mumbling into the void

Part two in my Dystopian Future Album series.

Don’t worry – I don’t have plans for a third part. At least not yet.

Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails was released in 2007, during the Bush II era of US Presidency. I was 26 going on 27 at the time, bemoaning how stupid we were in the western world to be following such an absolute idiot as the Leader of The Free World for a second term. Oh, how dumb and naive I was. The more things change…

Here we are, not even two decades later, and those times seem oh-so rosy now. A bygone era, where politicians mostly did things above board (okay, maybe not), the corruption was less blatant and in your face, and the 24 hour news cycle seemed to pause and let us all collectively take a breather occasionally. You know, instead of pummelling us non-stop with the next imminent crises or global meltdown.

George W. Bush now seems like a scholarly elder statesman looking back, with his Fool-Me-Once-isms and inventive pronunciation of Nu-Cu-Lor that I still not cannot stop saying myself, and that awe-shucks goofy smile. But he didn’t have it easy, no sir. He was just a salt of the earth guy from Texas that inherited everything from his daddy, including his post-secondary schooling, political party and presidential seat. Oh, and his favourite nation to have a war with. If only all of us were so lucky to fail upwards in such a stratospheric manner.

Year Zero was very obviously Trent Reznor’s look at the Bush II era we were living through, and taking it all to an even more outrageous level. The entire album is an ode to a world gone even madder. There are songs that show the blurring of lines between religious zeal and nationalistic jingoism. Lyrics envision a dystopian hellscape where misplaced rage and deeply flawed masculinity find each other and fall in love. The rabid worship of power for power’s sake is given musical form.

Well, thank goodness, none of that nonsensical doomsaying will ever happen.

Front Line Assembly’s most popular album came out back in 1994 – the same year Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral was released. More than 30 years ago. Both still sound and feel ahead of their time.

Front Line Assembly is an industrial band that resides in Vancouver. Originally founded in 1986 after Bill Leeb left fellow Canadian industrial band Skinny Puppy, the band has rotated and included different members over the years. The two main constants are Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber. It is a soundtrack for this world we live in. One of Front Line Assembly’s members is Rhys Fulber.

Their music is on Millennium and elsewhere is synth-driven, dark, and dystopian. There are notes of Nine Inch Nail’s industrial style on the album. There are also notes of Rage Against The Machine’s eponymous album, which came out in 1991. But Rage Against The Machine was burning with justified anger at the inequality and racism all around us, and The Downward Spiral points out the unbalance and self loathing that festers within. Millennium is more a warning or portent to unregulated warmongering and fear and aggression.

Groove Armada – Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)

Groove Armada’s album Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub) came out in 2001. It is chronologically sandwiched between two other fantastic albums that were released by the band/dj duo within about 5 years.

Vertigo came out in 1999. It is the album that originally got me into Groove Armada. I can still remember purchasing the CD at the A&B Sound that resided near Sunridge Mall, back in the day when music stores that actually sold music – not just anime toys and t-shirts – were a thing. I think I purchased Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub) from the same store when it was released in 2001. Lovebox – the third in this unofficial-to-anybody-but-me trilogy of great albums, was released shortly thereafter in 2002. That CD I purchased at the late, great Megatunes on 17th. I purchased many an album there, including DJ Champion’s Chill Em All, which I wrote about in the past.

That spot now houses Vine Arts’ 17th Ave location. Don’t tell Andrew I said it, but I hear it is a pretty good liquor store.

Ahh, nostalgia. How is it that I have reached a point where I can mention things I did as an adult a quarter-century ago, yet I still don’t feel like an adult now?

This is the second time I have talked about a Soulwax Album in this space. The first was about their 2005 remix album called Night Versions. Night Versions was the album that got me into Soulwax, when I first picked it up, nearly 20 years ago now.

For those new to the Belgian band Soulwax, the group is built around the core DJs and multi-instrumentalist Dewaele brothers Stephan and David, plus a rotating mix of members. Soulwax creates music that falls into an array of different genres, including disco, alternative (is that still a thing?), indie, punk, electronic, new wave, and more. Soulwax’s music comes off as a celebration of all of these different styles, yet also seems to push forward and innovate. Being inventive while paying homage to what came before may sound like a hard combination to pull off, but the Dewaele brothers and Soulwax make it look easy.

