(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 Decemberists Album Title: The tain / 5 songs Year released: 2004 Year reissued: 2008 Details: 180 gram, black vinyl
The skinny: …And speaking of The Decemberists… In 2004, a year before releasing their final indie album, “Picaresque”, The Decemberists released an EP that was just one long 18 minute song, albeit in five parts, that took for its subject a Celtic myth. A few years later this EP was coupled with their first ever EP, 2001’s “Five songs”, and released on 12” vinyl, an EP on each side. I found a copy of this compilation pressed to 180 gram vinyl on one of my many trips to Vertigo records and couldn’t not buy it. If you’ve got twenty minutes to burn, have a listen and watch of the video below. It’s good stuff.
(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.)
The Decemberists, live at Bluesfest 2016
Artist: The Decemberists When: July 13th, 2016 Where: Claridge stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa Context: Back in 2005, I convinced my wife to squeeze in a concert by a band I had recently gotten into on our spring trip in to Toronto to visit her mother. That show by The Decemberists at The Phoenix Concert Theatre would end up being one of Victoria’s favourite concerts, despite having only heard a handful of their songs beforehand, and it goes without saying it was high up on my list as well. It would be just over a decade before I got to see them again live (though I did catch a Colin Meloy on a solo set in the interim). The lineup had changed some in the years since and the band had also since jumped to a major label and gained a much wider audience. The quality of their music, however, has never wavered, nor has their live show. In fact, both of the shows in question ended with the very same song, “The mariner’s revenge song”, and included the requisite audience participation, though the latter show involved some props (see last photo). Being on a major comes with bigger budgets, right? Point of reference song: “Make you better”
Nate Query of The Decemberists rocking the bassJohn Moen of The Decemberists (and the various stage props)Colin Meloy of The DecemberistsJenny Conlee of The DecemberistsChris Funk of The DecemberistsJohn Moen and Colin Meloy of The DecemberistsNate Query on the uprightChris Funk of The Decemberists on banjoJenny Conlee on the accordionColin Meloy and his shiny guitarThe Decemberists being swallowed by a giant whale
Let me get this out of the way right now. The Decemberists are one of my absolute favourite bands to come out of this young century.
I got into the Portland-based indie folk five-piece right around the time that they were prepping to release their third album, the very excellent “Picaresque”, in 2005. Incidentally, that album would ultimately become their final release as a true indie band, given that they signed to Columbia near the end of that same year. Any fears that they would sell out, though, were immediately dispelled when their debut album on the major label was released. Indeed, I’m sure their fans breathed a sigh of relief (as I did) while listening to the three part title track inspired by a Japanese folk tale and the twelve minute prog-folk-rocker that riffed on the themes from a Shakespeare play. They then followed that up with an album that was originally meant to be staged as a musical but was ultimately found impossible to mount.
Two years later, in the first few days of 2011, we saw Colin Meloy and the group release what is possibly their most accessible album to date and two weeks later it incredibly found its way at the top of the U.S. album charts. “The king is dead” is different from the albums that came before it in that it feels more singular in sound, taking for its focus a healthy steeping in Americana and the American folk traditions. Meloy has said that he had the band R.E.M. at the front of mind while writing the material. In fact, Peter Buck makes several appearances on the album, along with singer/songwriter Gillian Welch.
Neither of these appear on our track for today, the album’s penultimate track, “This is why we fight”, but that doesn’t mean their presence isn’t felt. It rocks a little harder than most of the other songs on the album, a driving drum beat pushing the thing forward, holding at arms length the opposing guitars, on the one side dark and foreboding and the other hopeful and jangly, and what sounds like harmonicas, though oddly distorted, pushing its sad, sad agenda. And of course, I can’t speak about The Decemberists without mentioning the lyrics, though here Meloy’s words are less esoteric and doesn’t necessarily have you reaching for the dictionary as often. Instead, he lists the many reasons why it may be necessary to take up arms, leaving lots of room to interpret how literal to take things.
“This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
And when we die
We will die
With our arms unbound”
Even in the video, the teens living out a “Lord of the flies” existence in a post-apocalyptic world, we see the build up and the “why” of the fight but it all goes to black before the two sides come blows, leaving the terms of the conflict up to the imagination. Pure awesome.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 