Facebook: Spoon Day 4: Kill the Moonlight (2002)
“Small stakes give you the blues, but you don’t feel taken, don’t think you’ve been used.” With that opening salvo, Britt Daniel announces in his sly way that, while there may be comfort in setting one’s sights low, there is no joy. Spoon will not take the easy road. They will shoot for joy.
KILL THE MOONLIGHT is surely the album where Spoon’s reputation for meticulous minimalism was born. It fuses everything that came before into one majestic whole, away from which Daniel and Eno then proceed to strip everything that isn’t absolutely necessary. The result is skeletal, anxious, and, in my humble opinion, brilliant. Yet still, there is no mistaking that it’s Spoon.
EXTRA: B-SIDES & LIVE TRACKS (2002-2003)
Our bonus listening today includes two B-sides from the “Someone Something” single, one of which (“In the Right Place the Right Time”) stands up there with Spoon’s best work. It also includes three live tracks nicked from the fan-produced bootleg compilation THE DEVIL’S DISHES, all of which are covers.
EXTRA EXTRA: HOME VOL. IV (Bright Eyes & Britt Daniel EP, 2002)
About a month before KILL THE MOONLIGHT appeared, Post-Parlo Records put out the fourth in its HOME series of split EPs. Actually, this not a split EP but a simple collaboration, since it’s all recorded with one band and both principals play on every track. Conor Oberst and Britt Daniel sing lead on alternating tracks, two of which they wrote together. (Your enjoyment here may depend on your tolerance for Oberst’s voice. Honestly, I’m not a fan.) Jim Eno engineers.
Later we’ll encounter more collaborations, most notably the Divine Fits project.
NEWS ALERT!
http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2002-08-23/100682/
Austin Chronicle, 23 August 2002
“The way they get by”
My favorite bit from this interview comes at the end, when Britt recounts an encounter between The Faint and archvillain Ron Laffitte.
SPOONTV
“Small Stakes” (official video)
It’s fun to see how this video provides a seeming glimpse into Spoon’s working process, though I have no doubt it was as meticulously constructed as the music.
SPOONTV2
“The Way We Get By” (official video, unofficial upload)
DAILY COVER TRACK ROUND-UP
“Roller Coaster” (live 2002) (13th Floor Elevators)
“Isolation” (live 2002) (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band)
“Loose” (live 2003) (The Stooges)
Three cover tracks to report today, all from the bonus playlist, bringing our running total so far to 14.
A wide swath of influences here, though all relatively contemporaneous. Most interesting (to me) is the 13th Floor Elevators, the psychedelic pioneers whose leader Roky Erickson is still a fixture on the Austin music scene.