PSA: new Sloan album

[Dreamin']

www.myspace.com/sloan

 

Sloan's new album "Never Hear The End Of It" is being released in Canada on September 19th. Clocking in at 76 minutes and 30 tracks, it is the epic Sloan record that fans have been waiting for.

 

We have been announcing fall tour dates with more news to follow for the US and international friends.

"Fading Into Obscurity" is great. Nice to see them back on murderecords too!

 

[remphish1]

I was just listening to Pretty Together yetserday! Sweet

[Dr. Steve Brule]

sadly though, this is yet another release where they are going to shoot themselves in the foot with releasing it in Canada before the US. All the hardcore fans will order it from Canada, and when it is FINALLY released in the US it won't sell. I thought with Koch they were finally gonna get this worked out, but it doesn't look like it.

[Dreamin']

sadly though, this is yet another release where they are going to shoot themselves in the foot with releasing it in Canada before the US. All the hardcore fans will order it from Canada, and when it is FINALLY released in the US it won't sell. I thought with Koch they were finally gonna get this worked out, but it doesn't look like it.

True. Commercial suicide (in the US) is their MO, it seems... or perhaps after 15 years they're just resigned to their fate.

 

Interview with Andrew

 

ihm: After going with a major record label, why have you gone back to your own label, murderecords, to release Never Hear The End Of It?

 

AS: Because the major label whole world is a kind of this insecure, crumbling dinosaur. I think for a lot of bands it still has some value and still makes sense for them to go through those avenues, but for us it

[TheMaker]

Can't wait for this one! After a mostly disappointing decade, this is beginning to sound like a real return to form. The band have been posting some fun YouTube clips on their site (http://www.sloanmusic.com), and they're worth checking out if you'd like to hear some tantalizing album snippets.

 

I'm surprised this one hasn't leaked yet, given the last three did.

Edited September 15, 2006 by TheMaker

[Dreamin']

Canadian tour dates:

 

Sep 19 2006 - Lula Lounge, Toronto, ON

Sep 20 2006 - AJ's Alehouse, Kingston, ON

Sep 22 2006 - UNB, Fredericton, NB

Sep 23 2006 - Halifax Commons, Halifax (w/ The Rolling Stones)

Sep 25 2006 - Savoy Theatre, Glace Bay, NS

Sep 26 2006 - UPEI, Charlottetown, PEI

Sep 27 2006 - Oxygen, Moncton, NB

Sep 30 2006 - The Kee, Bala, ON

Oct 4 2006 - The Underground, Hamilton, ON

Oct 5 2006 - Le National, Montreal, QC

Oct 6 2006 - The Kool Haus, Toronto, ON

Oct 10 2006 - L3 Nightclub, St. Catharine's, ON

Oct 13 2006 - Trasheteria, Peterborough, ON

Oct 14 2006 - The Capital, Ottawa, ON

Oct 20 2006 - Silverado's, Winnipeg, MB

Oct 21 2006 - The Odeon, Saskatoon, SK

Oct 22 2006 - The Whisky, Calgary, AB

Oct 24 2006 - Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC

Oct 25 2006 - Legend's, Victoria, BC

Oct 26 2006 - Flashback's, Kelowna, BC

Oct 28 2006 - Dinwoodie Lounge, Edmonton, AB

[Dr. Steve Brule]

I'm surprised this one hasn't leaked yet, given the last three did.

 

 

I guess since they did it all in house, on their label, it was easier to keep under wraps. I think a promo or 2 are out there though...

[TheMaker]

L3 Nightclub, St. Catharines, ON

 

Woo! Local show! To hell with driving to T-Dot or Buffalo for once!

 

L3 is actually a great little club. The ground-level stage is on an elevated platform of sorts, and the bar is down on the first floor. Folks who are there to mingle and drink are free to do so, while those interested in geeking out over the band can enjoy them from up close. The Kool Haus ain't a bad club, but if you're considering that show, you might want to give L3 a shot instead.

