FOURTY YEARS ON - THE NOBODIES GO NOWHERE

The Nobodies, spring 1981

 

40 years ago this month, sometime early in January, 1981, I attended my first musical jam session with some high school friends.  This was the first time I ever seriously attempted to play with other people and put my foot on the path of pursuing my creative passions in earnest.  It was a day I’d been building towards for a few years beforehand, gradually developing my abilities and putting together a little arsenal of gear as a foundation for such activities.

 

It all started in grade 8 music class in 1976-1977.  That class started playing ukelele because it had only 8 pupils and the teacher didn’t want to do a standard curriculum with such a small group, so he taught us all to play stuff like KISS songs.  This got me wanting to play electric guitar, so I started taking private lessons in the autumn of 1977.  My folks bought me a budget Gibson’s Les Paul copy and Canadian made RAM practice amp to facilitate my interest.  I then switched to a Fender Precision bass copy in the spring of 1978, but I got bored with scales and folk standards and gave up playing both after a couple more months and quit taking lessons.  My guitar and bass then sat abandoned in a corner of my bedroom for over a year until I started listening to a lot of punk and new wave music throughout 1979, cumulating in March of 1980 with the purchase of Public Image Ltd’s Second Edition.  That album lit a fire in me to want to play music for real.  The tunes on it were simple to learn and it’s unconventional structure showed me that I could compose in any manner I preferred and I had no need to adhere to traditional, formal musical techniques.  As such, I started to “unlearn” what I’d been taught by my music lessons and reimagined what it meant to play guitar and bass.  This also got me wanting to get a synthesizer, which I put together a downpayment for by selling my half of the used junker car my brother and I had picked up earlier that year for $400.  The $200 I got from that was enough to get me a Roland SH-1 mono-synth and a BOSS DR-55 Rhythm Composer.  I also picked up a Traynor guitar amp, which was a step up from the RAM.  My gear collection was rounded out by a little portable cassette recorder that had a built in condenser mic.  This was all in place by the end of 1980.

 

Playing Mike's drums at Mark's place, January 1981

 

As 1981 kicked off, the times, people and place were all in alignment and we got together at my friend Marks’s place, in the basement game room of his parent’s house.  It was a classic wood paneling finished basement with a long shuffleboard table along one wall.  Along with my gear, another kid, Mike, brought his drum kit, someone had a microphone and there was probably another amp and guitar lingering around, but I can’t recall.  It was a meager setup to be sure, but it was enough to make a glorious noise.  Aside from myself, Mark and Mike, there was Rob, who tried to play bass, and Dan, who did vocals.  There may have been one or two others coming and going, but I can’t recall.  We were all about 17-18 and in our senior year of high school and we fancied ourselves as Thunder Bay’s only legitimate “punks”.  As for the music we made, it was a shambles of mostly Sex Pistols covers like God Save the Queen, Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle and some piss-take rip-offs of Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust.  An eleven minute cassette recording of our sloppy mess survives to this day.

 

I remember taking that recording home that night, playing it and being in wonder over the fact that we’d actually managed to almost sound like we were somewhat competent.  As sloppy as it was, the energy of it was palpable and the rush of endorphins from doing it was enough that it became an instant addiction.  This one day kicked off a flurry of jam sessions which would dominate the rest of the year.  After we’d worn out our welcome at Mark’s basement, it was on to my place to do more recording.  First we jammed in my bedroom, but soon we relocated to a corner of the unfinished basement in my folks house for the remainder of the year.  We also quickly abandoned doing cover versions of songs in favour of making up our own tunes, mostly improvised on the spot.  

 

The Nobodies go to prom, June 1981

The “group” quickly solidified around myself, Mark and Rob, though we did recruit a girl from school named Debbie to do vocals on occasion.  We called ourselves The Nobodies and, as we gradually settled into a routine, we started to add more bits and pieces of gear to the arsenal.  Mark and Rob started to pick up gear for themselves such as guitars and amps and I managed to snag a cheap drum kit from my cousin to replace the “trash kit” I’d made out of buckets and tin trays.  By the end of the summer, thanks to our part time jobs after school, the three of us had saved enough money to upgrade our recording facilities from the cassette recorder to a lovely Akai GX-4000-D reel to reel deck.  It had “sound on sound” functionality, so we could do primitive multi-tracking by bouncing recordings back and forth from the left to right tracks and back again.  We found we could get away with 3 or 4 bounces before the sound got too murky.  We didn’t do any live gigs that year, but we recorded like mad and quickly amassed an impressive collection of original works.  

 

Looking back on this first year of intense activity, I can still feel the buzz of it in my soul like a distant electrical hum.  There was so much momentum kicked off at that time that it kept me pursuing my muses in the arts throughout most of the rest of my life until the present day.  It’s only in the last 5 years that it feels like the gas has been running on empty for me as I rarely find myself inspired to want to create anything.  Only writing now regularly attracts my efforts, for the most part.  I’ve had to come to terms with the reality that all the work I did over those four decades doesn’t really matter to anyone.  The few who care are certainly appreciated, but my shelves of tapes, hard drives and data discs will never have any value beyond my own obsessions.  Once I’m gone, there’s no one who’ll work to continue preserving them and they’ll end up in a landfill somewhere.

 

Album art for unreleased recordings, spring 1981

 

Yet I’m sitting here, compelled to commemorate this milestone as if it has some significance.  The truth is that it does have meaning and value, but only to me and possibly the people with whom I shared those times.  We are, after all, merely the sum of our experiences and these ones made me the person I am.  They are the mirrors I passed through in order to comprehend the world around me and the spirits that shared it.  The artifacts which remain are useful only in the sense that they can be time machines for traveling back to those experiences for brief moments.  Doing so serves the purpose of revealing the distance traveled by comparing then to now.  If it has any significance to anyone outside of those directly involved, perhaps its as an example and inspiration to take the chance on trying things like this in their own lives.  In some ways, we all live partially vicariously through the experiences of others.  At most, I can hope that those vicariously living through my experiences find them a little inspiring or at least entertaining. 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL FOR A BROKEN WORLD

 

As Christmas was fast approaching, my partner and I began the debate of what holiday themed TV/movie viewing we’d like to see on those special days.  We quickly descended into bickering because we were both very fed up with the usual, traditional fair.  Eventually, I realized what we needed was something fresh and unfamiliar.  With that in mind, I came across an article online ranking various adaptations of A Christmas Carol, the classic Charles Dickens morality tale.  While scanning the article, I came across a mention of the FX/BBC produced 2019 three part miniseries starring Guy Pierce.  Without reading too much, the initial description of it being a darker, more modern interpretation was enough to intrigue me and we agreed to give it a go over three nights from the 23rd thru the 25th.  Now that we’ve finished it, I feel compelled to offer some thoughts as it certainly had an impact on me and I want to explore how and why.

