Thanks Blurt, for publishing perhaps the most in-depth Fan Modine article yet.

Click here to download now.

We are excited to play the NYC Popfest 2011 on Sunday night at the The Rock Shop in Brooklyn. 2 days before ‘Gratitude for the Shipper‘ is released!

We now have another edition of the double vinyl available. These are colorful whereas the RSD is black and silver. A Wizard of Oz type progression you see, still hand-silkscreened by Ron Liberti. To get a hold of any of these new limited edition pre-releases at a nice discount (the record is officially released 5/24) join the mailing list today!

For you nice folk who bellied up to the counter early without a discount, you’ve got something nice coming your way as well:

Get on it, an email is coming by end-of-week.

Due to overwhelming demand we are now taking pre-orders for a second limited double vinyl edition, equally as nice but rather different, as well as both limited and non-limited compact disc packages.

These pre-orders will be shipped to arrive to you on or around 05/24.

The Record Store Day items are only available in-store on April 16. If you are hoping to catch one of these you may want to call your local independent record store to confirm availability.

PRE-ORDER ‘Gratitude for the Shipper’/FREE DOWNLOAD OF the ‘Julu Road’ single HERE:
http://fanmodine.bandcamp.com/album/gratitude-for-the-shipper

All of the limited versions are hand-silkscreeded by Ron Liberti. The double vinyl versions contain a photo print culled from the artwork.

I often gravitate to the Asian part of town. I’m not sure why. I have some private theories but they are mostly unproven. One is that shopping at Asian grocers will increase the flavor-to-price ratio.  Ignoring the hidden costs of lesser ingredients, this is generally true. But, as it happened in 1994, I wasn’t looking for food. I was looking for soap.

One day back then, I found myself in downtown Boston looking for inexpensive (yet special) soap. I entered my favorite Asian supermarket at the time, the “88″, and happened upon a beautiful little package of dermal detergent with the graphic of an Asian fan. The soap itself was called “Fan”. Though its fragrance was that of a band-aid, I was enamored. Musically, I had been trying desperately to escape the so many tangled influences that I had ingested in my 24 years. It seemed like every local band was a pale version of their favorite band and I was determined to not fall prey to that. “Kill Your Heroes” was a mantra amongst musician friends at the time. “Fan” as a name felt like a way to escape the curse of influence. A way of identifying with the listener while adding a certain benevolence to the very role of being a fan. So, I tacked on my childhood cat’s name on the end and was done. Fan Modine would be the name of my newly minted solo outing.

Almost 15 years later, several releases and the ups and downs that a life in music offers,  I no longer find musical influence something to overcome. Instead, something to honor, particularly when it’s underexposed.

I understood reluctance. I wanted exposure at the same time as I was ensuring my own obscurity. I witnessed bands blowing though 7-figure budgets left and right and knew something was amiss. This flurry wasn’t about music at all. I was fielding calls for myself and my roommates from tiny to major labels and ended up signing to something in between on my way to moving to Brooklyn.

I signed with Rykodisc around the time the Chris Bell ‘I am the Cosmos’ collection came out and that definitely had a bit to do with me feeling comfy there.

I knew the Big Star records and they were an awesome inspiration for me to try to forge ahead in the independent music world. Those guys weren’t afraid of showing their influences at all yet sounded completely of their own right. Still, in my writing, I wanted to conjure up energy by toying with the symbiotic relationship and dependency of the fan and the performer. That essentially and ultimately, they are one, creating a conjoined dance of which neither is truly the originator. So, to take this even further, I began work on a musical about an American performer who discovers that a Chinese pop star has written the exact same song as him and the journey he takes confronting his doppelganger. What sort of excitement would be created here?

The musical never reached the production stage but most of the songs were recorded and released on Fan Modine’s ‘Homeland’ album from 2004. But, the concept never really left me and I’ve been lugging various versions of the script around for years.

When we started the final overdub mixing process for the soon to be released ‘Gratitude for the Shipper’ with Chris Stamey (who released a vinyl 7” of ‘I am the Cosmos’ in 1977!) we had almost 10 years of songs and performances to choose from. Most of the work we ended up completing came from more recent basic tracks sessions in North Carolina with Lee Waters on drums, Jeremy Chatelain on bass and myself on piano.

