
Tonight's selection is the 2001 album musicforthemorningafter by Pete Yorn.
I first heard about Pete Yorn when he was on the Rolling Stone '10 Artists to Watch in 2001' list. This was during the glory days of Napster and even though he had yet to put out a proper album I was able to find several of his songs and download them. Pete's tunes quickly found their way onto my playlist and I picked up this album the day it came out, March 27, 2001.
Later that week I traveled with Big Al out to Los Angeles for the Premiere of the Johnny Depp film, Blow. During the road trip we listened to this album approximately 57 times. Before we left good old Orem, UT, I had seen on Pete Yorn's website that he would be appearing at a record store in Long Beach the day after the movie and since my obsession was borderline stalker at that point of course we made the drive down the PCH to Long Beach to see Pete. We arrived about one hour early, had a quick bite to eat at a nearby cafe and then headed over to a cool little record store that could have been the filming location for High Fidelity called 'Fingerprints.'
Needing to kill some time we browsed the cd selections and noticed that Pete was just wandering and browsing the store as well. I inconspicuously made my way over to Pete's vicinity, we locked eyes and soon HE struck up a conversation with me. I was wearing a Duke T-shirt (they were playing in the final four against Maryland that day) and he mocked my Duke allegiance since he was a Maryland fan. I expressed my love for the album and we discussed his selections - I still remember he purchased If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle and Sebastian and he headed up to the make shift stage and performed a killer acoustic set. Good times.
Flash forward one month and Mr. Yorn just so happened to be playing a dive bar in SLC on my birthday. Big Al, myself and a few other friends arrived a little early to his show and Pete and some band members were playing Golden Tee. I stood there lurking and once again Pete struck up a conversation with me. He did the whole, 'do I know you?' routine and then before I could answer he said, "You're the f!&*ing guy from the f***ing Fingerprints..." Best birthday present I had ever received up to that point in my life. What can I say, I have led a pretty sad life.
Luckily for me musicforthemorningafter has aged well. It had actually been quite awhile since I had listened to the album. While cleaning up our Christmas tree on New Year's Day I was thumbing through my records (I was given an autographed copy of this album on vinyl by my good friend Vanwarmer back in the day) and stumbled across music. As I listened with P I couldn't believe how well the album still holds up - not a wasted track on it. Then last week while chatting with AB or Herms or whatever he calls himself these days, he said, "whatever happened to Pete Yorn?" and I had to break this album out once again. If you haven't heard this album - enjoy it. If you have but don't own it - buy it. I think I have purchased at least 5 copies to give to friends as gifts. Hopefully you'll do the same.