Let's All Take a Quick Moment To Adore Skylarking.

God, how I anticipated this record. '86? Remember how big the 60's were coming back? I heard "Dear God" and "Grass" because I sprang for one of those 12" singles and also "Extrovert" was on there I think. Man, I was deep into that shit. I think my favorite band at the time was The Byrds. I'd gone from postpunk to the Beau Brummels and The Beatles and that.

And Andy was about to introduce me to a certain Mr. Wilson.

When these guys were recording this in Woodstock in summer '86 I must have been about an hour and a half away. I remember that summer, too. It was a good, workmanlike summer. On the hideous charts was Madonna with "Live To Tell" and Howard Jones' "No One Is To Blame". Did REM put out "Pageant"? No, I think that was '87. The Malarians were starting to fly. I gradiated collidge. We had put out "In The Cool Room" (vinyl!!) in the spring and we were top of the heap. Pretty soon we'd start recording at Fort Apache in Boston with Sean Slade producing and we'd mine that 60's brainpop vein pretty deep. And get the Rhino deal and start getting college radio.

I had sort of been feeling like music was dying a death in the mid-80's. I guess it sort of was. What didn't suck in the mid- to late- 80's? That was Michael Bolton time. That was Guns 'n' Roses Time. All those 70's wankers came back and did crappy "make it sound 80's" albums. It was endless. Skylarking! that was the heat, man. "Season Cycle". "Ballet For A Rainy Day". "Summer's Cauldron".

It made me really want to get to work. Maybe it was part of the reason I quit the Malarians a couple years on. The fact that music that ambitious was commercially viable made me want into the ambitiosweepstakes badly. I was recently degreed in the stuff, too, which gave me something to prove. I had such a lovely two years after that, sorting myself out and writing and writing and writing. Very likely my most artistically pure time. Then I did the Mr. Sherwood band which was all jangle and 4-part harmonies. Great. Ambitious. "Busy". We did "Scarecrow People" from O&L. And the other cover was that Who song, oh, um..."The Kids Are Alright".

Then we heard "Teen Spirit" and broke up.

Norhing against "Teen Spirit". But you couldn't hear that stuff and not realize the groundswell would be moving well away from string sections and big harmonies and song cycles. 'Course, it killed hair metal dead and that was important. That was an interesting time for me because it was identical to the Rubicon of 1977. Every one of my heroes from then had made the decision to act like they were punks for a few years so they could have careers. It was interesting to me to note that I wasn't up for that, but I think grunge was so much more of a cash cow in '91 than punk ever was.