George Carlin once said — and I’m paraphrasing here — that he was a visionary, a man ahead of his time… but only about an hour-and-a-half hour ahead.
It’s a good joke, and one that’s wrapped around a kernel of truth.
Indie rocker Britt Daniel, best known as the front man for Spoon, has always seemed to carry a similar torch. Invariably I rush to purchase every new Spoon album, the anticipation of receiving fresh music from a favorite band building to a crescendo, only to feel underwhelmed. Sure, it sounds okay, but nothing really moves me.
I listen all the way through a few times, then put it aside. Oh well. They can’t all be winners.
But I’ll always drift back to it a few months later, and lo and behold: it’s a masterpiece! It’s always a masterpiece, or nearly so. Something has shifted in the time since its release, and I can never know for sure if what shifted was me, the entire musical landscape, or both. Perhaps their music just requires patience: time for the seeds to take root and develop into something digestible.
And so it was that last year, when Daniel began collaborating with friends (including Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade) on a side project called Divine Fits, I was cautiously optimistic. I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t judge it too quickly.
Sure enough, their debut release, A Thing Called Divine Fits, sounded okay upon first listen… but it didn’t move me. It sounded a little like Spoon in places, a little like Wolf Parade in others, and it was heavy on the ’80s synths and ominous tones that have come to define the modern indie landscape. I listened a few times, then put it aside.
Then, months later, Divine Fits reappeared. A friend shared a link to a live in-studio performance for an Australian radio show, and I took the bait. It was a stripped down cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Hungry Heart. And it was magical.
That song is more than 30 years old, and I never knew I liked it until now. Everything about it charms my pants off, from the pleading vocals to the simple use of a book as percussion to the emotional simplicity. Really, really good stuff.
Discovering this little gem, of course, propelled me back into the album, and…
… I guess I don’t need to tell you the rest.
* * * * *
Sharpening Pencils 