I’ll start off by saying that I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers since, while it’s a well known story, there are many elements introduced into this version which will be unfamiliar and surprising and I don’t want to undermine that impact for those who choose to give this a go.  But I must offer a warning up front that this is a divisive rendition and it’s not going to work for everyone, especially if you’re a very conservative viewer clinging to traditional adaptations.  It’s also not recommended as “family” viewing.  This is easily the most adult rendering of this story you’ll ever encounter and the kids simply won’t dig it or will be requiring a lot of professional counseling after viewing it.

It doesn’t take long into the first chapter before you realize this is an exceedingly dark, bleak Victorian world.  I found it richly atmospheric and gloomy.  Everything is gorgeously rendered with impeccable cinematic details down to the sense of cold and misery that surrounds everyone on all sides.  Most adaptations I’ve seen tend to make this world seem somehow charming and quaint, but this is much more realistic in that the Victorian era in England was not a happy time for most.  Even the abode of the wealthy Scrooge is a dank, craggy edifice of shadows and emptiness.  The times were miserable and dirty and dismal and all of that is brought to visceral life, though still with a deeply beautiful reality. 

You also discover quite quickly that its near three hour runtime allows the story to penetrate deeper into the nature and motivations of the characters than most other adaptations.  This means taking some narrative liberties however, something that will not sit well with some, but I was open to these elaborations and found them well executed and reasonably extrapolated.  The first of these to be encountered is Jacob Marley, whom we get to see as he struggles back into the world for his ghostly visitation from his purgatory damnation.  He is played with desperate perfection by Stephen Graham, who I know mostly from his amazing interpretation of Al Capone in the HBO Boardwalk Empire series.  He does a brilliant job of conveying Marley’s sense of futility as he is tasked with the unenviable mission of trying to redeem his irredeemable former business partner, Ebenezer Scrooge.  That the opening scene of the series is a shot of a young lad pissing on Marley’s grave is an indicator of how gritty a rendition we are about to get.  That Marley’s ghost is all too aware of this as the wetness reaches his face in his coffin tells you that we’re not in your usual version of this story.

From here, we finally get to meet our updated version of Scrooge as played by Guy Pierce, who I know mostly for his portrayals of Peter Weyland in Ridley Scott's Prometheus & Alien: Covenant films.  Now, this Ebenezer is no mere "grumpy old miser".  This one is a truly, deeply despicable example of human depravity.  He’s mean, sadistic, manipulative and every bit the perfect portrayal of what it means to be a modern vulture capitalist.  Along with his partner Jacob, Scrooge & Marley’s company specializes in swooping in on struggling businesses, buying them up for a song and then selling them off in pieces for profit, leaving both the business defunct and its employees unemployed.  Sound familiar?  It should because this version of A Christmas Carol makes very pointed efforts to be reflective of the nature of the beast we find devouring our world today. This is where we find this take diverging from the sentimental family friendly favorites from the past.  Its bleakness and misery are very much necessary illustrations of the gravity of our own dark times. 

I’ve come across a number of online comments regarding this severity and how it goes against the sense of optimism and hope instilled by the more traditional approaches to the story, but I think this approach rings truer to our times than more maudlin efforts.  The producers of this adaptation have also taken some significant efforts to trace the causal relationships among the characters and events in ways I’ve never seen portrayed before, again an indulgence afforded by the runtime.  This is most evident in the heavy focus on the Ghost of Christmas Past and the things he shows Scrooge.  He is wonderfully realized by Andy Serkis, well known for his otherworldly creations such as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings series.  Every time he admonishes Scrooge that “This is NOT about YOU!”, you can feel the dagger of realization twist in Ebenezer’s soul. 

The past is given a lot of weight in this interpretation and rightly so because it is there where we find the roots of all of these sins.  As heinous a character as Scrooge is, we’re able to comprehend the abuses that formed him, though they still don’t mitigate his crimes.  At least they are a much needed foundation upon which we can build a tiny sense of empathy so that the character does not become beyond any redemption. Where the past is normally used to highlight some of the “good times”, the focus here is much more dismal and devastating.  The case against him is immense and imposing and I did wonder how this could take him to the point we know he must reach by the end of his journey.  Where forgiveness is traditionally used as the balm to move him forward, this is not the case here and the screenwriter knows this isn’t possible given the severity of the transgressions we witness.  Therefor, finding another path forward is another one of this versions innovations. 

Casting the Ghost of Christmas Present as his deceased sister is another novel move for this story, though it’s less successfully manifested than the past with its rich, deep well to draw from.  It does have definite emotional resonance for me, but I wish she’d been able to do more than was allotted.  It’s one of the weaker aspects of this production, but is still supported by the tent-poles of the book-ending ghosts.  The best aspect of this chapter is the exploration of the Cratchit family and the impact of the monstrous thing done to them by Scrooge.  This is difficult to watch and likely the breaking point for many who are not prepared for the depths of his depravity and its adult nature.

Which brings me to the final apparition, the terrifying Ghost of Christmas Future.  It’s here that the emotional impact has to be brought to its climax and this is done most devastatingly when dealing with the possible fate of the the story’s most fragile, frail character.  This ghost makes a spectacularly crushing entrance and proceeds to show Scrooge a scene which shook me so terribly, I nearly burst into tears at the unimaginable horror of it.  It was something I was not expecting and the manner of its rendering is so effectively unnerving, it will haunt me for years to come.  Beyond the use of foul language and adult themes, this is the moment no parent will ever want their child to witness.  It’s almost more than I could bare.  It is, however, the thing that makes the difference and is big enough to achieve the ends that we all know must come in this story.  With all the cruelty and callousness of the events leading up to it, there was no other way to balance the scales.