I love you, Pumpkin
I love you, Honey Bunny

An iconic movie quote. In an alternate universe, those lines would have come from some children’s animated film. Something like Winnie-the-Pooh or even Toy Story, perhaps. In our universe – one which includes writer/director Quentin Tarantino – these famous lines are said in a film that includes a washed up boxer wielding a samurai sword, an Old Testament quoting hitman, and a coffee appreciating cleaner. And so very, very much more.

Most people likely have a few movie soundtracks that they consider iconic. Pulp Fiction is one for me, and I am sure I am not alone. I remember my Dad purchasing it on Compact Disc after he had seen the movie in theatre. He brought the soundtrack home and immediately popped it in the ghetto blaster that resided in our kitchen.

I was 14 or 15 at the time, and I was transfixed from those first spoken lines and then the frenetic pace of the opening song – Misirilou. I listened to the soundtrack front to back numerous times before I ever watched the movie.

I originally posted this in a wine newsletter in April of 2024.

Geoff likes to use the movie La Dolce Vita when writing about Italian wine, which makes sense. For me though, the term reminds me of my father. My Dad wrote a newspaper column titled La Dolce Vita for more than a decade for the Creston Valley Advance / Black Press. The subject of the column was most often wine.

Here is a link to one of his columns from nearly twelve years ago. As you can see, the grape doesn’t fall far from the vine: I come by my love for wine (and whisky) naturally, and possibly genetically, through my parents – especially my dad.

Another thing I stole from my father is some of his taste in music. That is why I have chosen to highlight Prince and The Revolution’s album Purple Rain. The album is a soundtrack for a movie of the same name, which itself is an emotional and quirky showcase for the talent and egotism of the late great Prince himself.

I remember listening to this album on tape as a kid, riding in the back seat of our car, on our regular family trips from Creston to Calgary and other parts of Alberta, where our relatives resided. This Album – along with a few others – I never got tired of hearing. We were probably listening to it on a road trip back in December of 2012 when my dad was thinking about writing his column on how misunderstood and misrepresented Chardonnay can be.

Music to Read Words By: Nine Inch Nails – Just Like You Imagined live @ Henry Fonda Theater, LA 9.08.09

The bench scraped the tile as he adjusted it, pulling it in under him. Stationing his body closer to the keys. His station. He and the piano were relegated to the lobby now. No longer lounging about.

Long ago he was Ambiance, sometimes even forefront. He staged things from on high, sometimes with other fellow musicians. Now he was background noise at best. The hustle of people around him, keeping the sound he made out of mind. Out of time. From another era.

The Lounge. For more than a decade, /up until the renovation, that was his home. I’d it was still there, it would have been full of his patrons, sitting down and listening as he played. The Lounge was no more though. The dim lighting and cocktails tables taken away to make room on the floor for VLTs. It was a form of entertainment he could not understand, but it made the hotel a lot of money. Or so he heard. The doors held tinted glass that kept out the outside world, but when the doors were opened the electronic, inorganic buzz and jingle of the machines could be heard. The noises from the Casino were the worst kind of cacophony to his own ears, but the siren sound seemed to entice people to enter and seemingly never leave. At least not during the Piano Man’s shift.

Music to Read Words By: Big Sugar – Joe Louis/Judgement Day Live

The door shut behind his son quietly, leaving him alone once more.

10 years ago – no – 5 years ago even – his son would have punctuated his leaving by slamming the door with so much force that it would have rattled the frame that held it and reverberated through the walls. Meeting with his son used to result in the boy having so much anger, so much potential energy that it absolutely had to be expended on a non-living object or else. The anger had dissipated though, and all that was left was a grudging resignation and a door quietly, softly shut to end the everlasting argument between father and son. The door was now treated with reverence. Respect even. At least compared to how father and son treated each other.

Music to Read Words By: Devin Townsend – Genesis (Live)