We’ll be taking a little break next week for unpacking/internet-getting/recovering purposes. Enjoy the 4th of July holiday, and we’ll be back the following week, assuming we’re not crushed under boxes of our own CDs. Most of our music collection is feeling sort of ruined to me right now, if only because it is so heavy.

After a few days of sporadic conversation and lunches together, however, I think she convinced herself that I wanted to date her (which I didn’t). She decided to make it very clear that she wasn’t interested in me that way, so she became quiet and standoffish. Soon we were going days without speaking.

The computer she worked on, unlike mine, had speakers connected to it. That meant she had full control over the music we listened to, and she chose to play R.E.M. All day long. Every single day. Not a specific R.E.M. album or albums, either, but an hour-and-a-half long mix she had made. On a continuous loop. This relentless exposure only put a temporary dent in my ability to appreciate R.E.M.’s catalog, except for one song—one I will never be able hear again without feeling depressed, angry, and probably a little queasy.

The Boss from Hell was about my dad’s age. He wore bright Hawaiian shirts and always had a scowl on this face. Aside from his wife, who wandered in and answered phones occasionally, he’d been the owner and only employee at his company for years. His place of business was a portion of his house that had been renovated into offices: not exactly the normal burgeoning design firm setup, but considering his chief exports were logos and brochures for computer repair places and industrial manufacturers, it made sense. None of his stuff was that exciting, or even that tastefully executed, but I knew I had to start somewhere.

During my interview he seemed wholly indifferent to me and my work, but surprised me by ending our conversation with “I’ll take you on for the summer, if you want.” The last thing I remember from that meeting was, after he’d gone out to smoke (he maintained something like a four-pack-a-day habit), his wife mentioned that they’d never been able to keep employees around. She couldn’t figure out why. Obviously this was not a great sign, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. It was already a few weeks into the summer and I had no other prospects, so I had no other choice. I kept reminding myself that even if it wasn’t the greatest work environment, I was going to learn valuable job skills, I would get paid, and it was only for the summer.

When I showed up on the first day, the Boss from Hell led me to a small, dimly-lit room upstairs, crowded with the remnants of printers and computers past. I stayed there for four days, coming in at 8:30 and leaving at 5:30 without anyone saying a word to me. On the occasions when I did venture down to the Boss’s office to ask for an assignment, he’d growl that he’d get to that, but he couldn’t right then. There were two relatively clear desks upstairs, both with working Macs, so I spent my days sort of situating myself on one of them. On the fifth day I heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. The Boss exploded into the room, radiating cigarette breath, and barked out that he needed me to “crank out” some ideas for a logo for a new offset printing company. He wrote their name down and was gone.

He didn’t ask if I was getting settled. There was no mention of my pay rate, which still hadn’t been established. No mention of the fact that whenever he started up any of his Adobe software downstairs, it abruptly closed mine, because he only had one site license. Plus, I had no idea what an offset printing company was, and the concept of “cranking out” some logo ideas was completely foreign to me. A logo was something that had to be researched and discussed and developed. It took at least half a semester to do all that, didn’t it?

I was a few days into this quandary when the full-time designer started and I was introduced to R.E.M.’s “All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be A Star),” from their album Reveal. From the first time I heard the down-tempo intro the song seemed, to me, to be a sonic embodiment of that place.

It didn’t help that, I swear, I heard it four or five times as often as any of the other songs on this mix. It’s very possible that my particular DJ was manually selecting it for airplay that often. (She clearly had no problem with repetition.) Or perhaps it just managed to capture my attention, when it did cue up, more effectively than the other tracks did. Maybe, in an alternate universe, this track would be one of my all-time favorite songs. In my current incarnation, however, it was that place, and I couldn’t stand it.

I’d sat through it at least fifteen times before I finally got up the guts to ask the Boss from Hell how much he was planning on paying me. This exchange went surprisingly well, with him offering seven dollars an hour and me accepting solely on the grounds that he was being civil for once. I tried to keep the momentum going the next day, but ended up interrupting a meeting with a client to ask him if he could get a separate software license for me. I had never been yelled at like that before. Especially not while standing on the bottom step of a staircase, with a total stranger witnessing it all.

