I Love This Freaking Band: Sloan

Sloan

(Note: This article will occasionally be interrupted by a large group of people standing behind the writer, and sometimes the reader, chanting Sloan. Pronounced SLOW-NNN. They sing the chant like football fans, but are dressed in much cooler clothes.)

Much like life, music is a voyage. If you’re lucky, you discover something you love, and carry it with you forever. You’re even luckier when you discover something you love, forget the discovery, and it takes years to remember what you had already already discovered. And you find yourself even more in love with what you discover, because your perspective have been changed by the journey. Such is the story of myself and the Canadian rock band Sloan. 

Sloan formed in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1991. Within a year, the band had signed to Geffen Records, and released their debut album, Smeared. Their song “Underwhlemed”, which played within the borders of the grunge/alternative rock sounds in vogue during that time, became a huge hit in Canada and North America. But by the time that their second album, Twice Removed, appeared in 1994, the band had realized that they had no need for alterna-rock trappings. Geffen was not prepared for an album that embraced the Beatles and Small Faces in equal doses. Geffen dropped the band, but the album has since something of a modern-day Pet Sounds in Canada. In two different polls, Twice Removed has been voted the best album to come from a Canadian artist, ahead of lionized albums by Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. And it is that Canadian fanbase that is still with them today. 

(Sloan chorus: SLOW-NNN!! SLOW-NNN!!!)

Canada is a quirky, crazy place. They still pledge allegiance to the Queen Of England, yet they are independent of the Olde Country. Half of the country speaks English, the other half speaks French. It’s big, and sometimes cold. But they love their music. Last year, I happened to be close enough to the Canadian border to pick up CBC television. Right there at noon, airing after the Queen’s Christmas message, was a Wainwright Family holiday special. Yes, the whole Wainwright famdamnily celebrated in a holiday special. Hosted by Rufus and Martha Wainwright. They even came onstage to perform the Roches’ Long Island (pronounced Lawn Guyland) version of “Walking In A Winter Wonderland”. Andy Williams, my ass, this was a whole lot more fun than the holiday special I sat through in the Colonies. 

I first heard Sloan in 1996, when my friend Shawn Lynch introduced me to their then-new album, One Chord To Another. If Twice Removed is the band’s Rubber Soul, One Chord To Another is Sloan’s Revolver. All of the 1960s-influenced pop and rock somgwriting craft merged with a compelling wash of diverse instrumentation of youthful spirit. In Canada, the record yielded three top 40 hits. In America, they are another band trying to gain attention amongst the messy and wildly inconsistent scene that the independent music scene was during the late 1990s. I first saw Sloan in Charlotte, NC in 1998, playing an afternoon set at a street festival. The stage they were on wasn’t even a stage, but really a six-inch high milk crate that somebody placed in the middle of the street. Even in that setting, the band rocked, and I took some really good photos that day. 

I continued to follow the band over the next few years. Through more albums, and even better live shows. Sadly, like many of my age, I was led astray be the ever-present indie rock ideals, and their desperate need to believe the current wave was somehow better than the bands that had come before them. Nevermind that Velvet Underground boxset, here’s the new Pavement album. And I wanted to believe that indie rock could still save us all, and that 1992 was already a million miles from reality, even in 1996. 

For years, I followed these bands. Drove too many miles to see them play, and even worked with a number of them as a still photographer. What seemed like a breath of fresh air, after the years of hair metal and synthsized pop of the 1980s, but now seems as contrived as the poodle poppers and Metal mall rats that preceeded them. Like many things, indie rock seemed a like idea at first, but then everyone got bored. And lost in drama that had everything to do with selling themselves, and nothing to do with the music. Oh look! The singer is wearing a leather jacket, and drunk off his butt again. That band is so cool, they don’t care about their audience, or tuning their instruments. Tonight’s should be fun! The singer is depressed again about his most recent break-up. And which break-up is this? There’s been so many, I’ve lost count.  

In time, I realized the error of my ways, and left the wannabe music of my generation behind. I don’t want a self-help program, I want to have fun. I wanted to enjoy music again, and walk away from the mopey aural wreckage of my wandering years. I want to live again, Clarence, I want live again. (Author shouts to the heavens in his best Charlie Brown voice.) "Isn’t there a band out there that doesn’t get lost in the meshuggah of indie rock? That just lets loose, has fun, and just rocks?"

(Sloan chorus: SLOW-NNN!! SLOW-NNN!!!)

In 2007, I wandered into a bar in Austin, Texas to see Sloan play at the South By Southwest Festival. The festival is itself much like indie rock, a great idea before too many people jumped on the bandwagon, sending it careening off the scenester cliff. During the show, drummer Andrew Scott came out front to play a few of his songs on his guitar. Suddnely, Andrew got distracted, and accidnetally cut his right hand wide open on the guitar’s whammy bar. I’ve seen bands end sold-out shows due to one of the bandmembers accidentally spilling a Diet Coke on their laptop, much less the bloodletting that transpired that might. Nonetheless, Andrew bandaged his hand up, figured out how to play drums with his injured hand, and Sloan still did one of the best sets I saw at the festival that year. Looking back, this should have been my moment of clarity, but a few more years would have to await.

After my first sight of them, Sloan stayed on the ABC (Anywhere But Charlotte) tour for 18 years. When they finally played Charlotte again in November of 2016, they were celebrating the 20th annversary of One Chord To Another by playing it in its entirety. This time, I was ready. After a month and a year of mind-numbing losses and jumblefudges, the show was a catharis in sound, and the long-awaited reason to throw all of my cares in the air, and wave them like I just didn’t care. The band just plain rocked. Song after song, album after album. Holy Crap. I had a freaking blast that night, and the night sent me screaming to my record collection for their albums. To Youtube searches for all of their videos that portrayed the band as the Rock God Messiahs that they are. Forget the evening news! I have seen the future. And the past, and the present, and it is Sloan!

(Sloan chorus: SLOW-NNN!! SLOW-NNN!!!)

Okay, they were never as big in America as they should have been. Substance doesn’t always win, in America. But for the last 25 years, Sloan has rocked out over consistent great 13 albums, and played consistently great shows, whether you noticed, or not. A double album, a la Kiss’ solo albums, with each bandmember getting an album side? They did that! And it rocked! And they did it all with the same four guys in the band. No lineup changes. No reunion albums. No reunion tours, followed by acrimonious solo tours that were even worse than the reunion tour. Just fun Rock & Roll, and great songs. And if that ain’t what indie rock thought it wanted to be, I don’t know what else is. 

