Live: Sloan Feels Good, Does It at the Cradle Back Room

--taken from: Indy Week

by David Klein

When my dad was in college, he attended some of Vladimir Nabokov’s lectures, and his most concentrated nugget of wisdom from that experience has always stuck with me. He told me the great man of letters told his students that when reading a novel for the first time, read for plot. But the second time through, toss away the plot and look deeper at everything else to excavate the work's essence and the author’s intent.

After I saw Sloan play almost exactly two years ago at Cat’s Cradle Back Room, I sorted out my reaction in a detailed review full of praise and song titles. Having continued to listen to a lot of Sloan music since then, I can say with assurance that I'm definitely up on the plot. With that in mind, I was excited and maybe a little intrigued by the chance to marvel at the Toronto-based rock foursome's craft this time when they rolled into town on their latest tour.

Last time around, with the band was promoting the ambitious, double-sided Commonwealth, the Back Room was only about half-filled. The band turned in a kickass performance, but the lack of attendance felt slightly dispiriting. The turnout was much better this time, and the enthusiasm in the room seemed to please the guys onstage. Guitarist Jay Ferguson, who seemed slightly enigmatic during the previous show, looked content on stage right, wearing a relaxed grin, chewing gum, and adding incisive rhythm guitar and sweet vocals. At stage left, lead guitarist Patrick Pentland sported a flowing grey-white beard and locks, yet somehow, clad in black and cranking out precision chords on his low-slung Gibson, he looked every bit the rock star.

Chris Murphy remains the band’s ostensible frontman, delivering between-song patter, playing mighty bass, and  cueing the audience to clap its hands or join in at operative moments. Drummer Andrew Scott provides the thunder that drives this well-tuned engine, and multi-instrumentalist Gregory Macdonald, who’s been with the band for ten years, provides essential keyboard parts on many crucial songs.

This tour commemorates the twenty-year anniversary of One Chord to Another, the band’s self-released third album on which it galvanized its sound, produced a few of its best loved songs, and put its collective foot forward on a career that still remains vital in 2016. Accordingly, the first set consisted of the record from start to finish, and it was all your hypothetical first-time reader would have needed to get a clear picture of the band’s hallmarks: bracing power pop played with a punk edge, clarion harmonies, guitar crunch, precision, emphatic drumming, handclaps, hooks. But just when it seems clear how Sloan operates, the band changes it all up.

Halfway through the LP, for “A Side Wins,” Scott, quite seriously one of the great rock drummers in existence, got up, strapped on a Gibson SG, and took over lead vocals, switching places with ostensible frontman Murphy (who plays like Keith Moon), while Ferguson picked up bass duties. There and on the album-closing “400 Metres,” Scott adds a vital tinge of psychedelic sprawl to the hook-heavy power pop, refracting the band’s bright colors kaleidoscopically. His lyrics are half-spoken, something like a Bob Dylan parable, and the tempos loosen up and shamble, another contrast from the Sloan sweet spot.

Playing a set sequence of songs is likely to thrill hardcore fans, but it may be less than ideal for the uninitiated. Not with Sloan Wednesday night. The audience reveled in the band's faithful rendition of a record that many seemed to know by heart, and the reaction was almost as hearty as for OCTA as it was for the second set, which leaned on the band’s Canadian hits and felt like one giant sing-along.

So did this experienced Sloan reader focus on the craft and the deeper facets of Sloan’s music this time? Yes and no. Having had a chance to read the Sloan book a few times, I could better appreciate the vital role that Andrew Scott plays both as a drummer and songwriter. But by the end I was too caught up in the instant gratification of hearing these great songs played with such bracing gusto, too busy shouting along to lines like, “She cursed me up and down and rolled her R’s, her beautiful R’s” to focus for long on the considerable artistry on display. It was all over too soon.

Rock 'n' roll is more visceral than a novel, and Sloan’s music hits you front and center. In the privacy of headphones or in the car, one can contemplate the skill and precision of a record like One Chord to Another, but in a live setting, better to just let it roll over you as you sing along as loud as you can. Not exactly a Nabokovian distinction, but surely a valuable lesson learned.

--taken from: Indy Week

Canada’s Sloan makes rare Charlotte stop revisiting its biggest U.S. album

--taken from: The Charlotte Observer

Sloan circa 1996, around the time the Canadian band recorded and released “One Chord to Another.” Jannie McInnes

by Courtney Devores

As Canadian alternative rock band Sloan crossed into the United States to begin the current leg of its “One Chord to Another” 20th anniversary tour, many Americans were starting to look North as election results began rolling in.

