Audiobiographical: Sloan

--taken from: Musings On Music

by Matt Laforest

Hailed as Canada’s answer to Nirvana and all things grunge, Sloan shot out of the underground in 1992 with their debut album Smeared which featured future classics “Underwhelmed”, “500  Up”, “I Am The Cancer” and more.  Fast forward two years and Sloan had moved away from the noisy, feedback drenched sound of their debut and had embraced a more classic pop sound (although the pop songs were always there on Smeared, they were just disguised a bit).  1994’s Twice Removed is consistently hailed as a one of the best Canadian records of all time, and rightfully so.

My first memories of Sloan are a little hazy.  I moved to Europe in the fall of 1992 and wasn’t aware of their meteoric rise on the Canadian music scene. When I returned to North American shores a few years later I was fully immersed in the burgeoning Britpop scene that was coming out of England.  Even still, I remember seeing the video for “Coax Me” and thinking it was a great song.  The same can be said for “People Of The Sky”, with the half sung, half spoken vocal delivery of drummer Andrew Scott.  In a landscape of post-grunge, post-Nirvana clone bands, the songs really jumped out.

The follow-up to Twice Removed arrived in the form of 1996’s One Chord To Another, a  contemporary throwback pop/rock record (does that make sense?).  It wasn’t until early 1997 that I became a full fledged Sloan fan.  Something just clicked and I got it.

It was around this time that I became really interested in independent record labels and, to my delight, I discovered that Sloan had their own label, murderecords.  Originally created to release their debut EP, Peppermint in 1991, Sloan had resurrected the imprint after their subsequent split from DGC (who released Smeared and Twice Removed).

Another intriguing aspect of the band is that they’re all songwriters.  Listening to their records for the first time is always interesting as you’re never sure who’s song is up next or which member will have the most songs on the record.  For the most part they divvy up the songs in equal parts, but their have been anomalies.  In concert, watching them switch instruments so every member has the opportunity to take centre stage is something to see.

Some of my favourite memories ever involve Sloan shows.  The first time I saw the band live was at Edgefest ‘98 (a huge outdoor travelling festival).  There was a signing tent where fans could line up and select bands would make appearances and meet and greet with fans.  Much to my dismay, Sloan were scheduled in the tent at the same time Foo Fighters were on stage.  Suffice it to say, the line wasn’t moving as fast as I would have liked and I began screaming at the top of my lungs “Get out, get out, get out” along to the Foos tune “Alone + Easy Target”.  Yes, I was that guy.  Everyone in line ahead of me does a one-eighty and I even managed to draw the attention of a couple of Sloan guys.  Woops.

Then, in 2001, at Barrymore’s in Ottawa, the band were touring in support of Pretty Together.  I’m standing watching The Dears (how awesome is that for a opening band?) and look to my left and there, standing right beside me is Sloan drummer Andrew Scott, taking it all in.  Being the fan that I am, I figure I’ll never get another chance to ask him a question again.  Now, everybody always thinks “If I could only ask so-and-so one question, it would be (insert question here)”.  When, on a seconds notice, you find youself in that situation, sometimes the results are less than stellar, as was my choice.  The drummer for The Dears is tearing shit up on stage and I turn to Andrew and think I’m asking a pretty “cool” question, not the usual drivel.   “Hey Andrew, how’s it goin’?  Question for you: in a drum battle between you and George, who do you think would win?”.  Andrew raises an eyebrow and very matter-of-factly states “Are you watching this, he’d fucking kick my ass!”.

--taken from: Musings On Music

Sloan hit up the Great Hall for the holidays

--taken from: blogTO

Sloan played the Great Hall on Wednesday night as the second of a two-night run of shows benefiting the COUNTERfit Harm Reduction Program and the Barriere Lake Legal Defense Fund. Local heroes Fucked Up, who also curated the Toronto-centric lineups for each show, headlined the first night. Having already played Toronto a handful of times this year, this show was notable as it found them airing out their third LP, 1996's "One Chord to Another", in its entirety. Despite the relative similarity of the performances to those found on the album, far be it from a band as energetic as Sloan to phone it in and stage a mere recital.

It was "One Chord to Another" that solidified Sloan's reputation as both critical and commercial darlings (at least in Canada), mixing the four members' unabashedly hooky but sometimes disparate songwriting styles and congealing them with a wash of 1960s AM pop production. For this show alone they rehearsed and unearthed a number of songs that either hadn't be played in years or never at all, and it was during these tracks, as well as the guest-heavy encore, where the show got its boost from injecting some unpredictability into Sloan's signature dependability.

From the first notes of "The Good in Everyone", with its distinctive stop-start intro, the band had forged the night's theme: it was 1996 all over again. And everyone, band and audience alike, loved it.

