John Munson and Matt Wilson’s new venture The Twilight Hours (click this link to buy this glory) and their sensational new album Stereo Night have made me come over all Trip Shakepearean again and through that a bit Semisonicky.
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I have always really love Semisonic, particularly their first two albums and it was through my adoration of them that I finally discovered their previous band Trip Shakespeare who I really, really love. The second album Feeling Strangely Fine is one of the albums I reviewed for Mojo back during my brief period of writing for them. When I met them at their first London gig (at the 100 club) they were so happy to meet me because they had been really worried how the British press would be and my review, the first one they saw, was glowing. And for the first and only time I got a quote up on an advertising poster stuck up round town for the album.
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the mojo review
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They were really nice guys deserving of the success Closing Time had finally brought to them and really enthusiastic when I talked about my love for Trip Shakespeare. Both Dan and John later got my address from Mojo and Dan sent me a rare live trips promo and John then sent me a live mixing board of trips he dug up. I was very touched. I did try to do an email interview but they were so busy at the time. Quite a time later (in April of 1999), Dan did get around to answering a few questions about the bands debut album Great Divide but then life moved on and it never got used. I found it in a draw a few days ago and had quite forgotten about it. Definately worth a post I thought upon seeing it again.
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Dan Wilson April 1999:
Dan Wilson April 1999:
"My favourite tracks on Great Divide are The Prize, Down In Flames and 'Temptation. I think these have the most soul. "Across the Great Divide" sounds really good to my ears. My favourite songs are probably "Falling" and "Down in Flames. I think there was a heavy soulful vibe to a lot of the lyrics that we as a band underplayed. I think this is my main problem with the finished album We under emphasised the lyrics and the messages of the songs. When choosing between the vocals and a big cloud of noise loops and interesting sonic ideas we chose the sonic stuff every time. And unfortunately, this stuff was not what Paul Fox the producer found most appealing about the band anyway. So there was a strange conflict in the conception of the album. Paul is a really fun, interesting, interested guy. He was great at launching into stuff with very little plan, but he didn't like to do this. Paul has great ears and especially when dealing with bass and drums he could get the grooves to really pop. But when it came to the tones of the instruments, he and I actually had many long arguments that unfortunately didn't get us anywhere -- we didn't find the common ground I was hoping for. I think he thought a lot of my ideas for how the guitars should sound were unprofessional. I don't mind it if a sound has an amateurish quality, if it sounds like something is breaking. Paul’s response was
"Not with my name on it, you don't!"
It happened quite a few times that I or John or Jake would suggest something and Paul and Ed would say,
It happened quite a few times that I or John or Jake would suggest something and Paul and Ed would say,
"You can't do that on a real album."
I think we wanted more of a combination of great and terrible sounds and Paul and Ed only wanted the great ones. In the end the album turned out quite well, despite my misgivings. We left off Wishing Well which we’d previously done on the Pleasure e.p. We did an even slower, heavier version with Paul that sounded to me very out of place on Great Divide. Paul thought leaving it off was a mistake. We also did a version of Making A Plan which didn’t make the cut and which I haven’t listened to for awhile, it was quite rockin’. Now I realise we’ve done a version of Making A Plan for each of our albums (there was a very spacey one recorded for Feeling Strangely Fine) and it never has come out as yet."
I think we wanted more of a combination of great and terrible sounds and Paul and Ed only wanted the great ones. In the end the album turned out quite well, despite my misgivings. We left off Wishing Well which we’d previously done on the Pleasure e.p. We did an even slower, heavier version with Paul that sounded to me very out of place on Great Divide. Paul thought leaving it off was a mistake. We also did a version of Making A Plan which didn’t make the cut and which I haven’t listened to for awhile, it was quite rockin’. Now I realise we’ve done a version of Making A Plan for each of our albums (there was a very spacey one recorded for Feeling Strangely Fine) and it never has come out as yet."
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Dan has a new live double album out now. I haven't heard it yet but its bound to be a real treat.
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A letter from Dan...I wonder where he heard about Todd from?
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