Various Artists - Until The End Of The World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I was saddened to learn of the death in Pittsfield, Massachusetts last week of singer and actress Julee Cruise. About four years ago, she announced that she was suffering from systemic lupus, a painful autoimmune condition that left her depressed and unable to move and walk. Reports state that she took her own life at her home, with The B-52's song "Roam" playing as she died (Cruise was a touring member of The B-52's in the early 1990s, replacing Cindy Wilson who took a few years off to raise her children; I remember seeing her on stage at a band show I attended in Washington, DC during that period).

In a post I wrote almost a dozen years ago, I detailed how I first came across Cruise's music and my impressions regarding it - the melancholy, haunting quality that both repels and attracts the listener. After the release of her debut album Floating Into The Night in 1989, Cruise issued a follow-up, The Voice Of Love, four years later. As with the first album, almost all of the songs on her sophomore release were written by director David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti, so the sound and atmosphere are remarkably similar to Floating Into The Night. The Voice Of Love is more of a continuation of her debut, rather than a stand-alone entity. If you liked the first, than this one will be right up your alley as well.

Between these two albums, Cruise recorded a Lynch/Badalamenti-modified cover of an old Elvis Presley song, "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears", for the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' scifi drama Until The End Of The World, starring William Hurt. The plot of the film had something to do with in a finding and using a device that can record visual experiences and visualize dreams... but the end result was so confusing and convoluted that the few people who DID go to see the movie were left flummoxed by it. Cashing in on his success with small, cerebral films like Paris, Texas and Wings Of Desire, Wenders managed to secure a budget of $22 million for this latest film, an amount more than the cost of all of his previous films combined. And he proceeded to spend every penny of that money, spreading his production over almost half a year with setups in 11 countries.

While Graeme Revell (co-founder of the Australian industrial band SPK) was commissioned to compose the movie theme and other incidental music for the film, Wenders asked a number of his favorite recording artists (including Cruise) to contribute songs as well for inclusion. For their selections, he asked them to anticipate the kind of music they would be making a decade later, when the film was set. It was Wenders' desire to use every song he received to its fullest extent that ultimately contributed to the overall length of the film. The initial cut was reportedly TWENTY HOURS long, from which the director and producer whittled down to a more standard running time versions of 2 1/2 and 3 hours (which Wenders called the "Reader's Digest" versions). There is also reportedly a five-hour "director's" cut of this film which has been screened at various festivals over the years.

...Not that any of that mattered. The truncated versions of Until The End Of The World were released to theaters, first in Germany in September 1991, and later in the U.S. that December, and overall the flick was a commercial failure, managing to gross only about $830,000 against its $22 million budget.  Critics at the time savaged it; Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, describing it as lacking the "narrative urgency" required to sustain interest in the story, and wrote that it "plays like a film that was photographed before it was written, and edited before it was completed". He went on to say that a documentary about the globe-trekking production would likely have been more interesting than the film itself.  Other reviewers were even less kind.

But while the film flopped, the soundtrack was, frankly, amazing, featuring great songs by some of the top alternative performers of the day.  Wenders chose well.  Here's the soundtrack lineup:

1. "Opening Title" – Graeme Revell
2. "Sax and Violins" – Talking Heads
3. "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears" – Julee Cruise
4. "Move with Me (Dub)" – Neneh Cherry
5. "The Adversary" – Crime & the City Solution
6. "What's Good" – Lou Reed
7. "Last Night Sleep" – Can
8. "Fretless" – R.E.M.
9. "Days" – Elvis Costello
10. "Claire's Theme" – Graeme Revell
11. "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World" – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
12. "It Takes Time" – Patti Smith (with Fred Smith)
13. "Death's Door" – Depeche Mode
14. "Love Theme" – Graeme Revell
15. "Calling All Angels" (Remix Version) – Jane Siberry with k.d. lang
16. "Humans from Earth" – T Bone Burnett
17. "Sleeping in the Devil's Bed" – Daniel Lanois
18. "Until the End of the World" – U2
19. "Finale" – Graeme Revell

Personal favorites on this disc, in additon to the Julee Cruise song, include R.E.M.'s "Fretless", Depeche Mode's "Death's Door" and the Jane Siberry/k.d.lang collaboration "Calling All Angels".  At the time, most of these songs were unavailable anywhere else, making the compilation a gold mine of rarities. All in all, the soundtrack did better than the movie, eventually reaching #114 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Albums chart in 1992.

So, in honor of the life and art of Julee Cruise, I proudly offer to you all Until The End Of The World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), released on Warner Brothers Records on December 10th, 1991.  Enjoy, and as always... well, you know.

