First off, go ahead and mosey on over to THIS INCREDIBLE SHINS PAGE and get all The Shins / Flake Music (pre-Shins) stuff you might need for the road. Don’t worry though; if you don’t know what you need I’ve parsed the best b-siders for you like sliders from grinders BELOW. It’s ON!
The taco truck pictured in the back of this photo may very well be the end-location of the Shins' ex-drummer. In fact I could use one of those puppies right about now ...
I don’t know what’s going on with this band anymore, and Broken Bells – James Mercer‘s band with Danger Mouse — broke my balls until I had none left to spare, an apple that fell far, far from the tree.
Oh, and Mercer kicked out Marty Crandall and … the drummer out of The Shins (the original bass player left too); in fact it’s tough to think of a band that’s shed more skin over the last five years than my beloved Shins. And I wasn’t even much of a fan of Chutes Too Narrow …
It’s sad because The Shins have some of the best long-lost, mostly unheard b-sides of any band out there; that and one of my all-time favorite records, Oh, Inverted World.
Be sure to check out these tunes from the above stable of free-downloads:
- “Sphagnum Esplanade” – This is one of Mercer’s odd little ducks that, for some reason, seems to be too next-level to appear on one of his proper albums. That’s a shame, as this slow-burbling blob will sink into your skin and become a part of you. Mercer also mentions the hyper-weird, hyper-amazing track from Oh, Inverted World, “The Weird Divide,” on his way to summarizing, “There are things we never will define.” I become newly awestruck every time I hear this song, and the few I’ve talked to that know of this track feel the same way. Join the club!
- “The Gloating Sun” – A piece apart from most of the Shins’ discography, “The Gloating Sun” is an acoustic number along the lines of “New Slang” but, to me, just as inspiring if not flat-out better. Very gentle, nice and elf-like but with a bit of the uptightness I always sensed from those early ’70s folk bands. Not to be missed in its up-strumming, effects-mixed-with-acoustic-guitar noodling that sounds playful and experimental but keep in mind that’s how Shins always worked best, to me, whether they were a one-man project or not.
- “Eating Styes from Elephant Eyes” – Easily the zaniest song in the Shins — as opposed to Flake Music, who got even nuttier — canon, “Eating Styes” was a song I found on AudioGalaxy back in the download-or-bust days at community college. I love its loose, loud feel, like smacking concrete with a hammer then delighting at the sparks flying toward the sky. Not by any means a great, or even good, song, “Eating Styes from Elephant Eyes” in nonetheless fun to revisit because it proves how off-their-rockers the Shins used to be in their days of Superchunk worship.
- “When I Goosestep” - As far as I know this number is still a live offering, and the classic Shins lineup used to always include this tune as far as I can remember (was anyone else there for that two-night show in Seattle back when Shins were first getting sensitive and popular? The Fruit Bats, Busy Signals and Treasure State — the latter whom ruled — opened the show), and for good reason. It’s not one of the shiniest stones in the glass casing, but you get the feeling Mercer was slowly finding his way to tunes like “Know Yr Onion” et al through short, sweet “POP”s like this.
Excellent post!