Hiatus of sorts

 

It has been five years that I've been writing this blog. During that time I have made a conscious effort to publish at least 4 times per month or more, and I've generally achieved that goal. There have been about 30,000 visits to the site during that five years (with an error of up to 50-80% in either direction), but not all of those visitors actually read anything. There are at least three people that have followed the blog, and several (or quite a few?) more that are regular readers. Thanks especially to you.

I want to also thank ChrisGoesRock, whose blogroll has given my blog more traffic than any other source. Hat's off to Willard's Wormholes and Brady Bonk's Ketchup Is A Vegetable, other blogrolls that have helped sustain traffic of late. And thanks to Dan, too, for your comments and your own blog.

I'm not completely signing off. I'll have to do some Zappadan blogging in December, and I'll pick it up when I feel like it. I'm just saying that the promise to myself (and you, if you've read this far) is mostly over.

Thanks again sincerely to anyone who ever read a posting. I really appreciate it.

Here's ten records that I highly recommend:
Allen Toussaint The Bright Mississippi 
Bruce Cockburn Breatfast In New Orleans, Dinner In Timbuktu
Boz Scaggs Come On Home
The Clash London Calling
Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham Live-Moments From This Theatre
The Detroit Cobras Life, Love, And Leaving
Matthew Sweet Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu
Vampire Weekend Contra
Shelby Lynne I Am Shelby Lynn
Eric Hutchinson Moving Up Living Down

Sloan Commonwealth 2014

Sloan have a new one out. This band is interesting in several ways:

They're Canadian. This is hardly big news these days, but hey, it's still pretty cool to be Canadian. And they are HUGE in Canada.

The same four people have been in the band since its inception in 1991. This is particularly unusual, especially given that...

All four are multi-instrumentalists, songwriters, and singers. Every one of their records includes songs written by all four members. This is the most egalitarian rock band on the planet.

This new one is a doozy. The double LP set has one side written by each member.

Jay Ferguson's first side reveals him as the most Beatles-influenced member of the band. His work has been consistently stellar throughout their career. And I don't mean he mimics the Beatles, instead the band often sounds like if the Beatles had been 20 in 1991 when they met in college. They're that good, and so are his songs.

Side two features Chris Murphy, and Murphy brings diversity of style and pop sensibility to every track. All of them have really produced strong material for this record.

Patrick Pentland's side rocks harder than the rest, and the power-pop label applies at least a few times. Pentland gets the most out of the strength of two guitars, bass, and drums, straight ahead hard rocking, and gives a nice balance to the (usually) less hard rocking Ferguson and Murphy. There's even a few psych and prog moments.

Finally, Andrew Scott delivers a 17-minute medley/suite/collage that caps the record off with style, panache, and daring. The suite features at least a few moments from past records as it defines the term musical amalgamation. But it starts with several minutes of what can most favorably be called musique concrete, and it's still 14 minutes long after that. I've heard it through at least three times, and I like most of it. You'll probably listen to the fourteen other songs more often than this one.

But the usual beauty of a Sloan record is to have these four voices heard, all mixed together and bouncing off each other, and some people are going to miss their musical democracy for this more deconstructed Sloan. I'm not having that problem, and if I did I guess I'd hit shuffle play. It is very good Sloan.

Spoon They Want My Soul 2014

I've been listening to this record a lot since it arrived recently. I think it is their best effort yet, and that is very high praise given the quality of their recent work.

In case you're not familiar with Spoon, let's review. A quirky, punkish indie band releases two relatively lo-fi records in the later 90's to generally good reception and limited sales. 2001 and 2002 see them release Girls Can Tell and Kill The Moonlight on the trendy Merge label, and both are successful with the critics and begin to see more sales. The band tours more, and the buzz builds. By the time of Gimme Fiction 2005, they hit big, score a #1 in the indie charts, and repeat in 2007 with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. 2010's Transference makes it to #2, and they are by any measure a big deal.

Since Kill The Moonlight their records have become more and more accessible, with better production, nice instrumental arrangements and embellishment, and a little less sneer in Britt Daniel's vocal delivery. The path of their progression reminds me a bit of XTC- from punk to melodic modernism, and they have become as interesting in their own way as XTC was in their 80s heyday. Daniel's songs have improved significantly in melody and intricacy, and the band has solidified around Daniel, with relatively few personnel changes in the last nine years except for the recent addition of a second guitar/keyboardist, making the touring quintet capable of reproducing their studio work in the live setting.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and Transference set a very high bar. The four-year wait was worth it. Daniel has written his best set of songs yet, without letting go of his quirks, but definitely favoring his recent melodic bent. There's even some arena rock here, and some perfect pop. But it still sounds like Spoon. I was going to take it track-by-track, but I struggle with describing what they sound like. I guess if you took The Shins and The Clash and Beck and Modest Mouse and threw them in a blender, you might get close. But Daniel's songs, lyrics, and approach to songcraft seem uniquely his own, and that makes this band something special indeed.

You can put this one on and listen to the whole thing. In fact, that is by far the best way to hear it. Somebody thought long and hard about the sequence. It is a cohesive effort, and there are really no weak songs.

If you've been following the band and like their recent work, you won't be disappointed. If you're new to Spoon, start here. After you fall in love with it, go get Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.