Superchunk

Certain Songs #2566: Superchunk – “Burn Last Sunday”

March 5, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Indoor Living
Year: 1997

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Superchunk kept it moving forward in the mid-1990s, releasing two records in 1995: the singles compilation Incidental Music (1991-1995) as well as a regular studio album, Here’s Where The Strings Come In. Just because I’m not writing about any of the songs from either of those records — though the song “Foolish” (left off of the album of the same name) from the former and the long and lovely “Sunshine State” from the latter are both worth checking out. As are both albums, honestly.

Certain Songs #2565: Superchunk – “Driveway to Driveway”

March 4, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Foolish
Year: 1994

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It’s always difficult when the people who founded a band — who founded anything, really — break up. Oft times, it signals the demise of the band, as they realize that the need for full separation outweighs everything else. Other times, though, they soldier on, which is what happened with Superchunk as singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance broke up as Superchunk was working on their fourth album, 1994’s Foolish.

Honestly, I have no idea what happened: they were a couple. They founded Superchunk. They founded Merge Records. They broke up, and both Superchunk and Merge Records remained going concerns. Everything else would be speculation on my part, up to and including whether or not any of the songs on Foolish and the subsequent albums were about the breakup, though Ballance has discussed how difficult it was to tour Foolish.

Certain Songs #2564: Superchunk – “Mower”

March 2, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: On The Mouth
Year: 1993

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At the same time that Superchunk were releasing all of the singles that ended up on the epochal Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91) compilation, they also recorded two albums for Matador: 1990’s Superchunk and 1991’s Steve Albini-engineered No Pocky For Kitty.

Certain Songs #2563: Superchunk – “The Train From Kansas City”

March 1, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91)
Year: 1989

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While Superchunk’s version of the immortal “The Train From Kansas City” wasn’t the first version I ever heard — that would be The Shop Assistants version from their 1988 album, which I’d purchased in the wake of my love for The Primitives — it was the first one that well and truly stuck with me. Probably because I listened to Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91) way more than I listened to that Shop Assistants album, though I did put their version of “The Train From Kansas City” on a mixtape, so it musta stuck stuck out a bit.

Certain Songs #2562: Superchunk – “Garlic”

February 28, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91)
Year: 1990

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As someone who learned early on that the stinking rose makes just about every type of meat that much more tasty — and once or twice ate the stuff raw (after several drinks, of course) — I absolutely couldn’t resist one of the other highlights of Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91), the gloriously noisy “Garlic.”

Certain Songs #2561: Superchunk – “Slack Motherfucker”

February 27, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91)
Year: 1990

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OK, so a couple of things here: I’m using a couple of technicalities to start off the Superchunk posts with “Slack Motherfucker.” First, while it was the first single to be credited to “Superchunk,” it wasn’t the first single they released, as they had released a single in 1989 — which has their great version of “Train From Kansas City,” — credited to “Chunk,” an inside joke based on the name of their drummer, Chuck Garrison, being misspelled in the phone book.

Secondly, while “Slack Motherfucker” also showed up on their 1991 self-titled debut, the album to hear it is their early singles compilation, 1992’s Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91), which I think rivals the Buzzcocks Singles Going Steady or Squeeze’s Singles 45s and Under in terms of perfectly capturing a band that left it all out there on the 7″ single.

24 Musical Moments to Die For

August 29, 2008 by Jim Connelly

You can talk about genres, artists, albums, or even songs, but sometimes what keeps us coming back to music is the discovery of the transcendent musical moment. For me, “the moment” is the part of the song that fully and utterly engages me; the reason that I keep coming back to it.

I’m not necessarily talking about hooks here, because the purpose of a hook is the draw you into a song. I’m really talking more about traps: the part of a song that that keeps you there.

The is the second in a series. The first one had 25, this one has 24.

Every single moment I’ve listed below kills me single every time I hear it.

Oh, and this isn’t in any kind of order, despite the numbering.