This week, I felt the urge to write about some music. I’ve been a little all over the place while trying to pretend/hope the world isn’t ending and I am trying to come to balance by focusing on the thing I love more than anything. There are a couple of artists who I was introduced to just a few years back who have had an outsized influence on my more recent solo recordings. Sound, OK? Good.
Right off the top, the artists are (as you probably guessed based on the title) Frightened Rabbit and the Blue Nile. And, even more specifically, it is mostly due to one album from each: Frightened Rabbit’s “The Midnight Organ Fight” and the Blue Nile’s “A Walk Across the Rooftops.” I thoroughly enjoy each band’s other albums but those are the two that really hit home for me. And the gift I alluded to in the title, was that both of the records came into my life via a podcast that also drastically changed my life. I know, right? A music podcast altered my life’s trajectory? But, yes, it did. Very much so, in fact.
The podcast is called Man vs. Radio and is hosted by a man named Christian James Hand. He started the podcast to give himself something to do and to introduce people to music they probably hadn’t heard of before. As a former radio DJ, Hand is a fantastic host and an incredible storyteller; with some pretty fucking spectacular stories to tell. He has moved on from the pod these days but he left up some of the episodes HERE if you’d like to check them out. He now does this amazing thing he calls The Session (check it out HERE or on Instagram @thesessiononair and @kingtrut) where he breaks down amazing songs we all know and love. He solos out each instrument on the track and goes into each section in great detail. You never knew you wanted to spend an hour or two listening to one song until you watch his show. He’s doing them on Instagram and I would highly suggest tuning in and donating a few bucks to the cause.
But, the most important thing I gained from his podcast was not a great story or a favorite new song. The biggest thing I got from his podcast was the discovery that I had Asperger’s. For those who don’t know, Asperger’s is basically high-functioning autism, which is what I believe they used to call it. While I share a lot of the same skills and quirks as someone with autism, most people wouldn’t know I had Asperger’s unless I told them or they spent a great deal of time with me. I’d bet there’s probably some people reading this now that didn’t know until I just said that. That’s probably why I didn’t know either until about five years ago when I first started listening to Man vs. Radio.
So how did I find out I had Asperger’s from a music podcast? Christian, the host, also has Asperger’s and would talk about that in such an open and honest and real life way that my now wife and I started to piece it together. Well, she began to figure it out and I started denying it until the evidence became too overwhelming. Like anyone who finds out they have an “affliction,” I didn’t want it to be true. I think this is the same reason most people try to avoid getting their children screened for Asperger’s or autism. But, what I found out is that finding out (what a terrible worded sentence) turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I know, learning I had Asperger’s was one of the best things that happened to me? Yep. You know why? Because not knowing was slowly destroying yet another relationship, was causing me to struggle mightily with depression and drugs/alchohol (can’t say I’ve vanquished both of those things but I have a different relationship with them post-finding out) and generally was pushing me towards a very, very dark place. Like so many out there, I felt broken and like no one understood the way I felt. I knew something was different with me but not what was causing it. I thought about death a lot. And when I say “a lot,” I mean for multiple hours every single day. It wasn’t fun.
Finding out I had Asperger’s was the missing link. So many things finally made sense. And, perhaps more importantly, it meant that I wasn’t broken and I wasn’t alone. For my now wife, it meant I wasn’t just a total jackass some of the time. I had things I could now start to work because we knew what was causing them. It was a huge blessing. Now, that I’m aware of it, I feel like having Asperger’s is a net positive. But, in a close second, the other huge gift I received from Christian James Hand was the two aforementioned records that have become near and dear to my heart. So, onto the music!
The Blue Nile - A Walk Across the Rooftops
My favorite tracks: Stay and Heatwave
We’ll start with this album. There’s a cool backstory for this record that’s shrouded in a little mystery but it’s something along these lines. A company called Linn was making high end turntables and audio products but were looking to expand into the music business side of things. They wanted to find a band that they could get behind but also one that could make a record they could use to show off their new audio equipment. They heard some demos from this band called the Blue Nile and offered to finance their full-length debut album. And voila, they got what they wanted and we get the wonderful music that is “A Walk Across the Rooftops.”
