Last Updated on December 2, 2025 by Black Sunshine Media
Discovery of the Week is my ongoing dive into a battered box of 40 CDs that’s followed me around the world for almost 20 years. Every disc has a story attached—where it came from, why I bothered dragging it across borders, and what it still says about who I was at the time. Some albums are undeniable staples; others are odd little artifacts that somehow dodged every attempt to downsize.
Going through them is like mapping out the soundtrack of a life spent moving from place to place. The longer you live in motion, the more music, memory, and location start blending until “home” becomes more of a feeling than a place. The Noise Pop 2006 Sampler is one of those rare CDs that managed to survive the miles, the moves, and all the different versions of me along the way.
We’re back in business after skipping a week of Discovery for some much-needed admin on the back end.
Noise Pop 2006 Sampler CD
This might be the quickest, off-the-cuff version of the story I’ve ever told. First, the Noise Pop 2006 Sampler CD was wedged into a National Geographic folded map in a box of nothing but maps because I used to collect maps. I don’t know how or why it got there. The disc appeared during yet another move (Taipei to Manila), and I’m 100 percent positive it never got played or uploaded to a hard drive or anything because it’s still factory-sealed.
The sampler features songs by Calexico, Feist, Wolfmother, and others, but it’s only notable to me because it contains “No Charge for Touching”, a track from Henry Miller Sextet, my band in San Francisco from 1999 to 2007.
HMS played the Noise Pop Festival four times (2001, 2004–’06)1, always at Bottom of the Hill, and we only got the gigs because Chris Lanier (bass and vocals) was friends with Ramona Downey, the former owner and talent buyer of Bottom of the Hill. And booking agent Anthony Bonet was a complete sweetheart. They gave us so many chances we probably didn’t deserve!
How Did “No Charge for Touching” Wind Up on the Sampler?
It was our second appearance on a Noise Pop sampler CD, but Lanier ran the management side of HMS, so I don’t remember how “No Charge for Touching” wound up on the disc, except Lanier made it happen. The song was recorded for the unreleased 2005 album Achieve Through Failure. It features Lanier on bass and vocals, me on guitars and vocals, Matt Tucker on drums, and Jeff Lyon on guitar. Lyon left the band shortly after the album was finished.
Playing as a trio again, we either opened the Noise Pop ’06 show on Wednesday, March 29, 2006, or we played second, sharing the bill with Billy Nayer Show, Teri Falini, and Hopewell. The only thing I remember about the show was meeting Cory McAbee, the head guy in Billy Nayer Show, who’s also a filmmaker, screenwriter, and director. He was a nice enough dude and super talented, but we didn’t understand what his band was doing.
We played Bottom of the Hill 17 times between 1999 and 2006, and this March 29 show was one of our last live performances as a band.
Everything is Washington Apples
The song was written from the perspective of a drunk driver who’s survived a head-on collision with a tree. Fortunately, no other vehicles were involved. It’s not based on a true story, just in case you’re wondering, but it was inspired (somewhat) by a romantic entanglement from the era.
The narrator spent the evening at a local dive bar, trying to drink away the realization that his girlfriend has been fucking other dudes and she doesn’t love him. At first, the driver is defiant, in denial (“Go on, get out of here / There’s nothing left to see”). The verse sections depict him flying down the road at an excessive rate of speed (“Tail fins on your Honda / Christmas watching football”), but he quickly realizes the gravity of the situation. He cycles through moments of elation (“Oooh, my toes are still a-tinglin’ / Everything is Washington apples”) and despair (“Everything changes once the clothing comes off”).
