In July of '95, I spent two weeks teaching the math portion of a science/math camp for high schoolers that my college had been running for about five years. I was involved with it (with one exception) through 2010 and it's still a going concern, though this year they reduced its length from thirteen to eight days. In those early years I had the students work on modular arithmetic and elementary cryptology, running my sessions in conjunction with a computer science colleague who helped them write code to encrypt and decrypt messages. Typically only a quarter to a third of the twenty or so kiddos was really in to my stuff, which of course was fine (other sessions addressed biology, chemistry, and environmental science). What I remember most from that first camp, though, was skittering away one evening to Lexington for one of the best concerts I've ever seen, Wilco opening for the Jayhawks in a theatre with just a few hundred seats.
I was in my second year of service as Newsletter Editor for my state math organization at this point; in early August I traveled to Burlington, VT to represent the Kentucky Section at the national organization's annual summer meeting. I decided to fly up a day early to play tourist briefly, renting a car and driving into New Hampshire to visit the lovely Franconia Notch State Park. It was cloudy and misty, but the walk up the Flume Gorge was still spectacular.
I recalled how much I enjoyed that visit last year as Martha and I were planning an early August vacation to Montreal. We flew into Boston and the next day drove a rental car into the heart of the Granite State to spend some time at Franconia Notch. It was cloudy once again with a threat of storms. Luckily, we mostly avoided the rain until after we decamped to nearby Littleton, a charming town where we spent the night at Thayers Inn, a hotel with a long, storied history. We liked it plenty, even if it was showing its age a tad.
(Bear with me. I'm heading somewhere even if the payoff is not all that interesting to you.)
As I've proceeded through the revisiting of 1995 this year I've regularly dragged out my unorganized box of photos from the 80s and 90s. It's been fun to remind myself of details from the trips to Florida and Illinois and the early days of playing dad to a bunch of stray kittens. And when I came across the roll of pictures from that trip to VT and NH, I was momentarily stunned by the shot I'd taken of the place I stayed on my first visit to Franconia Notch.
I'd remembered that I had stayed in a room at the top of an older place on that '95 trip, but completely failed to connect the dots during last year's vacation. I'm finding it a little alarming now that I had zero sense of déjà vu during check-in, or at breakfast the next morning, or anytime. Getting old sucks.
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And with that happy thought, let's tee up a few musical memories along with some potential new friends from alterna-land of thirty years ago.
37. Babes In Toyland, "Sweet '69"
Retro and sexy, exactly as the title implies. The Babes hailed from Minneapolis, and this was their one foray onto any chart, peaking here. I'm hearing a bigger hit than that, but it's long established that I know nothing about commerciality.
36. Rusty, "Wake Me"
35. Smoking Popes, "Need You Around"
30. Dandelion, "Weird-Out"
Three more songs new to me, but they caught my ear while I was looking for stuff to include this time. Like Babes in Toyland, all of these bands made just a single appearance on this chart.
"Wake Me" is grungy-yet-melodic CanCon (Rusty hailed from Toronto). The much more punky "Need You Around" appeared on the Clueless soundtrack. Smoking Popes came from Chicago; today I'm enjoying the ironic disdain in lead Pope Josh Caterer's delivery. The Philly-based Dandelion was also riding the grunge wave and "Weird-Out," the catchiest of these three, would be the biggest MRT sensation among them, reaching #14.
28. Garbage, "Vow"
The very first Modern Rock Tracks post, written more than six years ago now, featured "The Good Life" by an Americana-ish threesome out of Wisconsin called Fire Town. Who could have imagined then that two-thirds of Fire Town along with their audio engineer would team up with Scottish chanteuse Shirley Manson and resurface in this fashion? My fave song in this post.
23. Hootie and the Blowfish, "Only Wanna Be with You"
I know the lame Lexington alternative station played this one plenty that summer, and it's fun enough, but seriously: what on earth is it doing here? I think I hear some dolphins crying.
15. Jennifer Trynin, "Better Than Nothing"
On the other hand, that same lame station introduced me to fine songs such as this. Trynin hailed from Boston; a few years later she would have a rune included on Respond, a fab compilation of Beantown-associated women artists released to raise money in support of services for victims of domestic violence.
14. Elastica, "Stutter"
A jam, without a doubt. I'm using its presence here as an excuse, though, to link to the epic "Car Song," which to my chagrin won't be appearing in any subsequent edition of this series.
12. Natalie Merchant, "Carnival"
Merchant flew the 10K Maniacs coop following the recording of their Unplugged set to see what she could do on her own. Her debut solo release Tigerlily produced three hits with one-word titles; I like "Carnival" but think that the album version goes on a bit too long.
4. Silverchair, "Tomorrow"
Including this not because it's awesome--it's an Australian mix of Pearl Jam and STP-- but because it's fairly impressive output for 15- and 16-year olds.
3. U2, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"
Batman Returns was the point at which I stopped paying attention to what would become a seemingly endless series of re-imaginings and reboots featuring the Caped Crusader. As for the hits from the soundtrack, "Kiss from a Rose" suffered from overexposure, while "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" simply failed to hold my attention.
2. Foo Fighters, "This Is a Call"
It's a little surprising to me now in retrospect how little time it took Dave Grohl to assemble a new band. Can't help but be impressed that he was able to step seamlessly from behind the drum kit, though.
1. Alanis Morissette, "You Oughta Know"
I'm here to remind you that it's now been thirty years since Jagged Little Pill seized hold of our eardrums for well over a year. I'm certain other cuts from JLP will pop up here before long, but since this feature will retire long before 2032, let me plant my flag now that "Precious Illusions" from Under Rug Swept is Morissette's best song.
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