I’m a sucker for introspection, and although people tell me I’m too hard on myself, I think the opposite. As the great Ice Cube would say “check yourself before you wreck yourself”, and there’s too many bad decisions I’ve taken that could’ve been avoided by some carefully thinking. Or any thinking at all.

Getting stuck on those bad decisions and the aftermath seems to be an evergreen source of regret. It’s not good for the soul nor the mind, but that’s the hand I’m playing with. Time has helped, and friends’ advice can give a spot of perspective, sorely missing when you are the only point of view. Value your friends, basically. They are a lifeline.

I had a long bout of insomnia in 2007 and I would just stay up at night watching TV and sometimes just driving aimlessly around 2 or 3 AM. Sometimes just walking outside. Anything to clear my mind. One of those sleepless nights, I was channel surfing and Jools Holland was on. It was a particularly good episode, as I discovered LCD Soundsystem and Silversun Pickups. Carnavas is a great album and although I get the Smashing Pumpkins comparison, it’s unfair. The path Silversun Pickups followed is much different to Pumpkins and I can honestly think you can love both bands equally.

Rusted Wheel was a soothing balm after the intense Lazy Eye (the track I heard that night on Jools Holland). The atmospheric, introspective mood is perfect and you barely feel the song’s runtime. Brian Aubert’s vocals are soulful, but it’s Nikki Monninger’s bass what really drives the song’s mood. This is a bass heavy song and for any haters of the instrument, this should convert you to the correct side of history.

It’s weird that this song reminds of a trip to Mazatlán. That trip was in 1996. The song is from 2006. And now it’s 202 and I can still feel the warm humid atmosphere. The fledgling doubts of a decision I had to take. looking at the pool of Hotel El Cid at the distance, thinking I would never feel like this anymore. Rusted wheel, can’t move on.

But you can move on. And if you’ve got the right friends, move you will.

-Sam J. Valdés López