Sloan “Right Or Wrong” “Someone I Can Be True With”

Some folks have had their hands on it for a while–people north of the 49th parallel or so, those willing to pay those exorbitant Canadian import prices–but this Tuesday my fellow ‘Muricans and I can finally wrap our grimy hands around the new record from Canadian popsters Sloan, Never Hear the End of It.

The roomie hooked me up with a preview a couple months back, and I’m gonna use the term “return to form,” because I’ve been a little disappointed by the band’s last couple joints–the Sloan enterprise veered too much toward well-groomed schmaltz, and I thought we were losing the dudes with the B–tles on their brain, KISS stickers on their gear and a gleam in their eye.

Never Hear the End of It has been filtered through party shuffle listening, but really I like it so far about as much as any of their prime 90s output, holding aside masterpiece Navy Blues. So here’s a couple examples why, back-to-back tracks from the 30-song record’s first third(!).

“Right Or Wrong” is sort of a state of the Sloan address set to a maraca-shakin’ upbeat groove. It’s a pretty forthright statement from a band that’s been playing stadium-oriented rock to a cult following for creeping up on two decades.

There’s an appreciation for the bitter irony–”Ten years ahead of our time/or about one year behind” indeed–and maybe a tinge of bitterness–”sooner or later we’ll be singing for free.” Admittedly, the career complaint jam is a risky endeavor. I mean, these are lucky, talented guys, right? So what I dig is the statement of purpose, the sense that the dudes are weary but they’re gonna keep rolling that boulder up the hill and breaking our hearts in harmony.

In places, End of It feels like Sloan’s (old school) Guided by Voices record. In between yr typical three- or four-minute pop song, there are neat little miniatures like “Someone I Can Be True With.” It’s a peppy little love song that bows out just as it gets rambly and repetitive. I especially appreciate the grumpy/campy pop culture references. Since the song’s about that total love that thrives in the cocoon of comfort, it makes sense to fill it up with the stuff of everyday life.

Then again, the latter half of the song sounds like my typical weekend with the little lady, if you substitute “Road House“ or “CSI: Miami” for “Gremlins 2.” (But then it wouldn’t rhyme, I guess.)

Never Hear the End of It at Newbury Comics. (and at iTunes.)

The Modern Lovers “Girl Friend”

Last week I was on a bus from Springfield, Mass., to NYC, hand in hand with the little lady, both of us listening to her nano through a handy headphone splitter doohickey from Radio Shack. Somehow, to know we were sharing this, listening to the same songs, was a measure of comfort amidst the general misery that comes with Peter Panning it.

Y’all know how much I make out of little coincidences. Predicatbly, when the Modern Lovers’ “Girl Friend” shuffled into our ears shortly after the little lady nudged me and pointed out the Met, the opening namecheck of “the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston” fairly jumped out at me. Wrong town, but right for the moment.

There are many, many things I love about “Girl Friend” (off the band’s delayed self-titled debut, originally released in 1976). There’s the local color; the beautifully wrong, I mean so right, chorus spell-out of “G-I-R-L, F-R-E-N”; the heavy piano action and all its implied drama; the thrumming, lyrical bass; the moment around 1:20 when the dripping need of the song’s sentiment pushes through into an inarticulate yelp and warble that dies almost as soon as it’s breathed out; and that reverbed guitar solo that searches and swoons, outgrowing its conception as a hat tip to Lou Reed.

And, hey, you gotta hand it to lead Lover Jonathan Richman: by song’s end he leaves no doubt as to what it is he wants.

But I’m gonna talk for just another second about that opening assertion. Forlorn and sadly single young Jonathan is sure that if he found a special lady, at that museum “I could look through the paintings/I could look right through them.”

When I was younger, I thought of women as a mystery to solve. There was some sort of literalization of “carnal knowledge” stuck in my head–each object of interest admittedly a mystery I’d likely never solve; I’ve never been a Lothario, maybe a sometimes slut at best.

Now a girlfriend is something that I understand, and maybe I’m a little closer to a truth young Jonathan, his stuffed nose, his tender heart and his professed affinity for all those foxy college girls were all pointing toward.

