(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)
Artist: Oasis Album Title: Don’t believe the truth Year released: 2005 Year reissued: 2016 Details: Gatefold, 180 gram
The skinny: Oasis’s sixth album is currently the final piece of theirs in my vinyl collection and is likely my favourite of their albums, outside of the first two of course. When it came out, I still hadn’t completely warmed to “Heathen chemistry” and upon hearing “Don’t believe the truth”, was immediately enamoured. It sounded to me like the band had been revitalized. There’s just so much energy in tracks like the one below, it felt like the boys were back. And not just in town.
(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats in 2017
Artist: Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats When: September 14th, 2017 Where: Main stage, CityFolk festival, Lansdowne Park, Ottawa Context: So Ottawa’s CityFolk festival starts tonight, the music fest that unofficially draws the summer to a close every year. I’ve been attending it pretty regularly for the last three years. This year, though, marks the first time in the same period that I didn’t purchase a full festival pass in advance. But that’s only because I wasn’t sure I’d be in town. Have no fear. I’ll be attending two of the four nights and hopefully, get some great weather to catch some great music. The pics here are from a headline performance by Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats from two years ago at CityFolk. I had stumbled across the song below on YouTube late one night and since that serendipitous introduction, had fallen in love with Mr. Rateliff’s revivalist soul. His powerful lungs and very talented backing band had us dancing into the night. Point of reference song: “S.O.B.”
Nathaniel RateliffAndy Wild and Jeff Dazey of The Night SweatsNathaniel Rateliff banging the tambourineNathaniel Rateliff and Patrick MeeseScott Frock, Mark Shusterman, Andy Wild and Jeff DazeyNathaniel Rateliff on guitarNathaniel Rateliff telling us a tale
There are multiple stories and legends behind the coining of the term “shoegaze” and they are all generally variations on a theme. The word is that while reviewing a show he or she had witnessed, a certain music writer was referring to the fact that the singer was reading lyrics taped to the stage or that the lead guitarist was desperately trying to keep track of all his pedals. By some accounts, that show was an early one by the band Moose, the singer in question was Russell Yates, and the guitarist was K.J. ‘Moose’ McKillop, whose nickname gave the band their name.
Interesting, then, that Moose would actually dispense with the noisy and hazy sound that many would come identify with the shoegaze genre shortly after the recording of their first two EPs. This is likely why the group is almost never mentioned in connection with the term, especially one so often bandied about these days, and instead, we hear about Ride, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and Lush. But another reason is that they are quite unfortunately forgotten, mostly because they were largely ignored by the buying public during their short existence. And yet somehow they managed to release three full-length albums after those first two initial EPs and some pretty catchy, rocking tunes.
How did I ever manage to hear the jingle jangle of “Little bird (are you happy in your cage)”? Two words. Mixed tape.
Mixed tapes were magical ways to discover and share new music in the age before the internet. A friend I made in the early days of university, perhaps a few years after this song’s release, recorded me a copy of Weezer’s self-titled debut album and filled side two of the tape with a bunch of other random songs to which she was listening at the time. Moose’s “Little bird” was just one of the great tunes she put together on the side that I ended up listening to way more than I did the Weezer album that I requested. It is a boppy jangly tune that captured me immediately in its rays of sun, the guitars and synths lilting all over the place like thrown petals of a flower, while the drums bounced along with the words, lyrics sung like a Psychedelic Furs song, but without any hint of cynicism.
It’s a great tune by a band by whom I would never hear another song for years but one that I would pay forward by including on many a mixed tape that I created for other friends.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 