This is a song of pure beauty. There is no other way to describe it. Nick's trademark baritone voice is as soft as it could ever be. And direct. Has there ever been a more direct opening line? Only a genius like Nick Cave could craft a line that shoots down every flimsy connection between religion and sappy love songs in the pop music cannon. Hey, I don't believe God's job is to bring you and I together... But just in case it is...
Suddenly the laughter died and we were caught in an eye to eye.
We sat on the floor and did we sit close."
Brian was a good friend. He offered to drive Mike and me to the airport one gray, wet morning for a flight to San Francisco. My first trip away from my family. First time on an airplane without them. Mike and I just wanted to run around San Francisco for the weekend. It was the late 90s, but we still sought to channel some Beat energy circa 1956.
Brian was in the driver seat. Mike in the passenger seat. He was much bigger than me. So I crammed into the tiny seats behind in Brian's pick-up truck. My knees pressed against my chest, my body positioned sideways, leaving my head to stare out the rear window at the 15 freeway and what we were leaving behind that morning.
A mixtape Brian had made was blasting through the truck speakers. The only song I remember from the drive was Jawbreaker's "Chesterfield King." A song I had heard many times before. But on that freeway drive, that song hit me in a new way. Like a first kiss. A first anything.
The story Blake Schwarzenbach howls is the classic teenage love angst song. But he captures his feelings in a novel way and layers the song atop the punk chord changes. The energy of the music matches the energy that teenagers keep hidden in their heads, their chests, their other places.
"I took my car and drove it down the hill by your house.
I drove so fast.
The wind it couldn't cool me down, so I turned it around and came back up."
The best line of the song. The pseudo-chorus above, paints the clear picture of a tiny moment that means so much. Not many songwriters are able to capture these tiny moments. Blake can. And although I never drove my car down a hill by any girl's house to cool myself off, Blake sings it with so much heart and honesty, I feel like I have. Maybe I did. I don't remember.
On Saturday, August 8, I stopped in the Record Parlour in Hollywood,
and purchased The Cannonball Adderley Quintet at the Lighthouse.
I stumbled and danced in and out of the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach many nights of my twenties. I was always told that it had once been THE place for jazz in Los Angeles. I always found that a little difficult to believe. It was true.
I woke you to talk but you didn't have much to say."
I will always treasure those first two Promise Ring albums. Yes, nostalgia is a powerful thing, but so is damn good music. 90s indie rock. My favorite type of music.
"Red Paint" from The Promise Ring's awesome debut, 30 Degrees Everywhere, opens with its immediate bouncing bass and palm muted power chords. Davey von Bohlen's vocals are free verse poetry confessions. He sings something about Cherry Cokes. Together, Davey, guitars, bass, drums all ascend into an eruption into what would be the chorus if this were a traditional song format.
But that's the thing. Promise Ring songs don't always fall into the verse-chorus-verse format. Sometime there are no choruses. The song structures lay the template for the emo uprising of the early 00's. But don't blame The Promise Ring for that. Songs like "Red Paint" stand up for all that could have been great with aggressive non-traditional structure indie rock paired with emotional and poetic lyrics.
1994 is my favorite year for music ever. I've said it before. I'll say it plenty of times again. So many great albums released. Bewitched is another stellar example of the magic of 1994.
But it would be two years later, in 1996, when Bewitched caught me in its sorcery. I had just gotten my first job. A 16 year old ice cream scooper at the local Baskin Robbins. It didn't last long. One and a half paychecks. Every night when my shift was over, I'd hop into my Volkswagon Vanagon and hit play. The cassette in the deck for these three weeks of sweet treat labor was Luna's Bewitched.
I was terrible at scooping ice cream. I was even worse at cleaning the place after closing time. I just went through the half-assed motions until my shift supervisor finally just said enough, go home. Then back into the van for more Bewitched.
It was this year of my life where I plummeted hard for Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Obsessed. So what hit me first in the brain about Luna was, man, they sounded like the Velvet Underground! Or at least more like the Velvets than any other band around in the 90s. Easily.
Bewitched opens with the seminal "California (All the Way)." 4 muted bar chords open the song. Strumming only the high strings ohh so gently to welcome you in. Few songs are so effective in their welcoming. The lead guitar sings the melody line that will form the chorus, and then Dean Warham's spoken, soft voice opens up the tale about a relationship crumbling across state lines. Velvets connection? Listen to this song and tell me it does not remind you of "Ride into the Sun." Same chords even!
(Side note. I will forever love "California (All the Way)" because it was a song that my teenage band would play at every show.)
"Tiger Lily" is up next. The mellow, cool guy, almost even too cool, vibe of Bewitched glides on here. Velvet vibe still present. Connection? Listen "Tiger Lily" and then listen to "Some Kinda Love." Hear it?
But the hands down most gorgeous piece of the gorgeous Bewitched puzzle is the title track. The song opens with a clean electric guitar chords processed with perfection in a heavy tremolo effect. Four chords to infinity. I can lie down to this song and forget to get up until long after it is finished. Dean whispers "All of a sudden/the girl of my dreams" and four bass notes roll with the four chords. A gentle organ follows along. After the chorus, the drums enter along with a second guitar and pure magic has been made. Horns and vibes in the outro. This is a masterpiece.
A beautiful song written to a beautiful muse. A bewitching muse. That emotion is captured in this song. Dean is not just in love with her. He is not just enchanted by her. He is captivated. He is drawn. All he can do is strum these four chords until he can longer cradle the guitar. He throws it down "And I'll come running to her." He repeats. I believe it.
"Mamasita, catch me now as I sink Into darkness I thought to be extinct Chilled my eyeballs as the curtains were torn And shed a light so bright Shining like the day I was born"
"Instant Disassembly" by the Brooklyn band Parquet Courts has become one of my favorite indie rock tracks of the last few years. Indie music has gone so electronic heavy, so poppy synth heavy, when bands like Parquet Courts pop up, I am so relieved. Indie ROCK has a future. Guitars, drums, bass, unfiltered vocals. They still have a place. Bands can still rock in this era of machines.
All that said, perhaps I am not drawn to this track because it is glimpse into the future of indie rock. Maybe it pulls me because it reminds me of indie rock's glorious past. These guys grew up listening to the same music as me. They must have.
"Instant Disassembly" is a throw-back to the American post-punk sound of the 1980s and early 90s. Strip away Sonic Youth's feedback. Slow down the Minutemen. Let Fugazi rest for a bit. Make Stephen Malkmus smile a little more, in a less ironic way. Cram The Feelies into a time machine. Tell Television to lay off the guitar solos. If Stephen Merritt was not so-David Sedaris-y. Ask the Talking Heads to go back to their first rehearsal songs. All of this is what I hear in Parquet Courts' tracks.
"And it’s worth repeating I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe It’s hard to inhale yeah I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe"
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