Alphabet Soup Week 21: Artists Filed Under K

With the last major work project of my career coming to an end, I'm breathing a sigh of relief and starting to look ahead to the next chapter.

Welcome to week 21 of Alphabet Soup!

As we wind our way towards summer, with the waning days of my career unfolding before me, I'm beginning to shift my attention towards what's coming over the next couple months. I'm glad to see the last major work project of my career, the annual risk management regulatory filing, which was completed earlier this week, safely behind me. With that, while I have several projects and handover tasks to keep me busy over the next month, I’m feeling the work pressure beginning to subside.

The life pressure remains fairly constant as we continue our downsizing journey of getting the house ready for the sale closure in a few weeks. We relocate to an Airbnb three weeks from tomorrow, by which point we’ll need to have had everything removed from our condo and our lives and possessions boiled down to a few suitcases. With an exciting new chapter on the horizon, the light at the end of the tunnel is blindingly bright and the tunnel is rapidly getting shorter. I’m very much looking forward to setting foot on the UK’s South West Coast Path less than six weeks hence (after a week split between NYC and London); quite frankly, that’s what’s keeping me going at this point.

For those of you that are inclined to notice, this week’s installment is a day later than normal. Along with work being at full tilt over the last week, my depression recently decided it was time to return to these parts after having been absent for the better part of a couple months. By the time the end of the workday rolled in yesterday, I had little left to give and, given that it was also my birthday, I chose to order a pizza and watch a double feature with my wife - The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Love Lies Bleeding. We enjoyed both films, with the former being a fun romp based, albeit loosely, on a true story, and everything you’d expect from a Guy Ritchie film, and the latter featuring some great acting performances but somewhat tarnished by a couple fantastical elements that were unnecessary and distracted from the story.

Tomorrow is a national holiday here (Bermuda Day) and a three-day weekend is just what the doctor ordered, with some much-needed rest and down-time on the agenda. To my US readers, happy Memorial Day weekend - I hope you’re able to find some time with loved ones and make the most of what many consider to be the official start of summer.

On that note, let’s get into this week’s playlist!

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ALPHABET SOUP WEEK 21: Artists Filed Under K

This week’s selections:

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ARTIST: k.d. lang

TRACK: “Constant Craving” from Oh What a Feeling Vol. 1 (1996)

I can’t claim to be overly familiar with k.d. lang’s catalog, but you would’ve had to be living under a rock to not be aware of Constant Craving when it was released in 1993, particularly in her native Canada where it peaked at #8 in the singles charts. Looking back now, it’s clear that I didn’t appreciate her music near as much as I should have.

I only truly came to appreciate lang’s voice and songwriting prowess with the release of her 2016 collaboration with Neko Case and Laura Veirs, with the resulting album case/lang/veirs being one of my Desert Island Discs.

Constant Craving, the lead single from lang’s second album, Ingénue earned her a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The album would be the bestselling album of her career and would go on to be certified two times platinum.

I never owned the album, but this track appeared on the 1996 compilation Oh What a Feeling: A Vital Collection of Canadian Music, a 4-CD box set released in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Juno Awards.

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ARTIST: Keane

TRACK: “Bedshaped” from Hopes & Fears (2004)

Hopes and Fears, the debut album by English alternative rock band Keane, produced three consecutive top ten singles and has been certified 9x platinum in the UK. Bedshaped was the third single from the album and remains my favorite track of theirs. I was a huge fan of the album, but for some reason I’ve never listened to any of their subsequent four albums, all of which have consistently performed well in the UK charts. Perhaps it’s worth checking out some of their more recent catalog. If you have any suggestions on where to start, please let me know in the comments.

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ARTIST: Khaleel

TRACK: “No Mercy” from People Watching (1998)

I'll fully admit that I didn't expect to uncover much when I started researching No Mercy from Khaleel's 1998 debut album People Watching. Upon its release No Mercy became a stable of pop radio and the video was heavily promoted on various music channels (back when they actually used to play music videos). I purchased the album on the back of this song, which my wife Tina and I both really enjoyed; sadly it was to be a one-hit wonder of an album for us. At some point we came to find out that the moniker Khaleel was the performing persona of one Bob Khaleel. I found that quite amusing as it sounded like the name of a grade school teacher (okay kids, before we open the talent show, Mr. Khaleel's gonna perform one of his own original songs!)

