'Retto Ruminations
By: Amy Sciarretto
Last updated February 18th , 2010

I was recently hired to write the bio for Far's new album At Night We Live. Bios are what label press departments submit to journalists with a copy (or a download link to or a stream) of a band's new album, which answers all the basic questions about the band and album, so that the journalist has background information and history and can formulate their questions for the band, and so that the band doesn't have to answer the same questions and naseum about the record and the recording process. 

Far is one of my favorite bands ever, with their last studio album, 1998's Water & Solutions, being one of my most favorite records of all time. It's desert isle listening. It was completely slept on and criminally underlooked – or was it overlooked? - by the music-purchasing public. That's a bit of a dual-edged sword. Perhaps if more people had been lucky enough to have discovered and loved the band, perhaps their career wouldn't have taken a 12-year break! Or perhaps it would have imploded and they would not have found their way back to one another via a playful cover of an R&B song by Ginuwine, as is the case! All I know is that I felt lucky and blessed to have fallen in love with the band and their music and W&S, and I was glad, at times, that it was mine, all mine.

The band broke up not long after the release of the album. But I have the set list – written in a black Sharpie on a small sheet of orange paper, which was the back of a flyer for some other show - from the last time I saw the band, at the now-defunct Coney Island High on St. Mark's Place in NYC, in November 1998. So I am nonetheless thrilled to be penning the bio for the new album. It is a complete labor of love and the new music, which I've been listening to on repeat since the label sent me a player of the record, demonstrates that the band still has "it." So, now that I've gotten the "new" info out of the way – At Night We Live will be released by Vagrant Records on May 18 - I'm going to ruminate, as I do each week, on a theme. My interviews with the band last week inspired me to write this week's column.

Many times I would see used copies of Water & Solutions in cut-out bins at Mom & Pop CD stores in the early '00s, and I would purchase them, even though I already own three copies of the regular edition and two copies of the DVD-enhanced reissue which came out a few years ago. It was often three bucks USD or even as low as 88 cents at Mondo Kim's in NYC. (I remember that detail because it seemed like such an odd price for what is to me a priceless work of art!) I felt like I was rescuing a puppy at the pound. I couldn't just leave a treasure such as this album to languish in a used/clearance bin. So I would buy it and give it to friends as presents, sharing the gift of music with people I love and exposing them to an album that I deem damn near perfect, from the running order of the songs to the lyrics to the quiet-loud dynamics. Many of my industry pals and music lovers always wondered why Far were so overlooked, because they were one of the bands doing that whole emotional, post-hardcore "thing" before it became a genre du jour with the teen set. So in essence, Far were (unintentionally) laying a bit of a blueprint for what is now known as emo and screamo, even though the music they make is more highbrow and high impact than said, current day emo bands. Far have more in common with The Deftones, Fugazi, Thursday and Quicksand than they do with, say, Fall Out Boy, but kids who worship at Pete Wentz's altar would certainly find something they love about Far. When the band came out in the mid-1990s, they were often lumped into a new'ish metal category, which didn't work or fit their aesthetic. They were put on tours with bands like Monster Magnet, so it's easy to see why the general public might have gotten confused. 

I wasn't confused. Most of my friends who loved the band as well were certainly not confused. We "got" it and considered ourselves lucky to be able to absorb the band's catalogue, which was two full-length albums, Tins Cans With Strings to You and the aforementioned Water & Solutions.  I was so enamored by the sounds and the words of Water & Solutions that I even had lyrics from the song "Wear it So Well" incorporated in a hip-to-hip tattoo on my lower back. I mentioned that in last week's column.  I also cashed in 50,000 frequent flyer miles to see the band's first reunion show in October 2008 at the Glass House in Pomona, Calif., joined by the person I loved more than anything in the world. The way I felt, the band couldn't do a reunion show without me. It was one of the greatest months of my life, personally, romantically and professionally and it was topped off  by seeing a reunion so that had fantasized about since the band broke up in 1998 with the person I loved made things that much more potent. It was like a true convergence of my past and my present and two things I loved: Mike and Far. It was also the night my beloved Philadelphia Phillies whopped the LA Dodgers for the National League pennant and thus went onto to play (and win) the World Series. 

When I was iPodding Water & Solutions the other day, late at night, when I should have been sleeping, I had to shut it off, because I was reminded of a much better time, a time that I miss like a severed limb and a time that I cannot go back on. It now mostly reminds me of that happy month of October 2008, of the happiness I had looked for my whole adult life and had finally found with Mike. The album that was the soundtrack to the late '90s and early '00s for me, when I first moved to NYC and had a circle of friends that I spent time with every night in Jersey City had become the soundtrack to the late '00s and the happiness months and years of my ENTIRE life. It's ironic that this one album represented two amazing times in my life. But it is now more connected to the later period, if that makes any sense? It's funny, as I always mention, that certain songs and albums can place in periods in our lives. This album now places me in two separate times in my life that were good and that I look back with a fondness so intense that it actually makes me sad.  But it doesn't mean I love it any less; it's not the song's or the album's fault that it makes me melancholically reminiscent for a time gone by and a time I do not want to have gone by. It's the soundtrack to my life.



When next I am perusing the aisles of a Mom & Pop, you can be damn sure I will rescue another copy of the album, if it's there, and give it to someone I care about and enjoy sharing music with. I know this week's rumination didn't have as much of theme or a directed point as my recent musings, but this is more personal, and therefore, much more stream of consciousness. Or is it conscience? I'm not really sure. I know I keep drifting on and off my topic here, but the point is loving an album allows it to become a soundtrack to your life.

My final suggestion and my general point? If there is an album that you love, especially an obscure one, rescue a copy from a cut out or used bin and gift it to someone that is special in your life. It's a renewable, sustainable source of energy. I hope I have inspired you to check out Water & Solutions. If you like clever, emotional turns of phrase, quiet, contemplative musical moments living alongside tense, push and pull, riff-driven ones, then you will love this album. So even though I can't purchase .88 cent copies for all of you dear readers, I can inspire you to do it for yourself. ~ Amy Sciarretto

[Tags] Metal, Rock

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