Spoon – They Want My Soul
2014 – Loma Vista Recordings
It was 1996 and I had recently moved from the comforts of home to a futon on the floor of a $78 apartment in Chinatown. The Pixies broke up 2 years earlier. I was starving for something raw and screamy and had a writing deadline at the now defunct New York Press. I picked up Austin band Spoon’s CD Telephono from the also-defunct Tower Records and jotted down some crispy thoughts on this crunchy debut. Songs like Nefariousand Idiot Driver have been in heavy rotation ever since.
About 5 years later, someone burned me a copy of 2011’s Girl’s Can Tell and I was hooked. Pick that shit up, yo. Leaps and bounds beyond their Pixies flavored beginnings. As good as Radiohead’s The Bends, if you ask me.
Everything released since has been as good – with smatterings of holy shit! – but they’ve yet to have their OK Computer moment. They’ve gotten close – and there are tracks on subsequent albums like Gimmie Fiction, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and Transference that sound like the very legitimate love-children of John Lennon and Black Francis – achieving some form of perfection in songs like Black Like Me, Rhythm & Soul, Out Go The Lights, I Turn My Camera On, and They Never Got You (to name a few of many).
Since Spoon’s last outing, lead singer Britt Daniel also recorded and toured with Divine Fits – which is so Spoonish in spots that I guess I’m a fool for hoping They Want My Soul would be a huge step up. It’s a small step up, and a small step sideways and if it sounds like I’m complaining, shame on me.
From the get-go, Britt and company exercise mathematical minds in that familiar way – stomping through Rent I Paylike a more machined version of Elvis Costello’s The Attractions – making a taut esoteric point before ending abruptly so the savory Inside Outcould provide the breather you didn’t yet need.
Rainy Taxi starts like Sam and Dave’s Gimme Some Lovin’ but immediately takes a delicious Spoony detour – replete with Britt’s crunchy guitar chugs and a bridge that threatens to soar. If you like Spoon, it’s probably because of songs like this.
Britt earns the keys to the Brill Building on tracks like the precise Do You, Let Me Be Mine, and the Beatlesque They Want My Soul. Speaking of which; the band’s sober take on I Just Don’t Understand included here owes more to the Fab Four’s live renditions than to Ann Margaret’s sexy 1961 original. Yet Spoon have a way of making covers sound like originals – like Me and the Beanoff Girls Can Tell or Don’t You Evah off GA GA GA GA GA.
By now in the sequence, it’s obvious there are some expensive producers at the knobs – squeezing a silvery snap out of the material. Just listen to standout Knock Knock Knock – reverbless and clean, dotted with essential empty spaces between beats, beauteous layers of color, and a noisy guitar solo your mother won’t understand. Spoon have been working toward this sound on the last bunch of albums, but never so well realized as on this track.
We catch Outliermid-groove, all cheesy keyboard stabs and bubbling bass, in what might be their most dancey track to date. This is the Spoon I dig. Reverential, experimental, a little weird, a lot of fun. Maybe we have new member Alex Fischel to blame for some of these new keyscapes – so successful here and on the perfect closer New York Kiss.
There are Story songs and there are story songs. The capital S is reserved for the Harry Chapins of the world, the Bruce Springsteens. Linear storytellers where characters with specific names drive specific cars and dream about specific girls. A song like New York Kiss is purposely vague – with that cool distance no one gets away with like Britt. It’s not about Rosalita or Mr. Tanner. It’s about you, maybe.
One of the best records of 2014, if ya ask me.
Fav Tracks
Knock Knock Knock
Outlier
New York Kiss
Almost every year for the past 6 years and on the same day, I’ve posted the same pic of me in the hospital during my temporary and untimely demise in 2015. A few weeks after I was back to “normal”, I asked Eric “Why’d you take the pics?” And he said, “I knew you would want to write about it if you lived.” Eric was right. Eric was often right and Eric always had my best interest at heart. I am going to miss my friend.