To summarize then, I’ll reiterate that this version is not for everyone.  Some will downright despise it and I can understand why.  It’s not a traditional take on it and it’s heavy viewing for a holiday season meant for the celebration of love and family.  However, my take on it is that it’s the Scrooge our generation needs given the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves.  We live in a damaged, dying world being destroyed by humans who are of such a vile nature that we cannot turn away from this nightmare.  We have to show them as they are and hope that they change something before it's too late.  These people are not good souls hiding behind unhappiness.  They have committed serious crimes and we can't offer them forgiveness, but they can still do something decent before its too late.  What other chance do we have?  Dickens wrote this story for exactly this purpose, albeit a failed attempt as it has been over the ensuing generations.  We all know it, but I dare anyone to point to an example of a wealthy man who’s been convinced by it.  Yet the alternative is to surrender and I don’t think anyone wants to give up just yet. 

KRAFTWERK AT 50

50 years ago today, on December 1st, 1970, the world was introduced to a group who would change the nature of pop music forever. Recorded and mixed between July & September of 1970, the eponymous debut Kraftwerk LP would formally announce the arrival of Germany's most influential musical entity, not only of the decade, but for generations to come.

At the time, Kraftwerk were not quite the "machine" they would become in later incarnations. The group consisted of founders Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider, who were accompanied by drummers Andreas Hohmann (side A) and NEU! co-founder Klaus Dinger (side B). Production duties were handled by Conny Plank. Emerging from a previous incarnation known as Organization, Ralph and Florian were still very much into their more experimental phase with much of the album consisting of free-form improvisations with Ralph handling the keyboards and Florian on heavily processed flute. There's a bit of guitar and violin in there as well and a touch of electronic percussion and early synthesizer embellishments. There's very little to indicate the kind of rigid, precise compositional style the group would evolve into by the latter half of the decade, beginning with the landmark 1974 Autobahn LP. Only the opening number, Ruckzuck, offered any indication of this with its initial "motorik" rhythm and syncopated echoed flute layers. This style surfaces intermittently throughout the album, but the bulk of it floats freely in the either of spontaneous improvisation.

It is perhaps because of this divergence from the "classic" Kraftwerk approach that the first three albums from Ralph and Florian have been essentially excised from the group's canon of official releases. None of them have had official reissues since their release with the exception of the 1975 Exceller 8 album, which compiles tracks from those first three albums and was released after the success of Autobahn. Kraftwerk themselves have referred to their first three albums as "archeology" and have only hinted at the possibility of a proper remastered reissue at some point in the future, though there has been little evidence of that actually occurring. However, there have been unofficial CD and LP reissues on the market since the 1990s for determined collectors to get their hands on.

Regardless of its official status within the group, the album still holds the core DNA of what would come to be the building blocks of modern electronic pop music. Those first few minutes of Ruckzuck alone are enough to provide a signpost that points directly to that future. A half century on and we're still nowhere near seeing the end of that tsunami of influence lose its strength. This is the point of detonation for it.

DAVID BOWIE - SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS) - 40 YEARS OF RUNNING

40 years ago today, on September 12, 1980, David Bowie released Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), the LP that would serve as the closing bookend to a five year period of musical exploration and be oft cited as the creative pinnacle of his career. This journey started in 1975 with the recording of Young Americans.  That was the point at which he broke from his Ziggy Stardust persona and invented the “Thin White Duke”.  He pushed off the lipstick & shock-wig trappings of glam rock and dove headlong into “blue-eyed soul” (well, one blue eye at least).  From that plateau of cocaine fueled decadence, he’d delve into increasingly darker shades of sound, eventually shifting from LA to Berlin where he’d go spelunking into the looming caverns and hidden corners of humanity's darker nature.  These dives would reach their ultimate depths with Scary Monsters.

While he’d hit the charts at the beginning of this arc with his collaboration with John Lennon (Fame, 1975), as he traversed through the so-called “Berlin Trilogy” (Low, “Heroes”, Lodger), commercial success slipped somewhat off the mat and, with this being his final LP for RCA, his vision was refocused to find what would turn out to be a much better balance between the serrated edge of avant-garde creativity and mainstream accessibility. Central to this effort was Bowie concentrating on songwriting and lyrics before recording, rather than relying on so much improvisation in the studio.  Brian Eno’s production skills had helped craft his previous few releases, but he co-produced Monsters with Tony Visconti this time around and Robert Fripp was back to lend his distinctive guitar sounds.  This would also be the last album to feature the core rhythm section of Dennis Davis, Carlos Alomar and George Murray, which had been together since Station to Station. 

Mastering the art of the emerging new medium of the music video didn’t hurt things either.  He’d got his taste for it with the elegant simplicity of the “Heroes” video and pushed the cultural limits with the gender bending Boys Keep Swinging clip, but things really came to the fore with Ashes to Ashes.  The song turned out to be a sequel to his first major hit, Space Oddity (1969), and the second part of a trilogy which would be completed years later with his final album, Blackstar (2017).  Since it was perched on the precipice of the emergence of MTV, it managed to give the art form a much needed injection of credibility and gravitas such that, when MTV launched in August of 1981, it was one of the critical, ready-made products which gave the fledgling network some buoyancy.

After this album, Bowie would turn to some new collaborators and spend the rest of the 1980s plowing an entirely different field, in a sense coming full circle to the R&B music which had kicked off the latter half of the 1970s, while setting aside the sonic confrontations which had largely defined the period.  Taken together, from Young Americans through to Scary Monsters, Bowie left a legacy of six of the most remarkable, challenging albums conceived by any artist working in the pop music arena.  He may have found greater commercial success outside of this era of experimentation, but most would agree that he rarely attained greater creative heights after it.

SENSATIONAL SOPHOMORE ALBUMS

 

As a follow up to my previous article on dazzling debuts, I decided to capture some thoughts on some spectacular sophomore albums by my favorite artists.  The “sophomore slump” is a well known adage in the music industry and refers to the likelihood that an emerging artist, who starts out strong with their debut release, will fumble their second.   This is often the case with bands who may have a few years of work and refinement going into their debut, but then have to hustle with limited time and often lesser material for their followup.  The pressures of meeting success with success can often leave an artist up against the wall when it comes to trying to make lightning strike twice.  The more successful a debut, the more likely the “curse” will take hold.  It’s a common pattern, especially in the heyday of the rock music business, once the album gained primacy in the late 1960s.  That’s when the album became more than a collection of songs, but a statement in itself and was expected to hold together as a unified conception.  Many fell short, but a few managed to not only surpass their debuts, but create something which would go on to be a defining statement and high water mark for their careers.  

