Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Decemberists “The Tain / 5 songs”

(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: The Decemberists
Album Title: The tain / 5 songs
Year released: 2004
Year reissued: 2008
Details: 180 gram, black vinyl

The skinny: …And speaking of The Decemberists… In 2004, a year before releasing their final indie album, “Picaresque”, The Decemberists released an EP that was just one long 18 minute song, albeit in five parts, that took for its subject a Celtic myth. A few years later this EP was coupled with their first ever EP, 2001’s “Five songs”, and released on 12” vinyl, an EP on each side. I found a copy of this compilation pressed to 180 gram vinyl on one of my many trips to Vertigo records and couldn’t not buy it. If you’ve got twenty minutes to burn, have a listen and watch of the video below. It’s good stuff.

Standout track: “The tain”

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: The Decemberists [2016]

(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.)

The Decemberists, live at Bluesfest 2016

Artist: The Decemberists
When: July 13th, 2016
Where: Claridge stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: Back in 2005, I convinced my wife to squeeze in a concert by a band I had recently gotten into on our spring trip in to Toronto to visit her mother. That show by The Decemberists at The Phoenix Concert Theatre would end up being one of Victoria’s favourite concerts, despite having only heard a handful of their songs beforehand, and it goes without saying it was high up on my list as well. It would be just over a decade before I got to see them again live (though I did catch a Colin Meloy on a solo set in the interim). The lineup had changed some in the years since and the band had also since jumped to a major label and gained a much wider audience. The quality of their music, however, has never wavered, nor has their live show. In fact, both of the shows in question ended with the very same song, “The mariner’s revenge song”, and included the requisite audience participation, though the latter show involved some props (see last photo). Being on a major comes with bigger budgets, right?
Point of reference song: “Make you better”

Nate Query of The Decemberists rocking the bass
John Moen of The Decemberists (and the various stage props)
Colin Meloy of The Decemberists
Jenny Conlee of The Decemberists
Chris Funk of The Decemberists
John Moen and Colin Meloy of The Decemberists
Nate Query on the upright
Chris Funk of The Decemberists on banjo
Jenny Conlee on the accordion
Colin Meloy and his shiny guitar
The Decemberists being swallowed by a giant whale

 

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #25 Cracker “Teen angst (What the world needs now)”

<< #26    |    #24 >>

“’Cause what the world needs now
Is another folk singer
Like I need a hole in my head”

If you’re like me, you laugh a little bit every time you hear that name-making chorus line by American alt-rockers Cracker. In fact, you probably know many of the great lines in the song so well that you let loose a chuckle a few times during its entirety, even before the words are sung.

“Teen angst (what the world needs now)” was the first single ever released by the band and is track one on their self-titled debut album. Cracker was formed by David Lowery and childhood friend Johnny Hickman in 1990 after Lowery’s first band, Camper Van Beethoven, called it quits. They have released eight more albums since their debut announced their arrival, the most recent coming five years ago and according to my own city’s concert listings, Cracker are still touring, hitting a few North American spots nearing the end of this year. I never got into the Camper Van, myself, nor have I listened to much Cracker since the mid-1990s but I did love their first two records. In fact, while re-listening to “Cracker” while writing this post, I found myself wondering how me and the band ever grew apart and made the decision to have a meander through their latter works.

This particular song, though, with its tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating attitudes, spoke to people (including myself) back in 1992. It rocked and rolled and thrashed about and twanged its way to the top of the modern rock singles charts. Lowery’s delivery, which cavorted between laidback and morally indignant, was just the right tone at just the right time. He was telling us, even as he was doubting it himself, what he thought the world needed, or maybe just what he needed to survive this world. And well, I agreed with him on many of those points.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.