A belated merry Christmas to everyone out there! It’s Boxing Day here in Canada, a day where a great many people venture out into mall madness to take advantage of the ‘sales’. If you are one these (or if you aren’t), I share the following for your consideration:
Rob Gordon: I will now sell five copies of “The Three EPs” by The Beta Band. Dick: Go for it.
[Rob plays the record] Customer: Who is this? Rob Gordon: The Beta Band. Customer: It’s good. Rob Gordon: I know.
The above exchange constitutes the breakdown of what is one of my favourite scenes in film history. And I’m reasonably sure that I’m not the only music geek that went out immediately after seeing “High fidelity” in the cinemas to also get a copy of The Beta Band’s “The three EPs”. (I’m talking about those of us that didn’t already have it in our collections, of course.) Yet try as I might, I was never, outside of a few tunes, ever able to get into the group. Unbelievably, I had better luck with The Aliens, the band made up of former Beta Band members, Gordon Anderson, John Maclean, and Robin Jones, and then, when former frontman Steve Mason released “Boys outside”, his first solo work put out under his real name, I was completely enamoured.
Just one of those things, I guess.
Some music writers have said that the album, “Boys outside”, sounds like The Beta Band replayed through a magical, adult alternative filter and I suppose that makes sense. It and its title track, which I love to pieces, feels infinitely more mature. It bears the weight of Mason’s financial and general life struggles, as well as his battles with depression. The bleak black austerity of the cover is certainly a reflection of all this, as is the often claustrophobic production.
“Boys outside“ is lilting guitars and breathtaking washes. It is Mason singing his pain, despair, and hope in a voice that was often overlooked in discussions about his old band’s worth. It is heartrending at its quiet moments and glorious at its apexes. It’s one of those songs I slip on when I want to be reminded of beauty in world.
And perhaps this post won’t sell five copies of Steve Mason’s “Boys outside” but maybe one or two. And I’d be happy with that.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.
Back in the spring, my wife and I made the trek out to Montreal to see Slowdive play there. We’ve done this sparingly over the years that we have lived in Ottawa, probably too sparingly, but when we do hit up the bigger city for a show, we plan to stay a night or two and make a weekend of it. (We learned the hard way after driving home exhausted in the early hours after a James show in 2008.) I was super excited when I saw that Slowdive had added a show in Montreal to their tour and it actually wasn’t too difficult to convince my wife, even though she had never heard the band, given that we hadn’t had a weekend away in a few months.
I, myself, was relatively new to Slowdive because I didn’t take to them when they were around during shoegaze’s first wave in the early 90s. It took getting into Mojave 3 first (Neil Halstead’s and Rachel Goswell’s second band) for me to really appreciate them. Then, when Slowdive, following successful tours by other shoegaze luminaries, Lush, Swervedriver, and Ride, announced their intention to reunite for some shows, I was super intrigued to see them live. Of course, I had given this new album a few cursory listens beforehand but I didn’t actually buy it until I got a copy on vinyl at the show. I probably don’t need to tell you how great the concert was, even Victoria really enjoyed it, her listening to them with completely fresh ears. What surprised me most, though, was the variety of age groups in the audience. I was expecting it to be mostly 40 year olds, like I saw at the Ride reunion show I caught two years prior. And maybe they were there to see the opening act, Japanese Breakfast, but I’d like to think that the songs on “Slowdive” were getting radio play and appealing to the younger set.
As I good as the other new releases have been by the aforementioned Lush, Swervedriver, and Ride, Slowdive’s new self-titled album is easily the best of the bunch. It shows none of the dust or rust that might have accumulated in the 22 years since their last release. Neither does it feel like they are just revisiting glory days or tarnishing the reverence bestowed upon them by adding subpar material to their catalogue. The eight songs on this album are as good as anything they’ve ever released. And by keeping it to eight songs, it feels like they’ve left no room for filler. Each song is a beautifully ethereal and magnificent composition. They float on a layer just above our heads, the twin vocals of Halstead and Goswell hermetically entwined, alien and angelic.
I’d love to present all eight songs to you for consideration but like the other albums in this top five, I’m going to limit my picks for you to three. Enjoy.
“No longer making time”: This was perhaps the last of the tracks on the album to hook me and yet, hook me it did. The beat and the bass line is slow and unassuming, setting the stage for the first verse where Halstead’s murmuring vocals do a little dance with the reverb drenched but soft lead guitars. All that serenity falls by the wayside at the chorus. The guitars take on some heft and sizzling effects, Goswell joins in with backing vocals, and everything gets loud and just this side of too much… too much… But then, the ecstasy passes.
“Sugar for the pill”: This track is all about the recurring guitar line that starts the track, climbing creepily and slithering easily back down your spine, and continues to hypnotize, even as the heavy bass joins in. There is so much reverb in this song, you’d think the band had locked you into some new age echo chamber and stood outside taunting, dangling the key gleefully. Not that you’d want to escape if you could. You’d just close your eyes and let yourself melt into the bright coloured mists, ignoring the slowing of your heart beat and deepening of your breaths, and the general feeling of vibration.
“Star roving”: And lastly, we have the real rocker of the album. The drums jump, waves and walls of guitars thunder and tear, and even Halstead has a bit of edge to his delivery. Of course, that could just be the effects pedal that everything seems to be run through, making everything so damned raw. I could totally see this one filling the dance floor of any alternative club back in the early to mid nineties. Hundreds of sweat soaked kids swaying and tilting to the distortion, alcohol coursing wildly through their bloodstreams. Would this be happening in the clubs today? I’d like to think it is but would be curious to know for sure. It certainly held the lot of us enthralled when I saw them live. Such a lovely beast indeed.
For the rest of the albums in this list, check out my Best Albums page here.
Here we are at number two on this best of 1990 list and we find ourselves back on the dance floor. But we must’ve travelled back in time because it’s “Sproston green” by The Charlatans, their second appearance (the other being “The only one I know” at #14) on this list.
I mention the time travel bit as a personal joke between me and my friend Tim. We wandered into one of our old haunts, The Dance Cave in Toronto, after a bunch of drinks on my birthday a few years ago. After a few more, Tim went up to the DJ booth to request this tune, or any Charlatans tune, really, and was denied. The DJ didn’t care that it was my birthday and that we had danced many times to that same tune on that same floor, a decade or two earlier. He wasn’t having any of it. He gestured to the crowd of millenials that made up most of the drinkers that night and said that there was no way they would dance to it.
Now maybe I’m getting old and stubborn but I disagreed then and still do today. This is a song that can’t be ignored, you just have to dance to it. It’s a song so immense in scope that the band has continued to use it over the intervening decades to close out their live shows, much to the joy of their fans. It is definitely a personal favourite. And why not? At just over five minutes, “Sproston green” builds perfectly from the echoing, just beyond earshot guitar intro to a more a solidified onslaught once the rest of the band joins in the fun, led by that muscular bass and crazed, swirling organs, all the way to its crashing, ecstatic finale.
I’ve read somewhere that the words are based on the frontman’s first sexual experience and I suppose that could be true: “This one knows she comes and goes, and when she goes she goes.” It’s as deep as they get… But you don’t really listen to the Charlies for the lyrics, do you? No, no, no. It’s all about the groove and this particular tune has that bit down solid.
Go ahead and disagree. I’m ready for you.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 1990 list, click here.
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