It's summer, 1991. A young woman squatting in an apartment in Walthamstow spends her meager savings on weekly issues of Melody Maker hoping to find the feel of something new. Reviews that spark imagination, more money spent at the local record shop, EPs bought, crackling sounds of vinyl echoing through the flat to lonely ears, to a heart that's gone a week without speaking to another soul (unless you count the man at the 7-11 that rang up her cigarettes and packets of Minstrels).

No better soundtrack to lost days and isolation than sounds of bands like Moose, Chapterhouse, and Slowdive. That wash of guitars that wash right over you, dragging you in the undertow, long looks at strangers, visits to Highgate cemetery, getting lost in London watching the cricketers play the day away. She's a lucky girl who ventures out one night to the Marquee to see all three and though no one notices this singular soul, she's taking it all in and will remember forever.

Those days feel distant nearly 20 years later but one struck chord and she's back again... back to a sadness that's delicious, to Linda McCartney vegetable sticks and Pakistani pizza, to the discovery of Milan Kundera and a journey that would take her all the way to Prague and then home again.

Labels: jack, moose, music, rediscovering old loves