June 27, 2007

Summer Love

We all have a “summer album”, a collection that takes us back to sunscreen and long drives and laughter every time we hear it, wherever we hear it. I have many summer albums. Each year, there seems to be one that just roots itself into my brain and stays in heavy rotation from the moment school gets out until Labor Day Weekend. Sometimes, they’re also connected to those marvelous beauties we call summer loves. These are not meant to last, really. They should be like fireworks, dazzling, sparkling, spreading out over everything, then gone in the breeze but seared in your head.

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In 1987, I met Andrew. Well, I formally met Andrew. We went to the same schools all our lives, and he was just a year ahead of me in school. Andrew was the youngest of eight children, and he commanded your attention as only the youngest of eight could—vibrantly, loudly, a whirlwind running through your life. We met at a moment where I needed something to sweep the past away, and he did. “Come on, let’s go,” he’d say, and off we went. Canoing, hiking the Audubon sanctuary, serving dinner to homeless people at the Pine Street Inn, where he was a volunteer. Sometimes, he’d fight with his parents and walk to my house, and he’d smoke a joint on the way. Although my parents knew, they didn’t judge, and we’d sit on my porch for hours and talk and talk and talk. We watched movies on the couch. He promised to buy my sister a nursery school when she grew up. And we listened to dozens of albums. But the one we always came back to was his favorite album, Tea For the Tillerman, by Cat Stevens.

It is entirely possible that Andrew sang “On the Road to Find Out” to me the night we met. He certainly sang it enough. I do know that he felt the need to handcuff me to his couch the first time I heard the album straight through. We went back to this album time and time again, first because he refused to believe I’d never heard it before, and later because it made us all so happy. People often say they listened to an album everyday, but we did. We listened to this album, or parts of this album every.single.day. It defined our friendship, our path in the world. It organized our memories into three minute sound bites and a jangling guitar. And it wasn’t just the two of us in this adventure; we had a gaggle of people always hanging around talking, going for rides in the car for ice cream or mozzarella sticks. We were like our own little society, with its own rules and cultural touchstones. I swear, Andrew likened himself to Valentine Michael Smith sometimes, and I swear, sometimes, we believed it, too. The purple Pied Piper of Norwood. Everyone who knew him loved him. And loving him meant loving Cat Stevens with him.mixtapeandrewcourtney.jpg
Then, school starts. More influences around. Like all summers, this one ended, too. He graduated, got into heavier drugs and weirder philosophies. I remember having a terrible conversation with a friend after a particularly erratic spell, and telling him, “we’re going to be at his funeral if he keeps this up.” Then he moved away. But, some people just become permanent fixtures in your heart, as much for their imperfections as their good qualities.

In 2003, I lost Andrew. He committed suicide in his San Francisco apartment. My friend reminded me of my premonition, and I collapsed at the thought that I had been right all those years ago, and he was gone. Really, really gone. Since 2003, there has been one fewer star in the sky, and it has only been just recently that I could listen to Cat Steven’s again without crying. But, it’s June again, and it wouldn’t be the same without these songs.

Courtney is listening to the robins' song, saying not to worry

Let Me Make You A Mix Tape Archives

June 20, 2007

Do You Need Music On To Fuck?

That question is as much a rhetorical one as anything: one to ponder, but not really answer. Then again, one man’s Viagra is another man’s Barry White. Maybe it’s something in the rhythm of the song, or a lyric, but there are songs out there that just make me want to touch and be touched. I mean really, all mix tapes serve one of two purposes—the hook up or the break up. At least in my universe, that’s been the case. And, if I ever put “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin on a mix for you, rest assured I want to see you naked.

MassiveAttackMezzanine.jpgSo, in honor of Wednesday being the age-old hump day, I bring you my top five tunes to set the mood.

1. “Whisper”, Morphine. Ok, in all fairness, Morphine should not even be listened to before the sun goes down; daylight does not become them. However, Whisper has its own special seductiveness to it. Really. Just lean in close. You’ll hear what you want to hear.