The Boss from Hell flew off the handle at everyone, sooner or later. The other designer. Printers. Delivery people. I could sometimes hear him and his wife getting into shouting matches through the floor. Once his pre-teen daughter entered the offices and all three of them got into it. A few minutes later, she drove away in his truck, which, judging by his reaction, he hadn’t expected her to do. And whenever something bad happened I was hearing, had just heard, or was about to hear Michael Stipe, crooning in his melodramatic affectation, “Humming / All the way to Reno / Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah Blah-Blah-Blah.”

So, of course, “All the Way to Reno” was cued up when I came in after having erased some very important in-progress project files the previous afternoon. It was almost the end of the summer, but this was by far the worst mistake I’d made in my time there. So bad that the Boss from Hell had called me at my parents’ house that night to yell at me over the phone and then hung up on me before I even had a chance to apologize. I entered his house the next day feeling nervous. He wasn’t in his office, so I snuck upstairs. The song had started before I even entered the room. I got to my desk and found my that timesheet for the week had been ripped into pieces.

I took this to mean I was fired. I asked the other designer if she knew what was going on, but she just shook her head. The next person I encountered was the wife. I asked her if I was being dismissed. She chuckled at me and, in a sing-song voice, replied “Oh no, he’s not going to do that! You know, that’s just how he is.” Everyone at this place was certifiably insane.

As I waited in silence, in that crappy upstairs room, for the Boss from Hell to come and continue his tirade about my screw-up, I stared at the clock in the corner of my computer screen. I watched the seconds pass, each one bringing me a tiny bit closer to clocking out, going home for the night, and collapsing into bed. The song reached its chorus. “You know what you are. You’re gonna be a star,” Michael Stipe whined. “You know what you are. You’re gonna be a star.”

I had never believed anyone less in my life.

Bryan caught up with Jeremy Hyman, Ken Seeno and Dustin Wong via email. We’re assuming vocalist Molly Siegel was too wired to sit still at the keyboard.

Bands are often described as ‘having a lot of energy’ or ‘being very energetic’ - you seem to take this even further. You’re like a pure force of energy shooting off in a million directions at once. How do you keep your show under control?

Jeremy: Maybe it seems crazy because we’re all doing very different things on stage. Each of us channels something different. So maybe individually we are fairly focused but altogether it looks like a mess.

Ken: Sometimes it’s really difficult to keep everything together live. We get carried away! The ideal situation is this moment where we feel like we are channeling something and the song plays itself.

Dustin: A million directions, that’s a lot of directions! It’s more like directions coming from four points, from each member, creating a pyramid-like energy tent.

Of the eight tracks on your upcoming record, the only discernible lyrics appear toward the end of “Late For School.” What were some of the things that you did in the mornings that would make you late for school?

Jeremy: I think it was more like the things I didn’t do, like wake up or homework.

Dustin: I’ve been late to school for such stupid reasons, like taking Benadryl or just YouTubing for hours late at night. Now that we are all out of school it’s more like, “Oh no, I’m late for jury duty!” (Which actually happened not too long ago.)

So, are there any songs that have been ruined for you?

Dustin: I can’t listen to “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes any more. I was living in this apartment in Oakland, California when I was 19 or 20. My roommates had a party and this
freshman girl was dancing so dirty to that song, she made me completely hate it. That was a tragic incident.

As far as you know, have you ever ruined a song for someone else? Maybe there’s an ex or a former friend who might hate a certain song because of you?

Ken: Growing up I definitely ruined “So What’cha Want” by the Beastie Boys for my brother by repeating “What’cha what’cha what’cha want (what’cha want!)” in his face over and over, just like the music video.

Dustin: When I was on tour with Matt Papich in Ecstatic Sunshine I played a live version of the Beach Boys song “Darlin.” It’s a really cheesy song that has some throat rumbles. I liked it because it has such a stereotypical seventies bridge and horns, but Matt was just not having it. That also happened when I was trying to listen to some happy hardcore.

Random Cat Question!

Do you have a cat? If not, have you met any cats on the road? Felines just love it when there are strange bands sharing the living room floor with them at night.

Jeremy: I have a cat named Meesh Meesh.

