Swervedriver

Certain Songs #2603: Swervedriver – “English Subtitles”

April 29, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: I Wasn’t Born to Lose You
Year: 2015

. . .

And so after the inevitable Swervedriver reunion tours to support their late 2000s reissues, came the not-quite-as-inevitable reunion album, 2015’s I Wasn’t Born to Lose You. As you know, reunion albums can be quite dodgy — insert standard Pixies joke here — but I Wasn’t Born to Lose You stuck with Swervedriver’s core strengths: the lovely, noisy guitar interplay between Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge and Franklin’s dreamy vocals.

Certain Songs #2602: Swervedriver – “The Birds”

April 28, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ejector Seat Reservation
Year: 1995

. . .

I spent over a decade thinking that Swervedriver’s first two albums — 1991’s Raise and 1993’s Mezcal Head, for those of you keeping score at home — were the only things they’d ever released. This is because of a historic spate of record company shittiness: in 1995, they delivered their third album, Ejector Seat Reservation, to their U.S. label, A&M, and their U.K. label, Creation, and got epically screwed by both labels.

Certain Songs #2601: Swervedriver – “Planes Over The Skyline”

April 27, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Mezcal Head (Bonus Track)
Year: 1993

. . .

While I bought — from Ragin’ Records, of course — and enjoyed both 1991’s Raise and 1993’s Mezcal Head, I didn’t really fall in love with Swervedriver for another dozen years or so, a story I’ll discus in more detail tomorrow. Let’s just say that 1991-1993 was an incredibly intense time for music for me, and more great shit was released in that period than I could fully process.

Not to mention that Swervedriver released quite a few singles and EPs in the period with bonus tracks that never made those albums, none of which I discovered at the time.

Certain Songs #2600: Swervedriver – “Duel”

April 26, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Mezcal Head
Year: 1993

. . .

One of the precursors of Certain Songs was a feature I wrote in this here blog called “Musical Moments to Die For,” where I would describe a part of a song that utterly killed me, with an actual audio embed of the song that I’d created in Audacity. I also did full audio versions of them as inserts in the long-gone Medialoper Bebop podcast, which I guess you can still find on Apple Music.

Anyways, the very first installation of Musical Moments to Die For, 25 Musical Moments to Die For (the second had 24, the third had 23, etc. I made it down to 15 Musical Moments to Die For before I stopped) featured this song, Swervedriver’s “Duel.”

Certain Songs #2599: Swervedriver – “Rave Down”

April 25, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Raise
Year: 1991

. . .

When we get to The Yardbirds, we’ll have a deeper discussion of what it means to “rave up,” which I’m assuming is the concept upon which Adam Franklin is turning on its head on the other greatest song from Swervedriver’s Raise album, the monumental “Rave Down.”

Opening with a shitton of massive guitars from Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge over drummer Graham Bonnar’s bouncy drum part, “Rave Down” veers into psychedelic territory even before it eventually opens with the chorus.

Certain Songs #2598: Swervedriver – “Son of Mustang Ford”

April 24, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Raise
Year: 1991

. . .

Swervedriver were associated enough with the whole shoegaze movement that their debut album Raise landed at #15 on Pitchfork’s 2016 list of the 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time, and you can definitely hear why.

That said, there is a bit more dust, grit and momentum on Raise than there was on the records of most of their contemporaries, as many of the songs barreled forward with the power and noise of, say, Daydream Nation.

Medialoper Bebop Episode 13: Phony Clashmania

August 4, 2011 by Jim Connelly

MTV turned 30 this week, and Jim, Tim & Kirk discuss its influence and the time that Kirk said “I Want My MTV” for a cable tv contest. (03:45 – 15:25)

Then, it’s a Musical Moment to Die For with “Duel” by Swervedriver (15:30 – 17:33)

Game of Thrones is totally blowing up right now, so we get into a spoiler-free discussion about how we all got into it and why we like it. (17:35 – 29:10)

Medialoper Bebop has a sponsor now: DuroSport Electronics. We’re not happy about it at all. (29:30 – 31:50)

After that, we look at why the London Tourism Bureau is using “London Calling” to try and bring people to London for the 2012 Olympics. (29:35 – 37:16)

Finally, Tim shares the music in his mix: Portugal.The Man; Arctic Monkeys; Fountains of Wayne. And tosses in an extra plug for the new Jane’s Addiction song. (37:18 – 41:05)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:47 — 69.8MB)

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