It turns out that Robert "Bob" Khaleel has a much longer pedigree, beginning in b-boy culture, hip hop and rapping and later expanding to alternative rock.

For three years in the early 80s he was the president of the Bronx Style Crew and some of his first performances (as "Bronx Style Bob") were with Afrika Bambaataa's Universal Zulu Nation. He would share a record label with Grandmaster Melle Mel and Ice-T, with whom he would tour in the early 90s (along with Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, N.W.A and MC Hammer). With Norwood Fisher of Fishbone he would later co-found the Los Angeles funk collective Trulio Disgracias, featuring members of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Brand New Heavies, Parliament and Funkadelic among others. In 1992 he would sign with Hollywood Records and form the alternative rock band Super 8.

All of this before becoming Khaleel and releasing People Watching!

I've sampled some of his earlier music and it couldn't be further from what we heard in 1998 on No Mercy. This was unexpected surprise and a fun one to research!

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As you make your way through this week’s playlist, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do any of these tracks really stand out for you? What do you like? What don’t you like?

Please click the button below to leave a comment.

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ARTIST: King Cobb Steelie

TRACK: “Rational” from Junior Relaxer (1997)

After starting off the week with one legendary Canadian artist, we move on to the lesser known, but much loved in the Nash household (particularly by my wife Tina), King Cobb Steelie, an indie rock band from Canada. Rational, the main single from the band's third album Junior Relaxer, would be the band's biggest hit by far. Wikipedia describes the band as a fusion of "punk, grunge, funk, jazz, and dance" but this track definitely brings a trip-hop vibe as noted on the Genius.com annotation:

“With its inimitable guitar lines opening the listener’s ears, “Rational” bridges the Canrock canon of clever, poetic songwriting with the 90’s indie experiments in genre-blending. Kevin Lynn’s bass when it comes in prior to the drums, is processed to sound smooth but still have weight (compared to their self-titled debut, or their live shows, where Lynn is a rock that bites), and the band leans heavily on the crackle and pop of Fixsen’s production for the remaining arrangement of drums, percussion and keyboards. A nation primed with trip hop leaking onto college rock charts for several years would wake up to ‘97’s “Rational” boosted by EMI as a believable band to buy records of and feel hip and cool. “Rational” is one of KCS’s most popular and accessible songs, and with good reason. It has a knock-out hook, poignant lyrics, and a crisp sound that still is relevant and modern while grounded in its day and age.”

The track is a tribute to Nigerian environmental and social justice activist Ken Saro-Wiwa whose 1995 execution by the Nigerian military government was widely criticized by human rights organizations and provoked global outrage.

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ARTIST: Killing Joke

TRACK: “Love Like Blood” from Night Time (1985)

Man, I'd forgotten how much I loved this album - it was absolute fire for me in 1985! This was a period of my life in which my musical universe was expanding into the goth rock realm as artists like The Mission, Sisters of Mercy, and Killing Joke were joining The Cure, Siouxsie Sioux, Bauhaus, and the Joy Division in my vinyl and cassette library. Love Like Blood was the second single from Killing Joke's second album, Night Time, released in 1985. The track was a top 10 hit in the Netherlands, Belgium and New Zealand, and peaked at number 16 in the UK.

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ARTIST: King

TRACK: “Love and Pride” from Steps in Time (1984)

I first heard Love and Pride, the debut single from British new-wave band King on a family trip to the UK in the summer of 1985. The single, one of three from the band’s debut album Steps in Time, gained little traction on release in 1984 but became a hit when re-released in January 1985, eventually peaking at number 2 on the UK singles chart. That same trip introduced me to a handful of other new-to-me artists like Dead or Alive, Nik Kershaw, and Baltimora, all of which would make their way into my analog collection although only King and Nik Kershaw would later be upgraded to CD.

