Grant McLennan, 1958-2006
By Apropos of the Pixies reunion tour that I managed to miss out on at both ends, a friend this weekend noted how glad she was that the tour was not accompanied by a new album, which would probably be disappointing and weigh down the show with inferior new material. And, indeed, reunion albums rarely capture any magic. A good case in point, I’m afraid, is Big Star; a pretty good half-Posies-backed reunion show a co-blogger and I saw featured a godawful new song, and alas it wasn’t entirely unrepresentative of the stillborn new album they released last year. The one group we both agreed had actually pulled off a successful reunion was the Go-Betweens. I saw them at the Southpaw last year, and although it was heavily weighted toward post-comeback material (sensibly, given the g/b/d lineup; hearing stuff like “Right Here” made it clear how crucial Amanda Brown’s violin hooks were) the songs were very strong, and the band committed and sounding great. If I understand correctly, the consensus seems to be that the comeback really took off with last year’s excellent Oceans Apart, but if anything I prefer the Sleater-Kinney backed The Friends of Rachel Worth, which started it, and the intervening one was pretty good too. I wouldn’t want to say that the post-2000 albums are “better” than their great 80s stuff, but I play them just as often, a rare thing. There’s nothing formally innovative about them–just smart, subtle, well-crafted pop songs, but if you like that sort of thing they’re really good at it.
It’s very fortunate that I saw them–a very rare time when I was willing to see a show alone–because via Bob MacManus I was sad to see that Grant McLennan, one of the group’s two singer-songwriters, tragically passed away at 48. R. I. P.
UPDATE: more here, here, here, and here.