Wire and other palette cleansers
"The island monkeys love the dark
No one is home, they've gone for a walk
The island monkeys love the dark
No one is home, the chemicals talk"
One of the best shows I've seen, easily in the top ten, was Wire at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta. I was there alone taking photos for a zine. It was a quarter century after their debut. They had a new album out and they refused to play any of their old material and taunted the audience over it. It was fantastic.
When most people think of Wire, they rightly hold their first three albums, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 in high esteem. Their second iteration in the late 80's is also chock full of great work. This is also true of their entire discography. A bell is a cup...until it is struck and the follow up It's beginning to and back again (IBTABA) are great examples. The second album reinterprets a few songs from the previous. One in particular, "The Finest Drops" is the kind of song that wormed its way into my head. It's the type of song I don't listen to every day or month or even year. But I use it as a palette cleanser when I need to get rid of the other music I've been listening to. I'm using it now, and that is a deliberate turn of phrase. It's a remedy.
If all goes well, in one week's time, the ad agency where I am a freelance creative director will launch a very large campaign for a car company. It's been a long grueling process which has taken over half a year but it's almost over, thank the lord.
The campaign is unusual in that it feels more like a perfume ad than a car commercial. It's very CG heavy, the director and DP are A-list. Many teeth were pulled to get there, many battles fought in the ongoing war for creative respectability.
Personally, the biggest casualty in this process is the first commercial's soundtrack. It is a cover of a song that was huge in the 90's by a band whose singer passed away tragically last year. I vividly remember when this song came out. It was inescapable. It transports me back to a certain time and place best left in the dark. It's about as welcome as the winter shock you give yourself as a result of touching a doorknob.
The person currently mixing the spot has a completely different opinion to it. He is a huge fan of the band. And even though the song is a cover, I see him being transported back there daily.
I imagine life fragments appearing before him. Basements and parties, first dates and making out in cars. Dramatic teenage angst and fights, Break ups and make ups. Smell of sweaty never ending summers. Walking home because he missed the bus. Grounded for the weekend for sneaking out. Being stood up, conquering the night. Fretting over SATs and college exams. The inevitableness of change that comes in senior year. Change you can taste. The friends you swear allegiance to, who won't remember you next fall. And with every summer returning, some friends fall by the wayside, While others if you're lucky remain eternal. Or semi-eternal. All the momentous, flitting occasions.
Listen, buddy. If you heard this song approximately 50 times a day for nearly 45 days straight you'd find ways to occupy yourself, too. Projecting childhood memories on my mixer to occupy my time is all I can do to endure the session. When I come home from the mixing studio or the edit bay and try to sleep, this song haunts my subconscious. Lyrics echo endlessly. I'm trying not to lose my mind.
That's where "The Finest Drops" comes in. Unlike the cover song coming to a TV station or Youtube pre-roll near you, Wire has the decency to write cryptic lyrics. N one needs to be beaten over the head with obvious. I also appreciate repetitive simplicity. Instruments become less instrumental, more textural. Power generators and pistons and buildings.