Moof_Milker Wrote:I remember first hearing of a Gord solo album in the summer of 2000. Obviously I was excited, but I remember thinking, does a solo record mean Gord's not happy in The Hip? Are his creative/artistic itches not being scratched well enough? What would these new songs sound like? How would they compare to The Hip? I was dying to know. Flash-forward to early 2001 when a few tracks from the album leaked on Napster. Trick Rider was the first one I heard. I was taken aback. It was a much softer, quieter Gord...and I loved it. Coke Machine Glow instantly became a favourite album of mine. 15 years later it's still one of my all-time favourite albums. The atmosphere that album creates is incredible. The whole album is one big highlight for me. The music, Gord's vocal performance, and his words just take me away every time...even today. His delivery of "...dream of the lofty pines" at the end of Lofty Pines sounds like an ethereal Roy Orbison to me. It's perfect. All of it. And I don't know if it's same place as the one mentioned in the song, it ultimately doesn't matter, but here's my favourite Hip/Gord-related souvenir:
As mentioned above, I do recall hearing that The Battle of the Nudes contained a lot of material that didn't quite make it onto CMG for whatever reason. My expectations were exceedingly high for BotN, which is probably why it's not my favourite Gord album. It's very hard/impossible to compete with CMG imho. There are many moments and songs I love on the album, but I dare say some of it came across a tad pretentious to me. The line between genius and pretentious can be a thin one, and (for me) CMG and BotN drew that line. Again, there are songs I love on the album (like Figment and Pascal's Submarine) but it's not an album I revisit much. Hopefully one day I will. Hopefully my opinion will change, but now I just think of it as the album that followed CMG and isn't really as good.
The Grand Bounce is an incredible record. A worthy companion to CMG. A great record top to bottom. Retrace might be my favourite song - "High as an elephant's eye...before we even left...". And as mentioned above, Yellow Days is fantastic. The music and the lyrics are flawlessly in sync. From the opening gated symbol crash it just creates an atmosphere of heavy humidity that suits the words so well:
"Summer on, bring on august trash
The sweat of Johnny Cash
The hot-knife to the hash
The girls in the grass
Summer, bring it on, oh, at last
The Conquering Sun is another classic for me. It's such a perfectly tight, punchy, poppy, fun record. Gord and the Sadies work so well together. Another skip-less album for me. I love every song. Seeing them play this record in a small theatre with only about 300 people was one favourite live Gord experiences every. I honestly feel that if there was one Gord/Hip show I could magically be transported to, this might be it. I'll never forget being right up at the front and during 'Saved' Gord looked right into my eyes as he sang, "And the music gets so loud it flaps your pant leg". The 'your' being me. Long ago, I was lucky enough to be front row at a Hip show in a small theatre and Gord, after blowing a line, handed me the mic to sing a line. Hard to beat that experience, but this one was close. If there's one Gord album that should have really broken though, it's this one. It's a very accessible album that could have easily been a huge commercial success. "Devil Enough"? C'mon, there's hit song if I ever heard one. "Demand Destruction" too. Instead the album kind of came and went it seems. For any fair-weather fan hopping back on the Gord train this summer, this might be the album I would say to go to first. Even my boys (only 2 and 4 years old when it came out) like this one - whenever we would be driving around and Budget Shoes would come on, they'd sway in unison in the backseat singing out loud, "My sleeping boots, they slow down the wind..."
Needless to say, I can't wait to hear Secret Path.
Thanks for reading...and for sharing your thoughts on these albums too. I could talk about, and read about, Gord's solo records all day long.
