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Thursday

Thumb-made

I made a handful of cufflinks today. Sixty will go to a larger project that a friend inspired. But, as I went through my old cufflink making supplies, as one does, I discovered there were some colors and fabrics that didn’t exist in my personal cufflink catalog. So, having remembered the workflow, my fingers regaining their muscle memory, I made a few extras for myself.

Now I just need to pull a french cuff shirt out of the closet, to show them off.

So I made 72 cufflinks. The three-part History Channel George Washington docudrama. Just trying to clear things off the DVR. There are so many things on the DVR.

Let’s watch something else.

Last weekend we were at The Ryman with the Indigo Girls. This was the third single off their sixth studio album, 1997’s “Shaming of the Sun.” (I wrote some more about the record in February.) This is, perhaps, the least good song on a terrific album.

Amy Ray talks about how this is the beginning of a new kind of sound for the band. There’s more rock in there, some Patti Smith perhaps, and some literate punk elements, too.

Tom Morello did a remix of this song some years back. I had no idea this existed until now. It’s a remix. Every remix basically feels like this — Yes, I liked your song, though this is how it should have been done, in a longer, and still lesser, way — but at least you can hear Ulali on this version of the track. (Sadly the a capella group is not on this tour. Though they toured with the Indigo Girls for part of 1997.)

That song was a big part of the setlist on the original Lilith Fair tour, turns out. They released an EP alongside it. (That Morello remix was on the EP). In one of those curious examples of timing, the 1998 double live CD that went alongside that particular music festival is playing in my car right now.

I really ought to move beyond the late nineties, I know.

The Re-Listening project will probably bring us the Lilith Fair album on Monday or Tuesday — because this is suddenly a music blog? — but first we have to work through one other record. The Re-Listening project, of course, is just an excuse to write about, and play some of the music I’m listening to in the car. In the car, I am listening to all of my old CDs in the order in which I acquired them. Today, that CD is Dishwalla’s second studio album, released in 1998 “And You Think You Know What Life’s About.”

I know I picked this up a bit late, based on the 1999 album that came before it, in my CD books. Then as now, it’s a soft, crooning filler. Nothing too remarkable here. The Re-Listening project isn’t about musical reviews because, who cares? But, if you’re interested in that, the Critical Reception section of Wikipedia has an incredibly spot-on summation.

The Washington Post noted that “the band’s most bombastic choruses contain echoes of the slick power ballads that grunge banished.” Entertainment Weekly wrote that “when they pull out the cheesy Top 40 stops … like on the ballad ‘Until I Wake Up’, they come off like a modern-rock Journey—a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.” The Ottawa Citizen determined that “the band remains a non-innovator, relying on go-to guitar riffs and catchy rock melodies.”

Stereo Review concluded that “Dishwalla spends part of its second album whining about the success of its first one.” Rolling Stone thought that frontman J.R. Richards “has managed to shed his grumbly, disaffected vocals for a softer croon on tracks such as ‘The Bridge Song’.” The Boston Globe opined that “Dishwalla’s chameleon act seems in total defiance of establishing a trademark sound.” The Los Angeles Times wrote that “this angst-filled and metal-tinged sophomore try sinks quickly under the weight of overblown emotion and puerile lyrics.”

It started with such promise, too.

The second track gives the whole game away.

Already, you can see what a handful of harried, on-deadline music reviewers were finding out.

Their first record felt like a gateway into pop-friendly distortion bars and industrial sounds. Not as a slight, but I think this record just hit on all of the same things every other band hit on, about nine months later, and at about 80 percent saturation.

I saw them on their first national tour, they were opening for Gin Blossoms, and, at that moment, they were almost as popular. The lead singer, J.R. Richards, was doing his rock lothario bit when he split his pants on stage. He was embarrassed, as anyone would be. Not so much then, but after that first album, it was all downhill after that. This was one of those records I bought, listened to a few times, and found few reasons to ever play it again.

