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It�s a curious thing to love a band whose members you also know personally as friends. I got to know the Alto Heceta gentlemen four years ago when my old band Speed Of Sauce shared the bill with them many times at the Green Room. By the time they released what turned out to be their swan song in October 2002, I would�ve bought it and loved it whether Alto Heceta were four guys I regularly got drunk with or not. But since they were, I was introduced to the raging beauty of the parties after shows, the haggard practice space at 931 S Van Buren, and the jihads declared by this insane clique upon bars like the Deadwood, the Atlas, the Alley Cat, Quentin�s, and countless others.
When all of this started, I don�t think any of us knew what was truly at stake. I was still bummed about Speed Of Sauce�s recent breakup, and so I invested a lot of musical and emotional energy in Alto Heceta and its attendant bands�Burn Disco Burn, Racecar Radar, Nolan. The album took over a year to complete, only to have the band break up not long after its release, but to this day I love it as I would love any other album, with perhaps only a bit of bias since I know the band.
I am still blown away by what a solid, complete package this disc is, how consistent it is both sonically and thematically, how earnestly it transmits a unique Midwestern flavor of weltschmerz. There are the ambient segues, the way the fast rockers cycle into the slower, more reflective pieces, the uncompromising fanfare of "My Shrinking Paradise" and the contemplative trio of songs in the middle. There�s the thorough melancholia of the album�s last quarter, initiated by the haunting �Picture Being There� and brought to a close by the moribund �A Head Start�.
When this album was officially released, it was both the best and worst of times. I was working two shitty jobs so I could buy new drums to replace the cherished kit that�d just been stolen from my car. I was trying to convince myself that postponing my move to Chicago had been the right decision. (The answer is: yes and no.) I know that this music both complemented and alleviated that cold, rainy autumn and early winter I spent in Iowa City, the struggle to reconcile my love of music and the pressure I felt to settle on a "respectable" career, the transition from one friendgroup to another, the endless beer-soaked nights and the refuge we sought in the bars and on the front porches. It�s all there.
It�s bittersweet to listen to this album, but I think that�s probably true of all my favorite albums�I'm a glutton for punishment. These songs erase the unpleasant memories I have of my three years in Iowa City and help remind me that it can occasionally be a beautiful place. These songs remind me what beautiful friends I was blessed with there. These songs make me want to load up the car and blast off on a road trip, another small overture intended to close some of the distance that's grown between us since. |