A Free Man

No, not Christmas. Christmas can bite me. I’m talking about the time for end-of-year Top 10 lists. I love a good top 10 list and have always wanted a venue on which to present one. When I was thinking of starting a blog, and this is true, one of the things that motivated me to get it together was that I would finally be able to put together a list of my 10 favorite albums of the year. Just like the magazines. Except nobody cares about mine.

Bit of a twist this year. Because of my loosely enforced boycott of the major labels, this year’s top ten list will be the Top 10 Albums from Unsigned Artists or Artists Associated with Independent Record Labels.* Catchy title, eh? I don’t want to give any press to the Big 4, so I’m going to focus on the little guys. Guys that may not get the attention of an R.E.M. or a Kings of Leon but may be making better music. Now, I don’t own every album that was released in 2008, so this list is really just personal favorites. I’ll feature one of my Top 10 every couple of days until the end of the month.

Christmas blows but I’m not completely opposed to the Season of Giving concept. I’m working on a repeat of last year’s musical giveaways and am hoping to scale it up a bit this year. So, stay tuned for some reader rewards that will hopefully give me a chance to say thanks to those of you that enjoy the music that you find here at A Free Man.

So, we’ll start off today with the Honorable Mention albums:

The Pharmacy - “Choose Yr Own Adventure”: I fell in love with this cheeky Seattle trio earlier this year. I’m a sucker for the harpsichord as well as Kinky psych-pop and The Pharmacy has both. Their debut LP is a Buy it directly from Don’t Stop Believin’ Records or download from .

MP3: The Pharmacy - “Black Ice Cream”

Motel Motel - “New Denver”: I get a load of music through my inbox, the bulk of which goes pretty rapidly into my trash. If something doesn’t make me sit up and take notice on the first listen then it rarely gets another shot. So, the unsigned bands that I feature on this site are the ones that make it to the second listen. Every now and again, one gets a third or fourth or fifth. One of those is Brooklyn’s Motel Motel. The album is kind of all over the place, but when these guys are good they’re damn good. Check out their debut LP, “New Denver” available from .

MP3: Motel Motel - “Coffee”

Cat Power - “Jukebox”: I love Chan Marshall. She is my rock and roll fantasy girlfriend. But her record company, Matador, has been heavy handed with bloggers. This is really a shame, because they’ve got some great acts in their stable. Matador, I’d like to be friends, really I would. But until you make an effort to be friendly to bloggers, I’m afraid I have to treat you as a Major label. At any rate, Cat Power put out one of the best records of 2006 with “The Greatest”, but this follow up pales a bit. It’s kind of a step backwards for Chan. Still pretty good, though and certainly worthy of mention. As Matador will send the sheriff after me if I link to a song from “Jukebox” here’s an excellent live version of”New York, New York”.

MP3: Cat Power - “New York, New York” (Live)

We Grow Up - “Night Kitchen”: There seems to be a real movement in music right now toward simple, almost primitive, melodic pop. I’ve got to tell you, this makes me happy. I ran across an unsigned Aussie band from right here in Adelaide a while back and was immediately enchanted. Their sophomore LP, “Night Kitchen” is just a joy to listen to and they’re surprisingly mature songwriters for a young band. They’ve signed with Half A Cow and “Night Kitchen” is available from the label.

MP3: We Grow Up - “Celia” 

The Mountain Goats - “Heretic Pride”: John Darnielle, the brain behind The Mountain Goats, has a discography stretching back to the early 1990’s but he just really got on my radar this year with the lyrically stunning “Heretic Pride”. Two of my favorite music bloggers are huge fans and convinced me to have a proper listen. Man, am I glad that I did. I’ve always been a lyrics man and Darnielle is a poet. Have a listen to “Autoclave” and if you like what you hear, you won’t be disappointed by the LP. Buy it from 4AD.

