday Robots” is any indication.

Trainspotting Soundtrack

1. “Lust for Life” – Iggy Pop
2. “Deep Blue Day” – Brian Eno
3. “Trainspotting” – Primal Scream
4. “Atomic” – Sleeper
5. “Temptation”   – New Order
6. “Nightclubbing”  – Iggy Pop
7. “Sing”   – Blur
8. “Perfect Day”   – Lou Reed
9. “Mile End”  – Pulp
10. “For What You Dream Of” (Full-on Renaissance Mix) – Bedrock (feat. KYO)
11. “2:1”     – Elastica
12. “A Final Hit”       – Leftfield
13. “Born Slippy .NUXX”      – Underworld
14. “Closet Romantic”  – Damon Albarn

The High Fidelity Soundtrack is appropriate to kick off the year because it reminds me of a time when I was immersed in music and some of my favorite bands and sounds: The Kinks, Velvet Underground, Stereolab, and lo-fi bands like Smog (Bill Callahan). (I must give a nod to Dave for helping to steer me in this direction. In typical fashion, I had too many ideas for a year-long project to choose.)

I am listening to the Beta Band track while writing this (and Dave and Wren are building a Lego Star Wars Jedi Interceptor). This is the central song of the movie and soundtrack for me, personally. I was in a similar situation when my ex and I discovered Beta Band, and I remember an awkward and bitter train ride to see them play, but it was an amazing show. Maybe it is the combination of the horns and the refrain, “I will be alright, I will be alright,” with which this song wraps itself around your heart, and you’ll never want to be free of it.

The soundtrack is a great collection of influential artists that serves as an extension of the movie, rather than repetition. It is like a separate soundtrack for thinking about the movie, or the book, if you read it. (I didn’t read it; I feel like I should have read Nick Hornby in the 90s, and now it is too late.)

Interesting note that I didn’t know: Elvis Costello’s “Shipbuilding,” is a song about the tragic irony of the Falklands War reviving the shipbuilding industry in northern Britain, while sending youths to their deaths in that war. And, in Costello’s very cool collaboration with The Roots, the song, “Cinco Minutos con Vos” (“Five Minutes with You”) was written in answer to “Shipbuilding.”

In the artists I didn’t really know category are Sheila Nicholls (not really interested) and Royal Trux (yes, please).

High Fidelity Soundtrack

1. You’re Gonna Miss me When I’m Gone – 13th Floor Elevators
2. Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy – The Kinks
3. I’m Wrong About EWverything – Joh Wesley Harding
4. Oh! Sweet Nothing – Velvet Underground
5. Always See Your Face – Love
6. Most of the Time – Bob Dylan
7. Fallen for You” – Sheila Nicholls
8. Dry the Rain – The Beta Band
9. Shipbuilding – Elvis Costello & The Attractions
10. Cold Blooded Old Times – Smog
11. Let’s Get It On – Barry Jive & The Uptown Five (Jack Black)
12. Lo Boob Oscillator – Stereolab
13. The Inside Game – Royal Trux
14. Who Loves the Sun – The Velvet Underground
15. I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever) – Stevie Wonder

Why dedicate the year to listening to an album a day, an essentially outdated musical format?

1. Listening to a collection of songs that were meant to be heard from beginning to end will increase your parched attention span.
2. Listening to an album is like reading a book, except faster, so it will make you smarter. Faster.
3. Getting to know an artist by listening to an entire album makes that artist more meaningful to you and less disposable.
4. You increase your chances to learn something, such as a literary or historic reference, a different point of view, or an appreciation for an artist’s inspiration.
5. Listening to music improves your mood; the longer you listen, the better your mood.
6. You will have more to talk about and others will find you more interesting.
7. Connecting with an artist, through more than one or two songs, can provide evidence that we are not alone, that others have felt like we do.