Sound Bites

Sloan Sloan Sloan

I haven't written about Sloan since last May. Which is a long time for me. So get ready, I've got lots of info.

Firstly, this is the cover to the band's new album, Parallel Play -- This is the band's eighth studio effort and the title is a reference to the stage in kids' development when they play next to each other but not with each other. Which is their winking way of describing how the band works these days. For more on this, bassist Chris Murphy had this to say:

Collaboration can be difficult. Our band does less of it than we used to and it's too bad. It may just be a romantic feeling but the songs where something major was added by someone other than the main writer are my favorite. I definitely come in with finished song structures but I like to leave room for someone to play something I wasn't expecting.

We never fight. We just stew. Aren't the best bands the ones that are founded in passive aggressiveness? If this is true then we are truly the best band ever. When you've gone this long without a real fight there is the constant fear that if we start telling each other the truth that it will be the end of the band.

If we videoed this process even Metallica would think we looked like goofs:

"Don't try to make my song sound like the fucking Traveling Wilburys!"
"Yeah well give your backwards delay wah pedal to some 15 year old that thinks it's cool!"
...band over.

We have all developed a sophisticated sense of humor that we use against each other at times. Patrick is the funniest man alive but he also loves digital delay. That would make me a Traveling Wilbury.

This is the most democratic, percentage-wise, Sloan record we've gotten in a long time. As you may know, all four members write and sing and this time it's pretty evenly split, with everyone getting three songs, except drummer Andrew Scott who gets four. Clocking in at 35 minutes, Parallel Play is their shortest ever. Kinda funny, as their last one, 2006's Never Hear the End of It, was their longest. It's out June 10 on Yep Roc but you can hear it right now, via a streaming player on the Yep Roc website. But here's the first single, Chris Murphy's "I'm Not a Kid Anymore":

MP3: Sloan - I'm Not a Kid Anymore (Pre-order Parallel Play)

I've listened to the album a few times and it's another strong one in their 17-year career. Chris Murphy brings snark and melody, Patrick Pentland delivers the Big Riffs, and Jay Furgeson's encyclopedic pop knowledge gives us the best songs on the album, including highpoint "Cheap Champagne," which should please anyone who really dug Navy Blues' "C'mon C'mon." As for drummer Andrew Scott, he generally classes up the joint, and finally answers the question many Sloan fans have been asking: "When will Sloan's genre-plundering finally lead them to reggae?" The time is now, folks.

They may all be nearing 40, most of them with kids, but they've still got it. Certainly, they're still easily one of the most consistently awesome live shows of my rock-show-going existence. If you've never experienced Sloan in person, shame on you, but you can rectify that shortly as they'll be in the States in June:

Jun 14    Detroit        Majestic Theatre
Jun 15    Philadelphia    North Star Bar   
Jun 17    Washington, D    Black Cat   
Jun 18    Cambridge, MA    T.T. The Bear's (buy)
Jun 19    New York, NY    Bowery Ballroom   
Jun 20    New York, NY    Bowery Ballroom   
Jun 22    Cleveland, OH    Grog Shop   
Jun 23    Chicago, IL    Double Door

Tickets for the Bowery shows are on sale this Friday.

But wait, there's more! Lots more ("witch music," "techno," etc)... after the jump.

Sloan | Southpaw | 5.11.2007

I have written enough about Sloan in the past year so I will try to make this brief, but Sloan's show at Southpaw was probably the best I have seen them do for Never Hear the End of It. It was part location, part performance and mostly the setlist.

While I obviously love Bowery Ballroom it was nice to see them somewhere else -- yet not somewhere bigger. Southpaw is just a bit smaller but feels much more intimate, a great place to see a show once you get past the design flaws (the front door, bar and stage all meet for one giant bottleneck) that make the place so annoying. But the sound was great and the crowd seemed to be 100% superfans. Are there casual Sloan fans?

The song selection for me was amazing. It was mostly culled from their great new album, but we older selections were very different from what we've gotten the last few years. Nothing off the last two records.* Five songs off my favorite, One Chord to Another, three from Navy Blues, and three from Twice Removed, including the awesome "People of the Sky" and "500 Up" which I don't think I've ever heard them play before. I could have used more Jay -- though getting "Don't You Believe a Word" was a highlight -- but overall zero comp.  For the encore, Chris and Patrick also paid homage to legendary Canadian power trio Rush by covering "Spirit of Radio" briefly before kicking into encore staple "Deeper Than Beauty." Patrick was a little under-the-weather, but they all seemed into it. With all that audience love, how could you not be? 

MP3: Sloan - G Turns To D.mp3 | One of my all-time favorite Chris songs, haven't heard them play it live in ages. Buy some Sloan, won't you?

Chris was hamming it up as usual, though he's now added planned camera-mugging to his arsenal -- as you can see here in pictures swiped from Xtine and Kristyliekwhoa's Flickr pages. My new digital camera has proved a better video camera in dark situations, so I've been fooling around with that. Here's a twofer ("Living with the Masses" and "HFXNCHC") plus some stage banter from Andrew:

Other blogs in attendance: Matthew Fluxblog and Matty from A Hamburger Today. Here's the setlist:

Flying High Again | Who Taught You to Live Like That | Someone I Can Be True With | Ill Placed Trust | G Turns to D | The Lines You Amend | Fading Into Obscurity | Golden Eyes | Love is All Around | Living With The Masses | HFXNSHC | Blackout | Money City Maniacs | Don't You Believe a Word | Set in Motion | I Understand | You Know What It's About | Chester The Molester | I Can't Sleep | People of the Sky | Something's Wrong | I've Gotta Try | Everything You've Done Wrong | Before the End of The Race | Ana Lucia | The Good in Everyone | Another Way I Can Do It |Encore: Deeper Than Beauty | 500 Up | She Says What She Means

*Not that there's anything wrong with Pretty Together and Action Pact. Well, Pretty Together at least.

New Sloan

My favorite Canadians, Sloan, are set to release their eighth album on September 19 and earlier in the week Stereogum posted about the first single, "Who Taught You to Live Like That?," being available on the band's MySpace page.

Today, Chromewaves reported that the album is 29 songs long (!) with equal contributions from all four members. Never ones to shy away from self-deprecating humor, the album is called Never Hear the End of It.

Sloan's last album, 2003's Action Pact, seemed like a obvious stab at the charts, with a de rigeur overly-compressed digital sheen and way too many negligible pop-punk songs from Patrick Pentland, and none from drummer Andrew Scott. Keeping it from being a sad suckfest were resident ham Chris Murphy and his melodic skills, Keith Moon imitations and corny/clever lyrics; and the two contributions from vinyl freak Jay Ferguson -- the best on the album.

For a while it looked like Action Pact would be their last, but when the boys played Bowery Ballroom last year in support of their singles comp A Sides Win, Chris Murphy said the band were already working on their next album... and obviously they weren't kidding.

The very Bolan-esque "Who Taught You to Live Like That?" is the first Jay-penned Sloan single since "The Lines You Amend" ten years ago (and technically that was Jay/Chris). It may not be the strongest Sloan song ever, but it sounds like a real band playing, not something pieced together on a computer. I can't wait to hear the other 28.

MP3: Sloan - "Who Taught You to Live Like That?"

My favorite Sloan video: "People of the Sky"