MP3: The Mountain Goats - “Autoclave” 

Bon Iver - “For Emma, Forever Ago”: Another folky, lyrical guy is Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. He’s making spare, slightly spooky and gently ethereal music that is perfect for lullabies, among other things. I have a bit of experience. But beyond its usefulness to parents, Bon Iver makes beautiful and subtle music and “For Emma, Forever Ago” (Jagjaguwar) is a treat. Buy the record direcly from the label. By the way, remember that name (Jagjaguwar) you’ll be seeing these guys again, they’ve got some fantastic artists in their stable.

MP3: Bon Iver - “For Emma”

Super XX Man - “Volume XII: There’ll Be Diamonds”: Must be something about the rain in Portland, because that city is home to some wonderfully wistful, lo-fi artists here at the end of the 00’s. The latest to make me long for the Pacific Northwest is Super XX Man. The musical vehicle for Scott Gerrard is prolific, with their latest “Volume XII: There’ll Be Diamonds” (Tender Loving Empire) marking their twelfth (or so) long player. It’s addictively and simply charming and is available from the band.

MP3: Super XX Man - “There’ll Be Diamonds”

The Bell - “Make Some Quiet”: One of the unexpected, and pleasant, surprises of spending so much time in Sweden over the last few years was the discovery that Sweden right now is to melodious, beautifully crafted pop music what Florence in the 1400’s was to religious painting. There’s just an amazing number of incredibly talented pop bands coming out of the frozen north. One of my favorites is Stockholm’s The Bell, an heavily 80’s inspired trio. Their debut LP, “Make Some Quiet”, made some noise earlier this year and if you’ve got a taste for some of the darker music from the totally awesome decade it may just be for you. Check out my interview with Matthias Strömberg and if you like what you hear, buy their record from .

MP3: The Bell - “Do You Know How To Feel”

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* Independent means really independent. No boutique labels, no distribution deals (see Sub Pop).

Popularity: 72% [?]

It appears to have become, by default, 90’s week here at A Free Man. The thing is, that I don’t really like getting too deep into really personal things on this site. As Jamie correctly noted the other day, I present a persona on this site - one that I’m comfortable with people seeing, one that’s often a smudgy reflection of reality at best (as Dr. O’C is occasionally kind enough to point out). I don’t really like to throw things out on the internets that are too personal or too sensitive. But, I like to keep the customer satisfied and as this story seems to fit in this week of self-indulgent retrospection, without further prelude here is the story of my brief ‘marriage’.

Her name was Beth, not Elizabeth, Beth. I don’t remember where I met her, I’ve blocked most of it out over time. It was most likely one of the Capitol Hill coffee shops that I lurked around smoking and reading. We would have talked frantically and excitedly, the way that you do when you meet a common spirit in a world full of strangers. We would have talked about music, the common denominator for most of the people that had emigrated west to Seattle in the early nineties. She had fled the stifling Western suburbs of Chicago (Wayne and Garth country) to find out what was happening in  Seatown. She was tall, with auburn hair a tone so deep that it could only have come from a bottle. She was pale and carried the fierce features of her Germanic ancestors. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but carried herself with a straight backed arrogance that I found irresistibly attractive. She was a cat person and like her feline friends was fickle, cold and ultimately disloyal.

The dates sort of run together, but I’m pretty sure we first met in the late summer of 1993, a time that Seattle still held the promise of the life I was looking for.  Our courtship was intense and fast paced, once we determined our compatibility we went for it and it slipped out of control. We moved in together early in 1994, to a woody top floor apartment on the west side of Capitol Hill. The place had an absolutely stunning view of the city skyline and Elliot Bay to the west and on clear days, Mount Rainier to the south. We painted the place in dark, funky colors and papered the walls with show posters and photos. To all appearances it was a happy hipster home.

We both liked music and we both liked to get wild, beyond that there wasn’t much there. We were more partners in crime than lovers. We fed off of each others self-destructive impulses and haunted the clubs of Seattle all through that year. I only have a couple of fond memories, again likely through intentional amnesia, but I remember the fights. Beth fought like a cat as well, screeching and nasty and claws extended. She liked to throw things. I had been taught that you never hit a woman so I took a lot of blunt objects to the head. Thank god for narcotics - they numb the pain of a marble bookend to the temple.

