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"

track 28: ghost of a texas ladies man b/w someday?

Spring of 1992. I'm at Sound Warehouse (WHY do I want to type "Sound Wherehouse" every time?? Can I get some confirmation on this? It was on Kendall Drive and is now a Bed Bath & Beyond...) with my dad, browsing. The way that I do. At this point I am still in school, but unemployed. The previous fall, I had what I now know to be THE GREATEST JOB EVER. In fact, now that I think about it, I may have been back during that spring, I'm not sure. The job was simple, customer-free and I could listen to music the whole time. You know when you're in school and you have the whole fundraising thing where you get catalogs and try to sell stuff- usually Christmas or Easter time- tins with candy or stuffed animals, etcetera? My job was going through the order sheets, finding the merchandise in the warehouse and filling up bags and boxes properly. Another plus? There were like three employees and two of them were friends of my mom, which is how I got the job. It was fun at the time, but in retrospect, total bliss and a piece of cake. But sadly, a seasonal gig.



Anyway, if I wasn't picking up Easter shifts there, I was either saving my allowance or saving up my lunch money by eating snack machine food. At the music store, I see the CD single for a new Concrete Blonde song called "Ghost of a Texas ladies' man." And I think "meh" (only not because that word wasn't in usage yet) because if you read my entry about "Joey", you may recall that I wasn't so crazy about Bloodletting. However, it also has their cover of "Everybody knows" on it. I had the soundtrack to the film Pump Up the Volume on cassette and loved that song. I buy it. I find myself really liking "Ghost." I also like the remix of "Bloodletting (the vampire song)." And their cover of Nick Cave's "The ship song." In fact, I like it all. I give another listen to Bloodletting and find myself enjoying it more than before.





Cut to March 10, 1992. I'm out at Dadeland Mall with my mom, Dave & his friend Nick. We browse through another music store and right at the front, in the new releases and just out that day is Walking in London. I buy it and... I LOVE IT. From the single to "Someday?" and "Long time ago" the whole album just rocks. It becomes all I listen to. I go out and find the two earlier albums, Concrete Blonde and what would end up being my very favorite CB album, Free. There was just something about Johnette Napolitano's voice, the stories she told in her songs, that suddenly clicked with me.



After that, Concrete Blonde has always been one of my favorite bands. My very favorite bands, up there with Bic Runga, Travis, Indigo Girls and Aimee Mann/'til tuesday. Not just, "oh I love them." I LOVE them. I had to have anything I could find by them, every single, every rarity. T-shirts? Yes please! Baseball cap? Uh-huh. I even wanted to get a tattoo of the sun/moon art that graces the cover of Free and Walking in London. But I never got to see them play. The album after London would be their last (for a long while) as they went their separate ways. Which is why it always kills me that in high school, when Kristi and I were going to go see Sting, with Concrete Blonde opening, we changed our minds and saw Slaughter and Poison instead. WHY??!?!?!?? Since then, I've followed Johnette's career through the many projects she worked on in between Concrete Blonde and her eventual solo album, Scarred.

It's interesting to me that a band who I had shrugged off a year earlier, could suddenly become my biggest obsession. What's funny is that it would happen again. A couple of times, most recently with singer/songwriter Regina Spektor. But the next time it happened on a much bigger scale.

track 21: Joey

I had seen the video for Concrete Blonde's single, "Joey," on MTV and really liked it. I had the cassette single, which also featured a b-side called "I want you" (that was later played in the film Point Break as Keanu Reeves watched Lori Petty from a distance. Lucky girl...) I loved both songs and really wanted their album, Bloodletting.



Around this time, Sting was on tour and Concrete Blonde was opening for him in Miami. Kristi and I were thinking about going, because she liked Sting & I liked "Joey." Then a Slaughter/Poison or some such pairing was announced and we decided to go to that one instead. At the end of the year, my family went up to Ocala to visit my Granny for New Year's Eve. She always gave us cash on our birthdays & sometimes for Christmas, so on the way home from Ocala, I think I pestered my mom so much that we stopped at Sound Warehouse before even going to our house! I bought Bloodletting and... I didn't like it that much.

...to be continued about 8 songs from here. For now, check out the video for "Joey" on YouTube!
Also, listen to "I want you" while gazing at Keanu's beauty: