So In Love

My friend Trevor and I visited Santa Cruz about six months before I moved here. We met these girls on the mall and they took us to a flea market in Soquel. At the flea market I pulled some of my remaining cents out of my pocket to buy an OMD tape named "Crush". I'd heard two albums of theirs before. I'd put "Architecture and Morality" on my CD player on repeat in my headphones for about a month as I slept and loved each part of it. I'd also been pretty infatuated with their second album "Organisation" and loved at least two songs off of it.

I had read a review of the OMD album "Crush" on Allmusic dot com and it wasn't very positive. It said some things like 'retread' and 'cheesy lyrics pushed to the front of the mix', two out of five stars. And so when about a month later I pulled it out of the coat pocket that I'd worn on the second day of our trip I wasn't really prepared to be blown away when I put it on my tape deck to study for an Anthropology final.

"So In Love" came on and I thought 'this is kind of schmaltzy but it's got all the right emotion'. And then the next four tracks proved even more that this wasn't just some smooth 80s pop deal. "Bloc Bloc Bloc" is aggressive and weird, "Women III" is like a slappy showtune with robot rockettes. After this, the next two songs are wacked out don't-lie-and-say-you-can-play-guitar rockers. "La Femme Accident" is after these, special in sudden cosmic keyboard ways. But the song I'm writing about comes right after this and is called "Hold On".

When you download this after having read this you will stop it for certain at the tenth second when singer Andy McLuskey emits a high-pitched 'hohhhhhhhh' if the fm synthesis bass and strings didn't stop you earlier. But if you don't stop it and delete it and curse me you will hear that the song is about a guy who wants a girl who is so in love with another guy. He sees them constantly together and is crushed by this.

The other guy, then, in this scenario and in the song and maybe even in real life becomes some Berlin Wall separating these two countries with a life on the other side that you can only dream of and build airships out of junk to try and get over - but it isn't the right time. And what's further more, maybe the love that exists is just the unattainability - maybe thinking about it is going to wreck everything, maybe nobody is ever meant for you, maybe you'll die alone a dumb student that will never study, maybe, maybe

"Maybe someday I will take his place"

I mean, Fuck! The song is called "Hold On". Now if this isn't a clap on the shoulder and advice and stick-it-out, things have to get better claim then I don't know what is. It isn't merely called "She's With Him". Its about the future too!

And the song, just some light pop confection becomes this lion that's staring me from upon the bookshelf and I don't know what to say back to it because it knows me and it is probably going to jump on me and kill me. It could change my life, it could tell me what to do, I'm listening! I'm waiting to hear exactly what I'm supposed to do next! And then the song stops. He gets the girl somehow? I'm not really sure, but if he did, I'm not really sure how! The last song on the album is kind of apocalyptic and spooky and I don't really listen to it this time.

I'm lying there on a couch after having listened to this song and shocked, kind of half-assedly looking at the pictures in my anthropology book and I think, "That's it. I'm done with school." I put down my book and rewind the song. I listen to it probably seven or eight more times and then go to sleep depressed for a week.

I've always felt bad that I wasn't a more attentive student for my teachers. But when somebody is reading your mind and then recording a song for you to hear 18 years from when they wrote it for you, there are more pressing things to think about and to worry about. Like the fact that the best songs are insane science fiction that match exactly what you are going through and you want to stalk the songwriter and jump out from behind a bush one wednesday evening and shake them by the shoulders and ask what is going on and how did you know me now then.

Band-Some-Things

Antarctica Takes It are playing a show at a place called The Make Out Room in San Francisco. It is this Sunday and it costs $6 and it is at 9:00 p.m. Come and look at us and be good-looking yourself.

Jazz-Other-Things

Tomorrow morning there is a Santa Cruz Jazz Society sponsored swap meet at 917 Columbia St. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I'll be there and probably be spending all of this month's rent on a saxophone or a Charlie Haden record or something. Ideally I'll just find some goofy percussion or sumthin'.