Indeed, while I had seen a couple Sloan shows over the years that seemed to run on autopilot, this was thankfully not the case on Wednesday. The mega-hits kept coming with "The Lines You Amend" and "Everything You've Done Wrong", the latter featuring a three-piece horn section. Some of the best songs of the night were the record's deep cuts, including the Chris Murphy-led double whammy of "Nothing Left to Make Me Want to Stay" and "Autobiography."

While the lyrics of both suggest dissatisfaction with the music industry following the band's less than amicable break with Geffen Records following the release of "Twice Removed", the performances tonight were spirited and joyful. Indeed, a charitable air permeated the evening, with each of the night's bands repeatedly thanking Fucked Up for the chance to support these great causes.

That Sloan were going to pull out all the stops to faithfully recreate the magic of "One Chord to Another" was no surprise; the encore, though, featured more than a few curveballs. The band pulled one track from each of their first two records, with "500 Up" showcasing Sloan's early nod to shoegaze and sounding crystal clear in the acoustically magnificent Great Hall.

The final two songs would bring two high-profile guests to the stage, first with Fucked Up's Damian Abraham for a faithful rendition of Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" (sadly devoid of any stagediving antics), and then with Feist joining to play her signature hollowbody Guild on "She Says What She Means." Keeping with the gaff of it being 1996, Patrick Pentland joked before the last song that "this is a work in progress from our next album."

Despite "She Says" being taken from 1998's "Navy Blues", the joke had resonance. Sloan have proved over the years their ability to forge on relentlessly with new material; this one-night victory lap of revisiting and revitalizing the good in a classic record showed that Sloan can rise to the challenge of past, present and future.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, Ohbijou, and Bonjay opened the show. All three Toronto-based acts turned in solid performances, with Paul Banwatt of the RAA's absolute domination of his drumkit inspiring crowd participation en masse. By the time Ohbijou took the stage, the Great Hall was filling up nicely, but the majority of the crowd sadly missed out on the short but sweet Bonjay set. Melding dancehall grooves with emotive inflection, the three-piece band led by the magnetic Alanna Stuart started the show by packing as much energy into the empty space of the venue as possible. Expect big things from them in the future.


--taken from: blogTO

Sloan Turns Back The Clock With Charity Show

--taken from: Toronto.com

by Garnet Fraser

If you stayed home last night in a bid to sleep through the longest night of the year, you missed a heck of a party. In a benefit show at the Great Hall, the Canadian '90s survivors Sloan played, in its entirety, their 1996 album One Chord to Another for the assembled throng at the Great Hall. (Bonjay, Ohbijou, and the Rural Alberta Advantage rounded out the impressive bill.)

One Chord is close to a sacred text among some young Canadian rockers; it gets name checked but not often played, as it involves some supplemental instruments Sloan doesn't often travel with. (What's "Everything You've Done Wrong" without those horns?) But on this night the band had backup - not just longtime sideman Gregory "Goose" Macdonald on keyboards but and honest-to-God brass section - and, just as important, a bit of practice. (Sloan records are always catchy, but the ensemble hasn't always been tight onstage.)

So it was that Patrick Pentland, Chris Murphy, Jay Ferugson and Andrew Scott came roaring out of the gate, poised and propulsive, with "The Good in Everyone," delighting the kids, too, and not just the many greybeards in attendance. (I only mean aging hipsters; there weren't many literal greybeards except for Pentland, who's singing and playing better than ever but who know looks like the leader of some obscure radical movement.)

As a live experience the album works great; it's a lean 39 minutes and 12 tracks on disc, with nary an indulgence, and Pentland's songs still rock, Murphy's still funny, Ferguson's songs are still the prettiest things the band's ever done, and Scott delivers welcome change-of-pace arty pieces that let the crowd catch its breath and made the concert feel like more than just ear candy. (Scott is absolutely still one of the best drummers in the land, too, though the Rural Alberta Advantage set made an excellent case for that band's exceptional skin-pounder Paul Banwatt.)

Then came the encore: A couple of non-One Chord songs, a brief battle for the control of the crowd between the event's emcee and organizer Damian Abraham and the equally amusing Murphy, and Abraham joined the band for a cover of Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" (at one point twirling Murphy around his neck onstage). Finally, Feist showed up, reminding us that before her music was a coffee-house institution,
she was a bona fide rocker. She grabbed a guitar and lent even more power to "She Means What She Says," a chugging nugget from One Chord to Another's follow-up album, Navy Blues. Maybe we can hear that one next year ... right, guys?

(Patrick Pentland on creating and now re-creating the album at The Grid.)

--taken from: Toronto.com

Sloan Unearth 1993 Bootleg for Limited Vinyl Release

--taken from: Exclaim!

by Alex Hudson

Having recently celebrated their 20th anniversary with The Double Cross, Canadian power pop heroes Sloan are delving into the archives for a release of a nearly two-decades-old live bootleg. Entitled Is That All I Get?, it was recorded live in concert on September 20, 1993, in Winnipeg, MB.

