A Cure Morning

Last Saturday I got up, picked up the living room (as I’m apt to do on Saturday mornings) and put on a record.

Most weekends when I get up I put on some background noise of some sort.  Usually a TV show while I read the news, clean, or futz around on the internet.  Instead of TV last weekend I thought I should put a record.  I have a nice leather bound Califon record player.  Its pretty ancient.  I saved it from a dumpster when I was in college at Niagara University back in 2000.  Originally it was going to be a gift for my dad, however it grew on me and I kept it for myself.  It’s a Califon 1430k Solid State Phonograph.  What all that means is a loss to me… what I do know about it is that it plays records well, looks good open or closed, and sounds as good as I’d expect my records to sound.

So last weekend I listened to Beethoven.  I have a 7 record collection of Beethoven’s Symphonies that I picked up for three dollars a few years ago.  I got through four records that morning while drinking a French Press of coffee with Sam.  It was a nice, lazy, relaxing way to start the weekend.  We went out after that to the zoo, got some food and just enjoyed the day.

Standing on the BeachToday it is the Cure starting my weekend.  I have a few Cure records, but chose their greatest hits album Staring at the Sea.  Actually its called Standing on a Beach.  Interesting fact I did not know about til today (and it shows how closely I looked at the record when I bought it), on vinyl (record) and tape cassette it was called Standing on a Beach.  On CD it was called Staring at the Sea.  Ahhhh Wikipedia…. you teach me so many things.

For a long time I considered the Cure my favorite band.  Smashing  Pumpkins competed with the for top spot in my musical tastes for all of my formative music years (late high school and college).  At one time I owned more Cure cd’s than all of my other cd’s put together.  Granted it was like 22 out of 40 total cd’s I owned at the time, but I was that interested in all things Cure.  I bought all the singles I could find, t-shirts and other memorabilia.  Aside from Wussy, and maybe Patrons of Sweet – that’s right Matt… you count – the Cure are the band I’ve seen most in concert. But that doesn’t say much, as I don’t go to too many concerts… particularly bigger names.

The Cure have been out of my listening rotation for a while.  I’ve been on a Wussy, Guardians of Galaxy Soundtrack and Angel Olsen kick. Yeah… The Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack is as good as everyone says it is. Angel Olsen I found after Google Play suggested her on some playlist.  A quick view to watch her Tiny Desk on NPR concert and I was hooked.

Anyways… yes.  The Cure is a great way to start my weekend.  Up until Wednesday I actually thought we had school on Monday.  But we do indeed get Labor Day off.  So yeah… Long weekend.  I can dig it, and the Cure are setting it up as a good one.