Okay, June 1st, close enough to summer to do my first Album a Day. This is what I hope will become one of my regular things here. The plan is to dig out an album from my music library, and listen to the whole thing from start to finish and write about it. Not so much as just reviewing the album, but getting into it a little deeper with what was going on in life when it was heavy rotation for me, or what it wound up meaning to me in the long run.
Today we looking at "Opaline," by Dishwalla. Yeah, kind of a one-hit wonder band with the "Counting Blue Cars" thing, but a friend who is as obsessive about music as I am introduced me to the rest of their stuff, and they turned out to be a really great band. In fact, he sent me a copy of Opaline just because he loved it so much and figured this was going to be the way he'd finally get me to crack and give the band a chance. Thing was I'd already bought it on my own, so for awhile I had two copies of it on my CD rack. I'm not sure where the second copy ever wound up -- I think I passed it on to someone when I was getting ready to move, but I'm not sure who.
Dishwalla seems to be on hiatus now, but their singer, a dude named J.R. Richards, just released a solo album last month. I found it on iTunes and like it quite a bit. Today at school I was in kind of a subdued, comfortable mood that is found on this new album, so my head drifted toward trying to replay the songs from it. The problem is that I don't know this album well enough yet to bring one up on the internal radio on command. Instead, I wound up using songs from Opaline as a substitute, since the two albums have such a similar tone.
Opaline is noteable for two big reasons: It was a car CD for me one spring, after one Sunday I was driving around with it in the car, and it was during that drive that I got my first real hard listen to how cool of a CD it was. I was on the way to see one of my students perform in an ice show at the local ice arena. Ice shows are analogous with dance recitals when it comes to how painful they are to sit through, so I wasn't really looking forward to it. But hey, she invited, and I've always figured if one of the kids wants you at their event badly enough they'll muster up the courage to invite you, it's worth my time to go if I'm able. Makes me a little heroic for awhile, and gives me a glimpse into the personal lives of students I don't normally get, which helps me to see them more as people than just names in the gradebook. It was late spring, one of the first days of the season it was warm enough for it to make sense to roll down the car windows and enjoy the breeze.
Opaline never caught on big with me after it's turn in the car; it really just got overlooked in the shuffle. But a couple years later I downloaded Dishwalla's live album, "Greetings From the Flow State," which was awesome. Probably still my favorite CD of theirs. And one big reason why was they had taken some really strong songs from Opaline and reworked them to create similar but brand new live versions that I just loved. It was enough to get me to dig Opaline out and enjoy the more calm and acoustic-flavored versions of these same songs.
Why an adult-oriented rock station like Cities 97 wasn't all over this album when it first came out is beyond me. It was right up their alley, and the thing just faded away. If you're ever looking for a new relaxing-under-the-sunset soundtrack album, give this one a shot.
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