I think we’re in another none of those stretches of the CD collection, stuff I listened to only a little, looking for the next heavy rotation winners.

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8
Jun 23

I hope you can get there

Whatever work it is they are doing in the road by my office, they are only doing first thing in the morning. I showed you, yesterday, how they cut a small hole into the role. This morning, they’d dug out a bigger, longer channel. This was what it looked like when I went to work this morning.

And it looked like that all day, too. No one came around for any more work, or to move the big yellow machines.

That patch asphalt, whatever it is actually called, was still tacky this morning. I was tempted to find a good stick and scrawl in a message, see if they’d leave it. (I’ve never written anything in a construction medium.) By this evening, it was solid. I wonder if they’ll leave the roll of tape and the drink bottle in hole when they fill it in tomorrow.

We went to Menard’s this evening. There’s no real story here. We picked up some cat litter and storage bins. The woman that was working the cash register was so slow that they opened three other registers whenever anyone fell into line behind us.

And, plus, she has three cats. One sleeps by her feet. One by her hip. One at her had. She had the robotic kitty litter cleaner. And she liked it. While it worked. It died a year-and-a-half in, after the warranty had expired.

If all else fails, I said, sometimes the old ways are the best..

No one got the reference. Just as well.

I began to understand why she took so long to ring up customers.

In today’s installment of the Re-Listening project, we go back to November 1999 for a new record from a California band. The point of the Re-Listening project is to revisit all of my old CDs in the order that I acquired them, so sometimes I am listening to something that was released earlier that I am just catching up on. But in this case, I know this record was newly released when I picked it up for at the time I was a big Counting Crows fan and I would not have wanted to wait.

I’ve felt, for some time, that I have more of less outgrown the Counting Crows. The Re-Listening project has largely reinforced that feeling. But today’s installment might be the exception to the rule. I think it’s because they’re finally displaying a bit of irreverence, and humor. After spending the rest of the decade being a mainstreamed line of emo, this was a, well, positive move.

It went double platinum, and the album, “This Desert Life” peaked at number eight on the US Billboard 200. It all started with the first track, the first and most successful single.

A friend of mine was a huge mark for Counting Crows, the sort that knew everything about every song before it came out. This, being 1999, was a bit more difficult then than now. But he put in the time to find these things out, and he’d share the interesting bits with people that would listen and so I knew some of the interesting things early too. One night that October, before the album was even out, but when the single was just beginning to get airplay, we were at a restaurant eating chicken fingers and playing foosball. There was a guy in the corner playing pop covers as a solo act and he did “Hanginaround.” We were leaning over the foosball table at the time, my friend and I, and we stopped playing, straightened up, and did the clapping refrain part in the third verse. The musician was surprised. Everyone else in the place thought we were weird. My friend and I, however, were very impressed with ourselves.

That song hit 28 on the US Billboard Hot 100, topped the US Adult Alternative chart and peaked at number five on the US Adult Top 40 which, I guess, is why they waited 10 full months before the second single was released.

I’m surprised how well this song holds up for me. I think it is the guitar distortion. The minimalism of it still seems fresh, somehow.

Perhaps then, as now, this was my favorite track on the record. Oh my, the many highways and several county roads where I turned this up too loud, and the parking lots where I stayed an extra two minutes to get to the best part.

And the hidden track, which never got enough attention, I think. As the youth say today, it’s a banger.

I guess the last time I saw them live was 2001 or 2002 or so. I think they were supporting “Hardy Candy,” which is the next entry in their catalog. They’re playing in Indy at the end of next week, but I’m not going. I think I had my fill. But they will show up a few more times in the Re-Listening project. Up next, though, is a band with an X-Files inspired name because, no matter how often I do this bit, I can not get out of the late 1990s.

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1
Jun 23

Happy June

Welcome to June! A month I am starting by playing a dangerous game. The guest bed at my mother’s didn’t treat me very well on that trip. First one shoulder would ache, and then the other. I could feel the tightness in my shoulders, could feel it moving into my trapezius muscles. I thought, for a day or so, that maybe it was stress-related, but what is there to be stressful about?