2. “No Ordinary Love”, Sade. It’s long, and slinky, and slow. The way your fingers should be. A little soft rock, to be sure, but listen to this song just once and tell me you don’t want to find someone to slowly and gently devour you with a kiss.

3. “Teardrop”, Massive Attack. Particularly right after the Sade. Now you’re just making each other crazy.

4. “Supervixen”, Garbage. This is for the dominatrix in you. Bow down to me, indeed. There’s also a certain strip tease element to this track that is particularly attractive. Just go with it. Feathers optional.

5. “I Want You”, the Beatles. So heavy. And to the point. And at this point, if you’re not naked, there’s something wrong with you.

Go here for the tunes. Use them well.

Courtney is sending a Zeppelin mix tape to the editing staff first thing tomorrow morning

Let Me Make You A Mix Tape Archives

June 13, 2007

Live Music

Live music. I've seen my share. The list is exhausting to compile. Strap in…

Huey Lewis and the News (2)--my very first concert actually, although I like to cite this next one as my first:
Psychedelic Furs/Mission UK (with my mother, she bought the tickets)
REM (5)
Indigo Girls
10,000 Maniacs (2)
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians (2)
Pink Floyd
Roger Waters
U2
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
The Replacements
The Ramones
The Pogues
Violent Femmes
Sting (2)
Robert Palmer
Depeche Mode
Nitzer Ebb
Pop Will Eat Itself
David Bowie (3)
Paul Simon
Bob Mould (15)
Sugar (2)
Ani DiFranco (3)
Matthew Sweet (2)
Tribe
Bim Skala Bim (2)
O Positive (6)
The Bad Plus
Guided By Voices (2)
Dave Matthews Band
James Taylor
Jimmy Buffett (6)
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (4)
Marillion
They Might Be Giants
Lollapalooza 2 (Lush, Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ice Cube, Ministry, Red Hot Chilli Peppers)
Pearl Jam
Barenaked Ladies
Lollapalooza 4 (Beastie Boys, George Clinton, the Breeders, A Tribe Called Quest, Smashing Pumpkins, others I can’t remember)
Warren Zevon
Paul Westerberg
Pixies
Mission of Burma (2)
Ben Folds Five
Catherine Wheel
Everclear
Green Day (when I almost died)
KISS (funniest show ever)
The Monkees
Travis/Dido (yawn...)
Chris Cornell
Squirrel Nut Zippers
Yanni (a date gone horribly wrong)
The Heretix
The Neighborhoods (at the now defunct Channel in Boston, great club)
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic
Todd Rundgren
Citizen Cope
The Raconteurs
The Hold Steady (fuck yeah…)

Looking at this list, I now know why my mother threatened to ground me that summer before I turned 17. Holy crap. Some of these shows were pretty memorable, too. Todd Rundgren, for example, refused to stop playing that summer night until the onstage temperature measured 105 degrees. He stuck a garden thermometer above the drum kit, and god help us, it hit 105 in that fucking club. I was almost trampled and tossed off of the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge to the Esplanade in Boston, MA at a free Green Day show, the summer “Longview” broke big. I told you about KISS last week. Pop Will Eat Itself rendered me totally deaf for two days. Some of these shows have sucked, beyond description.

ani2.jpgAfter hearing all that great music live, I can safely say, I hate live albums. Inevitably, they never live up to the actual experience of sweat, and pushing bodies, and bass amps in clip. However, certain live versions of songs have been able to transcend the studio version and become something magical.

On Ani DiFranco’s second album “Imperfectly”, there is a song entitled, “Every State Line”, an a capella number sung in a slightly too-high range for her, and very quickly. A song, on first listen, you’d totally dismiss. In fact, I forgot it was even on the album, until I heard it live. For the live performance, she slowed down the tempo to a foreboding dirge speed, and put a somber, looping guitar riff and a harmonica intro that sounds like old west tumbleweeds and an ill wind. And suddenly, the lyrics become clear, and the sinister undertone worms its way to the front of the song, and it chills you to the bone. She draws out the pauses between the verses to enhance the effect, and the rhythm section pounds in after her percussive, “FUCK you very much.” It changed EVERYTHING about the song, from a throwaway little ditty to a challenge to authority and a warning to the crowd.