I don’t know why we decided to get married. In hindsight, I think that it was because - despite my rebellious, bohemian lifestyle - I wanted the Blue Sky dream that my parents generation had. I wanted a house and a pretty wife and a couple of pretty kids. I had never had much success with women and I figured that I better take the opportunity that presented itself. So one day in the summer of ‘94 I asked and she - and you’d have to ask her why - accepted.

The only time that I remember being happy with Beth was in the wedding preparations. She took to wedding planning like a cat to a bucket full of mice. She was going to design a wedding appropriate to our ‘alternative’ lifestyle. We didn’t have a ton of money and her parents were unwilling or incapable of paying for the wedding, so my parents offered to help us out. Beth spent my parents money with a kind of frightening verve, nothing but the finest for her wedding.

Despite offering to pony up for the bill,  my parents, particularly my Mom, were not exactly thrilled about the impending nuptials. My Mom told me that, at 22, I was too young to get married. I reminded her that she was married at 21. She tried, and failed, to convince me that she at 21 was far more prepared for marriage than I was at 22. In hindsight she was absolutely right, but at the time I didn’t hear her.

The day came, a rare cool and bright day in October. The wedding itself went off without a hitch and to Beth’s credit it was a beautiful day. We headed to Mexico for the honeymoon - Guadalajara and the Pacific coast. And for that week, I really thought it was going to work. For that week, lazing in the tropics, it seemed as if we had made the right decision. As we flew back into to Sea-Tac, into the gloomy Pacific Northwest autumn, I had high hopes for a life together.

And then a few months later it was over. She came in from work one day and told me she didn’t want to be married, had made a mistake. I was stunned. Surely it was far too soon to make that choice. Surely this was something that we could work out. Surely. But her mind was made up and she had already made arrangements to leave and after a couple of hours of angry tears she was gone.

But not really gone. Seattle at the time was more a collection of small towns than a city proper. We were forever running into each other at clubs and coffee shops and parties. We ran with the same crowd. I asked her to pay back my parents for the wedding - she wouldn’t. I asked her to return the wedding gifts that we received from friends and family - she wouldn’t. I found out that she had been sleeping with a ‘friend’ for quite some time and that affair may have been what helped her make up her mind to leave. Every time that I saw her for the next few months I got angrier and angrier and began to feel something that up until that point I had never experienced - hatred.

I hated her in a way that I had never hated a person before or since. I hated her for humiliating me, for tearing apart my fantasy life. I hated her for cuckolding me. I hated her for making me incapable of trusting women. I hated her for driving me to pursue notches on my bedpost for a decade to prove that I was a real man. I hated her for years and years. There are things still that I do not like because of her - the name Beth, marriage, The Posies, Chicago, Germans, cats.

But somewhere along the way, I started to get over it.  I started to move on. I forgave her (in absentia) and forgave myself. I learned how to trust women again and I began to put the whole episode behind me. These days I treat it as a dinner party anecdote (don’t you wish you could come to one of my dinner parties) or a cautionary tale to young lovebirds (I’m talking to you SSG). In a lot of ways now, I’m grateful to Beth. Life’s a tangled, fragile web and the decisions that you make - or those that are made for you - can change the path of your life in ways that you can’t predict at the time.  If she hadn’t left so soon, our disastrous marriage may have made both of us miserable even longer. I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. I almost certainly wouldn’t have these two people in my life. Beth did me a favor and for that, I owe her one.

One more thing, I love irony. Every now and again I Google past acquaintances that I’ve lost touch with to see what they’re up to these days. About a year ago, I Googled Beth and I’m almost certain that she’s a - wait for it - divorce attorney in her old home town of Chicago. I couldn’t make it up better than that.  I’m fairly certain she’d be pretty good at it.

This has been surprisingly difficult to write and thus, this is the last of these kind of posts for a while, folks. Back to Boy Z photos and minutiae for a while.