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Cocteau Twins - Love's Easy Tears EP

T. S. Eliot considered April to be "the cruelest month", but for my money, February wins the calendar cruelty sweepstakes hands down.

It's a weird time, ol' February is - the shortest month of the year, but one that invariably feels twice as long as the number of days allotted to it. It's a time for the raising of false hopes - schoolchildren and irrational optimists pause in dumb anticipation every February 2nd, waiting for a fat, rabid rodent to emerge from its fetid hole in a one-horse town in western Pennsylvania and let them know what the weather will be like for the following six weeks; a prediction that is almost invariably wrong. It's a time for unreasonable expectations and grandiose, yet ultimately empty, gestures - in other words, Valentine's Day, and everything involved in proving, for at least one day out of the year, that you actually love the person that you're with. It's a time of mirages - the strange phenomena of February 29th, Leap Day, which materializes every four years with mild fanfare in the press and little notice by the public, like a widely hyped but sparsely attended street protest.

But mostly, it's a time of boredom. Back when I was at Navy, February made up the majority of the period known as the "Dark Ages", beginning generally with the return from Christmas break but really kicking in just after the Super Bowl. The "Dark Ages" were a time of slate grey skies and icy streets, walking to class miserably hunkered down in heavy coats and wet scarves, watching the mists rise and curl off of the frosty Severn River and taking small, bitter comfort from the thought that, hell, at least you weren't up at West Point, where the cadets had it much worse. With the pro football season over, we were reduced to watching, if anything, midseason pro hoops and hockey games of low intensity and limited appeal; teams were saving their energies and enthusiasms for the end-of-season pushes of April and May. It was just a time of gloom and ennui, of gritting your teeth and gutting your way through it, which only began to let up with the first lukewarm days of March. Usually by the time the college March Madness basketball tournament began, the "Dark Ages" would officially be over.

Before my Academy days, February had a different (but no less disagreeable) meaning. As a child of devout churchgoing Catholic parents, the coming of February usually meant the onset of Lent, the six-week leadup to Easter. I really didn't understand the whole concept and meaning of Lent as a kid; the two main things I took away from it during that time was that 1) I had to go to church after school on the first day of Lent and get soot rubbed into my forehead, which I wasn't supposed to wash off until bedtime; and 2) my parents 'encouraged' me to give up something I loved (chocolate, sweets or a favorite toy) for the duration - an aspect of the season that I loathed and dreaded, but one that invariably fell by the wayside as the days progressed, as my folks both took pity on my misery at being deprived, and/or got tired of constantly trying to enforce the weeks-long ban.

In other words, for most of the first two-plus decades years of my life, February translated into "No Fun" . . . except for one brief, shining moment. That was in 1983, the year I experienced my first true Mardi Gras.

For reasons that have never been properly explained to me, soon after retiring from the Navy, my dad decided to leave Monterey, California and settle 2,000 miles away in a place he had heretofore never visited nor evinced any interest in - Slidell, Louisiana, hard by Lake Pontchartrain and a short distance from New Orleans. So in the summer of 1982, we said goodbye to Monterey (at that point, the greatest place we'd ever lived) and for several days drove across the arid Southwest and Texas to our new and unfamiliar home, arriving at temporary lodgings in The Crescent City late one July evening. I will never forget my first morning in that city, when I stepped outside my air-conditioned room into a veritable steam bath; I was instantly soaked with sweat, and stayed that way all day, even through three shirt changes. The place, weather-wise, was brutal.

During my first few months in the state, I got to know New Orleans a little better. It's an odd city, a jumble of contrasts and juxtapositions, a melange of old and new, black and white (figurative and literally), with varying shades of grey in between. Neighborhoods full of beautiful Greek Revival-style buildings stood cheek-by-jowl with crumbling, decrepit slum areas. On some days, in the heart of the modern business district, you could smell the primeval mud and rot rising from the murky Mississippi River slowing flowing through the center of the city. The city boasts about the positive actions it took to avoid much of the upheaval and turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's; yet by my estimation, it's one of the most de facto segregated cities I'd ever been to. The quaintness of the scrolled iron balconies in the Bourbon Street area were counterbalanced by the unsettling spookiness of the city's cemeteries, consisting of acres upon acres of elaborate marble vaults (New Orleans sits so far below the water table that any buried coffins would just float back to the surface, so everyone is entombed above ground), veritable cities of death. I think the whole 'N'Awlins voodoo' thing has been way overplayed nowadays by the media . . . but enough of it was present in the city at the time to add another dollop of strangeness to an already strange place. All in all, New Orleans was an odd combination of the living and the dead, excess and morality, unbridled partying and religious severity, abiding joy on the surface . . . and deep sadness underneath. For those first few months, it was a place I appreciated, a place I tolerated - but a place I never really enjoyed or loved.

