Too Old to Rock-n-Roll

December 3, 2010

My Bloody Valentine - Strawberry Wine

This might be my all-time favorite song.  Saw MBV when they were in Seattle earlier this year.  The show was AWFUL.  Shame.  Wish they'd played this song.  They did play Cigarette in Your Bed, which is a sublime slice of gothic horror bliss (and another all-time favorite).  The opening acts were the very definition of dreadful and when MBV finally showed up, they immediately launched into what Branford Cox has aptly described as "sonic holocaust."  I've heard of playing loud, but this was ridiculous.  That blood on the floor was from my ears.  Some sweet girl, who must have been barely older than my daughter Katy - and certainly was not alive when MBV released their final album - offered me her earplugs.  I couldn't actually hear her, of course, but I appreciated her look of concern for my well-being as she pantomimed the offer by holding up the plugs and pointing at her ears and then at me.

The first half of the set was great, actually; but then the sheer intensity of the volume finally wore this middle-aged man down.  Yes, it made me feel OLD.  How fun is that?  The songs became sloppier and less recognizable as the set chugged along.  Then they finished up by subjecting the audience to one of their notorious 20-minute drones by dragging out the middle of You Made Me Realise to excruciating lengths - playing the same note over and over and over.  It was more of a fascinating physical sensation than anything approaching an aural pleasure.  I raised my hands to feel the sound waves surge past me.  I'm a pretty patient guy when it comes to music, but they were on my last nerve when they finally stopped.  I took it as a sign that they did not want to play for us, disliked us on a visceral level and wanted us to suffer.  They then walked off the stage to the sound of nobody begging them to come back for an encore.  I believe that it was the final show of their US tour, and they were probably tired and maybe more than a little pissed.  It seems likely that the touring amply reminded them of why they stopped playing together in the first place.  Me, I was out $50 and desperate to get back to my family.

I was surprised by how sparsely attended the show was at first, but I shouldn't have been.  MBV could have been huge, but they will always be remembered as a cult act I suppose.  This is too bad, as they released some of the best music available at the end of the 80's.  Anyway, this show took place before I lost hearing in my left ear (a related incident?), so it was probably the last concert I will be able to attend.  Anyway, Strawberry Wine is fairly early MBV (not long after Belinda Butcher joined the band) and is pretty much a perfect pop song.  By pop, I mean late-60's-style jangle, sped up to punk rock speed, not modern, demographically adjusted, cynically programmed bland top-40 radio-style pop.  I hope there are others who enjoy it as much as I do.  If not, it’s ok.  I’ve gotten used to being different.

I spend between six and eight hours a day listening to music.  It is the only thing that keeps me sane at my job.  Thus, a lot of my reference points are the music I listen to.  It is pretty pathetic, I know, but I have nothing else to occupy my mind while grinding away on the computer at work day after day.  I envy the creative achievement of a good song.  The melody insinuates itself into my consciousness.  And frankly, I have nothing else to talk about with people, no real common points of interest.  This, as well, tends to isolate me because my music taste diverges dramatically from most people I know and most people my age.  I have nothing much else to share, so I share this:  songs written by total strangers whom I would prefer not to meet.