Dustin: I don’t have a cat, unfortunately, but yes, we meet a lot of nice cats on the road. I slept next to one in Richmond, Virginia. It was so fluffy.

When I met him that fall I wrote him off. I might as well have made a giant X across his forehead for all I thought of him. He was cute, yes, and earnest; but I had no interest in earnest, I had no interest in geeky, no interest in someone who tried too hard. Still, there he was: presenting himself and calling and asking and hoping and wishing. For me! And on the other side, nothing but my wounded pride and my wounded heart from a very long relationship that imploded on the steps of graduate school. Nothing left but a nauseating blur of confetti. Hardly a party.

For months I kept him like a canary. I tapped his cage so he’d sing. I danced around and laughed at his insecurity, his inexperience. I touched him and thrilled at his captivity. Mostly, I watched him sweat. He was only a rebound, after all.

But I also sat and watched him cook for me. I watched the way I fit in and did the dishes, the way I didn’t care what we were, the way we were ourselves, the way it was easy to be just that. And I watched his body in the blue light that came from his apartment window. I heard the helicopters up above us and I touched his back, thinking how to keep this moment, find a way to stay still in the blue, roaring silence.

So something changed, shifted, started to slide. After a few months he broke up with me, rightly so. I tried to stop him, confessed I’d grown to care, but he went. When his other thing didn’t work, we got back together. Unsurprisingly, he went on to hurt me as badly as I’d hurt him, treating me like an expendable piece of his life, a nothing-special accessory. After that we
existed in a delicate balance, equally hurt by the other.

Later that summer, after the turmoil had finally worked its way out, we were driving in the car and a song came on his cd player. It was Rob Dougan’s “Nothing at All.”

I learn as I go / to float far away into silence / and just watch your face / and find some kind of grace in that quiet bliss / Can I stay and say nothing at all?

The sun was coming in, reflecting off the river next to us. The windows were open and I was happy. He said, “I listened to this song a lot when I first met you. I like that part ‘Can I stay and say nothing at all… just watch your face.’”

It was startling to think of someone listening to a song and thinking, dreaming, hoping for me. I knew then he’d really wanted me, sincerely. Now he wanted me less, it was clear. He’d given me the Dougan cd in a batch of others and I’d never listened to it. That night I went home and listened to the song, trying to imagine him. I felt intense regret.

And though I tried later to explain that how I felt about him now was different, that the way I’d acted then was a by-product not of my views of him, but of my own sour, sorry state, he balked. The damage that we’d done to each other couldn’t be fixed.

He left me to roast in my own earnest feelings. I walked around the same places where we used to walk and listened to music. I always had a mix of my favorite music for the moment, and I’d put “One and the Same” from the Rob Dougan album on one of them, rather randomly. Before, I had thought the whole cd was not my type of music, and normally I would have scoffed at any song that included the lyrics “we’re two birds / adrift on the wind.”

But that day, walking on the edge of the city, thinking of him and the mistakes and the feeling of wanting that had turned my whole body into nothing but longing, I heard it and wanted it to be my choice from the album. My song to go with his song.

Well, I keep on waiting / for you to say / your wait is over / let’s keep believing we’re one and the same.

I felt the hook of the small voice saying “all right” at the beginning of the song, felt the way the strings soared. I felt every cheesy word of that song, felt it everywhere at once, because that is how things change, without foresight, without preparation.

Now, if that song comes on shuffle, I may switch it off or I may listen, but I am always filled with regret and anger at myself, sometimes at him. I’ll never feel as strongly for him as I did that day, I’ll never want him that much again; now, I see how wronged he was, how wronged I was, how wrong we both were so much of the time. Things change and they become irrevocable.

Pela teaser 1 from ruined music on Vimeo.

…and then he ran away because it was time to rock. He’s promised to tell you the rest of his story soon, so check back!

It was the summer after I graduated from college. I don’t know about other people, but for me it was a time to cling desperately to old ways even while the writing was going up on the wall: GROW UP. I was closing in on the end of said summer, the end of my lease in the lovely little college town in which I’d suffered and soared for the past four years, and the end of part-time scattershot slacker employment. And, I thought, the end of singlehood. My neglectful boyfriend with whom I had been on and off all through college had taken me back, and I was going to move in with him in the big city. What was that I was saying about clinging desperately to old ways? Better the devil you know, they say. So I was ready to grit my teeth and commit to him - largely because of the terror of the unknown.

