Facebook: Spoon Day 7: Transference (2010)
After the skewed pop wonderland that was GA GA GA GA GA, Spoon confounded expectations by delivering a followup album that was half slick, half lo-fi, and entirely unsettling. (If you hear a song that cuts off abruptly in midphrase, it’s not a glitch with your internet stream.) Second single “Written in Reverse” makes my skin crawl the more I listen to it, but in a good way.
TRANSFERENCE is the first Spoon album in many years to be produced by Britt Daniel and Jim Eno alone. It spent ten weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at #4.
The cover photo, by the way, is a 1970 work by William Eggleston, a pioneer in legitimizing the use of color in photography-as-art. This may or may not be a commentary on the progression from GA GA GA GA GA, with its black-and-white cover, to TRANSFERENCE. I wouldn’t put it past a band that’s more interested in making small, sly asides than making any big statements.
EXTRAS: B-SIDES & COLLABORATIONS (2009-2011)
Today’s bonus listening includes B-sides from the “Got Nuffin” and “Written in Reverse” singles. (When I first saw the title “Mean Red Spider,” I assumed it was a Muddy Waters cover, but no, this is a different mean red spider.) There’s also a collaboration between Britt Daniel and the California indie band The Heavenly States, from a 2011 EP called OUI CAMERA OUI.
And finally, I’ve ended the playlist with audience footage of Spoon covering a Wolf Parade track live on their TRANSFERENCE tour. I normally wouldn’t include raw video like this in your bonus listening, but I’m making an exception today because it tees up tomorrow’s main listening quite well...
EXTRA EXTRA: BONUS TRACKS 2008-2009
Spoon has never been shy about pulling the curtain back on their process. They used to make it a regular practice to release demo tracks to fans through their website. In 2010, they put out an official collection of ten of those demos. You’ll find all those in this playlist (I particularly like the country version of “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”), plus one more I’ve tacked on for good measure -- a demo of “The Mystery Zone.”
(The “Merchants of Soul” demo may not be playable in some countries, due to a weird copyright restriction.)
PERSONAL REMINISCENCE ALERT!
One of my favorite tracks on TRANSFERENCE is “The Mystery Zone.” I heard that song for the first time on December 31, 2009, about three weeks before the album was released. The occasion was a Spoon show at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Maybe it captured my imagination because it was so apt to the evening.
My son Samuel grew up with his mother in Oregon, but we tried to have him spend a week or so with me two or three times a year. Samuel was 14 on this visit, a budding guitar virtuoso who took classes at the School of Rock in Portland. My wife Laura and I thought it would be fun to drive up to Milwaukee from Chicago (about 90 miles) and take Samuel to see Spoon for New Year’s Eve.
Things got a little weird right off the bat. After checking into our hotel a couple of blocks from the theater, we took Samuel to a spy-themed bar/restaurant called The Safe House (http://www.safe-house.com/), which had been talked up by local friends. Now, what you may not know about the state of Wisconsin is that it’s legal for minors of ANY age to drink alcohol, as long as they are accompanied by a parent or guardian who gives permission. Well, as soon as we had puzzled our way through the Safe House’s outer defenses and emerged into the bar, a server swept right up to Samuel flourishing a trayful of New Year’s Eve amuse-bouches.
“Here, you can have one of these,” he said.
We all reached for the little creme-filled chocolate cups, but Samuel was the first to pop one into his mouth. His eyes widened. “Oh!” he said. “I think that’s booze.”
“Bailey’s Irish Cream!” the server said proudly and swept away.
Laura and I had been entirely prepared to let Samuel have a little alcohol that night, but we were all startled by how quickly it had happened and how little say we had in it. The evening was off to a surreal start.
After getting some food and drinks, we made our way to the theater. The show was amazing, there was a balloon drop at midnight, and we all had a great time. But the night took another weird turn after the show. We had nearly reached our high-rise hotel when the doors opened and dozens of screaming teenagers spilled out into the street, punching and kicking and scratching. At first it was like some bar fight out a western, except more and more kids kept pouring out of the hotel until there what started as a brawl blossomed into what seemed like a full-blown riot.
We retreated a safe distance down the street, but not before we’d seen one girl rip the dress off another. I’m not sure if that was Samuel’s first live boob sighting, but I’m sure it was the most memorable to that point.
Laura and I worried for weeks afterward that when Samuel returned to Portland with these tales of booze, violence, and nudity, his mother would never let him come stay with us again. (Our fears were overblown.) And somehow when I think back on that night, the soundtrack I hear is “The Mystery Zone.”
NEWS ALERT!
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/feb/18/spoon-metacritic-britt-daniel
The Guardian, 18 February 2010
“Are Spoon the best band of the past 10 years?”
“[Britt Daniel] sounds suddenly crestfallen. ‘Damn,’ he sighs. ‘Maybe things would have happened a lot quicker if I’d just gone out with Lindsay Lohan.’”
SPOONTV
“Written in Reverse” (official video)
SPOONTV2
“Got Nuffin” on Late Night with David Letterman
FIERYTV
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/eleanor-friedberger-gets-nostalgic-in-my-mistakes-20110621
Watch for Britt Daniel’s cameo in this 2011 video from Eleanor Friedberger (of The Fiery Furnaces). The song, “My Mistakes,” is the lead track from her first solo album. If you haven’t read the interviews I’ve posted so far, you might not know that Eleanor and Britt were a thing back in Austin during the early days of Spoon.
DAILY COVER TRACK ROUND-UP
“Modern World” (live 2010) (Wolf Parade)
A paltry offering today. Our only entry is that live Wolf Parade cover, which brings our running total to 19.