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As a child I'd go to bed every night listening to the local dance station's "Top 5 at 9'" (which informed my purchases of cassette singles every week after receiving my chore money). This led to a pretty hefty collection of tapes from Ace of Base, the Real McCoy, Ini Kamoze (whose derivation of Wilson Pickett's "Land of a Thousand Dances" beguiled me), and the like. My tape collection (which became more diverse once I found rock music), along with my stereo, were the only possessions of mine that I really attached any importance to and the arrangement of my room was as such that when friends came over, the first thing they'd see was a wall dedicated to a bookshelf of cheap plastic reel-to-reels and a well-dusted stereo. Maybe there was a little pride in that, but it felt more like an attempt to express my respect and love for music via pre-adolescent feng-shui.
Music was the common language I shared with my peers. In truth, I didn't understand how people maintained fluent conversations about much else (except academics). This is no conceit; I was superhumanly ungraceful in trying to relate to other kids and would spend busrides to-and-from school listening to endlessly re-dubbed mixtapes. Often these tapes were carefully constructed by waiting patiently for the radio to play a series of particular songs (when I managed to snag a seldom-played hit, I'd use that tape as a master for other mixes until it was inaudible). Occasionally I'd become so obsessed with a song that I'd save up and purchase a CD and record a looped tape. This was the case with U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" and Duran Duran's "Come Undone". When I ran out of batteries, I'd spend a few days singing to myself.
One day in Second Grade, we boarded a reserve bus that was temporarily replacing our usual transport which'd apparently broken down earlier in the day. When I hopped on, I heard the beginning strains of Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" emitting in pristine fidelity from an onboard speaker system. For the first time, I began (hyper)actively engaging my busmates, asking if they knew the song and if they'd seen the video with Eddie Murphy as the Pharaoh that'd premiered on FOX a few weeks earlier. The driver turned it off and I began begging him to let us finish listening to the entire song. I had the whole bus on my side and he said that as long as we didn't tattle he'd let us listen the whole ride home. Schoolmates who'd just as soon fight for fighting's sake were suddenly talking about Boyz II Men and asking "have you heard Shai" and I was talking with my neighbors for the first time ever.
Music is still very much the language through which I communicate:
Roswell Sacred Harp Singers - Jubilee
BUY V/A - "I Belong to This Band: 85 Years of Sacred Harp Recordings"
Earth Opera - The Red Sox Are Winning
BUY The Earth Opera - "S/T"
The Blood Group - Odin
BUY The Blood Group - "Everything Forgotten Gathers At the Ceiling"
Elf Power - The Sun is Forever
BUY Elf Power - "The Winter is Coming"
Iran - San Diego
BUY Iran - "s/t" (search for Iran)
I Belong to this Band continues my fascination with Sacred Harp Music. It really does a lot to capture the intensity of a Sacred Harp group. Earth Opera's "The Red Sox are Winning" was a staple of all my 60's psych-pop mixes in high school, along with Elf Power's mournful "The Sun is Forever". In fact, I've never heard another Elf Power song that comes close to breaking my heart like this cut from their "Winter is Coming" LP. The Blood Group's "Odin" is also draped in melancholy, though the sadness is interwoven with some intensely sinister poetry. The production on this song is devastating and haunting. Lastly is Iran! Both of their albums are folk-noise masterpieces and Josh from the Evangelicals tells me that they've finished another disc that'll be released sometime soon.
If anyone wants these mp3s removed for any reason, please contact me!
Mothfight has been in the studio (on and off) for a month now and we're only just finishing up one song (though the rest will be decidedly less "produced"). I'd very much like to record some 30 songs and try to stitch them together in some sort of grand symphonic gambit but that might prove to be a bit ambitious. We'll see if we can't assemble something __________.