[Papillon Parade]

I can't wait for this show. Got 2nd row tickets at the Savoy to see them

[bobfrombob]

from a trusted blog -- http://www.adamradwanski.com/blog.html

 

 

Sunday September 17, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Three cheers for unpredictability

 

A couple of weeks ago, singing the praises of Who Taught You to Live Like That in the Post, I wrote that recent history suggested Sloan's new single would be surrounded by a lot of filler on their new album. After all, that had been the pattern with pretty much everything they'd released since Navy Blues.

 

Happily, it seems I grossly underestimated them. Never Hear the End of It - with a slightly insane 30 tracks spread over 75 minutes - is the sound of a band that's broken free from routine and is thoroughly energized by it.

 

If you'd given up on Sloan, give them another shot. This is the best thing they've done since One Chord to Another.

 

>> Send your comments to Adam Radwanski

[LouieB]

Every time I see this thread I think of PF Sloan instead, who played his first gig here ever at Fitzgerald's this weekend.

 

LouieB

[Albert Hammond Jr.]

Well, I've been a Sloan fan for over 10 years. I was rockin out back in the days when Twice Removed was being released.

As for the new album, I picked it up the other day and have listened through about 3-4 times. I think that there may be some over-hype on some of the new material. First of all, every Sloan fan has a favourite songwriter in the band, mine happens to be Chris. If you are a fan of Chris Murphy's songs you will love this disc. Same with fans of Jay, as Jay seems quite well represented here.

My biggest problem is the continuous shit the Patrick pumps out. I know he's the "hit-maker" and usually pens the most successful singles, but beyond that his crap is absolute filler. Nothing changes on this album in that respect.

Overall, its very good, but 30 tracks? C'mon, cut it back to 20 and we might find a cult-classic.

[TCP]

Is it just me or is Sloan one of the best acts to come out of Canada since Neil Young?

 

p.s. this new stuff sounds great! Much better then Action Pact!

[Dreamin']

I just picked the new album up today so I haven't had much time to digest it yet. Nice to see Andrew contributing again (he was really missed on Action Pact).

[TheMaker]

I still haven't bought it (broke, boo hoo sob), but I listened to my buddy's copy in his car tonight when we made a quick out-of-town trip.

 

It's great, definitely the best record since the '90s, but the Murph may have hit an all-new low with the schmaltz on this thing. Jay's songs are all brilliant (no major shock there), it is VERY nice to hear from Mr. Scott again, and I think Patrick's Beatlesque, Navy Blues-style pop songs are maybe the high point of the album. It's a return to form, but it's an uneven one, largely because of Chris's unnecessarily sloppy April Wine '80s Love Songs (sorry), and the rockers, which are flat and lack hooks (Action Pact all over again).

 

That said, I'd love to listen to this without any distractions. Looking forward to sinking my teeth into it next week (or when it finally leaks onto the net, whichever comes sooner).

[Dreamin']

From sloanmusic.com

 

Chris and Patrick will be featured on CBC Radio's "Sound's Like Canada" tomorrow morning (Sept 22) at 10:00am across the country. You can catch the signal online at www.cbc.ca

[Kalle]

I enjoy the new disk quite a bit so far. $16.99 for 30 songs can't go wrong.

 

p.s. I actually enjoyed Action Pact alot.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Kalle

[Dreamin']

Sloan happy to keep on ticking

 

Fifteen years after Sloan formed' date=' the band is opening for the Stones and releasing an album with 30 songs.

 

BRAD WHEELER [/b']

 

Staying power, yes. Power pop, no. When critics discuss the long-running Canadian band Sloan, the term "power pop" is invariably employed. Singer-bassist Chris Murphy adjusts his spectacles and casts a glance to fellow frontman Patrick Pentland. "Do we take that as an insult?" Pentland, seated across a table, isn't sure. "For years I didn't really know what it meant," he replies. "I thought it was Michael Bolton -- powerful vocals and pop grooves. It really doesn't make any sense to me." Murphy, an amiable, funny guy, has more of an idea. "Power pop to me means a band that never made it," he figures. "It's a disguised way of saying Beatles-derived music that's doomed to fail." It's a funny quip, but somewhere the members of Badfinger and Matthew Sweet don't get the joke.