It’s moments like that that keep me going back to live shows. And it’s moments like that which are almost never captured when a sound engineer tries to record them. Once in a while, you get lucky. But they’re never a substitute for the real thing.

Mix Tape Archives

June 6, 2007

Times Like These

Three weeks in, and I’m already stuck for a column idea. Yeah, I’m a rock star.

In all honesty, right now, I’m under a lot of pressure. This will pass, as life has a way of sorting itself out most of the time, but the weight is heavy these days.
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I’m reminded of the summer of 2003. That year, there was a similar amount of work craziness going on, as my Director and I were trying to fire a toxic and deeply rooted school psychologist. He and I had a screaming match one day that was so loud and vicious, the principal heard us over the passing noise in the hallway and had to break us up like two hockey hooligans. My Director and I were having nightly phone calls about strategy, and she would coach me through the words I needed to say, and the lines I needed to hold, and this fight wore me down, but we won. His damaging presence is gone. One week before school ended, I received word that one of my oldest friends had committed suicide. This floored me. Andrew was the light of my world through so much of my high school years; a beautiful, unusual spirit who strew unfiltered joy all over my days. And he was suddenly gone. Top this all off with being broke, barely making the rent, and getting unceremoniously dumped on the 4th of July, it was shaping up to be a banner fucking summer. Better folks than me would have completely lost their minds.


wilco.jpgAmazingly though, I didn’t take a trip to the zoo. What I did do, and what I need to do more right now, was sat on my couch, with a beer at my side, and a book in my hand, and listened to cds. We all have those songs that always make us feel better, those artists we turn to at the pivotal moments of our lives, and in my lowest moment, music kept me sane. It may have seemed like my world was caving in around me, but in those moments in the buggy twilight, the soundtrack I made for myself showed me the other side.


If these had been vinyl records, I would have worn through the grooves. Every night, all night, for months, I spun Ani DiFranco’s “Evolve”, Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and the Foo Fighters’ “One by One”, and they made me well. Truly, it could have been any artists; I was open to letting something else take over, quite frankly; those were just the last three cd’s I bought before the money got tight. ani.jpgAnd maybe that was more of a coincidence than I ever realized, because each of those records are about change, and about searching. And each of those records held up a piece of my heart for me until I could hold it up on my own again.


The dark days of summer are upon me again. Time to put the records on.

Courtney is a new day rising

Mix Tape Archives

May 30, 2007

Lick It Up

“Brian, I’m just here to tell you that Kevin and I have declared shenanigans on your choice of opening music,” were my first words to the groom at his wedding reception. After the introductions, and the toasts, people were starting to mingle, and I approached the head table, first to hug my old friend, then to inform him that he had royally chickened out. Brian threw his head back and laughed, as he knew EXACTLY why Kevin and I were “upset” with his choice of entrance music.

“The night is young, Courtney. Who knows what may pop up?” He laughed again, and hugged me, and I went back to tell Kevin that Brian had been scolded.

lickitup.jpgYou see, Brian may possibly be the world’s biggest KISS fan. I would go so far to say that the strength of your relationship with Brian almost entirely depends on how well you can embrace this band. Which is probably why Brian and I didn’t get along for many years; I wouldn’t buy in. Of course, we all have that secret KISS chromosome that we don’t like to admit to anyone, and one day the tide turned. Brian also has this Monkees thing, and I know only ONE PERSON who has seen the movie, “Head” independent of his influence, but today, we’re talking about KISS. In fact, the one and only time I saw KISS in concert was with him. About halfway through the show (where we were somewhere in the first 10 rows, of course), he grabs my hand and says, “Come on! Hurry!” He pulls me out of our seats and down to the soundboard. Annoyed that we were missing the spectacle, I said, “what the fuck, dude?” Paul Stanley chose that very moment to fly through the air, land on a platform by the soundboard and sing “Love Gun”. Brian is the man.