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ARTIST: Karen Elson

TRACK: “The Ghost Who Walks” from The Ghost Who Walks (2010)

Prior to researching this week's playlist, I didn't know who Karen Elson was (outside of knowing of her from this album, obvs) and I have no idea how or when I came to own her 2010 debut album The Ghost Who Walks. It turns out that she began her career in the mid-90s as a model (perhaps most of you already know that and I’ve been living under a rock) and fashion designer before turning her hand to music in the early 2000s. Her debut full length album was released in 2010 on Third Man Records, the label of her then-husband Jack White. She continues to make music and has since released two albums, 2017’s Double Roses and 2022’s Green.

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ARTIST: KT Tunstall

TRACK: “Suddenly I See” from Eye To The Telescope (2005)

It’s amazing the power that albums or individual songs have to immediately take me back to a specific place and time. In this case it’s KT Tunstall’s Eye To The Telescope, and in particular Suddenly I See, that transports me back to a week spent in Thailand in 2006. In the summer of that year I accompanied my wife and a group of high school students to Thailand where we engaged in a service project helping the island and the local school in their recovery from the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.

I spent much of the four-hour ferry ride across the Andaman Sea from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi Don listening to this album (as well as Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere) and by the end of the trip it had become the soundtrack of the week. I continued to listen to Tunstall’s music for a couple more albums, but lost touch with her musically after 2010’s Tiger Suit.

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ARTIST: The Killjoys

TRACK: “Rave + Drool” from Gimme Five (1996)

The Killjoys were a Canadian alternative rock band that formed in 1992 and released a handful of albums before disbanding in 1999. I was all over their first two albums, 1994’s Starry and 1996’s Gimme Five on which Rave + Drool appeared. They were a favorite of mine in the mid-90s and I was excited to see them open for 54-40 in Halifax in the fall of 1996. My musical tastes have changed significantly since my university days and their music hasn’t really stood the test of time for me. I only appreciate a handful of their songs nowadays, with this track being my favorite by far.

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ARTIST: Kim Stockwood

TRACK: “Jerk” from Bonavista (1996)

Given last weekend’s Victoria Day celebrations in Canada (colloquially known as the May 2-4 weekend), it seems fitting that we wrap up this week’s playlist with another Canadian artist, the fourth of the week. Kim Stockwood, who hails from St. John’s in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, originally released her debut album Bonavista in 1995. The album was re-released the following year with two additional tracks, one of which was Jerk, which went on to become an international hit and peaked at number 10 on the Canadian pop chart. The 1996 release earned Stockwood a Juno nomination for best new artist (the winner was Ashley MacIsaac, who appeared in the debut installment of this series).

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Life in the key of K: Kindness

Over the course of the last almost 30 years of sobriety, I’ve been blessed to have a phenomenal series of mentors that have shared their experience, strength and hope with me and in so doing have provided me a series of spiritual axioms that I continue to apply in my life. I’ve spoken about elements of this transmitted wisdom in past installments and today I want to touch on kindness, which, for me, is inextricably linked with selflessness.

As a recovering alcoholic and addict, selfishness and self-centeredness are the roots of my problem. There is very little that has the ability to take me out of my self than performing an act of kindness for another, especially when unbidden or unexpected. Early in my recovery journey, when I initially began experimenting with practicing kindness, I’d eagerly call my sponsor and share with him my “good deed”. After having heard a few similar accounts, he sat me down, looked in my eyes and said, with gentleness and love, “the trick is to do nice things and then not tell anyone about them!”

I’ll admit, it stung a little. There was a part of me that wondered what the point of doing nice things was if I couldn’t then tell other people about it. The question itself provided the answer: it’s about getting out of myself; it’s about living in humility; and it’s about the joy of selfless giving with no expectation of anything in return. I’m so grateful to have learned that lesson, as the ongoing practice of kindness has brought much joy to my life since then.

Thanks for staying with me for another installment, I hope you found something that resonated with you in either the music or the writing. If you did, please drop me a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Until next time, be kind. To others and to yourself.

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Here’s the link to the running playlist which is updated on a weekly basis as each new installment is published:

ALPHABET SOUP RUNNING PLAYLIST

Tracks missing from the Spotify playlist:

• Allegory by Murray Attaway (Week 02)

• Face Me and Smile by The Lover Speaks (Week 12)

• From Your Mouth by God Lives Underwater (Week 13)

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Thank you for reading Joy in the Journey, I appreciate you being here! If there’s someone in your life you think may enjoy this post, feel free to share it.