Wednesday, May 31, 2006
This was your promised land.
You moved away faster than the seasons
With the closest love in their eyes
And now that you're gone
Were you ever there at all?
Only crows in the trees welcome you back home
About five (5!) years ago, on Memorial Day weekend 2001, I went to the beach in South Padre Island with Mark, Ryan, and Travis. Mark's family has a condo there, and we ended up going the next two Memorial Day weekends too. It's a tradition we no longer have, but it was definitely fun while it lasted.
Anyway, in the weeks before we went that first time, Mark decided that we should all come up with a list of our Top 10 Albums of All Time. Now, that was a tall order. We were all big music fans, but choosing a top ten is like deciding which one of your children to save from your burning house. Impossible to do! But after much deliberation, I did it. I decided that I could not repeat any artists on the list, so I had to choose my favorite album by my favorite artists... again, a very difficult choice! I also went back to some albums I hadn't heard in a while, because they had been so important to me years before. I finally came up with a list. It was flawed, but it was finished.
We ended up reading our lists (counting down to #1, of course) late one night in the condo. For some reason, Travis didn't make one, so it was just me, Mark, and Ryan. I think I even got a little teary reading my list. I'm not going to give you the full list here, since I can't remember the order with any certainty, and also because it was a flawed list and is probably not even valid anymore (a lot has changed in the last five years!). I still love all of the albums on the list, of course. Anyway...
My number one album was fairly new... it had come out in 1999, and I had bought it in 2000. It seemed strange to put it at #1, because it was still so new. But the album felt like home to me. It was Spanish Dance Troupe by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, a Welsh band that most people had never heard of... at least, most people in the US. Along with another fantastic Welsh band, Super Furry Animals (who also appeared on my top 10), I was inspired to pick up some books and tapes and try to learn Welsh. It didn't exactly work, because I didn't stick with it, but I'm pretty good at pronunciation for a non-Welsh-speaking American. And no, Gorky's and SFA don't just sing in Welsh... they sing in English too. But I love the Welsh songs. At one point, I also seriously considered doing a master's degree in Wales.
Spanish Dance Troupe, in particular, is a fantastic album. It is, for the most part, soft, understated, and sad. The music is full of longing, and so was I. This album came out after they had been burned by a major label record deal gone sour, and the music reflected that sadness and frustration. Gorky's never had much commercial success, but they developed a small, devoted fanbase. I eventually picked up the rest of the Gorky's albums, and I ended up seeing them twice... once at the Carling Festival in Leeds, UK, and once in Boston. I screwed up the nerve to talk to their singer, Euros Childs, and let him know how much the music meant to me. I'm pretty nerdy that way... but I felt it needed to be said.
But I'm not writing this today because of the five year anniversary of the list. I'm writing it because Gorky's Zygotic Mynci have broken up. Victor sent me a Pitchfork news article about the breakup this morning. I guess it actually happened last week, or at least that's the date on the website. I'm pretty sad, but I figured it would happen. Band members were going off in different directions and having kids. These things happen as we grow older. But it's still sad to me and to the other couple thousand Gorky's fans out there.
You moved away faster than the seasons
With the closest love in their eyes
And now that you're gone
Were you ever there at all?
Only crows in the trees welcome you back home
About five (5!) years ago, on Memorial Day weekend 2001, I went to the beach in South Padre Island with Mark, Ryan, and Travis. Mark's family has a condo there, and we ended up going the next two Memorial Day weekends too. It's a tradition we no longer have, but it was definitely fun while it lasted.
Anyway, in the weeks before we went that first time, Mark decided that we should all come up with a list of our Top 10 Albums of All Time. Now, that was a tall order. We were all big music fans, but choosing a top ten is like deciding which one of your children to save from your burning house. Impossible to do! But after much deliberation, I did it. I decided that I could not repeat any artists on the list, so I had to choose my favorite album by my favorite artists... again, a very difficult choice! I also went back to some albums I hadn't heard in a while, because they had been so important to me years before. I finally came up with a list. It was flawed, but it was finished.
We ended up reading our lists (counting down to #1, of course) late one night in the condo. For some reason, Travis didn't make one, so it was just me, Mark, and Ryan. I think I even got a little teary reading my list. I'm not going to give you the full list here, since I can't remember the order with any certainty, and also because it was a flawed list and is probably not even valid anymore (a lot has changed in the last five years!). I still love all of the albums on the list, of course. Anyway...
My number one album was fairly new... it had come out in 1999, and I had bought it in 2000. It seemed strange to put it at #1, because it was still so new. But the album felt like home to me. It was Spanish Dance Troupe by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, a Welsh band that most people had never heard of... at least, most people in the US. Along with another fantastic Welsh band, Super Furry Animals (who also appeared on my top 10), I was inspired to pick up some books and tapes and try to learn Welsh. It didn't exactly work, because I didn't stick with it, but I'm pretty good at pronunciation for a non-Welsh-speaking American. And no, Gorky's and SFA don't just sing in Welsh... they sing in English too. But I love the Welsh songs. At one point, I also seriously considered doing a master's degree in Wales.
Spanish Dance Troupe, in particular, is a fantastic album. It is, for the most part, soft, understated, and sad. The music is full of longing, and so was I. This album came out after they had been burned by a major label record deal gone sour, and the music reflected that sadness and frustration. Gorky's never had much commercial success, but they developed a small, devoted fanbase. I eventually picked up the rest of the Gorky's albums, and I ended up seeing them twice... once at the Carling Festival in Leeds, UK, and once in Boston. I screwed up the nerve to talk to their singer, Euros Childs, and let him know how much the music meant to me. I'm pretty nerdy that way... but I felt it needed to be said.
But I'm not writing this today because of the five year anniversary of the list. I'm writing it because Gorky's Zygotic Mynci have broken up. Victor sent me a Pitchfork news article about the breakup this morning. I guess it actually happened last week, or at least that's the date on the website. I'm pretty sad, but I figured it would happen. Band members were going off in different directions and having kids. These things happen as we grow older. But it's still sad to me and to the other couple thousand Gorky's fans out there.
<< Home
