It’s been exactly one year since the last post of this nature, which A) demonstrates that I’m bad at blogging and B) reveals that this time of the year just has a way of bringing this kind of sentiment out (or maybe that’s the tall Stones I’ve been at all evening?). In all honesty, it’s just easier to write about music as it comes into your life than it is to write about the tracks that annually have a significant impact on your emotional state. I mean seriously, how do you put to words the way in which a specific song or album is capable of dredging up memories you could have sworn were long forgotten?
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Several Januaries ago I took my first studio course in architecture. It only took a week or two for me to realize how crazy the schedule was and I quickly fell into the habit of spending late nights in the basement of the MLB. For those of you unfamiliar with Michigan’s campus, the MLB is this bunker of a building on central campus where most undergraduates go to whither away in some random language 101 requirement. Somehow the architecture program had secured a primo room in the basement and subsequently forced anyone interested in the program to spend ungodly hours down there as a means of weeding out uninterested (or sane) applicants.
Strangely, this also coincided with the first time in my adult life that I was for all intents and purposes alone. As a result, I spent an incalculable amount of hours in that basement making the most conceptual albeit gratuitous chipboard models you’ve ever f’ing seen. It was one of those rare moments in life where you’re personal and professional interests coincide and you realize that you’re legitimately excited about something other than Michigan football or LOTR.
I still remember how my first collegiate all-nighter played out in that basement. Throughout the night I had worked laboriously on this single drawing with the sole purpose of making “space” (whatever the hell that meant…). Nothing was working. It all looked like shit and at 7 am I went home thoroughly frustrated and feeling completely out of sync with life in general.
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About a year earlier I had picked up an album by this band called Mojave 3 (which up until a couple years ago, I ignorantly pronounced moe-jave 3). At the time, I was obsessed with Slowdive, an early 90’s shoegaze band that featured 3/4 of Mojave 3, including their singer and primary songwriter, Neil Halstead. With Mojave 3, I expected an equally dreamy and sonically experimental brand of pop as Slowdive but instead got an hour of slow, seemingly effortless Americana. I was disappointed. I probably took 30 seconds to listen to the first 3 tracks and shelved it with the assumption that Slowdive had simply “lost their edge”.
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I’m not sure what made me put Excuses For Travellers (2000) on as I walked home from the MLB that night, but suddenly what was once “slow Americana” had become this incredibly powerful experience. The leadoff track, “In Love With A View”, hooked me with it’s lyrics and subtle slide guitar, while the banjo in “Trying To Reach You” made sure I couldn’t just listen to the first track over and over again. From there I spent almost every waking moment for the next two weeks with the entire album on repeat.
I just couldn’t shake the inherent sense of isolation and nostalgia that the album was able to conjure up. Even today, every time I listen to this album, I can’t help but reminisce about past ambitions, forgotten sentiments, etc. I’m not suggesting that this album would or should have the same influence on everyone. Each person interprets songs or lyrics in different ways and associates them with particular points in their life. However, I honestly believe that we all have an album or song or artist that is able to remind us of those wistful moments in life that we have long since buried away. For me, this happens every time I listen to Neil Halstead’s work on Excuses For Travelers.
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Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up before I become too sober to hit “publish” on what is probably the longest piece I’ve ever written for The Tracks. Needless to say, this album is one of my all-time favorites. Don’t even try to listen to it outside of a late night in the middle of winter with a small but healthy dose of loneliness in your system. To be honest, it’s nothing more than a dozen well-written, genuine songs about love and lost that you’ll probably feel that you’ve heard a hundred times before. Sometimes though, that’s more than enough.