Our friends Bob and Susan are in from California for a couple of weeks, fresh (which is most certainly not the right word) from the Telluride bluegrass festival, so I've been neglecting my babbling and posting in lieu of eating and drinking too much. However, we've been given a brief respite while they visit other friends in town for a couple of days, so I've had time to catch up on all my important nothing-doing.
Anyway: I haven't posted music for a bit, so here's some. Spookey Ruben put out a reasonably well-publicized release on a semi-major label (TVT) in 1996 called Modes of Transportation Vol. 1. I think a track or may have had a video on MTV; a song was placed on a CMJ compilation, etc. Then, he disappeared. At least to American eyes: he's Canadian, and apparently released a second volume of Modes of Transportation - but oddly, this and two further releases (Bed, and Breakfast, released concurrently ha-ha-ha) were as far as I can tell released only in Japan, where apparently this sort of pop/jazz/grunge/prog/avant-garde stuff is popular. Or at least, viable.
That description probably frightens you; if I point out that his stuff is also pretty funny, if sometimes socially insightful, will that help or will that frighten you more? Anyway: fortunately you can simply listen, and judge for yourself. Me, I like it pretty well...but probably not quite well enough to spend $100 to get three Japan-only titles.
Spookey Ruben "Wendy McDonald"
Spookey Ruben "Welcome to the House of Food"
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Both Bed and Breakfast are available through the iTunes Music Store, as is Modes Vol. 1, the Wendy McDonald/Live in Japan EP, and a brand new 5-track EP (Ben Folds, anyone?) called Ausfahrt Walsrode. The ever-elusive Modes Vol. 2 (What's A Boy To Do?) is still only available as an absurdly-priced import.
I've been a Spookey fan since Modes 1, and it's probably the one record I've listened to all-the-way-through more than any other, probably by a magnitude of ten. It's just so goddamn good. He's one of the elite few, along with Matthew Sweet, Joe Jackson, Glenn Tilbrook, etc., for whom I will haul out the hackneyed, dusty old term "pop craftsman."
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