Iron And Wine is the stage name for Sam Beam, an American singer/writer who sported a big bushy beard before it became a thing again. I somehow came across him shortly after he released his debut album, “The creek drank the cradle”, in 2002, though I don’t think I became a huge fan until I heard his collaboration with Calexico a few years later: 2005’s “In the reins” EP. I found it interesting, then, when I recently learned that the songs on his debut were meant to be filled in by members of Calexico but instead, the demo versions he recorded in his home studio were released as the version of “The creek that drank the cradle” we know and love.
“Lion’s mane” is the opening track and if you’re not familiar with the album, it is representative of the old school folk you’re going to hear with the rest, simple but compelling, and reminiscent of Nick and Paul and all those kids. The song is lo-fi and sparse and intimate and immediate, the simplicity never becoming tired. The acoustic guitar and banjo take turns being lovingly plucked, while Beam softly whispers the vocals without sounding affected. There’s just no need to be loud with such idyllic, woodsy, rustic sounds. You can almost smell the pine, wood smoke, sounds of crickets, and the wind the rustling through the leaves. No, there’s no cell phone signal here or wi-fi or television. Just wood stove coffee and pipe tobacco and periodically walking down to the lake to catch the cool off the water. Lovely stuff.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.
Cornershop’s third album, “I was born for the 7th time” was released in 1997 to critical acclaim but it only became a massive hit for the band after Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, remixed the single “Brimful of asha” and that song hit the stratosphere. It took them five years to release a follow up album, “Handcream for a generation”, though the main players in the band, Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres, were anything but inactive. Of course, by the time 2002 rolled around, the buying public had moved on and the critics who fell over themselves for “I was born…” weren’t quite so enthused. I personally didn’t know what to think of it at first, beyond the obvious endearment of the grooves, but it has grown on me substantially over the years.
Some say their meteoric rise to fame is the inspiration behind the convoluted lyrics of this album’s second single, the awesomely titled, “Lessons learned from Rocky I to Rocky III”. There most definitely seem to be hits out at the music industry, at “soft rock shit”, at “TSB rock school”, and at hip hop stars bringing guns to meetings in A & R offices. However, all bets are off if you’re looking for depth here because Singh himself can’t account for the meaning in many of the tracks on this album. That is quite okay with me, though, because this tune really does rock and groove. Electric guitar hooks abound and funky drumming and soulful backing vocalists make it a real party. And Singh does his best Jagger swagger while he’s spouting this ‘nonsense’.
For the final word, I asked my friend Andrew Rodriguez to comment on the song and he came up with this:
“Packed lunches, chicks with dicks in miami beach and something about an Overgrown Supership. < lessons learned (and forget everything after 4)”
And this:
“That song in particular was referred to by some dumbf**k music critic as being ‘BTO esque’ ^^^seriously how do these cocks**kers have jobs???? *oh. wait. I answered my own question*”
Thanks again, Rodriguez.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.
It was my friend Tim that introduced me to the Pixies, though I didn’t get them right away. They were just so radically different from the AM radio I was still transitioning from at the start of the 1990s. But he definitely tried. Every mixed cassette tape I got from his direction included a Pixies track (along with a Mission and a Sisters track, but those are other stories) so I got used to seeing their name. One Friday night, during my weekly ritual of watching and recording music videos off MuchMusic’s City Limits, I pressed the Record button and added the video for “Alec Eiffel” to my collection. It was this knee jerk reaction to a band name I recognized that became my gateway to the now legendary quartet from Boston.
I shortly thereafter bought a used copy of their second long player, “Doolittle”, which I now love unconditionally. However, the debut album took me much longer to appreciate. Perhaps even a decade, I couldn’t tell you now how long I held out but it all seems silly now, given that I hold all four of their original albums with such reverence. “Surfer rosa”, though, was a game changer. David Lovering, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, and Black Francis let their don’t give a shit attitudes carry over from from their first ever recorded release, the mini-album “Come on pilgrim”, mixing punk, surf-rock, and whatever else they pleased into their incendiary noise. It is seen as a template for what 90s alt-rock would eventually become, not just for the sheer brashness of the music but also its iconoclastic production, netting future jobs for Steve Albini with artists like PJ Harvey and Nirvana.
So for an album that didn’t sell particularly well (taking decades to reach gold status), it is quite an influential one and one that sits high on many best rock album lists, even winning over many of the critics that didn’t quite get it at the time. And though the whole album has become ingrained in my musical fabric, I still have my favourites and I’ve included them here in my three picks for you.
”Bone machine”: “This is a song for Carol.” Except that it’s not, it’s really a song about sexual deviancy in a few forms. Namely, molestation by priests (“I was talking to preachy-preach about kissy-kiss”) and infidelity and possibly, nymphomania (“Your blistered lips have got a kiss, they taste a bit like everyone”). The opening track on the album, “Bone machine”, is discordance personified, pummelling drums, punished guitar strings, screaming and yelping and carrying on. And then, they just pause everything while Black and Deal harmonize sweetly together: “Your bone’s got a little machine.” Oh, the Pixies.
”Gigantic”: “Gigantic” was the only single to be released off the album and happens to be the second longest track on an album of short bursts of adrenaline. It was one of only two tracks not sung by Black Francis in all of the Pixies’ catalogue and bassist Kim Deal, who did sing it, also co-wrote it with Francis. It is also remarkable for its muscular and big bass line that sets the tone and feel. Deal’s vocals are a case in contrasts, see-sawing between soft and delicate and violent rage, especially when she is joined by Francis at the choruses. Everything I’ve read suggests the song is about a married women watching a teenaged black man making love to another woman and fantasizing that it is happening to her. “Gigantic, gigantic, gigantic / A big, big love.” No, their lyrics aren’t irreverent at all.
”Where is my mind?”: If it wasn’t iconic beforehand, it definitely was after it was used to soundtrack the final moments of 1999’s “Fight club”. Indeed, “Where is my mind?” was never released as a single and yet it is considered one of the band’s best known songs. Francis has said that the song was inspired by a scuba diving experience but true to form, there definitely seems to be a lot more going on here than just talking to fish under water. It’s all very surreal and confusing and the music doesn’t help to steady the ship. Discordant (there’s that adjective again) and topsy-turvy, Santiago’s electric guitar line rolls over and over like crashing waves while the acoustic guitar stands timidly in its shadow. Lovering’s drum is big and sparse while Francis’s vocals range from soft coos to yells and yelps and Deal adds her echoing howl throughout. Wonderful stuff.
Check back next Thursday for album #3. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:
My (life in) music lists 