Dear Friends,
Life has been hitting kinda hard lately. To be honest, the idea of drinking has crossed my mind for a few seconds here and there. There was a moment over the weekend where I looked at a beer and thought, “That looks pretty damn good.”
It was a fleeting thought, though. The next thought that hit my mind was that it wouldn’t take long at all for my brain to be right back to where it was at the end of 2023. It brought a rapidly advancing feeling of guilt and a little shame, too. I don’t want to feel that way because of alcohol ever again.
One of the things I’ve come to realize is that I was very good at hiding just how much I wanted to drink. Luckily, I didn’t let it go very often, but when I was in a situation where I could feel comfortable enough to do so, I drank to an extent that would scare me. These were moments where I felt like it would be acceptable to go overboard because it was “normal” behavior for the moment.
These things are starting to become clearer to me as I get a little farther away from drinking. It’s been almost three months and I’m feeling pretty darn good. I haven’t had any cannabis in almost two months and that feels right, too. The clarity in my head is something I am growing to like more and more.
I’ve been trying to justify using either alcohol or cannabis in small amounts in the future, and maybe it is too soon to have these thoughts, but I’m trying hard to remember what I enjoyed about either thing. I can’t use the excuse that I sleep better when I have a little buzz, but I don’t. I can’t use the excuse that I like the feeling of it and again, I don’t remember liking the feeling of either except that it allowed me to escape for a while but now that I’m sober, I don’t want to escape from anything.
Mindset updates complete. I’m in a good place. It’s weird sometimes and feels a bit unfamiliar at times, but I like how I feel.
*****
I sincerely need to get more time in The Bet land. I’ve been laying out some thoughts on what happens next and I’m pretty jazzed about it. I also have a few new ideas I really want to play with, too.
These record things keep getting in the way.
*****
I was in 7th grade in October of 1981. The key things on my mind in those days were things like playing video games, watching movies, and getting into Mr. Casey’s basketball game at lunchtime. I was twelve years old.
Mr. Casey was my science teacher. He was an interesting fellow, to say the least, and could be a bit gruff. My friend, Matt K., was in that class with me and he enjoyed getting Mr. Casey wound up a bit. We were all a little too smart for our own good, I think, or at least we thought so. Mr. Casey was having none of that shit.
Everyday, though, at lunch he would play basketball on the court outside of the portable where his class was located. He would change into basketball clothes, and we would play for 20 minutes or so. I don’t really remember how long the lunch period was for us in those days. It seemed like the games lasted for a long time.
I usually wanted to be on the other team. It was fun to beat a teacher. As I think back, he played with a lot of restraint. He could have easily dominated every game, but he acted more as a facilitator than a superstar. Hopefully he didn’t do it so he could brush up against pubescent boys. I don’t think that was the case at all. He never came off as creepy.
One thing I was oblivious to in those fall days of the year and month I turned 12 was the release of Bauhaus’ second album, Mask. I wouldn’t discover it for another three years, give or take. I was partial to it in a lot of ways, but mostly because I had scored an incredible poster and if you had the poster on your wall, you better know the record.
Mask is a really contemplative record. The band was trying to show they were more than a dark, brooding gimmick with big guitars and a great singer. “Hair of the Dog” sets the tone so nicely. Drummer Kevin Haskins plays this slightly robotic, slightly tribal-ish drum beat with Daniel Ash’s guitar feedback sliding all over it while bassist David J and singer Peter Murphy deliver their parts with sheer economy of movement and pitch.
It’s really brilliant in its manic yet restrained function. “Hair of the Dog” was a song that I didn’t really like when I was 15 or 16 because I didn’t get it. I wanted to be wowed right in my face, not prodded to think and feel slowly. The ability to be both in your face and in your head is one of the reasons Bauhaus were such a great band.
“The Passion of Lovers” is a more ‘classic’ Bauhaus kind of song. It’s very dramatic and there is spooky stuff going on in the background thanks to the addition of keyboards to this record. Where “Hair of the Dog” was cerebral, “The Passion of Lovers” goes right for the groin as the title suggests.
Things start to really blossom (pardon the pun) for me with “Of Lilies and Remains.” It’s weird and disjointed and the spoken word/sing-talk approach is something I love when they employ it. Bauhaus were so good at painting pictures with their lyrics and this song is a fine example of such.
The party continues with “Dancing.” David J’s bassline is quite tasty. Whatever effects they used to get the tone were fucking brilliant. He and Murphy shine on this one, but it’s really the whole band doing their thing that brings it all together.
“Hollow Hills” must’ve been meant to be something of a palate cleanser as it really brings down the mood and pace of the album. Having said that, though, I do enjoy the song. I’ve always liked the gated reverb on Murphy’s vocals. I used to play around with this tone a lot in the early days of Hillbilly. My Alesis Midiverb could make it happen.
Mr. Kevin Haskins plays a mean hi-hat in “Kick in the Eye.” This is another one of those Bauhaus songs where he and David J play the meat of the song and Ash is allowed to just make noise. I love it. Maybe the best song on the record…I don’t know if I can pick just one here, to be honest, but it’s really, really good.
“Ooooh, oooh, oooh, kick in the eye!” Perfection.
David J is again charge as “In Fear of Fear” moves forward, but the saxophone from Ash is also quite righteous. The middle of Mask is just so strong. These songs set the stage for the next few albums so nicely. “In Fear of Fear” is Bauhaus in all their noisy glory.
“Muscle in Plastic” is another forgotten Bauhaus gem. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone talk about it or read something written about it. I don’t think I’m the first person to discuss it, but I probably am today. It makes me wonder about the long-term legacy of Bauhaus, or maybe just this record.
I think history will be relatively kind to the band, but some of their antics in the end might be what many people remember. They cancelled Phoenix the last time and then broke up for good. That kind of sucks, but “Muscle in Plastic” is still weird and great.
Earlier I wrote that I couldn’t pick just one favorite on this record, but I’m changing that to “The Man With X-Ray Eyes.” I forget how much I love this song. It all boils down to Murphy’s harrowing part in the bridge. “I’ve seen too much, wipe away my eyes.” That line just kills me every time and it takes me back to when I first heard the record.
Like many of my peers, Bauhaus was a band that could take me to dark places and also pull me out of them, but not before I wallowed there for a while. That line about “wiping away my eyes” just resonated with me in those days. The 80s were great and terrible and scary and crazy. I wouldn’t want to go back, that’s for sure, unless it was to see a show.
“Mask” is a powerful four and a half minutes. It sums up the record well and let’s the band flex a few muscles before saying farewell until “The Sky’s Gone Out” would come out in 1983.
“The shadow is cast.”
*****
See you tomorrow.
Big sucker, you know.
Hundreds of years older than
I can imagine.
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