Roddy Frame

Surf

Cooking Vinyl

2002

Adam Stelmach knew how to answer a question. When I played the hell out of Coxsone Dodd’s Musical Fever and asked what was next, he went to the rack and pulled out the Studio One LP, The Best of The Clarendonians. Of course there are many Studio One recordings from the 1960’s that would suffice, especially when you’re 18 years old and pretty new to reggae music. But there was something very special about this selection. From the two guys on the cover in razor sharp suits to the scratching and popping of the poorly pressed vinyl, this was the exact record I was looking for. Adam knew it too, as he set the needle down and strolled to the back office. I’m still not sure if he walked away so that I couldn’t contest his selection, or if that just happened to be the record he wanted to listen to at that moment.

I played Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker in the store nearly every shift for over a year, not to mention the countless times alone with my headphones. I enjoyed Gold, but as most critics wrote at the time, it wasn’t “Heartbreaker 2.” I knew every word on Heartbreaker. I knew every drumbeat, every organ swell, every vocal inflection. I knew every word in the liner notes, and paid close attention to the photos, which for the first time since I was introduced to Clash records, actually meant something. They were haunting in their focus and faded light. A young man with long hair, western shirts and tight jeans, sitting around an empty motel room. I wanted to start smoking. I wanted to be lonely since, when you’re 18, you must be lonely to create something so starkly beautiful.

One night, I went to Adam and asked my usual question, “If I like this, what else is there?” He responded, “Roddy Frame.” I had no idea what that meant, so I went to our computer and searched for a band called Roddy Frame. When I couldn’t find it on the rack, Adam told me to look under Aztec Camera. Surf. I found it, opened it up and put it on the sound system. The acoustic guitar picking began, and the singer started singing. Disappointingly, I thought, “This isn’t like Heartbreaker at all.”

I’d read everything there was to read about Heartbreaker and Whiskeytown and the influence of country music and punk rock. That was one thing that I loved so much about that record: it was punk and country and folk, and you could hear the gruff and twang in his voice when he wanted you to. But then comes Roddy Frame, with his Scottish accent, almost speaking as if he’s singing show tunes. And there was no reverb, no depth, no sonic element of sadness or loss. I was thoroughly confused as to why Adam would choose this, since knowing I’d open it, that I’d have to pay for it.

I felt like I had suffered through the first track. I needed something good to happen, not only to satisfy my musical desire, but to restore my faith in Adam’s taste. Then came the title track. Again, the finger-picking and dry delivery, not unlike contemporary adult pop and singer/songwriter stuff that I was adamantly against (being a young “punk rocker” of course). But then, the chorus: “When I was young the radio played just for me/ It saved me/ Now I don’t want anyone who wants me, baby.” My ears perked up. Through the dryness, I felt like this mature voice knew exactly who I was, and exactly what I was looking for, and was fully prepared to deny me that pleasure so that I might keep coming back. “If life was like the songs/ I’d surf across the curved horizon/ And forget her and be gone.” I was hooked. And every line that followed was better than the last. “So I check my map for tiny signs/ Of where she’s at and where she’s been/ But it’s made from scraps of stupid lines/ From songs and scenes in magazines/ It doesn’t tell me what it means/ Take her face out of the start of the day for me/ I’m half crazed wondering if I should follow/ Or let it go.” The song ends with a variation on the chorus, “If life was like the songs/ I’d surf into the waves/ And in a splash of silver, she’d be gone.”

While most of Surf walks that line between folk and contemporary adult, I found it, on repeated listens, to be nearly flawless in its craft. The instrumentation never strays from acoustic guitars and vocals, but it doesn’t need to. There’s a certain sense of obsession in the lack of instrumental variation; an “I know I can but I’m not gonna” attitude. 

I spent a lot of time looking at the cover art: a high-rise city skyline in purple twilight. It is the hour that people are going out for the night, but there is only one person Roddy Frame is thinking of. She’s out there, somewhere within or below those lights, getting in with the crowds. That skyline, in that light, was just as sad as any dim motel room. Adam knew it.

