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Best tunes of 2003: #7 Stellastarr* “My coco”

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Here’s a band that may be largely forgotten to the quickly moving trends of musical history.

Stellastarr* was formed in 2000 out of the ashes of a couple other short-lived bands, arising from the burgeoning indie rock scene in Brooklyn and Manhattan that would also give us The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, and TV on the Radio. Three of its four members, singer/guitarist Shawn Christensen, bassist Amanda Tannen, and drummer Arthur Kremmer, were art school student and friends who were interested in starting a band but their plans were still loose, a chance meeting with guitarist Michael Jurin and a successful jam session put them on a more focused path. They would release three full-length albums and an EP and tour domestically and internationally with the likes of Jane’s Addiction, The Raveonettes, Editors, and The Killers. They never officially broke up, going on a hiatus in 2009, and as far as I can tell, there’s never been any talk of a reunion. None of its members have really looked back. Jurin remains in the music industry, performing solo and in several bands, and scoring a few films. Tannen and Kremmer are both graphic designers. And Christensen paints and makes films, winning an Oscar in the short film category back in 2012.

Listening to their music now, especially their first two albums, makes me both nostalgic for that time and place and has me wondering what could have been for the quartet. I absolutely loved their self-titled debut, not bothering me in the least as it did many of their critics that they wore their influences on their sleeve (The Cure, Pulp). Their second album, “Harmonies for the haunted”, showed maturity and saw the group forging their own path, even if their sound did lose some of its punchiness and immediacy in the process. “Civilized”, the final album, was the real disappointment, which was perhaps why it was their final album. Perhaps they had already punched out their clocks.

Those who enjoyed playing baseball video games in the mid-2000s might recognize “My coco”. It was easily my favourite song off Stellastarr’s 2003 self-titled debut. It’s a rocking number that is instantly likeable, a thumping beat, ticky tacky high hats and a dancing bass line start it all off. Duetting male (equal parts Robert Smith and Jarvis Cocker) and female (a breathless Louise Wener) vocals run through the chorus line once, before it kicks into higher gear with soaring and chugging guitars and serious bass backbone. The effect it creates feels like fighter jets, and indeed, the whole song sounds like a dog fight out of top gun. But what really kills me is the instrumental break, the duelling guitars throwing it down, so that you can almost smell the sweat off the musicians shredding each others faces and it all explodes when the vocals kick in, call and response like, an energy that would light up any dance floor.

Even now, whenever this song comes up on my Apple Music shuffle, I have to listen to it a second time. It’s one of those infectious songs that just doesn’t seem long enough.

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

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Best tunes of 2020: #9 Andy Bell “Love comes in waves”

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Ever since pioneering shoegaze rock band, Ride, called it quits rather spectacularly back in 1995, I’d been firmly planted in camp Mark Gardener in terms of following the post-breakup careers of the two warring principal songwriters and driving forces behind the band. I’d always preferred his voice and with the exception of “Vapour trail“, enjoyed far more the songs he led with Ride. I always thought he’d do greater things. Who knew the opposite would turn out to be true?

Sure, Gardener was the first of the two to record and release a solo album by a long shot. However, Bell seemed to get back on the horse quicker, forming Hurricane #1 in 1996, a band of whom I’ve still only heard a few tracks but who released a couple of reasonably successful albums before breaking up a few years later*. Shortly after that, he was recruited by the Gallagher brothers to replace founding Oasis member Guigsy, a job for which he had to quickly learn the bass. He stuck with them until their rude implosion a decade later** and stayed on with Liam for a couple of albums under the Beady Eye moniker. Fans (and readers of this blog) will know that Ride successfully reunited just over ten years ago and not only toured but have released three amazing new albums that build beautifully on their legacy. There’s also been a host of other collaborations and projects that I know little about or only heard tell of so I won’t list them, but know Mr Bell has been quite active indeed.

And in the midst of all this productivity, Andy Bell has been writing, recording and tinkering with songs, a step away from all of these projects, refining and honing sounds, lyrics and melodies. Apparently, “The view from halfway down” became something more than just a ragtag collection of song snippets shortly after David Bowie’s death, this event lighting a fire under Bell’s comfy chair. As a debut solo album, it works perfectly, recognizable enough as Andy Bell but different enough to set it apart from his other projects. And, yeah, some excellent tracks here.

“If you’re searching for meaning
Or a secret worth revealing
And you’re missing the feeling
Of connection, a reflection back from above
You’re ready to ride the first wave of love”

“Love comes in waves” is the opening number and the lead single from the album, a clarion call, a demand for attention. It’s frenetic jangling guitars repeating and not giving up, pounding it in to you, dancing up and down your spine. Meanwhile, the drums just chug along, breathless and immovable, like the unbreakable ocean that he’s comparing with love. A thing of beauty that creates a space that I would definitely want to revisit again and again, sometimes dancing, sometime just being.

*Hurricane #1 was re-formed by cofounder Alex Lowe without Bell and really, the rest of the original lineup in 2014.

