Hey gang, happy long weekend.
As summer is drawing to a close I find myself looking back at other memorable summers. I've written before about the time spent working as a carpenter's apprentice and the music I listened to at the time. While I was certainly attached to my portable CD player (which is amazing it ever worked, in hindsight) I also spent a fair amount of time on the job fiddling with radio knobs to pick up the distant stations from the Twin Cities. These stations were way better than anything else I could get at the time, which was either pop, country, talk or religious. I could not stand any of those. Working on houses far, far out in the goon docks allowed for a faint but clear signal to whisper in, the most treasured being the hard rock station 93X, playing all kinds of music I loved but couldn't lug around with me in CD form. On top of that, the carpenter hated the abrasive sounds, often switching back to Rush Limbaugh or some Christian talk station. It was a give and take - he'd give me an opening, then take the radio back.
Sometimes he would leave me at a site to clean up or work on something monotonous but easy while he went off to do more complicated and involved tasks. These times were great, a free reign to blast the tunes as loud as I wanted. I actually did work with the better station, too - I didn't slack off when not observed. There was one time, though, that I had to sit down and really listen to a song as it came over the airways, though. It was an overcast morning during a stretch of days spent at my grandparents to lessen my commute to the sites. I was tired and bummed to be trapped in the goon docks, far away from any of the metropolitan culture I would eventually embrace. I was unhappy and tired. It was humid. The house I was working in was not even half finished, with drafts and saw dust to bother the eyes and lungs. The radio was a respite from this. So when a strange and eerie song started with a woman's smoky voice singing notes without words, I had to stop to listen.
The song began to build. A solitary bassline crept in under the intonations. It was almost spooky, but certainly heartbreaking. Slowly, sadly, the woman sang "Breathe it in and breathe it out and pass it on its almost gone". While obviously singing of addiction (of which I knew nothing) it was still a moving song, one that gripped me and made an indelible mark in my mind. I was transfixed by the song until it was over, the song having risen and fallen several times, taking me on a bit of an emotional journey. All the while the signal threatened to fade out, amping up my focus and the intensity with which I listened. Right before some heavy clouds came in and broke the signal entirely, I heard the DJ say "That was 'Not An Addict' by K's Choice, a great band out of..." and then it went to static. The words imprinted on my brain - I had to hear it again.
It wasn't until I got to college, four or five years later, that I would finally download the song and listen to it to death. This was the era of CDs full of filler and I always had some particular album I had to pick up first in my mental queue. Not to say I didn't appreciate the song - I actually heard it once or twice in the intervening years, with other people even confirming how great it was. I'm pretty sure my band (yes, I was in a punk band for years) covered it at one point. It was just one of those special things you keep in the back of your mind, never quite letting it go, occasionally saying "I have to find this!". When I did, it was fantastic.
The song was sung by Sarah Bettens of the band K's Choice. The band, hailing from Antwerp in Belgium, actually achieved some international fame for the single, due in no small part to her distinct and raspy voice. The band had albums before and after but nothing has hit quite as big as 'Not An Addict', for better or worse. Millions of other people have been just as amazed by the song as I have, but I will always think of my solitary, isolated discovery of the song. Even if everyone I know is familiar with this awesome song, it will always bring me back to that special, secret moment when I was all alone and being deeply moved by Bettens' voice. It's a fantastic number. Give it a listen. Enjoy your weekend.
As summer is drawing to a close I find myself looking back at other memorable summers. I've written before about the time spent working as a carpenter's apprentice and the music I listened to at the time. While I was certainly attached to my portable CD player (which is amazing it ever worked, in hindsight) I also spent a fair amount of time on the job fiddling with radio knobs to pick up the distant stations from the Twin Cities. These stations were way better than anything else I could get at the time, which was either pop, country, talk or religious. I could not stand any of those. Working on houses far, far out in the goon docks allowed for a faint but clear signal to whisper in, the most treasured being the hard rock station 93X, playing all kinds of music I loved but couldn't lug around with me in CD form. On top of that, the carpenter hated the abrasive sounds, often switching back to Rush Limbaugh or some Christian talk station. It was a give and take - he'd give me an opening, then take the radio back.