Limited to 300 copies, these hand-numbered records are pressed on luminous green marbled vinyl. In the product description at Sloan's official webstore, the band's Jay Ferguson wrote that this is a tribute to the '70s and '80s tradition of bootlegged LPs.

"The original recording was captured via cassette by a fan in the audience," he explained. "The results are a bit rough at the edges for sure, but kind of exciting and also finds our band at a point in our career where we were finishing a year or more of touring behind our first LP, Smeared, yet beginning to road test some songs that would wind up on Twice Removed. Early versions of 'Shame Shame' and 'Worried Now' appear with different musical bridges that would not be ironed out until a few months later. We even began the show with an Eric's Trip cover!"

The records will come with a bonus video download of "Rag Doll," a song that doesn't appear on the vinyl. To make the deal even sweeter, 25 randomly selected buyers will receive an original copy of the fall 1993 tour poster.

Coincidentally, this show was recorded on Sloan member Patrick Pentland's 24th birthday. The video embedded below shows the band and fans singing "Happy Birthday" for him.

--taken from: Exclaim!

'Have Not Been the Same' Book Spawns Covers Comp Featuring Kevin Drew, the Hidden Cameras, Great Lake Swimmers, Bry Webb

--taken from: exclaim!

by Alex Hudson

Back in the June, authors Michael Barclay, Jason Schneider and Ian A.D. Jack released a tenth anniversary edition of their book Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995. Now, that tome has spawned a star-studded covers album that features some of Canada's finest talent covering songs from decades past.

Barclay curated the compilation, and he recruited a cast of contributors that includes (deep breath): Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene, Snailhouse, the Hidden Cameras, Neil Haverty of Bruce Peninsula, Great Lake Swimmers, Bry Webb of Constantines, Light Fires (Gentleman Reg and Ohbijou's James Bunton), Cuff the Duke, Jim Bryson, Little Scream, the Burning Hell, Owl Mountain Radar (Jim Bryson and Chris Page), Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, and Jill and Matthew Barber.

They covered tunes by classic acts like the Tragically Hip, Al Tuck, Rheostatics, Men Without Hats, the Grapes of Wrath, Sloan, Eric's Trip and many others.

Much like the recent reissue of the book, this covers collection is intended to help 21st century listeners rediscover the music of 1985 to 1995.

"In order to breathe new life into this music, I decided to put the material in a contemporary context," Barclay tells Exclaim!, "because the last ten years of Canadian music have been so amazing on every level."

So how did Barclay chose which artists should be involved in the project?

"These people made some of my favourite records of the last ten years," he explains. "I could have asked older artists who are still active, but it was important to me to have this current generation paying their respects to those who came before them."

Barclay gave all of the artists involved a list of the bands featured in the book. The performers then used this list as a reference point to help them chose their cover song.

"There would be no point in covering Bryan Adams or Alannah Myles, because they're not part of the thesis," Barclay notes. "I didn't really direct anyone in terms of what was covered geographically or in terms of specific genres, gender or time periods, and I'm really happy that all the cards fell where they did -- I think it's a broad representation of the music discussed in the book."

The Have Not Been the Same compilation comes out on Tuesday (November 15) exclusively through Zunior.com. All proceeds go to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Have Not Been the Same:

1. The Burning Hell - "Pop Goes the World" (Men Without Hats)
2. Corb Lund - "In Contempt of Me" (Jr. Gone Wild)
3. Great Lake Swimmers - "What Was Going Through My Head" (The Grapes of Wrath)
4. Owl Mountain Radar - "Daylight" (The Nils)
5. Bry Webb - "I Will Give You Everything" (Skydiggers)
6. Forest City Lovers - "The Lines You Amend" (Sloan)
7. Light Fires - "Happens All the Time" (Eric's Trip)
8. Selina Martin with the Faceless Forces of Bigness - "Grace, Too" (The Tragically Hip)
9. Mark Davis and Lorrie Matheson - "Too Cool to Live, Too Smart to Die" (Deja Voodoo)
10. Jill and Matthew Barber - "Your Sunshine" (Hardship Post)
11. Cuff the Duke - "North Window" (The Inbreds)
12. The Hidden Cameras - "Throw Silver" (Mecca Normal)
13. Snailhouse - "Buddah" (Al Tuck)
14. Veda Hille - "Odette" (Circle C)
15. Andrew Vincent - "Teenland" (Northern Pikes)
16. Geoff Berner - "Bound for Vegas" (Art Bergmann)
17. Neil Haverty - "Shaved Head" (Rheostatics)
18. Little Scream and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre) - "When You Know Why You're Happy" (Mary Margaret O'Hara)
19. Kevin Drew - "We Got Time" (Bob Wiseman)

--taken from: exclaim!