Tag: British rock

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2000: #10 Doves “Catch the sun”

<< #11    |    #9 >>

This fine Tuesday morning we take a tentative step into the top ten of my Best of 2000 list with “Catch the sun”, the second single off Doves’ debut album, “Lost souls”.

Doves were a Cheshire-based trio, made up of vocalist/bassist Jimi Goodwin and twin brothers Andy and Jez Williams (drums and guitars, respectively). They were high school friends but didn’t actually form as a band until they ran into each other at the famed Haçienda during the heights of the Madchester scene. They originally operated under the name, Sub Sub and released a handful of dance-infused singles throughout the 90s on Rob Gretton’s record label, Robs Records. After their studio containing all their equipment burnt down in 1996, they decided to regroup with a new sound and a new name. “Lost souls” was released to critical acclaim, only losing out on winning the Mercury Prize to another album on which the members performed: Badly Drawn Boy’s “The hour of the bewilderbeast” (“Once around the block” appeared at #15 on this list). Doves would go on to release three more just as incredible albums before going on indefinite hiatus in 2010. Goodwin released a solo record, “Odludek”, in 2014 and the Williams twins formed Black Rivers, releasing a self-titled long player in the very same year.

I fell in love with Doves’ sophomore album, “The last broadcast”, in 2002, a story which I’m sure will come out in a future post, and I immediately went on the research offensive, gobbling up “Lost souls” in short order and picking up each successive album when they were released. As I mentioned in the intro to this list, I had a hard time finding new music that I liked in 2000 and 2001 was only marginally better. I was beginning to worry that “alternative rock” music had died off with BritPop in the late 90s but Doves were one of a handful of the bands that gave me hope. Their deeply-textured and epic brand of atmospheric rock was just the thing that I was searching for and I didn’t even know it.

“Catch the sun” is probably one of the more straightforward songs on “Lost souls”, except perhaps for the fact that there’s no intro. But who needs those? No timidity, no testing of the waters, just jump right in with two feet stomping.

“Every day it comes to this, catch the things you might have missed. You say, get back to yesterday. I ain’t ever going back.”

Jimi Goodwin just lays it all out there with his matter-of-fact and assured delivery, sounding very much like he comes from a long line of Madchester vocalists, like a meeting over pints with Ian Brown and Tim Burgess but with some bourbon thrown in for depth. And he’s got the guitar and drum muscle to back him up on this song, all driving and gut-wrenching, creating an envelope of sound that you wish you could seal yourself up in for the afternoon. However, it’s not to be as Goodwin and the brothers Williams are urging you forward, to get you out there into the world and experience everything under the sun.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2000 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Beatles “Abbey road”

(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 Beatles
Album Title: Abbey road
Year released: 1969
Year reissued: 2012
Details: black vinyl, 180 gram, stereo remaster

The skinny: The eleventh and final studio album by The Beatles has some very fine moments, despite what must have been a difficult recording session.

Standout track: “Here comes the sun”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2000: #12 Radiohead “Optimistic”

<< #13    |    #11 >>

April 12, 1998. A date I will always remember for two reasons. First, it was the first and last time I ever worked on an Easter Sunday and second, it was the first and only time I ever saw Radiohead perform live. I remember it being a very quiet shift at the tool rental store at which I worked at the time, serving only a few customers, receiving more calls from other, busier store locations than actual customers, which all made for a very long wait before the show. It’s funny now remembering how much I was looking forward to it that day, considering the only reason I was going was that I loved the opening act and my friend Terry had an extra ticket. Björk was originally supposed to co-headline the show with Radiohead at the stop at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto but she had to cancel just prior to tickets going on sale and the vacant opening slot was filled by Spiritualized, who already had this job for the other stops along the tour.

It’s a point of fact that I had already seen Spiritualized at a small club called Guvernment the previous fall on their own headline tour in support of “Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space”, a show that I loved and will always remember for many reasons (but that’s a story for another time). And so, I jumped at the chance at seeing them again; Radiohead, for me, was just a bonus. As it would turn out, Spiritualized were phenomenal, doing an admirable job of filling a half-empty arena with their space rock noise, but Radiohead was the revelation. I don’t know what their live show is like these days but in 1998, it was electric and made me an even bigger fan of their music than I already was.

I mention this concert in connection to “Optimistic”, a track that appears on “Kid A”, an album that would come out two years later, because of a (likely unfounded) theory I later developed that it was this tour with Spiritualized that changed everything for Radiohead. When “Kid A” came out, I think a lot of people didn’t know what to think of it. Prior to this album, Radiohead was an excellent guitar rock band and though “OK computer” really pushed the proverbial envelope, it could be considered almost pedestrian when set beside “Kid A”. To me, it sounded like Thom Yorke had spent a load of time with Spiritualized’s evil genius, Jason Pierce, adopted his love of droning rock, free jazz, and experimental noise and leapt off the high diving board without a life jacket. The funny thing is that though I love Spiritualized and everything they produce, “Kid A” and pretty much every Radiohead album that came afterward have never really done anything for me.

Until recently, that is.

(And before I go further, I just want to say that I am not one of those people that slammed “Kid A”, only to much later proclaim it the album of the year. I’ve never hated Radiohead’s later works. I’ve just always preferred albums two and three.)

This week, while listening to “Kid A” in preparation for writing this post, I feel like I heard something there that I hadn’t heard before. “Optimistic”, in particular, got me going with its thrumming and aggressive guitars and pounding drums. These two forces create a palpable tension while Thom Yorke pleads and wrangles with his listeners come along with him for the ride. I listened to it over and over again, each time turning it up louder, the increasing volume making things even more clear. And while I’m not sure I’m sure I’m quite ready to retroactively crown “Kid A” album of the decade or move “Optimistic” further up this list, I think I might be ready to give post-“OK computer” Radiohead another chance.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2000 list, click here.