Certain Songs

Certain Songs #2340: Son Volt – “Afterglow 61”

April 10, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Okemah and The Melody of Riot
Year: 2005

. . .

And so, after Wide Swing Tremelo, Jay Farrar broke up the initial version of Son Volt and embarked on a solo career, producing two studio albums — 2001’s Sebastopol and 2003’s Terroir Blues, plus a film soundtrack, two live albums, and two compilation albums: one for Son Volt and one for Uncle Tupelo. The only one I truly enjoyed was 2003’s Uncle Tupelo compilation, and I didn’t even enjoy that as much as I enjoyed the Uncle Tupelo reissues that also came alongside it.

That said, I wonder if it was the act of compiling the Son Volt record that got Jay Farrar to reunite them. Well, not so much reunite, but reconfigure, as nobody from the original crew came back. The most cynical take was that “Son Volt” had more brand juice behind it, but it’s possible that Farrar just liked leading a band. And in the subsequent 17 years, the line-up has changed, but some of the same names keep joining him. Okemah and the Melody of Riot was probably Farrar’s best album since Trace, and it set up a pattern that has held ever since: Son Volt would release a record that sounded basically like the other ones, and I’d (sometimes eventually) would listen to it, and every few albums, he’d put out a song that totally killed me.

Certain Songs #2339: Son Volt – “Blind Hope”

April 9, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Wide Swing Tremelo
Year: 1998

. . .

In 1997 Son Volt followed up their stellar debut, Trace, with the very-much-nonstellar Straightaways. A quarter-century later, I don’t remember why I didn’t like it, I just know that I didn’t.

I might not have been the only one, because Son Volt instantly followed it up in 1998 with the much much better Wide Swing Tremelo, where they rocked things up a bit. So ironically, my favorite song on the record was a slower one, the atmospheric near-ballad “Blind Hope.”

Certain Songs #2338: Son Volt – “Route”

April 8, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Trace
Year: 1995

. . .

The first time I saw Son Volt was when Rox & I saw them at the Fillmore in March of 1996, and they — and the opening band, Blue Mountain — were really good, and the set list was pretty much all of Trace, and a wide sprinkling of Uncle Tupelo songs to boot. Which was kinda cool, since I never got to see Uncle Tupelo.

That said, we were still doing to comparisons to Wilco at the time, and the Wilco show that Rox and I saw a few months prior at Slim’s is still one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen (as was the second time, at the Great American Music Hall). Obviously, I’ll discuss all of this when we get to Wilco in, let’s say, 2024, but it was clear that Jay Farrar really had no other interest outside of playing his songs for you. Honorable, of course, but maybe less fun in concert, too.

Certain Songs #2337: Son Volt – “Windfall”

April 7, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Trace
Year: 1995

. . .

There was never any doubt in my mind about who was going to win the Uncle Tupelo break-up. After all, Jay Farrar had that great guitar sound and the aching voice that made Future Certain Songs like “Factory Belt,” “Whiskey Bottle” and “Anodyne” utter staples in my life after I’d discovered them a couple years prior.

And sure, Jeff Tweedy, the bass player with the rasp, had inherited the remnants of the final version of Tupelo and made A.M., an album I well and truly loved, but Grant Hart beat Bob Mould to the punch with the immortal “2541,” and we all know how that eventually turned out, don’t we?

Certain Songs #2336: The Soft Pack – “Down on Loving”

April 6, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Soft Pack
Year: 2010

. . .

Before they changed their name for this album, San Diego’s The Soft Pack called themselves “The Muslims,” the kind of cheeky thing you do when you’re a young snotty punk band and you’re sure no one is ever going to hear your music. So when they started getting some buzz after a self-titled EP they changed their name for all the reasons you cringed when you read “The Muslims.”

Which has absolutely nothing to do with today’s song in any way, shape or form; the ferocious “Down on Loving,” another highlight from their self-titled debut as The Soft Pack.

Certain Songs #2335: The Soft Pack – “C’mon”

April 5, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Soft Pack
Year: 2010

. . .

Too bad they were only 15 years too late.

Had San Diego’s Soft Pack come out with their self-titled album in 1995 instead of 2010, it might have been a hit, but by then, hooky punk-pop had long since burrowed back into the underground from whence it came.

Certain Songs #2334: The Soft Boys – “Mr Kennedy”

April 4, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Nextdoorland
Year: 2002

. . .

Since there wasn’t any animosity surrounding their break-up, The Soft Boys actually reunited twice: the first time was in 1994, where they played a few shows in the U.K. to tour for the box set The Soft Boys 1976-1981, though it’s hard to tell how much Kimberley Rew was involved with that one, though both bassists Andy Metcalfe and Matthew Seligman were apparently onboard, as was drummer Morris Windsor. This, BTW, was after Hitchcock disbanded the Egyptians, which of course featured Metcalfe and Windsor. By the way, this will all be on the test.

The second time was in 2001, when Matador did a big 20th anniversary set for Underwater Moonlight, and it was the same musicians who played on that record: Hitchcock, Rew, Seligman and Windsor. And that proved to be so successful that they went into a studio and recorded their first album since Underwater Moonlight, 2002’s Nextdoorland.

Certain Songs #2333: The Soft Boys – “There’s Nobody Like You”

April 3, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Two Halves For The Price of One
Year: 1981

. . .

For a band that only recorded two studio albums in their original incarnation, The Soft Boys discography is a bit of a mess. Besides those two albums, they recorded a bunch of singles, EPs, b-sides and songs that didn’t originally get released while they were still around. Also confusing: original bassist Andy Metcalfe was replaced by Matthew Seligman for Underwater Moonlight, but came back to work with Hitchcock (along with drummer Morris Windsor) as one of the Egyptians.

Anyways, after Underwater Moonlight blew me away, I went casting about for more Soft Boys music, and the next thing that I found was the strange Two Halves For The Price of One, a compilation that put together one side of Underwater Moonlight outtakes (called Only The Stones Remain) and one side of live recordings from that same period (called Lope at The Hive).

Certain Songs #2332: The Soft Boys – “Underwater Moonlight”

April 1, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

Despite all of the tasty psychedelic goodness that preceded it, Underwater Moonlight ended with its very greatest song, making it like who’s next in that the four best songs on the record opened and closed it, with the final song being an epic for the ages.

“Underwater Moonlight” opens with drummer Morris Windsor’s kickdrum on every beat while he twiddles around on his hi-hat with bassist Matthew Seligman adding cool random notes while Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberly Rew play off-beats with their guitars. And then Hitchcock tells a tale as old as time.

Certain Songs #2331: The Soft Boys – “Queen of Eyes”

March 31, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

And so Underwater Moonlight went through a slew of great songs, including three that I very much almost wrote about: the footstomping “Positive Vibrations” with its insane guitar hook, sitar solo and amazing coda; “Insanely Jealous” which featured not one, but two rave-ups without getting faster, and the instrumental with the inside-out guitars, “You’ll Have to Go Sideways.”

All of which are great, but just set up the final two songs, the first of which is the insanely gorgeous “Queen of Eyes,” the first of Robyn Hitchcock’s power-pop songs for the ages. “Queen of Eyes” opens with Hitchcock’s and Kimberly Rew’s guitars in an quantum entanglement sent straight from psychedelic heaven, and a song that is on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Psychedelic Power Pop Division.