Author Archives: Jon Martin

Site News

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Hey Everyone,

As you can see, things have changed. First of all, I’m trying out a new look for the site, and I’d really like your opinion. Please use the poll to the side, comment here, or both! I feel like things are considerably more personal, now, and we can move on to phase two of my evil plan. All in good time, though. Also, you’ll notice (if you’re particularly astute) that the permalinks have changed. { One of the results being that all of the YouTube videos now behave in IE… } You may now (and are encouraged to) visit the site via http://www.songsthatsavedyourlife.com. This will be the last time you need to update your bookmarks. Feeds should remain untouched. { I am such a liar. My love of tinkering has broken the old rss feed. Please re-subscribe. Pretty please? I promise I’ll never touch the server again. Ever. }

As I alluded to before, there are some longer posts to come in the next couple of weeks. Also, I am still working on the site’s first-ever collaborative project, and I hope to have news in a couple of weeks. Until then, for your singing and dancing pleasure, I leave you Thing One and Thing Two. Have a great April!

Emili­ana Torrini, “Heartstopper”

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b0002jep6o02_scmzzzzzzz_.jpgOutside your house
To make a scene
In my head you grabbed me passionately
But the lights are out
And in an hour I walk on home
In the pouring shower

 

 

A couple of years ago, Lucy told me about Last.fm. Like most interesting things, I went to have a look, but never really made my way to being a full user. The idea intrigued me, but I had a pretty steady supply of new music from “other sources.” Things have changed, however, and I’ve been revisiting the site. Most of the time, when I’m feeling like my life has gotten into a bit of a rut, a great new album will pull me out. Or, indeed, a great old album. These tend to be seasonal, but they almost always do the trick. And that’s where I’m at with “Fisherman’s Woman” by Emilíana Torrini.

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Soma, “Orange”

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If the story of my band were turned into a film, or even a VH1 “Behind the Music” special, I’m certain that the opening credits would be superimposed over the Replacements’ “Bastards of Young.” (“God, what a mess / on the ladder of success. / Well, you take one step and miss the whole first rung.”) {In fact, in the screenplay I have co-written on this very topic, this is precisely the case. Do I have a gift for clairvoyancy, or what? } Yeah. I often feel that way when I think about the little band that couldn’t. Or, indeed, that could have if not for a series of prototypically teenage miscues. (Or, perhaps, some media-perpetuated heresies. That sounds better, right? Yeah. Damn the Man.)

We were, or, in all honesty, I was preoccupied with the band’s “image.” There is, of course, the necessary teenage device of signifying “I’m in a band” by dressing/acting like dizzy, beflanneled messiahs from the Pacific Northwest. (This was the early-to-mid nineties.) Beyond that, there’s the leftover punk/grunge remnant which suggested that playing instruments well was secondary to the atmosphere which the band affected. (This continues to this day. I’m looking at you Marilyn…and, I suppose if we switch out “atmosphere” for “train wreck,” then I’m averting my gaze from you Britney, Paris et al.) Beyond that, there was the fact that I was a teenager writing the sort of stuff that everyday teenagers write. And, more or less, that’s how the first twenty minutes of our VH1 special would go – stuck in my parents’ basement, and wondering, as Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted (Theodore) Logan once did, whether or not we should learn to play our instruments.
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Site News

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Hey there,

Jon here. I’ve added a new feature for registered users which will allow you to subscribe to post-update notifications by e-mail. So, if you’re not quite hip to the RSS thing (and, let’s face it, it’s really just for rave children…), then you’ve got another option. Registration is easy, as the link is on the menu bar, and you’ll never need to fear the spam bogeyman because of me. Once you’ve registered, you can change your subscription options from your profile.

In the next few weeks, we should find a story about the early days of Pluto Tapes “frontman” Andy Hicks, my favorite R.E.M. concert moment, as well as teenage odes to love and death. Oh, and quite possibly the reveal of our very first collaborative project! (Let’s say that there’s a fifty-percent chance, here.)

And, as ever, if there’s something you’d like to try, ask me: I won’t say no – How could I?

Sigur Rós, #1

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sigurros.jpg

There is an archway in Oxford – a replica of the Bridge of Sighs – and it stands, for no particular reason, at the head of Queen’s Lane. The only prison it joins is a library, and, yet, its decontextualized nature allows it to become part of the essential semiotics of Oxford. It is fitting, then, that I should pass beneath it as the first humming sounds of Sigur Rós’ #1 came through on a foggy, October evening. The experience of listening to this song, and the untitled album from which it comes, did much to realign my perception of what was possible, and, indeed, what was in my life.

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