BEA ULL #3: sp4cetiger

[sp4cetiger]

Hey. I’m a 34-year-old white guy who grew up in a college town and loved the Beatles from age 0. I was three years late for the alternative rock takeover, but I still absorbed it like it was home and as a teenager I fell in love with Nirvana, and then Radiohead. You know that maybe, but there it is.

Some 9 months ago I decided I was going to explore the history of (recorded) popular music, not because I really felt the need to better myself, but just because I fucking wanted to. So no, I don’t listen to new music, not right now. Why not? Because I’m an obsessive motherfucker who believes that by surrounding himself with the past, he’ll absorb some minute fraction of a snapshot of a bygone zeitgeist and thereby experience the music in the way the artists meant for it to be experienced. It’s bullshit, I know, but humo(u)r me.

Some people here wonder why I quit on the history of music thread. It’s not cause it was too hard and it sure as shit wasn’t because I disliked the recs I was getting. In fact, I’ve been having a guilt complex ever since I gave up on it, cause of all the awesome music that Norman, mecca, lethal, and others helped me to discover. But the fact is, I can’t live this way forever, I need to move on. As much as I love this project (and I really fucking do), a big part of me wants to experience the world in real time. So my lists have gotten shorter and I’m no longer asking for recs as I go. When I do restart the history thread, I won’t be promising to listen to all the recs I get, not anytime soon anyway. But I’m still going.

So here I am, in 1979. Disco is all the rage and punk music is only two years old. Synthesizers are in and rock operas are out. Black people are between musical revelations, but still do funk and disco better than anyone, while white people are discovering for the first time that they can make good music without blindly stealing from black people. And here I am, in 2014, living in a suburban single family home and working in a small office with a desk and computer. I’m on pills that keep me from breaking down into anxiety attacks, but also prevent me from sleeping more than a few hours at a time. This kinda fucks me up… and sometimes I forget to take them and then I get really fucked up. I do my best to not let it mess with my family, but I definitely hear it in the music… sometimes too much.

Whatever I write from here on out will be a combination of these things, so bear with me.

[sp4cetiger]

Midnight:

Tonight was shit. My wife was entertaining company, so it was my job to put my two-year-old son to bed. He screamed bloody murder for 20 solid minutes before my wife came in and had to finish the job. We fought about it, too, but I won’t get into that. Point is, I feel like shit about the world. At around midnight, I put on my headphones and listen to Metal Box (Public Image Ltd) and suddenly my cynicism is validated. I listen to them jam for 10 solid minutes about an albatross and then go on about memories like they were some half-listened-to conversation. I recognize it… my ADD-addled brain sees half of everything like an afterthought, with a nihilistic bent that would make Satan blush. And there it was… on record.

It didn’t last the whole way, though. By the middle, the album gets more insistent, even though I can’t figure out what the fuck they’re insisting on. My let-down culminates with the hideously self-indulgent “The Suit”. I perk up again with the last few tracks, especially “No Birds” and the dystopian dirge, “Radio 4”. I feel like they might be telling a story here, but I’ll have to listen again to be sure. Shitty present to hypothetical future?

RANDOM STUFF: Apparently Johnny Rotten played “Death Disco” to his mom just before she died of cancer and it made her really happy. Fuckin’ a, man...

[Mercury]

I love this so far. Really entertaining.

Oh and

Flowers of Romance > Metal Box
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[sp4cetiger]

1:00 AM Monday

I don’t want to feel shitty going to bed, so I need something less cynical. Punk brought me here, so I decide it’s up to punk to bring me out. I put on London Calling (The Clash) and instantly I feel my mood rise. I don’t think there’s a better opening track in all of rock music than “London Calling”. It’s like a jolt to your brain. If Johnny Rotten is the nihilistic side of punk, then Joe Strummer is punk as liberator.

And suddenly this album is a revelation. I always liked it, but now it’s special. There’s not much more I can say about it, cause it’s just one continuous high. Yeah, the album’s themes and even genres span wider than the Brooklyn Bridge, but all I hear is, “Fuck yeah.”

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

That should do me for tonight. I’m gonna put on Cluster & Eno as background and then try to sleep. Who knows if I will, but at least now I’m in a better mood.