For a long time, Brian and I had a Sunday night ritual—pizza from Domino’s and either a movie or music in his living room. During one of these Sundays, he revealed his wedding plan to me. “I’m walking into the reception to ‘Lick it Up’. Whoever I marry just better get used to that.” Over the course of our almost 20 year friendship, we probably had that conversation at LEAST that many times. As I found out waiting for his wedding ceremony to begin, he’d had that conversation with other people as well. His friend Kevin and I discussed it as the guests were assembling. We almost made a wager, but decided to just wait and see. I’d had a conversation with a friend of mine the week before the wedding, and, in telling him this story, revealed my suspicions that Brian would chicken out. “It’s an easy thing to chicken out of, I think”, was my friend’s reply. And, unfortunately, he was right.

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However, Brian and Alicia did enter their wedding reception to Queen’s “Flash Gordon”. So, some comedy was maintained. And, it was the best music I’d ever heard at a wedding reception, as the dj announced that every song he played that night was hand picked by the bride and groom. Which made it like the best party we’d ever thrown, all of our good friends, great music, and free booze. “Lick it Up” was not overlooked. They cut the cake with that song as a soundtrack.

Mix Tape Archives


Update: Music available at Courtney's blog, and a video up at the FTTW blog.

May 23, 2007

Aladdin Sane and Mom

My mother taught CCD for many years. All my friends and my sisters friends wanted to have her as a teacher. We couldn't figure out why, until one day, I realized it was because she didn’t hide anything about religion or faith from them. She understood that they were all kids with questions their own parents wouldn’t answer. One day, in Health class, my sister Cat was mortified to find out, through a show of hands, that half of the class had first learned the “facts of life” from OUR mother, not their own. She was, well, IS, quirky and funny and honest with people, and the other CCD teachers found her way too liberal (showing “Jesus Christ Superstar” and allowing the girls to opt out of the abortion film sealed that), but her students never skipped class. In addition, my mother loves music. I grew up listening to great classic rock songs, and I didn’t realize how unusual she was until I was in high school, and my friends would try to “argue” modern music with her. She’d whip out the Bowie albums, or the Dylan reference, or successfully prove that the Bee Gees were talented songwriters. My friends would sit there, slack jawed, and I would laugh. I remember in the early years of high school she and I went to the Psychedelic Furs at the Worcester Centrum. I ran up to the bathroom and met up with some girls from my class, who also had my mother for CCD, coincidentally. They were lukewarm to me, until I told them, “I’m here with my mother. She bought the tickets.” Suddenly, Katherine and Marissa were hanging out at our seats, peppering my mom with, “Oh my god, I can’t believe you like the Psychedelic Furs!” and, “Isn’t Richard Butler dreamy?” I just sat back and rolled my eyes, like any good 14-year-old girl. At 16, she took me to London, and during a walk through some neighborhood I can’t even remember, she drags me down an alley, and points to a door. “That’s the studio Bowie recorded his last album in. I wonder if he’s here?” It was my turn to stare at her slack jawed.

”AladdinYes, my mother is the world’s biggest Bowie head. Aladdin Sane is her favorite album, but the Thin White Duke era look is her favorite. We have both seen him three times in concert, and two of those times, she had better seats than I did (the third time, we went together, and she kept grabbing my arm and screeching during the show, particularly when older songs popped up in the set list). Every year, on January 8, we would have David Bowie birthday cake, and be required to sing. He makes her weak in the knees. She even had his haircut in the 70’s; take a look at his hair on the Aladdin Sane album cover, and that was essentially my mother’s haircut as well, sans the red dye and lightning bolt. Bowie is a pervasive influence in my childhood. One summer vacation, my mother decided to take my sisters and I for a ride around all the fancy beach houses near where we were staying. During this ride, we were listening to a well-worn copy of his greatest hits, and “Drive In Saturday” came on. The four of us sang every word at the top of our lungs. It is one of my favorite memories of my mom, just a small thing really, but a great thing, and I will always associate that Bowie song, well, most Bowie songs, with her.