You ever meet someone and become friends immediately?! Well this was not the case with Eric. Before he was my manager at Morgan Stanley, I would often see this 6’4″, giant white guy walk up to the only black woman at work, say something then walk away without any hint of human emotion. Naturally I thought he was a jerk until I asked her “Yo, is that dude bothering you?” She laughed and proceeded to tell me he was a great person, which I ultimately got to experience first hand. Little did I know this Italian from Staten Island was more Brooklyn than most Brooklynites.
Eric was not with the shits!! If there were ever someone who lived their life in direct, honest and no uncertain terms, that would be Eric. He would ask me questions at work like “Why are the other consultants making more money than you?” I knew the answer to that question and so did he. Eric then proceeded to increase my salary by 15K. After arguing with all our managers that “You need to hire Alfred!”, they eventually did 1 year prior to the 2015 incident. In the hospital, one of my friends asked me, “What if you didn’t have health insurance when this happened?” I would be in debt for the rest of my life is the obvious answer. I still am in debt for the rest of my life but at least, it is to those who made sure I had a more enjoyable life and for that, I will gladly repay.
My mom loved to tell me the story of how she met Eric. After they told her I was going to be in the ICU for some time, she told the doctor “Well I’m not going anywhere.” She then hears a voice from that back of the room that says “Well I’m not going anywhere either!” That was Eric and in true form, he was at that hospital every single day until I was discharged.
Eric passed away in December 2021 of stage 4 cancer. After feeling faint on his way to my bbq, he went to get checked out and was diagnosed. During the past 5 years, Eric lost his mom, twin brother and dad. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like but I’m glad that pain he was feeling is no more.
It’s been a bit difficult to deal with it to be quite honest and I’ve been writing this in my head for years but never had the bravery or grace to accept that my friend wouldn’t be here soon. I also can’t imagine what it must be like to lose your entire family nucleus unexpectedly. In true Eric fashion however, I would like this to not be about me but whomever has lost someone and has been coping. I’ve always intimated that my life would not be as enriched as it was were it not for the people in it. The problem with that is there is also no way to deny that it feels empty without those who helped craft your path. Rather than focus on the negative, I would rather focus on the examples of duty, family and emotional intelligence. All concepts reinforced by Eric that have led me to have successful relationships since I’ve put them into practice.
From being my manager to my business partner, writer, book editor, artistic director, and most importantly, my friend, I am going to miss you MC Krispy E a.k.a “Enrique Pollazo!” And although you told me Enrique means Henry in Spanish and not Eric, it was too late!
Sidebar. The day I was discharged, while everyone was deciding what was best for me, no one had remembered that I would need clothes in order to leave the hospital. Eric shows up (unasked) with all the clothes I had on the day I coded, laundered and ready to go. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve friends like this but i need to keep doing it! Sidebar complete.
I had the distinct pleasure of participating in a panel discussion on writing your first book, presented by the Harlem chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. Alongside Jim St. Germain, Author – A Stone of Hope: A Memoir and Dr. Keneshia Nicole Grant, Author – The Great Migration and the Democratic Party:Black Voters and the Realignment of American Politics in the 20th Century. We opined on pain points, benefits and strategies regarding our inaugural voyages into authorship. Feel free to watch for your self and I hope this provides some insight to all those looking to make the same voyage. Enjoy!
On March 11 this year, the digital artist Beeplesold a collage of digital images from his “Everydays” series for nearly 70 million dollars as an NFT, or non-fungible token. And if that sentence confuses you, you’re not alone.
A non-fungible token is a unit of data on a digital ledger called a blockchain, where each NFT can represent a unique digital item, and thus they are not interchangeable. NFTs can represent digital files such as art, audio, video, and other forms of creative work. While the digital files themselves are infinitely reproducible, the NFTs representing them are tracked on their underlying blockchains and provide buyers with proof of ownership.” – Wikipedia
Still confused? Let the artist himself explain it, and learn how he went from NFT newbie to making the third most expensive artwork by a living artist in three months. Not to suggest Beeple is an overnight success. The “Everydays” series alone involved creating a piece of art every day since May 1, 2007 – and he hasn’t missed a day.
Check out some of Beeple’s amazing and controversial work below.