initially, I love everyone, or at least I try

All in all, moving to Australia for three months to stay with my dear friend P. was actually one of the better things I've done in my young life. Sure, I had my qualms with Brisbane (I mean, the weather was hot as hell), and yeah, it was all a little irresponsible of me looking back, but I really believed in what I was doing and I did it regardless. If anything, I'm mainly ashamed of my lack of resolve in following through with my desire to really travel around that part of the globe.

One of the traps I fell into in Australia was remembering how good a friend P. was, realizing that I didn't want to move on as much as I just wanted to hang out with him. We'd met in Denmark, finally mingling on one of the last days of our orientation there. We had both recently beaten Resident Evil and we could both recite our favorite verses from Enter the 36 Chambers, so it was resolved pretty quickly that we should become fast friends. Recently I wrote a rather lengthy piece about how much his friendship means to me (but I didn't post it here as it definitely dipped its toes into the private end of the sharing pool ... I might revise it a little and put it up, we'll see, as this whole thing is going to definitely illuminate my privacy a little as well, why keep pretending?) so finally seeing him again in Australia was a very big deal. Basically P. is one of the most influential people I've ever met in my life, so spending time with him in Australia was a great thing.

One of our rituals with each other was watching this weekend program, I can't remember what it was called now, but it was just hours and hours of music videos, and instead of the incredibly lame, short-term memory deprived, teen-oriented programming which saturates all the MTV channels, this station would dig into vaults to choose videos I was actually interested in seeing. Another cool thing was they would allow guests hosts, usually American bands who were touring Australia at the time, program the whole show to their liking. Probably the best one of these that we saw together was the Black Eyed Peas, before they had that album with the Justin Timberlake single and all kinds of commercial success, when they were still interesting musicians and a cool rap group and not some cheesy pop group with a token hot chick singing about humps or lumps or whatever it is. When they were still cool, is what I'm saying.

That night the Peas' programming was great. If there was a song that they sampled or borrowed from, they would play it, tipping their hand to all kinds of basslines and hooks they had used. They also programmed just lots of great hip hop stuff because, like I said, they were still a good hip hop band at this point and they had good taste to back it up. One band they played, which they neither sampled from nor was it hip hop, was Stereolab. I had maybe heard the name before, or had someone recommend it to me, or maybe I just thought the name Stereolab was instantly cool, but I remember that one video very much. It wasn't your typical video, with a performance or some weird story line, it was just animated lines and designs, with large bricks of solid color moving around and lines jumping in between, and a really interesting song to keep it all moving along. I was intrigued.

I eventually returned to the States and I missed P. I was more settled, earning money now so that I had a little disposable income, and I started a long flirtation with Stereolab. I had decided that I wanted one of their CDs, but I wasn't sure which one. Every time I went to the record store there were lots of them, and they all had beautiful covers like this:






Straight lines and solid colors and cool design, I was definitely drawn in.

I spent a long time flipping through bins, going to different record stores, comparing prices, seeing which ones had the most songs and all that. I hadn't known anyone who was interested in Stereolab, no one who had recommended them to me or told me about them or let me listen to them so I was more or less on my own trying to find my way into their catalogue. Eventually I settled on this album:



I have a very strong memory of it because I got home and was eager to finally listen to the band that I'd been flirting with for the past month or so. I'd purchased a few albums that day, but Stereolab was definitely getting the first listen. I went home and settled in, preparing to play some sort of video game on my PC while I listened to my new music. Actually getting something done while listening to Stereolab, though, was wishful thinking. I think it's totally appropriate to say that I wasn't prepared for how much I would love this band.

Within two or three minutes of the first song I had to sit down and just listen. There was bizarre retro sounding instruments, there was musical self-indulgence as the first song went on for 9 minutes just building around this repeating French horn blast, it was jazzy and dance-y all at the same time, vocals were sparse, the song kept building throughout, and it was absolutely unlike anything I'd ever heard before. I was hooked.

I sat and listened to the entire CD front to back without doing anything else. I remember telling myself that even if the rest of the CD was garbage it was all okay because of that first song. Of course, it only got better from that first song, and by the time the album was over I had developed a new love. I was having a difficult time understanding how this music had been out there all this time and no one I knew had told me about it. What kind of friends did I have that would allow such a thing to pass me by? What had I been doing with my life when I wasn't listening to this stuff? Were all the other albums as good as this one? How was this not the most famous band that ever lived? Beatles shmeatles, in one listening I was ready to name Stereolab the greatest band ever.

I went to the record store first thing the next day and purchased two or three more albums. Even though the urge was there to just buy the whole bin, I realized that I would have to work my way through the albums slowly, taking the time to learn and absorb each one. I mean, maybe you think all this description here is stupid, but I'm dead serious about all this. I really fell in love with Stereolab that day and it really was a pretty profound moment for me, and I really have spent a good amount of time since then acquiring and obsessing over their albums. Maybe it's a problem with me, maybe it's a problem with everyone else for not getting it, but in a completely non-ironic and hopefully not overly cliche'ed way, I can say that Stereolab is one of the most influential things I've ever encountered in my life.

