Tag: Indie

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Organ “Grab that gun”

(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 Organ
Album Title: Grab that gun
Year released: 2004
Year reissued: 2024
Details: 20th anniversary reissue, 2 x LP, 45 rpm, translucent brown marble, translucent green marble, 2nd disc contains ‘Thieves EP’, gatefold sleeve

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The skinny: You can chalk this one up to one of those records that I had all but given up on adding to my collection. And then, just a month or so ago, I was shocked to see a 20th anniversary reissue announced and I didn’t hesitate for one millisecond before pulling the trigger. The Organ was a short-lived indie pop quintet out of Vancouver, BC. They were part of that 2000s explosion-slash-renaissance of indie rock here in Canada. Most wouldn’t call it a scene because it was happening simultaneously in three urban centres (Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver) but there really was a sense of community and collaboration betwixt them all. The Organ was on the same label as The New Pornographers but they shared similar post-punk space with The Dears and Arcade Fire (both of Montreal). Sadly, “Grab that gun” would be The Organ’s only long player* and they would disband only five years after forming. Still, this album is considered a cult classic of the era and is definitely one of my favourites to come out of that Canadian ‘scene’. This reissue is pressed to two discs of two different translucent colours with marbling, both at 45 rpms, the extra disc with a bonus EP never pressed to vinyl before, and the packaging is just smashing.

Standout track: “Brother”

*To go along with three EPs, one of which, “Thieves”, is included as the second disc for this reissue.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #12 Coldplay “Clocks”

<< #13    |    #11 >>

There are times while making and posting all these lists of my favourite tunes and albums of each year, times that I err and omit an important (to me) work of music. Indeed, I don’t have a perfect system and my memory is not at all what it used to be.

And so it was, that while counting down my favourite tunes of 2002, I somehow forgot to include “The scientist”, one of my favourite Coldplay songs. However, I can’t very well go back when redo the list at this point so I decided to right this wrong by fudging this new series a bit. “Clocks” appeared on “A rush of blood to the head”, the same 2002 album as “The scientist”, and was released as a single in the US in November 2002. Nevertheless, given that was released in the UK a few months later in 2003, I decided to bend my admittedly malleable rules of inclusion and insert “Clocks” here, a year late, as a sort of reparation for the earlier error. Besides, “Clocks” is a great tune in its own right.

I’ve already shared a few times on these pages about my intro to Coldplay via “Yellow“and ultimately, their debut album “Parachutes“. By 2002, we were all champing at the bit for new music but as it turns out, the group weren’t at all happy with their efforts on the recording sessions for their sophomore record. It was delayed a number of times. In fact, after putting it off, they went out on a world tour and started recording their third album. And it was during these sessions that “Clocks” came out of the woodwork and would go on to save “A rush of blood to the head”.

“Clocks” begins and ends with that piano riff that is instantly recognizable, has been used and sampled by other artists, and is nearly impossible to evacuate from your head once it’s lodged there. The song was built around this riff and despite “Clocks” being planned for a later album, it became imperative to include on the gestating sophomore release.

“The lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh, I beg, I beg and plead”

The lyrics are unclear in literal meaning but they give a certain impression that is unmistakable. An emotion. An energy. And paired with that intense piano riff and the relentless drum beat, it all spells an immediacy. A sense that you are in the eye of the storm, feeling in slow motion while everything and everyone else is whipping around you triple time fast forward speed. This is life. This is the dream. And Coldplay is soundtracking it.

It’s a beautiful thing and no amount of radio overkill can dull the bright colours and rosy fragrance.

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

Categories
Tunes

100 best covers: #40 Iron And Wine “Such great heights”

<< #41    |    #39 >>

Back in May, I travelled down to Toronto to see a concert for which I had purchased tickets almost six months beforehand. The show in question was certainly worth all the pre-planning and the additional travel: one of the few stops on the tour by Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service celebrating the 20th (er… 21st) anniversary of these bands’ landmark 2003 albums, “Transatlanticism” and “Give up”. It was double duty for Ben Gibbard, frontman of both acts, as he performed two sets on the evening, both feted albums from beginning to end, before coming back to perform a two-song encore, the first song* of which was “Such great heights” (again), which Gibbard introduced as a cover of an Iron And Wine song.

Gibbard was joking, of course, but there was a kernel of truth in there somewhere as well.

When “Such great heights” was launched as the first single from “Give up”, it was released as a four song EP, including covers of two of the album’s songs by two of The Postal Service’s Sub Pop label mates**. The Iron And Wine cover was very nearly as popular as the original, both versions coming to the public’s consciousness at around the same time, and the fact that the pair were very different in sound and style but equally catchy probably helped record sales for both artists. The cover was featured on the “Garden State” soundtrack, a massive vehicle for certain indie artists at that time, and the two versions appeared in multiple TV advertising campaigns.

The Postal Service’s original is a digital beast. The upbeat chiming synths and frenetic rhythm reflect the almost blinding optimism and exuberant subject matter of love and hope, a rarity in Gibbard’s early songwriting. Played back to back, the Iron And Wine cover is still nearly unrecognizable as the same composition. It has a tempo slowed down a hundred million times and is austere in its acoustic guitar finger picking and Sam Beam’s soft and wistful delivery. The production, too, is like a 180, sounding ancient, rather than futuristic, analog versus digital. You can almost hear imagined vinyl crackling overlaying the audible breaths between lines and the tactile feel of the calloused fingertips on the strings.

Both versions are swoon worthy, each a work of beauty in their own right. I couldn’t possibly choose one over the other, unless the mood dictated a certain aesthetic on a given day. Of course, it would be the opposite on the next.

I call this one a draw.

Cover:

Original:

*The second one being an actual cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the silence”!

**The other was The Shins’ cover of “We will become silhouettes”.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.