August Song Stories
A few years ago, my summers were special things, falling between seasons like spring and fall, or actually, since I was in Seattle, summers fell between rain and colder rain. I didn’t really listen to music to escape the heat, but to celebrate the season. The Ramones have always been a summer band for me, listening to Road to Ruin and hanging out with friends, as well as bands like the Gun Club or Tex and the Horseheads… 54-40, the Actionslacks, Jane’s Addiction (the Live album), Dinosaur Jr., Sunny Day Real Estate… the list goes on and on – hot sounds for the summer heat.
Then I moved to California, Los Angeles, and the summers become just a hotter part of the year, and it’s nice to get out of the rising temperatures. You don’t need songs to make you feel warm, but music that will cool you off, mellow you out, bring you down into the shade. August hits and I’m not pulling out the Ramones anymore, I’m going for the cool blue sounds. Songs that can wave a fan in your face, voices that hit like cool breezes against the drive of the California sun.
Switching back and forth from old to new, finding winter touched inspirations and shadows to hide behind. I’m on the bus, stuck in your normal everyday bumper to bumper freeway traffic, trying to make it from Santa Monica to Union Station. The air is hot and unmoving; even though all the windows are open. The bus is full, and I’m stuck with standing room only. There are people on cell phones, people coughing, bad drivers blaring bad music right next to us, and I escape to my headphone world. I hit the Feelies, and the “Only Life” album. It’s warm, but breezy. It’s springtime music, pushing against bands like Luna, Galaxie 500, early R.E.M., and the Velvet Underground, with a little Talking Heads flow at times too. Moving upbeat and bright but slightly melancholic at the same time, this band takes me away from the non-rush of cars and makes me sigh, relax, breathe a little easier. I feel like moving on to perhaps Television or the Smiths after the last song, “What Goes On”, drives to a close, but instead I hit upon Unrest.
This band has been one of my favorite bands ever since I first heard “Malcolm X Park” in 1988, and as the seasons change, so do their styles. A band no longer, I still find great comfort in the music, and on that hot sweaty bus, I found “Perfect Teeth”. Released in 1993, the album is, for me, springtime. Mark Robinson’s voice moves across the melodics, pushing a dreamlike pop sound from indie-rock to 4AD lushness. The guitars and the rhythms just swimming through my pulse like mountainside river water, and my thirst is quenched.
A few years ago, my summers were special things, falling between seasons like spring and fall, or actually, since I was in Seattle, summers fell between rain and colder rain. I didn’t really listen to music to escape the heat, but to celebrate the season. The Ramones have always been a summer band for me, listening to Road to Ruin and hanging out with friends, as well as bands like the Gun Club or Tex and the Horseheads… 54-40, the Actionslacks, Jane’s Addiction (the Live album), Dinosaur Jr., Sunny Day Real Estate… the list goes on and on – hot sounds for the summer heat.
Then I moved to California, Los Angeles, and the summers become just a hotter part of the year, and it’s nice to get out of the rising temperatures. You don’t need songs to make you feel warm, but music that will cool you off, mellow you out, bring you down into the shade. August hits and I’m not pulling out the Ramones anymore, I’m going for the cool blue sounds. Songs that can wave a fan in your face, voices that hit like cool breezes against the drive of the California sun.
Switching back and forth from old to new, finding winter touched inspirations and shadows to hide behind. I’m on the bus, stuck in your normal everyday bumper to bumper freeway traffic, trying to make it from Santa Monica to Union Station. The air is hot and unmoving; even though all the windows are open. The bus is full, and I’m stuck with standing room only. There are people on cell phones, people coughing, bad drivers blaring bad music right next to us, and I escape to my headphone world. I hit the Feelies, and the “Only Life” album. It’s warm, but breezy. It’s springtime music, pushing against bands like Luna, Galaxie 500, early R.E.M., and the Velvet Underground, with a little Talking Heads flow at times too. Moving upbeat and bright but slightly melancholic at the same time, this band takes me away from the non-rush of cars and makes me sigh, relax, breathe a little easier. I feel like moving on to perhaps Television or the Smiths after the last song, “What Goes On”, drives to a close, but instead I hit upon Unrest.
This band has been one of my favorite bands ever since I first heard “Malcolm X Park” in 1988, and as the seasons change, so do their styles. A band no longer, I still find great comfort in the music, and on that hot sweaty bus, I found “Perfect Teeth”. Released in 1993, the album is, for me, springtime. Mark Robinson’s voice moves across the melodics, pushing a dreamlike pop sound from indie-rock to 4AD lushness. The guitars and the rhythms just swimming through my pulse like mountainside river water, and my thirst is quenched.
One song, that can take my mind of anything, everything. The heat the bus the traffic the streets my destination – all slide away. One song that just puts me right in to a perfect moment. One song that hits like a Zen photograph. One song that flows through headphones between “Food & Drink Synthesizer” and “Make Out Club”. One song that slides with the title “Soon It Is Going to Rain”.
It flows across me like ocean waves, from the opening soft guitar strum, breaking into a solid but drifting light pop melody and rhythm, to the ending and its repeated vocal line of “I have found my way back home”. The voice is gentle and reassuring, and the images in the lyrics are stained with dreamy realism… “ice-cream spilling down…” and “shovels in my hand from digging for your pain…”. The verses open up the world outside like enchantment. The lines of cars spreading out as far as I can see turns into a scenic vantage point instead of an exercise in frustration. The choruses kick up and speed me through the clouds, hitting with tightly held build-ups that start to make my heart beat a little faster, and I feel every note, I forget where I am… and as the song fades and suddenly stops, I’m just where I wanted to be, feeling cooled down and refreshed. Feeling like I’ve just finally found my way back home.
-mjf
1 comment:
yo, get in touch! I can't believe that you found my site amongst all thee blogosphere. Good to hear from you! I've been connecting with alot of oldies lately.
cheers,
thee.vein at g mail dot com
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