I was working as a sound engineer at the University of Iowa. We mostly recorded ACT tests for the blind. very tedious,  editing mistakes out of math equations. But I had access to a super amazing sound studio – state of the art dat machines and expensive mics and studio monitors and a huge 32 track board. The recording studio was an old bunker – literally a civil defense fall out shelter with the yellow and black sign  ( also tornado shelter) It was in the basement of an old building and the sound in that control room was PURE.

I got the CD, after work, the day it came out  at a little local college town record store and made a bee line for the Studio. I wanted to hear the record EXACTLY as it was heard when it was mastered. On those studio monitors in a room full of sound padding. 

It was really hot that night and remember sweating as I hustled down the stairs into the cool basement room. I closed the heavy bomb door and was sealed inside by myself.

I played a few tracks from Mellon Collie and Siamese dream to set the volume just right and then split the plastic on the CD with my fingernail – popped it in and waited. the sound of those cicadas, the guitar and then the warm vocals starts the story “twilight fades through blistered avalon… 

ok, I thought, we are entering new territory here 

I sat on the couch and closed my eyes and listened to the entire record without getting up. I wanted to consume this record as a single artwork on the day it was released, – up to that point I had never had that opportunity. Previously all my favorite musicians were dead. And previously I had only bought records that had songs I liked. 

THIS was my first blind listen album. and it was EXACTLY what I had hoped for – ESPECIALLY the ending of the record.

The beginning and middle felt like the dynamics I came to expect in a 90’s record. Some up tempo and some down tempo tracks –  but the ending did a funny thing. It just kept ending over and over.

My first comment to my friends when I invited them over to listen was that this album has like 5 last songs. after each one you think – well that was a great record. Then right when you are about to get up there is another note and another song. and the album IS NOT over.  – Seriously Shame, Night Mare, For Martha, Blank Page – all could be the last song of a perfectly reasonable record.  But because we get another note – or another song… it just kept giving. And it still does.

My buddy Matt joined the Pumkin-verse on Gish and kept bugging us until I had to succumb to contemporary music after having all my CDS stolen in 1997 (remember those giant CD books – yup – one guy stole my soul. SO I had to go work at a music store for the discount and  33 by the Pumkins filled that hole in my soul. Adore, however, that was the one that finally got Johnny to join us as pumkinheads. and he still puts Adore above all others until I convinced him to listen to ATUM. 

Adore is till the sound of sweaty summer nights. I still prefer to listen to this record on good speakers and from start to finish . I personally believe that it is a singular artwork in that way.