inulro | Faulty memory, and indie rock

Woke up this morning feeling like I'm coming down with a cold. But of course - the House of Love gig is tomorrow night. Felt better as the day went on though.

In preparation for seeing them again (I saw them supporting Peter Murphy in Toronto in the summer of 1990), I purchased some back catalogue. House of Love are one of the many bands whose material I couldn't afford to buy back in the day, so all I knew was the singles, and albums played in the background at parties. Thus, listening to all the old stuff has been a bizarre combination of old and new music.

The last time I knowingly heard any HoL was at a wedding about 3 years ago where "Shine On" was played. I probably last heard "Christine" (my favourite) over 12 years ago. Not surprisingly given that time lapse, I had some fairly twisted memories of the songs. I only remembered the intro to "Christine", not the substance of it. It's actually two songs - the goth intro, and the indie pop verses. "I Don't Know Why I Love You" isn't nearly as good as I thought - in my head the lyrics were transposed onto Christine. "Beatles and Stones" is also significantly different in real life as opposed to in my head. I think I like the misremembered version better, because I've been living with it for so long. "Shine On" is genius, which I doubt I appreciated at the time. There's a guitar that threatens to turn into Mary Chain-like feedback at any moment, but never does.

All the other songs I have no recollection of from Then- they're wonderful. More than a little bit Bunnymen-ish in places. They're catchy tunes that, when you listen, have a lot of things going on. Lots are, like Christine, two songs rolled into one that really work.

Having given the old stuff a listen, the new album isn't as different from the old material as my brain thought it was. Go figure.

So tomorrow night I get to see how the band, and the fans, have aged.