“We were watching (the results) before we played,” says guitarist Jay Ferguson, who hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. “We do two sets. Before we were playing, there was an early lead for Trump. We came in mid-set. This is not looking good, and then by the time the show was over it was locked in.”

Americans crashed the Canadian immigration site.

“It makes me wonder if Americans think it’s easy to move to Canada,” says Ferguson. “It’s harder to get a job because jobs are preferred to Canadians, but the costs – a friend tried to immigrate from Michigan to Canada and it was going to cost $10,000 to $15,000. It’s a bit of a challenge. I don’t meant to rain on anyone’s parade.”

Raining on parades is far from what Sloan plans to do at Visulite Theatre on Thursday, when it makes a rare Charlotte appearance revisiting “One Chord to Another,” the 1996 album that reignited the band after it parted with the DGC label (a hotbed of alternative rock in the early ’90s).

“(1994’s ‘Twice Removed’) wasn’t the record we were expected to make,” he explains. “It was a lot different than our first album,” 1992’s “Smeared.”

When the band chose to release “Twice Removed” as-is without honoring the label’s request for changes, DGC just didn’t promote it.

“In the United States we did a big tour, but not playing to anyone,” he adds.

Circumstances surrounding the making of “One Chord” and its predecessor were vastly different. While DGC spent between $100,000 and $200,000 for the quartet to record “Twice Removed” in New York, “One Chord” cost roughly $10,000.

It was supposed to be the band’s last record, given the experience.

“The end of the Cinderella story is that it became our best-selling record. In Canada, we had three top 20 videos and it did well at radio,” he says.

The slim budget helped color the album’s personality. For instance, says Ferguson, the drums were recorded on a 4-track cassette in the band’s practice space.

“The drums in turn sound scrappy and raw, but in a positive way,” he says.

The tour has helped bring old Sloan fans back to the fray.

“It brings out a lot of fans who might’ve been in high school or university when the record came out, but don’t go out to shows anymore. We did a similar campaign for our second album, and it re-stoked an element of our fan base.”

At 48, Ferguson can relate.

“There’s times when bands come through town that I would’ve driven 10 hours to see when I was younger and I say, ‘Oh, I’m not going out tonight,’ ” he says. “For us, it seems to have brought out those people.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/article115084588.html#storylink=cpy

--taken from: The Charlotte Observer

Sloan celebrates 20th anniversary of 'One Chord to Another' at Iron Works

--taken from: The Buffalo News

by Michael Farrell

Some albums leave listeners with more questions than answers. In the case of Sloan’s power-pop masterpiece “One Chord to Another,” inquiries about the work still loom two decades after its initial release.

Should “The Good in Everyone” be considered among the greatest opening tracks of the 1990s? Is it possible to listen to “G Turns to D” while driving and not pin the accelerator to the floor? And finally, how did the effort not launch the Halifax, Nova Scotia quartet toward major American stardom? These wonders and more can be revisited when the band brings the album’s 20th anniversary tour to Buffalo Iron Works (49 Illinois St.) for an 8 p.m. show Nov. 19.

It may feel like last weekend when its original lineup of guitarists/vocalists Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson, bassist Chris Murphy and drummer Andrew Scott first transitioned from its grunge-leaning “Smeared” and “Twice Removed” to its clap-inducing brand of Fender pop cherished by both Beatles disciples and alt rock denizens.

But that progression was a generation ago. It lit the fuse that led to eight more albums, and crystalized an infectious sound still available from the band setting up shop in the city’s Cobblestone District this weekend.

--taken from: The Buffalo News

Sloan offers democracy in music

--taken from: Creative Loafing Charlotte

by Samir Shukla

All four members of the Canadian rock combo Sloan are singers and songwriters. It's a collaborative effort that's democratic and creative.

Andrew Scott (drums), Chris Murphy (bass, vocals), Patrick Pentland (guitar, vocals), and Jay Ferguson (guitar, vocals) formed Sloan in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1991. These musicians have made fab records over the past 25 years while maintaining this creative partnership. It's a lesson we should learn while the band is on their current tour through our unhinged post-election America.