BLACK SABBATH - PARANOID

Black Sabbath may have invented “heavy metal” on their stunning 1969 eponymous debut LP, but they perfected it on its followup, 1970’s Paranoid.  The title track alone could sustain the album in its heights, but the fact it was accompanied by such other classics as War Pigs, Iron Man, Fairies Wear Boots and the gear shifting, etherial Planet Caravan, secured this album as the peak of Sabbath’s career.  There were more great albums and songs, but this one is so dense with concentrated brilliance that it can easily stand as the primary essential album from the band.  The riffs, the hooks and the energy are all on point at every turn.  When you think of Black Sabbath, it’s likely that this is the first music of theirs that comes to mind, with the possible exception of the title track from the debut album.  

PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Cafe Orchestra came out of the gates in 1976 with a debut album that somewhat awkwardly shifted between avant-garde experimentation and more folk inspired contemporary classical pieces.  The combination was uneven and offered an inconsistent listening experience.  By the time the project returned for it’s second outing in 1981, that confusion was gone and what took its place was a vision of crystal clarity.  The most critical shift was that the experimentalism was now more a nuance to the proceedings than a raison d'être.  There were still subtle hints of it, like the phone effects in Telephone and Rubber Band, but the folksy neoclassical song crafting became the true purpose and every compositions within the album encapsulated that aim from start to finish.  Whereas the strangeness distracted on the first album, it highlighted and enhanced on the second, offering a tweaking of the sound in just the right way to set it off against the musicality of the proceedings.  Two further studio albums would follow over the years before Jeffes passed, but the striking perfection of that second album remained a high bar which the other albums, though valiant efforts, couldn’t exceed.

ELVIS COSTELLO - THIS YEAR’S MODEL

Elvis Costello’s debut release managed to show off his song writing skills, but the lacklustre production on the album left it sounding more like a pub rock demo session than a fully crafted harbinger of the “new wave” coming along in tandem with the “punk” scene.  There were great songs there but it all sounded thin and tinny.  Those flaws would be firmly dealt with on his next album, This Year’s Model, where the production and performances were as tight and punchy as Costello’s song writing.  Elvis’ aim may have been true on the previous release, but his method was not supported by the folks capturing him on tape.  For the second round, however, he glares out at the listen from the cover, camera at the ready and you know he means business this time around.  It’s an album that runs lean and doesn’t dither with unnecessary elements.  It’s all cut and trimmed to maximum leanness and every song serves up a bite and a jab that hits the bullseye without fail.  It also has a style to it that is clearly modern in its references, even when they lean into 60’s nostalgia.  The “pub” aesthetic is gone and he’s pushing squarely into the future.  His next effort, Armed Forces, would continue with this precision and perfection, nearly equaling its predecessor and, some may argue, exceeding it.   Beyond these two records, for my tastes, Costello was never more compelling nor engaging.  

TUBEWAY ARMY / GARY NUMAN - REPLICAS

Tubeway Army was, for all practical purposes, Gary Numan, so I look at his solo catalogue as inclusive of their two releases.  Their eponymous debut album was solid and veers heavily into the direction he’d go on later LPs, but it was not quite fully fleshed out.  The synthesizer there was no more than a novelty accent and the sound was still dominated by guitars.  It was the second album where the fusion of man and machine, synthesizer and rock ’n roll, achieved it’s ideal balance.  With Replicas, Numan morphed into the “sad android” persona which informed songs such as Are 'Friends' Electric? and Down In The Park.  The cover features poor, lonely Gary-bot doing his best Kraftwerk impression, though his music had more pathos and emotion than the iconoclastic and highly stylized Germans.  But in comparison, Kraftwerk were mature, experienced robots by the time Replicas came out, whereas Gary was barely beyond adolescence, which provides a great deal of the charm of this album.  His naivety makes him approachable and likeable instead of pretentious and that’s what grants this album its apex position in his catalogue.  By the time the 3rd album came around, Tubeway Army was discharged and Gary went corporate, complete with mega hit, Cars, as he became a marketing expert with The Pleasure Principal.  It’s an exceptional record, but the contrivances of it are more studied and less inspired and novel than Replicas.  It was a refinement in terms of eliminating guitars in favour of synths, but basically more of what Replicas had already established.  Beyond these albums, things never surpassed the creative freshness of Replicas and its distinctive iconography.

THE RAINCOATS - ODYSHAPE

While most UK punk tended to follow the stencil of primal block chord thrashing, the post-punk scene, which seeped from under its floorboards, produced some notable forays into truly original and inspired new music.  Percolating up as a tangent from the all girl Slits, The Raincoats, briefly borrowing their drummer, Palmolive, would become one of the most infamous groups from the era.  They didn’t make a significant impact at the time, but their legacy and influence would grow exponentially over the decades as the likes of Kurt Cobain cited them as influences and their reissued records came to new ears.  Their first album clearly showed the promise they had to offer, but their second album, Odyshape, fully exploited their idiosyncratic vision.  

Combining the atmosphere of dub inspired aesthetics with continental and Celtic folk influences, Odyshape took their sound into a kind of asymmetrical structure which could often invoke the kind of eccentric naivety of The Shaggs, though with the benefit of actual musical virtuosity.  There’s a raw intimacy to these songs which is distinctly and unapologetically feminine in nature, entirely eschewing the swagger of masculine rock tropes in favour of a “girl power” that could rage just as savagely.  A song like the title track explores the idea of body image and unrealistic expectations of the media in a way that was years ahead of the feminist trends of the current century.  These girls were doing it for themselves in a way that subsequent generations would later have to play catch-up to equal.  While their third and final studio album would offer another solid set of exceptional material, it veered into slightly more traditional song structures, which for me, gives Odyshape the edge over their other two albums, simply by virtue of its originality.

NEW ORDER - POWER, CORRUPTION AND LIES

In the wake of Ian Curtis’ suicide, it’s something of a minor miracle that the remaining band members managed to regroup and soldier on.  And while their debut as New Order offered up some brilliant work, it also laboured under the shadow of the tragedy they’d survived.  Every groove in Movement is saturated with a sense of loss and remorse.  It was all a rather intense, brooding affair.  But their next releases would break through the gloom and emerge with a sound that was not only free of the spectre of death, but was a celebration of life and living, even at its most painful.  The double whammy of both the single, Blue Monday, and the album, Power Corruption and Lies, burst onto the music scene of the early 1980s with such vim and vigour that they changed the vibe on the underground dance floors in a paradigm shifting manner.  They created the link between the rawness of punk and the sophistication of electronic music, creating a dynamic which would influence dance music for decades going forward.  These releases were so potent that the group never managed to surpass them in terms of influence and cohesion.   