It was August - the hottest of the hot, the pits of summer - and I was still a little tiny thing, the kind of girl who’s able to wear short-shorts and somehow make them look not so short. In Blacksburg they have a little summer festival called Steppin’ Out with vendors, music, and plenty of beer. I was hanging out downtown with some friends now lost to the mists of time, one of whom was a girl who knew everyone. And I mean, she seemed to know everyone, often in the Biblical sense. Some guy she vaguely knew through someone in that Biblical category started to tag along behind us. My first thought - ugh, how can we lose this jerk? - was quickly replaced by a hint of hrm, this guy looks kind of like a young Nicolas Cage. As a big fan of Valley Girl, this carried some weight.

The main recollection I have of that afternoon is him standing up at our little table of beery compatriots and stating with dramatic conviction: “I have something I need to tell you all.” (Dramatic pause.) “I have found Jesus!”

He thought this non sequitur was hilarious. We stared at him blankly. There were not a few eye rolls. But for some inexplicable reason, he seemed hotter and hotter to me. Maybe it was just because it was August. Maybe it was the nerdy glasses. Maybe subconsciously I knew I was about to make seven different major life mistakes, and adding another one to the pile wasn’t going to make that much difference. Whichever it was, or all of the above, I ended up giving him my phone number. I think I tried to do this surreptitiously so that my friends, who clearly thought this guy was a tool, would not notice. At the time, I didn’t think of this as a warning sign. Go figure.

He called me later that night. After a very short deliberation, I met up with him at his house. Which he glamorously lived in alone. It didn’t take long for us to spool out our tastes, our needs, our life stories. At first it seemed so easy it was almost laughable; I already had a cynicism about the words “soul mate” that I retain to this day. But the concept was bubbling around in the soup of my lusty hindbrain. I can’t remember if we hopped in bed that night, or the next day, but the deal was sealed early on. I hoped he didn’t think of it as a random one night stand; he seemed to open up in a way that could have been practiced but could have been earnest. Hell, it could have been both. By day two I didn’t care - I had remembered that there were better things in life than the half-assed boyfriend who’d treated me like crap and come crawling back… and who, by the way, didn’t look a thing like Nicolas Cage. And then I promptly forgot about that boyfriend. He didn’t fit into my new worldview.

And I wonder / When I sing along with you / If everything could ever feel this real forever / If anything could ever be this good again

I already loved that song, as a good hopeless romantic would. It might have been the first thing that felt that real to me. I spent that week learning about Jamie, listening to a song he wrote for me, sharing his weird tastes (which were weird enough that I won’t repeat them here), meeting his parents (!), and telling him everything - well, almost everything - about me. The Colour and the Shape had been out for a while, but now I had a focus for the swell of emotion that came when I listened to it. Jamie sang and played the guitar for me on those few sweaty afternoons we had together. We made each other mix tapes; he loved music the way I loved music, but I don’t recall telling him I knew this was our song, at least not until it was too late.

He announced before the week was over that I should scrap my plans to move north. I should move in with him. It was clear that this was meant to be. I had a decision to make.

See, I hadn’t mentioned the part about the boyfriend I was about to move in with. I am not proud, but I can’t and shouldn’t hide the fact that I wasn’t such a great person in my younger days. Where “not so great” equals “a complete lying shit.” I was so suspicious of this stranger who had walked in and set up shop in my world, when the only thing he’d done was make a phone call and been charming - I had no idea, amazingly, that I was the suspect in this case. After the way my boyfriend had treated me for the past four years, (poorly doesn’t begin to describe it, but that’s another set of ruined music for another time) hurting said boyfriend seemed almost logical.

The only thing I’ll ever ask of you / You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

The end of the week was coming. The moving date was coming. I couldn’t compartmentalize any more. And I was going to hurt more than just my boyfriend by the end. I did move up north. I didn’t accept Jamie’s admittedly cockamamie offer to move in with him. I tried to keep both of my plates spinning, and did so long enough to break up with my crappy boyfriend once and for always. The plates weren’t just broken, they were smashed: Jamie disappeared but for one sordid and uncomfortable evening in a motel room. I had said when, and he had stopped.

