ARTIST: VA
TITLE: Secretly Canadian SC100
LABEL: Secretly Canadian Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 177kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 1h 03m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-04-24
RIP DATE: 2007-04-10
Track List
----------
1. Nikki Sudden - See(Ing) Double 3:57
(June Panic)
2. Songs: Ohia - The Last Bandit 1:34
(Nikki Sudden)
3. Suzanne Langille - Structure: 4:46
Necessity (Songs: Ohia)
4. Early Day Miners - The Escape 3:14
(Suzanne Langille & Loren
Mazzacane Conners)
5. Damien Jurado - Upstate (Early 3:49
Day Miners)
6. Dave Fischoff - Abilene (Damien 3:18
Jurado)
7. Danielson - Propaganda For A 2:36
Comic Strip Dave Fischoff)
8. June Panic - Fruitful Weekend 3:05
(Danielson)
9. Ativin - Soft Evenings 3:22
(Marmoset)
10. Swearing At Motorists - Lungs 3:59
For The Race (Havergal)
11. Havergal - Riding And Roaming 6:04
(Ativin)
12. Racebannon - The Real Thing 2:54
(Swearing At Motorists)
13. Cornelius Boots - Clubber Lang 5:02
(Racebannon)
14. Jens Lekman - Your Beat Kicks 3:25
Back Like Death (Scout Niblett)
15. Marmoset - Sky Phenomenon (Jens 3:17
Lekman)
16. The Impossible Shapes - 40 3:15
Years For Our Family (The
Japonize Elephants)
17. The Panoply Academy - Birds 2:01
(The Impossible Shapes)
18. The Japonize Elephants - 3:38
Highlight And Marginalia (The
Panoply Academy)
Release Notes:
On your next tumble into Bloomington, Indiana, break for Rockit's Famous Pizza.
The bread sticks sprout up like knotted baby arms and the slices are stylish,
too, especially if you're friendly with someone in back, though the front booth
with window view is the real steal. From the corner of Walnut and Seventh
Streets, you can gather up the seeds of Tree City. Not all are visible but with
enough squint and flint you've got a number of options. On the immediate left is
The Bluebird Nightclub, where Sun Ra and his Arkestra landed for what later
became the scarce Somewhere Over the Rainbow LP in July 1977. Across the street
a 180-year-old weathervane fish keeps watch and in just a block or two's
distance are the ghosts of Charles Kirby, Hoagy Carmichael, Gulcher and dozens
more. There's a buncha other mystery spots to mention -- the crossroads of
Rashaan Roland Kirk's last breath or Lemon Lane's chemical breath -- but no
time.
This is Secretly Canadian's 100th release, finally stamped and shipped out on
its 11-year anniversary. But this isn't a
11-years-of-Secretly-Canadian-budget-blow-out-back-pat. That will likely happen
with SC200, The Johnny Cougar Mellencomp. SC100 is more a suspended,
freeze-dried nugget of evolution from those humbled beginnings everyone has. For
those with a checklist of Hooiser Rock History, take note that SC is the first
Indiana label to issue 100 titles. Daydreams are good when thinking of who came
before -- BRBQ, 700 West, Lamp, Solid Gold or Gulcher -- and what they could've
done if not for being corn-holed by that cruel economy of scales or packing up
and leaving the state for brighter times. A few years past its inception, SC
albums were never shrink-wrapped, sleeping space doubled as office space and the
website address was garbled syntax of tildes and slashes unable to be translated
over the phone: http://php.indiana.edu/~bjswanso/sc.html. Ten years later and
there is still a lot o' eye-rolling when someone slides up with "What does
Secretly Canadian mean?"
All artists who issued recordings from SC01 (June Panic, Glory Hole) to SC99
(Swearing at Motorists, Last Night Becomes This Morning) were up for inclusion
to cover a song by a label mate via the ol' names-in-a-hat method. So, Antony is
not a part of this collection. I've yet to hear The Earlies and probably won't
get around to it for awhile, 'cause they aren't here either. Catfish Haven is a
no, and ditto for I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and Windsor for the Derby.
Yet who out there knew SC had a cassette only side-label, Canadian Exchange, and
would call up CE02 star Cornelius Boots for this, eh? So step back a bit just a
few years and settle in or dust off those old SC albums to refresh with the
originals. While the pre-SC100 discography is packed with Indiana heavies, there
have been extended stays and shack-ups in Bloomington by most of the SC roster,
be it a few days, or monthly rates at the College Inn, or even more permanent.
No one wants to get hokey here, but this is a communal gathering, a family
jamboree where each takes a turn, fugs it up a smidge, and pays homage to
tourmates of past, or in some takes, to personal strangers. The harrowing
revival of Songs: Ohia by Suzanne Langille should give Jason Molina a bite to
ghostwrite her next album. Jens Lekman's love of death chants and Scout Niblett
makes that impending end dance with rainbows. No need to rumble through each
track with my own gander, but it's a gulp of life and worth every penny on this
set to hear the swagger yell as Nikki Sudden tears into June's "See(ing)
Double," just like an apparition of him strolling down Fourth Street, dressed
like a million, and swiggin' a sack at 2pm. You wouldn't have seen that from the
booth window, though Sudden did make his way down to that corner late one night.
So yeah, Rockit's slices are tops, but the bread sticks are what bring me in for
a window last-call, along with the wall-to-wall promo photos, cracked crash
cymbals and instruments of bands never known well enough to be forgotten. It is
a good starting point when you arrive in town. There used to be a jukebox inside
too. Now there's a CD player with a penchant for skipping.
-- Eric Weddle, 2006