[sp4cetiger]

9:00 AM Monday

Monday is the day that I watch my son (that is, “work” from home). I only had about four hours of sleep, but that’s usually enough to get me to his first nap. He had another screaming fit when my wife went up to take a shower, though, so I needed something to soothe my nerves. I put on Rust Never Sleeps (Neil Young). The album has always come at me in two halves, the first being the laid back folky sound consistent with his earlier masterpieces and the second half is a harder-edged rocker, presumably symbolizing his constant battle against artistic stagnation. I much prefer the first half, but I think the album’s message is just as important for the listener as the artist. If we look for our favorite artists to be one-trick ponies, we’re doing ourselves just as much of a disservice as we are them.

Anyway, it goes over okay, but doesn’t really make me feel better. At this point, I’m kind of grasping at straws, so I try The B-52’s (self-titled), hoping for a pick-me-up. Prior to a few a years ago, the band had always been in my doghouse, due mainly to their obnoxious party anthem, “Love Shack”. I hate it when acts that are being ironically kitschy get absorbed into the mainstream consciousness in a way that’s entirely unironic. Whatever. It’s a good album, but as it plays I’m getting increasingly nauseous and I find my patience for Pierson’s cheap Patti Smith impression wearing very thin. I’m convinced that it’s impossible to actively enjoy music that’s playing while you’re sick to your stomach… if anything, it’s just going to give you bad associations with it in the future. After it’s over, I decide to stop the music for a while.

By around noon, my sickness is getting pretty bad and I have to actually call my wife at work to ask her to come back and watch our son. While waiting for her to come home, I get to thinking about what I’d read about Brian Eno’s idea to make ambient music -- he was laying in a hospital bed and… eh, I’ll just quote a passage from a Pitchfork review:

[Guest]

Whose idea was this? This is fucking awesome!

[Norman Bates]

Man, as a fellow young father, I feel you so much.

Except the insomnia bit which I have no problem with and changes quite a lot of things I'll admit.

Anyway, great log. I feel the pressure so much now, I promise I'll do my best after you three first bitches.

[satiemaniac]

Love the entries so far. Just wondering, as someone who wasn't around for the original History of Recorded Music thread, when do the years advance? Do you skip and hop from year to year on some regular basis, or did you start at a certain year and continue from there, progressing once every few months or in real time years, or...?

[sp4cetiger]

Whew, got tons of sleep yesterday and feel much better now.

[sp4cetiger]

I’ve been laid up in bed for the past few days, so there isn’t much to talk about other than the music itself. Moodwise, the only thing I’ll mention is that I avoided anything too harsh, just cause the queasiness never completely went away and I wasn’t in the mood for an emotional rollercoaster. I’ll just present this entry in the form of a list, with comments for each album.

03/31
-------

12:30 PM: Broken English (Marianne Faithful) - One of my favorite discoveries from 1979. A year ago, I probably would have dismissed this as cheesy ‘80s-style pop. Now, though, I love how her drug-torn vocal cords give this music a level of anguish that a pristine voice just couldn’t. It got me thinking about music where the experience was enhanced by what we would normally consider vocal defects. There are more than you might think, whether it’s due to drug use (this one, Slowhand), age (Lady in Satin, September of My Years), fatigue (“Twist and Shout”, “I’ll Be Your Mirror”), or, uh... other (Oar, Third/Sister Lovers). Imperfection can be just as beautiful as perfection.

1:00 PM: This Year’s Model (Elvis Costello) - Elvis Costello always struck me as an artist that I really should like. You know, singer/songwriter from the Liverpool area, highly acclaimed, has a punk edge… but the best I can say so far is that he’s okay. This album is the best that I’ve heard from him. The opening and closing numbers are my favorites, but after three listens, I still don’t feel like I’m getting swept away. I guess we’ll see how I feel about Armed Forces.

8:00 PM: The Roches - I slid this onto my 1979 list because folk has been very poorly represented on my recent lists. My first impression is that they sound a bit like the Mamas and the Papas, except their songs are much more... quaint. The humor reminds me of early American folk revival acts, like The Kingston Trio and The Limeliters. Aside from one track, “Hammond Song”, it’s not a pleasant experience.

It really disturbs me how much I dislike this album, actually. I don’t think I have any favorite albums that include humor that isn’t dark or sarcastic. Anything lighter just plays to my ears like novelty music. Is this my fault? Do I take music too seriously? Eventually I realize that my inner monologue is beginning to resemble one of outlaw’s posts, so I decide to go to sleep.