Now I have one set of gorgeous and beloved sepia photos, a better outlook on life, a favorite novel (Handling Sin by Michael Malone, if you must know), a men’s undershirt that still smells ever-so-faintly of man-sweat, stale Camel Lights and Carolina Herrera cologne, and an inability to listen to “Everlong.” I just hope that Jamie came out the other side with as much blessing and as little curse.

Suggestions? Email info@ruinedmusic.com with BAND SUGGESTION in the subject line. No promises, but we’ll see what we can do.

When we caught up with frontman Jim McHugh the band was in Denver, waiting out a bad storm that eventually forced them to cancel their next show in Salt Lake City. “The wind’s blowing over eighteen wheelers,” McHugh said. “We can’t go anywhere right now.” Instead, he told us about ruined music and his cat. Look for their forthcoming record on Vice next fall.

RM: So do you have any songs that have been ruined?

JM: Yeah, actually. Probably my all-time favorite band is the Velvet Underground, and one time I had a roommate who was going through a bad mental breakdown because of family grief, and he was doing a bunch of really terrible drugs. He was just losing it and acting out. And he, for some reason, took a girl home and didn’t go to his bedroom. He went into the front room, and we lived in this tiny apartment.

RM: Oh no.

JM: They started fooling around really loudly and drunkenly, knocking over tables. I was studying at that point - I was staying up all night reading Shakespeare for college. And my roommate turned on the second side of Loaded on repeat. So it played for five hours while they trashed the room and wrecked everything - it was like exorcism sex. I couldn’t tell him to turn it down or stop, I was too mortified. I couldn’t listen to the second side of Loaded for years after that.

RM: Well, that’ll do it. Have any of your songs been ruined for other people? Have you had people tell you they can’t listen to your music because of something like that?

JM: I’m trying to think. Besides obvious ones, like ex-girlfriends of mine who don’t want much to do with me any more… that’s probably it. A legion of pissed-off ex-girlfriends.

Random Cat Question

RM: Do you have a cat?

JM: Yeah, I have the fucking coolest cat in the world.

RM: Okay, tell me about it.

JM: His name is Little Black Monk. We call him Monk for short. Eight years ago I was walking down the railroad tracks in my hometown, and I found this tiny little kitten. He’d barely opened his eyes, but he was almost dead from flea bites. I took him to the restaurant where I worked and washed him off in the hand sink. But he’s just a total motherfucker, man. I can be out on the road a long time, he totally takes care of himself. He’s always killing things three times his size. He’s fearless. He’s a small black cat and he’s fighting raccoons, killing huge rats.

RM: That does sound like a badass cat.

JM: He’s great, man. He’s sweet too.

Dark Meat on Myspace.

So, your patience and understanding is humbly requested, dear Ruined Music readers. Thank you!

He was the heir to a real estate fortune and owned three cars. One night, about a week after he’d first called me and another week after he’d gotten over my rejection of a free ticket to a NASCAR event, he arrived at my apartment in a slate-blue Mercedes. He wanted to take me to dinner and a movie, but I started making adjustments to this plan as soon as I met him in the parking lot. I was, perhaps, more sociologically naive than most college juniors. I interpreted being a feminist as being demanding and obstinate while occasionally taking a Gloria Steinem book out of the library. I insisted on driving him to the restaurant in my aging Mazda. He accepted. I unlocked my car.

The passenger seat didn’t scoot back as far as his legs required.

“Are you okay? Comfortable, I mean?” I turned his way but failed to meet his eyes.

“I’m fine.” His voice told me he was smiling. Grinning, even. “Just enjoying the company.”