Then came that February and Mardi Gras season, and my entire perception of New Orleans changed.

Actually, Mardi Gras is more than just a single day or weekend. The Carnival season there officially begins on January 6th, the twelfth day after Christmas (also known as, shockingly enough, "Twelfth Night"). Various fraternal organizations/social clubs, known as "krewes", sponsor dances, balls and parades throughout the season, with the number and frequency intensifying as Mardi Gras gets closer and closer. The weekend before Mardi Gras is when they really start to kick out the jams, with tourists flocking in from across the nation and world to party, get drunk, show their respective tits, and view the parades of the major krewes (Endymion, Bacchus, Zulu, Rex, etc.).

My family and I went into the city on the last Sunday of the season that year to see the Bacchus parade. We arrived early, in a vain attempt to beat the crowds, and thus had time to wander around the French Quarter and Bourbon Street for a while. I was amazed at the transformation I saw in the city's demeanor. It was a complete carnival atmosphere, with laughing, smiling revelers walking the streets, mingling with singers, dancers, acrobats and people in all sorts of masks and costumes. Music was heard everywhere - a lot of Dr. John and Louis Armstrong, as I recall. But the song that I remember hearing the most was Professor Longhair's "Mardi Gras In New Orleans", the proper theme tune for the celebration. New Orleans didn't seem dangerous or dirty or weird or spooky during that time - it was as if the ever-present shadowy side of the city was completely (if momentarily) pushed aside away by the bright, fun, happy glare of fun and enjoyment happening that weekend. Of course, it didn't last; in a few days, the Crescent City was back to its old light-and-dark self. But the memory of the city's brief, glorious annual transformation stayed with me for a long time afterward.

My family left Louisiana shortly after I left for Annapolis later that year. The next time I was anywhere even remotely close to that area was nearly five years later, when I lived in Athens, Georgia for a few months, attending a school related to my military speciality. During the time I lived in Georgia, I never put much thought into making the long road trip to New Orleans; I mean, that college town had nearly everything I wanted, in terms of great music venues (like the 40 Watt and the Uptown Lounge) and fun, cool things to do. The University of Georgia radio station, WUOG, was always playing off-the-wall, cutting edge stuff, so it was on constantly in my home and car. And when I wanted some different atmosphere, well, Atlanta was less than an hour down the road. Driving any further, much less out of state, never really crossed my mind. I'd been away from Louisiana for so long that when that February rolled around, I had all but forgotten about the whole Carnival season there.

As I recall, the thing that put the idea of Mardi Gras in my head again was a short local news segment I saw that Friday night about the upcoming weekend events in New Orleans. It sounded intriguing, but I didn't know one way or another if I would make the journey. In fact, it wasn't until the next morning, only a couple of hours before I jumped in my car, that I finally made up my mind to go. And go I did - I left just after 9 am that day, and made the 530-mile run from Athens, Georgia to New Orleans in a little less than six and a half hours, which was frickin' hauling it. In hindsight, the rate I was traveling was a little nuts. First of all, keep in mind that I was speeding through Alabama and Mississippi, states with a somewhat, um, interesting history of law enforcement. If friggin' Boss Hogg and his cronies there had nabbed me blasting through their states . . . hell, I'd probably STILL be in jail. Secondly, it wasn't like I was all fired up to get into the city and get buck-wild. At the time, I didn't drink at all, and thus wasn't much of a gung-ho partier. I guess I just wanted to be at a place where the action was, as soon as possible.

On my way out of Athens, listening to WUOG, they played a lovely little ethereal song called "Orange Appled" by The Cocteau Twins, a Scottish alternative/dream pop band. The lyrics were all but unintelligible, but the female voice uttering the obscure syllables was amazing and beautiful, as was the dense instrumentation backing her.

