Felt >> Nothing seems to matter when I'm on your side

Felt - "Fortune" (re-recorded version)

(Cherry Red Records, 1984)

I'm not a huge fan of this band, but this song is exceptional, and should come pre-loaded onto every iPod / iPad / car stereo / boombox / etc.  It originally appeared on Felt's 1982 debut album Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty, and was re-recorded for an '84 single, albeit just as a b-side.  Yes, one of the greatest songs of the '80s was just a b-side.  I took it off of the Felt retrospective CD Absolute Classic Masterpieces, which I downloaded from eMusic in 2003.  The original version is tentative and mumbly, whereas this one is more energetic and dayglo, while maintaining its mysterious melancholy undercurrent.  The opening guitar note and bass note are each just so perfect, and things just get better from there.  I heard that Liz Fraser of Cocteau Twins does the backing vocals at the end, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

Back cover

The last two lines of the lyrics are great.  Guitar prodigy Maurice Deebank's jazzy, bright style was quite influential on the whole '80s U.K. indie jangle pop / rock scene, most notably on Johnny Marr of The Smiths, and probably David Gavurin of The Sundays.  Singer Lawrence (just Lawrence) was quite indebted to Lou Reed, but added this weird sighing technique that made his vocals unique.  He was quite a strange dude, forming Felt with the sole intent of releasing exactly ten albums and ten singles in a span of ten years, after which he would break the band up.  He did just that, and then promptly formed a group called... Denim.  L... O... L.  The word "Felt" is great because it has several different meanings (touched; had an emotion; a type of fabric).  Like I said, I don't like most of Felt's stuff, though the surging "Penelope Tree" is pretty great.  Too bad it has to have a girl's name in the title, my biggest musical pet peeve ever, but I think I mentioned that at least once already.

Cool little things that have happened since I've started doing this blog:
¬ A few days after the Hex post, I found Game Theory's Lolita Nation double LP in a thrift store for $3.  (Donette Thayer was in Game Theory before becoming the singer of Hex, and I'd been wanting this album for many years.)
¬ On July 14, I found A.C. Temple's Blowtorch LP for $4.  (Its song "Chinese Burn" contains the lyric "Blowtorch, baby," after which this blog is named.)  I never thought I'd find that one on vinyl, and in fact it was my first time seeing anything by A.C. Temple in person.  It was filed under the "T" section of the store, which kind of made me crack up, but kind of made me sad, since if this really hip store (Domino Sound Record Shack) doesn't know who they are, then who does?
¬ A few minutes before getting my speeding ticket in April, I was holding Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" cassingle, deciding whether or not to buy it.  (I didn't.)  Then in late June, I heard the song "I'd Rather Be With You" by Bootsy Collins on the radio and realized Adina stole the entire melody of it for "Freak Like Me."  I called the station and told the DJ about Adina's song, but she'd never heard of it.
¬ Compare the random photo I used in the Honeyburn post to this now-infamous photo of disgraced Oregon congressman David Wu:

This dude had to recently resign due to his bizarre behavior, likely the result of mental illness; I had no idea about this photo until last week, though it technically did come out before the post I made.

Today (well, technically yesterday, since it's a little after midnight) I went to a Saints practice for the first time, from about 4:30 - 6:30 PM.  I mention the time of day because the sun was in full splendor, casting a 97º glow on us mortals, but it was totally worth the heat, and it was free.  Newly-acquired weapon Darren Sproles, Reggie Bush's replacement (upgrade), repeatedly stunned the huge crowd into gasps with his slippery breakaway runs.  Like, seriouisly, I had never heard anything like that from a crowd at any sporting event.  This little dude is legit.  And rookie tailback Mark Ingram (yes, the Heisman winner) is a wrecking ball in the mold of Deuce McAllister.  Someone mentioned to me that all five of the Saints' offensive linemen are Pro Bowlers.  The hitting was pretty fierce, with lots of after-the-whistle contact.  There were 11 wide receivers listed on the roster sheet, so I guess about half of them will have to be cut in the next few weeks.  I believe this squad is far better than the one that won the Super Bowl two seasons ago.  I parked my car directly under a weeping willow, so it was cool when I got back to it, and my Skywave 7" ("Don't Say Slow") did not warp.  I then drove down to Houma and bought that greenhouse that I mentioned last month.  The music in the car fir the last several days has been Warpaint's Exquisite Corpse EP and Puro Instinct's Headbangers In Ecstasy.  I missed the NFL Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, and I forgot to wear my Marshall Faulk jersey.  He's from New Orleans, if you didn't know.  I followed him pretty closely in college starting in '92, when he was dominating college football.  After his first game as a pro in fall of '94, I put up a black & white newspaper photo of him on my wall, and it stayed there for many years.

Planets with similar climates: Simple Minds - "Someone Somewhere In Summertime" (1982), U2 - "Love Comes Tumbling" (1984), The Lotus Eaters - "Set Me Apart" (1984), Plexi - "Change" (1996), The Feelies - "It's Only Life" (1989), The Sundays - "More" (1992), Pearl Harbor (Puro Instinct) - "Slivers Of You" (2010), The Durutti Column - "Never Known" (1981), Hinterland - "Dive The Deepest" (1990), The House Of Love - "Feel" & "Yer Eyes" (1992).


Currently trying unsuccessfully to: Stop reading Natasha Vargas-Cooper's blog.