Here's the Sanctus: Stephen's comments on the Mix "Colors" mix.
I'll spare everyone here the long apology, and go with just the short one. Actually, I'll just say that I'm one lazy bastard. Or, that I didn't want Dan to exit under the pressure of his own life. As I was considering this, it became October. I don't really know how that got ahead of me. It did help me in one regard. I was able to go back through Seventeen and listen without a deadline looming. Actually, the practical deadline of just getting it done and out there very much exists. Anyway, that's the apology. Snark aside, I really want to continue on this journey with everyone. I think in my case, the summer was far from free, as I had originally expected.
You'd think after the wait, this would some amazing shit. Well, it isn't. Part of a little problem I have is, the longer I put something off, the longer I put something off. And then, the more I think I need to perfect it, make it something superfreakydeakysublime. This is what I've come to define as a Shit Spiral. I think, ultimately, I need the deadlines. Thanks, T-Clog, for quietly kicking my ass.
“Blue Caravan”
The first several times, I listened to this song at the wrong place and time. I listened to it on the bus on the way home, during lunch, and in the car while running errands. I couldn’t connect or hear the song at all. Then I listened to the song in the early morning, while it was raining outside, and it clicked completely. I love the opening strings, the piano, and the aural creation of a far-off highway. The crescendo of the melody, and that voice. All quiet and filled with love lost, or possibly completely imagined. It was the right opening song for this collection.
“The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth”
Pat acknowledges the heavy drums, or at least the drums that drive this song through. I agree, but then I’m partial to the uptempo thud of percussion of pop songs. Not so the singing as much, for me at least. I agree the whole song is rooted in ‘80s alternative pop… perhaps for me, not so much the Talking Heads, but somewhere south of Public Image Limited (check the “Clueless” soundtrack). I have an unfortunate bias for southern accents that sound overtly affected. Maybe I’m not able to set that aside. Yes, this guy does have David Byrne in there somewhere, just southern-fried instead of New York, especially that shriek at the end. Still, I dig this song in a big way.
“Red Oyster Cult”
Just as Dan’s pick “Love You Worst of All” from Cosmipolidan took me by surprise, so does this song, my favorite from this collection. If anything, I take the greatest pleasure in simple, short pop songs that create a complete mood and essence without too much effort. Call it the anti-“Bohemian Rhapsody”. This song goes at least three places in just three minutes: minute one, there’s that almost conventional guitar chord chime, leading into the first of two hooks. Built around that, the song would be fine on its own. The lyric “just a few drops away” takes into a quiet pause, then the final minute, which goes into a bit of ‘70s psychedelic sensibility. I agree, likely a nod to that time, and how it didn’t save us. But it sort of saved some of us, in a small way at least.
“Pink Triangle”
I should like Weezer more. With a lyric like “if everyone’s a little queer, can’t she be a little straight?”, well, where the hell have I been? Hee-hee. So, this one’s a catchy one, too. I like the heavy guitar sound, nice and sloppy. Not too sound sycophantic, but I agree with Pat that this group is nothing if not fun. Listening to this song, I seem to remember feeling the same way, or having some of the same feelings back on the ‘90s. That’s bound to happen in a large undergraduate setting. Hee-hee.
“Silver”
I had the CD Doolittle way back in that day, 1989, even before my university days began. So I have that to be proud of. I never saw them live, and still haven’t. Their reunion tour a few years back was to have come to Cedar Rapids, but low ticket sales led to a cancellation. They’ll sell out a Def Leppard reunion there, host Olivia-Newton John, but the Pixies have little fan base in cow country, U.S.A.
The Pixies had that Western image, a skewed one to be sure, until they shot into space in Bossa Nova. This song is heavy, heavy, heavy with that imagery, but this song never clicked with me. I think I get a little wary of songs that resemble novelty tunes. Listening to it again, it still hits me that way. Or rather, it misses me completely. It’s eerie, perhaps because the death knell thud makes me think of Frank Black trudging through tumbleweeds. So, maybe it kind of works.
“Soul Coughing”
This sounds like a soundtrack to an occurance that took place somewhere in the middle of the night, involving a white girl on a farm. Space aliens were involved. They didn’t abduct her, but laid before her a highway, complete with pavement, signs and traffic lights, leading her to a new world out there. At least, that’s what I got out of it. But maybe that goes on all the time in L.A., where I suspect this song was played live many times. So, trippy. Just as “Blue Caravan” works best in the blue pre-dawn light, this song is best placed at about 1:30 a.m. in a shack in the middle of nowhere, with the big city lights in the distance. Maybe a shack on Mulhulland Drive.With enough moonlight to make out some of the features of the approaching aliens. It is with that chosen imagery that I find I enjoy this song. Probably this song would work awesomely in the middle of the night in the tape deck, out on the interstate. I should try it sometime.
“Gold to Me”
From lost at midnight to sitting in the summer sun. Funky, catchy, but after those last two, almost incredibly conventional. Well, almost. Ben Harper does a good Otis Redding there, and that connects with me nicely. Nicely laid back, although the clunky lyric “It's not the kind of gold that you wear but the kind that can feel my care” threatens to puncture that mood. That guitar is strong and effortless, though, and the whole tune is never in doubt.
“Green Arrow”
Here’s another nice coupling; from the mid-day beach sun of Ben Harper to that same beach, or just a bit more further inland. The nightlife crickets make it feel extra hot, but quiet and dark, the sun almost down. I love the drums at the exit; what’s arrived? The end of day, the inevitable arrival of… night? The next whatever? As comtemplative a song as I’ve heard on any of the CMC mixes I’ve participated in thus far. I love the distant sounds heard just past the 3:00 minute mark. I really dig Yo La Tengo, and this song is no exception to that fandom. The album “I Can Feel the Heart Beating as One” is an all-time favorite. What else can I say?
“Orange Colored Sky”
Ah, big band standards. How I have loved you. For me, pure musicmanship and showmanship mixed together will never fail, and this song is as good as example of any. Actually, out of all the songs on this album, this is the song that I’d want to see live; not that you can bring NKC back, even if Natalie tried. This sounds cheesy, but the first professional big band concert I witnessed was in 1990. I played trombone in the West High jazz band but, well, that wasn’t the same. “ My then-girlfiend/now spouse bought tickets to Harry Connick Jr, who was playing in Des Moines. He was promoting the When Harry Met Sally…. soundtrack. Well, don’t mention it to anyone, but this song kicks that performance in the ass. And it was a great show.
“Olive”
There’s certainly a retro vibe that permeates this collection, and so now we land… in the 1950s? Early 1960s perhaps, where this song places my mind, at least. This one is so time-stamped that the general nature of it gets stuck in my cerebellum. I can't hear the song so much as regard it's affected grooviness. Something Hugh Hefner may have dug.
Wrap-up.
I don’t think there was a dud among any of these tunes. While the underlying theme is color, songs are not simply a Mix-mash of whatever fits that concept. A real nice pop sensibility spanning time.
Best song: Red Oyster Cult. Just love it.
Song I wished was here: “She’s a Rainbow”, Rolling Stones. Perhaps a bit too easy.
posted by Stephen Cummings at 8:13 AM
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