[Here we'll look at some things you probably passed up when you were a kid because you were too busy playing Star Wars with your friend who was actually a jerk… and who threw a tantrum when you schooled him in NHL ’96. What a little bitch. There are roots in the ground that still nurture.]

A Series of Sneaks
Spoon
Elektra, 1998 (Re-Released by Merge in 2002)
Produced by John Croslin and “The Spoon”

Words by Christopher Carosi

Spoon was on a major label for like 30 seconds. This, their most experimental and arguably their best, was what Elektra paid for and then dropped like a sack of arty bullshit once it hit your local CD store waaaay back in 1998. It’s a sign of the times that Spoon only achieved success once they gathered themselves 3 years later on indie label Merge and channeled their inner Costello on the amazing Girls Can Tell. However, all of this is actually secondary to how relentlessly fun and brilliant Series of Sneaks is. These songs are short, and don’t give you a second helping of their breathless run-through of catchy hipster punk and schmooze. Britt Daniel, Jim Eno and company go from hook to hook like they were the cooler version of Guided by Voices. “Utilitarian” is a hell of a first track, with indecipherable lyrics and straight energy peeling the awkwardness off of youth, stripe by stripe. There’s something undeniable about “Making out! Taking out! It’s Uuuuutilitarian!” This album just automatically triggers (perhaps by the cover art) angst and driving, driving and angst, which as we know is the two main activities of young adults. “30 Gallon Tank” and “Car Radio” lend to this also, with the former being an anxious-as-fuck high speed chase to nothing in particular, and the latter being the anthem to a poor urban road trip. The first 7 tracks are basically classics all the way through. “The Guestlist – The Execution” is riff-heavy and basically fucking awesome. I seriously have nothing else intelligent to say about it. Listen to it, it rocks. “Metal Detektor” is both a badass theme for the secret criminal in all of us and has quite possibly the most hilarious and irresistible drum solo in pop music. Love the lyric: “I’m gonna break the bank of Texas and walk out”. Later, “Chloroform” and “Staring at the Board” attack the pop song from two different angles, the first an excerpt of a guitar peddle sample with a weird bleeding heart confession (a la Robert Pollard), the second a tossed-off and low-fidelity drunken run-through of self-detention, and the song is under a minute long. “No You’re Not” sounds like a cross between a Kurt Cobain guitar verse and a Blur chorus. Needless to say, this was the coming of the hipster rock band (and by that I mean they are an imperfect combination of everything), they credited themselves as “The Spoon” in the liner notes to poke fun at the garage band revival in the late nineties. The glorious Spoon would return with fuller songs about bloody cameras and their dad’s fitted shirts, but to catch them in this strange uncontrollable creative burst is still very satisfying.

Spoon / Utilitarian
Spoon / The Guestlist – The Execution
Spoon / Car Radio
Spoon / Metal Detektor
Spoon / No You’re Not

[Contributing writer Christopher Carosi takes a step back from all the current indie goodness and keeps us honest by taking a quick glance at some '90s albums that are a bit too old to be New Classics but still worth their weight in gold. This is part twenty-five in a never-ending series]

Filed under: 90's Time, Not Blake, Jim, or Brendan