Tag: Shoegaze

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Swervedriver [2015]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Swervedriver live at Zaphods in 2015

Artist: Swervedriver
When: May 5th, 2015
Where: Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ottawa
Context: Just over five years ago, much like now, I was starting to feel that it was time to see some live music because I hadn’t seen any shows since the folk festival in the previous fall. (Except at that time, I had options. Concert tours weren’t all shut down due to an international pandemic like they are right now.) So when I saw that the recently reunited and highly influential shoegaze band Swervedriver was hitting Zaphod Beeblebrox here in Ottawa on their tour, I decided to check it out. They were one of the few of the genre that I didn’t get into back in the day so it didn’t bother me that the reunited roster only included two original members, fleshed out by touring musicians Mikey Jones and Mick Quinn (bassist from Supergrass!). The album they had just released, “I wasn’t born to lose you”, was getting a lot of play on my iPod leading up to the show and the set included the best of that album, plus lots of their earlier hits. It was loud and I loved it. And incidentally, it was the last show I ever saw at the iconic Zaphod Beeblebrox before it shut down.
Point of reference song: “Autodidact”

Adam Franklin of Swervedriver
Jimmy Hartridge of Swervedriver
Mick Quinn of Swervedriver
Mikey Jones of Swervedriver
Jimmy Hartridge rocking the guitar
Adam Franklin making some sound adjustments
The effects pedal setup
Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Ride “This is not a safe place”

(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: Ride
Album Title: This is not a safe place
Year released: 2019
Details: 2 x 12″ LP, 45 rpm, embossed lettering on cover

The skinny: “This new [album] finds Mark Gardener, Andy Bell, Loz Colbert, and Steve Queralt revelling in being back in a fully realized band. Yeah, there is more confidence and energy and a sense that they want to explore and experiment more with their sound. After five years back as a whole, this sounds like it’s the first time that Ride knows exactly who they want to be and it’s bursting out from all speakers.” These are some of the words I wrote about “This is not a safe place” when I presented it as my fourth favourite album from 2019. I also wrote about how I went out to one of my locals on the day it was released to purchase this fine copy, pressed to two slabs at 45 rpm. It sounds lovely and even more so with repeat spins. And yeah, that title is quite prescient with the times we are now living in, isn’t it?

Standout track: “Clouds of Saint Marie”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #17 Adorable “Sunshine smile”

<< #18    |    #16 >>

Vocalist and guitarist Pete Fijalkowski, guitarist Robert Dillam, bassist Stephen ‘Wil’ Williams, and drummer Kevin Gritton formed adorable in 1990. They recorded their debut single, “Sunshine smile”, the following year. It received positive reviews in the music press but the kicker is, it was never released to the buying public. At least, not that version. After Alan McGee signed them to Creation Records in 1992, the song was re-recorded and Adorable finally released this amazing track that we now know and love. Unfortunately for all involved, it was just a couple of years too late.

Adorable likely only managed two albums and four years of existence because the world had already moved on from the noise pop and shoegaze scenes to which they were pigeonholed. Their singles did well enough. In fact, a couple of them, this one included, managed to travel the radio waves across the ocean to get some play in North America. Their debut album, “Against perfection”, was released in 1993 and climbed into the album charts in their native UK but only just barely. When it was released on this side of the ocean, they tacked on the two non-album singles that had been released beforehand. And so when I found a copy of it in the used CD bins, a handful of years later, “Sunshine smile” was the opening track on the playlist of the compact disc I brought home with me to learn and love.*

This song is a great introduction to a band that sadly never really got the due they deserved. “Sunshine smile” starts all chiming and jangly while frontman, Pete Fijalkowski waxes poetic about his subject’s smile. Then, it gets all noisy, guitars move to crunchy and then, seamlessly back to reverberating chimes. The bridge gets all quiet with some taps at the cymbals and Pete goes quiet, too (“how does it feel to feel?”) and the feeling explodes and it all races to a crashing crescendo. It’s got Creation all over it.

And now that I am writing about this song and listening to it over and over, I am kicking myself for not thinking to include it in my Valentine’s Day playlist post last month. It’s quite lovely.

*Sadly, this song was left off the playlist again when Music on Vinyl pressed it to vinyl for a special 25th anniversary edition a couple of years ago but I bought it nonetheless.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.