Tour, box set celebrate the landmark period when the band's commercial success caught up with its creative output.
Halifax-bred CanRock champion Sloan returns to Nova Scotia with its One Chord to Another 20th anniversary tour, playing the Marquee Ballroom on Friday and Truro's Marigold Cultural Centre on Saturday. (LISA MARK)
by Stephen Cooke
Two decades ago, Canadian indie rock torch-bearer Sloan said its last goodbye to Halifax with a record that brought the band to a new level of popularity.
Now the One Chord to Another 20th anniversary tour brings the band back home after a successful spring run across Western Canada and down the west coast, and a summer of festival shows that's only just finished winding down.
"We just played one in the desert, near Joshua Tree National Park, some place called Pioneertown. There was Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh, and the Strawberry Alarm Clock who were, no kidding, the best thing I saw there," says Jay Ferguson, who marvels at the staying power of the band best known for its 1967 hit Incense and Peppermints.
All of a sudden, 20 years doesn't seem like such a long time.
"These guys are in their 70s, but the singing was amazing, the songs were great, the riffs were awesome and so were the arrangements," says the guitarist, playing the Marquee Ballroom with his bandmates on Friday, and Truro's Marigold Cultural Centre on Saturday. "They could all play, and the place was going bananas. Highly recommended, if you get a chance to see Strawberry Alarm Clock. Who'd have thought?"
Then again, who'd have thought Sloan would have this kind of staying power all these years later? Especially during the turbulent period leading up to One Chord to Another, when the band cut its ties to major label Geffen Records after two well-received albums, and was on the verge of calling it quits before deciding to take one last kick at the pop-rock can.
Recorded at Laurence Currie's Idea of East Studio, located between the Macdonald and MacKay bridges, One Chord to Another would be Sloan's one and only record for the short-lived U.S. label The Enclave, started by the former Geffen A&R exec Tom Zutaut, who famously signed Guns N' Roses.
Despite some high-powered talent, acts like Belle & Sebastian and World Party, and distribution from EMI Music, The Enclave barely lasted a year, but it still gave the band a much-needed boost south of the border, before it imploded.
"Because it was a new label, the people who worked there were super encouraging, and really gung-ho to get things going," recalls Ferguson. "It was nice to get that kind of attention, or service, in America, but then Navy Blues came out independently through the Never Records Group, and then we wouldn't be with a label in the States until we went to Yep Roc about 10 years ago.
"They're a smaller label, but they gave us a great home base in the U.S."
The Enclave even agreed to go the extra mile and include an extra CD with initial pressings, Recorded Live at a Sloan Party! Inspired by the Beach Boys' 1965 Party! album, featuring stripped-down originals and covers with overdubbed party sounds recorded later at a gathering of friends at Cafe Mokka (later Tribeca).
Naturally, the Sloan Party! album is included in the new deluxe triple-LP box set edition of OCTA, along with an album of outtakes, a seven-inch single with two demos, and a download of yet more demo recordings the band felt were too lo-fi to commit to vinyl. "Everybody was asking for the Party album to be included, so we decided to make it the third LP in the box set. I'm glad we did, because a lot of people like that record," says Ferguson, who spent days with singer/bassist Chris Murphy scouring the archives for cool sights and sounds to include in the box.
"Chris and I have saved pretty much everything since 1991, so it's kind of justifying how we're going to monetize these boxes and boxes in our attics and basements," he says. "I've always been a fan of great reissues and nice repackagings, so to be able to archive this stuff so we can put it to use for ourselves, for me as a fan, it's fun.
"We'll try and come up with things that a fan would enjoy seeing, like lost photos or nicely annotated notes, and demo recordings and all that stuff. Basically, we wanted to create a box set that I would like to receive from a band that I like. We're probably not big enough to justify doing a deluxe box set for every album we've made, but I'm going to try and prove that we are!"
With that in mind, Ferguson says he and Murphy, along with guitarist Patrick Pentland and drummer Andrew Scott, are already looking ahead to a deluxe edition of OCTA's 1998 followup Navy Blues, best known for the hit single, and Future Shop jingle, Money City Maniacs.
"Hopefully we'll continue doing them as long as the fans will have them. The One Chord to Another set broke even right away, and we sold most of them within the next few months.
"We made 1,000 and I think there are 40 or 45 left, but it's the sort of thing that if you want to get it, you should get it right off the bat."
After the Maritimes, Sloan heads down the eastern seaboard and across the Midwest, playing OCTA in its entirety, from radio hits like The Good in Everyone and Everything You've Done Wrong to underappreciated songs like Murphy's soulful blast Take the Bench and Scott's complex album closer 400 Metres.
Listening to it now, the record still sounds bright and fresh, and it doesn't hurt that the tracks haven't worn out their welcome on stage, with either the band or the fans.
"With One Chord, everything clicked, and it's nice that it did because after Geffen was over for us, we took a year off, and then we made this record on our own in Halifax, self-funded, and put it out on our own label, and it became our biggest success," says Ferguson. "It was rewarding after going through all that stuff with Geffen, taking some time to get a bit of perspective, and then putting in the effort to do it ourselves. It was encouraging for us at a time when we really needed it.
"It's a solid record of excellent songs, and everybody contributes, but I also love the way that we made it, how it turned out, and getting to put it out on our own.
"I think that gives it a bit of a special meaning. Not to be corny, but you know what I mean."
--taken from: Local Xpress
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