Dear Friends,
Taking things one moment at a time is not always easy for me. My brain is always thinking about things that might, will, should, or can happen in the future. So much so that I forget to just be present right here in the now. In that capacity, today is just another day, but my goal for today is to just embrace it and do the best I can to make it great.
If I do that, for today, and be present, I can start off the school year with a great first step towards being an excellent leader for my team. I can get easily distracted (as you might have noticed by reading this blog) and those distractions cost me as much or more than they give me. I shudder to check that particular balance sheet.
Yesterday was a day to get a few things done and I’m happy to say that I got a few things done. I also got a little reading in, a nap, and I made some hamburgers.
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I’ve been working on editing The Bet here and there. I outlined where I think it should go and I am going back and doing some edits that I think will help clean it up a bit and get the story more in line with how I see the middle and ending going. I will put the revisions up behind the wall for site members when I get that done. I’ve also written a little bit of brand-new stuff, too.
I really want to start putting it in the daily blog again because it motivates me to write a lot more, but I understand what my friend said about publishers being reluctant to work with a piece of work that has been available for free. It’s a tough one.
Because of this, I’m thinking of distracting myself more often here in the daily to write little bits of fiction like the one I did yesterday. Just practicing the craft a bit more. I suppose I should put a spoiler on these sections to save you from reading if you’re not interested in the background nonsense of a frustrated fiction writer.
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Last blog of July 2024 ends now.
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Last record of July 2024 starts now:
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Like most people in my age range, I have been listening to Modern English on some level for over 80% of my life. There is almost no way there is a human being over fifty on this planet who has not heard “I Melt With You” at least once. If you have participated in some level of American culture (even from a foreign country) and are not deaf, you are aware of this song.
What many are not aware of, like me up until not very long ago, is how fucking good the album that “I Melt With You” actually is. After The Snow came out in 1982 and it is really, really good. My good buddy and former bandmate, Bobby, used to say how great the Modern English stuff was, and I would always be like, “Yes, it is” but I never really spent any quality time with their records.
I had listened to After The Snow here and there over the years with friends or on Spotify, but I had allowed it to be background music. I knew I liked it, but I never committed. Then I got an interview with Michael Conroy, the band’s excellent bassist and all-around great dude and that was that. I was all in.
I bought my first copy of the vinyl last year.
Obviously, “I Melt With You” is a great song. It has a prominent role in one of my all-time favorite films (and one of the best soundtracks ever), Valley Girl, and was even used by Burger King for a commercial. That says something.
It’s not the best song on After The Snow, though. For me, I like “Someone’s Calling” and “Life in the Gladhouse” just as much. Those are the first two tracks on the record, and they start things off with a wonderful vibe.
After The Snow perfectly epitomizes the pieces of 80s new wave that were not dominated by day glo imagery and people bopping around. This is thinking person’s new wave. This is the new wave I like the most.
“Someone’s Calling” has the coolest guitar line that starts it off that runs over a kind of marching beat before morphing into something that you could actually dance to (and look cool doing so if you knew the right moves). In 1982 I didn’t have that kind of confidence in my moves, but I would have danced to this at one of the Madison Meadows dances for sure.
“Face of Wood” is actually quite awesome, too. I think I always had the misconception that all of the Modern English stuff would sound just like “I Melt With You” and “Face of Wood” doesn’t sound like it at all. It’s got that same sort of quality that Joy Division (although much less dark) had where the songs are really well put together but still catchy in a not-so-poppy way.
I highly recommend listening to this record at a slightly higher volume than you might think. It sounds really good turned up. It tends to be a bit quieter than other records, I suppose, and when I ‘blast’ it a bit, I like it even more.
“Dawn Chorus” is a brooder, but well placed before “I Melt With You.” Drummer Richard Brown does really interesting things with the percussion on this record and his work on “Dawn Chorus” is super interesting.
At only eight songs, After The Snow is fairly concise. Most of the songs are over four minutes long, but they never get boring or slow. “I Melt With You” is definitely an outlier and sits sort of smack dab in the middle.
What is there to say about this song? I mean, when I spoke with Conroy, he acknowledged how grateful he was for the success the song brought the band. He did say that it was tough to wrap the ol’ brain around just how popular the song has become, but it has afforded the band a nice lifestyle, too.
“I Melt With You” is super catchy and, for me, reminds me of being young and looking to meet a great girl and have the type of romance that Valley Girl represented so well on the screen. If I look back, that film, and by association, that song really impacted how I thought high school relationships were supposed to be. I wanted to have everything ‘stop’ so I could ‘melt’ with someone.
“After The Snow” is a really good song, too. It’s got that march beat, as well, and drives along nicely. Robbie Grey’s vocals are another great part of the band. The guy just has a strong, pleasing voice. He comes off as very confident in “After The Snow.”
“Carry Me Down” sounds like it has a flute on it, but I had to look and there is no flute credited on the record, so it has to be some keyboard work by either Hugh Jones or Stephen Walker. I did Richard Brown’s drums on this one, too. There is a bit of defiance in this one that I love a lot. The chorus is pretty rad.
“You know I won’t believe you” is a line that is delivered so perfectly. I also like how the chorus wraps up with words from the title then morphs into the bridge part. Modern English has some excellent bridges.
“Tables Turning” wraps things up, although on the Spotify version or the record, there is a bunch of bonus stuff that is worth listening to if you have time. Let it play. “Tables Turning,” though, is a strong way to finish this excellent record. It’s a twisty, dark new wave song with a bit of post-punk on top for extra flavor.
******
See you tomorrow (in August).
AI is so literal. After the Snow...hmmm.
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