By mid-afternoon, I had arrived in Louisiana, and decided to take a brief detour. I got off at one of the first exits across the Mississippi/Louisiana border, and for the first time in years drove into Slidell, my old hometown. The place still had a sort of rundown, beat-up, hangdog feel about it - Slidell to me always felt like it was only a couple of steps removed from reverting back into the swampland from which it had been carved out of. I took the car back to my old neighborhood on the far eastern edge of town, hard by the Pearl River, driving down a mile and a half down a dark ribbon of narrow road, threatened on either side by glowering oak and cypress trees heavily veiled in kudzu. The area had been flooded once when we lived there, and apparently had at least one other flood in the intervening years. But the current residents were doing what they could to fight back and hold on; in a couple of cases, homeowners had raised their houses on stilts. Being back there, going down that road again, seeing that beaten down neighborhood attempting to keep up appearances against the inevitable - it was all pretty depressing. I didn't linger for long; I just couldn't take very much of it. Whatever lingering nostalgia I had for the place was wiped out by that visit; I've never been back. I was eager to finally get to New Orleans and shake the sights and memory of my old living place out of my head.

I got into the city, found a place to park, and started strolling around amongst the throngs of revelers. I knew that there was going to be a parade by one of the minor krewes later that afternoon, so I tried to make my way over to the parade route. In the years that I had been away, I had all but forgotten how much of a zoo Mardi Gras was, but I was quickly reminded. There's a certain "I'm dancing as fast as I can" element to the carnival, as if some people were trying a little too hard to have (and prove they're having) a good time. The French Quarter was jam-packed with a sea of people laughing, dancing and drinking - all three activities with abandon. And when the parade started, it got even more frenzied and weird. You could see the odd glare of determination, almost desperation, in the eyes of some revelers as they grabbed for the cheap plastic trinkets and doodads thrown from the parade floats. More than once that day, I saw grown men and women knocking over children and each other while snatching up a bead necklace or fake doubloon. I didn't stay at the parade very long; there was something depressing about watching people "making merry" in that fashion. I left, and made my way back over to the heart of the French Quarter.

While wandering through the bars and shops in and around Bourbon Street, I had a completely unexpected encounter with one of my former Naval Academy classmates, who I hadn't seen since our graduation a year earlier - I suppose this person, who at that time was in flight school in Pensacola, Florida, apparently felt the same sort of urge I felt that drew them to New Orleans. They were known for being a renowned party maniac back at Navy, so I really shouldn't have been surprised by their presence there. I ran smack-dab into this person as they were reeling down the middle of the street; it was obvious that they arrived much earlier to the city than I had, and had no compunctions about partaking liberally in the refreshments being offered. Despite this person's obviously inebriated condition, they immediately recognized me and screamed happily as I was enveloped in their sloppy bear hug. I was practically knocked to my knees, not from the unsteady impact of the collision itself, but moreso from the powerful booze fumes wafting off out of their lungs and off of their body - it was like they had been swimming in rum. This person's left hand clutched a big plastic cup containing the dregs of the latest in a series of Hurricane cocktails drained during the day; as I was pulled in, they managed to dump a goodly portion of these remnants down my back. Despite all of this, I was happy to see a familiar face. I tried to carry on a conversation, but my attempt was brief, as this person was too far gone to comprehend much of what I was saying, and in no condition to respond. After a while, they just sort of wandered off down the street, and that was that. A weird encounter, but one par for the course during Mardi Gras.

 [Note that I have refrained from providing any specifics identifying this person, as I have no desire to impugn their current status and reputation - the next time I saw them was years later, on television, where they were part of the crew on the International Space Station. Funny how people turn out . . .]

After a few hours of wandering around, dodging drunks, poking my head into shops and listening to music, I got a little tired of fighting the crowds and weirdness - I was starting to feel a little like Yossarian in Rome. It was getting towards dusk, so I decided to make my way over the waterfront area for a bite to eat; I figured it might be less crowded down there than in the French Quarter. I made my way south, looking for a decent-looking restaurant. But en route, I came across the local Tower Records store (now long gone) a couple of blocks south of Bourbon Street, close to the riverfront. Of course, I decided to step inside for a bit.

There were a lot of people in Tower as well, but the scene in there wasn't as nuts as it was outside the store, so it was a semi-oasis of relative calm. I avoided the jazz and blues sections, which were understandably getting most of the action, and made my way over to the rock/alternative cassettes. As I get there, I remembered that Cocteau Twins song I heard out of Athens on my way to Louisiana, and decided to look it up. I wasn't too optimistic - the pickings at that New Orleans store seemed to be pretty slim. But lo and behold, there in the "C"s was an EP by the band, Love's Easy Tears, which contained the song I was looking for.

