Lava Lamp Inspiration

Hello, dear 2 or 3 of you who actually read this drivel I spew so regularly.

I was flipping through my CD collection looking for something to listen to on a rainy Sunday evening, when I came across an album that I haven't listened to in a long time. It's the first album I ever bought; Beautiful Midnight by Matthew Good Band. I had heard the song "Hello Time Bomb" on the radio and seen the video on Much Music and I was intrigued. I wasn't yet into buying full albums by bands, but I did have a couple of those "Big Shiny Tunes" compilations that Much puts out every year. So I went on down to the local Music World, fist full of hard earned paper-route money to get one of these compilations, based solely on the fact that "Hello Time Bomb" was the centrepiece of the collection. I bought it, brought it home and popped it in the ol' CD player, skipping ahead to the track I wanted to hear.

I was damn outraged when the song got to the line "Down at the Radio Shack, turning shit into solid gold" and what came out was "Down at the Radio Shack, turning sh into solid gold." The fuckers had censored it! But not even one of those irritating beeps, they had simply omitted the word! ARG! Imagine my frustration.

So I plucked this offensive CD out of the player without even waiting for it to stop spinning, put it back in the bag, marched right back to the store and exchanged it for a copy of Beautiful Midnight, swears and all. I got it home and listened to track two, the object of my affection. The "shit" was intact and I was overjoyed by the effect.

I stayed up late that night with the CD booklet in hand, listening to the album over and over again. I later loaned it to a friend and found out that, unprompted, she had done the same thing. It is an album which cries out to be played late at night, particularly if you're in any type of reflective mood. The effect, I've found is best amplified when you've either found love or lost it. It's hard to describe but the album either heightens the feeling of elation brought on by the prospect of a new relationship or it makes you painfully aware of some misstep which took away the chances for continued happiness. This album is something every seventeen year old needs to listen to. I've listened the CD into the ground it's been played so many times. I can sing along with not only the lyrics, but also the guitar, bass, and drums lines as well. It's the first and last album I ever memorized. It's dramatic, angry, lonely, lustful, brimming with sorrow, regret, pain and intensity that some bands only dream of. I cannot find a fault with it.

The album opens with Giant, which shifts from a cheerleading team chanting "K-I-C-K-A-S-S! That's the way we spell success!" with the band thundering away underneath into a guitar-driven exploratory drama about social perceptions. The style of the song had changed so quickly that I wondered how the cheerleaders fit in. But in the last chorus they return with a vengeance. It's every high school memory I've ever had all wrapped into one. Best line: "When you blow out like a dead star/It reminds me how uniform your beautiful is"

Next up is the reason I bought the album: Hello Time Bomb. It's a hard rockin', attitude filled, angry, cocky, fucked-up-in-the-head-and-proud-of-it vibe with a flanged bass that messes with my head and an effect solo that I can barely describe. It's been seven years since I first heard it and it still blows my mind. Add in Matt Good's snickering in the background, and it's the coolest thing in music. It makes you completely forget that there are other bands out there. In those three minutes and fifty-eight seconds, who needs them? Best line: "If life's for the livid/then check me tomorrow/We'll see if I'm emperor"

Time enough for a ballad, so enter Strange Days. Lead by an acoustic rhythm which is reminiscent of the band's hit "Apparitions," the song builds to soaring heights, touched with rough yet gentle piano and dreamy lyrics which have brought me close to tears on long drives home (of course late at night in my overly dramatic teen years). The emotion is palatable. Best line: "Are you crazy to want this/ Even for a while"

Next up is I Miss New Wave, a song I still have trouble describing, despite the years. It sounds like a hangover. Laced heavily with regret and the numbness of too much drink and sex, it could very well be the future of a rock star. But at the time, it felt like my future. It sums up my feelings about all the late night stupid things that you do as a teenager. One of the album's hidden gems. Best line: "Get laid by a golf course/That I never went to/Well it's not a real sport"

The album's second single Load Me Up got me into air guitar. I could mime the entire song, though I later realized that it was much simpler than I was making it out to be. This song sounds great when played loudly, but I prefer to have it on quietly. This song populated many mix tapes I made in high school and I would usually just rewind it over and over again until the tape gave out. It's just a hard hitting rock out song. Best line: "Hey are you are you are you are you you know/Hey are you are you are you special/Hey are you are you are you are you deformed/Hey yeah, you are"

