Well, hello, strangers! It's been a good bit since I've stomped on these home grounds, and a ton of stuff has happened. I wrote a book, we had a pandemic, you know... stuff.
But I assure you, my love for our genre has never flickered for second. I spent a ton of lockdown staring at a computer, doomscrolling--but I'm sure none of you did anything like that--and listening to bands who had never crossed over my transom before, or if they did, I didn't register it. But if there was any joy there, it was that I had little to do except listen to music.
Which brings me to Sloan.
My friend Bill insists we caught the tail end of a set in early 2000, opening for GBV. Maybe? I had a newborn; I'm pretty sure I missed that show. My sister-in-law insists that she had spent literally years in the 90s trying to turn me on to them. Maybe? She wasn't someone I looked to for new bands, I guess, so I probably nodded politely.
A heartbreaking waste of time, if either of these things are true. Because when I fell, I fell HARD.
You all will understand what I mean when I say this: Sloan pierced the fog of my lockdown haze. Everything was gray and dangerous and lonely, and these, I dunno, tendrils? of music kept reaching out to me from my computer. It was words at first, odd little phrasings.
What's so bad about dying anyway?
I guess you caught me lying to myself.
You get rough, attack my self-esteem /It's not much, but it's the best I've got.
We've all been in one situation or another we regret.
She don't know what it means, she just knows that it's not what it seems.
Every now and then, I'm reminded that you /could say goodbye and then vanish from view.
They all struck me as profound and beautiful and just, you know TRUE. And they spanned almost 30 years, because I received Sloan in a tsunami, all at once.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be unpacking this weird journey I've been on, which gave me structure and kept me sane. I hope you'll enjoy it.
