Loquat >> I spent my time falling down the stairs

California Month, tremor #7:

Loquat - "Swingset Chain"

(Dreams By Degrees, 2001)

Any fan of ambitious, bittersweet pop music will be floored upon his or her first listen to this song, from the San Francisco group's 10" EP called Fall.

Fall came out in 2002, but, if I remember correctly, the song was recorded in 2001.  The band rerecorded it for their 2005 debut album, but I think that version sapped a lot of the song's dynamics and sense of wonder from it, so stick with this version.  The EP also has a very futuristic, nifty remix of "S.C." by some dudes(?) named Atomix And Spindly.  (AllMusic Guide disagreed: "Sadly, the EP is rounded up with a house remix of 'Swingset Chain.'  Predictable and almost offensive in the context of what came before it, it shatters all the playful charm of the original."  Oh, loosen up.)
 Kylee Swensen's voice is so infuriatingly pristine and perfect in every way, and it just dominates the song in every way without coming off as showboating.  She would have been one hell of a jazz singer in another era.  I interviewed them by email in early '03 for my old zine, and a little while later Kylie emailed me back to tell me they'd just put out a music video for the song, which made me feel psyched that they'd soon be storming the indie charts, then playing arenas and whatnot.  It's pretty much just some live clips stitched together, but hey, at least it's a music video:

This song apparently got used in a fuckload of TV shows, including One Tree Hill, and was included as a free download with some national brand of memory card (a brilliant marketing coup), but the band never became well-known outside of California.  The song has inspired lots of cringeworthy amateur cover versions on YouTube, so it's apparently become a cult favorite, which is the main thing I ever wanted for it.  It's truly one of the best songs of its genre ever made, and it deserves to be up there with the classics by The Sundays, Fleetwood Mac, and The Smiths.  (Loquat did an interesting synth-y cover of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" in 2003.)  The melodic twists and turns are just spellbinding, and the inscrutable lyrics like "It rained a hundred nineteen days of the year / I spent my time falling down the stairs" and "You're a dandelion seed that flies through the years / And lands randomly, and disappears" and of course "The penny drop that broke her arm" are very cool.  You could write a thesis paper on these lyrics, no joke.  By the way, as I teased in my previous post, a loquat is a type of tree that makes a painfully sweet yellowish-orange fruit; it's also known as the Japanese plum tree, though it's not related to plums.  They're ubiquitous around here in the Southeast, but are not quite considered an invasive species, due to how slowly they grow.  It's pronounced "LOW-qwott," and is not related to the kumquat.

During a break in the rain from Tropical Storm Lee on 9/3/11, I was moving some of my cacti & succulents to more protected spots, and decided to do a group photo.  My camera didn't really focus properly b/c the humidity level was about 98%, sorry.

There are cacti, succulents, aloes, agaves (tequila plants), yuccas, and a dyckia (DEE-kee-yuh) in there. Not shown is a Mammillaria cactus that I've had for 13 years, because it's in New Orleans.

Planets with similar climates: The Sundays - "I Feel" (1992), Club 8 - "We Set Ourselves Free" (2002), Pale Saints - "Featherframe" & "Thread Of Light" (1992), Rainer Maria - "The Imperatives" (2002), The Cardigans - "Your New Cuckoo" (1996), The Delays - "Stay Where You Are" (2003), The Psychedelic Furs - "The Ghost In You" (1984).