As 2011 comes to an end, we are taking a look back at some of our favorite posts of the year by our guest editors.
The 10th record (not including two EPs, a live album and a “greatest hits” collection) from stalwart Toronto band Sloan, The Double Cross (just released on Yep Roc) also serves to commemorate the quartet’s 20th anniversary as a versatile guitar-pop collective. Guitarists Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson, bassist Chris Murphy and drummer Andrew Scott—all four write and sing their own tunes and often switch instruments onstage—have successfully forged a productive two-decade career full of preternaturally catchy songs and beyond-entertaining live shows. Thankfully, they don’t appear to be slowing down; The Double Cross continues the group’s winning streak, particularly the seamless opening 1-2-3 of Murphy’s “Follow The Leader,” Ferguson’s “The Answer Was You” and Pentland’s “Unkind.” (Check out the band’s YouTube channel for a track-by-track discussion of the LP.) In their typically all-for-one, one-for-all fashion, the members of Sloan are guest-editing magnetmagazine.com this week. Read our brand new Q&A with Pentland.
Scott: If our basic instinct as a species is survival, then I see few better symbols of that need than a neatly stacked, cured, dried, beautiful cord or two of cut firewood, preferably close to home—inside or out. There can be birch, maple, ash, aspen, oak and, depending on your geographic locale, this list heaves and lurches. Having wood stacked and close by gives me the sense that maybe everything is all right—at least for now, while it lasts. I get very anxious, however, when I notice it dwindling and approaching its end, just as the fires it provides do at the end of a long, cold night. As long as I have the resources, and as long as the inner-city providers can keep a stockpile, I can always send out for more. I like the ritual of a new load arriving in a gnarled heap on our garage floor. Then I will have to put a cassette tape of mixed Delta blues in the deck and toil like I rarely ever do to conquer the pile for hours and piece each individual log into an unknown puzzle of the most satisfying simplicity. I save the really cool-looking, oddball logs for art potential. After its riddle is solved, I can sit and pat myself on the back and revel in its woody gloriousness and for providing for our family on a most primal level. Food schmood, shelter schmelter—we have firewood! The kids are all right, and I hear it’s supposed to be cold tonight.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Taae2zLfA