I don’t know when I’ll be close to Canada again, but when I do, I look forward to the Queen’s Christmas message, followed by a Sloan holiday spectactular. Featuring multiple costume changes, numerous references to 1960s art house movies, and the Queen herself, dancing with Rufus Wainwright to “Money City Maniacs”.  And in the middle of it all, four guys that reminded me how much fun music can still be, and how much there still is left to discover. Even when I thought that the journey had passed me by. 

Here’s to life. Here’s to discovery. Here’s to Sloan.

Sing it, kids. 

(Sloan chorus: SLOW-NNN!! SLOW-NNN!!! SLOW-NNN!!)

-Daniel Coston

Winter 2017

I Love This Freaking Band - The Zombies

I Love This Freaking Band
The Zombies

"This will be our year, took a long time to come.”

Some of my adventures from the music that I love flash by in the blink of an eye. Discover an album, fall in love with the music. You go see them live. In my case, you sometimes end up working with the band. Things move on, and the adventure ends. But some adventures evolve over time, and unfold as the years pass. The answers only reveal themselves when they are ready. And the journey makes you appreciate the music, the people and one’s own experience a little more than you might have when the journey began. One always begins an adventure with hope. Those aspirations are often tested, and can be lost, if not careful. But given time, luck and perserverance, any good that is there may still win out. The journey can take 20 years, 50 years or more. Yet the search for sounds unheard can lead you to the most amazing places.

In 1961, a group of kids in St. Albans, England decide to form a band. Colin Blunstone came to that first rehearsal intending to be their guitar player, but was soon switched to lead singer. The other bandmember that had planned on being their singer, Rod Argent, would have to be content with being their keyboardist and backing vocalist. When they realize that their original name of the Mustangs was already taken, the band decides on a new name that no one else is sure to have, the Zombies. The band eventually coalesces around Blunstone, Argent, guitarist Paul Atkinson, bassist Chris White and drummer Hugh Grundy.

From the start, the Zombies were a little different. They were more influenced by jazz and R&B than their beat group contemporaries. Blunstone, Argent and White all sang, providing a strong three-part harmony to their songs. Argent and White also began their own songs, and were determined to get their songs recorded. When the band wins a newspaper competition with their version of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”, they bring two of their songs to their first recording session. White’s “You Make Me Feel Good”, and Argent’s “She’s Not There”. 

"She’s Not There” quickly becomes a breakout smash across England and Europe. By the fall of 1964, everything British and Beat Music was hot in America, and the Zombies quickly found “She’s Not There” becoming a top ten hit in the United States. The band’s popularity in North America would eventually eclipse their success in England, with their follow-up “”Tell Her No” charting higher in the States.

After “Tell Her No”, the hits dried up for the Zombies, despite a slew of great singles, and an excellent debut album, Begin Here. Over the next two years, the band toured the world over, trying to make a living and searching for that next hit single that never seemed to arrive. By 1967, the band was exhausted, and Decca had given up on the band. Undaunted, the band signed to CBS Records for just enough to get a new album recorded in just two weeks at Abbey Road Studios. 

That album, Odessey & Oracle, is now seen as one of the high watermarks of 1960s music. Both Argent and White wrote their best songs to date for the album, and unlike many other albums of its time, seems as fresh now as when it was released in 1968. Sadly, interest in the new album was hard to find, and the band quietly decided to call it a day. In 1969, a DJ in Idaho began playing the album’s closing track, “Time Of The Season”. By the end of 1969, the song had sold three million copies, and many discovered the album for the first time. Despite the success of the single, the members of the Zombies had already moved on to other projects, and the legend of the Zombies would left for future generations to find.  

For much of my young life, I didn’t know much about the Zombies, apart from those hit singles. Eventually, a friend gave me a tape of the Zombies singles, and I began to understand how many great songs they had. Despite that, I was initially turned off by the hype about Odessey & Oracle that had emerged in the years since from every music writer and record snob, and I didn’t give the band, or Odessey & Oracle the attention it deserved for a long time.

In 2003, a friend gave me a remastered CD copy of Odessey & Oracle. For the first time in my life, I was in the right headspace to devour the album in all of its beauty. All at once, I realized just how magical the album was. The harmonies, the songs of longing and hope. Songs of being hung up on a dream, which I still am. Songs of freedom from prison, tales of wars and roses, of friends of mine. The album finally spoke to me in the way that I now wish it had done many years before.

In 2004, Blunstone and Argent reconvened the Zombies name, and began playing shows in the United States. When the band played my home of Charlotte, NC, I was ready. I interviewed Blunstone and Argent via phone, and photographed their show with as much excitement as I’ve ever had for a show. Over the next few years, I saw the band on a few more occasions. Each time, the band began to play more songs from Odessey & Oracle, as they also began to realize the album’s impact on audiences.

In 2008, all of the surviving bandmembers (minus Atkinson, who had passed away in 2004) reunited for shows in London to play Odessey & Oracle in full. My wife and I used the money from our wedding a few months before, and bought tickets to the show. As exciting as it was to seeing and photograph the show, things didn’t work out the way they had planned. The venue was a problem, and I never got the photos I wanted. We had hoped to meet the band after the show, but another venue mishap prevented that. The sales that I hoped for the photos I’d taken never materialized. 

The trip’s mis-steps also reflected my own misgivings about where my career had gone during that period. For years, I got by on just enough work to keep going, and the woman I loved that kept me grounded in Charlotte. When we got married, my only request was that our first dance would be to “This Will Be Our Year”, a song that sits on side two of Odessey & Oracle. Even in my darkest of emotions, which I largely hid from everyone, I firmly believed that my time would finally come again, and I tried to hold myself again when I was down. Keep hoping, and keep going.

In the intervening years, the current iteration of the Zombies became even more popular, and toured even more than the original version of the band. I got to photograph Argent and Blunstone together with members of the Left Banke, my other all-time favorite group. I photographed them at a radio station interview where my friend literally used ever question I’d written for the band. Rod Argent congratulated my friend on his “good questions” after the interview, and I could only smile. They never remember me, or that I’ve met and photogaphed them several times, but that’s okay. They are rock stars now, playing to more people than ever before, and meeting all of those fans on any given night. All of whom have very similiar stories to mine. And the Zombies deserve that success.