They are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album One Chord to Another with a tour and specially-packaged vinyl box set. The guys will play the entire album in the first set and then launch into a second set of hits and fan favorites.

Sloan's democratic creativity was fully showcased on their last recording, the double LP Commonwealth released in 2014 on NC-based Yep Roc Records, which featured the songwriting prowess of each band member once per side on the vinyl — for CD and digital, just think a quarter of the recording each. The record is a prime example of the diverse voices that gel so well, the fluid individuality merging into one. There are feedback-laden songs, pure three-minute pop ditties, jangly guitars, sweet harmonizing and experimentation. Scott's side is a single 18-minute song while the other three sides highlight each persona that becomes one with their interplay.

I asked Jay Ferguson recently how four songwriters work so well together.

"(Commonwealth) was kind of an anomaly in our career, we are probably one of the few bands that can do that because everyone is a singer and a songwriter. Generally, when we make a record, everybody kind of writes and contributes," he said. "We usually try to make it that if there's 12 songs on the album, everyone gets three songs. If anyone is like 'I only have two songs,' then usually someone can pick up the slack. It doesn't really go through a process like a vote or anything amongst ourselves, everybody kind of brings forward the songs they want to do the most.

"Chris and I get together the most ahead of time so he would know my demos and I would know his and we would chime in like 'You know I really like that song' and Chris would be 'I like this one of yours or less of this one,' and that's sort of an encouraging way to go. Other than that it's sort of like here's your quarter of the real estate of the record and you can do what you want and we just try and sequence it after that happens in the best way possible."

Ferguson explained how the bandmates might come into the recording process with ideas on how one song might flow into the next, but for the most part, they're in charge of their own specific projects.

"We're not all in the studio at the same time, sometimes in groups of two or groups of three. So often it's very Beatles' White Album where Paul's in one studio doing 'Why don't we do it in the road?' and John is in another studio with Yoko cutting up tapes. It works a little bit like that, although we only have one studio. So it's democratic but everyone still gets to rule the roost on their quarter of the real estate."

For this tour, the focus is on the album One Chord to Another.

That album was first released on the band's own Murder Records two decades ago when they parted ways with major label Geffen after a couple of records and went the indie route. It was soon picked up by The Enclave label and became a smash in Canada, while bringing Sloan further attention in the States as a power pop combo to be reckoned with. The have steadily released music ever since, including a just-released Christmas 7" with two original songs.

Although I sold their records in the '90s at my record shop, Sloan flew under my radar. I played their records but didn't quite dig into them as I should have. Now, as I flip through killer song after song on the eleven studio albums that stream on their website, I realize how much of shame that was.

However, it's never too late for you.

--taken from: Creative Loafing Charlotte

Catch Canadian Power-Pop Cult Heroes Sloan Tonight at The High Watt

--taken from: Nashville Scene

Nerd alert: Sloan makes rare Nashville appearance tonight

by Edd Hurt

There may be a few rock scholars reading this who appreciate the ’70s Canadian band The Wackers, who specialized in agreeably sweet and charmingly twee variations on what people call power pop. Their group harmonies and attenuated rhythm section made them a band that appealed to epicures of power pop, and they may have been the precursor to Sloan, the long-running Canadian power-pop band that hit it big with the 1996 full-length One Chord to Another, whose anniversary they celebrate on a tour that hits The High Watt tonight.

On their most recent album, 2014’s Commonwealth, Sloan made some gorgeous music — I get off on the post-Chris Bell acoustic ballad “Neither Here nor There,” on which they sing about “hypochondria of the heart.” Meanwhile, “Cleopatra” is a post-Beatles rocker that operates in the general vicinity of The New Pornographers’ work. Maybe someday they’ll cover The Wackers’ great 1971 song “Travelin’ Time” and bring it all back home.

--taken from: Nashville Scene

16 Of Our Favorite Events In Chicago This Weekend

--taken from: Chicagoist

by Michelle Meywes Kopeny

POWER POP FROM THE NORTH: We have long been fans of Halifax's Sloan, and the group is currently touring behind the 20th anniversary of One Chord to Another, the album that brought the band back from the brink of break-up and broke them into the college rock '90s scene. Since then the group has accomplished the seemingly impossible; releasing a string of solid, hook-laden albums with not a single a dud amidst the bunch. Expect to hear One Chord to Another in its entirety along with a slew of the other bands hits during Friday's set at Bottom Lounge.

