Another Form of Relief

It’s an odd journey that has led to The Twilight Hours. Long time readers will be aware of my love for late 80s / early 90s Minnesota band Trip Shakespeare. When that band dissolved, bassist John Munson went on to join Semisonic, while front man Matt Wilson seemingly wandered around in the abyss, releasing only one solo album in ten years. In 2001, Munson and Wilson formed The Flops, a two-man band that played a mixture of old Trip songs, some of Wilson’s solo work and some other bits and pieces. They released a grand total of one live CD, disappearing again in 2005. Sometime after that they started billing themselves as The Dark Nights, which has now morphed in to The Twilight Hours. Only now, seventeen years after the breakup of Trip Shakespeare, do we actually get some new material from two incredibly talented individuals.

And you know what? It’s slightly disappointing. I suspect this is because of how much I’ve built this up in my mind over the years. I adore those Trip Shakespeare records, as well as virtually everything Semisonic and Matt Wilson have put out in between. What I’m struggling with here is that this whole album feels just a little too MOR. There’s nothing strictly wrong with it, and Wilson’s vocal remains compelling throughout. It can’t seem to help remaining a little flat though.

That said, it has it’s moments too. The new arrangements for older Wilson songs Forgot Me Now and Queen of Tomorrow are largely successful. The song below, My Return, is the closest the record ever gets to the Trip sound of old. Vocals play off of each other, guitars rev into life and harmonies pop in at just the right time. It still feels like it’s being held back a little, but after this amount of time, I’ll take what I can get.

Stereo Night is out now in “Good enough for me” mp3 quality (160kbps) for absolutely nothing from the band’s website. Also available in “When it comes to music, I don’t like to compromise too much” mp3 quality (320kbps / $7) or “I’m a person of high quality, I’ll need your best music” CD for $10. More bands should be adopting this system.

The Flops make me sad. Not necessarily in a bad way, but sad nonetheless. The fact they don’t exist anymore doesn’t help, but the worst part is the feeling that they were the closest thing to ever sound like Trip Shakespeare. This isn’t really all that surprising given that both members of The Flops, Matt Wilson and John Munson, were in that band. I maintain that Trip Shakespeare are one of the most criminally underrated bands of the last twenty years.

The Flops, while never quite managing those dizzy heights, have that wonderful feel of nostalgia about them. They never formally recorded anything in the four years they performed, only putting out a live album instead. This was largely made up of performances of Trip Shakespeare and Matt Wilson material, with a few other bits thrown in. In 2005, The Flops project was deemed over and a new band was supposed to rise from the ashes. It never did. John Munson now plays in a jazz band, while no one seems to know what Matt Wilson is doing. Which is a shame as he is a ridiculously talented singer-songwriter.

This song may not work for you if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but it should hold up on it’s own. A mournful tale of the one that got away, supported by nothing more complex than a gently strummed guitar. If one song could pin down melancholy perfectly, this would be it.

It’s sunday and I’m not feeling particularly creative, which means you get a bunch of covers! There’s a certain irony that these posts I add when I’m feeling lazy seem to get more hits than ones where I’m actually trying, but we’ll overlook that little factor.

MP3 Ben Kweller – BK Baby (expired) (Vanilla Ice)
This isn’t a strict cover as Ben has changed it round a little to fit himself. I don’t know if he still does this, but he always used to open his shows with this song, which is one hell of a way to get attention. It’s just him and acoustic guitar, rocking out as hard as he can, declaring who he is. Some of the words have been changed to make it decidedly uncool (“rollin’ in my grey Volvo”), which adds a nice irony given he’s about the last person to “rock the mic like a vandal”.

MP3 The Flops – I’m In Love With A Girl (expired) (Big Star)
Covering Big Star seems to be in thing to do these days (how many versions of Thirteen are there?) but you don’t hear this one done very often. It’s a tiny song that’s unapologetically positive to the point where it’d probably become nauseating if it ran a full four minutes. As it is though, it works perfectly. The Flops version doesn’t really add anything to the original, but it’s another way for me to push a little Trip Shakespeare / Matt Wilson love on here.

MP3 Ben Folds – Get Your Hands Off My Woman (expired) (The Darkness)
Just about the strangest cover here, this was the last song in a set of covers that Folds offered up in his run of EPs before ‘Songs For Silverman’. For what it’s worth, I think that The Darkness are one of the most awful bands I have ever heard, and I think this song is pretty terrible. Folds can’t really do a great deal to recover it, but it’s certainly interesting to hear it turned into piano rock. There’s also something mildly fun about Folds bellowing “get your hands off my woman motherfucker” in the highest voice possible too.

MP3 Ted Leo – Dancing In The Dark (expired) (Bruce Springsteen)
Ted Leo seems to like a good cover as much as I do (his ‘Since U Been Gone / Maps’ medley seemed to cause a small blog storm last year) and this is certainly a good choice for him. It seems somewhat bizarre that he would mellow the song considerably from the Springsteen one, reducing to just an acoustic guitar and restrained vocals. It works well though, and it suits Leo’s style pretty well.

Site stuff..

Honestly, the MC Lars report is coming, I’ve just been holding off a little to see if any pictures from the show turned up online as I didn’t take any myself. I’ve found some of the support act but none from the MC Lars set. I’ll give it until tonight and then just post anyway if nothing shows up.

I’ve got some ideas for a couple of new (semi) regular features in the works. The first is something similar to these cover posts where we look at great songs that are under two minutes in length. Seeing as these songs are often overlooked and I have a short attention span, this could be kind of fun. The second is something along the lines of 6Music’s “great lost albums”, where a great overlooked album is looked at retrospectively. I’d limit this to within the past ten years as that’s the music I know well. Pretty much the albums that bloggers would be jumping all over if they were released now, but are sadly unappreciated as it stands. I’m thinking of things like Enon’s ‘High Society’ or The American Analog Set’s ‘From Our Living Room To Yours’. Of course if anyone has any suggestions for albums that fit the criteria, feel free to leave them below.