Skip To The Beat

I experienced two things of note today, one that's a reassuingly regular occurance, the other that I haven't experienced in a long, long time.

The first was the deep seated sense of satisfaction that washes over me when I rediscover a song that I haven't heard for an age, but which turns out to be every bit as good as I remember it.

The song in question today was by a rock band from nearly two decades ago called Company Of Wolves. This was a band that I discovered through the guitarist in the band I was in at the time, a decent chap called Sean Homer who I often think about despite having lost touch some ten years ago. Last I knew he was the manager at the Times Square branch of Virgin Records in New York, but when I first met him we were both working at WH Smiths on Wheelergate in Nottingham.

Sean was the guitarist in my first proper rock band, and was one of a couple of people I knew that were at one point closer to me than my own family. We never fell out, or argued about anything, which makes the fact, in retrospect, that we lost touch all the more sad.

Really good friends in this life are hard to come by, and to let them slip through your fingers, as I have done more than once, is stupid. I'm lucky in that I still have some friends from my youth, who have been there through thick and thin. Over the years we;ve reassured each other, supported each other, lied for each other and been there for each other, and I won't let those who I still know slip away, and I know they feel the same.

Now where was I? Oh yes, the song. The song is called Sacrifice Me, and it's a beautiful track played on a couple of steel guitars and with a delightfully raspy vocal. What really works, though, are the words.

It's one of those songs to be played in the dark, with a glass of red wine and a smoke. A song that is equal parts hope and despair. Equal parts elation and sorrow.

Which brings me to the second experience, that of the skipping of a needle on vinyl.

I haven't had a record player for years, and I actually downloaded the Company Of Wolves album because after searching high and low for years I'm convinced it doesn't exist on CD (and if it does, and you know where I can get it, please do let me know!).

While playing this song, though, which was clearly recorded digitally from vinyl, it skipped. Several times actually. While it's annoying in one way, it also kind of adds to the atmosphere and the memories that the song wells up in me.

So, a bittersweet discovery, perfect but flawed, much like me.


"Search for yourself, 'cause you're the hardest thing you're ever going to find."
Sacrifice Me, by Company Of Wolves