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Two albums got me through this period: Nine Inch Nails’ “Pretty Hate Machine” for the hate and Sugar’s “Copper Blue”  for the redemption. I rarely listen to the former any more, but the latter still comes up on my iPod now and again. Here is a track from each that sort of gives an idea of where I was at the time. Both are excellent albums and available from .

Image credits:

Lazlo Moholy Nagy - “The Broken Marriage” (1925)

Mudhoney

Capitol Hill

 

 Nine Inch Nails - "That's What I Get": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Sugar - "The Slim": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 59% [?]

A Free Man and Boy Party Day has been changed to Tuesdays so we can go to music classes. Fortunately, my favorite Gator fan has stepped into the breach with his second (of hopefully many) guest posts. Before I turn it over to Jamie, I just want to say that his post was unsolicited - lest you think that everything is all about me:

Chris had asked me if I wanted to guest blog a bit for A Free Man, and while excited by the possibility, I initially demurred, because 1) I am lazy, 2) writing has become an exercise in terror and self-loathing since I am an academic (and more writing did not seem like a fun way to spend my time), 3) my best non-academic writing is rants which I recognize are tiresome to most people, and most importantly, 4) the pleasure of reading A Free Man seems to lay with Chris’ personality and persona in general.  However, his post of yesterday inspired me to churn something out, since it would be about Chris himself and perhaps, therefore, not try the patience of this blog’s loyal readership.  I read the post having just gotten back from a cocktail party, where a thirtysomething female colleague of mine regretted having spent her twenties in graduate school, instead of “partying and having lots of sex.”  I knew how she felt.

Chris came down pretty hard on himself in his last blog post, for his life of dissolution while living in Seattle.  And since he had to live through it, I cannot really blame him, but allow me to offer another perspective.  Chris and I had been best friends since meeting in sixth grade, and our lives ran pretty parallel through high school and starting college.  Then he got kicked out of college.  Then he started a new college and quit that.  None of this seemed too abnormal, lots of people leave school after all, but then Chris announced one day he was packing up and moving to Seattle, our generations’ not quite Haight-Ashbury.  I was finishing school at the time, and had a big decision to make about my “future.”  I was planning on starting a Ph.D. in history, which is a miserable seven year (at best) slog.  Which meant I would have been going to school straight through K-12, four years of university, and seven upcoming years of graduate school – that is 24 years of schooling without a break.  As Chris was sending me rapturous letters from Seattle (the optimistic early years there), I decided to put a break on my career path and drop out for a year.  Note this was no titanic shift, just taking a year off before continuing my graduate work.  I was going to move to Seattle too, get a job in a bookstore (ha-ha- no doubt impossible as that was every geek’s plan), and just enjoy life for a while without the stress of being perfect (I can count the number of Bs I have ever gotten on one hand, and I do not think this is a good thing).  Basically I wanted the life of libertinage and irresponsibility Chris described in his post.  I felt free for the first time since I has spent a summer in Mexico (studying of course).  I was getting ready to tell Chris my plan (he would not have been thrilled, I suspect), when I got a letter stating I had won a major national fellowship for graduate study.  I called to see if I could delay it for a year; they said I could if I had a good reason.  My usual facility with bullshitting failed me, as I could not spin wanting to do nothing for a year into a good reason.  I chickened out and accepted the grant.

I did pay a visit to Chris before graduate school started that summer, and my worst fears about my decision seemed confirmed.  Chris lived in the hippest neighborhood in Seattle, he had what to me seemed like a cool “special lady friend,” and we spent a few days in various states of intoxication.  Good times to a 22 year old.  I left that to start a life of reading three to four books of 200 to 500 pages each week.  Unless you are a speed reader, which I am not, this means you basically spend all your free time reading.  Now I love to read, but as someone said about writing (Bob Dylan, perhaps?) which I think applies, “When you are writing, you are not living.”  Chris seemed to be living, and while I constantly regretted not taking that year off, knowing that my friend was doing it somehow made things better, not worse.  As years of graduate study stretched on, following Chris’ picaresque life inspired me to try to live better in what few ways a graduate student of history can (mainly regarding a certain woman I pursued in a manner uncharacteristic to my nature).

