We're going to hypothesize. And this is our hypothesis: Many people have a 10-15 year window when they care intensely about music. At some point, they lose that initial vigour. They still like music, but they don't love it quite as much. At least, we've noticed this tendency in ourselves and many of our friends.
Which brings us to the Octopus Project, the most exciting band we've discovered in the past few years. At first, its music -- being mainly instrumental -- was the perfect sonic accompaniment for reading on long commutes around Metro Vancouver. (We were shuttling between Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey, Vancouver, and West Vancouver). Before long, we were playing Octopus Project on a daily basis.
How we discovered the Octopus Project: Wiley Wiggins' blog may have been the first place that we heard about the band. He is friends with some members, and he was playing keyboards for the Diagonals, who opened for the OP on a brief tour. (By the way, the Diagonals have a few catchy tunes of their own. Our favourite song of theirs is "Clones," which has a creepy, grin-inducing video.)
Why the Octopus Project is worth listening to: There are plenty of adjectives that we could use to describe the band's music (e.g., whimsical, poppy, electronic, circuit bending, ethereal). But we'll try to avoid using too many vague descriptors. The Octopus Project creates music for all ages and situations. You have guests coming over? Cue up some OP! Need an aural pick-me-up? Give OP a shot! The Octopus Project could be the musical guest on a children's show in the morning (they could even bring some fantastic, kid-friendlyprops!), set toes tapping at a retirement home in the afternoon, and rock your city's coolest club in the evening.
Where to start: One Ten Hundred Thousand Million (2005) Hello, Avalanche (2007)
The albums:
If you want a quick taste of the Octopus Project, we'd recommend downloading (for free and legally! with good sound quality, no less!) the group's four song Daytrotter session. If you don't like the Daytrotter songs, you won't like the Octopus Project. If you want to hear more of this Austin-based band, you should get One Ten Hundred Thousand Million next. Follow that up with Hello, Avalanche.
It's difficult for us to compare the Octopus Project's albums. They're of a piece, but they have different flavours. You'll hear some keyboards, guitars, bass, and drums. You'll also hear some thermin, samples, and glockenspiel. Some of the songs are rhythmic and some are atmospheric.
Rather than describe the music, I'm just going to include a batch of videos. Luckily, the Octopus Project tends to have stellar videos.
"Exit Counslor" (from One Ten Hundred Thousand Million):
"Music is Happiness" (from One Ten Hundred Thousand Million)
"I Saw the Bright Shinies" (from Hello, Avalanche) [Our favourite video of the past couple years!]
"An Evening with Rthrtha" (from Hello, Avalanche)
"Truck" (from Hello, Avalanche)
"Wet Gold" (from Golden Beds EP)
After listening to these two albums, you'll (likely) want to delve into the rest of the Octopus Project's catalogue. Enjoy. (The group has a song called "Music is Happiness" for a good reason.)
Other listening/viewing:
Earlier this year, the Octopus Project played two free shows in a tent set up in the parking lot of a Whole Foods in Austin. It looks like it was an unbelievable event.
About once a year, we go through a Redd Kross phase. As this year's phase winds down, it seems like the perfect time to write about the band.
Redd Kross is one of those California-based bands with siblings at its core. (See also: the Beach Boys [from Hawthorne, CA, just like Redd Kross], CCR, and Van Halen.) Jeff McDonald (voice/guitar) and Steve McDonald (bass/voice) started playing together in the late-'70s, when they were both very young. (Jeff was barely a teenager and Steve was still in primary school.)
How we discovered Redd Kross:
When we were 14 or 15, we first heard Neurotica, the band's high-water mark. We immediately fell for its catchy songs with peculiar lyrics. (Two examples: "Tabasco is hot; / Some call it love" from "Janus, Jeanie, and George Harrison" and "Steven says 'papaya'; / he says 'papaya' / yeeeaaah!" from "Ghandi Is Dead [I'm the Cartoon Man].") Redd Kross was also the first band we ever saw in a club. We were underage at the time, but managed to get in using some borrowed ID. After the show, our friend Mike said we should talk to the band. We were nervous, but delighted to meet Steve, who was surprisingly friendly and wide-eyed. (At the time, he was really into the word 'groovy.')
