Interzone Junk: MUSIC DUMP 3/4/11

No particular genre, mood, decade, or theme, just a collection of some of the seminal records and artists that I credit my surviving adolescence for.

PART I

I moved to California when I was nine years-old. Before I moved, I acquired my very first CD. It was the year 2000, and my brother had (manipulated me) into trading him a stuffed animal of mine that he used to have as a kid, for a really cool college kid CD. He made it sound so appealing; after all, I was nine years-old now, a bona fide adult. Adults listened to CD's, they didn't hold on to stuffed animals. It was a no-brainer, so I obliged and I inherited my first CD. In retrospect I have no idea what my brother was even doing with such a God Awful album in his possession, but for the next year or so, I was smitten. It would get scratched or I would break it, and promptly collect my allowance money, head out to Tower Records (remember those), and replace it. What magical CD was this that I was so infatuated with? What was this first CD that catapulted me into the world of music? What was this heavenly noise, you ask??? Eiffel 65. Yep, you know, the "Blue" guys. I was fuckin bat shit obsessed with Eiffel 65. That was my very first CD and I still remember all the lyrics to "Im Blue".

Luckily, my taste in music gradually improved. I mean, it was a tumultuous journey of course. It got worse before it got better, much worse. I remember the day when my Eiffel 65 CD broke in half for the umpteenth time and I deliberated whether or not to replace it. I eventually decided not to. I decided instead that it was time to see what else was out there; surely there was more beyond the realm of Radio Disney and Euro trash? As I said, it did get worse before it got better. I think my second CD was a Drowning Pool one, followed by Korn, Disturbed, Tool, and (brace yourself) Limp Bizkit. Things slowly began to get better when I found a record shop called Off/Beat in Hermosa Beach. It's long gone now, but I used to loiter there with my best friend because we thought the people who worked there were really cool. They all had blue black hair, facial piercings, and they smoked cloves. They were always playing The Smiths. I would spend hours flipping through the CD's, trying to sneakily peel off the price sticker and place it over the "Parental Advisory" warning. I had this paranoid idea that if nyone ever found out I was buying CD's with an advisory on them, I'd be dragged off to the Gulags or something.

I had never heard of the majority of the artists in that store, so I did what most middle schoolers would probably have done, I picked out whatever CD had the coolest name or the coolest looking album cover. This lead me to some real sour choices, like Orgy and Strawberry Switchblade (Sorry to any Orgy and/or Strawberry Switchblade fans...) but it also exposed me to some lucky finds like 45 Grave, Christian Death (although I naively started off listening to the Valor crap), Rudimentary Peni, and The Shroud. My best friend and I had another local haunt, a clothing store called Re:Style. The owners took us under their wing as their goofy looking little disciples. We came there so often that they began giving us free clothes and music suggestions.

Dead Can Dance | THE HOST OF SERAPHIM

This Mortal Coil | SONG TO THE SIREN

Diamanda Galas | THE LITANIES OF SATAN / SI LA MUERTE

Rasputina | SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC

Siouxsie and the Banshees | TRUST IN ME

Over the summer of 2003 I went to visit some family in Germany. This was the year I went to my first concert. A kid's first concert is almost like a rite of passage. I may have been chaperoned by my dad and my elderly aunt, but I was still ecstatic to be there. The event was called M' Era Luna and it took place in the town my Oma lived in. I got a ride to the Flugplatz with my 26 year-old cousin, Jan. He has a kid and blonde hair now, but at the time he and his fiance were goths. I thought he was the bee's knees. The clam's jam. That summer I also stayed with my aunt and her terminally ill, grumpy, somewhat frigid husband, Fritz. Fritz was a lanky 60 year-old Bavarian man with a bushy beard and suspenders. Most people were apprehensive around him, and he could be a little scary because he was so blunt and so difficult to impress. Upon meeting him, his first words were, "I don't like women and I don't like children". Oddly enough, we became close friends that summer. He was a music enthusiast and was very intrigued by the "youth", particularly those funny looking "Grufties". Fritz and I bonded over our mutual appreciation for music, and we would stay up until the early early morning sharing records and discussing musicians.

Sopor Aeternus | ON SATUR(N)DAYS WE USED TO SLEEP