Chris has always been a great influence, whether it be introducing me to new writers, certainly to new music, but most especially to thinking about life in new ways.  I’ve always loved his willingness to search for happiness instead of just wallowing in misery, his ability to remake himself, his courage to give up his current life and make a new one—and as this blog’s readers know, this latest move to Australia was certainly not the least momentous.  In spite of my exploits over the years (swimming into Mayan ruins at night, huddled in a van while risking guerrilla roadblocks in Colombia) I have never been able to work without a net like Chris, and have excruciated over every possible choice in life, making sure every step was well-planned (at times leading to disaster nevertheless).  I have often envied Chris his daring, but I would not now want to change radically my life of  happy domesticity and tenured academia, and thus, cannot really regret missing out on Seattle.   His travels and travails influenced me the way reading about a different life in a good novel can:  you may not want to have lived that life yourself, but you feel as if you discovered something about living by having spent some time in its company.

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If you’ve not heard Warren Zevon then your life is not complete. He was a ray of light in a what was otherwise a pretty dark time in rock. He died too young, of mesothelioma, in 2003. Buy his Greatest Hits at  .

Image credits:

Seattle 1995

Studying

 

 Warren Zevon - "Mr. Bad Example" [3:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 54% [?]

One of my favorite things about blogging is that I can get inspiration from fellow bloggers. Some days, the creative juices just don’t flow and a read of a great post by someone else can give me the kick start I need to get my own fingers working. Since I saw Florida Girl In Sydney’s dodgy old photo and the dodgy love story that accompanied it, I’ve been looking for an excuse to break out some of my photo archives. I found a vehicle for that desire in Arizaphale’s recent NaBlowSomethingorOther posts featuring excerpts from her diaries of the mid 90’s.

Regrettably, I’ve got some diaries from the mid-90’s as well, but while Arizaphale was cooking up a beautiful baby girl in Britain, I was wandering the streets of Seattle pretty much aimlessly. I pulled out one of my diaries from the Spring of ‘95 just to have a little trip down memory lane. Let me set the stage for you. I was 23 years old, in the previous winter my life had taken an ugly turn. My brief and unfortunate marriage (one day I’ll give y’all the goods on this) had fallen apart sending me into a spiral of self-pity, self-destruction and substance abuse. I had quit a stable, but boring, job to pursue a “career” as a freelance photographer.

Things start off inauspiciously…

27 March 1995

…I guess what I’m trying to do is come to terms with what is either the long awaited achievement of happiness and success that I’ve been striving for or the complete loss of touch with reality that I’ve expected for years…

(Spoiler: It’s the latter)

30 March 1995

I think that the last 48 hours have been some of the happiest of my life - beginning Wenesday morning - woke up early - downtown to drop of film with KK at 11 - got a little work through him. Ran into NW in Westlake Park and sat in the sun with him for a while - watched women and talked shit… 

(I’ll spare you the details - booze, drugs, work, women, delusions of grandeur. And then, two days later…)

1 April - Bauhaus*

Trying to stay up while things are falling apart around me. Money - there is none - work - there is little. I’ve got to stay on it somehow - I’m not sure how to stay sane?

And then…

2 April -Bauhaus

Seattle is gray and drizzly - still short(er) of money - survival in question I’m not unhappy - frightened, unhappy and somehow depressed - a general disdain for people again - the unadulterated adoration for life has, not surprisingly, disappeared. God is dead and noone cares. 

So, we’ve learned that I was an unstable, self-important yet self-loathing, misanthropic dickhead. Let’s see what else we can glean from the lost diaries of A Free Man*. What was a typical day like in the Spring of ‘95?