Spencer Owen

My friend Spencer Owen is going to be playing a show at our house next Tuesday night at 8 p.m. I think my friend John Acquadro may be playing as well. These are both two heavily gifted gentlemen who will fly far in life. And they're both good live. Spencer Owen did a song-by-song cover of "Out of the Cradle" by Lindsay Buckingham which is spectacular and miraculous and also an album he released this year is called "Electric Third R-Word" and it is also grand and great and I play it for all of my friends.

Kevin Rowland

He has this album called "My Beauty" and it has this cover where he's wearing sexy lady's undergarments and looking all seductive. If you listen to the music for the first time without thinking about it you would think, "Oh poor Kevin Rowland, once he was in Dexys Midnight Runners, fabulous soul band of the eighties but now he's just singing standards with arrangements that sound like the kind of music that grandmas that don't know what anybody else listens to listen to". However if you listen to it while you are down and out and listen carefully you will note that he is talking specifically to you and saying things like "You are going to be alright/you are everything to me" and "Hear those strings? They're playing for you" and if you know him personally like I've gotten to (through records during tough times) then you know he is doing this all in complete seriousness. You know that he'd sooner jump off a fourteen story building than sing "The Greatest Love Of All" (You know, that song that starts with the lyric "I believe that children are our future/ teach the world to laugh and sing") and not mean it.

Its a terrific album. He does "Thunder Road" not quite as well as Bruce Springsteen and he coughs in the middle of "Daydream Believer" and changes the lyrics to "The Long and Winding Road" (which I don't even know in the first place) and he does each song about twice as long as he should and each moment of it is sung or spoken perfectly in his spectacular voice and each moment of its instrumentation is produced in a Disney-for-the-Retired kind of way - so warning flags all over if you are looking for challenging or interesting arrangements. I just want to say that I really like this record and it was released in 1999, probably on some major label. And you don't have to listen to it at all, just know that I like it. 8/10.

Lames Rabbit

We played a show last night down the street at the Zami Co-op. It went pretty well and all of the other bands we played with were spirited and delightful. We'll might be playing some more shows in the soon future around the area and probably if booked beforehand (last night's advance notice was 'can we play?' 'sure, play now') we'll post it here and let you know that you must attend.

The album Colossuses has been finished and is currently sitting in my friend Thor's mailbox waiting for him to get back from Iceland so he can give mastering it a go. Vanessa has already completed the cover art and it is spectacular! So in eighty days you'll see it in a Virgin Records Megastore down the block from where you live and say "What the hell is this good looking thing! I ought to buy it!" and then you'll listen and say "What the hell is this good sounding thing! I ought to shout my devotion from the highest rooftop and share with this record all my friends!" and then the circle of music will be complete and I won't have to make any tunes anymore.

During the final final recording session for Colossuses, (horns + drum circle = living room) the downstairs neighbors came up and threw a fit and so I'll probably be holding my breath for these few weeks before downstairs dissertation valley girl heads off to like-omigod Africa for twosome months of our ability to do things. In this time I'll be writing spectacular songs for the next album and learning how to work samplers and not touching any of these beautiful foreign drums bought from the Rhythm Fusion Moving Stuff Around Sale.

Work is spectacular and blessed and producing a lot of anxiety in places, but I soldier on.

Takem By Surprise With These Emerald Eyes

Yesterday Conner and I spent a great amount and quality of time upon mixing our latest album Colossuses. Though there are a few things I'd like to fix with the mix, we'll do that all tomorrow and I'm going to send it out to my friend Thor for mastering and we may have it done!

I spent the entirety of today outdoors as part of a pact that Jamie and I made. In addition to being hit on by bums in city parks I also wrote a portion about what I want the next album to be like. And in preparation I am listening to Crass and The Ex. If I begin recording tomorrow I will have six days per song to be done by November fourth (so says my zany outside-math).

I am going to play a show in my house (as The Golden Band and maybe James Rabbit) next Saturday (the ninth). I will post more information about it but we are going to be flooding the house and electrifying the water. So wear rubber boots.