Why Redd Kross is worth listening to:
Redd Kross writes and records songs that might be seen as superficial because they're steeped in pop culture references. But the brothers McDonald are delightfully playful and generally successful at negotiating the Spinal Tapian line between clever and stupid. No other band sounds or looks like Redd Kross. Imagine the Partridge Family with longer hair, better songs, and more drugs. Perhaps the Japanese all-girl trio Shonen Knife is as close as it gets. (RK more or less 'discovered' SK. The bands have also recorded songs about each other: 'Shonen Knife' by Redd Kross and 'Redd Kross' by Shonen Knife.)
Where to start:
Neurotica (1987)
The albums:
The band's first EP, Red Cross (1980), doesn't stand up well when placed beside some of the other recordings coming out the early LA punk scene (i.e., X's Los Angeles, Minutemen's Paranoid Time, and the early Black Flag singles). Then again, the band members were still in high school at the time. "Annette's Got the Hits" is the best number on the EP. This minute-long ditty about Annette Funicello is the first of many celebrity-related songs the band will write.
Redd Kross's first LP, Born Innocent (1982), opens with "Linda Blair," the song's first couplet being, "In The Exorcist, baby, you were really insane. / You got busted, you got busted, you got busted for cocaine." (According to interviews we've read, Redd Kross's name comes from the crucifix masturbation scene in The Exorcist.) The second song, "White Trash," underscores the album's snotty, kids-fucking-around-with-instruments tone. (The song's chorus is "You're just white trash. / You better watch what you say to me. / Just white trash / And your brother can't even read. Whew!") "Cellulite City" might be our favourite track on Born Innocent. Even after dozens of listens, its last lines remain incredibly funny and poignant: "Feel free to plug your ears / 'Cause I've only been alive for fourteen years."
Long before it was cool, Redd Kross released an EP of cover songs, Teen Babes From Monsanto (1984). (The band has always done dyamite covers.) Some of the songs are what you would expect (Kiss, Rolling Stones, Stooges, and Bowie) and some are more surprising (Shangri-Las, and "Blow You a Kiss in the Wind" from the TV show Bewitched).
Here's "Blow You a Kiss in the Wind" as it appeared on Bewitched:
And Redd Kross's cover version:
Neurotica (1987) is the group's most consistent album. It's confident, hooky, and sprawling (in a good way). It overflows with pop, love, pop culture, and punk-metallic goodness. There are a few songs that we don't love, but we're still glad they're there. In a just universe, songs like "Peach Kelli Pop" and "Love Is You" would have been blasting from car radios across North America in 1987. Instead, they were relegated to being spun on tiny university radio stations by grad student DJs. Trouser Press calls Neurotica the band's "national underground breakout record," whatever that means.
It's difficult for us to characterize what we love about Neurotica. Somehow, it manages to be simultaneously goofy and sincere. We find its distorted, catchy songs pretty irresistable. At this point, the group's songwriting and musicianship were at their zenith. There are gorgeous little moments in nearly every song. We love the dip in Jeff's voice when he sings the word "dance" in the lyrics "Tell me why they don't understand / When you take a little chance / The answers might come / And you learn how to dance" (in "Play My Song"). We love the bit in "McKenzie" (about One Day at a Time star Mackenzie Phillips, of course) when Jeff sings "I can make you happy" and the (Partridge Family-inspired?) backing vocals come in "Happy! / Happy!" We love Steve's melodic bass playing, Robert Hecker's guitar hijinks, and the Goldilocks-like use of cymbals (just the right amount).
