When I told Stacey about the two nostalgia-filled live streams of albums from 1999, she correctly remarked that at least I have my songs for this week. Indeed I do, plus I added a third artist from the same ilk.
I learned, via Brooklyn Vegan, TGUK would be playing STTWHA (I will cool it with the abbreviations, I know.) on a live stream on Valentine’s day. As you may know, “Valentine” is a great track from this record as well.
This would be 2 days after Jimmy Eat World was playing Clarity in its entirety on another stream. I’m setting the line for duration of Goodbye Sky Harbor at 19:03, any action?
So enjoy the brief reminder of a simpler time with sadder lyrics, more angular guitars, and even some synth.
The Get Up Kids “Action & Action”
Track 2 from the Something to Write Home About album referenced before. I’d never seen the video, but it is pretty sweet. Best part is probably the dude going to answer the door and still playing the MOOG. Can’t stop, won’t stop.
Jimmy Eat World “Lucky Denver Mint”
This video lacks the context necessary to fully appreciate the song. There is a part near the end of Clarity track 1, “Table for Glasses” that is an outro style drum fill. When listened to in a car, the drums rotate around the speakers in an entrancing way. That same drum sound hits, albeit sped up, in this song.
It still makes me smile that we got Sles to embrace “Table for Glasses” based on the drum outro. “Too Slow” he said, and that he “always skipped it”. Proved him wrong on that one.
Aside: I was going to go with one of the acoustic versions of this song, but it doesn’t gel well with the drum outro ramblings above.
Hot Rod Circuit “Irish Car Bomb”
This one makes me think of my friends Dave and Corey, and for different reasons. Irish Car Bombs are a drink Dave introduced us to on a G10 trip. I’d never chugged Guinness before, let alone one with a shot of Jameson and some Baileys in there. Eesh. Somehow comes out tasting like chocolate milk.
Corey’s connection to this one is a little more dubious. When he was going to college in Arizona still, he had a brush up with a guy at a bar. Details are fuzzy at this point but Corey said something about the other guy needing to deal with his girlfriend, which did not go over well. Turns out guy is Jay, the original bass player from Hot Rod Circuit.
2 nights later, the HRC tour has a stop in Texas that Adam and I attend. We make a point to track down the bass player and ask him about our friend’s story. Confirmed true, dude remembers, and hates Corey. Haha amazing.
