Bill Janovitz - guitar / vocals
Chris Colbourn - bass / vocals
Tom Maginnis - drums / percussion
Buffalo Tom
Besides - A collection of B sides and rarities
If emo (or emotional hardcore) is the current way of defining rock music with real emotions; intelligent, soul-stirring lyrics combined with no-nonsense guitars, then Buffalo Tom were emo before emo even existed. Formed in ‘80’s Boston by three college friends, Buffalo Tom may not have reached the commercial heights of fellow indie rockers the Lemonheads and Pixies - that wasn’t important - instead they continued to make the kind of music that mattered to them, building a mighty catalogue and loyal fanbase along the way.
Following on from their anthology, Asides from Buffalo Tom, comes this B sides album; a collection of songs from single releases that span over a decade, together with non-album tracks and previously unreleased material. Compiled by the band and featuring exclusive track notes, Besides is brimful of quality song-writing, musicianship and sheer feeling and proves just how relevant Buffalo Tom remain.
How a Buffalo Tom song becomes a Buffalo Tom song:
As the one guy in the band that contributes no real "original" song ideas to the group, I have to admit that it sometimes felt a bit awkward telling the others that I didn't particularly like a song they had written - especially that brand new one they really love. But you come to realize over time that these decisions are not only part of being in a band but essentially defines what a band is. Yes, a band is part pseudo democracy, but mostly it's a bond of trust, a willingness to respect someone else's opinion, understand their tastes and entrust them as a kind of personal editor. Though many groups appear to be bands on the surface, (following that formula first put forth by The Beatles), many of them are really dominated by one member, usually the main songwriter actually calling the shots with the other guys most often existing in secondary rolls. In this sense, Buffalo Tom is / was a real band, perhaps some times to a fault, but this is probably why the group remained the same original members for so many years. Everyone felt they had an important part to contribute to the whole - to this constantly evolving thing that we called Buffalo Tom. The bastards even went and used my name in the band's title, so even the non-songwriting drummer felt an extra personal connection to the group, even if it did just start as a joke!
In the early days the song selection process didn't really exist. For the first two albums, we virtually recorded all the songs we had. Those ten or eleven songs we recorded simply became the record. It's no accident that all our early "B-sides" were either live versions of album tracks or cover songs. Once Bill and Chris became more confident and prolific as songwriters and as recording budgets grew, allowing for more studio time, the real "B-side" was born. At this point, around the time of ‘Let Me Come Over’, Bill and Chris would make crude home recordings of song ideas in different stages of completion, usually on a boom box in the early days, which would then be passed around. This is when the real decision process would begin. As we came to realize over time, these were important decisions in many ways. You had better like all of these songs because you will rehearse, record and play them live hundreds of times over the course of your career. Some songs would be nixed simply because it sounded too similar to another song we'd already done or another song from the same batch, others just didn't seem to grab anyone once we started working on it.
Fortunately, there always seemed to be those six or seven songs that would hit everybody immediately and would ultimately become the meat of the album and the songs that would most characterized the band and define our particular sound, whatever that might be. Sometimes one or two dark horses would surprise us when we started playing in rehearsal or even as late as when we started recording in the studio. I distinctly remember the song ‘Summer’ being one of these. It wasn't until I heard a play back of the basic track in the studio that the song really came alive for me. The rest of the songs that made up the album sometimes were measures of compromise, some seemed to balance the record as a whole while others would be tinkered with until they achieved album track status, via philosophical debate, a new bridge section, or wrestling match, which of course, I (being of superior upper body strength) would always win. Chris most often could convince on a philosophical basis, while Bill was more likely to bring us around by whipping up a new bridge or chorus or suggest a different rhythmic approach. True democracy in action!
But the "B-side" could be very freeing. It allows a band to experiment, to try something off the cuff, to explore new musical territories. I can remember recording ‘Bumble Bee’ and thinking this is a "B-side" - this is a really unrehearsed, odd, childlike song and how much fun it was to record it with just myself on drums, Bill on piano and Chris singing. No guitars, no pressure to be perfect, just record and see what happens! Not all of the tracks on this compilation fit these criteria, but to me this is the true nature of a "B-side". I beseech you to listen to this record with an open mind and the same playful spirit. So now you don't have to buy all those expensive CD singles and oddball compilations to hear these ditties so, at the very least, you can thank us for that.
Tom Maginnis
Bio for Asides >>
DISCOGRAPHY:
Besides: A Collection of B-Sides...
1. Witches
2. For All To See
3. She Belongs To Me
4. Bumble Bee
5. Never Noticed
6. The Way Back
7. Sally Brown
8. Hawaiian Baby
9. Butterscotch
10. Wah-Wah
11. Anchors Aweigh
12. Breathe
13. The Spider And The Fly
14. Clouds
15. Cupid Come
16. Does This Mean You’re Not My Friend
17. Guiding Star
18. All Tomorrow’s Parties
A-Sides From...
1. Summer
2. Soda Jerk
3. Taillights Fade
4. Mineral
5. Kitchen Door
6. Enemy
7. Sunflower Suit
8. Tree House
9. Larry
10. Postcard
11. Tangerine
12. Rachael
13. I'm Not Allowed
14. Birdbrain
15. Velvet Roof
16. Going Underground
17. Late at Night
18. Wiser
Sleepy Eyed
1) Tangerine
2) Summer
3) Kitchen Door
4) Rules
5) It's You
6) When You Discover
7) Sunday Night
8) Your Stripes
9) Sparklers
10) Clobbered
11) Sundress
12) Twenty
13) Points
14) Souvenir
15) Crueler
Big Red Letter Day
1) Sodajerk
2) I'm Allowed
3) Tree House
4) Would Not Be Denied
5) Latest Monkey
6) My Responsibility
7) Dry Land
8) Torch Singer
9) Late at Night
10) Suppose
11) Anything that Way
Let Me Come Over
1) Staples
2) Taillights Fade
3) Mountains of Your Head
4) Mineral
5) Darl
6) Larry
7) Velvet Roof
8) I'm Not There
9) Stymied
10) Porchlight
11) Frozen Lake
12) Saving Grace
13) Crutch
Birdbrain
1) Birdbrain
2) Skeleton Key
3) Caress
4) Guy Who is Me
5) Enemy
6) Crawl
7) Fortune Teller
8) Baby
9) Directive
10) Bleeding Heart
11) Heaven
12) Reason Why (Acoustic)
Buffalo Tom
1) Sunflower Suit
2) The Plank
3) Impossible
4) 500,000 Warnings
5) The Bus
6) Blue
7) Racine
8) In the Attic
9) Fushing Stars
10) Walk Away
11) Reason Why
12) Deep In the Ground
7 july hun enige optreden in europa dit jaar in de Willem 2 in Den Bosch.
Meer fans van deze wereldband ?
[ Bericht 1% gewijzigd door tong80 op 04-06-2006 19:52:17 ]
wel goede tijdloze songs met Wiser, Sodajerk en Summer gemaakt
quote:Heb hem gezocht, maar kon hem niet vinden. Sorry
quote:Daar hebben we dit sticky topic dan ook voor, mocht de search het laten afweten:Op woensdag 7 juni 2006 16:08 schreef tong80 het volgende:
[..]
Heb hem gezocht, maar kon hem niet vinden. Sorry
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