After a fine meal of spicy crawfish (the first I'd had since I left Louisiana years earlier) at some nondescript joint close by the river, I made my way back to the Bourbon Street area. It was full nighttime now, and the revelry, as it were, was in full swing. If I thought that people were going overboard during that afternoon, that paled in comparison to what was happening that evening, the last weekend before the start of Lent. I made my way as carefully as I could down the avenues through the roaring, jostling throng, my wallet safe in my front pocket with my hand over it. The entire area was a whirlwind of movement and undirected energy and noise, people shouting, laughing, singing and reeling around. But near the edge of the French Quarter, where I managed to find myself, I noticed that the revelry was pretty well concentrated; a lot of the streets and alleys leading directly away from the area were nearly pitch-dark, with none of the lights, crowds or excitement present from literally the next street over. It's a pretty spooky and unsettling feeling, looking to your left and seeing brightness and energy, then glancing right and seeing essentially . . . nothing, a veritable black hole. I can't think of a more literal demonstration of the whole "black/white" New Orleans dichotomy I was referring to earlier.

After a while, I began to tire of the whole scene; watching people striving to fulfill a need to get away from themselves and their ordinary lives, to make beasts and fools and satyrs of themselves (if only for a day or two), gets old and a bit depressing very quickly.  Being in the midst of it all, I got a close-up view as to how dark, venal, dirty and ugly it all seemed, and I'd had enough, of both New Orleans and the entire celebration. I decided to leave. I finally made my way out of the French Quarter, searching for the street where I parked my car, feeling filthy and a bit disgusted with myself for being part of that scene, if only as a spectator. At that moment, Mardi Gras in New Orleans seemed like the worst thing in the world.

But then, I looked back towards the Quarter . . . and saw the glistening puddles of beer (or whatever) and glinting shards of broken glass covering the streets . . . and heard the various sources of music blending into a beckoning, cacophonous melody . . . and watched the gaily-dressed people who remained swirling and milling around underneath the bright multicolored lights of the bars and restaurants. And despite it all, I couldn't help but think how fun and inviting - how beautiful - it all looked . . . so much so, that I nearly turned around and went back into it. But in the end, I went and found my car and left for home.

I stopped in Mississippi overnight at some fleabag motel, and made it back to Athens later that afternoon. En route, I opened my new Cocteau Twins cassette and played it several times during the journey. Here's the song lineup:

1. Love's Easy Tears
2. Those Eyes, That Mouth
3. Sigh's Smell of Farewell
4. Orange Appled

 All of the songs were sweeping, soaring and majestic, but I noticed within them all an undertone of longing and sadness, a hint of menace in the music.  And after a bit, it struck me that there were parallels between The Cocteau Twins and The Crescent City celebration. Mardi Gras is about joy, about cutting loose and having a good time. But like Love's Easy Tears, there was an undercurrent of melancholy in the annual event. Mardi Gras is New Orleans dressed up, but like an old woman who puts on gaudy makeup and age-inappropriate clothes in order to appear to be something she is not, there's something a bit 'not right' about it.

I went into New Orleans intent on seeing the bad side - the dirt, and the drunks, and the darkness, and that's what I came away with, only seeing the beauty at the very end of my visit.  But I was wrong to focus on the negative features of the city and the event. It's that combination of gaiety and despair, laughter and screaming, brightness and shadow that makes Mardi Gras what it is. It's not sanitized and perfect . . . but it works, just like the combo of majesty and misery works in the Cocteau Twins music. It was through listening to these tunes that I finally began to understand Mardi Gras. Love's Easy Tears was the first Cocteau Twins release I ever purchased - but it would be far from the last.

Here's The Cocteau Twins' Love's Easy Tears EP, released on 4AD on September 1st, 1986.  Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoyed your February, wherever you are.  

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The Veldt - Marigolds EP

I always get a little angry nowadays when I think about The Veldt. These guys should have been HUGE - or at least a lot huger than they were.

It must have been sometime in late 1991 when I first heard about these guys, when one of the music rags I regularly read back then (it might have been SPIN, but it's been so long now I simply don't recall) carried a short article/interview with them. There might have been a picture, but maybe not. What I DO remember about the feature was something one of the band members said about their music being sort of a meld between English dream pop and acid house music. I specifically recall one of the band members saying: "Yeah, Cocteau Twins are definitely 'in the house'!" Being both a huge Cocteaus and house music fan back then, reading that quote made my ears prick right up - I couldn't WAIT to hear what these guys sounded like. In the meantime, I tried to dig up some additional information about them, but there wasn't much to be found. A lot of what I came upon about The Veldt was dug up much later.

The Veldt evolved in 1986 from Psycho Daisies, a hardcore punk band that played in and around the Chapel Hill, North Carolina area. Initially, it was just vocalist Daniel Chavis, his twin brother Danny on guitar and friend Robert Jackson on drums, but by 1988 Jackson had moved on and the Chavises recruited Martin Levi behind the kit. Their sound also evolved, from a pure punk attack to a more nuanced, melodic, guitar-driven sound, owing more to The Jesus & Mary Chain and Lush than Black Flag and Agnostic Front. The band spent its first couple of years paying its dues initially on the college and small club circuit in North Carolina, trying to build a fan base.