One song was entitled ‘Centre Market Place’ for the last street I lived on before leaving New York. It was based on a very simple, sort of geometric piano figure that descends in the loveliest of ways. Essential, you start with an F Major but instead of the playing the 5th, or the C, you instead start with the E above and resolve to the D. The figure continues this way with each chord all the way down to C Major. I wrote the most natural melody over it and composed some lyrics. It was a band favorite to play live as it features a freak out middle part that builds and builds and builds. Work on completing it with a fully arranged brass section was going well.

One day I was at the label’s office and asked to listen to something. Jefferson Holt, who owns Daniel 13 Press, popped on an Ardent records sampler and played an obscure Alex Chilton song called ‘The EMI Song (Smile For Me).’

The song, written more than 40 years prior, was startlingly similar to ‘Centre Market Place’. The melody almost identical. The chords, though the voicing was different, were also the same. However, instead of a freak-out in the bridge, there was a wonderful Memphis romp with pedal steel and playful piano.

I swore I had never heard this song before. I was far from a Chilton completist. In fact, the one time I saw him perform, I didn’t care for it so I never dug up his solo work. I honestly felt like I never had heard the song before and that he and I had simply stumbled onto the same riff and vibe, just many years apart. This “coincidence” didn’t surprise me however. I had always felt like I was one degree of separation from Chilton ever since I began Fan Modine.

It was decided that ‘Centre Market Place’ would need to be pulled from the album. I wasn’t too disappointed though. It wasn’t much of a “song”, more of an interlude or segue on the album between sides. We had way more songs than needed for the album anyways. Wanting to finish what we had started, Chris came up with the idea of me singing the lyrics to ‘The EMI Song’ over our ‘Centre Market Place’ tracks. I liked the idea but somehow it didn’t feel right. I felt like the best thing to do was to bow out completely, or better yet,  cover the original song and try to do it justice as away of giving thanks. I had never recorded a cover before and I had started rehearsing with some new folks. Maybe this song would be a good way to loosen up a bit and we could just record it on our own. We had just finished mixing ‘Gratitude’ and it was time to play around.

I rehearsed with the band, Lee still on drums but now with Michael Holland on bass and Matt McMichaels on guitar and an excellent piano player, Charles Cleaver. We had a good feel for it but I kept putting the recording off. I was hoping to maybe work with Chris on it – but he was busy. Other projects and shows kept it on the back burner. I knew Chris had been working on pulling together a tribute to Big Star’s ‘Third/Sister Lovers’ album. He had recently received some of the multi tracks from John Fry at Ardent, with which he could rebuild the original orchestral scores that were nowhere to be found. During that time, I was fortunate to hear a minute or so of individual tracks from “Kangaroo”. Hearing those individual performances felt like one must feel entering a secret chamber of a pyramid.

Chris was on his way to SXSW to take part in a conference about that album with Big Star members Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens as well as a host of other musician-fans of the album. Suddenly, the day before a scheduled appearance to perform in Austin with Big Star, Alex Chilton passed away in New Orleans. It was very sad news and spooky timing. I also felt horrible for Chris. I personally learned of Alex’s death just as Chris was getting on the plane that morning. I could only imagine what that trip must have been like emotionally.

Several months later Chris invited me to sing ‘The EMI Song’ at a performance on the University of North Carolina campus. Seamus Kenney offered to arrange for an orchestral ensemble with members of Lost in the Trees and others. It sounded great. We booked time at Overdub Lane Studios in Durham, NC and proceeded to record.

Some of the lyrics to ‘The EMI song’ eluded me and I asked Chris what he thought they were. He said I should look up the publisher and ask them for a lyric sheet. So I did just that on the performance rights company’s website and found an email address for the publisher, Muldoon Music. I wrote right away and was rather surprised at the response. “Hi Gordon, I will get you the lyric sheet, may take me a day or so to dig it out. Great to know songs like this can live on, even when LX is now sadly gone.  He was such a talent. I have been planning on doing this song again some time myself! Back soon, thanks so much, Terry”.

Wow. it was Terry Manning himself writing from his home in the Bahamas! Terry was the co-writer, arranger, engineer and producer of the song. He was Ardent’s first employee and has a resume that is truly mind bending. Records from Bobby Fuller, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Al Green, and on and on and on.

