Alex Hates Music: Fun-a-Day 2015

Day 26

TODAY'S SONG:

"Romulus" by Sufjan Stevens

This song reminds me of my senior year of college, when I was working for the AV department at Duquesne. I would take phone calls when professors were having problems setting up laptops and projectors. It usually had to do with plugging in the right cables, or knowing when to restart the computer. On a few occasions, I had to go wander around campus to help solve a really bad problem, but mostly I had a lot of free time to sit at a computer, do homework, read, and listen to music.

I think I was using Yahoo radio at the time. I also think you kind of customized it by typing in artists that you like, so my station was a hybrid of indie, folk, and jazz. A little while before, my friend Margaret had put the song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” on a mixtape for me, and I got Illinois shortly thereafter. So I was just a little obsessed with Sufjan Stevens at the time. On this Yahoo radio station, I started hearing his songs from Michigan and Seven Swans.

Caroline and I eating Mexican food (?) at a record store.

Then one day I heard some Sufjan song that was so pretty that I needed to get the album as soon as I was out of work. I went with my friend Caroline to the music store Paul's in Bloomfield (which I don't think is there anymore, unfortunately). They had such a good selection and the best prices in the area, as I recall. I think we met Caroline's then-boyfriend Christopher there. His CD-addiction ran much deeper than mine. He bought like five albums every week, it seemed. If I had the money, I probably would've bought everything Sufjan had ever made right then. I guess I didn't, because all I bought was Michigan.

Here's my song about closed-up record stores:

Day 1: "One More Goodbye" by M. Ward

Day 2: "I'd Be Wrong Were I To Say I Loved You Not Quite Or Almost Always" by damian

Day 3: "If" by The Flaming Lips

Day 4: "Age of Innocence" by Billy Corgan

Day 5: "Jamming" by Bob Marley & The Wailers

Day 6: "Gentle and Delicate" by Maudlin Maladies

Day 7: "Type Slowly (live)" by Pavement

Day 8: "Get Lost" by Tom Waits

Day 9: "The Monkey Versus The Robot" by Piebald

Day 10: "Omaha" by Tapes 'n Tapes

Day 11: "Seasons in the Abyss" by Hellsongs

Day 12: "6th Street" by Space Wolves