As the fortunes for the Zombies continued to brighten, so did mine. The city I lived in, and had often given up on, began to open their doors to me. Success for me is knowing that I can take care of myself and my wife, and that the bills will get paid. I take more pride in that than photographing a hundred album covers, a hundred times over. This will be our year, indeed.

In the fall of 2015, White and Grundy reunited with the Zombies for a series of shows in the United States to perform Odessey & Oracle in full. For much of the tour, I thought my schedule wouldn’t allow me to see it. With one last possible date, I flew to Denver, Colorado with only my camera and photo pass in hand. I get three “dream goals” for the trip. Meet Hiugh Grundy and Chris White, who had written the song that I danced to at my wedding. Get posed shots of the original lineup, and get an album signed by the whole band. One by one, all three happened, and the show was fantastic. I walked out of the venue in a sleep-deprived state of euphoria. It had all come true. I was so happy, I was not even thinking about how and when I would find my way back to the airport, and the daylong journey back home. But I had come so far to reach that moment, and in that instant, I knew that it happened the way it was supposed to have happened. It just took luck, perserverance, and time. Of the season, and all of the seasons that had come and gone in the intervening years.

At any given moment today, someone will discover something that they will love for the rest of their life. A person, a form of art, a sound or vision. And the journey will begin here, again. And while their brightest moments may burn longer than others, that hope and quest for greater sounds unheard will lead them to their time of the season, their walk in the sun, and their year. No matter how long it took to come.

Here’s to hope. Here’s to discovery. Here’s to the Zombies.
-Daniel Coston

I Love This Freakin' Band: Neutral Milk Hotel

"When You Were Young, You Were The King Of Carrot Flowers...."

In 1997, I had gone to a show at a local club, and was talking to friends outside, not wanting to go back home. A friend who was working with me on a local paper said at one point, “Have you heard of Neutral Milk Hotel? I was going to give this CD to a friend of mine, but he didn’t show up, so you can go ahead and have it.” I had heard about the band, which at the time was getting lots of press for their then-new album, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. I took the album home, and it proceeded to sit on my desk for about a month.

One afternoon, I decided to put the CD on while working at the computer. I pressed play, and soon forgot about typing. From the start, I knew that there was something different about this record. With the insistent strum of Jeff Mangum’s acoustic guitar, which leads you through the album’s alternate universe. Aeroplane, was everything, all at once, a multi-colored kaleidescope of emotions, statements, ruminations and dervishes, spinning headlong into an tumbling vortex of sound. It was reaching for the sky, and floating amongst the joy and sadness that it had found. I began to stare at my computer, as though a visual equivalent might emerge from the screen. 

Soon after Jeff's guitar strum, came his voice. That voice, which sounds as though it has seen all, and is still taking it all in. When you were young, he begins, you were the King Of Carrot Flowers, and how you built a tower to the sea. The song continues with images of dysfunctional parents, shifting places, and finding love with another. As the first song ends, the instruments continue on, and Mangum suddenly shouts, "Jesus Christ, I love you." Then, the next song begins to ascend to the heavens, building and building until you fall and shake with the roller coaster you are now on, and don't want to let go of.

From there, the record is awash in emotions. Up and over we go, through the waves and undertow of life and death, re-birth, and whatever is beyond us. Songs evoke the imagery of a war-torn Europe in World War II, without calling out any specific names, places and faces. Of wishing of having some sort of time machine, of saving her sisters and mothers, and five hundred families. She is gone now, and now she is a little boy in Spain, playing pianos filled with flames, as we see the world not agree to choose roses over flies. Of people that die, and split the sun when the souls left their bodies, watching the morning paper go into a hole where no one can escape. As Mangum finishes the last song, and returns to the acoustic strum of a lone guitar, you feel as though you have lived the entire album, and want to revisit it, again and again.

"And our ashes will fly, in the aeroplane over the sea...."

The story of Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel goes back far before Aeroplane. Mangum had gone to high school with a group of friends that were as fascinated with psychedelic Rock and Roll, and music as discovery, as he was. Out of these friendships began the Elephant 6 Collective, and record label. One of those friends was Robert Schneider, who became a producer, and leader of the band Apples In Stereo. Two others were Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss, who later moved to Athens, GA to form Olivia Tremor Control. Mangum would also later move to Athens, and begin releasing demo tapes under the Neutral Milk Hotel banner. Merge Records would eventually release the band's 1995 album, On Avery Island, which began to build some interest in the band. 

Mangum had also found a like-minded collective of musicians. Julian Koster on guitar, musical saw and other instruments. Scott Spillane, who played trumpet, and other instruments, and Jeremy Barnes, who drumming sounded like eight arms playing together on once. After Avery Island's release, Mangum began to read the diaries of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, and began to have vivid dreams of those frightening days. He also fell in love with a local musician, both of which fed the writing of his next album, which came to be called In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. 

The question is often asked, "What is it that helps to create a masterpiece?" The things that help any work of art coalesce into something that many acknowledge, separately or together, and say, "This speaks to me." The question should rather be, "Why does it not happen more often?" The things and places that navigate bringing together the right people, in the right place, and at the right time, can only happen for a limited window of time. If one is lucky to document that momentary strike of lightning. And too often, that spark is gone, never to be repeated in the same fashion. 

By the end of 1998, Mangum was at the end of that spark. His new songs would be not be received in the way that Aeroplane had been, and he knew it. Rather than push forth, he just stopped. Much like the character at the end of Aeroplane, he stepped away from the microphone, and closed the door. In the intervening years, the mythology of the band, the album, and Jeff, only grew. As a photographer, I was lucky to work with many of the folks associated with the Elephant 6 collective. I did photos for Scott Spillane's band, the Gerbils, and got to meet Jeremy Barnes when he toured as a drummer with the English band Broadcast. In early 2013, I finally got to photograph Julian Koster, and his band, the Music Tapes. 