Turns out it was that bed. And now, today, I can feel that odd, cold sensation moving further up my trapezius, which is scary. If I have not sufficiently gotten the muscles to chill out, it will all go to my head. For my money, there’s not much worse, headache-wise, than a muscle-borne headache.

Migraines and the like notwithstanding.

So I came in from the office today and I took some Ibuprofen and did nothing. I didn’t even want to turn my head too much, for fear of turning my neck too far.

To make up for it to you, dear reader, here are a few more photos from the drive back to Indiana.

We had lovely weather for it.

These four, in fact, are all in Indiana. And, to be fair to the climate here, considering how much I can complain about the winter, the late spring and summer is not without its charms.

This is my favorite part of the weather here. The timestamp says it was almost 7 p.m. Look how high the sun is.

There are still hours of daylight to go. That should make the muscles relax, right?

The alternative is that this lasts for days.

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25
May 23

Can I interest you in some perfectly-priced accessories?

The day passed slowly, but quickly. Warm, but mild. Bright, but indoors. Quietly but … no, it was actually quiet. Quite quiet.

Yesterday we bumped into our neighbors and they invited us to spend the evening on their lovely patio, which we did tonight. We talked work and kids and vacations and accidents. They are delightful and humorous.

Somehow we got on the subject of wardrobes. He is a retail professor and knows a thing or two about a thing or two. And so we found ourselves chatting about french cuffs and cufflinks. She brought out some links of her grandfathers. And of course I had to say I’ve just been making my own.

He was interested in this, and then I tried to describe the process. Finally, I just went over and brought some out to show off, including this batch I made in June 2021.

He likes them. Loves them. Wants to make them and mass produce them. We’re talking unit price and creation time and source materials and I find all of this amusing. He also came up with a price point. It’s mildly funny hearing someone plan out a business from something you do with idle hands. The best part was that she went inside to fetch this or that, and when she came back out he was still going on about it. As she came back outside I said, “He’s still talking about those cufflinks.”

Because she knows her husband, without pause or reservation or even condemnation, she said “I know. And he will all night.”

And, basically, he did.

I fully expect he’ll have the business model all nailed down this time next week.

At least I hope so. And, like all of my wildest ideas, may it make a mint. Or at least a cut of the profits my neighbor makes.

OK people, when we wrap up this post we’ll be officially, and momentarily, caught up in the Re-Listening project. This is the one where I’m playing all the old CDs in my car, in the order in which I acquired the disc. It has been a big week, because I was once again well behind in this content-padding trip down memory lane. Yesterday’s installment was from Guster, and today’s feature is from … Guster!

This was September or October of 1999. “Lost and Gone Forever.” I know that because their third studio album came out that September, and we saw them in October. I had the clever idea to put the ticket with the liner notes in my CD book, and it is still there today. Brian Rosenworcel broke his kit in Nashville the night before. I know this because he wrote about it.

This song isn’t from that performance, being from 2016 and in Boston, but in 1999, at Five Points South Music Hall in Birmingham, this was the first song we heard.

For a decade, between 1994 and 2003, that was a terrific venue. I saw a lot of good shows there, including my first live Guster performance. Two college friends and I went. One of them is still a social media friend. I wonder if she remembers this show. It was a long time ago.

Again, different performance, but this was the second song in that show, and track 5 on “Lost and Gone Forever.”

This was the fourth tune from our concert, wonderful then as it is beautiful now.

I don’t recall the songs from the show, which took place on a Wednesday night, but I did discover a site that, somehow and for some reason, publishes setlists. They even estimate the length of the show, which has to be wrong, but they don’t list the other acts. I think The Push Stars opened for them.

Anyway, the record finished 1999 at 169 on the Billboard Top 200. They played eight of the 11 tracks that evening, including the single “Fa Fa,” which, for my money, is perhaps the weakest song in the band’s entire catalog. It peaked at 26 on the Top 40.

