Too High or Too Low There Ain't No In-Between -- Extremity in Music

While a lot of my own musical development has been tempered by the peculiarities of the people I've known and the kinds of music I've grown up with in extremely disparate environments, often then coupled with the aforementioned peculiarities, I did not manage to avoid a period of "finding music to annoy other people and seem 'hard.'"

This did lead to my unusual foray into "nu-metal" in high school, wherein I took up bands like Static-X, Deftones, Tool, Powerman 5000 and various others who eventually proved that, while there are some bands that held to the sensibilities that defined that (intentionally disparaging, actually) genre name, a lot of them were looped into it in much the way that "grunge" never managed to accurately describe most of the bands still heavily identified with it--Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, for instance--in that they often managed to hit different ground quite rapidly, or even already hit different territory long before they became famous. Early Soundgarden, for instance, is very different from the album that broke them, Badmotorfinger.

Of course, while proponents of many of these bands--such as my best friend throughout high school, John--would note that grunge was a nonsense term and really referred to punk (Nirvana) and metal (Alice in Chains) bands if anything, it has stuck in its way. Other genres have done the same thing, with "emo" and "new wave" in particular starting from similar origins: offhand comments used to describe a group of bands vehemently denounced and disavowed by those bands.

Still, while many of the bands I mentioned have wandered into totally different territory, mellower in some respects if not all, they were, in that heyday, still quite abrasive and heavy as mainstream music went. Static-X self-describes as "evil disco" (not unfair considering the drum machine and drum-machine-like beats forming the base of their music), Tool heavily associates with progressive rock, even touring with King Crimson for a time, Deftones have entered some post-rock influenced territory on their last three albums and Powerman 5000 turned into a much more "normal" rock band and keep going through variant incarnations.

It's in the Past...And Now, We Toast -- At the Drive-In

While I can't say that mixed emotions, hormones, and a bit of over-thinking weren't at the root of the final outburst, there was only one band's end that brought me to tears. Yeah, it was high school. Yeah, it was one of the rougher years of high school (though my years in it were not all that bad, to be honest). Still, I never saw them live, and I likely never will, unless their reunion turns into something more than a handful of festival shows. I've known other fans without having to seek them out, converted various friends, and even know someone from their hometown--with all of this, no one has ever (if I recall correctly, at least) recognized my (rather minimalist, to be fair) shirt advertising them. That's not an exclusive claim, of course, but for a band that got this big--even if it was a flash when they were big--it's a bit surprising all the same.

They basically had one, one-and-a-half big hits that went around the country and the world openly. They were both off the same album, and it came out twelve years ago. The band has faded to a footnote (similar to how The Skids--see poll on the right, if you haven't--are mentioned, despite the impression I've gotten that they were well-thought of during their existence) in many ways, to the acts that followed in their wake from the splintered elements they left behind them. It's weird, really, as they feel more lost and faded than a lot of the much older (and also defunct) bands I listen to. Not in the sense of ingenuity, so much as the feeling that their impact on the public conscious, even the "indie" one, was minor, and more of a name than an associated music.

Doubtless, at least a few people who know me could guess exactly who I am talking about right now. It's possible, too, that some people will guess with some semblance of dread, though I don't think one ought to. Still, tastes are tastes, and there's no accounting for them, etc., but I ask--as always--that you approach this music, new, loved, old, hated, with an open mind and listen to it to hear what there might be in it to love for those of us who do, if you don't know already.

Here's that seemingly unrecognized shirt:

Times I Want Is Times Like This - We're Where the Action Is

While my immediate desire was to begin addressing the Beggars Banquet series of Omnibus releases, I'm going to set that aside for another day, as it was requested, quite reasonably, that I discuss the stores in the area I live in and that seems important in this day and age, as I'm not sure who does or does not know about them. As I'm writing this, making it a revolving series seems like a good idea, as I'm likely to wax poetic about a lot of them, or at least a few of them, to make sure I give a good approximation of the kind of variety each carries and what to expect from them.

If you live in the Triangle--the part of North Carolina so named for its set of three cities in relative proximity to each other: Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh--there are a number of music stores actually still present and doing interesting business and providing different advantages for those seeking music. We've lost some good ones, some not so good ones, and some middling ones, even in the time I've been around. Some persist, some persist for strange reasons, and some go for even more mystifying ones.

I frequent two stores for new music on a semi-regular basis, occasionally browsing one or two others, and dipping into a chunk of used stores even more erratically. It's a weird sort of community in general, but the persistence of independent music stores is a good thing. Most cover vinyl and CDs, and all of the sealed, new music purveyors also sell used material.

I'm not going to delve too much into vinyl, though I'll address the locations I've had luck with it, because I'm not enough of a connoisseur of the stuff to address who has the best, most pristine stock, or who is best for collectors. Me, I couldn't care less if what I just ran across that I want is a first pressing. It's a nice bonus if it is, and I can delight in stumbling across it, but I won't turn down second presses or even reissues.

The best place to start is probably the store that caused me to move to the area. About ten years ago, I visited Chapel Hill for the first time in my life, shortly after I'd started expanding my taste into modern independent music. I was in the midst of obsessions with At the Drive-In and Aphex Twin, and the former I could actually still find in places like Best Buy and Circuit City, but you'd be lucky to get past The Richard D. James Album or Come to Daddy (the US issue that combines the original, separate British singles into a single release) in the catalogue of an artist who has been releasing music since the early 1990's under various aliases. So when I went into this newfangled idea of an "independent music store," my new fascination with vinyl and my interest in these harder-to-find artists drove me to look in those places first.