stopped in my tracks: "There Goes The Fear" & MIA: Kid Galahad?

No Depression remains a center of like-minded wide-mouthed voracious music consumers. The print magazine was inspiring for a long time. Their transition to the internet thankfully hasn't diluted the magic.

There's a thread in the forum where there's a discussion beginning about "what songs have stopped you in your tracks?"

I remember hearing "World Crashes Down" by Kid Galahad on Brian Oake's Freedom Rock show on Cities 97. I caught perhaps the last 90 seconds but that remained stuck in my head for a week until I heard him play it again and recorded the whole thing. I don't think it took very long for me to import the CD direct from the band's website. It remains a striking, original, energetic album of enjoyable music.

Unfortunately the internet has little further information to offer of what happened to the band since. I ripped my well-preserved CD into itunes in ALAC to give it a fresh whirl after all this time. With the massive influx of new music I've blogged about elsewhere I confess it had slid to the background somehow.

Further on the No Depression forum topic, I remember the first time I heard the Doves song "There Goes The Fear" being an electric experience. I had played their first album a ton of times, appreciating the guitar and vocals and melodies.

When I heard There Goes The Fear I felt like I'd been stripped out of the physical plane and left floating in space like an obelisk from 2001 or something, the music was such a game-changing step-up and wild juggernaut of forward momentum.

Pure joyful spirit of so many bands at their best, distilled into homage and originality at once. Now remember to breathe...

I think I still have a well-worn piece of vinyl from my single-digit-aged days wherein Big Bird sings "Turn over the record turn over the record turn over the record turn over the record turn over the record turn over the record...RIGHT NOW!"

That was my instinct after hearing There Goes The Fear. AGAIN! AGAIN! Like I was possessed with essence of Teletubby.

I remember being sick enough I had no voice and aches and pains all over my body from flu. I had a great job at the time, loved my cow-orkers and what I was doing. I still called in sick and slept till after 3pm. But then I got up, damn the flu, and drove to Let It Be Records.

Nicollet Mall. 3397439. Or apologies to whomever has that # now, but I still have treasured memories of Kevin Cole doing loving spots for them at the end of his Rock And Roll Wingding show, over the soothing tones of Santo & Johnny's Sleepwalk.

I fetched the 10 inch single for There Goes The Fear. I played it on the way and the way back in my car from a tape I'd recorded off the radio. Then when I got home I played the wax with a ear-to-ear grin on my face, drumming in the air. Then I gave back in to the flu and slept till I got up to go back to work the next day.

But this was the story of a song that meant that much to me. Thanks Doves. Thanks Let It Be, even though you're not there anymore. Thanks No Depression for bringing the story out of me. dare my agnostic self say Thank God for music? yep!