If I recall correctly, the guy that produced this record was on the early part of the tour, playing bass. If you read into the show notes link above — and you did, didn’t you? — you find out the guy hadn’t played a bass in years. Spare a thought for someone who is in a rhythm section with the Thunder God.

On this listen, as is so often the case on this fantastic record, “I Spy” really stands out.

Guster is a great band (and a great show each time I’ve seen them, catch ’em if you can), and “Lost and Gone Forever” is a a terrific record. Having two of their discs back-to-back is a wonderful treat. And, somehow, the Re-Listening project is just getting better and better.

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18
May 23

Another part of the neighborhood menagerie

We sat on the deck for a time into the early evening. The weather was fine, the birds were in full throat, the reading needed to be read. There was a baby bunny on the deck with us. See the chair leg? That’s my chair.

It moved from one side of my chair to the other, but he was otherwise quite still. Stayed by us, too, sitting patiently. I’d read a little and then glance down. Still there. Read a bit, look over for my buddy, still there. This went on for a half hour or so. Probably, it was wondering what we were about.

I half expected it to speak up in a Disney-type voice, wondering when I was going to make with the lettuce and carrots.

We return now to the Sisyphean task of catching up on the Re-Listening project. Overall, this is about listening to all of my old CDs in the order in which I acquired them. I figured I’d write a bit about them, embed a video, share an impression or a memory, but never reviews because what the web needs right now is a decades late write up of a one-hit wonder. No, not that. It’s just for fun, and for whimsy which, as I like to say, is what most music should be about. But I’m also chronically behind in the write ups, it seems. So, chronologically, we’re going to briefly return to somewhere in 1998 or 1999. Or, if you prefer, last Saturday.

Often times I can remember which disc came next, but the real fun part is when I have no clue, which was where I found myself, while out running errands, last weekend. When you don’t know what’s next, the transition from one disc to the next might seem even longer. The CD changer makes the disc-changing racket and while the new one spins into action and the laser eye does laser eye things to make the 20th century music play, there’s a long beat of quiet and wonder. What will this be?

This one was pretty bad.

I’m not even sure why I own “How to Operate with a Blown Mind,” by Lo Fidelity Allstars, but I do. It had one single you might remember, and it sat on the US Billboard 200 in the 115th spot. It topped the Heatseekers Albums chart, but, most importantly, it taught me that electronic big beat was not then, and is not now, my genre.

Right now, I’m trying to find a track to embed here, but they just all annoy me. I’ll need to look at the liner notes to be sure, but I am hoping this was a radio station giveaway or something. I’d be disappointed with myself, these many years later, to realize I spent money on this record.

Which brings us to a somewhat better album, and March of 1999, and something that was definitely a station giveaway. (It has the little stamp on it that says so.)

Citizen King’s upper midwestern blend of hip-hop, soul, and punk, on their second album, “Mobile Estates” still holds up surprisingly well, even if some of it has the feeling of someone just learning Pro Tools. (Anyone learning a new production software platform knows what that is like.)

Here’s the big single, it reached the 25th spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

One of the strengths of the record is how varied they got with the samples. And there’s enough chaotic, everyday noise to either make mastering easier, or infuriating.

There’s some silly low fidelity pretend funk throughout the thing, and all of it feels cheery enough. I have the impression, from this re-listen, that I just played this in the car a lot. It probably got attention from recency bias, until the next stretch of records came along to dominate my listening rotation. And so it was that when the penultimate song began I had almost no recollection of it. But it’s clever in its own Beckesque way.

Then they close the record with a series of totally anachronistic sounds.

This record featured the band’s biggest, broadest success. They split up in 2002. One of the guys bounced around in other musical projects in California, and has since moved to Berlin. Two are well regarded audio engineers and producers. One worked for a long time as a DJ, and even spun records at Lambeau Field before Packers games. He’s still making music these days, among other things.

But that’s enough of this, for us, for now. After this entry into the Re-Listening project, we are only … two CDs behind again.