All they Wanted Was a Dance, You Gave Your Peace of Mind Instead

I've been absent again. It's been a busy few weeks. I have another podcast ripened and ready to post, I just haven't had the steam to do the written. So, in the meantime, a word about a little gem that would be on the mix if I could have bought the damn track digitally.

A few months back Sunset Rubdown played in Victoria. Now, I love me some Sunset Rubdown, but I recognize that Spencer Krug's voice is sort of divisive. People tend to either love or just totally can't stand it. I fall squarely on the love side. I also sort of crush on him as a lyricist. I hadn't heard much of Dragonslayer before the show, but the new songs I heard did it for me, and I took it home eager to dig in and give it a proper solo listen. In particularly a song that had sort of grabbed me in an I've never heard it before, how is it so familiar?? sort of way. Crushing disappointment upon discovering that the song I had briefly bonded with was not on the album.

I Googled the one little lyric snippet I'd retained:

obliterate your speech so you cannot ask forgiveness

for hanging with the vampires when there was no one to witness

the submission of the skin upon your neck

and found that the song, Coming to At Dawn, was only available on a picture-disk, which I'm pretty sure I'd seen for sale at the show.

Balls.

I hemmed and hawed about ordering it from Agoo Records ... $10 is low beans, but with shipping and whatnot ... anywhoo, I finally, now months later, checked in with the good folks at Ditch Records and sure enough, they had it in stock, cheaper than what I would have spent to order it with shipping and Yankee dollar conversion.

As a quick aside, I'm a huge proponent of support local independent retailers, records stores in particular, and with A&B gone I'm spending more time and dollars at Ditch, which I should have been doing all the time, because the staff is amazing and helpful and generally float my boat. Shop local. Shop Ditch!

Right. So. It's a lot simpler and more piano-y than it was live, which I'm actually partial to as it serves the lyrics well. I love the image and feeling that this little bit conjures up.

obliterate the memory of coming to at dawn

knowing only that the night has gone

obliterate the grass stains from the cloth

you were only in the grassy fields to pick a hollyhock

you want to stick it to the stem again

by fusing up the atoms and then believe that it will live again

just from the power of your refusing to believe it cannot happen

We've all had that night right? Sort of drunk and brokenly determined your want alone can will something into being? Hell, I had a bit of that on Saturday night. Unfortunately, people are even harder to rebuild than flora. But I digress.

So, I'm embedding a video that's basically just the record playing, but hey, it's a picture disk, so at least there's something to look at!

I'm also popping in a video of the song performed live, because it is so different. I still dig it, I just diggity dig the album version better. You know, for angsty solo listening.

Crap. That's actually a different live version than the one I was intending to post, and now it's a draw. I sorta love it too. May need a few more listens.

So that's the what for now. I have a sewing project to bang out tonight and am hitting Fruit Bats tomorrow at Lucky, so at this rate it might be the weekend before I get the podcast up.

~ m