Listen: Roddy Frame- “Surf”

Day One

Ordinary Man

Astralwerks

2000

There was a green and yellow plaid short-sleeved collared shirt that I wore everyday. It was on sale at Macy’s, and I bought it with my own money. That was the only shirt I wore because that’s all the money I had. Also, I didn’t know there was a hip vintage clothing store just 2 blocks down State Street. I didn’t know there was a cool place to buy clothes. I found my ugly green and yellow shirt by myself. I was no longer concerned with trying to make friends. I didn’t care how I looked. But I was comfortable.

Brandon Schiffman played one song in his car on the way back from somewhere. At the time, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. One guy practically speaking over a mid-tempo, poor-man’s drum loop, a little bass, and a riffing acoustic guitar. The lyrics were so impacted, the rhymes so repetitive, like Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” but not like that at all. It was like it was all coming off the top of his head, and the words just seemed to fit together. And then the chorus, “I’m just waiting for my break.” Who isn’t, I thought. As I got out of the car, I had the rhythm of all the rhymes stuck in my head. It was like hip-hop, but not at all. There was nothing tough or showy about it. Just a guy walking along, telling a story.

I found a promo copy on the shelf at the store (out for sale, of course). I put it in the CD player and was at once satisfied. I replayed the first track several times before moving on, just to pick up some of the lines. “Said he was an actor/
 Bit of a photoGRAPHer/
 But made his living out of laughter/ Which made him a comedian.” By the end of the song, this guy was so many things: actor, photographer, comedian, painter (“He saw the self-hate/ 
In his self-portrait”), musician, model (“But the only trouble
/ Was he didn’t like the idea/ 
Of getting photographed in swimwear”), entrepreneur (“He’s starting up a business
/ Before next Christmas”), soul searcher (“That had no religion/ 
But still went to confession”), and free-spirit (“Though he doesn’t appear it
/ Living in a bedsit
/ With no fire exit”), and after all of this, he’s still waiting for a chance to show his stuff.

It was a disregard for the cool, an ease in storytelling and wit that made Ordinary Man an instant favorite. Day One walked me through the banality of city life as I imagined it in my quasi-resort surroundings. “Walk Now, Talk Now” describes a night beginning with a fabulous party that our hero didn’t want to go to (“I’d been drinking red wine and talking arty”) and the difficulty of trying to get home, relying on public transportation, ending up at his girl’s place, getting into an argument over the circularity of their sex life, and leaving her, only to arrive back at the same party he’d left earlier.

“Trying Too Hard” opens with our hero recognizing a woman who had flirted with him before. He tells her he’s ready (“You said we could hook up sometime, maybe/ Now’s as good a time as any”) and she is swift to reject him (“I don’t mean to offend you/ But you’re not quite how I remembered you”). He goes on to run the gamut of social personae (“So I tried to play it sexy and hurt/ 
She said I came across as an introvert
/ So I changed to being a deep and profound/ 
Until she asked me if I was feeling down
/ And when I told her that I was well read
”), only to ultimately be rejected yet again (“She looked at me and just said/ 

You’re trying too hard but keep trying”). Of course, she calls him two months later, after getting stiffed by another guy, to which he replies that he’s already got a girl.

After setting up the flow of beats and rhythms, Day One manage to surprise with the poignant closing title track. The piano ballad, with a little splattering of acoustic guitar, closes Ordinary Man on a sweet, self-deprecating note. Our hero croons, “And if I had style/ Then I/ Wouldn’t have to look down when she walked by.”

The songs were complete narratives without the often unnecessary details (“my name is”/ “I’m from…”). Each song told of a man who was not only unwilling to change to fit in, but simply unable to. I stood behind the counter in my green and yellow plaid shirt and hit the PLAY button one more time. That night, I threw a couple bucks into the cash register and took that CD home. I have since ripped it to a hard drive, put it on the iPod, etc. The actual disc is currently sitting in a box in a garage in California, right next to that plaid shirt. It’s the kind of thing some people might cringe at if you were to take it out and put it on, but it’s OK to like what you like.  

Listen: Day One- “Waiting For A Break”