There’s so many things I love about this album. The way it mixes electronic instruments with acoustic instruments. Its use of space as a way to both fill the record but also to expand each instrument. The way the songs feel composed as opposed to just written. The way it creates emotional textures that inform and bring out the most from the lyrics. The wonderful way it expresses complex musical ideas with such simplicity. It’s such a nuanced album both musically and lyrically. The vocal performances are otherworldly. They are understated and measured at times but during others are exploding with so much emotion that you could understand what he was trying to say even if it was written in a language you had never heard before. I love the way this record takes its time in revealing itself to you. Some songs and moments seem to jump out of the speakers while others make you want to lean in a little closer. I love all of it.
Some of those things were definitely kicking around my head when I made MY SOLO EP. And I can assure you they are still in there when I’m working on another solo EP that should be out hopefully in the next couple months (though, admittedly, it’s been a little hard to work on a record when you share a small apartment with another human and a cat that always knows when you need her to be quiet and then, because she’s a cat, does the exact opposite). I love playing with multiple simple, repetitive melodies. I want some sonic diversity as you move through the record. I want some songs to be dense and full of energy and others to feel sparse and intimate. I strive for emotionally driven vocal performances. In short, I wish I could make music like this but that’s not how my brain works. Plus, I’m not sure anyone can do what they do.
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
My favorite tracks: My Backwards Walk and Keep Yourself Warm
This album affected me in a very different way. Yes, I love the production on this album as well. But, it’s more of the songwriting and storytelling that grabs me on this one. Or, I should say, it’s more of the way Scott Hutchison goes about songwriting and storytelling that pulled me into this album. There is something about how Scott was able to talk about things like sex, depression, religion, etc. in ways I’d never heard before. It somehow felt so fucking intimate when he was talking about those really heavy topics, sort of like he found a way to let us peer directly into his brain while he was processing his thoughts. This was especially true when he talked about depression. I can’t think of anyone who was able to write and process something so difficult to understand, and do it in real time. Depression for me has always been a very personal and maddening issue. I struggle to articulate, even to myself, what I am feeling and how I feel about it. Obviously, a lot of that probably has to do with the Asperger’s but it’s nevertheless always been that way for me. Being unable to understand my own emotions has been a huge struggle for me my entire life, which then leads to more negative emotions that I cannot understand and the cycle continues.
When I first heard this album, based on Christian playing a song (“Keep Yourself Warm,” I believe) on his podcast, I felt like a light popped on in my brain. It was like a circuit had finally been completed and I could now access new thoughts and feelings that were previously kept off the grid, to finish the electricity analogy. Scott allowed me to understand so much about myself and did it in the way that makes the most sense to my brain, through song. He was able to say so many things I struggled to get out. It felt, and I’m sure there are thousands who feels this way, like he was writing music to help me through a really rough patch in my life. It seemed like he was diving into the darkest corners of his brain so he could help us understand our own darkness a little better.
With verses like:
I'm working on my faults and cracks
Filling in the blanks and gaps
And when I write them out they don't make sense
I need you to pencil in the rest
Or:
And vital parts fall from his system
And dissolve in Scottish rain
But vitally, he doesn't miss them
He's too fucked up to care
Or more hopeful ones, like this:
When it's all gone, something carries on
And it's not morbid at all
Just when natures had enough of you
When my blood stops, someone else's will not
When my head rolls off, someone else's will turn
And while I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth
Unfortunately, the gift he gave was too great a burden on him and he took his own life in 2018. It was apparent from his music that his struggle was very deep and all-encompassing. But he did make those tiny changes for thousands and thousands people who needed a voice, like Scott’s, the same way I did. Scott’s voice became the voice in my head that could tell me all the secrets I had been keeping from myself for years. I hope that I can someday repay some of that Karmic debt by providing at least one song that does as much as the dozens and dozens Scott gave us.