I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: CBC Radio 3’s Sloan 20 Anniversary Podcast (2011).

2011 sees the 20th anniversary of Halifax’s Sloan.  I’ve liked Sloan since their first single, “Underwhelmed” broke through American radio (more like MTV’s 120 Minutes, I suppose) eighteen years ago.  The band’s profile faded in the US since then, but they have been producing steadily great albums over all of these years.

CDC Radio 3 has created a twenty year best of Sloan Podcast.  (And the band has all of their songs streaming online as well).

The Podcast has brief shoutouts from a bunch of fans (famous and non-) and a favorite selection from each of their nine albums (“Underwhelmed” is not included).  There were even a couple of tracks that I wasn’t familiar with (some seriously buried tracks from those early records).

Perhaps the funniest moment for me comes when the DJ admits that he didn’t know “Delivering Maybes” from Between the Bridges.  I was listening to that album just yesterday, and that’s one of my favorite tracks on the disc.  But really, they have so many great songs, it’s hard to choose.

Twenty years.  Good on ya, Sloan.  Looking forward to the new record The Double Cross.

[READ: June 2, 2011] “Noisemakers”

This story has a suprise appearance by a foley artist.  I love foley artists and am totally fascinated by them and would secretly love to be one.  So, even though the foley artist is almost drowned, I liked this story quite a bit.

It opens with Peter and his wife, Sarah, riding a boat in a lake. There’s some tension between them, but everything changes when she has to quickly turn the boat to avoid hitting something in the water.  It turns out to be a body.

The body happens to be of Lucy (the foley artist) who was Peter’s ex girlfriend.  Sarah hates Lucy (there is some background given about them and how Lucy seems to have been involved with Peter since he got married–but I feel like the given details are too vague to justify his current wife’s hatred of Lucy).  Sarah believes that Lucy being here is some kind of connection to Peter, but realilstically, they are quite far from their cabin, and she is floating in a lake….

When she regains consciousness, she admits that she was visiting someone else who she fought with.  He broke her nose, cut her hair and tossed her in the lake.

The story ends fairly soon after this but not after a lot of feelings are aired: between Lucy and Peter, Sarah and Peter and even Lucy and Sarah. I thought the story was fantastic, exciting, enagaging and nicely emotional.  I only wish the story was longer (and that more of the ending scene was revealed).  I always think it’s a good sign when I want a story to be longer.