(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 Weakerthans Album Title: Reconstruction site Year released: 2003 Year reissued: 2013 Details: 20th anniversary, limited to 1000 copies, brown with red splatter
The skinny: Like the last post in this series, today’s album is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year but in the case of “Reconstruction site”, the pressing in my collection is the one done to celebrate this very milestone. The Weakerthans are one of those bands that I had always known quite well and had seen live a bunch of times but never fully appreciated until after they disbanded. I am now quite in love with all four of the Canadian indie rock quartet’s albums – the sound, the style, and the outstanding songwriting – and have been working hard on tracking them all down for my vinyl shelves. So when I saw the group’s penultimate record was getting the 20th anniversary reissue treatment, I did a bit of internet digging to track down a copy. I finally found a Canadian distributor in Cut Loose Merch that was selling this sweet brown and red splatter colour variant. Supporting a Canadian company and paying in domestic currency? Yes, please and thank you.
(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: Death Cab For Cutie Album Title: Transatlanticism Year released: 2003 Year reissued: 2013 Details: Gatefold sleeve, 10th anniversary, 2 x 180 gram, 12-page booklet
The skinny: I finally got around to purchasing a full pass to this year’s Ottawa Bluesfest and I can’t even really explain why I procrastinated so much. The organizer’s typically do a pretty good job of putting together a diverse lineup that tries to please everyone to some extent (and invariably, disappoints many) but this year’s lineup suits my own personal tastes better than it has for many years now. There’s at least one act on each of the festival’s nine days that I really want to see*. And one of the acts I’m most looking forward to is Death Cab for Cutie, who I saw live for the first time more than 15 years ago but haven’t seen since. This performance is part of the tour supporting last year’s “Asphalt meadows” but they are also touring in the fall to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their now iconic 4th album, “Translatlanticism”. I can’t even believe that I purchased the copy of this very same record for my vinyl shelves a decade ago: a 10th anniversary, 180-gram double LP edition, complete with a gatefold sleeve and a lovely 12-page booklet. This was procured back when my collection was still in its infancy and probably just around the time that I finally bought my turntable. “Transatlanticism” was a no-hesitation purchase because it was my introduction to this great band upon its initial release and with all the albums they’ve released since, it’s one I return to time and time again.
Standout track: “The sound of settling”
*But I’ill likely have to miss a night or two in the interest of conserving energy.
As I’ve mentioned previously in these pages*, it was my friend Jez that introduced me to Canadian-based indie rock group, Metric. He loaned me a copy of their debut album, “Old world underground, where are you?”, a CD he had purchased at one their shows, which I promptly ripped to mp3 and listened to quite a bit during my morning walks to work.
Metric must have come to Ottawa a number of times in the early 2000s because it seems to me that Jez saw them multiple times at very tiny clubs. After the first time, he tried to get me to come out for the next one, raving about Metric’s live energy, especially that of frontwoman Emily Haines. He would go on to describe in great detail her peculiar dance, which I’ve since witnessed personally a few times. However, I’ve often wished that I had had the funds to join him for at least one of those early gigs because I think that her almost awkward dance and nervous energy would have translated even better on those intimate stages.
“Old world underground, where are you?” was like a breath of fresh air when it was released, especially for me. The first couple of years of the 2000s were a bit of a rough go musically. I had felt in a bit of a rut after the high of Britpop and was having a hard time getting motivated about new music. Metric’s debut was probably the first album I had heard from the new breed of Canadian indie rock bands that would go on to catch the music world on fire for the next five years or so. I had previously focused most of my attentions on music from the UK, through much of the 90s anyway, so having some favourites from my home country was almost a new thing to me.
“Combat baby” was actually released as a single from the album a whole year after the album’s release and it started to catch a lot of radio play. Before that though, it was just one of many tracks on an album I knew intimately from so many repeats on my MPIO mp3 player. Like many of the tunes, it is a quick hit, short and high energy and though when I think of “Old world underground, where are you?” I remember it as mostly a synth pop album, “Combat baby” is one of the more heavy hitting tracks. It plays almost to the angular post-punk scales, or to the borderline new wavers, definitely some Blondie vibes throughout.
“Said you would never give up easy
Combat baby, come back”
It kicks in with a chugging drum machine beat before the bass line picks up the barbells and starts flexing. The guitars just drive like the wind and you can almost picture Emily Haines strutting her stuff and wagging her head back and forth to get her blond hair flailing. And all the while, she is snarling wistfully about a lost lover, an antagonist, a bustle of excitement that didn’t settle for the status quo, but that might’ve since perhaps gone soft and settled, and she is missing that edge. By the end, though, you get the feels that she is kissing off, that she will be “fighting off the lethargy” and “painting the town black” going forward. Yes indeed.
*Back when one of Metric’s later tracks, “Breathing underwater”, came in at number 15 on my Best tunes of 2012 list.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.
The skinny: Like the last post in this series, today’s album is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year but in the case of “Reconstruction site”, the pressing in my collection is the one done to celebrate this very milestone. The Weakerthans are one of those bands that I had always known quite well and had seen live a bunch of times but never fully appreciated until after they disbanded. I am now quite in love with all four of the Canadian indie rock quartet’s albums – the sound, the style, and the outstanding songwriting – and have been working hard on tracking them all down for my vinyl shelves. So when I saw the group’s penultimate record was getting the 20th anniversary reissue treatment, I did a bit of internet digging to track down a copy. I finally found a Canadian distributor in Cut Loose Merch that was selling this sweet brown and red splatter colour variant. Supporting a Canadian company and paying in domestic currency? Yes, please and thank you.
My (life in) music lists 