Sometimes music is so inspiring and moving that even when it is unrelated directly to the Garage Monthly Music Night I feel compelled to share here. I am extremely fortunate that for much of my workday I am able to listen to music on my headphones. Today’s artists included some cuts from Spiritualized’s 1992 brilliant Laser Guided Melodies, the amazing Hearts and Unicorns (2005) from Giant Drag , and then I started playing Mazarin. It’s not a pharmaceutical. Click here to get a bit of info on them. I started with Watch It Happen from 2000, which was introduced to me a couple years ago by my pal (and occasional Garagee) Jordan and immediately gripped me with its beauty, honesty, and of course great guitars and unbelievable songwriting (two of my favorite things in the world). “Wheats” might well be the single of the decade, and like so many of these incredible songs, gives me goose bumps every single time I hear it. No shit, every time. Consider the perfect simplicity of lines like:
“I must have spent thirty rainy days, writing this simple melody to tell you that I’m over you but oh yeah, that’s right, I’m not over you”, or “all of the things you gave me when you loved me, oh yeah, that’s right, you never loved me at all”
I just think “Geezus, all those years I tried to write broken-hearted love songs, and they all came out sounding like they were written by a 10th-grader, this guy has distilled every emotion I ever tried to capture down to these simple lines…why didn’t I think of that?”
And that’s just one song! There are several other choice selections, like opener “Chasing the Girl”, and “Deed to Drugs”, which I think is what it would sound like if Simon and Garfunkel decided they liked Paul Westerberg more than Brian Wilson. Listening to Watch it Happen today was so stirring I moved right into the next album in my personal Mazarin chronology, We’re Already There from 2005, I think. Lots of the usual droning guitar (apparently main dude Quentin was in an earlier group, Azusa Plane, whose hallmark was droning guitar wall of noise stuff…hmmm, better check that out too!) alongside pure pop bliss, and even some political lyrics (“American Apathy”) to go along with the heart-rending misery of cuts like “Louise”, another shiver-inducer. And then on to A Tall-Tale Storyline, from 2001. More inspired songwriting, including maybe the only tune which could rival “Wheats” for top honors in the Mazarin catalog, the genius “My Favorite Green Hill”. This song contains enough wah-wah and feedback raunch to make any J. Mascis fan raise an eyebrow, and the sorta “la-la-la” vocals modulate with such ease that the writer’s gift is obvious.
Three albums in a row in their entirety, resulting in…an extra listen to “Wheats”, and extra listen to “My Favorite Green hill”, and then a playlist of all my favorites. And when it was all done and my ipod battery had died? I wished for more. Battery is charging right now so my walk to BART can be enhanced with Mazarin…
visceraudio 