Facebook: Spoon Day 6: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)
With GA GA GA GA GA, Spoon renewed its attempts on the pop charts with a vengeance. This album is almost aggressively toe-tapping, and quite disarming throughout. It began to bring Spoon widespread public attention, to the point that I’d be surprised if you’d never heard “The Underdog” playing at your local coffee shop. (Pop wunderkind Jon Brion produced that track with the full band, while the Daniel/Eno/McCarthy triumvirate produced the rest of the album.) Sprinklings of studio chatter, together with the abbreviated and odd spellings of some song titles, make this feel like a work in progress -- but in a thrilling way, like you’re hearing a leaked early mix.
GA^5 spent 19 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at #10 (just beneath a falling BACK TO BLACK by Amy Winehouse). For my wife and me, this album was the definitive soundtrack of the summer of 2007, during a stressful, hopeful move from New York to Chicago.
This album marks the arrival of Rob Pope as Spoon’s bassist. Pope was a founding member of The Get Up Kids, the highly influential second-wave emo band* from Kansas City. The Get Up Kids broke up acrimoniously in 2005, but reformed in 2008. (Rob Pope still divides his time between the two bands, though Spoon does seem to take priority.)
The cover photo, by the way, is of American sculptor Lee Bontecou in her studio in 1963. Apt, perhaps, given the way Spoon constructs its songs.
* Get Up Kids guitarist Jim Suptic, speaking of their influence on third-wave emo, once said, “If this is the world we helped create, then I apologize.”
EXTRA: B-SIDES, BONUS & MISC TRACKS (2007-2009)
Today’s extras include a couple of compilation tracks, a B-side (“All I Got Is Me”), and a bonus track from the iTunes edition of GA^5 (“Deep Clean”). The last track on the list, though, is really worth paying attention to. It’s the original version of Spoon’s definitive hit “Don’t You Evah,” with the original spelling, as originally performed by a little band called The Natural History. The two bands toured together for a while, after which Spoon borrowed “Don’t You Ever,” made some improvements to the lyrics, and basically turned the song inside out. In the process it went from good to great. I think it’s instructive to compare Spoon’s version to the original and see how differently each band approached the material.
EXTRA EXTRA: GET NICE! BONUS EP (2007)
This EP was included as a bonus disc with early copies of GA^5. It’s only 23 minutes long, but it contains a couple of fun alternate versions and other unreleased material. My favorite song title here is “I Can Feel It Fade Like an AM Single,” but “Leave Your Effects Where They’re Easily Seen” comes close. (I’m a fan of the long titles. My first published short story was called “From Our Point of View We Had Moved to the Left.”)
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA: DON’T YOU EVAH REMIXES (2007-2008)
2008’s single release of “Don’t You Evah” was actually an eight-track EP*. Besides the Spoon version, the Natural History version, and one unrelated B-side, there are five remixes of “Don’t You Evah.” I would normally blanch at the thought of listening to five remixes in a row, but most of these are pretty good, and all of them are very different.
* Ahem. I mean an EP _with_ eight tracks, not an EP _on_ 8-track.
NEWS ALERT!
http://www.avclub.com/article/britt-daniel-of-spoon-14127
A.V. Club, 19 July 2007
“Interview: Britt Daniel of Spoon”
Britt Daniel talks about Spoon’s history with bass players, his idiosyncratic spellings, the thrill of record release days, and much, much more.
SPOONTV
“Don’t You Evah” (official video)
SPOONTV2
“The Underdog” (official video)
SPOONTV3
“You Got Yr Cherry Bomb” (official video)
SPOONTV4: FAN EDITION
“The Ghost of You Lingers”
Another fan-made video.
SPOONTV5
Britt Daniel: “Black Like Me” backstage at the Borderline
SPOONTV6
Spoon live in studio on KCRW Santa Monica (37 minutes!)
DAILY COVER TRACK ROUND-UP
“Don’t You Evah” (The Natural History, as “Don’t You Ever”)
Britt Daniel: “Bring It On Home to Me” (Sam Cooke)
“Rocks Off” (live 2009) (The Rolling Stones)
Three cover tracks today, bringing our running total to 18.
“Bring It On Home to Me” is a track Britt contributed to a compilation benefiting a Portland organization that works with homeless youth. “Rocks Off” was a frequent closer for Spoon during their 2009-2010 tour. This recording comes from the last night of a three-night stand at Stubb’s in Austin in July 2009. Spoon self-released all three of those shows on CD, available only through their web site.