CAN - TAGO MAGO

While 1971’s Tago Mago may have come as CAN’s third album release, it more properly represents their true 2nd album.  Monster Movie was their first, released in 1969, followed by Soundtracks in 1970, but this second release was in fact a collection of disparate, unrelated compositions created for various film projects in the preceding couple of years and, therefore, does not represent a creatively coherent effort by the band (though the album still holds together quite nicely).  Tago Mago, on the other hand, was the group coming together with new vocalist, Damo Suzuki (replacing Malcolm Moonie) to craft an epic double LP’s worth of music specifically conceived to function as their true sophomore release.  Even the notation on the back of Soundtracks stated this fact.  “’Can Soundtracks’ is the second album of The Can but not album no. two.”

Tago Mago thus contains the sum of their creative evolution to that point, rendered through a series of sometimes monumental improvisational excursions, intercut and rearranged using Holger’s emerging mastery of tape editing and production.  Side long epics like Halleluwah brought their thundering groove to the forefront while Aumgn took them into the farthest reaches of abstract dissolution and atmosphere.  In between, shorter tracks like Paperhouse and Mushroom brought them into a tighter focus and showed their ability to function within a more concise framework.  Taken together, it’s music of a completely singular nature, unlike anything any contemporary of their time was able to muster.  That’s something of an accomplishment given the company they were keeping in Germany at the time.  To be able to stand above the heads of giants like Kraftwerk, Neu! or Cluster is no mean feat.  Tago Mago’s greatness is in its scale and breadth, something that was only possible when allowed to sprawl over two slabs of vinyl.  CAN released a lot of other great music, but they never took the luxury to let it get this expansive again.  

QUEEN II

Of course there’s all sorts of arguments to be made for later albums being the peak of Queen’s creative accomplishments.  Certainly A Night at the Opera is an obvious choice, but there’s an old saying amongst Queen fans that you can tell the true diehards because they’ll always pick Queen II as their favorite.  While other albums may feature more refined song craft & production, there’s still something about that second album that hardcore fans recognize and cherish.  There’s a heaviness about it that would never be seen again on any other album, a kind of darkness and a sense of epic drama which brings you into some fantastical and imposing landscapes, complete with battling ogres and deathbed kings.  There’s also that stunning cover photo by Mick Rock, which has become the most iconic image of the band to date.  Revived for the Bohemian Rhapsody video, it was seared into the minds of Queen fans decades ago and remains their most recognizable avatar.  The split between the “black” and “white” sides of the album also helps to give it a conceptual framework that you don’t find on any other album.  As a result, it’s the place the true fan of the band will always find them preserved in their most intense and dynamic incarnation.  When you see some of the live footage of them from this period, encased and compressed like diamonds in those smaller venues, the hardness of their rocking is undeniable.  Subsequent albums would lighten the mood considerably, so this is the place to go for the uncut jewels.  

PSYCHIC TV - DREAMS LESS SWEET

After the “termination” of Throbbing Grislte’s “mission”, Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson teamed up with Alex Fergusson to form the core of the first incarnation of Psychic TV.  This central triad, along with a revolving ensemble of guests and a bit of help from a few professional studio musicians, would create two landmark albums before the configuration changed and moved the project in other directions.  The PTV debut, Force the Hand of Chance, set a stunning change of course after the gritty industrial grind of TG, opting instead for clarity and precision and professionalism.  We get pretty folk music, mutant funk/disco, spaghetti western vistas and motivational commercials on the first album, smashing any preconceptions anyone could have had for what these “wreckers of civilization” might be capable of.  But the first album, as magnificent as it is, was only the warmup for what would come next.  

Dreams Less Sweet is one of the most complex conceptual artifacts ever produced by a group purporting to operate in any proximity to “pop” music.  Every facet and detail contained in every element of it has been meticulously calculated to reinforce the thematic content being exacted upon the listener, on both a conscious and subconscious level.  Each piece is carefully structured to flow into the next with seamless fluidity.  Each component of the packaging is insidiously contrived to ingrain its subtext upon the unsuspecting consumer.  While the first album offered up its varied excursions in a somewhat discrete, segmented arrangement, Dreams Less Sweet made distinctions between pieces and movements seem indiscernible.  Taking a cue from Kraftwerk’s Autobahn by beginning the album with the sound of a car door closing, the journey then takes a sharp detour off the main roads and into a cavernous spelunking of mystical undergrowth.  Even when it’s manipulating you into feeling like it wants to be beautiful, it’s surreptitiously insinuating something dire and sadistic, from the phallic pierced flower on the cover to the “Christmas” song that takes its lyrics from the final mass suicide speech of Jim Jones.  You can’t take anything here at face value and the album seduces you into unravelling its mysteries with each listen.  Through all its other incarnations and some other very fine records, Psychic TV never managed to outdo the rich complexity of Dreams Less Sweat.  

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. - METAL BOX / SECOND EDITION

The debut of John Lydon’s post Sex Pistols reinvention was something which was fraught with impossible expectations and unreasonable judgements from the press.  They were looking to chew him to bits and, in many ways, their first album was just the fodder on which they wanted to stomp(f).  While the debut single from the album got people excited and anticipatory, the sheer uncompromising quarrelsomeness of the rest of the album meant that it was doomed to being a somewhat uneven affair.  Some tracks were well produced and benefitted from reputable studio resources while others were slapped together after the money ran out and they “only wanted to finish the album with a minimum amount of effort.”  It’s got flashes of brilliance, but also splashes of precocious self-indulgence which often only half-work, depending on your preferences and patience.  

When it came time to do the next album, however, even with many of those indulgences still in high gear, PiL managed to find themselves in the middle of a creative epiphany the likes of which few bands ever get to enjoy.  Some kind of magic happened amid all the chaos and substance abuse and it all coalesced around their concept of dystopian dance music driven by thundering subterranean bass and splattered with atonal shards of guitars and vocals.  In their fusion of dub, Krautrock and Beefheart style jaggedness, PiL had stumbled onto a recipe for a kind of music that was uniquely suited for the dismal realities of urban living in the looming decadence of the 1980s.  

