Monitor Down

A few years ago I worked at an Internet company next to a tall, lanky English guy (I’ll call him “Fred”) who seemed to know a lot more about music than your average corporate Web hack. He had well-developed opinions on bands I’d heard of and ones I hadn’t, and introduced me to a couple of very interesting groups.

Come to find out after several months that he was actually part of a little-known cult band back in the ’80s, a jangle-pop band from London called the Siddeleys. Though they were short lived (seeming mostly to be active from 1986 to 1988), they managed to catch the eye of BBC broadcaster John Peel, who was impressed by front woman Johnny Johnson’s almost Morrissey-like delivery. Peel invited the band to record one of his famous Peel Sessions, which yielded, among others, the track “My Favourite Wet Wednesday Afternoon” — one of the best-sounding indie tracks I’ve heard in a while.

Though the song is a little redundant (it could use an instrumental bridge somewhere after the third chorus), lyrically it contains imagery very evocative of a wet, nostalgic London afternoon. Lines like “Love that moves the sun, heaven and all the stars / This is just a fraction of what is rightfully ours” and  “I’ll take my dream to the grave with me if you don’t say something soon” are perfect for such a velvety-smooth Britpop track. The harmonies will echo in your memory for days. Thanks, Fred.

(Album available on Amazon)

Reprinted from my Cinema Blend article.

I don’t get goose bumps very often. Occasionally I’ll be sitting alone some cool, quiet night with headphones on, and I will feel a chill, mixed with the tingle of awe that occasionally comes with a really good song. If I had more time to sit still, it might happen more often.

But sometimes it doesn’t have to wait for the right time.

It happened to me the other day, in fact – on a hot day, maneuvering through traffic on the way home from work. And it makes sense, considering the song. It was The Smiths’ “Suffer Little Children,” possibly the creepiest pop song ever written.

This song doesn’t endeavor to be morose like Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” or Halloweeny like Type O Negative’s “Black no. 1” (or any other Type O Negative song…). This one is unassuming, quiet, beautiful and innocent – and entirely haunting. Part of the reason has to do with what it is about.

The last track on The Smiths’ first album is about a series of murders. Specifically the Moors Murders, a string of extremely violent child killings that took place around Manchester in the ‘60s.

Between 1963 and 1965, Scottish stock clerk Ian Brady and his girlfriend, Myra Hindley, persuaded five children between the ages of 10 and 17 to follow them to various places, where Brady mercilessly tortured and then killed them. Hindley watched while Brady raped, hacked and strangled his victims with string or cord, nearly decapitating one of them. The couple then buried the corpses on a dreary field north of the A635 road, west of Oldham, called Saddleworth Moor. Four of the bodies were found over the next twenty years, one never was.
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