4 June 1995

Another fucking hangover - smoke to cure it - went out last night with P and M - drank shitloads of beer at Linda’ - talked shit about philosophy and literature - Henry Miller, suicide, bullshit. We drank way to much at Linda’s and then more at Beatnix later on. Blew a shitload of money. Ate ecstasy, which did not work - went to the Re-bar for a while - took half a tab of acid which did work. I spotted a waitress who was just a dream, slicked back hair, collar, translucent clothes - so I tore my ad out of The Stranger and said “Hi. My name is Chris. This is who I am. I’d like to take you out for a drink.” She, of course, didn’t jump on the Chris-wagon (cringe) but she told me her name and to come back and see her. On the way somewhere, I found half a bottle of Jim Beam which we drank in the bushes near City Market with a drunken Indian bum. We needed food and went up to Broadway - M bought Taco Bell…

The glamorous life of the American hipster. There are days and days of entries like this, recollections of nights of drinking, drugs and failing to pick up women. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are nearly an equal number of entries like this:

6 June 95 - #7 Bus

Just when I think my life might be under control, I am even further gone - more bounced checks - head in space. M wants to go to NYC, I may go with him. I think that it’s definitely time to get out of Seattle. Things are closing in around me - a noose of sorts (drama queen). Escape seems the only option. At the studio, things began to deteriorate - cancelled shoot, someone who was supposed to pick up some prints and pay didn’t. K broke my lamp. God damn. God damn. I’m plastic I’m a smokescreen. I need to be saved. I’m shaking like a speed freak. I’m at fucking Bauhaus of all goddamned places. I’m not in control of my life.

And repeat. Repeatedly. Every now and again, there are moments of surprising clarity:

3 May ‘95 - Volunteer Park

…the practical purpose of this journal is an effective surrogate memory. Something I can refer to in the future that will define this period of my life - I know that change is inevitable - I feel it all around me all the time - I don’t know, however, if the change is going to be good…I think I may have already forgotten some of the lessons I’ve learned. That is what I need to remember - what I learn. Right now I’m learning:

1.  Pot and bourbon are bad for motivation.
2. I treat women badly.
3. Money is the most destructive, consuming factor for my soul.
4. What feels good is not always what is best for you.

Not particularly groundbreaking, but surprisingly clearheaded. Of course, the following day:

…bought more pot, got drunk with rednecks in Tukwila on a Friday night, blew off the only woman I’ve had sex with in a while…

I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details. But let’s take a look at how it ends, the last entry:

23 June 95 - Bauhaus

Is new hope, renewed hope, the key to my survival, my evolution, my success? I don’t know. Three months ago: “I’m excited to see where things lead…” two days ago “no more now.”

I guess what needs to happen is salvation. But salvation tends to not come when you call it. Have to work for it. Salvation lies within oneself. I want to find it. I’m going to find it.

I’m going to go home. Listen to Jane’s Addiction. Work.

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It didn’t quite work that way. It took me another decade to find what I was looking for and it wasn’t within me.

When I write a post like I did the other day, I’m still flabbergasted that they are my words. I spent so much of my teens and twenties being erratic, depressed, manic, drunk, high and, above all, unhappy. Sometimes I wish I could go back to Seattle in 1995 and smack my 23 year old self in the head and say, “It’s not that hard, dumb ass. You put one foot in front of the other and get the hell on with it. Live in the day.”

I will take one piece of advice from a 1995 not-so-free man. I’m going to listen to Jane’s Addiction and do some work.

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*I apparently spent an incredible amount of time in this Capitol Hill coffee shop.

** With apologies to Sue Townsend.

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With the erratically enforced no major label music here, I thought that Chris Smither’s cover of the song that inspired this post’s title was a better choice. Smither is a Florida born finger pickin’ folkie and this Dylan cover is nearly as good as the original. Buy his latest, “Leaving the Light On” here.

 

 Chris Smither - "Visions of Johanna" [5:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 60% [?]

And I forget
Just what it takes
And yet I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard
Its hard to find
Oh well, whatever, nevermind…

In the summer of 1991, I was 19 and living in Tallahassee in a vermin infested house in the shadow of the Florida state capital. I was working at a local chain bookstore, making a half-assed attempt at an English degree from Florida State University and generally wandering aimlessly in a Gen X stupor. I was a man in search of a plan, in search of some sort of guiding force. I used to lurk around used bookstores, snapping up Beat poetry and novels, books on Buddhism, romantic poets, dense arty novels. But none of these seemed to apply to me in 1991, they were the voices of previous generations, answers for ancestors.

