Schooner/Wesley Wolfe: 12″ Split Single Potluck Foundation/Tangible Formats
I’ve been a fan of Schooner since the release of Hold on too Tight in 2007, and so this 12” single with Wesley Wolfe, released for Record Store Day back in April (yeah, I’m running a little behind here) makes me feel like a dog wagging its tail with its tongue hanging out while somebody waves a bone-shaped biscuit above my nose. Two Schooner songs?! Plus a couple songs by a buddy of Schooner, one of which is a Schooner cover?! Wagwagwagwagwagshakehandswagwagwag.
I can’t say anything about Schooner that I haven’t said before: I love this stuff. “Terrorized Mind” starts out with some ooh-oohs and then reminds you that you will grow older. There’s a hint of The Band running through this song: it holds together folk and country and blues with a slow and dynamic rock sound made by guitars, bass, drums and some organ.
“Locked In” is Schooner’s take on a Wesley Wolfe song: the sound is more spare, the song more of a lilt-stomp, but we get a guitar doing an impression of a singing saw, and an actual singing saw, and Maria Albani taking lead vocals, which makes it something like a five-and-a-half minute Organos song, and that’s something we can celebrate.
Wesley Wolfe gives us “Crying Laughing”, fast-paced and jangly-noisy guitar poprock straight out of your teenage years if you’re of a certain age (ie, as old as me), and you know what, that’s nothing bad: pretty little lead guitar melodies and plenty of stomping on the effects pedals to keep you bouncing. I’m pretty much programmed to like anything that pretty much takes a page or two from the Superchunk song book, and that’s pretty much what we get here. Pretty much.
The second Wesley Wolfe song is a cover of the Schooner song “Indian Sunburn”, a washed-out wistful goodbye to summer/hello to fall that doesn’t let you drip too far into moroseness before it starts backbeating your feet to the dancefloor for a middle sixteen or whatever bars. Of course things have to slow back down again: your summer shoes have worn out, and summer fades to Indian summer, fades to fall.
The limited edition vinyl version of this record is sold out, but you can still get the digital download for four bucks. A dollar a song? Bargain.