In 2011, Jeff Mangum began performing solo shows around the United States. He played small venues, and would lot allow any media at all into the shows. For a long time, I thought that my chance would not come. Suddenly, in January of 2013, Mangum booked a show at a venue in Charlotte. Again, no media was supposed to be allowed. But I had been waiting. Waiting on my miracles. I would not wait any longer. I had begun the journey with this record many years ago, and I had come to see where this holy spectacle lied. I positioned myself in the balcony where the least number of people, and Jeff's security would not see me. It was also winter, which made it easy to hide my camera and lenses underneath my coat. I took photos when the moments were right, and I sang incessantly with the sellout crowd. As the show ended, I walked outside. I smiled as I stopped to photograph the venue's marquee. I didn't need to do anything else that day. The journey, or at least this one, had come to an end. I smiled, and walked away.  

"But don't hate her, when she gets up to leave....."

It's two weeks after the Jeff Mangum show, and I'm walking past the theater that Jeff had played. There's a group of musicians out in front of the coffee shop that faces the theater, and they are belting out a scruffy version of "King Of Carrot Flowers". I know the harmony part to this song like I know the buttons on my camera, and I immediately joined in. In moments like this, I realize that my experience with the Neutral Milk Hotel, and the Aeroplane record, is a shared experience. Like finding others in the wilderness that speak your language, and have shared in that special process of discovery. And it will not die. It will go, beyond the aeroplane over the sea, where we all hope that, as artists, one's work will somewhere go. Beyond us, beyond our hands, into a different place of breathing, and understanding. Where the work stands alone, and the questions of creation are left to the ages.

For many years, it has been a game among many fans. What would you say to Jeff Mangum, if you had the chance? Does anything need to be said? What do you say to someone who created something that has stayed with you for fifteen years? That affected the way that many of us think about the possibilities of song, and sounds. That many of us have obsessed on, and will continue to do so? With all of the words in our mouths, what do you say?

Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, NMH. 

-Daniel Coston

August 22, 2013

This article quotes heavily from the lyrics of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

Since I began writing this piece, Neutral Milk Hotel have announced a large-scale reunion tour. Let the dreams begin again, anew. 

I Love This Freakin' Band - The Move

Whenever you work on a large project, be it creative, or for business, certain music can become the soundtrack to your time with that piece. When I was working on the NC Musicians photo book last year, my soundtrack was the first three Bee Gees albums, Shine On Brightly, by Procol Harum, and Nic Jones’ 1980 album Penguin Eggs. 

Recently, as I started working on a book on the North Carolina Rock & Roll scene of the 1960s, I found a podcast that specializes in music from that decade. Come To The Sunshine is fantastic show put together by Andrew Sandoval, and his shows just overflow with rare and cool nuggets from that great time for pop and Rock music. Included on the podcast was a two-hour show on the Move. I knew the band’s first album very well, and had even interviewed two of their bandmembers a few years ago. So, I’d thought I’d check out the show, and pressed play. And as the Velvet Underground once said, “And then my mind split open...”

What absolutely floored me was the show’s hefty inclusion of live recordings that the band did for the BBC. Every once in a while, your hear music in a different context, and you realize just how good someone was. And my God, the Move were good live. Yes, their own songs sound great in a live setting, but it’s their choice of covers was astounding. “Open My Eyes” by the Nazz? Check. “Rock N’ Roll” by the Buffalo Springfield? Yep. Love, Byrds, Everly Brothers, Tom Paxton? “California Girls”, with perfect four-part harmony? Yes,  yes, and heck yeah. On stage, the Move were an unequivocal Rock and Roll monster, capable of wiping the floor with any other artists that dared come near them. And they did all of this, and were listening to all the right songs, in 1968. 

The band’s story began in Birmingham, England in 1965. Inspired by a conversation with the pre-fame David Bowie, Trevor Burton and Ace Kefford begin putting together a supergroup of local musicians. Burton, Kefford, Carl Wayne, Bev Bevan and Roy Wood all “move” from their respective groups, and quickly form a powerful quintet. Much of their early shows are showcases for American R&B, Rock and soul, with the band boasting four potential lead singers (Wayne, Kefford, Wayne, and Wood), all trading off vocals. The band also adopted a smart fashion sense, with their early photoshoots looking like gangsters that traded guns for guitars.

Urged on by their new manager, Roy Wood begins writing material for the band, and the group begins beefing up their stage presence. Frontman Carl Wayne begins wielding an axe onstage, smashing televisions, and at one show, an entire car. Johnny Rotten would later remark that the Sex Pistols weren’t doing anything that the Move had done ten years before. The hits continued, although the band received a lot of bad press when their manager distributed a cartoon that got the band sued by the British Government. Roy Wood was later forced to give up all royalties from their next single, “Flowers In The Rain”, which became the first song to ever be played on BBC Radio 2 in 1967. 

Roy Wood’s songs also gave the band a unique, if quirky edge. The band’s roots were in Rock and R&B, but Wood’s songs came straight from fairyland, and fear of madness. Songs about hearing the grass grow, nights of fear, lemon trees, girls and fire brigades, and yellow rainbows, just in case the earth should fall. Wood’s high voice also began dominating the band’s music, leaving Wayne and the rest of the band in the background. 

Wood then led the band through more stylistic U-turns than a disoriented lorry driver, as the band began shedding their original lineup. The band’s “Wild Tiger Woman”, released in the summer of 1968, heralded a harder Rock sound, although the single’s poppier B-side, "Omnibus", should have been the A-side. When “Wild Tiger Woman” tanked, Wood went straight to the strings and pop angst of “Blackberry Way”, which put the band back at the top of the British charts. All the while, the band’s albums reflected their fractured mindset, and changes in personnel. After Carl Wayne left the band in 1969, Wood hired fellow Birmingham musician Jeff Lynne, who had been the singer and songwriter for the Idle Race. Be it late ‘60s hard Rock, chamber pop, or ‘50s Rockabilly, Wood and Lynne tried it all, and somehow managed to continue their run of hit singles.

By 1972, the Move were in search of a way forward. Wood suggested that they do an album that merged classical music and Rock, under a new guise: Electric Light Orchestra. After Wood left the band after their debut album (which was recorded at the same time as the Move’s swan song, Message From The Country), Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan led ELO through the heights of ‘70s superstardom. The history of one of England’s greatest bands of the 1960s became a prequel to ELO’s tale. One of ELO’s biggest hits, “Do Ya”, had even been originally done as a Move B-side, further enforcing the Move’s notoriety outside of England as a footnote to another band’s story. 

