I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE GUTHRIES-“Coax Me” (2009).

I don’t know The Guthries, but I’m a huge Sloan fan.  This cover of “Coax Me” comes from a Sloan tribute album that I didn’t know existed called Take It In: A Tribute To Sloan. It turns out The Guthries released two albums in 1999/2000 and then broke up.  They reunited for this tribute.

It’s tough when a band that you’ve never heard of releases a cover of a song you particularly like.  Now, I love cover versions of songs, but I like a band to add something interesting to the cover.  I haven’t listened to any other Guthries songs, but this cover sounds enough like the original that I wouldn’t have really known it was a cover but for a few slight differences   Browsing through The Guthries CBC Radio 3 playlist, lets me know that they are a very country band.  It’s surprising how untwangy their cover is, then.  Even though I don’t like real country, I might have enjoyed the cover more if it had some more twang to it (just to make it interesting).

After listening to samples of other songs, I won’t bother with anything else by The Guthries.  The tribute album is made up of a bunch of up and coming bands so I don’t think I’ll bother with that one either.

[READ: June 25, 2010] “Meltdown”

Before I even begin this review, I have to say that Outdoor Magazine has one of the worst websites for reading articles.  Each “page” is a few inches long, which is fine. However, there is no “view all” page, so you can’t see the whole thing in one long swoop.  Okay that’s not the end of the world, but when you click their printer friendly version, not only does it not print the entire article, it prints the one page–the text is very small and the page includes all the other website ephemera with it.  Then when you click the next page, it opens up the previous main window, where you then have to reclick the Print icon to get it to print just that page.  If you return to the same print window that you already have open, even if it says it has moved to page three, you’re still printing page two. Dreadful!

Hot on the heels of “Own Goal” someone had recommended this Wells Tower piece as a better nonfiction essay.  And I have to agree.  I assume it is because the subject is a) personal to him and b) interesting to me.

The piece opens with Wells explaining that eight and half years ago, his father was diagnosed with cancer and given three years to live.  Since then he and his father take an annual trip to somewhere that also has very little time left.  In this case, Greenland and Iceland. But each one of these trips has had a monumental disaster for them, each for a different reason, but which Wells assumes is simply because of them.

On this trip, Wells’ brother tags along because he wants to see Iceland (but not Greenland).  But when his father refuses to go to Reykjavik, his brother refuses to get out of the car.  And he literally spends several days in their vehicle.

The story opens with a scene of Wells and his father in a drunken bar, getting asked to dance by local women.  When the story concludes with that scenes as well, the story has made a very good full circle.  Admittedly, nothing terribly disastrous happened and his brother does finally come out of the car.

This piece was emotional, very funny, and thoroughly enjoyable. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever read another essay in Outdoor Magazine again, but I’m glad I read this one.  It’s available here.

Heh, I speak too soon, he has written several pieces for Outdoor Magazine.  So, more Wells to come!