The Mazda’s engine struggled to come to life, but when it did, my latest mix tape drowned out the chugging of the motor. My pulse quickened. This mix tape, How I Learned To Dance When The Music’s Ended, had been carefully crafted over several nights. The segues were perfect. The therapeutic nature of that tape could not be disputed. Side A was about mourning a past relationship, while side B was about having pride in being sorrowful, pretentious, and lonely. One of the requisite Ani DiFranco songs ended, and then Simon and Garfunkel took over. I had loved their songs ever since the seven-year-old version of myself slipped my dad’s Bridge Over Troubled Water cassette into my Fisher-Price tape player and created predictable choreography to “The Boxer.” But it was “I Am a Rock” that had become my song over the years — the voices melding with the strumming of the guitar, the insistence of the naked drumbeats, the lyrics recalling the John Donne poem I memorized during my last year of high school. The first year I made the decision to be melancholy.

I looked at my date’s face in profile as I drove out of my apartment complex. Did he know the tape was about me? Was he turning each lyric over in his mind, imagining that it must have taken many tear-stained playlist drafts and long conversations over illicit rum and Cokes with my roommates to reach the artistic pinnacle that was the completion of this tape?

He rearranged his legs, knocking aside a stack of books for my child psychology presentation as he did so. “What are we listening to?”

“Just a tape I made,” I said. “Music for driving and stuff, you know?”

He nodded along with the music all the way to the restaurant, a plain old sports bar that could be counted on to serve up a good plate of fried cheese. I told my date this, and he managed to summon two orders of cheese sticks to the table by the time I got back from washing my hands. As we ate, I knew he was studying me — watching my eyes, or maybe the way my mouth smacked open and closed on each cheese stick. There was a trivia contest happening across the bar, and I mumbled my answer to each of the questions. I got all the movie questions right — Sally Field, Dances With Wolves, Marlon Brando — and all the sports questions wrong.

Our gazes met: an accident on my part. My date asked, “So what’s your favorite movie?”

“Sleepless in Seattle.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” Actually, it was West Side Story, but I usually kept that to myself. I always struggled to talk about things I enjoyed very deeply.

He reached across the table and covered the top of my head with one of his hands. “You’ve built a wall around yourself. This high.”

I nodded, or tried to. If I agreed with him, I figured, he would quit psychoanalyzing me.

“I want you to know that I fully intend to get through that barrier.”

I said, “You know that song that was playing on the mix tape in my car — ‘I Am a Rock,’ by Simon and Garfunkel?”

He nodded.

“Well, that’s my theme song. Or at least it has been since November. That line, ‘I have my books and my poetry to protect me’? That’s me, you know.”

“I know,” he said. “But if you’re a rock, then I’m… a hammer. Or maybe a chisel.”

He didn’t try anything on me at the movies. I got to stare at Colin Firth and my date had to be quiet.

The mix tape remained the soundtrack as I drove us back to the parking lot in front of my apartment building. I nosed the Mazda into the spot beside his Mercedes, and I hopped out of the driver’s side as soon as I’d put the engine to rest. Meanwhile, my date struggled with the physics of long legs in a compact car. I was halfway across the parking lot before he managed to get out.

“I enjoyed it!” He waved as though I was being carried away on an ocean liner. “Am I gonna see you again soon?”

“I’ll call you,” I said, though I knew I wouldn’t. Then I hurried up three flights of stairs so I could collapse into my bed, back into myself.

It wasn’t books or poetry protecting me. It wasn’t even that my bedroom was my womb, my tomb. Instead, I was using the song itself as protection – an open invitation to dislike everyone I met, and to dare the unlucky person who bought me a drink to just try to find something palatable about me. It was a trick, of course. There was no way for another person to find the good in me while I spent so much time calculating new ways to isolate myself.

I should have seen it coming, but my poor car had only a few weeks of life left in her. She sputtered to her death on a Georgia highway as I was driving home to see my family for Easter weekend. The last song she played for me was “I Am a Rock.” Then the mix tape squealed and the transmission petered out, and I rolled the car into a gas station on the shreds of momentum built up from traveling at highway speed.

I could have called my tall date. He and I had just met for our last-ever meal together, and I knew he would be heading down the same highway. But I’d never even bothered to commit any of his phone numbers to memory. Instead, I called my dad and summoned him from the Atlanta suburbs out to Winder, Georgia. I left the mix tape in the car for the wrecker truck driver to discover. Then I took a stack of books from the passenger seat and sat on the curb of the gas station, reading about abnormal sexual development.