13. This HeatMade Available: The John Peel Sessions
I had a wonderful teacher in college who knew I was into Joy Division. He got a whiff of my overall brain chemistry and he was like ‘I think you really need to listen to This Heat’. I just looked them up, and I couldn’t find them – in America their LPs were not in print, I started to get really frustrated and went on eBay. The only thing I could find was this CD, Japanese import copy, used, of this John Peel session. It was used and it was $30! But after all that effort I bought it and I waited two weeks for it to come, and I put it on and I was shattered. ‘Horizontal Hold’ – I gesticulated and I think I slammed my right knuckle into a wall and really hurt my hand the first time I heard this song. I really didn’t know what to expect. It starts with this creaky little “nee-nee-nee” and then it explodes. And it goes on for a while. I had never heard anything like this. I couldn’t believe it was from the 70s. It was like death metal and funky and then sad folk music. I was also blown away that there were multiple people making this music, because my brain felt like only one person is crazy enough to be in sync with themselves to make this music. It made me feel so hopeful, that there were multiple people in the world who felt that this music should be made.
