My Joy / Revelation of previous age

Title: Gorgeous Love
Date: 2007/09/13 04:07

Good things come to those who wait?

For those of you who don't know it(and that would probably be everyone here) Kitchens of Distinction is one of my all-time favorite bands ever. If I could express the exquisite joy I found in their records as a young man I would self-immolate. Hearing another gay man sing about loving men while sonic guitars melted my unconscious mind just about made my teenage heart burst. I bought everything I could find by them. They were never really very popular except with a few indie kids and didn't sell very many records either. Other than the single for Drive That Fast's brief foray into the lower reaches of the Alternative chart in 1989, they neither troubled the Top 40 nor had any hits to speak of-and I absolutely loved them. I still play their records to this day and have followed the lead singer Patrick Fitzgerald's solo work as Fruit and Stephen Hero-who is about to put a new album out this month(Whoo Hoo!)

Why am I writing about this? Well, if you read this here diary you'll know things haven't been well of late for Steve. As I needed money pretty badly I decided to trade in some CDs in order to free up some cash to be wild and frivolous(READ: eat) and although I had traded in almost 150 CDs and promised myself I was going to leave the store without getting anything, I figured I would look around Amoeba while they went through what I had. After 25 years of buying records there is not a lot I don't own or want unless its a new band. However, there are a few mythic purchases out there that have a holy grail type quality because I assume I will never in a million years be able to find them. That goes double for rare out of print singles.

Well, I wasn't counting on it, but I figured I would take a gander in the used section. Low and behold, I found a single, but not just any single. A promotional CD single for the song "Gorgeous Love" released in 1990, nearly 17 years ago! I mean, this thing is almost old enough to vote! Now, there are two things that makes this even more wonderful a find. This single contains a track called 'concede' which I have never heard before(not even available on their recent compendium or any place else) and never thought I would since their singles are rarer than dodo birds and the biggest kicker is it was only $2.99. Yeah, 3 whole dollars. 3 measly bucks for a missing piece of my teenage wasteland finally falling into place 17 years later.

Well, considering the past week and the craziness of things, the fact that this little tiny piece of cardboard and plastic just made my whole year was pretty magical. And it hit me that if I had killed myself on the 2nd of this month I would never had lived to experience this moment. Imagine sitting in a record store meeting an old friend for the first time? Staring at the cover in disbelief I realized my hands were wet and so was the(luckily) plastic wrapped CD. It wasn't water but tears that were streaming down my face as I sat there in the racks clutching something that for so long seemed far away and out of reach. Something I thought I could never have. I kept muttering to myself "I can't believe it, I can't believe I found it."

Sometimes in the worst moments of our existence something very wonderful happens to remind us that even the smallest amount of joy can pull us through the blackest parts of hell. Sure its just some single by some band you've probably never heard of, but its a lot more than that. A whole lot more.

Thanks too to my friend Bart for convincing me to try trading stuff in at one last store. I would probably have never had come across it otherwise.