Then one night in September I slid a new CD that I had picked up into my stereo. And I heard the opening chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and my life changed. Within months, I dropped out of college (for the second time), quit my job, packed up my pick up and headed out across the country for the Pacific Northwest. I know that kind of makes me a cliché today, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. Nor was it as simple as that, but in the music of Nirvana I heard the voice of my generation for the first time.

Even if you have…
Even if you need…
I don’t mean to stare.
We don’t have to breed.
We can plant a house,
Or we can build a tree
I don’t even care.
We could have all three…

I didn’t find what I was looking for in Seattle. I had hoped that I was joining a youth movement, a la Berkeley in the 1960s. But it didn’t turn out that way, there was a musical scene for a few years but beyond that Seattle in the early 90s was nothing like Berkeley in the late 60s. In a lot of ways it was the anti-Berkeley. It was cold and dark. It was exclusionary. Love was expensive and potentially deadly. The drugs were harsh and lethal. There was no political or social movement, in fact that sort of thing was regarded with suspicion. Above all, it was not like a Cameron Crowe film. I stumbled and bumbled around for a few years and ultimately came back South, poorer and emotionally wrung out.

In anecdotes about this time in my life, I’ve always relayed it as wasted time, my fucking around period if you will. But as I listened to “Nevermind” with my son the other day, I realized that this is an oversimplification. Tallahassee and Seattle in the early 1990s were a critical part of getting me to where I am today – Adelaide in 2008. What I was looking for during that time in my life was what I’ve found today. Like a lot of my generation, I knew that I couldn’t live the life of my parents. Their blue sky dream had been turned into a smoggy myth for us. A house in the suburbs and 2.4 kids and a lifetime job with The Company were neither available nor acceptable. I remember hearing of my Dad’s friends, the fathers of the kids I grew up with, being laid off from the company to whom they’d given the best years of their lives and for whom they’d dragged their families around the world. I remember the day that my Dad joined them. He had been a Company man for most of his life, but downsizing and outsourcing and all those words that have made it into the lexicon of our language over the past decade and a half meant that he found himself without a job and in his early fifties. I knew at that point, that even though I was floundering and failing, that my rejection of the path my parents took was a sound decision.

I think that’s one of the things Cobain was trying to get across. In his music, I hear a firm rejection of the Baby Boomers approach to life. But coupled with that is the angst and confusion and utter powerlessness of a man who doesn’t know have an alternate plan. He knows that the status quo is unacceptable, but can’t see the road less travelled. That is ultimately what killed him.

It is now time to make it unclear
To write off lines that don’t make sense
Love myself better then you
I know it’s wrong so what should I do…

Thankfully, I and most of the rest of my generation have found the road that Cobain couldn’t. I’ve accepted a lot of the status quo that I rejected when I lit out from Tallahassee. I live, regrettably and temporarily in the suburbs. I have bred. I have a family of my own and want, above all, the best for them. I don’t spend a lot of time fighting the man.

But, in many other ways I’ve opted out. I’m proudly not a Company Man. I’m working on my terms and when they cease to be my terms, can walk away and be OK. I’ve tailored my career to be what I want it to be and have taken advantage of the educational and career opportunities afforded me. I can work in my window office, I can work at home, I can work on the bus, I could probably work on the beach if I didn’t have a headbanging boy child trying to thrash my computer. I’ve opted out of that American blue sky dream to the tune of about 10,000 miles and a hemisphere.

Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don’t be late…

A lot of people call Nirvana’s music angry, but Cobain wasn’t angry. He was, like a lot of us were at the time, frustrated, confused and frightened. That’s what you hear in “Nevermind”. Kurt Cobain never had a chance to try the alternate path that so many of us have taken. He opted out in a very final and ultimately cowardly way. In a lot of ways it’s a shame, because it is our time now. One of the reasons that I’m such an advocate of Barack Obama is that with his election, a member of my generation (in a broad sense) is poised to take real power for the first time.

