You saw it coming, I’m sure—the triumphant return of Thursday retrospect on the flannelled days of yesteryear. Brother to a sister five years my senior, I spent much of my adolescence imbibing the angstiest of nineties teen drama, from the collected works of Saint Winona to weekly updates on the workaday happenings of the Salangers, Scoobies, and one Angela Chase. I was only nine years old when My So-Called Life started airing (appropriately enough) Thursday nights on ABC, and thus mostly aloof to the larger themes that made it the lethally nostalgic combo of critics’ darling / ratings bust. Still, even at that tender age, the show had obvious appeal: Angela was undeniably cute but unintimidatingly normal, Jordan that insurmountable beacon to cool, and the music an impeccable salute to nineties alt-rock.

The show did have an eleven song official soundtrack—moreover, one featuring my soon-to-be obsessions, Sonic Youth, Afghan Whigs, The Lemonheads, and Archers of Loaf—but deep down My So-Called Life was about one band, Buffalo Tom and their 1993 release Big Red Letter Day. From their one, episode-defining cameo to backtracking what most remember as the one, series-defining scene, Buffalo Tom proved the perfect accompaniment to fucked-up teenagedom in Bullshit, USA—subtly grunge yet endearingly classic, melodramatic yet comfortably unforced. As befit such an inbetweener circa ’93, Big Red Letter Day and lead single “Sodajerk” were all but ignored by the charts and managed only the odd play on 120 Minutes and random alt stations across the country. Despite this, the song remains treacherously reminiscent for me, particularly of that time Tino quit the band, and we weren’t allowed to call ourselves the Frozen Embryos anymore, ’cause it was Tino’s name—so it was like, off-limits or something….