track 37: heal it up

During my days at MDCC, I traveled around on buses a lot. I think I'd do stuff just to get out of the house, which is the complete opposite of the way I am today. Often on Tuesdays, I'd take the bus down to South Miami where I'd pick up new CDs the day they came out at Specs on US-1 and then see a movie at the Riviera movie theatre next door. I remember the most: Deee-Lite's Infinity Within, The Lemonheads Come on Feel the Lemonheads, being insanely excited about buying Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's - a collection of hits, rarities and three new tracks by my beloved Go-Go's! I remember unwrapping The Essential Divinyls before catching My Own Private Idaho for the second time and even seeing Jurassic Park there by myself. Sometimes I'd even skip classes entirely and just go for a movie and a trip to Specs.



However, one Tuesday towered above all the others. October 19, 1993. That was the day that Concrete Blonde's Mexican Moon was coming out. I was terribly excited. I had even got a postcard from their mailing list, The Happy Hermit, saying that a limited number of the CDs would come prepackaged with Dream 6, an EP released in 1983 before taking the name Concrete Blonde. This was like my holy grail. I went into Specs incredibly psyched. You couldn't go too early or else they wouldn't have unpacked everything. But there it was, Mexican Moon! Only no Dream 6! I left and walked down to Dadeland Mall and checked the record stores there.

This was no easy feat. Because my feet were not at ease. Since high school, I had been having recurring problems with my big toe. The toenail kept growing far into my flesh. Somewhere around this time, I had a tiny surgery that resulted in half of my toenail being removed. I remember that it happened to be the same day that Concrete Blonde was performing on "MTV Live" which was a pre-TRL show and I was bummed about A) surgery, hello... and B) missing CB. My stepfather taped it for me (see, not all bad) so I could watch it when I got home. (And then commented during the interview sequence that Harry Rushakoff, the band's drummer "looked like a fairy" so there you go.) Here's a clip of them performing their cover of "Everybody knows" which I'm pretty sure is from that show:



Despite the discomfort of, you know, walking, I walked to Dadeland and none of the stores there had the fabled Mexican Moon - Dream 6 combination. But Mexican Moon was good enough for me. It was another amazing album by my favorite band. I loved the single, "Heal it up" as well as the title track and the beautiful "Rain." Concrete Blonde was always a band who had really great CD singles. I love their b-sides as much as anything else they did. This time they released singles for "Heal it up" and "Mexican moon" that had a cover of Bob Dylan's "Simple twist of fate" and a live version of the Tears for Fears song "Shout" that kicked. ass.



Soon after Mexican Moon, Concrete Blonde broke up. There was a great collection of b-sides called Still in Hollywood and eventually a collection of singles called Recollection. I was absolutely crushed, but the promise of some new projects involving Johnette cheered me up. The first would be a collaboration with Holly Vincent on Mammoth Records that was called Vowel Movement. It was fun enough at the time, but I think that only a couple of songs made their way to my ipod a decade later. Much better was her collaboration with Marc Moreland of Wall of Voodoo, called Pretty & Twisted. They released one self-titled album on Warner Brothers and it was really great, including songs like "¡Ride!" and my favorite, "The highs are too high." She would also combine forces with Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads for their No Talking, Just Head album, featuring the original band without David Byrne and a rotating cast of singers. Johnette would be the main singer for their tour. Soon after this, Johnette & CB guitarist Jim Mankey collaborated with a band called Los Illegals for an album called Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals. Word was that it was a one-off thing and that Johnette would release a solo project soon. But for that, we'd have to wait a decade.



(I eventually did get Dream 6 when it was made available for sale through the awesome CD Baby website. It's good early stuff and includes an early version of Mexican Moon's "Rain.")


next time: "i want a boyfriend • i want all that stupid old shit like letters and sodas"