Now that I've lived with Stereolab for a while it's gained all those personal and sentimental ties that music inevitably does. I can't help but think of E. when I tell the story above, because I remember being super excited to tell her all about what I had just discovered. Of course there's P., who starts the story, and now there's L. and D. who I've discovered share my love (to an extent), R. who was the first person wise enough to get me some of their music as a gift, and all the other passing characters in my life that end up connected to the music. There are the places which get pulled in, like my room when I first heard that album, the numerous record bins I've dug through (I can specifically remember purchasing the brown covered album above in the Amoeba on Telegraph), my sunny, small apartment where I probably spent the most time listening to the band. It's what happens with all good music, but because Stereolab has been such a constant for me these past few years it's managed to work itself into an awful lot of my personal associations.

And so I recently had the opportunity to see Stereolab live in concert. My frothing fandom has died down a little (but as evidenced by this very post, I mean just a little). It was a good time, Laetitia Sadier became my new Offial #1 Celebrity Crush, and the music was beautiful.

But to be honest in the end I was actually more pleased with getting to see my old friends in the Bay Area. Spending time with M. and L. was the real highlight.

The reminder of what it's like to see dear friends inspired me to head to Portland in the last week as well. N. was up there and I missed him. It was simple for me to head to Seattle and spend some time with S., and even if we haven't been in constant contact with each other before last week, it was of no concern. When I'm around the people dearest to me it's always easy to remember our relationship. Things come easily and I'm always made happy without even trying. And again, I don't want this to be too cliche'ed and I don't mean for it to be ironic or anything, but there's nothing I value more than my friends.

So in some ways I guess Stereolab is another friend of mine, except they travel with me wherever I go. Sometimes I go through stages where I don't listen to them that much, but then whenever I do throw an album on all my other music suddenly starts sounding pale again. They're no substitute for my real, breathing, living, thinking friends, I know, but they're pretty good filler when no one else is around.

When I got back from the concert I obviously hit the back catalogue pretty hard. I made it a point to listen through all the Stereolab albums again without listening to anything else, and there's lots of albums. While this type of obsessive listening habits might make most people sick of whatever music they're hearing so much, it just makes me love Stereolab that much more. One of the songs that I got the opportunity to hear again was K-Stars, from the Peng! album that is their early material, good but not nearly as inspired as their later stuff. And for those of you who have read this far, this would more or less be the point of this whole post, the thing I'm trying to get at, the real connection I'm trying to make. K-Stars has great lyrics which always make me think of my beautiful friends, and how much I miss them:

They were young
in their mid-twenties
some in their teens
They were intelligent
and some believed
were geniuses
They were passionate
wildly in love
adventurous
Well they were exuberant
capable of hate
extreme anger
They were drawn
towards the exceptional
They avoided work
but worked hard on their laziness
and evermore
it seems they walked
wandering through Paris
was a genuine art

Now I'm not really one for bad poetry or false sentiments, but this song has always struck a chord with me. It's succinct and direct and it doesn't appear to have any winking or nudging or disingenuousness in it at all. It's an un-self-concious description of what I think we all dream about at this age, being inspired, finding an art, making a difference, being with other people who can help us along the way. Nobody wants to be ordinary, and I know I definitely don't want to be haning out with ordinary people either. I have my whole life ahead of me and I wouldn't mind if I was able to do some great things with it, whether it is on a large or a small scale, just something, on some level, which breaks from our stale everyday routines.

I've known great people -- R. who's off in New York now, A. who's finding happiness in the Santa Cruz mountains, D. and H. who are sailing in South America, N. who's finding his way in Portland, ditto for M. and D. and H. up there, P. who starts the story who's now moved on to Tokyo, our M. in San Francisco who, despite her craziness, probably has it more together than I ever will, S. who I just saw in Seattle making things happen like only she can, E. at the bookstore who might still have some love for me, A. and C. and D. and N. and R. and A. again here in Arcata trying hard to make a difference. There's a lot of people I've known in my short life, struggling through our youth in much the same way, trying to do something genius or inspired or novel or new, and I swear, if we could all just get together in one place it would be as simple as can be.

So even I'm not certain exactly what point I'm trying to make here. Maybe it's an attempt to eulogize my wasted youth, or perhaps it just illuminates my recent loneliness, or maybe I just want to flatter my distant friends who take the time to read these things, who knows. Mainly it's just talking about myself, which is secretly everyone's favorite pasttime. At least I can say that it is all in earnest and that, at least a little, in spots, with unknown degrees of real success, I'm trying for once.