While their next album, Flowers of Romance, struck out in a very different, yet equally bold new direction and certainly sustains its own relevance, it simply can’t compete with the monolithic presence of that metal canister and, at almost half the running time, its sweeping landscape.  No other record from Pil, in any variant, ever came close to equaling the impact of those first three albums with the clear pinnacle remaining that transcendent triple threat of 12” EPs which was Metal Box.

PREMIUM PREMIERES - MY TEN ESSENTIAL DEBUT ALBUMS

 

Most musical artists take a bit of time to get up to speed.  It usually takes an album or two before they really hit their stride.  Sometimes, like Kraftwerk, they may travel some strange roads before the epiphany hits and they finally find their “Autobahn”, in their case, their 4th LP.  But some groups come out of the gate with debut albums so iconic and well defined, they spend the rest of their careers trying to surpass them.  Some groups never quite manage that feat and some groups simply stop after their moment of glory and never put out another record.

Top 10 lists are a bit trite and overdone, but I’m doing one more for purely personal amusement.  It started as a meme in social media to list outstanding debuts, but I wanted to focus it a bit more.  This list is very personal in terms of the records all having deep meaning and significance for me and they certainly show my age given they were all released within a few years of each other.  They also adhere to certain other criteria.  Mostly, they represent groups who hit it out of the park with their first album and never surpassed it with any subsequent release, at least as far as my estimation is concerned.  Some may have come damn close, but for all practical purposes, if you have this album and none other, you’ll pretty much get the full picture of what they had to offer.  In many cases, they have major cultural significance in that they were the cornerstone of a particular musical movement.  In other cases, they simply represent the group’s own peak of performance and cohesion.  Whatever the case, for me personally, each title listed here stands alone and introduces the artist without any sense of vagueness or tentativeness.  It comes at you with clear confidence in its merits and meanings.

With that, let’s dive in.  The ordering here is not particularly critical, but I have somewhat sorted them in terms of at least personal significance.  

FM - Black Noise (1977)

In late 1976, Toronto based keyboardist and bassist, Cameron Hawkins, and violinist, mandolin player, Nash the Slash, formed an unlikely duo as FM.  Through whatever connections, happenstance or serendipity within the local arts community, they managed to land a spot on TV Ontario’s Nightmusic program, where they played their debut live public performance, initially broadcast on November 3rd of that year.  I happened to catch it, by chance, and it knocked my 13 year old brain sideways.  I knew little of music or how to make it at that time and was just starting to get curious, but seeing space-hippie Cameron with his stacks of synthesizers on the one side and proto-steampunk Nash, with his electric violin and mandolin on the other, was definitely like something out of some strange hallucination.  It stuck with me and dug it’s hooks in deeper when I happened to catch the show when it was repeated a few months later.

In 1978, I finally spotted the Black Noise album in one of my local record shops and, recognizing the band from the program, snapped it up.  By then, the group had added drummer Martin Deller to the mix, something I was initially suspicious of because I thought this band without a drummer, using one of the earliest drum machines I’d ever heard, was such a novelty and I thought that adding a drummer might make them a bit more conventional.  But the album still showcased their idiosyncrasies.  As a progressive rock album, it had the unique distinction of having NO GUITARS on it.  Nash’s use of violin and mandolin instead guaranteed that FM would always have a stamp of the atypical, even as Nash moved on and others replaced him.  

Nash’s departure, however, also ensured that the debut album would possess a certain nuance and charm that no other player would be able to fully duplicate.  His replacement for the next two albums, Ben Mink, was clearly a talented musician, someone who would more than prove his talents with his work with K.D. Lang in later years, but there was no replacing Hash’s style and personality, something he took with him when he became an iconic solo performer.  The albums that came after Black Noise are not without their charms, but the depth and breadth of this debut remains unassailable to this day. Even when Nash returned to the fold for a couple of albums in the mid 1980s, the material veered too much into commercial mainstream territory to threaten the primacy of Black Noise.  

It may be an album that only Canadians properly appreciate.  Phasers On Stun still gets regular rotation on Canadian oldies radio.  Personally, however, it holds a special place in my musical heart.  Nash was a major inspiration for me both with FM and as a solo performer and Black Noise and it’s presaging TV special are the root of that influence.   

Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (1980)

Moxham brothers, Stuart and Phillip, along with vocalist Alison Statton, came together long enough to put out one album in 1980.  On the surface, it’s a modest little collection of modest little songs by a trio of modest musicians from Wales.  It’s quiet and introspective and doesn’t make a lot of fuss about itself, but it somehow still manages to loom on the horizon like a great monolith.  Colossal Youth by Young Marble Giants has held up remarkably well over the years, retaining every ounce of it’s persuasiveness while refusing to give in to the ravages of time and trends.  Driven by a chintzy little drum machine and supported by Phil’s sonorous bass, Stuart delicately crafts deftly minimalist guitar and organ riffs around which Alison flits about like a precious little bird with her vocals.  The economy of the music here is positively neurotic in its precision.  There’s not a single sound or note more than absolutely necessary to contain the essence of each piece.

Cowboys International - The Original Sin (1979)

In 1979, Ken Lockie put together an album of modern alternative rock that fused first-rate song writing with arrangements that leaned heavily into the emerging synth-wave being pioneered by the likes of Ultravox and Gary Numan.  While most people were pushing things into the colder Kraftwerk styled aesthetic of dystopian mechanization, Lockie took his sound into a more romantic, emotive direction, presaging the “New Romantic” movement which would peak with bands like Duran Duran.  Lockie’s outfit, which featured the likes of Clash drummer, Terry Chimes, and guest appearances by PiL guitarist, Keith Levene, crafted a seamless collection of memorable songs which rode the edge of the new music coming from the UK.  The PiL connection would actually have deeper roots beyond this album with Ken having a hand in the Radio Four track on Metal Box and him nearly becoming a fifth member of the band during the ill fated Commercial Zone sessions a few year later.  All this only indicates how much Lockie was on the forefront of what was truly progressive pop music, both in terms of style and content.  Yet Cowboys International would only issue this one album before fading into the discount bins.  A travesty considering the exceptional quality of this album.  

