More like Closed-Eye

One of the most fruitful friendships that I've formed in my life has been with Duff, who I'm certain I've mentioned on here before. Duff and I met through going to punk shows in Ontario with mutual friends. We weren't nearly as close as we eventually became then, mostly because I was deep into my party phase and Duff was nailed to the X.

Note: Duff is my only friend who remained edge. Kudos to him.

We became much closer after I joined Beat Noir and we realized that we had much more in common than we initially thought. We both loved reading, both loved keeping up with #peakTV, had similar politics, and actually both loved a lot of the same music (neither of us would have guessed the last bit). We talk pretty much every day and have had a running conversation for I don't know how many years.

A quick aside: Duff used to work in Guelph and would give me a lift home from campus on Fridays. We would have really funny conversations on the ride home and I joked about starting a podcast that was just a recording of us talking shit during this drive. We obviously never did, but this is the only good podcast idea I have ever had and it is the only one I will ever consider actually doing.

At the start of quarantine, Duff came up with the idea that we would give the other an album they hadn't heard to listen to during that week and we then established these rules.

The listener must:

1) listen to the album from start to finish in one sitting
2) consult all notes given by the recommender while listening
3) read the relevant Wikipedia pages for the album

After that we reconvene and talk about what we thought. It's been a nice thing to do each week and has made me revisit my own collection of music more critically, rather than just living on my Spotify homepage and the playlist of things that came out this year. Both of us have had hits (Duff showing me a late-60s Kinks record and me showing him Thin Lizzy's Fighting) and both of us have tortured the other person a little bit too (Duff listening to the Raspberries and me listening to Faust).

Today I was worn out from a bike ride downtown to get a COVID test. Turns out that going right from learning to riding into the city is stressful. When I got home, I was in a bad mood, but something that helped mitigate that was checking out Duff's recommendation for the week, the Cocteau Twins' Heaven or Las Vegas.

Duff described them as UK post-punk's most ethereal band and that tracks. I had actually checked out an earlier release of theirs a couple of weeks ago, but for whatever reason that album didn't stick with me at all. This one was instead a dreamy, immersive way to escape the frustrated feelings that I was stewing in. For a moment, I thought it might be too adult contemporary for me, but that was only a passing feeling. This is what bad adult contemporary thinks it sounds like. Layers upon layers of vocals and effects that can take you away to another place for a little bit.

Before you thinking that I'm getting all highbrow pop critic on you though, I then turned to a Japanese ska-punk release I recently discovered and learned a bass tapping pattern.