I'm going to try to explain my love of 90's alt rock bands, but not the Nirvana's, Pearl Jam's, Soundgarden's, Alice In Chains, STP's etc (though I do like these bands). Instead I'm going to focus on the "little guys", the underdogs, bands people may have forgotten or dismissed as one hit wonders. I can tell you from experience, these bands have more than 1 good song and still get some heavy spins from me. I don't feel it's nostalgia, rather it's music I enjoy listening to that happens to be 15-20 years old!
Gin Blossoms
Most probably know Hey Jealousy and Til I Hear It From You. Maybe also Follow You Down. And they only had 2 albums before disappearing for a very long time. I have always enjoyed the Gin Blossoms. Their straight ahead, catchy jangle pop spoke to me as did their love lorn lyrics. I discovered them in high school and I want to say I purchased "New Miserable Experience" on a family trip to Florida in 1993. When I put the CD in my discman, I remember not being blown away with Lost Horizons, the first track. It's still not my favourite. But then Hey Jealousy rattled off a string of 11 great songs (especially Hold Me Down), save maybe for the country pastiche Cheatin'. Still 10 out of 12 good tunes on a debut album is a pretty good hit rate. I bought some of their CD singles, which included songs that apparently appeared on an earlier EP "Up & Crumbling" (which I still don't have - what is wrong with the completist in me?). Friends and I also ventured to Kingswood Music Theatre at Canada's Wonderland to see them open, yes open (along with the excellent Cracker) for Spin Doctors. I felt a bit bad for the Spin Doctors as most people took off after they played Two Princes 3 or 4 songs into their set. But I guess I didn't feel that bad, because we were included in those people hitting the exit gates. Gin Blossoms were good live. Nothing phenomenal like light shows or anything of the like but solid, meat and potatoes rock. Front man Robin Wilson interacted well with the crowd. I felt the Gin Blossoms were a band on the rise and I was excited to take that ride with them.
In the summer of 1995, they started playing a new Gin Blossoms tune on the radio from an upcoming film titled "Empire Records". The soundtrack actually came out before the movie. Til I Hear It From You was that tune and it was quite engaging. Bittersweet but solid jangle pop. I felt if the movie was as good as the song, it would be amazing. The soundtrack was solid also, but then the movie only got a limited release and one of the markets it got dumped in certainly wasn't Burlington. My friends did pick it up on video and it is a good movie, one that should have been given a wide release. Rex Manning Day, "Damn the man, save the Empire", Ethan Embry, Johnny Whitworth, Rory Cochrane, Anthony LaPaglia, Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, need I say more?
Anyway, Gin Blossoms had a new album coming out but this didn't surface until early 1996, preceded by the lead single Follow You Down. This was a good song also. The rise was continuing. In February 1996, I took the bus to Stone Road Mall to get the new Gin Blossoms, called "Congratulations, I'm Sorry". I got back to the dorm room and popped the CD in. I enjoyed the first 5 songs and felt we were well on our way to another winner. But then the wheels fell off a bit and the remaining 7 weren't fantastic. I found out later that one of the key songwriters on the first record got fired after the first album came out and ended up succumbing to his addictions. So they were like a new band starting over again for the 2nd record. And the songs weren't as sharp. The band seemed to realize this also as they broke-up in 1997, not to be heard from again until 2006 on "Major Lodge Victory". I picked this album up on new release day (I really had to look hard for it, but found it at a Music World in Pickering. Music World RIP) and when I spun it, found it to be enjoyable. Better than "Congratulations". The Gin Blossoms were back on the touring circuit and put out another album called "No Chocolate Cake" in 2010. This album was only okay, but still contained some melodic gems such as first single Miss Disarray.
My greatest late era Gin Blossoms memory is when I was in Montreal doing research a few years back and my colleagues and I closed down a bar (literally we were locked in) and the bar tender allowed us to commandeer his iPod and of course he had some Gin Blossoms! It was Hey Jealousy so we rocked that shit forsure and the 5 people in the bar really enjoyed it.
Semisonic
Known for the last call anthem Closing Time and nothing else, my appreciation for Semisonic has grown over the past couple of years. I did and still do like Closing Time and at one point I did own the album it came from ("Feeling Strangely Fine"), but I couldn't really remember any other song from them off the top of my head except Secret Smile, which was a minor hit in '98. Somehow I read somewhere that Semisonic's drummer had written a funny memoir about being a drummer in a semi-famous alt-rock band. It took me a year and a bit but I finally purchased this book off amazon and it was pretty funny. It's called "So You Wanna Be A Rock and Roll Star" by Jacob Slichter. Honest and funny. But this got me thinking, Gin Blossoms have a greatest hits based off two albums (it came out before the 2000's re-birth), so surely Semisonic has one. Jacob's tales made it sound like they made some smart rock music and were maybe known for the wrong song, like Blur are known in North America for Song 2. Don't even get me started on this.