Time has allowed people to rediscover the Move, and the music that they created. What is the barometer that any artist leaves behind? Ultimately, it is the music that they leave behind. Some, like the Beatles, leave their footprints behind for all to see. The Move’s legacy is a little harder to dig for, but that does not diminish their eventual impact. BBC recordings, Youtube videos of live appearances on German TV, and of course, the records. Throughout the 60s, the Move weathered the changes, kicked ass live, and looked good doing it, which is all that any of us can hope for from any creative endeavor.

-Daniel Coston

March 28, 2013 

You can check out Andrew Sandoval's show at cometothesunshine.podomatic.com

I Love This Freakin' Band - Guided by Voices

Friends and loved ones, we are here today to mourn the loss of Guided by Voices. Again. At the end of 2011, the band put forth the rumor that the recently reformed "classic lineup" was done touring. We all gathered together for their "final" show, at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC. Songs were sung, many beers were consumed, and we all waved goodbye. Again. As we have before, with different versions of this group, known to its friends and fans as "GbV." It was a long road to this final goodbye, for many of us, with so many stories between us.

For those that have not been "GbV'ed," here is a short version of their story. The band, led by singer/songwriter/ringleader Robert Pollard, form in Dayton, Ohio in the mid 1980s, fueled by a love of 60s and 70s rock, and dreams of stardom. They write and record constantly before their fifth album, Propeller (released in 1992), starts to gather attention. Realizing that they could record as much as they wanted, and spend as little money as possible, they start recording on guitarist Tobin Sprout's four-track home recorder. This gives the albums a low fidelity, do it yourself quality that endears itself to fans. The songs also become shorter, with songs quickly merging from one, into another. By 1994, their album Bee Thousand is the toast of the indie rock scene, and they seem to be releasing a new album, or EP every week. By 2005, they band would release 14 full-length albums, and too many EPs and singles to count. To this day, Robert Pollard still releases five albums on his own every year.

I first heard about the band through a short news piece on MTV in late 1994. Not too long after that, I was in a Media Play store, and saw their then-new album Alien Lanes was on sale for six dollars. I knew nothing about their lo-fi aesthetic, or that the album featured 28 songs in 35 minutes. The first time I heard it, I thought, "What is this?" The sixth time I listened to it, I really liked it. The twentieth time I listened to it, I thought that Guided by Voices were the greatest band in the world. It was like the Beatles in another universe. They were one of the first bands I had heard that took their cues from the same 1960s records that I loved, yet played it with a heart and spirit that made it their own. Between GbV, and the Velvet Underground (whom I had also started listening to around this time), my understanding of popular music exploded, and I have not stopped listening since.

Guided by Voices was also one of the first bands I had ever encountered that inspired its own special fanbase. This was different than the Deadhead community, or other fans I had encountered growing up. GbV seems to encourage their own sense of community, like we all had been lucky enough to receive a secret code. A shared love and experience with something bigger than ourselves. The comfort in knowing that all I have to do is say the phrase, "One, Two, Big School!" and that those who know, wherever they are, will shout, sing, or think the phrase, "BIG! SCHOOL!!" The feeling of standing in a crowded room that share the same feeling as you. Everyone tied together by their love of GbV's endless fountain of great songs, and joining together in a chant of "G-B-V! G-B-V!!" before, or after the band takes the stage. It's a feeling I still look forward to.

In late 1996, I got the magazine I was with at the time to let me do interviews with various GbV bandmembers. By the time I had convinced the magazine to let me go to Dayton, Ohio to meet the band, the lineup (now known as the "classic lineup," which had recorded the albums I previously mentioned) had split up. By the time I finally saw the band in 1997, a new lineup, with Pollard still at the helm, was in place. While these later lineups will always hold a special place in my heart, the band was now a different beast. 

Also feeding this change was the crowds that were coming to the shows. Early in their career, Pollard had started drinking heavily onstage, to fend off stage fright. This led to the band, and the crowds often turning the shows into drinkfests. Some people have been surprised to learn that I largely do not drink, and yet have seen GbV fourteen times, and counting. I was never there for that. I was there for the records, the songs that made up the albums that I loved. Some will always associate the band with the communal alcohol watersheds that they often inspire, a rallying cry to drink, sing and let go as much as any human can. I understand that, but its never been my thing. 

In 2000, GbV started touring the Southeast US a lot more. I saw them in Columbia, SC, Chapel Hill, NC, Athens, GA and elsewhere, taking photos the whole time. Pollard posed for photos for me here and there, and we talked about doing more. One Friday, I was debating going to see the band play in Asheville, when my phone rang. A magazine in Pennsylvania needed posed pics of the band for a cover. Could I meet GbV at 5pm? Off I went, and the photos we did that evening also led to me having photos in Universal Truths & Cycles, their best-of, and other places.

I have had so many great experiences with the band. Going record shopping with Bob in Athens, GA, and letting him buy an album that I was desperate to have. (Still have that Montage record, Bob?) I showed up in Chicago for a festival, and appeared in the front row without telling them I was in town. The looks on their faces was priceless. I have seen Bob at his best, and, well, drunk. I have been paid a grand total of $67 by their old label, Matador Records, for a photo shoot. The following week, I received another $67 check from Matador, and someone from the label called me in a panic, pleading with me to not cash the check, saying that their system had accidentally printed and mailed another check. That second check is still in my desk, a proud souvenir of the continuing story of GbV, and me. 

By 2004, Pollard had grown tired of touring, and the lifestyles of the crowds had taken over much of the band. I saw them on their final tour, leaving an Incredible String Band show in Winston-Salem, NC, to see GbV play in Chapel Hill. And quite frankly, I should have stayed in Winston-Salem. It was like watching your friends obliterate their senses, a dark carnival of a memorial. I really like Robert Pollard, and have always enjoyed talking to him. But I know that when fans show up to "hang out" with Bob ("Hey, I consumed things with Bob Pollard!"), that my time with the Bob I've known has wound down, and the stage version of Pollard is soon to emerge. By the time the band finished later that year, I figured that I would never see the band again.

All the while, the woman that is now my wife, a native Ohioan (I once told Bob, "I have done so much with this band, marrying an Ohio lady just seemed to make sense"), let me go to Dayton to visit the band's hangouts, and gamely went with me to the band's New Year's shows, where fans of both genders were gathering in the ladies room to consume drugs, and whatever else they could get their hands on. My wife, like many, is an understanding GbV widow, and I will always be thankful for that. 