This was supposed to be about Boy Z and Nirvana, but it’s not turned out that way at all. Boy Z liked “Nevermind” in the sense that he liked the time we set aside to bang along with that fantastic Novoselic and Grohl growling bass line. He detected the change in mood in his Papa and played along and drummed and thrashed things with his cricket bat. But Z likely didn’t hear the generational insurrection in “Nevermind”, he’s a bit young yet for that yet. One day, Z is going to see Nirvana as the music of his father’s generation – as dated and hackneyed. One day he’s going to reject my values and my path in life. He’s going to make his own choices based on his own experience. And when that’s the case, I hope I can remember this post and the way I feel right now. Find your way, Boy Z. Find your own way.

What album defined your coming of age, your great trip west?

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Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is available from .

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Image Credits:

Seattle in the fog

Further reading:

This post was partially inspired by this photo on Bluestreak’s excellent page.

 

 Nirvana - "In Bloom" [4:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 64% [?]

A couple of bands from my old home of Athens, Georgia have been on repeat on A Free Man’s iPod this week and I’d like to kick things off with them. First is Dead Confederate, a five piece that may be single-handedly redefining the sound of ‘Southern Rock’ as The Drive-by Truckers did before them. These guys are making dense, guitar driven music that owes more to Kurt Cobain than to Duane Allmann. Dead Confederate released their debut LP, “Wrecking Ball”, this week. Check it out on . Thanks to News from Space for bringing these guys to my attention.

MP3: Dead Confederate - “The Rat”

I’ve got to give a nod to Bop at Catfish and Cornbread for turning me on to the second Athenian act of the week, The Whigs. It took me the longest time to realize that when referring to this band people weren’t talking about some pared down, reformed Afghan Whigs. But, this trio definitely takes some inspiration from the early 90’s so it’s not that far a stretch. Check out their second LP, “Mission Control” on .

MP3: The Whigs - “Hot Bed”

Moving west from Athens finds Omaha’s Tilly & The Wall. Apparently these guys performed on the premiere of the new 90210, but I’m not holding that against them. Gorgeous harmonies and sugary sweet vocals from this co-ed quintet. Their latest, “o” is out and available from .

MP3: Tilly and the Wall - “Alligator Skin”

Old Crow Medicine Show will always remind me of a couple of weeks that I spend in Ithaca, NY doing some field work. I stayed with a bluegrass banjo player who introduced me to a number of great contemporary bluegrass acts, including this tight Nashville outfit. They’re one of the best bluegrass bands around. You can pre-order their upcoming LP “Tennessee Pusher” here.

MP3: Old Crow Medicine Show - “Caroline”

Fuzzy guitar from the Pacific Northwest is nothing particularly new, but Seattle’s Moondoggies mix it up a bit, bringing in a little Midwestern twang a la Jayhawks. I’ve been listening to this one over and over this week. Their debut, “Don’t Be A Stranger” is out and available from .

MP3: The Moondoggies - “Changing”

From the other side of Fortress America comes Brooklyn’s Forest Fire, a quirky, shambling collective that evokes late night sing-alongs. If that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, have a listen to this one from their latest, “Survival” (Catbird). It’s dead catchy in that charmingly slack way that appeals to aging Gen X-ers like your underwhelming correspondent.

MP3: Forest Fire - “I Make Windows”

My current troubles with avian antagonists may have made me perk up a bit when Caw! Caw!’s e-mail came chiming in, but it was their music that really made me sit up and take notice. This Chicago is making loose, swirling punk inspired music and have an EP due out next week. I’ve got no purchase info, but check their MySpace for updates.

MP3: Caw! Caw! - “Organisms”

Last but not least this week is Delta Spirit, a California act that’s been getting some well deserved attention here in Oz after their visit here this winter. These guys are making slick, but compelling power pop. Check out this track from their latest, “Ode to Sunshine”. Sing it and bring some to South Australia, boys .

MP3: Delta Spirit - “Trashcan”

Popularity: 60% [?]