Being a dream pop/shoegaze band in an area home to emerging alternative acts like Archers of Loaf and Superchunk was hard enough for the group. But this band had another major, more obvious difference from these associated acts that they had to work especially hard to overcome: The Veldt's members were predominantly African-American.

If you think being a black alt-rock band in the Southern United States at that time wasn't that big of an issue . . . well, I'll let Daniel Chavis describe it:

"Race was definitely an issue. No matter where we played in the South it was the same thing. We would get asked if we were a reggae band, if we were a funk band, if we were an R&B band; people who had never heard us would say, ”If you like Living Colour you will love these guys!” We didn’t/don’t sound a thing like Living Colour! Yes, race was an issue - but you can’t state the obvious because then people say you are whining!"

Despite these issues, The Veldt gigged constantly in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill region, and by mid-1990 the band developed a strong following in the South Atlantic states, drawing both white and black fans to their shows. The rest of the music industry began paying attention to what the band was doing. The Veldt was offered a supporting slot for portions of The Jesus & Mary Chain's 1990 North American Automatic tour, and in the next year played several Southern shows as an opening act on The Pixies' Fall 1991 US tour - nearly unheard of for an unsigned 'local' act. Music fans overseas (especially in England) also began to take notice of the group's sound. The Veldt developed an even larger European audience, and the groups over there who were their inspirations and contemporaries became their friends and mentors. The Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie became especially close with the band, as did other artists on the 4AD roster, such as the members of A.R. Kane (known in the English music press as "the black Jesus & Mary Chain") and recording engineer Lincoln Fong.

Around the same time that the magazine article I saw appeared, The Veldt signed a deal with Stardog Records, ostensibly an 'indie label', but in actuality a subsidiary of recording giant Polygram, created initially as an imprint for the release of Mother Love Bone records after that band signed with the label in 1989. And in early 1992, they put out their first disc, the Marigolds EP, a recording presided over by both A.R. Kane and Fong (Fong also plays bass on the EP). On Marigolds, you can hear the definite influence of My Bloody Valentine and J&M Chain in the alternatively swirling/grinding guitars, along with the heavy percussion sound inherent in some of A.R. Kane's later work. But the main difference between the sound of these aforementioned acts and The Veldt was in Daniel Chavis' aggressive, powerful vocals - he's not pussy-footing it around here. Just listen to "CCCP", the opening cut:

The album was generally well-received, and more good things started happening for the band. The success of the record led to Stardog putting them out on the road again, this time under more comfortable circumstances (the band was provided its own tour bus). Over the next two years, The Veldt crisscrossed the country, serving as an opening act for The Church, Lush, and their friends The Cocteau Twins. Just before their tour with the latter band, The

Veldt left Stardog to sign with major label Mercury Records, who heavily courted the band based on the strength of Marigolds. As good as their first EP was, their major label album debut, 1994's Afrodisiac, is even more incredible. Frankly, it's an lost shoegaze classic, rivaling anything ever released by their genre compatriots Slowdive or Ride. Just listen to this cut, "Soul In A Jar", and tell me that you don't agree:

Listening to Afrodisiac now, it's hard to fathom why this disc wasn't massively successful. Perhaps it was the rise of grunge in the early 1990s; maybe it was the decline of shoegaze (punctuated by the decades-long hiatus of My Bloody Valentine after two acclaimed albums in the late '80s/early '90s). Or more likely (and in Chavis's later estimation), Mercury just didn't know how to promote and market a black alt-rock band. According to the band, the label attempted to pigeonhole and shoehorn the group into specific genres and expectations, and The Veldt wasn't about that at all. Reportedly, matters came to a head when Mercury sent the band out as an ill-advised opening act for The Smithereens, a situation not satisfactory for either group. The Veldt asked to be taken off the tour, and from that point onward things deteriorated between them and Mercury; the band earned a reputation in the industry as difficult prima donnas.

After leaving the label, the group released two follow-up albums, 1996's Universe Boat on small indie label Yesha Recordings and Love At First Hate on End Of The World Technologies (their own label) in 1998. Both discs, while good, were poorly supported and little-heard. The Chavis brothers subsequently threw in the towel on The Veldt, and morphed into New York City-based 

alt-rock band Apollo Heights. Apollo Heights released the amusingly (and appropriately) named album White Music For Black People in 2007, assisted once again by their old friends from The Cocteau Twins, and new friends such as members of TV On The Radio.