I was in Ohio in 2010, visiting my wife's alma mater, when my cellphone started ringing. It was various friends, informing me that GbV's "classic lineup" was touring again, and that a North Carolina show had been announced. It seemed strange to be in the band's home state when the announcement was made, but for me, it seemed to be a sign that things between me and this band were lining up again. By the time I returned home, their manager had already contacted me about photographing the NC show.

The show was, well, fantastic. Is it possible that an event was worth the fifteen years I waited for it? Well, this one was. A ton of great songs, a sold-out crowd going crazy (but not TOO crazy), and good experiences with the band, and everyone there. The lighting wasn't great, but I was able to pull out some good shots. I got home at 3:30 in the morning. I had to be up at 10am that morning for another gig, but I knew that I would be busy the rest of the weekend. I did a quick edit, pulled out five shots that I had immediately liked, and emailed them off by 5am. Later that weekend, GBV's manager emailed me back. Can the band use these for press? By Tuesday, the five pics were in papers in Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere. Not much money, but lots of trade-outs, photo credits and thank yous. Just like the way it used to be. But here I was, working with GBV again, and working with the lineup I had always wanted to see.

After the Hopscotch show, the band's manager asked me a question. Would it be okay if Mojo Magazine used a photo of mine? Of course, I said. Several days later, a photo of the band from the Hopscotch show appeared in Mojo, announcing a new Guided by Voices album. 

So, friends, we gather here again, for the funeral that wasn't. Much like our love for this band, Guided by Voices has returned, again and again. With three (count 'em, three) new albums this year, and new shows planned for the fall, our collective experience will continue to change, and grow. Times may have changed, but we have been changed by our time with the band, and made better by it. The hope of any art form is that one can receive love and hope through what one creates. And for many of us, there is nothing that inspires more love than the letters G, B, and V.

GbV is dead, long live GbV.

G-b-V, G-b-V...... 

-Daniel Coston

June 15, 2012

I Love This Freakin' Band - American Analog Set

It's happened to all of us. We listen constantly to an artist for a while, and then we move on to other artists. New albums, old albums, other things that take our interest from whatever held our attention for a while. Time passes, and one day you stumble over what you had listened to, and its like re-discovering an old friend. You remember when you heard that album, or that song, and your mind replays shadows of that time, usually in softer hues than how those days initially played out.

For me, certain albums are like that. Sure, there are many classic records that will always hit me that way, and always will. But for an album like Forever Changes, there's also In The Valley Of Dying Stars, by Superdrag, or Your Favorite Music, by Clem Snide. As a photographer, there's certain records that I was lucky enough to be a part of that still hold a special place in my heart. (Mignonette, by the Avett Brothers, and Darkling, by Mercury Dime, immediately come to mind.) And some records, and some bands, are just good music, and await my return.

In late 1999, I went to Fat City to see a band that I had not heard before, and had gone to see on the recommendation of a friend. Fat City was a restaurant and music venue in North Davidson, back when that neighborhood was rough and ready. I know too many stories about that place, but I saw a lot of good music there. On this night, the band I'd gone to see was the American Analog Set, a Texas group that was touring on their new album, The Golden Band.

From the beginning, I really liked the band. They looked like the indie kids I had seen here in other cities, but they were different. For one, they were influenced more by the Velvet Underground's third album as they were by whatever indie sounds were hot at the moment. I also liked their lack of airs. They weren't into flash. They just played quiet, moody, yet moving music. I took a couple of rolls of photos, and introduced myself to the band. I also bought a copy of The Golden Band, which I listened to constantly for the next couple of years.

The Golden Band sounds like an evening at home with your friends, if your friends were moody, intelligent musicians that had both a vibraphone, and a Magnus organ handy. The lyrics seem to reflect the band's outlook on life, touring, and the scene they were in. There was a lot about the scene they were in, actually, but it gave the album an intimate charm. World peace? Forget that. What about me, my friends, and so-called friends?

Over the next few years, I stayed in touch with the Analog Set, and their leader, Andrew Kenny. (Andrew sometimes went by Andrew, and sometimes went by Kenny, depending on who you talked to. A shape-shifter? Slightly, perhaps.) He asked to use some of my photos in a best-of compilation, but sadly, it did not happen. I do not have any major regrets with my photography, but there's a few "what ifs" on albums that would've been nice, if they had happened. The band changed over the next few years, and I still listened to them. But I still had a special place in my heart for The Golden Band.

I missed the band's final tour in 2005, and also missed the band's reunion in 2009. At the 2009 reunion in Austin, they played The Golden Band in their entirety. I recently found out that the entire show was videotaped, which you can now see online. Looking at it, however, I realized that I would have felt too crowded at that show. So much of my enjoyment of that album was me, at home, alone in my quiet moments, and listening to music. The way that many of us enjoy music.

Recently, I stumbled over some Youtube postings of The Golden Band, and I found myself back in those long-ago days. I remembered how much I loved that record. How I really wanted to take more photos with the band. How I went and bought a Magnus chord organ at a Value Village, because of that record. It's all still there, in my mind and on that album. Is it not cool in "the scene" that I still like the American Analog Set? Would Kenny be embarrassed by such an admission? Sod it. Time reveals all truths, and this is still the truth, to me. The listener, the fan, the photographer. The person that still owns a copy of The Golden Band.
-Daniel Coston
June 2, 2012

I Love This Freakin' Band - The Bee Gees (first three albums)

I have been meaning to write this article for some time, but with the recent passing of Robin Gibb, I am reminded again that one's plans are too often like life. Nothing is permanent, only one's momentary perception of it. That being said, while many news outlets have wanted to hold up the band's Saturday Night Fever era is the definitive Bee Gees period, I again feel the need to speak up for the band, and my favorite era of the Brothers Gibb.

If you had written it as a movie script, no one would believe it was plausible. A group of three brothers, born in England but raised in Australia, become singing stars at an early age. Starting off with singing standards from their father's era, they soon become enamored with the sound of the Beatles, and the new rock sounds coming from England, and America. At the dawn of 1967, the brothers, now in their late teens, suddenly move to London as the city is really starting to swing. Within a matter of months, they get signed to a manager with Beatles connections, and write and record their first album, which promptly makes the brothers stars on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet that's exactly what happened.

