Musical Monday #20

This post has been most shamefully ripped off from DunePrincess. While hers was 20 memories for 20 songs, randomly picked by iTunes, I don't have the attention span right now to do that many. Plus it keeps picking songs I can't think of anything to say about, so I'm keeping it to 10 instead. If the songs don't show up as links when you read this, check back later -- I probably still need to upload them.

#1 -- Space Neighbourhood
In a shoebox on top of my shelves, I have this song on CD single. I was 15 when this song came out, according to Wikipedia it reached the lofty heights of #56 in the UK singles chart. Space were a chirpy Britpop band from Liverpool, and among listening to Nirvana and Guns N' Roses, I remember really liking the throwaway poppiness of their music. I expect the humour of their songs was good for me. This song takes me back to being 15 and working for three weeks in a record shop. I wasn't yet 16, and so I wasn't allowed to serve customers (it was something about not being able to prosecute me if I stole from them). Most of the work I did was answering the phone, putting things in alphabetical order and cleaning the cd racks. The only highlight of the job was getting to listen to music all day. Granted, most of the time I didn't get a say in what we listened to, but sometimes I would be given the chance too choose -- and I can remember filing away vinyl singles under the counter, smiling as I listened to the terribly commercial indie/britpop compilation I'd put on. I've often wished my time there had been more like the film Empire Records, instead I spent time scraping chewing gum off the carpet and dusting the CD racks.

#2 -- Dave Addington Up In't Pool
This is a huge leap in time. Technically, this is kind of cheating as it's not really a song. When I was 18 and in my first year at university, I joined a student poetry group. We would meet once a week in a local pub, drink lots of beer, and reading each other our poetry and offer advice. Once a month we'd all go to an open mike poetry night and read there. I still do like to read poetry at open mike nights, and should find one in London.
Each year the poetry society would produce a book of its members work, and sell it. And I think fail to sell any copies except to members and their families. So we decided to do something different -- we would instead make our poetry into songs. Several members of the club were in a band and so we hatched a plan that we'd make a CD of poetry set to different styles of music. It seems fitting that Dave Addington was the President of the group and his poem should be chosen by winamp to be in this list. Dave was someone I very much admired -- he was several years older than me (and probably still is, I'd say) and had been published in some literary magazines. His poetry was very good, and he was a very warm and genuine guy. I also remember that when he was drunk he had all sorts of conspiracy theories about Jim Morrison being assassinated, vampires living in catacombs under Paris and how on the eve of the Millennium our government were going to reveal the existence of UFOs to the public. Several years on, I don't remember any of his poetry, and am glad to have this CD. This poem was about his hometown of Blackpool, Lancashire -- the title of the poem even using the Northern expression "in't" instead of "in the". The story of the recording of this poem was that Dave recorded it on cassette, stoned in his bedroom with his flatmate and fellow poetry society member. When they tried to recreate the sound in the studio so instead found a way to record from the original tape cassette onto the final CD. The song reminds me of that first year being a student, the nights in smoky pubs reading work in progress poems, or the back room of the pub open mike poetry where the heating and power was provided only by a generator.

#3 -- Duncan Sheik She Runs Away
I don't know if she reads this blog, but this song reminds me of Angela -- whom I originally met online. The hows and wheres is quite a long story, but in 2001 entirely by coincidence we were both living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Duncan Sheik I think was her favourite artist back then, and maybe he still is. I'd never heard of him before Angela played me his stuff, and later when I moved back to England she made me a compilation CD. For her 21st birthday, I got us a pair of tickets to see Duncan Sheik play at a local venue. The only problem was, the gig was a few days before Angela's actual birthday -- and probably more than 6 months before mine. This was a problem because if you weren't 21, you weren't getting in. I think that might even have had something to do with why I tried to buy a fake ID when I was in New York that summer. Angela bought a fake ID from a friend of hers, but even with it they wouldn't let her in -- because it didn't have the official hologrammed plastic covering. Angela didn't even drink, so it made no difference to her if they drew a black X on her hands, or even on her head. They still wouldn't let her in. Angela called a friend of hers to see if she wanted a ticket -- figured that someone should get some use out of them, since we wouldn't -- and then we just sat on the pavement outside the bar. At one point before the show Duncan Sheik himself actually came out and had a few pictures taken, I didn't really know him enough to recognise him -- and his appearance had changed enough so even Angela hadn't recognised him. Eventually, we spent the night sitting on the back step of the bar, by the door to the kitchen. From there we could at least hear the music, even if we couldn't see anything. After the show, Duncan was signing autographs and getting pictures taken with fans -- and that was when we realised we'd practically met him before the show. The bouncers were at least generous enough to let Angela inside the doors to have her picture taken with Duncan. She told him how we'd spent the whole night outside by the bins because we weren't allowed in. He said we should have told him, and he would have got the management to let us in. Either way, this song in particular reminds me of that night -- and of the many times Angela and I would sit on the mattress on her floor and she'd play me music.

#4 -- Robyn Hitchcock Raymond Chandler Evening
This song reminds me of being about 15, some time before I even knew it was a song. In James O'Barr's graphic novel The Crow he frequently quoted from artists like The Cure and Joy Division, along with the symbolist poets like Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire. Desperate to understand all of the references, I would get books of French poetry out of the library -- but couldn't speak French nearly well enough. I asked my GCSE French teacher to help me with some translations after school -- it makes me smile now, I wonder what she thought of some 15 year old asking her to translate Le Fleurs du Mal for him. She gave me a quite hesitant and literal translation -- before I found you could just get the translated versions instead. The lyrics to Raymond Chandler Evening fascinated me, with verses like:

There's a body on the railings
that I can't identify
And I'd like to reassure you but
I'm not that kind of guy

Back in the days before I -- or anyone I knew -- had the internet at home, I couldn't just google the lyrics and mistakenly thought Hitchcock was a poet and not a musician. Eventually when I got into downloading music, I found the song -- and it's still the only song by Robyn Hitchcock I've ever listened to.

