Somewhere in the foggy recesses of reminiscent interactions with Dan “Dad” Shea, mixed influence & jittery cool, dark day summer afternoon grass stain long train ride but it doesn’t matter cause it’s better than sitting alone in your basement & cheeb is always higher in the sun. I’m not sure which side is first but usually I start with the “At Risk Youth” side of the not titled LP by the Needy Visions & I usually start it with some family-history-of-addiction-type game but really it doesn’t matter to me maybe who knows & remembers when I said something about it & sang in an empty room & it was jus you & me for the first time maybe the last time we did dance don’t you know. But don’t worry this isn’t a love letter & for sure this isn’t the best record to come outta Boston (so let’s not start gushing here or drafting restraining orders because the best record to come outta boston is..well fuck who am I to say? Best is boring anyway cause there’s nowhere to go after best, best is like solipsism & I’m bored) but it’s damn better than most. This record forces itself into grand company whenever I arrange my records by which ones’ covers are crotch/ass pix (so far I got this one, Born in the USA, Sticky Fingers, & After the Gold Rush I let in because the back cover is the butt (if anyone has more to add to this list please bring them over, have a margarita & leave them on leave with this guy)) & dammit if it doesn’t fit right in we’re talking rock & roll my dude.
This is a salad days record when bringing a bottle of booze is no longer a trip on it’s own but has yet to become the standard & the promise of a new record store or fresh freaks is worth the commuter rail transfer because who the fuck knows maybe I’ll find this record there, or the Positively 4th Street 45 but that’s not the point– instead that we remember that there are things worth doing regardless of getting your swerve on & d*** s****** so I should drive & we eventually have to wake up but maybe for that exact reason it’s worth ravishing.
Songs about love are way different than love songs & songs about drinking are way different than drinking songs & sometimes when you’re way down & you know you can’t know it (at least right now let’s always hope for daybreak even if it means the party oughtta end it’s more important that the world keep spinning & did I mention we eventually have to wake up (anyway)?) it’s not helpful to hear someone 99 bottles of the beer on the wall-ing their way through a song, but instead & better that nobody knows her when she’s down & out either. Bootleg liquor champagne & wine. Songs are for it, but songs about it are for us cause let’s try to be honest & say that when yr in love (ever been in love? Hard to say thinking past tense cause there’s all these questions about the durability of love & if it lasts for ever then how come I feel so different about her now & if it’s in moments then what’s so special cause I fall in love every day) & things are cooking nicely, you don’t really need to hear it because you’re having it which is way better than any shmuck sung weeper, just like when boozing along nicely. It’s when things aren’t cooking so well & you’re lost looking out some window & hoping either for some contact or just a mother fucker to contact with or something to drink or when the drink really has you down wondering whether it’ll ever flow quite like it did when you sat on the stoop sophomore year of college and sweetly serenaded the entire dorm cluster with jug wine & garth brooks & mostly everyone hated it but one or two people came over later & you don’t quite remember it all the way but you’re pretty sure you had lots of fun & so you put on that garth brooks song (you know which one, there is only one I know so hopefully you know the one I’m talking about here) & as much as that’s a drinking song, it’s really a song about drinking which is why it’s a good song & not so much masterbation.
& can I just digress for a minute here to talk to you about that feeling, or really post-feeling cause the point is that it’s over even if you’re still feeling so even tho its a feeling it’s more appropriate in this situation to call it a post-feeling, when there is a #1 kinda cutie ya wanna kiss & maaybe it was in the cards & it’s late & you’ve been drinking wine & some kinda digestive from Sicily & smokin’ cigarettes out the window cause, now, in what is nearly a unique situation it actually is more home appropriate to smoke out the window than it is to climb out the window & smoke on the sorta-porch but you realize that really even tho it’s maybe in the cards, in the deck, as I am possible then so she is possible, in this the best of all possible worlds, it’s really not the time or the place or maybe it could be the place and even maybe it could be the time but it’s clear now that it is not both the time & the place & so you go home & feel a little bummed but mostly good because you didn’t fuck up & you are not a fuck up, but instead you realized the importance of time & place & chances are you read correctly so it’s not quite as good as good would be if you kissed the cutie & even better the cutie kissed you in & during the appropriate time & place but still chill. Even if it way wasn’t in the cards.
So, look, quit thinking about what I’ve said & quit thinking about what the record might make you feel. Quit thinking about what it might sound like & don’t even think about thinking about what influenced it or what it influenced because even tho this could be called a record review the whole g**** d** point is just that you go listen to it & figure out for yourself whether it’s a piece of trash or not (because those are really the only two categories records fall in & most of them are in the first & even if I think this one, the Needy Visions, remember?, is in the second you shouldn’t care what I think because chances are you don’t know me & what difference would that make anyway? Don’t be a stooge) & the only way to do that is for it to find a place in your fucked up (or normal?) life. & right now I’m listening to Iris Dement & she said just like they said nothing good ever lasts but at least wax plays so go go go get outta here you bother me.
by James Cobb aka James Coarse aka James Shorts
