The idea came to me while my hands were not elbow deep in sudsy water (our cat, Lu, had stolen the stopper for the kitchen sink again--but I found it on the floor in front of the basement stairs): no one has started a blog regarding learning every song from PJ Harvey's album Rid Of Me. And so here it is. Because that's what I'm going to do.
The album:
PJ Harvey's Rid of Me, 1993. Produced by Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, it was PJ Harvey's second studio album. (Her first was Dry, 1992.) Albni is also known for such albums as the Pixie's Surfer Rosa and Nirvana's In Utero.
The album has always knocked my socks off. I've listened to it at least once a month since it was released. Lately it's my favorite head-phones-on-volume-cranked-knock-the-dishes-back-and-retain-your-identity album and there are songs that I still put on continuous loop. I know this album so well that this should be easy except:
I only started playing the guitar to help my son learn how to play his guitar. That was about two years ago. I'm now 45. He's nine. He's better at it than I am.
Yup. Back when my friends were forming bands (or the boys were, and women I knew who performed sang cabaret, as did one of the men I knew), I was traveling fifty miles out of town to ride hunter/jumpers. It felt like a split identity, this side of me that loved punk music and the other side that loved riding horses with an English saddle, preferably over obstacles; hearing stories of the old fox hunts in Scotland from Jo & Je; and trying to complete my degree in English literature (I'd quit school twice, once to be a horse groom, the second time because I couldn't handle the chemistry and forestry classes required to be a forester, which would have eased my parents concern that I was simply too dreamy). Because I was missing quite a few core courses, my classes required that I read three books a week if I wanted to finish in less than three years. And then there were the boys. Always that distraction to whatever else I ought to have focused on; I fell in love too easily in those days. Books, horses, boys. There was no time to learn how to play guitar.
I heard the song "Man-Sized" at my cousin's house while I was taking care of his tank of fish and watching MTV. Missoula, Montana didn't have an alternative radio station then, and this was pre common era internet. Mixed tapes tended to be folk based, or if they were rock, few female artists would be included. Grunge was in full swing, but there was little, I thought, in it for women, at least what reached Missoula by way of radio. L7 and Bikini Kill weren't exactly household names. I'd heard (and liked) the Breeders and Hole, but I had yet to hear the experience I had when I first heard Patti Smith's Horses. Rid of Me was it, and it still gives me that zing you all know when you listen to your favorite group.
The equipment:
2011 Fender Telecaster (made in Mexico)
2013 Seagull parlor-style acoustic guitar (made in Canada)
modern 4 watt Vox tube amp
Garage band with headphones and a converter to plug my guitar into my iPad, allowing me to experiment with different amps and pedals, and play LOUD when my kid goes to bed.
The characters:
Myself: writer, former waiter, cyber cowgirl (that sounds gross, what I mean is that I learned some UNIX quickly after I got a job in customer service during Amazon.com's early years). I played the flute in my high school's marching band (just over 200 students in the entire school). I had some piano but quit when I was about 12. I had a required semester of classical guitar. I'm also completing my MFA in fiction at Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University. My thesis is a novel about a young woman trying to break into the music scene in Seattle, just after Kurt Cobain's death. Oh, and I wake my son up with either my ukulele or my harmonica.
My son: I'll refer to him as M. He can sound music out on a harp (which he doesn't play), his recorder, a piano, his guitar, and is learning to play the cello. I have to remind him to tune his cello, not because he plays the wrong notes but because he'll put his fingers in the wrong place to get the right pitch. He's bright but distracted in the way kids his age are. He mostly wants to read, play legos, and ride his scooter down Queen Anne Hill.
My husband: I'll refer to him as A. The actual musician, loves to listen to opera, is learning to play classical piano (Bach, so I guess it's Baroque), can already play guitar, banjo, fiddle and some other instruments that I can't recall off hand. He's good on the ukulele too, though he doesn't actually play that instrument. He just figures it out when he feels like playing it. He's a whip-smart software developer. Which reminds me that I could've blogged about learning Liz Phair's album.
My guitar teacher: I'll refer to him as E. He's actually my son's guitar teacher, but my son is also learning cello, so he takes a lesson one week, and I take it the next. I am typically sandwiched between kids and sometimes I chat with their parents as we wait for their kids' lessons to end and mine to begin. Only one adult has dared to make fun of me and I stopped him dead with, "What do you play?" which is the adult equivalent of "I know you are but what am I?" That's right. I rock. That parent doesn't.
Timeframe: There is none because this isn't easy for me and my writing comes first. I'm surrounded by musicians but have no innate talent for it--except that I love to listen to rock and roll, and I want to play it. So I practice. Sometimes half an hour, sometimes an hour. Rarely is it more than that except on Mother's Day or my birthday, when I will mix a martini, put my feet up, and start playing. Which isn't a good way to play because it's ergonomically bad. But it's fun. So add a week to that timeframe.
WARNING: This blog will have typos and grammatical errors and will only be occasionally updated and rarely proofed beyond a once or twice read-through. I might have a monthly martini to help me blog, so it might have a lot of typos. You can tell me about it. I won't really care. Really. I won't.
Oh, and I don't think I will post videos. You want the experience of watching a song covered by a real musician, there's already a video for that. You want the experience of some amateur covering a song, there's already a video for that, too. But maybe. But I doubt it. You didn't get to eat Julie Powell's cooking, either.
