Majesty Shredding

Certain Songs #2570: Superchunk – “Everything At Once”

March 13, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Majesty Shredding
Year: 2010

. . .

In retrospect, the thing about Majesty Shredding was that it was full of — how you say? — bangers. From start to finish, as a matter of fact. Which, given that they’d been around for 20 years and were all well into their forties, wasn’t necessarily a given. We’ve already talked about “Digging For Something,” and “Crossed Wires,” but there was also “Slow Drip,” “Learned to Surf” and “Winter Games.”

Certain Songs #2569: Superchunk – “Crossed Wires”

March 8, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Majesty Shredding
Year: 2010

. . .

While how much I loved Majesty Shredding was a bit of a surprise, the album itself really wasn’t, as Superchunk had actually released some music in 2009, most notably the Leaves in the Gutter EP, which featured “Learned to Surf” and some other songs that didn’t make Majesty Shredding.

I grabbed that one from eMusic, but I totally missed “Crossed Wires” which came out as a 7″ single. But both those releases go to one of the reasons I loved Majesty Shredding: it wasn’t released because of contractual obligation or even the need to put out another record: instead, it was released because they had all of these great songs. Or at least that’s how it came across to me.

Certain Songs #2568: Superchunk – “Digging For Something”

March 7, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Majesty Shredding
Year: 2010

Superchunk put out just a single album after the turn of the century, 2001’s (un?)ironically-titled Here’s To Shutting Up before taking an extended break that felt for all the world like they were breaking up, even if they released live albums and compilations throughout much of the 2000s.

And it wasn’t like the band members totally faded into the woodwork, either. Mac McCaughan continued to release his solo albums under the Portastatic moniker and drummer Jon Wurster not only became a radio star from his work on The Best Show on WFMU — just as I only know him from his drumming (sorry gang, I don’t have unlimited time for everything I would love), other folks probably only know him from The Best Show — he also became the full-time drummer for both The Mountain Goats and the Bob Mould band and a shitton of other great great artists.