Tag: 2003

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Best tunes of 2003: #4 Elbow “Fugitive motel”

<< #5    |    #3 >>

I wrote about how I fell in love with Elbow and their first album, 2001’s “Asleep in the back”, in a couple posts about tracks that were amongst my favourites of that year*. Indeed, I became quite obsessed with the Manchester-based quintet, name checking them with all my friends, recommending their music at every chance I got, describing their sound as epic and bombastic. I’m sure my friends got sick of hearing about them and being who they were, took every advantage to rib me and poke fun. I didn’t care. I just pressed repeat.

When I heard a sophomore album was being released, I went out to the local HMV and purchased “Cast of thousands” on CD as soon as it was possible. I didn’t even consider there would be a letdown given my lofty expectations and thankfully, the album didn’t disappoint in the least. Titled for the idea that they enlisted and recorded the Glastonbury crowd singing the refrain of one of the album’s tracks but really evoking how the band doubled down on the followup to their successful debut. Listening to the album over and over again that first week, I came up with a new descriptor for them: beauty, personified.

I distinctly remember taking the CD with me on a trip down to Toronto to visit my friends, Discman company for the long Greyhound bus ride, there and back. I stayed with my friend Tim that weekend, whose birthday it was, if I correctly recall, sleeping on the pullout couch in his basement apartment. On one of the afternoons, a couple of other friends came over and we span tunes, drank beers, ate Pizza Pizza pizza, and played Axis and Allies** for hours. When it was my turn to select the tunes, I slipped on “Cast of thousands” much to the eye rolling of my friends and though I think they got more of an appreciation, I don’t think any of them were entirely sold or as enthusiastic about the album as I was. Maybe it was my fault for talking it up so much. Their loss.

“I blow you a kiss
It should reach you tomorrow
As it flies from the other side of the world”

The second single and track three on the album is “Fugitive motel”. It begins with the barking of dogs off in the distance, followed by sinister guitars, a brushing away at the drums, strings awash, and a lonely piano. Over it all is Guy Garvey’s plaintive vocals, a depth of tone, and a layer of guilt and hurt. His is a protagonist, disheveled and unshaven but unwavering in hope in the face of eternity. It is less a narrative than a feeling – lovelorn and lost and far away. Strong imagery, cinematic in scope, the cheap and seedy hotel room as a prison, a captive in a dream, the whole world desolate and forgotten. But still Guy waits.

*”Red” came in at number twelve and “Any day now” was the top song on the list.

**A strategy game, not unlike Risk but more involved, in which you redo WWII.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #5 Death Cab For Cutie “The sound of settling”

<< #6    |    #4 >>

“Bop-baaah… bop-baaah! This is the sound of settling!”

Yes. “The sound of settling”. This was my first of many favourite songs by Bellingham, Washington’s Death Cab for Cutie.

As I wrote back in August in relation to the number 10 song on this list, it was the many promotional posters, wallpaper style, in the windows of a local independent record store, The Record Runner, hundreds of blackbirds tangled in red yarn, that first piqued my interest in the band and their fourth album, “Transatlanticism“. I wasn’t immediately sold on their sound on first listen but there were a couple of tracks that did grab me right away, this one included, and those sustained me, drawing me back for repeat listens. Eventually, I picked up on the melancholic joy that “Transatlanticism” was laying down and the rest was history.

The band originally formed back in 1997, releasing three albums prior to “Transatlanticism” but those I could never really get into. Founding members Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla, and Nick Harmer found structure with their fourth drummer Jason McGerr in 2003 and this lineup remained a constant through their jump to the majors with their fifth album, 2005’s “Plans”, up until lead guitarist Walla departed the group in 2014. Without him, Death Cab has soldiered on, replacing him with a pair of guitarist/keyboardists, releasing three more albums and they remain active.

“Our youth is fleeting
Old age is just around the bend
And I can’t wait to go gray
And I’ll sit and wonder
Of every love that could have been
If I’d only thought of something charming to say”

But back to “The sound of settling”. The album’s second single was famously disliked at first by Gibbard because it was so upbeat but it had a big supporter in Walla, who was also producing the album. I’m so glad he won out*. The song is unbelievably catchy and immediately replayable. It’s got a driving beat that lasts the whole two minutes that is tailor-made for a mid-tempo pogo. It’s got the hand claps, the bopping baseline and Ben Gibbard’s unique voice and take on the dangers of searching for love, the anxiety, the fear that it might not be returned, and on the other side of the coin, the risks of not taking those risks. And yeah, those inescapable “bop-baaahs”!

Pure indie pop goodness.

*And I’m sure Ben and the rest of the band were also glad in the end given how universally loved it is.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #6 Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros “Coma girl”

<< #7    |    #5 >>

Where were you when you first heard that OJ was acquitted? When the challenger shuttle exploded? When Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use? When the first plane crashed into the World Trade Centre?

History is filled with these big transcendental moments that ‘everyone’ vividly remembers and inevitably remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about it, saw it on television, etc. Similarly big musical history moments include the Milli Vanilli lip synch debacle, Michael Jackson and the dangling baby, and of course all those iconic musician deaths, like Kurt Cobain’s overdose and John Lennon’s murder. For me, the heart attack death of Joe Strummer could also be categorized as one of these moments.

On December 23rd, 2002, twenty-three years ago today, I was working a shift at my call centre job. I had gotten special permission to work out of the Toronto call centre, something I would do for a couple of years after that because it allowed Victoria and I to make the trip down from Ottawa a few days before Christmas and spend more time with her mother. That first Monday I was sat at an empty cubicle in a quad of highly seasoned call centre agents and the mood was jovial and festive. There were treats and laughter and music and I was not at all excluded from the in-between call festivities. Luckily for me, my neighbour had her radio station tuned EDGE 102, the modern rock station I used to tune in to before moving to Ottawa, which meant a more than tolerable soundtrack. At some point during the Dean Blundell morning show, the news was shared about Joe Strummer’s death the day before and they followed it by playing “London calling”.

At that time, I was still only a casual Clash fan, really only knowing the hits, but I definitely knew who Strummer was, what he stood for, and his importance to not just to alternative rock, but all of rock history. And I couldn’t help but feel some sadness at knowing the punk rock icon was no longer with us.

A handful of years later, I had changed jobs for better pay and for work more in line with my writing background. I had also become much more versed in The Clash’s back catalogue but hadn’t really delved into Strummer’s solo work, nor his material recorded with his new band, The Mescaleros. One of my new work colleagues, Ian, a fellow music nerd who had grown up in the Montreal punk and record store scene, was really keen to change this. He loaned me his CD copy of “Streetcore”, which, he explained, was the final album by Joe Strummer and his Messcaleros. It was the album Strummer was working on when he died and was released posthumously the following year. I listened to it a couple of times through at work before bringing it home to rip myself a copy. Yeah, I loved it, just like Ian knew I would.

“And the rain came in from the wide blue yonder
I thought you and me might wander
Oh, Coma Girl and the excitement gang
Mona Lisa on a motorcycle gang”

“Coma girl” starts off the album with a heart racing guitar line and Strummer’s rough-hewn vocals but when the bopping and jiving bass line pops, you know it’s not going to be just a straightforward rock song. Indeed, Strummer’s love for ska and reggae shines brightly through on this one. It’s full of joy and sunshine. The girl of the title is cool for cats, hanging tough at a music festival and taking it all in, said to be based on Strummer’s daughter, who at times joined him on tour. Even if it’s not true, it’s a compelling image to go along with an instantly replayable and relatable track. So effortlessly good.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.