When you go away for two years you miss a lot of stuff, apparently. I was never too disappointed to have missed TLC's "Waterfall", for example. But I was disappointed to have missed "Reality Bites", which turned out to be only okay when I finally saw it, but it did have Winona Ryder and that was a huge plus.
But the strangest part about missing out on popular culture for two years is finding out about stuff years after it happened. Just this week, I learned two things I had never known before:
1. BYU won an NCAA tournament basketball game in 1993. They beat SMU 80-71 and then lost to Greg Ostertag and Kansas in the next round. The Cougars will change that in about two weeks, when they finally get back into the NCAA tournament win column. Count on it.
2. Jeff Buckley was a rising star that flamed out way too early. I had never heard of Jeff Buckley, but apparently he released an album, "Grace", that was critically acclaimed. I downloaded the album this week and I feel like I've discovered a hidden treasure.
It's an interesting find. The style is a mix of late 70's anthem rock and early 90's grunge, but with all of the delicate phrasing of folk music and coffee-shop fare. It is at times Geddy Lee, at times Joni Mitchell, with some Chris Cornell mixed in for good measure.
I found this quote from him:
"the only way to really make it ~ anywhere ~ is to put every bit of your being into the thing that only you can provide. the only angle is the art that you choose, that only you can provide. and to do that, you have to be quiet for a long time and find out what you bring forth. you have to know what's in youself~ all of your eccentricities, all your banalities, the full flavor of your woe and your joy. what does it look like? what makes it different from everybody else's? it's totally subjective. you're just given the task of bringing it up."
~ Jeff Buckley
From what I've learned this week, Buckley died in 1994 and "Grace" is the only full-length label release he ever had.
It's strange to find out these things fourteen years later. It makes me wonder about all of the other things I should know about, but haven't yet discovered.
