Today, I started looking at and listening to some of the older (when I mean older, about 12-13 years ago) music in my collection. During my perusal, I came across Mineral, a band from Austin, Texas during the mid to late 90's. If you've never heard of them before, do yourself a favor and check them out. Along with Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, Jawbreaker, The Gets Up Kids, Texas Is The Reason, Boys Life, Christie Front Drive, and numerous others, Mineral took part in the emo scene of the 90's. While that, in itself, might peak the interest of some of you reading, that' snot what I want to write about. Instead, I want to take a moment and write briefly about how the music that these individuals created affected my life. Really, what their music has meant to me.
I remember the first time I heard The Power of Failing; it was during the summer of 1998, a year after it released. During that summer, I was doing summer missions, working at weekly camps around the state of Louisiana. At one of the camps, a worker, whose name I forget, gave me a tape. She possibly gave it to me after I mentioned Sunny Day Real Estate or another band that I liked. One one side, it had Mineral's The Power of Failing. The other side carried songs by Christie Front Drive. Needless to say, as I drove my 1996 Mazda Protege, which I still have, across the state, the tape continually played, along with some Deftones, Blindside, Bruce McCulloch, and others. Quick side note, if you have never heard Bruce McCulloch's (of Kids in the Hall fame) debut solo album Shame-Based Man, do yourself a favor and find it somewhere. I remember finding this album, finally, at a Barnes and Noble in Baton Rouge. Anyways, back to Mineral.
For some reason, The Power of Failing resonated very strongly with me, and it still does. The vulnerability in Chris Simpson's voice as he sings about humbleness, failing, love, desire, heaven, a more innocent time, and other emotions combined with the music fluctuations from all out feedback with pounding drums to swooning basses and lead riffs create an atmosphere that conveys the strongest of emotions in an encapsulated package. For some reason, the nature of the recording also helps. It's less than polished sound adds a mood of urgentness that is only exasperated by the combination of vocals and instruments.
I could go through this album, song by song, and point out what each one has meant to me, or what it means to me now. I don't want to do that though. Instead, I just want to briefly mention three songs. I'll do the same for their second album.
"Slower," the third song on the album, is driven by a four chord progression that carries the listener through the verses where Simpson sings of denial and facades that people put on to impress others. Moving to the chorus, the second guitar enters, disjointed, and brutal, somehow slapping this mask off the speaker. The song carries through a second verse and chorus, still littered with the disjunction found earlier. It ends with a melodic movement that dies down before a brutal assault of feedback and crushing guitars transcend the speakers and let the listener know that things are screwed up "when you wake up in the morning with a smile on your face because you know you lied yourself to sleep to make it better." As a side note, I really like the harmonics in this song too.
"If I Could," was (note the past tense) the song of a semi-hopeless romantic. It's always been a running joke that Emo is for whiny boys who seem to have lost, or never gotten, the girl. To a certain extent, yes, but a lot of music is about this. Anyways, this song doesn't really carry the weight with me that is used to, but I still like it. Somehow, Simpson moves the focal point of the song from a guy watching his romantic interest from a far, admiring her and wanting to tell her how he feels, into a song about the ability to praise God for allowing him to "live and breathe and wake each day." You know, this sentiment still carries weight. As I get older, I do realize how much of a blessing it is to wake up and spend time with the ones you love, including Zoe. So I guess this song still carries a little weight with me.
Finally, "Take The Picture Now," the ninth song on the album, really touches the spiritual aspects. To me, it's a hymn and prayer that needs to be sung at the top of your lungs. Beginning with a melodic bass that gives way to guitars, a drum roll, and vocals, "Take The Picture Now" paints a picture, albeit, the speaker's dream, of heaven. I could sit here and ramble on and on about what these lyrics and music mean to me, but it might be wiser to just print the lyrics here.
there are blue skies in my dreams and laughter that seems unending there are green grass fields there and happiness and hope for tomorrow my cup is full and my heart spills awkward and embarrassing blood onto white-golden streets and i am unashamed of the stains my steps leave tears stream down my cheeks only to meet their redeemer and be wiped away and there is joy ah there is joy.
There are from the Mineral lyric page at Crank Records. All of their lyrics are here. Anyways, this song leads me into their second album, EndSerenading.