Despite writing and recording many singles in Australia, the music on 1st (released in that glorious summer of 1967) was entirely written and recorded once the Bee Gees arrived in England. And those songs- "New York Mining Disaster 1941," "In My Own Time," "To Love Somebody," among others- all now considered modern classics. Not bad for three kids (Barry Gibb, age 19, and Robin and Maurice Gibb, age 17) on their first try in the big leagues.

The influences on 1st, as well as their following two albums (Horizontal, released in early 1968, and Idea, released in 1969) seem to be coming from all over the place. Beatlesque pop-rock, baroque and chamber music, orchestral string arrangements, all done with brotherly three-part harmonies. One wants to imagine a beautiful mansion (photographed in hazy technicolor) with the Bee Gees, Zombies, Left Banke, Association, Cryan Shames and Curt Boettcher all walk around in fantastically frilly outfits, drink wine, and ponder the state of the world. And girls. All while singing in multi-part harmony.

The point I should also make is that the Bee Gees were a five-piece band. Guitarist Vince Melouney and drummer Colin Petersen, two fellow Australian ex-pats, helped to make the group the live band that makes these records what they are. Listen to the tight groove of "The Ernest Of Being George," on Horizontal, or Idea's title track, and you hear how musically tight this group was. Special mention should also go to Maurice Gibb, who not only was the balancing force between his brothers, but whose work on piano and organ, as well as bass guitar, just leaps off these albums. The compressed piano sound on "Words," when played at full volume, can still just make you stop to listen.

While 1st has some of the band's best-known songs, I'm partial to Horizontal. Something about the combination of those songs, and the sound of a band really finding their place in the studio, gives Horizontal a remarkable cohesion. Idea comes in as a close third, but when its tracklist includes "Gotta Get A Message To You," "I Started A Joke," "Idea" and "Swan Song," it was still head and shoulders over what else was coming out in 1969.

I know a number of people that feel that the band's fourth album, Odessa (released in late 1969) is their favorite Bee Gees album. And yes, it is a good record, as are their following albums (Two Years On, and Trafalgar). But for me, a sea change had taken place. Gone were the pocket symphonies, in were the grandiose concepts, with moody orchestral-pop sprawling all over the place. For a variety of reasons, the band had moved on, and moved away from the almost innocent beauty of their early albums. Not everyone shares that opinion, but that's just mine.

Sooner or later, all of the present tense of the world passes, and you're left with the work that someone has created. All differently-shaped mirrors of the time in which that work was forged. For me, I still listen to those early Bee Gees albums, and marvel in the possibilities of that moment, and the powerful combination of talent, and belief. I still believe in that, today.

-Daniel Coston
May 24, 2012

I Love This Freakin' Band - Steeleye Span

I Love This Freakin’ Band!
Steeleye Span


After years of a steady diet of indie rock and garage rock, I’ve become what some would consider hieracy. Over the last two years, I’ve become a full-fledged English folk/rock fan. Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, Trees, Heron, and many more that you can readily find on Youtube. But none captured my attention than the legendary British band Steeleye Span.

I heard about Steeleye Span through friends, and Fleet Foxes leader Robin Pecknold, who mentioned them to me after a show, and in a Mojo Magazine article. Sounds cool, I thought, but what does it sound like? Last spring, I was driving home, and the band’s “Parcel Of Rogues” came on XM’s folk channel. It’s lyrics were written in 1707 as an anti-English song of rebellion and lement. It is all a capella group vocals, save for a mournful bass drum, and an amazing double-tracked violin solo that brings it all home. I sat in my car, unable to turn it off. Soon after, I found “Parcel Of Rogues” on the 1972 album of the same name, and I was hooked.

Steeleye Span formed in 1969, after its founder Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention, fresh off of that band’s classic album Liege and Lief. Pairing with the duo of Maddy Prior and Tim Hart, the band was a true experiment, marrying English and Irish folk music to a more electric rock sound. Several members of the band have come and gone over the years, including Hutchings, who left after three albums to form the heralded Albion Band. But Steeleye has always seemed resiliant, even scoring a top ten hit in 1975 with the folk/rock hybird “All Around My Hat.” But it’s their more traditional, harmony based songs that always draw me back, like a voice that I have heard all of my life.

What is it about any creative endeavor that draws you in? What makes you like something that you used to be afraid of at renaissance festivals? Sometimes you can’t question it, you can only go with what you like. I drove six and a half hours to see the current lineup play last year, and to have the band sign my copy of “Parcel Of Rogues.” While I personally would’ve liked to have heard the band play more of the songs I knew from the early 70s, the band has continued on making music, evolving from the ideas that originally drove their ideas, which is something that all should hope to do after forty years of anything.

The signed copy of “Parcel Of Rogues” sits proudly on my desk, next to my autographed Sonics album, and my signed Rutles CD. See, all of this music can live together, in harmony.

-Daniel Coston
April 7, 2010

I Love This Freakin' Band - The Sonics

I Love This Freakin’ Band!
The Sonics

It’s September of 1999, and I’m finally getting to listening to a garage rock compilation CD that a friend has made for me. Some songs are good, some are catchy, all in all a good lesson. And then song 25, “He’s Waitin’” by the Sonics comes on the stereo, and blows away everything else in sight. It is simply the most intense slab of garage/rock/protopunk I have ever heard in my life, catchy and furious. Singer Gerry Roslie, who also wrote the song, yells and screams at a girl for cheating, telling her that Satan’s knows what she’s done, and he’s waitin’ on her ass. It’s full-on, loud and played for keeps, and then done in just two minutes. The wake of silence after the song’s completion is just breathtaking. “I don’t know what that was,” I thought to myself, “but I want more.”

The Sonics is the sound of throwing all of the doors wide open, and Niagara Falls comes gushing out at full force. There are many that have played at garage-punk, but the Sonics were, and are the real damn thing. Overarmed guitars, a drummer that sounds like he’s destroying his kit in one sitting, and a singer that can outscream Little Richard on the best of days. Throw in a fine songwriter in Roslie, with lyrics about Strychnine, witches, psychos, the devil, hustlers, and whatever else they wanted to talk about.

