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It's been a while since I've written anything sustantive about one of my most favorite bands of all time, Moonpools & Caterpillars. At that time, most of the early WWW stuff had disappeared off the web and I felt the need to bring back a presence, which meant that post and a couple other little things here and there.
This past week I've been listening to 12 Songs in the car and I just can't get over how much I love their music. Even when it's about breakups or crummy cars, each song is just infused with a sense of joy. And it's a joy I've always felt like no one shares.
I'm wrong, of course, but more on that in a second.
A while ago---maybe two years?---Lady Steed discovered on one of those Utah girls' everything-is-wonderful blogs gorgeous photos of a wedding at which Moonpools lead singer (and friend of the bride) had performed. This led my back online discovering, for instance, previously unknown tracks on Myspace (insanely exciting, natch) and the gradual discovery that what I've got on my hands is a Mormon band.
I found the Moonps when I was 18, just a year before my mission. It was the soundtrack of that year and, when I returned home in '97, the first American music (along with Blondie) that I was able to listen to. I wonder how my experience would have been different, in those formative years, if I had had that Mormon detail on hand.
Now, I don't know hardly anything about their spiritual paths etc etc so don't look for that here. I had thought about approaching them for an interview but, frankly, I'm chicken. Rather like how I froze up when I had the chance to interview John Cleese, I'm just not sure I have this in me. The idea of talking with Kimi even through email is pretty intense. There's something about what you love with your whole soul as an adolescent that is Just Different from anything else you experience or consume at any other time in your life. It's foundational.
Anyway, that 2007 post gets more into the personal-history stuff if you're interested.
What kills me now is:
I just got online to make a throwaway tweet about my 12 Songs listens of late, but found this en route:
Needless to say, ?!?!?!?!?!??!?!
Honestly? Would absolutely have been worth a trip to LA just before school starts back up.
They followed that up with a trip to the Philippines where everyone knew every word:
Anyway, although I bet they were insane in 1994, twenty years on, they still look pretty awesome. I'm glad they have more than me appreciating. I just rather wish they had me as well.
Not sure how I missed this particular post.
ReplyDeleteDid I ever tell you--back in Utah a few years ago, I walked over to my manager's desk and found him listening too Moonpools & Caterpillars, so I said, "Moonpools and Caterpillars?!?!" all excited like, and he looked up at me and was like, "You don't know them," I guess thinking I was just being obnoxious. So I was like, "Yeah I do--I love them!" and he was like, "No you don't--were you there at Whisky a Gogo when they were first starting?" and I was like, "No, but I have the Pink Album, which starts out 'Welcome to Whisky a Gogo!'--and they sing that song 'So this is normal, so this is normal!' He snuffed at me and was like, "Hm. Maybe you do know them," and then we had whatever conversation I went over there to have.
A few minutes later, he sent me a YouTube link for Hear's music video, and he came over to my desk and told me to watch it. Partway through, he pointed to one of the kids getting ice cream and said, "Recognize that kid?"
"No."
"That's me."
Apparently he's good family friends with Kimi. She's a bit older than him, but to hear him talk I guess she was like a big sister to him.
Anyway, his reaction was weird, but maybe that's what comes from a lifetime of having something awesome that nobody else appreciates sufficiently.
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ReplyDeleteCould be. That's the sort of conversation you'ld expect if YOU were listening to them and HE came over and said UGH NOT THEM.