Spoon Day 5: Gimme Fiction (2005)

Happy 46th birthday to Britt Daniel!

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Having burned their sound down on KILL THE MOONLIGHT, Spoon sets about building it back up on GIMME FICTION. This album takes us to some ruminative and fanciful places, while layering fresh sounds into the mix. I particularly like “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine,” which concerns a play called “The Stranger Dance” that only exists in Britt Daniel’s imagination.

Bassist Josh Zarbo left the band during the GIMME FICTION sessions. In fact, he only plays on one track, “My Mathematical Mind.” (Britt himself plays bass everywhere else, along with about a dozen other instruments.) “My Mathematical Mind” also features Eric Harvey on piano. Harvey would become a full member of Spoon by the time of their next release and play on every album through THEY WANT MY SOUL. (Of their bassist’s departure, Britt said in one interview that Zarbo had quit the band two or three times before this, wrestling with a desire to go back to school.)

This is also the first album to land Spoon on the Billboard 200 chart. It spent 5 weeks on the chart, peaking at #44.

After GIMME FICTION, by the way, I’ve tacked on the non-album single “My First Time Vol. 3.” This song is just too good to overlook. It deserves a place in the top tier of Spoon tracks.

EXTRA: SINGLES, B-SIDES & SOUNDTRACKS (2005-2006)

Leading off our bonus listening today is “The Book I Write,” the one new Spoon track from the soundtrack to the film STRANGER THAN FICTION (a surprisingly fine film starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson). Britt Daniel worked on the bouncy score with Bill Reitzel, and several other Spoon tracks appeared in the film, sans lyrics. We also have B-sides from a couple of GIMME FICTION singles, one of which is a high-spirited dance remix by John McEntire of Tortoise.

EXTRA EXTRA: GIMME FICTION DEMOS

For the tenth anniversary of GIMME FICTION, Spoon put out a deluxe reissue that included a bonus disc of demo versions. Have a listen, if you’re curious.

SPOONTV COUCH POTATO BONUS EXTRA: BRITT DANIEL MEETS VERONICA MARS

This one takes some explaining.

We’ll start with Rob Thomas. No, not the Matchbox 20 d/o/u/c/h/e/ dude*. Our Rob Thomas was a journalist and high-school journalism teacher in San Antonio and Austin in the early ‘90s. He was also a musician and played in a few local bands. In 1996 his first young-adult novel (the excellent and successful RATS SAW GOD) was published, and soon after that he was writing for television.

In 2004 Thomas created the series “Veronica Mars”**, a neo-noir detective series set at a southern California high school. Though its ratings never rose above abysmal, it garnered critical acclaim and a devoted cult following*** -- not just for the writing but also for lead actress Kristen Bell. Veronica Mars, daughter of a disgraced ex-sheriff (a charming Enrico Colantoni), is a poor kid in a rich town who solves mysteries for cash. She also works at a bizarre coffee shop/karaoke bar called Java the Hut.

Rob Thomas had a habit of giving musicians -- and especially Austin musicians -- cameos on “Veronica Mars.” So, in this scene from Season 2 Episode 12 (first aired 1 February 2006), Britt Daniel shows up at Java the Hut, where he makes Veronica’s acquaintance and then sings Elvis Costello’s “Veronica” at the karaoke mike. Listen for the moment where a well-timed, on-the-nose refrain of “Veronica!” strengthens Veronica’s resolve.

* A hilarious meta-moment in “Veronica Mars” has one of the characters, referring to Matchbox 20, say: “Rob Thomas is a whore.”

** Theme song: “We Used to Be Friends” by the Dandy Warhols. Lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor also made a cameo on the show as a karaoke singer. (In the Veronica Mars movie, Alejandro Escovedo appears as a busker in NYC, singing the theme song.)

*** In 2012 a Kickstarter campaign by Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell to fund a Veronica Mars movie raised $2 million in its first day, and went on to raise over $5.7 million. On its final campaign day, the project broke the record for the most backers on a single Kickstarter project. (I was one of those backers, and I was lucky enough to attend the movie’s premiere at SXSW in 2014.)

EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA: GIMME FICTION ODDS AND ENDS