The roots of the Sonics began in Tacoma, Washington in the early 1960s, as brothers Larry and Andy Parypa formed an instrumental group. Over a couple of years, the additions of saxophonist Rob Lind, drummer Bob Bennett and singer/keyboardist Gerry Roslie forms a powerful lineup. After two records (Here Are The Sonics in 1965, and Boom in 1966), and with a loyal regional following, the band goes to California with a different label, trying to break into the national market. But while Introducing the Sonics features another set of great songs, the breakout doesn’t happen, and the band is done by the middle of 1968.

For years, the band seemed intent on not reforming, despite countless offers. “We want to do this right,” Gerry Roslie would later tell me. “Its got to live up to what we did before.” Finally, late in 2007, the band announces their first ever reunion shows in New York City. I buy tickets, and spend much of my honeymoon on the phone with the promoter, lining up a photo pass. But the week before the show, the promoters get greedy, demanding a $500 fee for photographing the shows. Heartbroken, I beg off, and put the tickets in my desk, wondering if I’ll ever see the band.

Just over a years later, the band announces that they’re playing SXSW. Another magazine I contribute to says that they’ve gotten an interview with the Sonics. Can I get photos? On a whim, I contact the band’s manager, Buck Ormsby, who was their manager the first time around, as well as bassplayer for the legendary Wailers, another legendary Washington garage band. To my surprise, Buck writes me back immediately. “Sure, let’s line up some posed shots while we’re down there.”

We do the photos at the band’s hotel, late in the morning. The band are very nice to me, and we have a great time talking. The photos come out pretty well, although it’s hard to have one’s expectations live up to the idea of a photo shoot with the Sonics. When I tell the band about what was going on with the promoters at the 2007 shows, guitarist Andy Parypa tells me, “You did the right thing. We’re much better now, anyway.” Absolution from the band themselves. How awesome is that?

The band played a forty-minute set that night at Emo’s, an old stage with a very low ceiling. The place was packed, and the band just tore it up. Forget how old they are now, it’s the Sonics! One of the best 40-minute sets I have ever seen, period. The band comes out for autographs afterwards, and we talk for a while, as I’m just enjoying it all. After the band leaves, I head back to where I was staying. Sure, there was another five hours worth of music all over Austin, Texas that night, but I had seen the Sonics. Need I say more?
-Daniel Coston
April 8, 2010

I Love This Freakin' Band - The Left Banke

I Love This Freakin’ Band!
The Left Banke

It’s June of 1999, and I’m driving my car down one of those endlessly humid highways. I haven’t had the best of days, and I’m missing a girl that I’m no longer seeing. I have the local oldies station for its noon show, and the dj announces a song that “a lost 45 by the Left Banke.” Having heard their biggest hit, “Walk Away Renee” for years, I turn the radio up. The song is “Pretty Ballerina,” the band’s second single, released in early 1967, and the one that should’ve been bigger than “Renee.” Everything about the song, it’s instrumentation, its piano melody based only on the white keys, and Steve Martin Caro’s amazing vocal, hits my lonely soul all at once. My world stops, and I think to myself, “What is THIS?”

A few months later, I’m at a local record shop, and somebody has turned in a CD copy of all of the Left Banke’s recordings. I happily give them $6 for the CD, and immediately fall in love with every song on the collection. The amazing three-part harmonies, and the use of strings combine for a sound that comes off like the Zombies’ younger, more melancholic American cousins, and I’m hooked.

The band’s story began in New York City in late 1965, as the city is filled with teenagers hoping to be rock stars. Four teenagers meet up, and talk about forming a band. One of them, Michael Brown is the 15 year old songwriting son of famed violinist Harry Lookofsky, and has access to his dad’s studio. The other three, singers and musicians Steve Martin (later to revert to his given name, Steve Martin Caro), Tom Finn and George Cameron, all of whom are a year or two older that Brown, join in, and start learning to play together.

From the beginning, they are a youthful, volatile lot, with numerous arguments. Brown at one point flies to California, and his father has him sent back home. Amongst all of this, the band has recorded a few songs to sell to record labels, and one of them, “Walk Away Renee,” finds the band at home at Smash/Mercury. By the end of 1966, “Renee” is a top five hit, and the band learns to play together as they hit the touring circuit.

“Ballerina” goes to number 14 in early 1967, and the band releases their first album. But as often proves to be the case, nothing stays calm with the Left Banke for long. Brown decides to break away from the rest of the band, and put out his own single under the Left Banke name. That single “Ivy Ivy,” gets to number 40 before the rest of the band files an injunction to stop the single. The band settles everything soon after, but the injunction makes radio stations afraid to play new singles from the band, for fear of further legal action. The band will release some of their best work in the coming year, including a second album, but it will largely fall on deaf ears.

After officially breaking up in 1969, its bandmembers have spent much of the last forty years trying to refom the band, only to let the same arguments split them apart again. Despite all of this, the work that comes out of these occasional recordings are still good, down to the demos that Brown, Caro and the band put together in 2001 and 2002. My collection is filled with CDRs of the band’s demos and singles that fans and collaborators have traded with me, and I really do believe that there is a fantastic record in there that may never see an official release.

I interviewed several of the bandmembers throughout that 2001-2002 period. I helped find all of the existing film footage of the band, including rare film of the band on a New Jersey TV show in early 1966 that no one seemed to know about. I’ve touted their praises to any and all that would listen. I may never get to meet the guys in the Left Banke, see them live or see them release one more great album. But there is something endearing in their dysfunctional contrariness. They will never wear bad clothes on one of those 1960s reunion package tours. They will never have to be seen on a PBS “My Music” special, trying to recreate something that they put together as young men. You will never have to see them, and say, “Wow, look at them now. They look so different.” By their absence, the band has created an aura of mystery that is sadly lacking in our modern-day music scene, and left the music to stand on its own. Which is what it should be about. The MUSIC.

Sadly, the sole reissue of the band’s music on CD, the one I picked up for $6 over ten years ago, is now out of print, and CD copies go from $60-$80 on ebay. Thankfully, their music is now available on ITunes, and loyal Left Banke have kept the music going, even when the band and their record label couldn’t provide it. Be it in a car, or on a website such as www.leftbanke.nu, the music is always there, waiting for the next moment of discovery.

-Daniel Coston
April 7, 2010

P.S. What I said above about the Left Banke never reuniting? Scratch that. I saw and photographed them in New York in March of 2011, and it was beyond amazing. Their albums are now also remastered, and available through Sundazed Records. This band still defies my own expectations, which is something that all good music can do.
-Daniel, October 2011