#5 -- Clem Snide Something Beautiful
At the start of the year, I went with Sanyu to see Ben Folds play. Support was from Clem Snide -- who seemed like more of a comedy act than serious musicians, with songs like The Ballad of David Icke (with lines about how the secret reptile rulers of the world took his girl away). This was another of their songs -- about wanting to "break something beautiful". It reminds me in a way of the nihilism of the anarchist Edward Abbey and Chuck Palahniuk -- particular Fight Club where the narrator talks of wanting to destroy something beautiful. Most of all, the song reminds me of a compilation CD I must have made shortly after. I can remember driving to work in the call centre, early in the morning in the winter, and wanting to cry. I can remember driving along the country roads and the rain on the window and the line "you make me want to not turn the wipers on when rain starts to fall". I never said all the songs had happy memories, but I'm happy now to no longer be in that place -- emotionally, and professionally.

#6 -- The Pixies Here Comes Your Man
In sharp contrast to the last song, this one has only good memories. The Pixies are still way up there on my list of bands I want to see but haven't yet had the opportunity. Now that Smashing Pumpkins and Aerosmith have both been crossed off within a week, it's about time I see the Pixies. Anyway, this particular song reminds me of random late nights after the pub. Sometimes after the pub if we didn't want to go home, we'd listen to music in the car and Nick would drive us to McDonald's to get milkshakes. We were all big fans of this song -- although Nick only knew the Counting Crows cover. But Jon and I would (half-drunkenly) sing along, and I'd do Kim Deal's parts. It's not something we ever do now -- that is, go for milkshakes nor drunkenly harmonise to the Pixies in the car, but it still makes me smile and I still try and sing Kim Deal's parts.

#7 -- Hole Rock Star
When I was about 13, my parents made me get a job -- and so I got a job in the media. I was a regional media distributor. That is, I had a paper round -- delivering a weekly paper to paying customers. I remember one summer night delivering papers down a nearby street, and in particular to two houses next door to each other. It's important the two houses were neighbours, otherwise I probably wouldn't have heard enough of the song for it to pique my interest. I can't remember exactly how old I was when this was -- I had to be younger than 16, because that was when I got a job in a pub instead, and it was before I knew Jon, whom I met when I was perhaps 15. So it makes sense if I say it was around 1995, when I was 14. I heard the opening lines of this song where Courtney Love starts to sing a couple of times and stops, before starting again. It fascinated me and I couldn't tell if it was a CD or a real band playing in someone's house. But I sat on the curb and listened to the song, before carrying on along my way. I didn't know it was Hole that I was listening to back then, and didn't find out for a couple of years. I mentioned that it was before I met Jon, as it turned out to be his house and it was probably his older sister's CD I heard playing. I only found out who the song was by when aged 16 he lent me several albums, Live Through This being among them.

#8 -- The Kinks Sunny Afternoon
I bought a "best of" album for the Kinks based solely on the song Lola, though this is the one winamp has chosen. This song reminds me of a girl named Claire I knew, when I was at school. We were both depressed and liked poetry, she wore a lot of black and liked Sylvia Plath -- but was offended at the suggestion of being a Goth. Anyway, I remember one day -- possibly one of the only times she ever visited my house -- playing her this song, at her request. She liked in particular the last verse:

My girlfriend's run off with my car
And gone back to her Ma and Pa
Telling tales of drunkenness, and cruelty

she said the singer sounded really pissed off about it. I just like the juxtaposition of the narrator of the song's zen-like attitude, and the unfortunate events in his life. It's probably what I liked about it back then, but at 16 I probably wouldn't have phrased it like that.

#9 -- Weezer Buddy Holly
I've mentioned it before, but I have a shameful secret: I used to be emo. Years before I ever heard the phrase, I was listening to Weezer, wearing black eyeliner and wearing black-framed glasses, trying to look like Buddy Holly. I looked more like Where's Wally, I remember -- or I think someone said Woody Allen. Neither was meant or taken as a compliment, these days that would have just made me all the more emo. It's probably a sign of growing up when you stop trying to look like Buddy Holly and start buying Armani frames instead. This song reminds me of all kinds of things at that time -- of wanting to look like Buddy Holly, and before that of thinking I had invented surf punk -- until I heard Weezer, and more accurate to the sound I wanted (the Sex Pistols playing the Beach Boys, or vice versa, I don't remember now), the Ramones.

#10 -- Terrorvision American TV
This song reminds me of the first gig I ever went to; Terrorvision, supported by Feeder. It was at the Cliff's Pavilion in Southend-On-Sea, Essex. I can even tell you it was a Thursday night, because I was 15 years old and had school the next morning. I wore a long-sleeved Nirvana t-shirt, black with the classic yellow smiley on the front. I also remember the gig was in December, and my friend John (not Jon) buying me Terrorvision's debut album Formaldehyde as an early Christmas present. In my Christmas card he wrote:

Put a man on the moon, now ain't too soon
Another Russian spy puts a spanner in and boom
From Washington to Tennessee
We put the bullets in the Kennedys

The verse was from this song -- which now it occurs to me means he must have at least listened to the album, if not copied it, before giving it to me. I don't remember Terrorvision playing it at the gig -- although they must have, it was a single and one of the songs that first made them famous. But either way, the song reminds me of being given the album so I'd know all of the songs they would play, and it reminds me of being 15, wearing my Nirvana t-shirt to my first gig. Picking the right t-shirt is still important when I go to gigs. I am so sad.