This album still amazes me. The melodic vocal arrangements, time signature shifts, mood shifts, and over power that EndSerenading creates gives me goose bumps to this day. The production on this album is better, and it lets the music covey itself in a beautiful way. I don't remember when I bought this album, but I am sure I bought it, ordered it, as soon as it released. Anyways, let me delve into a few songs here to give you an idea of its feelings.
I guess I'll start off with the one that really gets me. "ALetter" is the seventh song on the album. I believe this song really gets me because it reminds me of my grandfather. Now, it hits me harder than it did when I first heard it. The speaker in the song is reminiscing about his grandfather or father. He sees a picture of the man returning home from war with a woman (wife) on his arm and a tattoo. The speaker even says that the face has been "weathered by places and days I'd never seen," and never will possibly. The song then switches to the speaker "reading and rereading the birthday card" he received when he was seven. It reminds him of the times they spent together.
I can say honestly, that this song almost brings me to tears, even now. You know it's been over ten years, and I still can't shake the fact that never did see my grandfather before he died. I remember being at my grandparent's house, being asked if I wanted to go see him, and not going. I was in college, so I should have been able to handle it, but I wasn't. On my way home from an orientation, I believe, for my summer mission trip, I had a premonition when I stopped to eat, at Burger King, in Natchitoches, LA that he had dies. When I got to my parent's house, saw a message on the machine, and listened to it, it didn't surprise me. Now, I regret all of the missed opportunities I had while he was sick.
I didn't mean for this to turn into a historical autobiography, but this topic gnaws at me more than I would like, especially now that I am getting older. I can sit here and say I would have done this, I would have done that, but would I? I don't know. Let me close this subject with one more image that have of that whole ordeal. I don't remember when this was, which time it was when my grandfather was in the hospital, what year, or any of that. All I remember is this. Sitting in a chair across from the hospital bed, I watched as my grandmother held my grandfather in her arms and stroked his head gently. At that moment, I knew what love was. They were married 50 (or 51) years, and they loved each other very much. My parents are about to celebrate 40, and I'm about to celebrate 10, in two years. Hopefully I can mature enough to grasp and experience the love they had for one another. That's not to say I don't love Melissa, but I am not to that completely unconditional stage that I have seen, felt, and experienced with my grandmother.
Ok, I'm not going to go back to the album, but I will say this. The last three songs are great hymns and praise songs, just like "Take the Picture Now."
After breaking up, Chris Simpson and Jeremy Gomez went on to form the Gloria Record, while Gabe Wiley went to Pop Unknown. I still remember buying the Gloria Record's first EP, at Best Buy or Blockbuster Music in Shreveport. I bought, went to Barnes and Noble, with my CD player (remember almost 10 years ago) and played it while reading. Once, when some friends and I saw Pop Unknown in Lake Charles, I believe, we ran into a scene kid who kind of freaked me out. Most of time, true scene kids freak me out; they get so obsessed with what they are experiencing that they take things to the extreme and act weird, even if they aren't on drugs. Anyways, this kid told us that during the dead of winter, granted it's Lake Charles, he would roll the windows down in his car, blast his A/C, and play Mineral just to really feel the music. To me, this was crazy.
Another story, after I met Melissa, we took a road trip to Dallas, actually Denton, to see Gloria Record at Rubber Gloves. Boy, was that a night. The opening band, Antarctica, ex-Christie Front Drive members, played forever, and the Gloria Record didn't play a long set, as usual when I saw them. Sometimes, it felt like a waste to travel so far to see them, but half of the fun of going to shows is the trip. Anyways, I remember driving home from the show. My friend Tim drove most of the way, from what I remember, and he left sun flower seeds everywhere. We stopped at my parent's house on the way through Bossier, we made it home to Monroe, after picking up doughnuts, and Melissa had to go to work at Sound Shop. Was it worth it? Yeah.
Now, to all of you who experienced Mineral with me, you're welcome for me introducing you to them. If memory serves me correctly, I showed them to you after that fateful summer of '98. Debate me and set me straight if I am wrong.
I really wanted to add a picture of my grandfather, but I couldn't find it, until today. It is of him during WW II, sitting on a snow bank, with a drink in his hand, and a sign behind him pointing to Paradise. Here's a picture of Juliette celebrating PaPi's birthday last week.
No comments:
Post a Comment