I think that in many ways, The Veldt was a band both before and after its time. "Before", in that it took the music industry a while to catch up with what The Veldt was about. But I think in recent years, they 'got' it, based on the success of rock bands with black/African-American members like TV On The Radio and Bloc Party. And "after", in that The Veldt was committed to a style and genre of music (shoegaze/dream) that had pretty much run its course just as they peaked.

But like merry-go-rounds and men's fashions, things tend to come around once again. The Chavises recently reunited The Veldt, and for the past two years have been playing to appreciative audiences around the country. I think that, like the labels, music fans also finally 'get' them as well.

And speaking of 'get', here's something for you to have, too: The Veldt's Marigolds EP, released on Stardog Records in early 1992. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.    

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Cocteau Twins - Snow EP

I've got a few posts pending that I have to finish (so check back in the next few days, as I'll probably be backdating them on this site) . . . But I thought I'd kick off my annual series of Christmas-related posts with this: the Cocteau Twins' uber-rare, hard-to-find Snow EP.

The early 1990s were sort of a rough period for the Cocteau Twins.

The band was just coming off of its enormously successful 1990-91 worldwide tour for their critically-acclaimed album Heaven Or Las Vegas - this was their first tour as a headliner and their first live performances since 1986, so EVERY show was a sold out affair. Singer Liz Fraser and her longtime mate, band co-founder and principal songwriter Robin Guthrie had recently become parents to a little girl. The third member of the band, Simon Raymonde, had also recently married and had become a father. So it seemed that, after years of struggle and toil, the group was finally reveling in the financial and spiritual benefits of their efforts.

But behind the scenes, all was not well in their world. The Cocteau Twins had long been in conflict with their label, 4AD Records, and label head Ivo Watts-Russell, over both financial and artistic differences. And apparently Watts-Russell had finally had enough; nearing the end of their tour, the group was informed that 4AD had released them from their long-standing contract. So at the beginning of 1991, the band was without a representative in the UK (Capitol Records was their U.S. distributor).

But more significantly, Guthrie's life took a turn for the worse. He had been a long-standing alcohol and drug abuser during the '80s, but his addiction became even more pronounced and debilitating during the Heaven Or Las Vegas tour. His problems with booze and dope not only threatened the stability of the band, they caused severe stresses in his family life, resulting in an increasingly dysfunctional relationship with Fraser. The Cocteau Twins were very close to falling apart, personally and professionally, right at the point where they had achieved their greatest comfort and success.

To his credit, upon his return to England Guthrie made a concerted effort to get clean and get his life back on track. But it took damn near three years for him to do so - the band's follow-up to Heaven Or Las Vegas, Four-Calendar Cafe, wouldn't be released until late 1993. During that entire three-year period, the Cocteau Twins made no recordings whatsoever . . . with one exception: the Snow EP.

Simon Raymonde talked about the making of the EP a few years later for a music magazine:

"There's a Christmas record that comes out on Capitol Records (the Cocteaus' US label) every few years. And they were trying to get all their bands to do a cover version of a Christmas song. I didn't think that's what it was at the time. I thought it would be like sitting next to Frank Sinatra. But in fact it would've been, y'know, Skinny Puppy, doing 'Merry Xmas Everybody.' Anyway they'd said, Would you do one? And Liz suggested — it must have been for a joke — 'Frosty The Snowman.' Then Robin went, Yeah, good title, people will think it's a normal Cocteau Twins song with a title like that."

"Once we'd got the music down, I wrote down the lyrics on a piece of paper and said to Liz, Hey, look at these, and we were laughing away. As we were going through it I was listening to Liz's reactions and thinking, this is never gonna get done. She was going, 'He's a very happy soul' — me sing that?! No way, I could not in a million years... 'with a broomstick in his ' — you've gotta be fucking kidding!'"

"I just didn't think she'd do it."

But she DID do it - the Cocteau Twins recorded "Frosty The Snowman" in the fall of 1992. The planned Capitol Christmas album never got off the ground, so the band let the song be included in the December 1992 Volume CD Magazine (issue #5).  The response to their version of "Frosty The Snowman" was so positive, that their new label (after 4AD, they signed with Fontana Records) suggested they back it with another Christmas song ("Winter Wonderland") and release it as a holiday single. The resulting Snow EP had an extremely limited release (one day only) in December 1993 in the UK.

