At the tail end of last week, after finding out the future was not to be all that I'd been expecting, I found myself sequestered out in Quogue with my family, who were all doing their best to reassure me that life as we knew it was not, in fact, coming to a cataclysmic halt just because I'd lost my job. Still reeling from the shock, disappointment and ensuing concern for the future, however, I was largely unable to concentrate on anything else. Sleep was a very tall order, and the waking hours found me continually dissecting the events of the previous days in my head in an endless loop. It was somewhat maddening.
In a vain attempt to distract myself -- when not feverishly firing off e-mails and resumes to anyone and everyone who might even have the slightest whiff of a lead or tip towards a new opportunity -- I hopped in the car and drove to nearby Westhampton Beach, solely for the purposes of buying a book. Fiction, non-fiction, true crime, poetry, prose, instructional manual, "Feng Shui for Dummies" -- it didn't matter so long as it was something that would get me thinking about something else. While perusing around Westhampton's one and only bookstore, I came across a book that seemed right up my darkened, forbidding alley. "Marooned" was a collection of essays by various rock scribes; ruminations on albums that they'd want with them should they ever be -- wait for it -- marooned on a desert island (the book is actually a sequel to a similarly inclined collection put together by Greil Marcus, dubbed "Stranded.") Where its predecessor waxed rhapsodic about albums I have precious little interest in like The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle by Springsteen and Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, this new tome had a refreshingly less canonical feel, tackling albums I find as essential as oxygen, notably No Remorse by Motorhead and Killers by Iron Maiden. There are a few albums I consider less than exactly rivetting in there too, but clearly there was something here for me.
I carried the book around the store, thinking that it'd suffice until I found something a little less -- I don't know -- juvenile. Having just been discharged from an organization ostensibly rooted in music appreciation, I was thinking that it might be a healthy change of pace to concentrate on something else for a while. No dice, however. I'm sure there were other books in the store that would've handily met my needs, but they didn't jump out at me. I carried "Marooned" up the counter and bought it, cementing my status as a hopeless music geek cliche.
Under closer scrutiny when I got home, I was bemused to find that many of the chapters were written by some of my former compatriots from the I Love Music board, which leant the book even more clout with me. Who better, after all, to be writing a chapter about a Dio anthology (easily the funniest chapter in the book) than my old sparring partner, Anthony "Is Right" Miccio? Likewise, anything written by music-head supremo, Geeta Dayal, is entirely worth reading, even if you're completely unfamiliar with the invariably esoteric record she's talking about. The chapter that really hooked me in, however, was Ned Raggett's piece on My Bloody Valentine's early 90's masterpiece, Loveless.
I've never met Ned, but his posts on ILM were always thoughtful and well-written, and he was ever the master of diplomacy (unlike, say, myself -- who was unduly fond of needlessly lashing out at fellow posters for their ill-considered appreciation of music I deemed unfit for human consumption). Ever the bigger man, Ned recognized the disparate tastes and sensibilities in others and wasn't nearly as hung up on genre parameters and rigidly "rockist" mores as I was (and continue to be). Similarly, I believe Ned appreciated my extreme devotion to all things Killing Joke, as it mirrored his own slavish adoration for Loveless by MBV. Thus, to read in detail what Ned had to say about the record that legitimately changed and seemingly ruled his life was completely compelling.
Honestly, I don't know if I'd be up to such a task. I mean, sure, I've devoted ridiculous amounts of bandwith here to singing the praises and sifting through the minute details of some of my favorite music (notably on the Pablum Playlist), but to extrapolate at this length about one of my favorite albums? I'd probably choke. I'd worry about not doing it justice or possibly projecting more onto the album based on personal experiences than the impassive reader would be able to appreciate or identify with. But, again, I suppose the personal experience is what this book is really about. It's more about how the respective authors reacted, responded and were so summarily moved by these records rather than textbooky pontifications about the crafting of the albums. In this capacity, Ned outdid himself.
I won't give it away -- you should all go out and buy the book if you're interested, but suffice it to say, Ned's piece on Loveless did exactly what good music writing should do; it makes you want to hear the music for yourself. Dutifully, I dug out my copy of Loveless, which had been sitting on my shelves, long-unplayed.
For Ned, the first track to have hit him -- and hit him hard -- off this storied album was the final song, "Soon." Personally speaking, I find that track to be a bit of a, well -- sorry, Ned -- chore for the ear. The track that lured me into Loveless, meanwhile, was the single, "Only Shallow." Appended to a compilation I picked up at 1990's New Music Seminar convention in NYC (held in the hotel on Times Square directly across the street from the office I'd briefly work in sixteen years later), "Only Shallow" immediately struck me, almost forcibly so. After four sharp drum bursts, the song erupts in a messy ejaculation of a hundred de-tuned electric guitars, all screaming through a heaving, scale-worrying riff, before incongruously settling into a lilting wash of distorted strumming under Bilinda Butcher's largely incomprehensible cooing. Simultaneously sweet and explosive, harmonious and harrowing, "Only Shallow" sounds like the perfect marriage of the Cocteau Twins and The Jesus & Mary Chain; both bands being inarguably huge influences on MBV.
In a sense, "Only Shallow" seemed like the perfect song. It was feral and brutish enough to satiate the need for bludgeoning rock abandon, yet still exuded a delicate, ethereal quality, rendering it suitable for both a drunken, headbangin' air-guitar session and the swooning, wavey arm dance. It also merited inclusion on mixtapes customized for girls one was striving to impress (so long as said ladies weren't scared off by the the sludgy slabs of molten guitar lava). And given the fact that it was nigh on impossible to figure out the lyrics, one could project virtually any meaning onto the track. For all I could glean, the song could've actually been about drowning in a kiddie pool, but who would've known? It was just tidal waves of electric guitar, pounding drums, celestially angelic vocals and -- is that a marimba I heard buried deep in the mix?
I prized a copy of the full album soon after. While I still warm to its dizzyingly dissonant gestalt, it isn't an album one just throws on. Walking around Manhattan soon after its release with a version on cassette, I'd often find myself continually checking to see the batteries in my Walkman were dying, as the album's deliberately listing rhythms and sluggish tempos weren't just off-kilter, they dismantled the kilter altogether. In its unwieldy sonic entirety, Loveless managed to positively engulf the listener to the extent that the properties of equilibrium and the laws of gravity themselves were questioned. Pet Sounds it was not.
Much like Ned, I managed to see My Bloody Valentine perform a couple of times in support of this record (touring with the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and the comparatively lightweight Superchunk), little realizing that I was treating myself to one of the final appearances this fabled incarnation of the band would ever make (before reclusive perfectionist bandleader, Kevin Shields, sequestered himself away). And yes, I too withstood their one-note, high-fuzz fifteen-minute brain-drain moment during "You Made Me Realize," wherein the band seemed disarmingly intent on reducing the audience to a drooling horde of blinded, deafened, dehydrated quadraplegics. It may have even had something to do with the piercing Tinnitus I continue with today, but I won't hold a grudge.
But for all their hazy, soft-focus chaos, I never found myself as immersed in MBV fandom as some of my peers. I admired the band's hybridized aesthetic, but they were never powerful enough for my taste. Too much "Valentine," not enough "Bloody." A decade and a half later, I still appreciate the sprawling, complicated euphoria and woozy beauty of Loveless, but I can't imagine it ever being the one album I'd want with me on a desert island. That said, I'll never tire of the gorgeously violent contradiction that is "Only Shallow," which continues to -- sorry, Ned -- wipe the floor with the tedious workout that is "Soon."
Be sure to check out The Marooned Weblog too.
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