It’s not really about the lust–lust is essential too, don’t get me wrong–and I’m gonna have young Jonathan back me up by blowing totally out of proportion a little nothing I only just noticed as I was preparing this post.

“Girlfriend” is a compound word, but the title of the song is “Girl Friend.” OK, we’ve established that Jonathan takes liberties with his spelling of the word. But, really, that space maybe adds some extra innocence, like the “space for the Holy Ghost” enforced between a slow-dancing couple at the Friday night Catholic school dances of my youth. (Is that right? Or am I conflating a joke and a genuine memory?)

We’re getting long-winded here, but basically I wanna believe, as young Jonathan did, in an earthly love that helps make things clear. When yr on a good team, it kinda gets to feel that way, and it’s really not that bad.

The Modern Lovers (2003 import reissue) at Amazon.

My favorite songs of 2006, part the last, plus invisible apologia after the jump.

“A Pillar Of Salt” | The Thermals | The Body, The Blood, The Machine | Sub Pop | 8/22/06 | 2:57 | buy disc/mp3s
It was hard to choose one top track off the Thermals’ monster concept record. I’ve gone with “Pillar,” which embellishes blitzkrieg boppin’ guitar and drums with some furiously fun New Wave synth.

There’s a little doominess in here, but it’s more of a tweaked, toe-tapping spin on Lot’s flight amidst the divine firebombing of Sodom & Gomorrah. It’s a safe bet that body-shame, a panicked getaway and the wrath of a vengeful G-d never sounded so danceable.

“Woke Up New” | The Mountain Goats | Get Lonely | 4AD | 8/22/06 | 2:56 | buy disc/mp3s
When tracks from Get Lonely started leaking to the Interweb over the summer, either Mountain Goats mainman John Darnielle or bassist Peter Hughes warned that folks too eager to hear the new record were actually inviting a bummer into their summer.

What we got come August: a concept album, subdued and softly-sung, about someone so messed up by the dissolution of a relationship that he can no longer function. The minutiae of daily life is amplified, almost unbearable; he can’t relate to people; he’s seeing things.

Yeah, a bit dark. I’ve loved each song on this record in party shuffle mode. But I’ve only listened to it top to bottom as an album a handful of times. All together as intended, it accumulated a kind, or intensity, of sadness that I just couldn’t let into my life this year.

“Woke Up New” is the moment in this cycle where a little optimism creeps in, although not quite as much as the title would suggest. The catchy chorus, “oh, what do I do/without you?” stuck with me, but what’s bounced around my head even more is the strange, sorry image of a man making coffee for two, then drinking it all to abide by a rule set by someone who’s no longer there. Its pathos is almost eerie.

There’s no happy ending in “Woke Up New,” but the last couple lines in the verse–the world beginning to bud, the hint of a future worth looking forward to–let in a little light.

(more…)

2006! Woo hoo!

“Sing” | The Dresden Dolls | Yes, Virginia | Roadrunner | 4/18/06 | 4:40 | buy disc/mp3s
I have to be in a particular mood to really get into the cabaret-rock created by Bostonians the Dresden Dolls. Nonetheless, their “let’s put on a show” spirit and pianist/singer Amanda Palmer’s messy candor, on record and over the Internets, charm me no end. They’re an endeavor I want to support, like, philosophically.

But there’s little qualification or doublethink when it comes to my affection for the closing tune on their record this year. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the power ballads. On my first few listens “Sing” was kind of a tearjerker.

I’ll take points off for the line about “the kid with the phone who refuses to sing,” because that just feels like an in-concert call-out, albeit deserved. Otherwise, there’s an incredible generosity of spirit to this song, in message and in execution. You can locate it somewhere between “sing for the president/sing for the terrorist/sing.”

When someone comes out against fear (I know, it doesn’t sound very bold there on the screen, but fuck it, in these times every little bit counts), when a performer invites, encourages, demands her audience to join in, to express themselves… well, I vote “yes.”

“Chips Ahoy!” | The Hold Steady | Boys and Girls in America | Vagrant | 10/3/06 | 3:09 | buy disc/mp3s
I’m a Hold Steady fan, so it was kind of a fig that a song off Boys and Girls would end up somewhere here. On “Chips Ahoy!” they bring the giant overdriven chords, the noodly organ and the hazed-out, gutter-born storytelling. They’ve even added in some gang backing vox to push the anthem button.