I started looking for this release in the late Nineties, and it took me forever to find a copy of this EP. After several aborted attempts, I finally got my hands on a copy just before I left Texas at the end of the decade; I forget what I paid for it, but it was enough. However, it's nowhere near what sellers are demanding for this CD nowadays - I checked a couple of online retailers, who have copies of this EP for sale for $100 or more. Now THAT'S a rarity!

In addition to owning the CD, I also own a 45-RPM version of this EP, pressed on colored vinyl:

I suspect that this vinyl version is even more rare and valuable than the CD - but I don't care. I'm not about to part with EITHER of them . . .

. . . except, of course, to let you all, my devoted readers, have a chance to hear this music! So, for your holiday listening pleasure, here's the Cocteau Twins Snow EP, released in December 1993 on Fontana Records, and distributed in the U.S. by Capitol Records. Enjoy, and let me know what you think:

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Julee Cruise - "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart" Remixes EP

One of my other favorite movies (in addition to Raiders below) is Blue Velvet, David Lynch's masterwork, as far as I'm concerned. I think that it's one of the all-time great film comedies.

Yes, that's right, I said "comedies". Yes, yes, I know, Blue Velvet's depiction of crime, sexual deviance and murder taking place below the placid surface of a seemingly sleepy small town is profoundly disturbing to a lot of folks. And people were shaken by Dennis Hopper's portrayal of the psychotic Frank Booth - I understand all of that. But in many ways, the film is hilarious, especially in Hopper's over-the-top performance and a lot of the scripted dialogue. My buddy Ed is also a huge fan of this movie, and it's guaranteed that we can crack one another up in any location or situation by dropping one of the movie's lines - "It's DADDY, you shithead! Where's my bourbon?" "PABST - Blue Ribbon!" "No, I don't want you to pour it, I want you to fuck it - shit yes, pour the fuckin' beer!" "Here's to Ben!"

Ah, that never gets old - at least not for us.

One of the great things Lynch did in that movie was to set viewers up regarding the sleepy, bucolic nature of the town of Lumberton through the soft, semi-dreamlike cinematography and through the music. The soundtrack features a lot of old-fashioned pop songs from the '50s and '60s, like "Blue Velvet" (of course) and "In Dreams", in addition to some original songs penned by Lynch and his music director for the film, Angelo Badalamenti. But the song that really grabbed my attention was one at the end of the film, a airy, haunting melody called "Mysteries Of Love" that reminded me a lot of the Cocteau Twins, but was actually sung by an Iowa chanteuse named Julee Cruise. Cruise was working as a talent scout for Badalamenti in New York, and noodling around on the fringes of New York's music and arts scene after moving there from Des Moines. Her boss recommended her to Lynch for the Blue Velvet gig, and it was her big break.

"Mysteries Of Love" got a pretty good response, so much so that it led Badalamenti and Lynch to write additional songs for her, and finance her debut album, Floating Into The Night, released by Warner Bros. Records in September 1989. I bought that album on Super Bowl Sunday, 1990, at the record shop on Thames Street in Newport, RI, shortly before the big game. Cruise has an airy, haunting voice, and the album is superb, a fine example of ethereal dream pop (One song off of it, "Falling", was used as the theme music for Lynch's TV show "Twin Peaks", which debuted later that year). But the thing that really struck me about Floating Into The Night was the strong thread of SADNESS running through all of the songs. Note that I didn't say "depressing" - there's a difference between the two states of emotion, I think. Cruise sings about lost loves and missed opportunities, backed by retro-50's style pop music morphed by Lynch and Badalamenti into something spooky and infinitely heart-rending. I enjoy this album quite a bit, but there are some songs on it I simply cannot bring myself to listen to with any regularity; the sadness contained therein is just THAT affecting.

A year or so after I purchased Floating Into The Night, I was driving from the DC area to Atlantic City to test my skills at the poker tables. On the way there, I was twiddling the radio knob, trying to see if I could pick up any decent music. Near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I chanced upon a station playing a cowbell-horn-and-bass-driven dance beat that sounded a little like Soul II Soul, and settled on that for a bit. Imagine my surprise when the lyrics kicked in, and I heard the familiar words of Floating Into The Night's "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart" in Julee Cruise's voice!

The remixed version I was hearing completely dispensed with the sadness inherent in the original song, while still retaining the feel and sound of the original. Needless to say, it definitely tickled my ears, and I made a note to find it when I got back to DC. It took a while, but I finally tracked down the EP at my old reliable, the GWU Tower Records.

And so, here you are, the elusive "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart" Remixes EP, released in 1991 on Warner Brothers Records. It includes the original and two modified versions, along with another song off of the original album, "The World Spins" (which was also featured in "Twin Peaks" the year before). Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

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