**Of course, he was asked to join them on their wildly successful reunion tour this past summer/fall as well.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #80 Depeche Mode “People are people” (1984)

<< #81    |    #79 >>

If you’ve been around this blog before, you’d know that I’ve written about the legendary synth pop band originally from Basildon, England many times over. So instead of treading and retreading over familiar ground, I’ll tell you a story*. (Mind you if you are looking for more words about the band and this song, have a gander at the post on my top five favourites of their songs from the 80s.)

Nearly forty years ago, just as I was starting high school, I got my first job, if you can call it that. I took over delivering flyers to the houses in my neighbourhood from one of my friends for a company called Davcar Distributing. If you’re of an age that you don’t recognize the term, ‘flyers’ were printed advertisements that were like mini catalogues, printed on newsprint**, ranging any where from one to twelve pages, providing the weekly sales for grocery stories like A&P and Dominion and other commercial enterprises like Sears and Canadian Tire. It was piece work, getting pennies per flyer delivered. There were two or three hundred houses on my route and there were typically five to seven flyers to be delivered each week. The route took me a few hours to do on a Friday night and I would get $10 or so for my efforts.

Every few weeks, Carol***, one of the proprietors of the company, would ask if I would take on one of the nearby routes when the regular delivery kid wasn’t able to, and it would mean a bit more money that week, but also cut into more of my prized weekend time. At some point, I was asked if I would be interested in taking over all the down routes**** in my small town and after some cajoling and promises of help from my mother, I agreed. It meant that a walk on Friday night turned into a whole weekend endeavour. I would be responsible for 10-12 routes on any given week, sometimes more, and I figure that at some point over the two years that I delivered these flyers that I probably walked up to the door of every house in Bowmanville.

We quickly had it down to an art though. Friday nights after dinner, we would put on a movie or two and sort out the flyers, unbundling stacks, and fitting each flyer within in each other so that they were ready for delivery and stow them in black plastic Knob Hill Farms baskets*****. My mother had a road map of the town, on which she highlighted each route to which we delivered in a different colour marker and we knew exactly how many houses were on each route and so, how many flyers needed to be delivered. She would drop me off at the beginning of each route, loaded down with two paper carrier bags loaded with pre-sorted flyers, one on each shoulder, and pick me up at the other end, where she waited in our little silver chevette reading a Harlequin romance novel. Then, while she drove off to the start of the next route, I would refill my bags with the exact amount of flyers needed.

This is the job where I gained my love/hate relationship with walking and my very real fear of dogs. Don’t laugh. I was once chased by a massive Dobermann pinscher for 200 metres or so, on a Sunday night at dusk, after a whole weekend of deliveries, from the front porch of a heritage house over an overgrown lawn and over a five foot wide drainage ditch and into the front passenger side door of my mother’s car, which she luckily had the foresight to open for me as she saw the chase ensuing. It was like the Chopper scene in Stand by me, in slo-mo and everything, but the danger was very real. My mother had to get the car washed the next day to erase the dog slobber froth from the passenger window.

And I could tell many other stories from those days – from the odd people I ran into on the streets and the conversations, to the different lifestyles of Bowmanville’s residents, their possessions and collections, and the relationships to their pets****** – but this post would end up like War and Peace in length. Instead, I’ll get back to the point. What does this job have to do “People are people” by Depeche Mode?

Well, as you can imagine, all that walking alone would afford lots of time to think and have conversations with oneself and before I was able to save up for a Walkman, sing songs to oneself as well. One of these songs was Depeche Mode’s “People are people”. I will never be able to tell you now where I first heard the songs, whether on the radio or at a school dance, but those chorus lines stuck with me. “People are people, so why should it be / You and I should get along so awfully?” These were the only lines I knew and sang them over and over again. They resounded for me. They were words that had meaning. And applying them to my own experiences thus far in life, I gave them my own meaning.

When I later discovered the author of these words, I became a fan of Depeche Mode. “Some great reward” would be the first album I would own by the band, mostly because of “People are people”, buying it on cassette, with money earned from a different job. And I’ve never looked back… except of course, to remember singing those chorus lines over and over while walking sidewalks burdened by loads of flyers.

Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a

Favourite lyric: “Now you’re punching, and you’re kicking, and you’re shouting at me / I’m relying on your common decency / So far, it hasn’t surfaced, but I’m sure it exists / It just takes a while to travel from your head to your fist” These lines always made me laugh.

Where are they now?: Despite losing band mates, near deaths, deaths, and dealing with a host of other trials and tribulations over the years, Depeche Mode are still going strong, now just a duo, after 45 years. They released their 15th studio album, “Memento mori”, back in 2023.

*One of which I’ve hinted at pieces at least twice in two previous Depeche Mode related posts.

**Some companies still print them and deliver them directly to mailboxes through Canada Post but many just make them available online.

***I believe that was her name.

****Down routes were all the routes that didn’t have a regular carrier.

*****Those who know, know.

******I’ll never forget the pet raccoon that would pull the flyers from me as I was feeding them into the mail slot in the front door.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.