--taken from: Chicagoist

Sloan kept playing while the ship sank

--taken from: SooToday (see more pictures here)

The sold out performance was a welcome break from the crazy presidential election

by Donna Hopper

"We're gonna keep playing while the ship sinks,” said Sloan’s Chris Murphy mid-way into Tuesday night’s sold out performance at the Grand Theatre.

For two wonderful rock-filled hours, the Halifax quartet provided welcome respite from the chaotic presidential election news feed from south of the border.

The band kicked off the final leg of a tour celebrating its baby turning 20 years old – the 1996 release One Chord To Another – in Sault Ste. Marie before heading south into the United States.

The evening was split into two sets, the first comprised of One Chord To Another in its entirety from front to back, and the second a career-spanning collection with many fan favourites.

Those included Underwhelmed, C'mon C'mon (We're Gonna Get It Started), Money City Maniacs, Who Taught You to Live Like That?, Losing California, The Other Man, I’m Not a Kid Anymore, So Far So Good, Worried Now, Unkind, Coax Me, and If It Feels Good Do It.

One Chord To Another is Sloan’s most commercially successful release to date, and Chris Murphy told SooToday prior to Tuesday’s performance that it’s his favourite.

It marked a change in direction for Sloan and was completely funded by the band, Murphy said.

--taken from: SooToday (see more pictures here)

Sloan Get into the Holiday Spirit with New Christmas Release

--taken from: Exclaim!

by Brock Thiessen

Like it or not, it's getting to be the time of year for sugar plums, mistletoes and all that. Of course, bands are already getting into the spirit, and among them, we can now count Canadian treasures Sloan.

Following a pile of 20th anniversary celebrations around their beloved One Chord to Another, Chris, Patrick, Andrew and Jay have announced a special Christmas 7-inch.

On Tuesday (November 8), Sloan will release a mini-release that will house the new Christmas compositions "Kids Come Back Again at Christmas" and "December 25." The 7-inch will arrive on "seasonal red translucent" vinyl will be limited to 500 copies. The release also includes a download of both tracks, as well as four holiday greeting cards featuring Sloan member Andrew Scott's "wintery collages."

You can order the release on Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST over here.

Sloan's Jay Ferguson has also shared a holiday greeting of sorts to explain the release. You can read it in full below:

What did you find yourself doing on the hottest day of this past summer? Hanging at the beach? Going for a swim? Relaxing with a book under a tree? Having a tall cool drink by the pool? How about standing in front of a microphone with sleigh bells and singing about snowballs, sleighs and Christmas day? That's the position we found ourselves in this past August while recording a brand new 7" single of 2 original Christmas songs. I think It's safe to say that it was a challenge, but we still managed to get into the holiday spirit while it was 39 degrees (that's 102 degrees fahrenheit, American friends) outside the studio.

We've tried our hand at Christmas recordings before. In 2011 "The Twelve Days of Christmas" got an elaborately musical treatment that would have made Perry Como do a Hollywood style double-take, while Slade's "Merry X-Mas Everybody" got a rocking tribute in 2012 commandeered by Patrick on lead vocals.
This year we decided to add 2 original songs to the canon of holiday fare. On Side A, Chris, with Patrick harmonizing along side, takes the lead on his galloping, acoustic driven future-holiday-classic "Kids Come Back Again at Christmas". On Side B, I contributed a snowy piano song suitable for a slow skate called "December 25". Thanks as well to our Gregory Macdonald for adding his touch of seasonal splendour to these recordings.

Andrew chimed in with the wintery collage artwork found on the 7" cover and the 4 Christmas cards that come with this package. The cards feature seasonal messages inside in the form of lyrics from our catalogue. Some miiiight be a stretch, but hopefully the merry sentiment remains intact and your relatives and recipients won't be puzzled!
One final note: as a tribute to our One Chord To Another album that we've been celebrating this year, the drums on these new songs were recorded direct to 4-track cassette just as we did with that album 20 years ago. I'm not sure if Chris' or my engineering skills have improved since 1996, but I still think they sound kinda cool. I've added more blank C-90 cassettes to my Xmas wish list.

From us to you, please have a merry holiday season and a happy new year!
Yo Ho Ho,
Jay F. 

--taken from: Exclaim!

