a warm, pink womb of sound

There's a story, we'll pretend it's true so I don't have to look it up, that when My Bloody Valentine recorded Loveless, the main guy, Kevin Shields, was so obsessed with the final sound that it took a million hours to record and bankrupted their record company. Something about him trying to perfect the sound of fuzzy guitars. This is my loose recollection and so is probably highly exaggerated. The band went into hibernation or something shortly thereafter. The album was a critical success and moneymaking flop. So it goes, in art and war.

I remember hearing Loveless in the early nineties, mainly in thanks to having two music-obsessed friends who kept me in touch with things interesting and cool. That said, at the time I found MBV to be interesting and cool, but unlistenable.

Things change. Aesthetics morph and develop. I finally bought the album some years later and found it to be a densely and complexly layered cake, but surprisingly poppy. In short, it's fantastic.

My Bloody Valentine started touring again last year. Alas, they're not coming anywhere near Detroit. When looking up tour dates, I found this little snippet about their choice of venues:

Frank Riley, the band's long-time booking agent, helped facilitate the band's unusual sounds requirements. "The most important thing for MBV was making sure that whatever they did sounded great...That requires a certain amount of equipment and power and volume and staging. I had to find venues that could accommodate that...[including] no dB limits."

(emphasis mine)
I love it. Still obsessive after all these years. I like people with principles even if it means my ears will remain unbled.


"I only said" - My Bloody Valentine