Specials (1979)

If you were to only have one ska album in your collection, it might as well be this one because it’s simply so concise and thorough that it captures every important aspect of the genre, at least as far as it manifested in its revived form at the end of the 1970s.  Following in the wake of punk, it took the anger and social outrage of that scene and channeled it into a racially diverse commentary on cultural fusion.  The “2 Tone” ideology of black and white working together in balance and unity was a forward thinking approach that seems so sadly distant in the “Brexit” era of UK bigotry.

Though there were many vital artists who also came out of this scene, the Specials remain the most memorable and this album captures all the best of their essence across 14 compact and infectious songs.  With Jerry Dammers as the principal songwriter and Terry Hall taking most of the lead vocals, the group nailed it on every essential social issue they tackled and did so with both humor and a kind of morose mockery that gave them their edge.  This careful balance didn’t last long, however, as Hall, along with Neville Staple and Lynval Golding split off to form Fun Boy Three, who themselves created a debut album that deserves honorable mention here.  Though they wouldn’t create another album of this strength, they would at least drop a mammoth statement of a single with Ghost Town in 1981.  On its own, it could be one of the greatest singles of all time.    

Killing Joke (1980)

Following in the wake of groups like Public Image Ltd, Joy Division & Gang of Four, Killing Joke’s eponymous debut formed the bridge between the rawness of punk and the terror of industrial music.  For better or worse, Killing Joke were the ones who laid the foundations for the kind of industrial rock which would become mainstream with bands like Nine Inch Nails.  For me, Killing Joke’s debut is the quintessence of what that kind of music can be when it’s done right.  The use of synthesizer with the grinding guitars and chugging drums is a prototype for dozens of bands who followed in their footsteps.  But where most of the bands who came after relied on little more than grind and swagger, Killing Joke excelled with solid song writing or, at the very least, infectious hooks to secure each track a notable spot on the album.  

The B-52’s (1979)

Though their biggest hit would come a few years later with Love Shack, overall, the 1979 debut from The B-52’s simply can’t be surpassed in terms of it’s encapsulation of vintage kitsch culture.  Retro fetishism can be pretty much traced back to land squarely on the doorstep of these Athens, GA natives and every track on their first album oozes with lava lamp science fiction dance party deliciousness.  

Right from the first twang of Ricky’s Peter Gunn inspired riff for Planet Clair, the controls are set for the heart of the stunning as things just get more fabulous with each Shu-ga-loo, Hippie Shake and Camel Walk.  The showcase hit, Rock Lobster, offers up an absurdist horror movie teen freakout the likes of which hasn’t been heard since The Horror of Party Beach offered up its radioactive sea monster stuffed with hotdogs.

Suicide (1977)

If you want to deal with it semantically, Suicide were the first “punk” band.  They were the first to use the term to describe their music. The term appears on a flyer for a 1972 gig by the group, predating any other group’s use of the term by a good 3-4 years.  Their debut LP in 1977 still stands as one of the starkest, most intense statements of electronic music ever put to vinyl.  Taking the core DNA strands of rock-a-billy shuddering and shaking, They shot them through a time tunnel into a dystopian future and demanded the world look upon the horror they had seen.  No other band could conjure as antagonistic an audience response while daring anyone to have the nerve to try and stop them, and some did.  That sense of menace and street toughness permeates every note on their debut.  It’s attitude with a capital “FUCK YOU”.  Side one shivers and bleats along like a tweaking speed freak until the epic and harrowing Frankie Teardrop gobbles up most of the second side of the album, offering one of the most terrifying vocal performances to ever appear on a rock record.  

It’s simply impossible to top that, though their second LP was a damn good try by upping the ante on songwriting and production, but the rawness of the debut and the perfection of its songs guarantee that it remained the group’s definitive statement throughout their career.  Even Alan Vega’s impressive solo career was never quite able to reach this plateau of perfection, though some titles come damn close.  

DEVO - Are We Not Men?  We Are DEVO! (1978)

DEVO not only made amazing music, they created their own sociological theory.  Inspired by the May 4, 1970 events at Kent State University, where 4 students were killed by National Guard troops, Gerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh conceived the idea that human civilization had reached its zenith and was now inexorably heading in reverse, like a tide withdrawing from the shore, as entropy took hold and began to dissemble all that had been created in the preceding millennia.  Indeed, since their emergence with their 1978 debut album, the events of contemporary human history have done little to disprove their thesis.  

DEVO put out a number of impressive albums over the years, and their first three offer up a pretty convincing trifecta of creative inspiration to sustain their legacy, but their first album still remains the quintessential DEVO fix for anyone looking to understand their potato.  Every facet of their philosophy is present in finely crafted, mechanically deboned perfection.  Like The B-52’s, DEVO traded in a lot of nostalgia in order to establish their premise, but framed it in language hoisted directly from the world of advertising, chosen for it’s persuasiveness and proven appeal.  At times sounding like a Roadrunner cartoon theme crossed with a carwash, DEVO dismantled the myth of corporate supremacy and capitalistic exceptionalism, exposing it’s vacuous failure to secure the welfare of humanity and, instead, enslave its people with meaningless “McJobs”, shoving poles in holes, to satisfy the oligarchic masters.  Shrouded in absurdist humour, the thrust of their critical blade was no less dulled when it sliced open the carcass of post-industrial culture.  

The Cars (1978)

While punk rock was causing a musical revolution, The Cars were paving the way for its inroads into popular culture.  The Cars debut album was the essential bridge that straddled with world of accessible top 40 rock with the veins of experimentalism and revitalization which were bubbling up from the underground.  They were the gateway drug for many a young music fan, myself included.  It was thanks to them that I started to consider seriously listening to bands like the Ramones, DEVO, Suicide and many others.  

Their debut album came off the assembly line like a shining new muscle car, loaded with features and gleaming with chrome.  It was meticulously crafted on every level, from the songwriting, to the performances to the production.  Like Ric Ocasek’s perfectly coifed ducktail, every hair was exactly in place.  It embraced the simplicity of the modern aesthetic while maintaining professional production values from the bottom of the tires to the tip of the antenna.  There’s no waste anywhere on the record, not a weak song or superfluous note.  Like the B-52’s, the Cars would also go on to have bigger hits in terms of singles, but this debut album always remained their most consistent and authentic release.