Sloan concert sold out. For real this time

The second batch of tickets sold out in less than 10 minutes

--taken from: SooToday

by Donna Hopper

Last night it was announced that a second block of tickets for Tuesday's Sloan performance was set to go on sale at Case's Music today at 3 p.m.

Much like the first batch of tickets, this second run sold out in less than 10 minutes, a testament to the Canadian band's popularity and longevity.

Carrie Suriano, manager of Case's Music, told SooToday about six people who had waited in line were unfortunately unable to obtain tickets, and people were still coming to the store with the hope some were left.

Due to overwhelming demand, the performance was moved from the 100-seat Loplops to The Grand Theatre to accommodate a larger audience.

Sloan is currently on tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band's 1996 release One Chord To Another.

--taken from: SooToday

Club Scene: Tuns brings rock ’n’ roll mix to Call the Office

--taken from: The London Free Press

by Lori Mastronardi

Calling all Sloan fans!

You can hear the next best thing at Call the Office Thursday night.

That’s where Sloan frontman Chris Murphy, Super Friendz member Matt Murphy and The Inbreds’ Mike O’Neill will take the stage as part of their band Tuns, which formed a couple of years ago.

The power-pop three-piece really broke out when they played at Hayden’s benefit show Dream Serenade in the fall of 2015 at the legendary Massey Hall. Now, people are soaking up their joyous and electrifying rock ’n’ roll mix.

--taken from: The London Free Press

Who's better – U2 or R.E.M.? Canadian supergroup TUNS has opinions

--taken from: NOW Toronto (listen to the podcast here)

"You can't like R.E.M. and U2. That was the Beatles/Stones of the 80s. Or the Oasis/Blur, if you will," Chris Murphy says.

by Vish Khanna

Somewhere on Chris Murphy's phone there's a recording of TUNS trying to write an original song based on an iconic drumbeat by Larry Mullen Jr. of U2.

"When we first began playing," Mike O'Neill explains over pho with his bandmates/long-time friends (but not relatives), "we needed a starting place because there was myself, Matt [Murphy] and Chris" - all top-notch songwriters, vocalists and players - "and a lot of mutual respect.

"But how were we going to start a song?" O'Neill asks, acknowledging the pressure of expectations they felt. "The first thing we tried was, 'Chris, play a drumbeat you like and we'll make up a new song over that beat.' We tried that with various songs, where he played a song by the Cure or something, and then we ended up with all this fruit, and you couldn't even hear the [cover song aspect].

"The one exception, with comical results, was when we tried to write a song over the drumbeat from Sunday Bloody Sunday," O'Neill says. "It's a scream."

The reason for the pressure they felt? TUNS drummer Chris Murphy also plays bass in Sloan, guitarist Matt is known for his time in the Super Friendz, and bassist O'Neill made his name in the Inbreds - all bands that reflect Halifax's 90s "pop explosion." TUNS really are a supergroup.

From their mop-tops to the sweet vocal harmonies and lead vocal trade-offs heard on their self-titled debut, released on Royal Mountain in late August, TUNS appear most heavily influenced by timeless British bands like the Beatles and the Kinks. But growing up, Chris and O'Neill were actually really, really into U2.

"In fact, I thought we should learn a cover," Chris recalls, "and I said, 'Mike, let's play Seconds by U2,' but we didn't."

When I mention a bit of trivia about O'Neill also adoring and attending shows by R.E.M. on some of their earliest tours in the 1980s, Chris bristles.

"You can't like R.E.M. and U2. That was the Beatles/Stones of the 80s. Or the Oasis/Blur, if you will. I was definitely into U2. I thought R.E.M. were boring - although Matt and Mike often play riffs and one of them will say, 'Oh, that's very R.E.M.' and I say, 'Great, sounds good to me.'"

Of course, U2 are not a band most people like all that much these days.

"I don't know any of their albums past [1988's] Rattle And Hum, when they discovered American music," O'Neill says. "The Joshua Tree [from 1987] is the last thing I heard, and then I stopped paying attention."

"I bought The Joshua Tree and never played it once," Chris says. "I have a mint copy if you want it. Or you could just turn on the radio and hear the whole record.

"But, yeah, I loved U2 so much," Chris continues. "I remember when [1984's] The Unforgettable Fire was about to come out, just the feeling of, 'Oh my god, I can't wait to hear what this sounds like.'

"That was near the end of that feeling for music in general for me."

--taken from: NOW Toronto (listen to the podcast here)