We're too lazy to embed any music (as you may have already noticed), so we're stuck with what's freely available online. Here's some footage of Redd Kross circa Neurotica, playing the album's title track live:
After Neurotica, the band had some record label-related legal troubles and was unable to record under its own name for quite some time. Unfortunately, the loopy, Beatles-tweaking music the brothers McDonald recorded as the Tater Totz was not as beloved as their Redd Kross jams.
Redd Kross has released some great post-Neurotica songs (e.g., 'Bubblegum Factory,' 'Mess Around,' 'Switchblade Sister'), but it's never managed to put together another brilliant album. Maybe this will change now that the band has returned to its classic Neurotica line-up?
Other listening/viewing:
Sadly, there is no book about Redd Kross. (An oral history would be a great idea, folks! Put us down for an advance copy, please.) However, there is a Redd Kross podcast, which includes a few Robert Hecker-related episodes. ("Ted" -- aka episode 5 -- is infamous. It's a recording of a guy who auditioned to be the lead singer in a post-Redd Kross band that Hecker was assembling. Problem 1: Ted can't sing. Problem 2: He only knows one or two lines from any song, even the ones he suggests they play. Despite how embarrassing it might sound, it's actually strangely compelling. In particular, his version of "Start Me Up" is amazing. He only knows three words from that song. "Start me up! / Start me up, start me up, start me up! / Start me up! / Start! Me! Up!" Truly mind blowing.)
We'll leave you with one last video chestnut. A couple of years ago, Jeff McDonald directed a brilliant video for the Steven McDonald Group's blistering cover of Kim Fowley's song "Motorboat":
Initially, our enthusiasm for Sloan developed slowly. A song here, an album there. We chipped away for years until we found our iPod saturated with Sloan. For the past two years or so, we have enjoyed a steady diet of finger-snapping, drum-cracking pop from these ex-Haligonians (currently Torontonians). We don't see our interest in their crisp, infectious songs disappearing any time soon.
Since 1991, Sloan has been creating guitar-based, harmony-laced power pop. All four musicians in the band write songs, and the band's best albums contain at least two songs written by each member. (The four members of Sloan are Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, Jay Ferguson, and Andrew Scott. All of them can sing, and they still sound like Sloan when they switch instruments.)
How we discovered Sloan:
Like most Canadians, we first heard Sloan when the single "Underwhelmed" (from the band's first album, Smeared [1992]) broke the sound barrier. It was catchy and ubiquitous, but it didn't compel us to buy Smeared. (Years later, when we did purchase it -- for a very reasonable price -- it revealed itself to consist mainly of undistinguished guitar rock.) Later, we borrowed or bought the occasional Sloan album. We first became interested in Sloan while living in Nova Scotia during the early '00s. (Our favourite maritime shout-out is in the appropriately-named "The N.S." on Between the Bridges: "If you get cold when you're swimming in the ocean / it's hard to believe you're a Nova Scotian boy.") After a friend burned us a copy of Never Hear The End Of It, we finally yielded to Sloan's melodic pull and found ourselves tracking down most of the band's back catalogue.
Why Sloan is worth listening to:
Every album by Sloan has at least a few great songs, and the band's best albums are riddled with them. Sloan manages to evoke the history of catchy rock, yet succeeds in maintaining its own sound. Sloan's songs often occupy the border between cheekiness and sincerity, a border that also happens to be filled with harmonies and melodies. Sloan has learned from the pantheon of rock, and it knows how to create inventive arrangements and intelligent lyrics. On many occasions, we have found ourselves afflicted with Sloan-induced ear worms. Oh, Sloan is also one of very few groups that knows how to fruitfully work the word 'rock' in a rock song.
We are not arguing that everything by Sloan is original and delightful. It isn't. Some of its songs are derivative and unspectacular. When Sloan tries to write hits, these songs tend to lack the idiosyncrasies that make the band appealing. But when everything works, Sloan is a wonder. There are few contemporary musicians that we follow, but we follow Sloan. And the band's last two albums are among its best.
