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Ebay Affords Me A Trip Into My Dark and Frightening Past, Hurrah (updated)
03/07/2003 - 9:48 p.m.
When I was a teenager, I had myself a record that I thought was kinda ok. Not great, mind you, but pretty good. It was an odd little record, kinda like the band wanted to make a good ole rock and roll record, but the producer said, "Well, this new wave stuff is kinda big, so let's put some new wave touches on it, wudda ya say?"
And so they did. They used some of the then-hip (hey, The Clash did it) reggae stylings, some cheezy Farfisa organs, and pumped up the bass and drums a bit.
UPDATE!
Having listened to the song in question yet again, I have made a further discovery - this song's arrangement is pretty clearly cribbed from "Watching The Detectives" by Mr Elvis Costello. There's an intro section that consists of a heavy bassy guitar riff that appears several times throughout the song, it's a reggae song disguised as a rock song, and it's got Farfisa organ stabs throughout. Not conclusive evidence, but fairly solid.
Now, in those days, I used to believe in the possibility of finding cool stuff because it somehow communicated to me on a pre-conscious level, and I bought a lotta music because I liked the cover. And it often paid off. I got Replicas beause the cover was so weird, and that worked out pretty well. So because this record had a really odd slash obscure slash arty cover, I bought it sight unheard. And I am not sure whether I really liked it, or I kinda convinced myself I liked, but I remember listening to it a fair amount. In particular I remember this one song that was really odd, in which a feller calls up a girl and tells her he's sorry that her daddy fell out a window and died, and then asks her out, all to a peppy new wave (occasionally reggae-ish) beat with some swell geetars and some noodly low-rent fake Steve Nieve-isms.
Somewhere along the line, though, I must have wised up and realized that it was pretty much a piece of mother-dogging schmuh, because I got rid of it. I don't remember getting rid of it, but I musta did, cuz I don't have it on elpee no more.
That is of course fine, except for one thing - every once in a while over the years, that one weird-oh song would sorta wander through my head, and I'd kinda think it would be good to listen to the song again, and maybe the rest of the record as well. As the years went by, the curiosity got stronger, and the memory of why I got rid of the record got weaker, until for the last several years it was non-existent. The memory, that is. Of why I got rid of it.
So, every few years, when the memory popped up, I'd hop into my local record shop and nose carefully around, seeing if the elpee had turned up in the 49 cent bin, but it never did. Then I thought, heck, maybe I can find it on Ebay, so I went there, and lo and behold, it turns out to have been reissued on CD, double packed with the bands second elpee. So, I figure, well, I might as well get it on seedee, and get all the nice clean sound - who knows, maybe I made a mistake getting rid of it, and I'll be glad to have it on seedee.
So I send fourteen bucks off to Mr Ebay Man, and Mr Ebay Man sends me the seedee. And I get it yesterday and listen to it this morning.
And guess what? It is supremely incredibly appallingly awful! It is just chock full of sub-Tom Petty slash Bruce Springsteen slash Bob Seger rawk songs about girls and cars and crummy jobs and how great it is to be young in America in the summer at night.
Sprinkled in through the sparkling production, terrible (and I mean terrible) lyrics, and overly-stylized vocals, there are some very fine hooks, and this one weird, weird song. Which, really, I can remember liking a lot at the age of 17, but which now strikes me as the best of a supremely bad lot. Every other song on the record is embarrasingly awful, and I now know exactly why I got rid of it. Again.
Yay.
So now I have it. And, because a few years ago I decided I would never sell another record, I'm stuck with it. Forever. Lucky, lucky Red.
But that doesn't mean I have to keep it out where people can see it. So if you come over, you can look, but you won't find it. It's there, but - I'm not telling where.
Nope.
Not me.
I mean, not I.
See what I did there? I went and moved my diaryring to a rings and reviews page!
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