I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-Parallel Play (2008).

I’ve enjoyed Sloan since my friend Al played me their first single “Underwhelmed” back in the 1990s.  Unlike Al, however, I have enjoyed them ever since.  In fact, a few of their discs rank up as my favorites of all time (Between the Bridges, in particular).

The one thing I have never been able to do, however, is keep track of who is who in the band and who writes/sings which songs.  I think if I were younger and had more free time I’d be all over keeping these things straight.  However, at this point, it’s not worth the effort.  Which is fine, as I can’t decide who is my favorite songwriter anyway.  Just when I’m sure that “Witches Wand” is my favorite track on the record, I remember “All I Am is All I’m Not” or “I’m Not a Kid Anymore” and I give up trying to decide which guy makes me happiest.

What’s interesting about this album is that (at least according to one interview) the four guys wrote and played each one of their songs by themselves.  There are 13 tracks which means they each got 3 songs and someone got a bonus track.  The joke of the title is that, much like 2 year-olds who play next to each other but don’t interact, this album was played by 4 friends who never interacted with each other.

So, you get 4 songwriters, playing the full spectrum of their ideas, but who are all still Sloan, and you get a wildly divergent album that retains the overall sound of the band.  It’s really tremendous.   This album is also under 40 minutes, so you get great hook-filled songs that come in, rock your world, and then leave.  It’s also hard for me to pick a favorite Sloan album at this point, because each one has so many good songs.  Their last album, Never Hear the End of It was a little too long at 70 minutes, but it was still full of fantastic songs (and I guess if you have 4 songwriters each contributing something you’d be hard pressed to create crap).

Sloan are back, and still producing great stuff.  Now, if anyone wants to tell me who is who, that would be terrific.

[READ: October 29, 2008] “Hag”

I didn’t realize this was an excerpt until the very end where it states that you can read an expanded version of the story here.  I thought the story seemed unfinished, so that makes sense.  Anyhow, this story won the 2007 Summer Literary Seminar.

This two page excerpt shows Lance and the narrator hitching a ride to Calgary.  The time is the mid 70s, as noted by Creem Magazine (I used to love that mag!), Joni Mitchell’s Hejira record and vinyl albums lovingly stored in plastic sleeves.  This is a story of decadence and sexuality, drugs and rock and roll, disco and homosexuality.  Essentially, the narrator hangs around with Lance while Lance goes to gay bars (with the narrator getting bought free drinks–the price that men have to pay to hang with Lance).

The end of the excerpt has the narrator stating, “I tend to love the traumatized,” and that more or less sums up the tone of the story.

I was intrigued by the excerpt, and it does make me want to see exactly what the whole story is about….

And so I did.  I read the full story at the Walrus‘ website (although even that page says that there is more at another site, but there’s nothing there.  So, we’ll never know how much of the story there actually is, I guess.)

The rest of the story was really very enjoyable.  I feel the Walrus picked the wrong part to excerpt as I found the first section of set-up and backstory to be not only useful, but more entertaining in general.  The part that was included in the magazine was very hallucinogenic, as befitted that part of the story; however, the earlier part added some coherence that made me actually care about the characters.

If you’re going to read the story, go for the longer version online!