In 1969, a post-Boxtops Alex Chilton began work on his first solo record with Terry Manning at Ardent Studios in Memphis.  The album would later be shelved after a deal with Atlantic went south and work on Big Star’s “#1 Record” came in to view. The album wasn’t mixed and released until 1996. Alex had visited Terry in London before the record began. Terry wrote further in email correspondence. “The song was inspired by Alex visiting Abbey Road Studios Studio One, the HUGE one in which Beatles did the ‘All You Need Is Love’ recording and film. He sat at the piano there, and was amazed at the 3 second natural reverb sound, and wrote the song intro.  When he brought it back to Memphis, he and I sat down and finished it.”

And to me that’s what it sounds like. London to Memphis to London again. Four times in all, with a transporting bridge after the third verse. But, the recording did somehow seem incomplete. Almost like basic tracks. The structure was sort of epic and seemed to beg for more goings-on. To that Terry wrote “I always thought the drums were overplayed for what else we had done. That was my fault, not Richard’s (Rosebrough, the drummer)! I had planned to do more things, strings, more acoustic guitars, who knows what else…in fact, the whole ‘1970’ album (actually to have been named ‘1969’ when it was recorded, but John Fry chickened out) was never finished as originally planned. I finally mixed it “for real” for the first time, from the original tapes, but left as-is/was, in the early 90′s.  Also the “circle of fourths” instrumental sections were meant to be more orchestral in overdubs, with some more melodic counterpart, but were left as just the basic pads in the mix, because I thought it unwise to overdub those things so many years later. I was going to do some high harmonies as well, but never got to those.”

Chris, who as a teenager used to call Ardent in the early 70’s and ask Terry how he achieved certain sounds, additionally guessed that there was a solo missing in the bridge so I asked him to add it to the new recording. We only had a couple of days at Overdub Lane and Chris was pretty busy himself. He had assumed that I had asked Terry to mix the new track but that idea had never even occurred to me. I wrote him right away, ignoring any feelings that the project might not be worthy of his stature. And, he was into it! Not only that, he offered to spend several days on the mix. Even adding his own overdubs and treatments. I was elated.

Having since devoured everything I could online about the records Terry has been involved with and responsible for, I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him. In addition to his accomplishments, he is a truly nice man, thoughtful and extremely generous with his time and advice. What started as feeling a love for the music of Big Star has turned into further discovery of the kinship of several incredibly talent songwriters, musicians, engineers and producers from Ardent during that period.

Working at Wes Lachot’s Overdub Lane with engineer Jason Merritt was warm and down to earth and I’m guessing there was a similar spirit in the air at Ardent during those days. Re-working ‘The EMI Song’ knowing that Terry was on board to mix it was a bit nerve wracking as we tracked the basics. There was a debate as to whether or not to record with a click track or not. Lee argued his case. “That’s one surefire way to kill any feel on this record”. I eventually agreed. This wasn’t a dance song that needed to be precise. It was some weird amalgam of Memphis countrified soul and English rock. No click but let’s make it a bit snappier, eh?

I tracked Rhodes piano as a guide along with the drums, bass and guitar. Wes Lachot agreed to play acoustic piano and his wife Lisa replaced the synthesizer solo with saxophone. We also tracked strings and horns throughout the whole song and chose to take Terry’s advice in terms of added counterpoint with the strings during the “circle of fourth” segment. I spent little time on the vocals, going for a laid back, earnest feel. Leaving in some pitch variation and other “lesser qualities”.

Terry still mixes with 99% outboard gear and his trusty console. This definitely added some air to our Pro Tools session. He added those high harmonies he had mentioned as well. And percussion, a Wurlitzer piano solo, and treatments in the tripped-out bridge. All of the pixie dust it was missing.

The song itself is a bit strange in a lot of ways. In the original, it starts off intimate and yearning but then jumps to a glorious, psychedelic journey. Then brings you down again. Lyrically, at first it might seem simplistic. There are plenty of rhymes and possibly even cliches. But upon repeated listens of all of the verses, its actually quite a powerful message. The contradictions of love and the sometimes awkward and difficult dance of life. There’s an incredible tension of push and pull and emotional responsibility. Ultimately though, it’s a very positive message without the triteness of say ‘Obla Di.’

And for me, that playfulness of Alex that we feel in his music has taken on a larger presence. What could have been disappointment at the feeling of having “copped” somebody else’s tune (and a hero’s no less) turned out to be an incredibly fulfilling experience. Just as in the case of the lyrics and music of the ‘EMI Song’ and how Fan Modine came to cover it. Sometimes your muse has a peculiar, if not awkward, way of leading you to a good place.