On Chronic Town.....

Saturday morning coffee with R.E.M. and their debut ep Chronic Town. This record has literally been hanging on my basement wall for a year or so. In that time, I've resurrected my turntable and have been listening to vinyl almost exclusively in the house. So throwing this on this morning has really transported me straight back to 1982, and in a good way. I bought this record based solely on the cover. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't...think Molly Hatchet. The color wash, combined with the gargoyle, and even the font for R.E.M. told me that this record was something different. Sure the guys on the back had some cool 80's haircuts, but titles like Wolves, Lower and Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) didn't lead me to believe these were gonna be songs about Johnny and Jane.

Chronic Town starts off with 1,000,000. What does this guy keep repeating? Then the chorus of "I could live a million.....years." "Living....deadlier.....smarter too...." the rest is still undecipherable. Of course the internet helps us out with that, but do we really want to know? That was the draw hear. Listen again, listen again. Who were these mysterious people and why did they make me dance alone in my bedroom?

Stumble is next. Here the rickenbacher jangle debuts, creating the signature R.E.M. sound. This song too has the indecipherable repeating lyric, "barrrr....tannnnn?!?!" then the chorus "We'll stumble through the yard." Then another 4 bars of the melodic nonsense. Wow, this was a totally different listening experience, my main musical diet of the time being The Police, Squeeze, Joe Jackson and Devo.

Side 2 offered the Holy Grail of indie or college rock. Isn't this where it began? Three songs, Wolves, Lower, Gardening at Night (go ahead and sing it, the melody lives in your subconcious), and Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars). What memory does this run of songs conjure? Charleston, Illinois and a dance club called Mothers. This would be a couple years later, but I can plainly picture parking in a bank lot, walking across the street to Mothers with i.d. in hand, eighteen mind you, and stepping inside. Did they always(only) play R.E.M.? Who would be there? B.J., Cargill, Jim, and who else? Not sure. Probably only the four of us in any combination. But this was the place that solidified my love for the music I embraced the rest of my life. The idea that I wasn't the only person listening to Chronic Town and Murmur; that Boxcars only made me dance. What else do I hear in these memories? Costello, Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, db's, Split Enz, the Producers, Let's Active....on and on. Everytime I went there I found someone new. This was the equivalent satellite radio then. Live with other people. And thinking about it now, Adrian is nearly the same age now as I was then. Huh.

I don't have Chronic Town on cd. I think the reason why is that it's much too small. Chronic Town is a 12" record, not a 5" cd.

Ipod update

I am happy so far with my Ipod experience. I bought a 60gb whitey. It was great in the car during our trip to Chicago. I have a long way to go in filling it up and I now know I'm going to be forced to choose which albums are in and which are out. I plan on copying all of my cd's to itunes, but will have much more than 60gb. I just worry about the reliability of the device. Adrian has had 2 bad hard drives and Katie's mini died on the eve of her trip to NY City last Thursday.

Current statistics:
Song count - 10,299
Size - 34.2gb
Album count - 805
Artist count - 1,142

My best estimate is that this is roughly 40% of my cd collection. I'll have to see, its a slow process.

Mr & Mrs take the Windy City

I love Chicago. If I ever bought a lottery ticket and hit it big, I would definitely spend time exploring the neighborhoods of Chicago. Last weekend Amy and I checked into the Willows hotel in the Lakeview/Lincoln Park neighborhoods. I great little boutique hotel walking distance to some cool stuff. We really only had two goals in mind for the weekend, breakfast at Ann Sather's in Wrigleyville and Robert Pollard at the Metro on Friday night, the rest of the weekend we were leaving to chance.

After some noodles at Tie Me Up, we shot over to the Metro. I was pretty excited to see how far this band had come since the show at the Southgate House in February. We found a spot right beside Wrigely Field and marched in. Now, Mrs. C was not as thrilled to be here as I. I think it was mostly the late hour. We found a spot in the left rear of the floor and waited. The result of several more shows under their belt was astounding. This is as good a band as Bob has ever had and the songs were amazing. He played 4 new songs from Normal Happiness, which won't be released until October. Supernatural Car Lover was absolutely crazy good. This album, according to Bob, is 16, 2 minute pop songs. Needless to say I loved the show, Mrs C said her ears didn't ring too bad, and we were back in the hotel by 2 am! Check out these great pictures from the show.

A few hours later we were sitting in Ann Sathers on Belmont waiting for the world's best cinnamon rolls. I convinced myself to order something different, traditional eggs benedict everytime I go, and had the swedish sampler. Very tasty, especially the meatball. The thing about this place is you get 2 giant cinnamon rolls with whatever you order. Its a gutful and delish.

From here I decided to take Amy to Old Town and walk around to see the sights and architecture. We did a little shopping, a lot of walking, and a lot of ruminating about what it would be like to live in this kind of environment. Final result was a draw, Me = yes, Mrs C = maybe. From there we drove back to the hotel and walked to Yak-zies (Chicago dawg, fries, and toasted raviolies!) for a late munch and some more walking and gawking. Later we had dinner at Tarantino's back in Old Town and it was a nice find. Cozy little corner Italian that you would love to live around the block from. Bonus-found parking on the street and saved some cash. Parking, as with most large cities, is the worst thing about the trip. We had a great time together and drove to Marshall on Sunday to see nephew Jason off to Germany for 4 years. He's in the Air Force and is being stationed in Rammstein. It was nice to see everyone and we let 80 mph winds push us home!