My mother sends me emails every so often, and I have to take a deep breath before I open them, EVERY SINGLE TIME. The subject line is always, “hi”, in lower case letters, and the text usually follows the same pattern: general housekeeping question (e.g. “Are you coming to Max’s birthday party?”), some sort of life stressor, which takes four or five unpunctuated, save for ellipses, sentences, then a life revelation in which she usually answers her own question, calls herself crazy, then tells me she loves me and to call her. Generally, after reading one of these emails, I shake my head and dash off a reply, and remind her that I live LESS THAN A MILE from her, and I’ll be by later on. She knows how crazy I think these emails are, as I’ve told her several times. She laughs it off, often agreeing with me, and the very next day, there’s another one in my inbox.

What I’ve come to realize is that these emails are the purest reflections of my mother’s personality out there. I didn't know this as a kid—what child does have a handle on their parents’ real personalities—but the rambling quirky nature of these emails are the modern incarnation of the quirky things from my childhood. She looks like a normal human being, but the David Bowie birthday cake, singing in the car, showing “Jesus Christ Superstar” to her CCD class every Easter season, running around the alleys of London looking for her rock hero, proves otherwise. Thank God.

Let Me Make You a Mix Tape Archives

May 16, 2007

The Hold Steady

Welcome to another new column here at FTTW. Courtney comes to us by way of her blog, midvale school. She's going to write about music, sweet music every week.

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My sophomore year in high school, I went from Bruce Springsteen to punk rock in the span of six months. Prior to that, I had been a slave to MTV and my parents’ record collection. However, when you think about the copious amounts of Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and other 60s and 70s staples that lived there, I think I was turning out ok. True, I had dabbled in a little Ozzy Ozborne in elementary school and junior high, flirted with the hair metal, and still fostered a particular obsessive love for Def Leppard, but those are stories for another day. Up until high school, Bruce Springsteen was the musical god in my suburban universe. I abandoned the Boss for trendier, more biting bands in spectacular fashion and spent the next 15 years looking for music that made me as hungry as I was my sophomore year. And for 15 years, it worked beautifully. New gods.

Then, suddenly, it didn’t work at all. Every new band I heard bored me to tears. I could trace their lineage only as far back as Nirvana, and I wanted to throw things at the radio. Where had all the good music gone? (Before that last sentence incites armed revolution, I am NOT knocking Nirvana. I AM, however, knocking all those trendy little bands who only saw that far back, and didn’t see the deeper roots.) Still searching, I came across a podcast created by the 15 year old daughter of a music writer, and the Hold Steady. From the moment I heard the opening lyric of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”, I was hooked. A new band I could throw myself at. A new band to obsessively love and buy all their albums and read every article I could find. My 70s FM and MTV alternative and blue-collar balladeer hot buttons had all been pushed.

bringit.jpeg If Bruce had grown up listening to the Clash and the Ramones, THIS is the band he would have fronted. The Hold Steady closed the loop for me. You’ve got ringing power chords, a little bit of organ, a rambling half-spoken poem about a girl who’s less than perfect but makes you want her anyway. I started walking around, asking people, “have you heard this band?” or, alternately, “what do you mean you don’t like the Hold Steady?” They’re the guys I met at all those club shows I went to in college—as a matter of fact, I WENT TO COLLEGE with Craig Finn. These guys listened to all the same bands I did and worshipped at the same musical altars. Seriously, the first time I heard that organ kick in between the verses, I almost wet myself. Punk rock songs built on three chords and a screech are fine, but sometimes, you need something more sweeping and grand, and this band gives you that, and still manages to keep that certain special sneer we all identify with. Sometimes, the love song involves both the beautiful and the profane. Sometimes, there are drugs and booze and tattoos and those things are OK.

So after all that, and after listening to the song, tell me again why you don’t like the Hold Steady?

You can listen to a sample of Hold Steady here.

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