Seconds.

All day
Hiding from the sun
Waiting for the golden one
Waiting for your fame
After the parade has gone

Outside was a happy place
Every face had a smile like the golden face
For a second
Your knuckles white as your fingers curl
The shot that was heard around the world
For a second

It took seconds of your time to take his life
It took seconds

It took seconds of your time to take his life
It took seconds

It took seconds of your time to take his life
It took seconds of your time to take his life
Seconds
Seconds

—Human League, "Seconds," DARE!

So Stylusmagazine.com ceased publication yesterday. It was a great five year run. Congrats Todd on a job well done. I first met Todd in 2003 online through the bb/listserv for the first annual Pop Conference at EMP, where I curated music based on the presenter's papers, creating a mix CD called The Nick Hornby Sessions.







Todd was soliciting writers for the new "Seconds"column on Stylus.

I will miss the "Seconds: Perfect Moments in Pop" column most, as both an infrequent contributor and an avid reader. I was always an outlier there, being amused when Nick Southall reveled in being old at 30 and thinking, "well mate, what about 43 then?" Someday I hope to meet Andrew Unterberger; his contrarian columns always made me think even if he was completely full of it maybe 39% of the time. His broad knowledge marks him as kin to his "uncle," Richie. Of course, I can still hear Thomas Inskeep on NPR. Anyway huzzahs all around for a fantastic piece of the pop culture critical pie.

I wrote the 4th and 6th "SECONDS" and a few others. My first was about the first track of my absolute favorite album, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, or more preciely the first 10 seconds of the album AKA Colm O'Coisig's magnificent staccato 4 snare drum solo intro followed by that all-conquering guitar swirl of Kevin Sheilds.



More about that album and 90s Noise Rock in general here; it's long but not a tedious read I promise. Hey Robert Poss liked it:

Re: Try and try again!!‏
From: Robert Poss (robertposs@robertposs.com)
Sent: Fri 6/02/06 8:33 AM
To: George Light (bulb1964@hotmail.com)


Thanks for writing back.

I assumed that G.E. Light was a pseudonym, but then I learned that
your father's name was Halogen and your mother's was Sylvania.

I enjoyed your article (not that I've fully digested it yet) and, of
course, the subject is near and dear to me. Band Of Susans did a
rather influential tour of the U.K. with labelmates Dinosaur Jr. and
Rapeman in 1988, and we played with MBV (at the Roskilde festival and
elsewhere), did a number of gigs with the Butthole Surfers (also
Blast First labelmates), toured with Wire, etc. etc. Loveless came
out around six months after The Word And The Flesh; I've always been
intrigued by the similarity of the jacket art concepts.

In any event, I wanted to make sure that your were aware of BOS (1986
- 1995) and thought I might send along some music in case you weren't.

I'll put a few oddities in the post just for fun.

Someday I'll write up my own peculiar take on the 1985 - 1995 rise/
fall of the noisy guitar band period.... or maybe not. My take on it
is perhaps too idiosyncratic, as is my own emotional ideology
generally regarding music and its social history.

In the meantime, I'll also send along a rather general article I did
a while back for an academic journal. You might find it to be of some
marginal interest. It's called "Distortion is Truth."

-R.P.

Next I tackled my favorite 45 of all time, Freda Payne's "Band of Gold." The "Sympathy for the Mekons" Seconds-piece even became a multimedia event, as an MP3 on an early session of the Stypod. There were even ONE I never knew ran until today:

Hüsker Dü, "Makes No Sense All"

Tomorrow, I'll finish my Seconds "career" with the one I never got around to; my second favorite song the single version of The Clash's "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais," which I originally heard on the U.S. version of The Clash. My first attempt to discuss marks the last work of my juvenalia, a paper appropriately handed in for a college class the day I turned 21.