The Post-Rockist

Hello there my little chickadees. Once again, the Post-Rockist comes to you from the seedy recesses of the www to bring you the most up-to-date old news that you certainly learned from any number of music sites in the past few days. The only difference between us and them: we’re much less knowledgeable! But hey, so are you, because you don’t just sit around all day and listen to albums like it’s your job. And if it is your job, can you get me an interview?

Olé!

Perennial madcap Robyn Hitchcock brings us his first major-indie label disc since 2004’s freakin’ excellent Spooked with Olé! Tarantula. If you’ve never heard of Robyn Hitchcock, just think Dylan meets Timothy Leary minus the drugs (Hitchcock dudn’t need ‘um) meets Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder version, of course). The album was recorded with the assistance of Peter Buck of REM fame and Scott McCaughey of Minus Five relative-fame, who, along with Bill Rieflin, form a support group called The Venus 3.

Listen to a sample track, “Adventure Rocket Ship,” found on the Yep Roc Records website, which, coincidentally, is the record company releasing the album on October 3, 2006.

For insight into Robyn’s songwriting MO, watch this performance on KEXP from September 4, 2004, where Robyn performs the title track of the new album and lets you into his strange, comic, and beautiful mind.

Track listing:

Adventure Rocket Ship
Underground Sun
Museum of Sex
Belltown Ramble
Ole! Tarantula
(A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitation) Briggs
Red Locust Frenzy
‘Cause It’s Love (Saint Parallelogram)
The Authority Box
N.Y. Doll

Sloooooooaaaaaaannnnnnn!

30 tracks on one CD?!?!

30 tracks on one CD?!?!?!?!?!?!?

American Sloan fans are one of the great breeds of fans. Most of them reside in the northern areas that lie between Chicago and New York City, where the biggest Canadian bands find at least moderate success at filling medium-sized halls. The fans own each album , EP, and single, they make their own T-Shirts for the shows, they arrive hours beforehand to get a good spot in the hall, they know “the call” (and if you’re one of these fans, you know what I’m talking about), they stay after the show for an hour of so because they know that Chris Murphy and Jay Ferguson (and sometimes Patrick Pentland) will always be there to hang out afterward. Devotion without idolization, because Sloan is regular people just like us. I know this, because I’m one of these fans. I’ve been checking the website every couple of days for new updates in the hopes that they’ll be touring soon and coming to within (at least) a three-hour drive of my area of domicile, since even Sloan fans won’t drive more than three hours to see them (well, maybe some will drive five).

So this new 30-track disc is quite welcome and will, I suspect, keep we, the Sloan-hungry, sated for some time after its release.

But this frieghtens me. Sloan has been around for fifteen years. That’s a long time for any band whose name does not begin with “Rolling” and ends with “Stones.” Sloan has written a lot of great songs, has a fine catalog and numerous albums, but they’ve never been prolific. They’ve taken their time, they’ve spread things out, they’ve gone on vacation.

So why 30 tracks on one CD? Why not save some of them for later? The newest album is sure to be composed of blood-cooking rockers, dancin’-pop boppers, and intricate ballads with Jay’s angelic pipes soothing us to peace, but will the album as a whole be a requium? I’m sayin my prayers for no. Let’s see if God finally comes through on something.
Here is the track listing, from the Official Sloan website. The listing shows the breakdown of tunes on the vinyl version, to be released at the same time. A release date, as far as I know, has not yet been set, but you can preorder the album from iTunes Canada. You can listen to two new tracks on their Myspace page.
SIDE 1
Flying High Again
Who Taught You To Live Like That?
I’ve Gotta Try
Everybody Wants You
Listen To The Radio
Fading Into Obscurity
I Can’t Sleep
SIDE 2
Someone That I Can Be True With
Right Or Wrong
Something’s Wrong
Ana Lucia
Before The End Of The Race
Blackout
I Understand
You Know What It’s About
SIDE 3
Golden Eyes
Can’t You Figure It Out?
Set In Motion
Love Is All Around
Will I Belong?
Ill Placed Trust
Live The Life You’re Dreaming Of
SIDE 4
Living With The Masses
HFXNSHC
People Think They Know Me
I Know You
Last Time In Love
It’s Not The End Of The World
Light Years
Another Way I Could Do It

I’d bet my life you’ll bet your life that this’ll be a breakout album of 2007

Well, I’m a bit biased being born and bred in Detroit city. Maybe my penchant for peculiar, pretty, and pure pop makes me particularly overzealous for Detroit’s Pas/Cal. Imagine Belle and Sebastian raised not among the medieval towers and churches of Glasgow, with its pastoral fields of green surrounding, but borne among the urban decay, smokestacks, and general unhappiness of the Motor City. The coy playfulness is there, but there’s something about Casimer Pascal’s tales of bronzed-beach boys, holiday sweaters, and a Channel 7 Action News interview with a despairing centenarian that characterizes the drear and dreams of a city on the brink of smoldering–physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

And you can dance to the songs too.

Download some songs from the band’s website, www.pascalgoespop.com. Their third EP, “Dear, Sir,” hits their website for sale in November and their first full-length album, “Citizen’s Army Uniform” in January 2007.

If the promise of the new LP is anything like the bliss of their first two EPs and live performances, then “Citizen’s Army Uniform” will be the best booster for a city that surely, come winter, will just be coming down from the high of the Tigers’ World Series victory.