But the verse guitar is actually kinda the hook for me. Instead of their usual debauched classic rock pastiche thing, the heavy two-chord riffout recalls the Afghan Whigs, 90s alt-rockers close to mine own heart. It’s got the same bite and forboding that was their stock in trade.

The focus of yr random Hold Steady song will, on the surface, seem to be drink, drugs, good times gone bad, geographical references and self-consciously clever lyrical twists. In a way though, that stuff’s just set dressing.

The point of the chorus here, and really of the song en toto, is sketching out the distance between two people. “How ‘m I supposed to know that yr high if you won’t let me touch you?”–it’s more about the forbidden touch than the self-medication. You don’t need to have been dusted in the dark up in Penetration Park or whatever to relate.

Day three of my 2006 faves rundown…

“Kick, Push” | Lupe Fiasco | Food & Liquor | Atlantic | 9/19/06 | 4:13 | buy disc/mp3s
Yes, this is the token hip hop inclusion. To review: yr humble editor is an old fart when it comes to the boom bap. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, G-d.

And I’m less concerned with “Kick, Push” as a document of the skater boi life than I am with its larger subjects: otherness, coming of age and those beautifully tentative moments of new love.

If I’m wrong on this please leave examples in the comment section, but it’s kind of a minor miracle to find a rapper talking about love in a way that’s neither sappy nor pornographic, and even, y’know, seems to recognize that a chica might be on equal footing with a dude, a person rather than the embodiment of one side or the other of the chickenhead/golddigger dialectic.

In other words, in a way that’s real.

With the not-so-controversial generalizations out of the way, let me sing the praises of the effortlessness of “Kick, Push.” It’s in no way tossed off or half-ass, but still cruises (yeah) along on a catchy horn hook and a breakbeat that feels straight outta my beloved Golden Age.

What’s more, Lupe F. doesn’t sound like he’s pushing any agenda other than repping for a life that means something to him. He’s certainly not frontin’ like he’s hard or overdoing it with wordplay, etc., etc. He’s just flowin’.

And that, my friend, is the definition of cool around these parts.

“There Goes My Outfit” (Acoustic) | The Dears | Gang of Losers | Arts & Crafts | 10/3/06 | 3:57 | buy disc/mp3s
This burner by Canada’s top Britpop band turned out to be my heartbreak beat of the year. It nailed me on listen one, and hasn’t really let go. I prefer the acoustic take that’s a “bonus” to U.S. listeners ahead of the full-band version on the proper record. (Really, what did you expect from me?)

I can’t say I’m clear on what exactly Murray Lightburn, the main Dear, is getting at line-by-line, but the feelings coalesce in the grainy widescreen. It’s in the words, in the forlorn riff that opens each verse, in the forcefulness of his vocal delivery. We’re talking breakup, betrayal and new lows by the second.

“Outfit” is more than a weeper though. There’s a push-pull between woe (”clearly this isn’t my life”) and a palpable, almost nasty defiance (”just admit/I’ve got you by the lapels”–a great line).

But weeper wins in the end, and this was the ace for tears in beers in this dying year.

“The Moon” | Cat Power | The Greatest | Matador | 1/24/06 & 9/12/06 | 3:45 | buy disc/mp3s
Chan Marshall, she who is Cat Power, made a record so good Matador had to release it twice this year!

(OK, in short, it was a revolutionary kind of damage control after a drink/drug/depression breakdown scrapped the initial tour to promote The Greatest. Once Marshall cleaned up–for a tour that wowed even naysayers–the label’s all, “Wait folks! It’s a new release again!”)

The parenthetical is extremely germane to my reaction to the record, to this song. Even though Marshall was probably in a rough place when it was written and recorded, it evokes for me her turnaround, something that really gives me hope. (I hope the newfound health and happiness stays with her.)

But, hey, the music stands up on its own. Backed by Al Green’s supporting players, Marshall pumped out a parcel of songs that pack rhythm and blues, coming on cool like summer music, but aching like autumn. “The Moon”–an appreciation of the satellite’s permanence and indifference overlooking man’s hustle, bustle and demise–stuck with me the hardest, but the whole disc simply kicks ass.