Where to start:
One Chord To Another (1996)
Never Hear The End Of It (2006)
The albums:
Twice Removed (1994) is the band's most acclaimed album. According to one poll, it's the best Canadian album ever. Hmm. It's not even our favourite Sloan album. But it's got some real treats, including two songs that probably enjoyed heavy radio rotation in an alternate universe: "People of the Sky" and "Coax Me." We still remember the first time we heard "People of the Sky" -- that great "bah bah bah-da bahhhhhhhh" backing vocal and the deathless line "Like a three-legged dog in search of a crutch." However, our favourite song on Twice Removed is "Coax Me." It's got a catchy melody, a sweet "oooooooooohh" backing vocal, and -- wait for it -- the bridge is sung in falsetto. The lyrics are oblique with bits of lucidity peeking through (e.g., "It's not the band I hate; it's their fans"). Other songs to sample include "Snowsuit Sound" and "I Can Feel It."
Here's the video for "Coax Me":
One Chord To Another is twice as good as Twice Removed. We're fond of every track and nearly all of them have confident, uncluttered arrangements. Listen to the contrast between the spare, piano-dominated "A Side Wins" and the song that follows it, "Everything You've Done Wrong," with its horns and handclaps. Throughout One Chord To Another, we love the brilliant use of percussion (handclaps, tambourines, shakers, etc.). The lyrics are another highlight. Check out "Autobiography," for example. It begins, "I'm writing 'young and gifted' in my autobiography. / I figured who'd know better than me. / I'm certainly the former, but I'm not so much the latter. / No one's gonna read it so I'm sure it doesn't matter."
Here's the song "The Lines We Amend" (we didn't talk about it, but we really like it):
Released ten years after One Chord To Another, Never Hear The End Of It has a walloping 30 songs. It's got a bit of everything, including several one- and two-minute bursts of pop, rock, and hardcore. We are fond of the heterogenous everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. We agree with William Carlos Williams that the art you create shouldn't be expected to be consistent ("[A human being] varies; Hamlet today, Caesar tomorrow," he said). We don't love all of the songs equally, but who cares? Even a straightforward foot-tapper like "Someone I Can Be True With" contains some wonderful lines: "She's someone to hear Husker Du with / And someone to wait in the queues with / And someone to hate all things new with / She's someone to watch Gremlins 2 with." The details in these lyrics are funny and revealing. We've got a bead on this guy. "Right or Wrong," the next song on the album, includes the lines "This one's for the girls / There's no particular one in the world." To our ears, Sloan is taking the piss out of run-of-the-mill love songs. And what do we make of a sort-of piano ballad ("Live The Life You're Dreaming Of") that begins, "Hello, / can I have a show / of hands who have taken / something before?" But the delivery on the song is truly emotional, especially on the repeated refrain, "Maybe I can make it happen."
For us the album's centerpiece is "Fading Into Obscurity," a mini epic that clocks in at 4:12. The song is essentially a series of short interconnected bits that adds up to something pretty remarkable. It exhibits ambition, cleverness, tempo shifts, harmonies, and an array of glittering musical and lyrical shards. One choice lyric: "I made a name for myself when one could do such a thing, / a reputation that's held together by string. / And so I chose to cherish those who think there's some purity / to fading into obscurity." And another: "This cake is baked, / but I much prefer the batter / perhaps in part because it had so much potential / to be delicious and still be influential."
Sloan playing "Fading Into Obscurity" live:
Other listening/viewing:
We also have a lot of love for the albums Between the Bridges (1999) and Parallel Play (2008). But we've already written too much about One Chord and Never Hear.
There are, of course, various music and concert videos out there, and we're confident you can find them without our assistance. Apparently, there is a live Sloan DVD -- lamely titled Keepin' the Tour Alive -- that was released in 2006. We have not seen it.