Failing the Rorschach Test comes next, immediately after "Load Me Up" 's final notes barging in with a military-esque snare line and eerie guitar, playing on the imagery of Alice in Wonderland and painting a terrifying portrait of psychosis and child-parent relationships. Matt Good's snarl is entrancing, and his falsetto is beyond beautiful. Best line: "Mother told me to be something/So I'm afraid"

Suburbia deals with the desire of the forgotten child to flee, simply to be noticed. Passive anger oozes out of every note of this wandering meditation on escape. This song is so layered that you're constantly noticing new things. For example, I only just now noticed that there is a string section. No joke. I had thought that those sounds were backing vocals and sustained guitar, which are gorgeous, by the way. Best line: "Someday your head is going to turn/And you'll realize that I'm missing/Do you realize?"

Let's Get It On sounds like the inner monologue of a shame-filled, sex-starved man who fantasizes about taking charge sexually but is then disgusted by what he is thinking. This is another one of the album's hidden gems. Highly dramatic and the only rock song to date which uses the word "sycophantic." Best line: "So impossible/The doubt in everything, on everything is so impossible/In everything, everything"

Jenni's Song tells the story of a troubled, abused, vengeful girl. She's the typical badass, the kind I was fascinated with in high school when everything was still foreign and forbidden. Another of those "long drive home" songs with a crushing bridge and outstanding guitar break after the last chorus. It all ends quickly which makes me wonder about Jenni's fate. An excellently tragic story all in all. Best line: "Were you dead way before tonight?"

Going All The Way is somewhere between "Jenni's Song" and "I Miss New Wave." It's a look back in disgust at all the fake people and their misconstrued versions of beauty. I was friends with a girl, and this could have been our theme song, only less bleak. The whole song takes on a defeated look at the world and a seeming inability to make a change in such a shallow pond. Perfect for a disillusioned teenager. Best line: "Those missile men with their master plan/Don't get paid to understand"

A Boy and His Machine Gun terrifies me. Sung from the point of view of a mentally disturbed boy with a firearm, the whole song plays out like Silence of the Lambs; it's all one big game wih horrifying consequences. It's so perplexing. You fear the boy, but pity him all at once. Wonderfully complex and engaging. I have yet to switch the track when this song comes on. As the song concludes, it falls apart into a broken music box and the sound of doors being shut. Best line: "There's a t.v. in every room/And it's free, even pay-per-view/Which you'll need if no one's gonna visit you/Animal, Fucking animal"

The Future is X-Rated is another straight-out rock song, but what sets this one apart is the blatent sexuality, culminating in a bridge which includes phone sex with a hooker who says that she has to "take her coat off" before she begins. It's so sexual, but so casual all at the same time. Blew my adolescent mind. Best line: "So roll over sweet thing/Like a nuclear reprisal inbound from outer space/There's a comparison here I'm trying to swing"

Born to Kill is a musical heart attack. Never before have I heard such an effective use of strings in a rock song. The song begins with eerie guitars streaking past each other and eventually builds and builds and builds with drums crashing, guitars screaming and shouting, strings pounding and skittering across your brain until you are completely surrounded, confronted and helpless. And then you die. All sound cuts out except for a heart monitor flat-lineing. Unforgettable. Best line: "You're sleeping in my memory/Like Satan/Lonely/So I'm with him"

The album closer, Running for Home, is quite possibly the most beautiful piano ballad I've ever heard; simple, mournful, entrancing. Matt Good's vocals are gorgeous and it's this song that I compare other singers to. Beautiful sympathetic strings heighten the emotion and are perfectly arranged. It's the perfect song to hold someone to, especially if you're both exhausted by the world and want nothing more than to be as close as possible to someone and cry your eyes out. Best line: "Every morning your kindly heart stops working/It gets tight in there sometimes/Looking for the defects, talking like it's a reflex/I close my mouth now and I scream"

The album ends with forty-six seconds of silence, as if to give you enough time to catch your breath and wipe away the tears of anger and sadness. Never before has a record had such an emotional impact on me and it's long overdue that I try to put it into words.