1990, The Sundays, and My Bittersweet Summer
It was 1990 and I was killing time in a record store, back in the days when they actually seemed to have them. And not even in a mall. I was shopping for CD’s, back in a day when people actually had those too.
Wow.
So as any good record store will do, they played new and random music in the store for shoppers to hopefully like and buy. Usually it was some odd crap that even the band producing it probably didn’t even like. But I recall that day in 1990 when I heard something special.
I stopped flipping through CD’s when something caught my ear. I remember thinking it could have been some older band I never heard or maybe it was something new. The band America flashed briefly through my mind. I wasn’t sure at first why, but I realized later.
Being the broke college student I was, I went up to the counter to make a mental note of the band. I saw the CD cover, which was an odd picture of fossilized seashells. The band was The Sundays and the CD was “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.”
“Cool. I’ll have to check these guys out sometime.”
A week or so later I was shocked to find my older brother had actually already bought the CD and never even mentioned it to me. I copied it onto a cassette tape, back when they had them, and went into my room to listen to it.
Then I listened again. And again. It was mellow, beautiful, yet edgy and fresh. It was everything I always wanted the Smiths to be. Not to diss my boys The Smiths because that’s a great band right there. But with my pop-loving slant, these songs by the Sundays were just total ear candy and I couldn’t get enough. 18 years later, I still can’t.
A few days later, I was in a piano practice room in the music department, and I actually heard someone in the next room trying to figure out the melody to “Here’s Where The Story Ends” off of my beloved Sundays CD. I had to go say something.
I knocked on the door, and to my surprise I was greeted by a good friend, and a girl I was developing a huge crush on, Kim. Before she even knew why I knocked, she welcomed me with a smile that would make any man melt. Then I told her that I knew the song she was playing and I loved the band. She lit up and said, “Oh my God I could listen to it a billion times!”
Fast forward a few more weeks. Kim and I decided to make a trip down to the beach. I recall saying I’d be there at 9am. When I knocked on her door precisely at 9am, I heard her inside marveling at my timing.
We hopped in my car and popped in our new favorite album. We listened to it all the way there. It was a warm day, I was with a beautiful and charming young lady, and I had the most amazing music playing in the background.
We went to dinner, walked along the beach, talked about the futures we were planning in our music careers. We had been just friends, but the moment was too perfect and I was falling for her.
She fell asleep on the way home, as the Sundays tape cycled through about its third time. I woke her up when we got to her apartment. I walked her up and we sat on the couch and talked for a few minutes. I had to tell her my feelings.
As we walked to the door and were about to say goodbye, I said, “I have to tell you something.” We went back in and I told her I was having feelings for her. It was like someone turned the lights out. Her aura shut off. Her smile vanished, and she apologetically told me she didn’t see me that way.
Ouch.
I went home crushed, having ruined a perfect day.
After bumming around the house for a few days, I started to feel better.
I continued to put the Sundays on, and it only occasionally brought out those bittersweet memories of that day. I listened to that tape every day for months throughout the summer of 1990. In 2008 I still listen to it. Even though I marvel at it to this day, nothing can ever compare to the way it felt to hear it back in 1990, long before the coffee shop singers such as Jewel or pop singers like Natalie Imbruglia borrowed and then watered down the memories of this special band and their astonishing debut.
The story above with Kim and the beach just points out how much of an impact that album had on me. The memories of that summer are embedded in that album as I listen to it now. The album was not just playing on my stereo, it was also recording the memories I was creating at that time.
I recall catching an interview with Dave Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler that summer. The Sundays were supposed to play in L.A. but had to cancel due to some incident with bassist Paul Brindley. So instead they gave an interview to one of the local stations. I remeber Dave saying that he wrote the melody and the chords and they wrote the words together. With that debut release, that interview, and the videos starting to appear on MTV, the Sundays seemed poised to be huge. Somehow that never panned out, though their small body of work did eventually influence and inspire many artists over the next decade.
The Sundays would release two more very solid albums in the 1990s before calling it quits so Dave and Harriet could raise a family.
But I will forever remember that summer and its theme music provided by The Sundays.