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks (1977)

I believe that rock & roll music essentially has 3 epochs and they are hinged upon the appearances of its “holy trinity”: Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Sex Pistols.  When you look back across the history of the genre, it’s those tentpoles which most define the major shifts in its nature and potential.  Elvis introduced it to the mainstream, The Beatles turned it into a fine art and the Sex Pistols weaponized it.  I say that because the Pistols were really the last rock band to have any significant cultural influence.  Sure, there have been trends and popular movements, but they were the last band to seem dangerous and to make the establishment quake in their boots.  Anyone who’s come along since then has been no more than a nuisance to the powers that be.  The Pistols were actually debated in Parliament and the government sought to crush them to stop them from spreading their message of revolt.  That just doesn’t happen anymore.  

Their one and only proper studio album now stands as a memorial to a precious couple of years when outrage seemed to have some influence in the world.  It’s a damn good set of songs, well written both musically and lyrically.  It says something about its time and the society that tried to silence it.  The fact it’s been commodified since then still doesn’t take away from the fact that it drew a line in the sand and we still look back at that time as a moment of epiphany and realization.  It changed the way people thought and that change keeps resonating around the world to this day.  

As trite as kids thrashing out a few chords and bellowing their angst can be, you can still see when a culture is coming of age by the point at which its youth twig to this methodology.  You can observe “punk” scenes happen in places like the middle east or Asia or Russia and see that there’s still a spirit of freedom struggling to find its voice.  It may often fail to create a distinction from Ramones style blockiness, but it does show a desire to expose the energy pent up during that time when a generation demands to be heard.

A lot of people want to push the flashpoint for punk to New York with the Ramones or Detroit with the Stooges and, while the structural elements may have been coming together in those places, they were only so much fuel without a spark.  Those bands and those scenes were only known to a tiny clique of hipsters until the Sex Pistols came along and put a match to all that kindling.  It wasn’t until Johnny Rotten snarled that he was an “antichrist” that the world perked up and took notice of that generation and it’s rage.  Others may have come sooner, but no one else struck the spark that would ignite the world. 

FILM REVIEW - OTHER PEOPLE

Wanna see a fun movie about a mom dying of cancer?  Does anyone want to see another cancer movie?  Well, if it’s the 2016 film, Other People, written and directed by SNL staff writer, Chris Kelly, then you probably do.  Kelly’s semi-autobiographical directorial debut is based on his own experiences watching his mother be taken by the disease a few years earlier.  What he manages to do with this picture, however, is to stretch the dynamics between tragedy and comedy in a way that avoids obvious tropes and steers clear of easy, maudlin melodrama.  The end result is that he pulls the tension of this thread to such a taut perfection, these slices of life twang with true authenticity and pathos throughout. 

The story takes place over the course of a single year and it is no spoiler to say that it starts with the death of the matriarch of this family and then jumps back a year to show the road to get there.  We open on the whole family in bed with the just deceased mother, fresh in their immediate grief, when the phone rings and is picked up by the answering machine.  We hear the voice of a family well-wisher, not knowing she’s just passed, trying to offer support, but getting caught up in a botched drive-thru order while the grieving family silently listens.  This perfectly sets up the dualism of the proceedings and, within that framework, it’s a series of moments held together by the inevitability of the fate which we know is on the horizon.  This isn’t a story about whether or not mom’s gonna die.  It’s about how everyone deals with this along the way and it’s not neat & tidy or designed to give you easy footholds to grip onto as some kind of “we’ll get through this” pat on the back reassurance.  It’s simply the raw experiences and responses to them which makes this a rich palette of human emotions in all their variety.  Sometimes it’s laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes the brutality of the pain just leaves you numb. 

The film stars Jesse Plemons, who is one of the most interesting young actors in mainstream cinema these days.  In this role, it dawned on me how much he reminds me of a young Philip Seymour Hoffman around the time of Boogie Nights.  Beyond the obvious physical resemblance, which made them an ideal familial pairing in The Master, it’s Plemons’ skill in bringing characters to life through the use of deftly crafted subtleties that echoes Hoffman’s ability to do the same.  Small ticks & nuances, like his neurotic nail biting in this role, help to reinforce his character in ways that seep into our perception, rather than beat you over the head with overacting dramatics.  I know Plemons primarily from Breaking Bad and Black Mirror - USS Callister.  In Breaking Bad, especially the El Camino movie, he carefully combines his boyish sense of innocence with the dead-eyed malevolence of a stalking shark, while his Black Mirror character balances a weak, bullied real-world nerd with a sadistic monster in his fantasy virtual reality.  Here, he’s an altogether more sympathetic character, filling in as the writer/director’s avatar where his character is also an SNL writer struggling to raise his profile in the industry and also not quite comfortable with his sexual identity, something which is reinforced by his father’s impenetrable denial.   Plemons works all of the angles to capture his character’s frustration and loneliness, even as he’s surrounded by family.

The other key figure in the film is Molly Shannon as the mother.  Shannon is an actual SNL alumnus and, personally, back in the day, I wasn’t always big on her work, especially the Marry Katherine Gallagher recurring character, but her recent film work has shown her to be altogether nailing it on all fronts.  Here, she’s shown in a sequence of “drop in” moments throughout the film, so her presence on screen is never too lingering, but each glimpse is powerful and Shannon imbues them all with a distinctive emotional resonance.  Whether she’s cheery or sad or desperate or stoned or exhausted or whatever the mood of the moment, she captures it in a multifaceted, dazzling clarity that communicates so much within the small windows where we see her. 

The supporting cast is also riddled with precise little performances from several notables.  June Squibb is as captivating as she always is as the grandmother.  Matt Walsh (VEEP) works his joke store fake hillbilly teeth perfectly as the obnoxious uncle.  Kerri Kenney (Reno 911) is the perfect goofy aunt.  Zach Woods (VEEP, Silicon Valley), is the ideal foil for Plemons as the estranged boyfriend who still manages to make dad uncomfortable.  Paula Pell, another SNL alumnus, pops in to offer some bad medical advise and a charlatan religious healing device.  These and many other carefully crafted guest spots are sprinkled throughout the glimpses of this family’s struggle with fatality.

Yes, it’s another terminal cancer story, but I was very surprised by how atypically it was handled and how skillfully the emotional switches were flipped without it seeming contrived or manipulative.  It just felt REAL and natural and true to life.  Having watched close friends go through this, it all felt right and reflective of the actual messy struggle, complete with all the loose ends that a prematurely terminated life has to offer.