Spoon - Gimme Fiction

Prefuse 73 was here on Sunday and tomorrow night, well tonight, (Wednesday) Spoon will be here. Then we leave Thursday morning to make a 9-hour drive to Austin for this weekend’s ACL festival (pictured above.) Honestly, I’m pretty exhausted and I have to wake up early to get some stuff done before working from 10-7 to be able to get off early to see this awesome band. ANYWAY, I had to come here and post something about Spoon because as much as it hasn’t settled yet, this has been one of my favorite bands of the past ten or so years and I finally get the chance to see them live. I was lucky enough to speak to Jim Eno before, this band will finally play in El Paso and I’m not entirely aware of it yet.

Either way, the problem is with me and not with their music. 2005’s Gimme Fiction was something I latched onto because of its dark demeanor. I love the cover art and how the inside is a bloody wolf that has ripped away at everything, looking for his little red riding hood. A howling wolf is kind of what Britt Daniel sounds like on “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” while the menacing guitar fuzz and stamping drums fade away. I’m not sure why I like the visual imagery of it but to ravish on a feast, the way the music seems to swell with energy, sounds like something so enticing. Either way, it’s awesome music, regardless of my jaded depiction.


So I’m just gonna go lame and safe with this next one and choose the second song off the album, “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine.” And I guess, yes it’s safe because it’s easier to choose something that just happens to segue beautifully from one moment to the next. The strings at the heart of the song (before the 2-minute mark) sound increasingly gorgeous and I just love the simply-strung and swaying guitar chug. Everything comes to a head at the point where the drums and guitars meet but Daniel’s voice is still the ringleader: charming and beguiling. Things only continue to gel from here until the end of the album, on what many consider to be the band’s best. – B