How do you best the anti-guitar-god bluster of arguably the most sonically bold and melodically sophisticated band of England’s shoegaze era? If you’re Swervedriver’s unflappable former leader, Adam Franklin, you don’t even try. You simply work off the various templates for greatness set forth by your former outfit, which, quite frankly, spewed out enough novel ideas to sustain a half-dozen indie-rock careers. Which brings us to Franklin’s latest, I Could Sleep For A Thousand Years (Second Motion), whose initial tracks were hammered out in New York late last year with his newly minted backup outfit, Bolts Of Melody. Sleep is Franklin’s most well-rounded collection to date, balancing the more laid-back guitar balladry and pop sensibilities of his last two solo albums with the ornery, volatile spark of vintage Swervedriver largely missing on those efforts. Franklin will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him as well as our 2009 Lost Classics post on Swervedriver’s Mezcal Head.
Franklin: A friend of mine lent me Just Kids, Patti Smith‘s memoir of her early days in New York City and her time with Robert Mapplethorpe. An interesting array of characters and places stumble through the pages: Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, Edie Sedgwick and Jimi Hendrix; Max’s Kansas City, the Chelsea Hotel and Coney Island. Eventually, Mapplethorpe discovers how to take photographs and Patti harnesses her poetry to rock ‘n’ roll. You don’t particularly have to be a fan of either to appreciate this well-written book.
Video after the jump.