Sure enough on amazon, they were selling Semisonic's Best Of 20th Century Masters for $12 so I ordered that and their greatest hits are pretty good, specifically Singing In My Sleep and Chemistry. Again, solid, straight forward pop-rock. And their lead singer Dan Wilson is co-writing some of pop's greatest hits these days (Dixie Chicks, Adele). So he clearly was onto something. Plus, his duet with Bic Runga on the first American Pie soundtrack, Good Morning Baby, is amazing.
Blues Traveler
The hook brings you back and that is all you need to know.
Ash
This is a three-piece (was a 3-piece, than a 4-piece and now a 3-piece again if they are even still together - I just checked and Wikipedia says that they are!) from Northern Ireland who I discovered via the "Angus" movie soundtrack in the mid-90's. Their songs Jack Names The Planets and Kung Fu were featured and right away, I felt this was a good band. Again, short, catchy pop-punk blasts. In 1996, they released "1977", which is the year they were born (a year after me and they already had 2 albums to their credit!) and it contained the gem Goldfinger. I picked this album up but then lost track of the band until I was browsing in an HMV around 2003 or 2004 and found their first singles collection "Intergalactic Sonic 7"'s". This is a great compilation, where every song is good and there are 19 in total. So I went back and got "Free All Angels", which I guess was a comeback record for the band - about 5 of the singles on the compilation are from this album so that makes sense.
In 2009, they released a new single once every 2 weeks, eventually putting out the compilation albums A-Z Volumes 1 and 2 (I only have Vol. 1 and it is solid).
I still listen to "Intergalactic Sonic 7"'s" quite frequently.
Canadian Content - The Watchmen and Lowest Of The Low
I love both of these bands, although neither has put out any new music since at least 2004. The Watchmen's All Uncovered is one of my favourite songs of all-time, ditto Lowest Of The Low's Bleed A Little While Tonight. I still listen to LOTTL's "Shakespeare...My Butt" a lot (even have it on vinyl). It's a pretty flawless debut album. And one of these years I will make it to the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto for one of The Watchmen's annual shows.
Third Eye Blind
I was swept into Third Eye Blind's world, like everyone else with Semi-Charmed Life in 1997. I think I didn't even initially own their album, my friend Matt picked it up and we just listened to that in the car that summer, constantly. But outside of SCL, they also had "official" hits with Jumper and How's It Going To Be and unofficial hits with Graduate and Losing A Whole Year from their self-titled debut. I like all of these songs as well as I Want You and Thanks A Lot, but the last 3 songs, Motorcyle Drive By, The Background and God Of Wine may be the best 3 end songs (or Side D) on any album. Yes, this is crazy but it really might be true. The crazier thing is that save for The Background, I didn't really listen to the other two songs until I picked up their "greatest hits" comp "A Collection" in 2006. But now I do all the time.
I was quite excited when "Blue" emerged in 1999 and though I think the lead single Anything is right up there with all else the band has done, it certainly is not the most obvious choice for a lead single. But I was into it. "Blue" certainly does contain some radio friendly gems such as 10 Days Late and Never Let You Go, but also some bold experimentation. The song Slow Motion didn't have verses included until "A Collection" due to the album's release proximity with the Columbine shootings and the verses touching on this, among many other, topics. It's a pretty dark tune.
We then had to wait until 2003 for "Out Of The Vein". I remember I was in Vancouver doing focus groups at the time and hit the Virgin Megastore during some downtime and found this album in the racks. I picked it up and immediately popped it into my discman. At first, I wasn't sold on this record, but I did keep listening to it for the duration of that trip and before long, I found it had some great songs. Forget Myself, Crystal Baller, Palm Reader and the hidden song Good Man are all stand-outs. Like most '90's alt-bands that had that one big hit, commercial reception to "Blue" and "Out Of The Vein" followed the trend of diminishing returns, but this didn't phase me.
There was then a 6 year break between "Out Of The Vein" and "Ursa Major". During this time, the band toured fairly relentlessly, mostly in US College towns, where they developed quite a cult following. But promises of new music in 2007 and 2008 disappeared (save for the digital-only 3 track "Red Star" EP) and only came true in August of 2009. "Ursa Major" is my least favourite 3EB album but it still has merit. Bonfire is a great tune that holds up well in relation to their classics.
The fact of the matter is Stephan Jenkins is a pretty damn good songwriter and if it takes him 4 to 6 years to write new tunes, than so be it. It takes me on average of 4 years to write a new short story, so I hear you Stephan! Of course, they keep firing guitarists, bassists, etc. so this doesn't help. But their songs speak to me and even 17 years after S/T dropped they still do. There is some depth to the lyrics for sure. They say they are mixing their new album so that will be another 6 years between albums if it actually comes out in 2015...here's hoping so.
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