Autobiography - Sloan - One Chord To Another - 1997

With our disappointing meal in our bellies, we were reasonably impressed with the museum itself. We spent a considerable amount of time walking through the Asian exhibit, particularly a reconstructed Buddhist shrine that was given the appropriate amount of reverence...unfortunately the clock was ticking, so we didn't quite get to see everything. Though most importantly we did get to see the weird giant creepy baby heads that were on display outside the back entrance of the museum.



After we picked up the car, we did have one last bit of business to attend to before the game...As we were parting ways with Uncle Singh the night before, he had stated that his wife had made a lunch for us to eat before we went out to the game and that she would be very disappointed if we did not eat it. We were stuck between not wanting to be rude, and not wanting to have even more of our road trip eaten up with familial obligations. The compromise solution was for us to swing by on the way to the game and pick up the food in a picnic basket to take with us. This situation was further complicated by the fact that Anand had lost his phone at some point during the evening last night, and Skip didn't have anything in his phone besides Uncle Singh's house number. We made several attempts to contact them at this number and left messages...we even stopped by their house, but the couple was apparently out and about and waiting for our call on their cells. After a few minutes of knocking on their front door we took off.

The one time I was truly happy about the Singh's love for their GPS Devices was on the drive to the stadium. From the Uncle's house in Alston it took us down back roads, rather than the main highway, allowing us to enjoy the warm summer air as we drove at high speeds down green tree lined streets...rather than sitting in traffic on the gray and dismal 90.


Autobiography is one of those songs...the song you don't like on an album you otherwise love. Sloan's extremely (Self-consciously) Beatlesque One Chord To Another is one of the great loves of my early 20's, songs like the bouncy "Can't Face Up" and the horn driven "Everything You've Done Wrong" are quintessential soundtrack items for my pre-NYC, post college Midwestern boredom driving...but this song has always bored the holy hell out of me, and annoyed me with it's WAY-TOO-CLEVER pun lyrics, but I can't bring myself to delete it...cause I love the album. I know, I know...I have issues.

Anyone Who's Anyone - Sloan - One Chord to Another - 1997

Ok, sorry for the lack of updates last week. It was a hectic week for me, both personally and professionally. Hopefully, the semi-regular service will resume now.

So, to resume the bitching...I was out during my lunch break and realized that I didn't have enough cash. I swung into a Duane Reade where they have Chase ATMs. An old Russian woman and her daughter were at the machine and there was one guy in front of me, so nothing too bad...except that old russian woman stayed at the machine for easily ten minutes. It was ridiculous...adn this is an ATM in a drug store...it's not like she could do balance transfers and deposits. She was taking 10 minutes (with her 30 something daughter's help) to WITHDRAWAL CASH. Seriouly, if you can't handle the complicated technology in a freaking ATM machine, it's time to move out of The Big Apple and down to Florida. You're holding the rest of us up.

The problem with multi-singer songwriter bands is frequently that not all the songwriters are on the same level of skill. Some of your writers could be John or Paul, others Ringo. I've never liked Sloan enough to try to discern which of it's 4 songwriters are which, but whichever one this is...he's the Ringo...though honestly, he's a little better than Ringo. I mean, this is no Octopus' Garden, but it's certainly much weaker than the other material on this not coincidentally Beatle-esque album. Other than the uncharacteristically abrassive sonics, this is pretty dull stuff on an otherwise decent album.

All By Ourselves - Sloan - Between The Bridges - 1999

I was living in Cincinnati in 1999, and if you need further evidence of why I have such ambivalent feelings about the place, absorb this fact. In 1999 the local independant weekly picked Sloan's Between the Bridges as the best album the year, with The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin as a #2.

Now don't get me wrong, Sloan can be a tremendously entertaining band and they can write a good hook...there are quite a few of them on this album, including this song. And The Flaming Lips have lost some of their cool through computer ads, endless hippy festival appearances and one really bad album. But seriously, don't forget what an amazing pop symphony TSB was at the time...and despite it's charms what an unremarkable power pop album Between the Bridges is.

Anyway...