My History With The Stills / New Record 'Oceans Will Rise'
I remember like it was yesterday. I was strolling through Lafyette Street north of Canal Street in New York City with my Brooklyn friends LeeAnn and Glenn when we passed this cool little store called ‘Vice’. It was in 2003. Back then the store had a mix of clothes, records and you could by a coffee made by the tenants. I remember grabbing one of the magazines laying around when the tenant say: ‘Take one, they’re free’. It was my first introduction to the Vice Magazine and its awesome ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’. Been a fan ever since. The rest is history. The magazine has become a worldwide phenomenon and I hear their parties are crazy. They have magazines in Canada, London, Berlin, Tokyo…
In the store, on a shelf above the counter I saw this nice gatefold double vinyl record by this band The Stills from Montreal, Canada. Its title: Logic Will Break Your Heart. I didn’t buy it.
Continuing our journey trough New York moving up north, we passed some smaller and bigger record stores where I saw posters and signs promoting the Stills album. They were everywhere and I couldn’t stop thinking about the album title. Logic Will Break Your Heart. How true. How deep. How real.
Eventually, I ended up in one of the stores and started listening to the record on one of the pre-listening stations. Leaving the noise of a chaotic city behind me, I was immersed into their music from the first second. Literally. The first tones of ‘Lola, Stars and Stripes’ got me. The intro beat, the bassline and the strumming guitars followed by Tim Fletcher’s vocals let me forget what’s around me for the duration of the song. I didn’t buy the CD there either.
The very next day though, my first ‘To Do’ was to go back to the Vice Store on Lafayette to buy the double vinyl. I don’t recall being as happy about buying a record as I was that day.
Since the Vice store was only carrying the vinyl record, I headed back to the record store where I first listened to the record and bough two additional CDs of the same album. One as a thank-you-gift for my friends Glenn & LeeAnn who let me crash on their floor and showing me around the city and one to put on my laptop and iPod for the trip back home.
Leaving New York with the record and leaving a couple of years behind me, The Stills released their second album ‘Without Feathers’ in 2006. I think I never listened to it, I don’t know why.
Entering mid 2008: While surfing the web I stumble upon this site MuchMusic.com featuring the full album stream of their new record ‘Oceans Will Rise’. Giving it a shot I immediately have a similar experience like when I first discovered them. Maybe a more 2.0 experience since instead of clicking though the songs on a listening station, I get to listen to the entire album on a website. But the first song ‘Don’t Talk Down’ gets me back to New York in 2003 (re)discovering a band I thought I had lost interest for. Good thing that is.
I have been listening to that record over and over for about a week and am so happy to ‘have them back’. I can’t decide about a favourite track as it changes every day accoding to my mood. ‘Don’t Talk Down’ is a great opening song similar to ‘Lola, Stars and Stripes’. ‘Being Here’ has potential to be a hit single (I posted the song here), ‘Eastern Europe’ is the perfect song to a sunny road trip, ‘Snow In California’ is a typical, more dark The Stills song and ‘Rooibos Palm’ would be the perfect song for a bike ride.
On a side note, The Stills are releasing their record via Arts & Crafts, a brilliant Canadian label and home of everyone’s darlings Feist, Broken Social Scene, Stars, Constantines and a lot more.
Good to have you back guys. Looking forward to see you live in Berlin some time and hope to buy another vinyl record. Until then, I’ll stick to a 2.0 listening pleasure here.
