Interpol - The New

Two things here - one, you'll notice that very, very often I'll be revisiting a certain era of my life, mainly those years between circa '93 and '97 or so, as well as some earlier years. Two, you'll quite probably see me waxing lyrical about my many failures. Not the 'Ever tried. Ever Failed' of Beckett fame kind of failure, no. This is the 'tried a couple of times at best and saw I couldn't do it and just gave up' kind of failure
Case in point, as a kid and well into my early adulthood, I wanted to play the bass. Most kids want to sing or play the guitar, hell, even the drums. Me? I wanted the bass. It's always been the instrument that my ears most quickly gravitate to, and let me tell you - I dislike many famous bands for, and among many other reasons, the way their bass sounds.
So summer '95 I took the plunge and bought myself a, quite frankly, crappy bass, determined to master it. How hard could it be? Little did I know.
Sure, maybe for a month or two I gave it the old college try, but I soon found out that bass and me just weren't meant to be. For that matter, neither me or any other musical instrument, if I'm honest.
I know everything you could ever say about this - trust me, it's not ever going to work. It's just the way my mind's wired, I can't understand the process of playing music. It's too mathematical a thing, and my brain doesn't play that well with numbers. Believe me, it's never going to happen.
Ah, you ask, 'did you take lessons, at least?', to which I reply 'yes, yes I did'. It's hopeless.

So years and years go by and I'm always transfixed by great bass playing - particularly bass that's got amazing production and mixing as well. Bands I followed back then I could trust to have the bass I craved, bands from earlier days had that bass too. And how many bands, truly, did I listen to, from, say, 2000 or so onwards that provided me with that bass lick kick? Not very many, unfortunately.
I can't exactly point out the first time I came across Interpol, but they're part of a slew of bands that are very prominent in my early-to-mid aughties. I remember seeing - but not listening to - the video to 'Obstacle 1', and it didn't really register for some reason. At the time, and this would have been in 2002 I was working in a local FNAC - a place that used to be actually fun to work at, before things went south there - and for a wee while I was working mornings. We always got in about one hour before the store opened up, so we could do some restocking, or if we had something new coming in, then highlighting it, or just, you know, making the store actually looked presentable. So everyday before the store opened one of us got to pick something for the rest of the team to listen to - or quietly ignore, as could be the case - and that opened me up to any number of things I'd never listened to. Bear in mind that we sold all kinds of music, from indie to jazz to metal to world music to classical to eurodance - you name it. So any given day we could be listening to anything, really. There was one particularly inspired choice one morning, where someone chose a Goran Bregovic record, and that just lifted everyone's spirits.
Of course, one morning someone played Interpol. As 'Untitled' rolled in, I just stopped. What was this? Who were these guys? Motionless, my ears fixed to the sounds being played, I was drinking it all in.
And man... that bass. That bass right there. Carlos D. speaking directly to my soul. I knew I was hooked for good. I couldn't get enough. Then comes 'Obstacle 1' and 'NYC', a one-two punch that devastated me. And the best was yet to come... when 'The New' kicked in, I fell in love with that bassline - it's one of my favourites ever. It even gave me itch to pick up a bass again and finally learn how to play it?
Did I do it? No. Will I ever do it? No.
It's just not meant to happen. Trust me.