 

To answer Murphy's question, no, "power pop" is not a slur. That being said, the term, which typically applies to music that is catchy and lean, with strong melodies and snappish vocal harmonies, doesn't quite get to the whole of Sloan, a Halifax-bred quartet which adds healthy doses of psychedelic and grunge music to its package.

 

And no, Sloan is not a failure. Today the band plays to its largest crowd ever when about 60,000 fans flock to the Halifax Commons, an urban park setting that receives the headlining Rolling Stones.

 

The members of Sloan, all in their mid-to-late thirties, have resided in Toronto for quite some time now. We sit in a second-floor room of the Lula Lounge, a Toronto club where the band is later to play a semi-private show to celebrate the release of their seventh studio album, Never Hear the End of It. (At 30 songs, it's quite possible that listeners never will hear the end of it). While the sound crew noisily gets things together downstairs, and the band's other components (drummer Andrew Scott and singer-guitarist Jay Ferguson) wait for the sound check to happen, Murphy and Pentland discuss the state of the group whose membership is the same as it was in 1991, the year Sloan formed.

 

They were young, hustling and unknown at the start, but everything changed when grunge-rock pioneers Nirvana broke huge in the early nineties. The band's Nevermind album was a ground-breaking record that had fans and record labels looking for similar sounds -- a search so exhaustive that even the Halifax scene wasn't overlooked. "Nirvana changed everything," Murphy explains. "It changed our lives because we were that age and we had a record that was ready to go when people came looking for stuff like that."

 

Stuff like that was 1993's Smeared, an album of hooky, fuzzy rock that included the hit single Underwhelmed -- a catchy swirl of guitars and feedback recently deemed by the music writers of The Globe and Mail as one of the top 25 Canadian pop songs of all time.

 

After a successful debut, Sloan signed with the U.S.-based Geffen Records. The band released Twice Removed in 1994, but the label didn't get behind it so much -- the band struggled for success in America. They left Geffen and released perhaps their finest records (One Chord to Another and Navy Blues), but failed to break big outside of Canada.

 

Fifteen years into their careers now, Sloan's members have enough of a fan base in the United States to make touring there profitable, but they are not a household name there by any means. "I don't know if we care a whole lot," Pentland says. "We're always growing a little bit, but I think the idea of having a smash hit record, or becoming the next big thing isn't something we make records worrying about." Murphy agrees. "It would be great, but you can't live to do that, or else you're a failure if you don't."

 

Not that they're not trying, mind you. Today's guest slot with the Stones isn't the first time they've played on the same bill as the London rubber-skinned legends. For reasons which even the band is unsure of, Sloan opened for the Stones twice in January at Boston's hockey and basketball arena. (One Beantown reviewer noted that the band "doesn't even have a U.S. record deal," while another deemed them a "serviceable" opening act).

 

As for their impressions of the Stones then, Pentland noticed they seemed younger than he would have thought. "Keith Richards didn't seem like a decrepit old man, necessarily." Murphy, who was first in line for the Stones' secret gig at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern in 1997, saw the various Stones as diminutive. "They're small," he says. "They play ukuleles so they don't look like they're dwarves."

 

Murphy jokes -- the performances by the Stones were "fantastic," and he's a keen fan of the group that has maintained a career so productively lengthy. "They were 15 years in when they made Some Girls, which is still a pretty good record," he says. "And that means Tattoo You is coming up, which was huge."

 

What Murphy alludes to is the idea that Sloan is at the same stage now as the Stones were when they created some of their best work. So, check out the guys of Sloan at tonight's concert -- they're the ones singing along to the Stones' mid-career hit, Start Me Up.